Lore - Episode 197: Taken

Episode Date: April 25, 2022

One of the most common players on the stage of folklore is a creature that’s been obsessed over for centuries. And it’s fair to say that, however frightening the stories might be, Europe has been pretty taken by them. ———————— Lore Resources:  Episode Music: lorepodcast.com/music  Episode Sources: lorepodcast.com/sources  All the shows from Grim & Mild: www.grimandmild.com ———————— Access premium content!: https://www.lorepodcast.com/support To advertise on our podcast, please reach out to [e-mail], or visit our listing here.

Life is full of unpredictable moments, unexpected happenstance, unplanned detours, happy accidents. But while some people love to be surprised, what most of us really want is some consistency. Which is why a glance through a few decades of popular entertainment always seems to turn up the same fixtures. The superhero, the action star, the daring spy, from car chases and westerns to the big heist and the rom-com, the things we watch and read are really good at delivering comfort food. I firmly believe it's possible to sort through all that Hollywood has given us and match

it to a small group of popular categories and character types. It's not lazy, and it's not a trope. It's all about giving people what they want. What they love. And the same is true with folklore. Over the centuries, key figures and stories have been passed around with such regularity that most people just sort of take them for granted. They've always been there, and probably always will.

So why give them much thought? A great way to see this in action is to dive into the roots of most animated Disney films. That their center is an older story, one that might not have seen the light of day for a while but is instantly popular all over again, because some stories never go out of style. Which is fine, but if there's one thing I've learned over the years, it's that whimsical stories are often just a costume wrapped around a darker core, and when it comes to one corner of folklore in particular, that core might be more than just a little frightening. It doesn't take much to conjure up images of them.

All I have to do is say the word, and your head will be swimming with pictures that represent everything you think you know about them. And that word is fairies. Thanks to Disney, we probably imagine tiny old women with wings zipping around through the air on a trail of stardust with a magic wand in their hand. But Tinkerbell, the fairy godmother, and the sugarplum fairy are all just weak interpretations of an actual thing, like a two-year-old's drawing of a house. There's a darkness beneath that simple caricature, because fairies, traditionally speaking, are

monsters. No, not in the same way the werewolf and Wendigo might be, but definitely in all the ways that count. So, let's explore them, shall we? Over the centuries, they've gone by a bunch of different names, depending on where the stories are told. To the Irish, they are the she, others call them the good folk, or the hidden people. They are the we folk, the others, and one of my personal favorites, the good gentlemen

of the hills. And yes, in a lot of the stories about them, they are small. But of course, just how small varies from culture to culture. According to 12th century English writer Gervais of Tilbury, fairies were tiny people, no bigger than a human thumb. Their faces were covered in wrinkles, and they could always be seen dressed in clothing made from scraps of cloth. In some stories, fairies were said to be tall and beautiful, though.

Others described them as bent and gruesome. Early Europeans believed that they were the spirits of the dead, or later Christians prefer to think of them as fallen angels or demons. And where did they live? Well, that's probably the biggest question people wrestled with centuries ago. Most commonly, they were associated with the forest, but also with mysterious hills and ring-shaped mounds. Fairies were said to live in a sort of alternate dimension, but could pass into ours whenever

they wanted. And it seems they wanted to, a lot. While their motivation is never crystal clear in the tales about them, it's easy to walk away from those stories with an impression of creatures entirely absent of morality. While not necessarily malicious, they certainly never have trouble behaving, either. If I can put them into the language of Dungeons and Dragons, fairies are chaotic neutral. Thankfully, there were some things people could do to protect themselves. Iron was a common repellent, often shaped into an amulet or a knife for protection.

There were also things in nature that could be harvested and used, plants like St. John's wart or branches from a rowan tree. Why would people need protecting, though? Well, fairies seemed to love mischief. Because it was harmless fun like tying women's hair into knots or luring travelers off the safe path. But the biggest risk was the changeling, the idea that fairies might come and take a loved one, and replace them with a poor copy of the original.

And it was an idea that led to some horrific human tragedy. In 1865, for example, the authorities in New York City were alerted to an Irish woman who had killed her own child. It turns out she had believed her child to be a changeling and forced them to stand on hot coals as a test. In 1909, a woman named Annie McIntyre showed up at the pension office in County Donegal and asked for money. When they asked her how old she was, she told them that she actually didn't know.

She claimed that she had been kidnapped by fairies as a young girl, only to be rescued by her older brother a few months later. And many of her memories from before that have never returned. When the list goes on and on, history is filled with stories about fairies, who they are, where they live, what they want, especially in the Victorian era. Maybe it's no coincidence that the word glamour, one we think of today as relating to beauty and attraction, really has its roots in the idea of magic. Because it's fair to say that people have been taken with them for a very long time.

But as you might imagine, that hasn't always been a good thing. It was an act of desperation. Thomas Kevan was sick and his wife needed some sort of hope to cling on to. And for her, that hope came in the form of folklore. The Kevens lived in Carrick Unsure, a small town in County Tipperary, toward the southern end of Ireland. And in 1843, a newspaper covered the story of poor Thomas. He'd been paralyzed, although the article doesn't say how.

But over time, that condition led to other problems. Soon enough, he was unable to eat or drink and began wasting away to what the newspaper referred to as a skeleton. And it's easy to sympathize with Thomas' unnamed wife. Thankfully, she had family and neighbors around her for support and comfort. So when his death was reported, everyone came together. But Mrs. Kevan had specific instructions about the funeral. She claimed that a fairy came to her and told her that the body wasting away all those years

was nothing more than a changeling. And there was a way to get her real husband back. All she had to do was make sure the coffin wasn't buried after the graveside service and then go home. After enough, according to the account, Mrs. Kevan only permitted a couple of shovels full of dirt to be tossed into the grave. Then she asked everyone to leave and the grave was left open and exposed throughout the night. Once home, she found her real husband waiting for her.

A dream come true for sure. Out of curiosity, she and Thomas both went to the cemetery the next day to inspect the coffin. When they opened the lid, they found the changeling in its true form. Despite the shroud she had wrapped around Thomas' body the night before, it was nothing more than a simple wooden broom. Centuries before, another person became just as obsessed. Robert Kirk was born in Scotland, the son of a local minister in the town of Aberfoil.

And Robert's life followed the path you might expect from the son of a preacher. He attended St. Andrews, earned a degree in theology and graduated in 1661. Robert lived during a time when the division between the Catholic and Protestant branches of Christianity was generating a lot of fear and infighting. And a new extremist group, referred to by some as the Puritans, was also adding to that tension. It was a time when folks were very careful about what they discussed in public, with fears of witch trials hanging over them constantly.

Robert was, as far as most people were concerned, the perfect minister. He was well-trained, politically correct, and deeply involved in scholarly stuff like the translation of the Bible into Gaelic. But he also had a secret. Robert Kirk, you see, believed in fairies. Well it was a secret to most people. Certainly, there was a lot of risk involved in making his thoughts public. Puritans viewed fairies as nothing more than demons, and any involvement with them was tantamount

to witchcraft, punishable by law. But in his own church and around his house, Robert was clear about his personal beliefs. Over the course of his career, Robert opened his door to anyone and everyone who had stories of fairies to share with him, and he wrote it all down. His goal was to document the folklore surrounding those little creatures as precisely and completely as possible, and along the way, to hopefully understand them a little better. Fairies weren't just stories to Robert Kirk. They were real, and he believed that one way to access them was through the various caverns

and hills just outside of town. In fact, neighbors reported that he could frequently be seen walking to nearby Dune Hill, where he would often lay down and press his ear to the grass. Listening, he told them, for the fairies. In 1692, at the relatively young age of 48, Robert was found dead, laying on another hill near his house that he believed to be the home of fairies, wearing nothing more than his night shirt. His wife, Margaret, was pregnant at the time, and when it finally came time to give birth,

some of his family, also believers in fairy lore, claimed that Robert's spirit would reappear to watch his child be christened. According to the family legend, one of Robert's cousins actually brought an iron knife to the christening. He was convinced that striking Robert's spirit with the blade would sever whatever bonds the fairies had on him and release him to heaven. Whether or not it worked is something we'll never know. The title of the pamphlet was guaranteed to catch the curious reader's eye.

Strange and wonderful news from the county of Wicklow in Ireland, or a full and true relation of what happened to Dr. Moore. Honestly, who could pass up a tease like that, right? Pamphlets were all the rage in the 1600s. Think of them as the podcasts of the era, short and sweet, easy to make and distribute, but utterly captivating if produced well. And the pamphlet about Dr. Moore certainly met those requirements. It was essentially a story about travel, but not the sort that you might think.

Also, it's best enjoyed with the right context, so perhaps we should back up and start at the beginning in the year 1678. According to the pamphlet, the adventure began that autumn. Dr. Moore was a schoolmaster who worked in London but had recently acquired some property and a house on the east coast of Ireland in County Wicklow where he'd been born. So he boarded a ship with a pair of friends and went to visit and inspect his new purchase. These friends, Richard Ooniak and Laughlin Moore, no relation by the way, recalled how the journey from port to the house took a number of days.

So along the way, Dr. Moore shared stories from his youth in Ireland, and that included tales of the fairy folk. Apparently, he had been taken by the fairies a number of times as a boy, and although he was never harmed, his mother eventually hired a fairy woman, a person well-versed in fairy lore, to use magic to anchor him to this world more securely. Of course, his friends Richard and Laughlin thought that the stories were pure fantasy and more than a little ridiculous. In true English fashion, they told their Irish friend that beliefs like that were a bit provincial,

in other words, unsophisticated and barbaric, but Dr. Moore ignored them. On the night before they reached his new property, Dr. Moore and his friends stopped in a small town and stayed at the inn. And at nights like all the others, the three men fell into an argument about the truth of fairy stories, and that's when something unusual happened. Right in the middle of their discussion, Dr. Moore began to rise off the ground as if an invisible hand were lifting him up into the air. He cried out as it happened, telling his friends that it was happening again, the fairies had

come for him. His friends both recalled trying to grab his legs to pull him back down, but having to let go when they found themselves joining him in the air. A moment later, he floated out the window. In a panic, both men ran downstairs and told the innkeeper what had happened. Their unbelievable news was greeted with a simple nod of understanding. So without as much as an argument, the man sent word for a local fairy woman. Again, not a fairy, but a woman who understood their magic.

And when she arrived, she got to work. One thing that was important, she told both of them, was that Dr. Moore mustn't eat or drink while he was with the fairies, or else he would never come home. And then she closed her eyes and told them she would look for him. A moment later, she seemed to wake back up and had news to report. She could see him at a place nearby called Dane Fort, not too far away, in a gathering of fairy folk, all singing and dancing like a celebration. And there was food and drink.

At one point, she even closed her eyes again and swatted at the air in front of the men, as if knocking something invisible out of a person's hands. Richard and Laughlin could only stare and wonder. The fairy woman finished by reciting a spell to free Dr. Moore and bring him home. And then she took payment for her services and left. The next morning, around 6 a.m., their friend reappeared. He was very tired and in need of nourishment, but he had another unbelievable story to share with his skeptical friends.

According to him, after floating out the window of the inn, two score fairies on horseback rode him out into the night. Dr. Moore himself had been seated on a magnificent white horse, and together they all guided him out of town to a place nearby, Dane Fort. But while the gathering of fairy folk around him was joyful, he had never been able to eat or drink. It seems that every time he lifted his bread or wine glass to his lips, he was prevented from enjoying it.

By what, his friends asked him. Some invisible hand, he told them, had slapped the food away. Fairy Folklore is a well-traveled country. Over the centuries, people have tried to explore it. More than a few detailed accounts have been published by those claiming to have experienced it first-hand, and references to it have been appearing in popular fiction for, well, it seems like forever. Remember Robert Kirk, our 17th century minister obsessed with fairy folklore?

If you recall, he spent most of his career gathering stories of the wee folk, writing them down in a book he planned to publish. But of course, his early death put a stop to that. Well in 1815, another Scottish lover of fairy lore managed to track it down and finish it for him. In fact, the book, called Secret Commonwealth, is now considered by folklorists to be one of the most important works on fairies ever written, and the man who finished Robert Kirk's manuscript, poet, playwright, and novelist, Sir Walter Scott.

And our Irish friend, Dr. Moore? Well, he seemed to be the sort of man who stood by his beliefs and wanted to help others around him see the same truth. I can understand their reluctance to believe his fairy abduction story, but I also think it's clear that by the time he showed back up the next morning, they'd been given quite a lot to think about. So Dr. Moore decided to give them one last piece. Dane Fort, the supposed site of his fairy celebration, was just outside of town.

So after eating breakfast, packing, and changing clothes, he led his friends out into the countryside, perhaps as a way of beginning their last day of travel. And on the way, he took them to Dane Fort. It honestly wasn't much to look at. Three concentric rings of ditches surrounded a small hill, upon which sat the ruins of a round tower. But of course, the tower wasn't why he'd brought them there. Instead, he motioned toward the flat lawn inside it, inside the inner ring.

And as Richard and Laughlin examined it, they became speechless. The grass, you see, had been trampled, as if hundreds of feet had walked across it just the night before. Stories about fairies are often filled with danger and risk. They are portrayed as creatures of bad behavior, and that's left us with countless stories of loss and pain and tragic abuse. But there are also stories that show them in a more helpful light. It doesn't make them any less disturbing, but it also doesn't make it any less entertaining.

And I've set aside a perfect example that I know you're going to enjoy. Take a round through this brief sponsor break to hear all about it. By all accounts, Anne was the perfect nanny, and truth be told, it was a job she needed. Born in 1626, her father was a poor laborer with a bunch of mouths to feed, so as soon as Anne was old enough, she left home to work as a servant in a string of homes. That income, for the most part, was sent home to help the entire family. But despite the long hours and difficult work, it seems that she really did excel at it. In 1645, at the age of 19, she took a job with the Pitt family in the parish of St.

Teth in Cornwall. John and Jane Pitt owned a large farm that kept them busy and had two children, Mary and Moses, who needed looking after. So Anne moved in to help out with all the necessary chores. Later in life, Moses would tell people that Anne was energetic and curious. She was wonderful with children and had a level of courage that he greatly admired. According to him, one of her favorite hobbies, after all the work was done, of course, was to hike out into the nearby forest and look for fairies.

Now, it probably needs to be said that belief in fairies was pretty universal at the time. But the way it was expressed in public had a very classist distribution. Those of a lower station in life were a lot more vocal in their belief, while the middle and upper classes tend to stay quiet about it all. But in 1645, lower class Anne forced her middle class employers to come face to face with fairies. It was late that summer when she was out in the Pitt's garden, when she claimed that six small figures dressed in green climbed over the tall hedges and approached her.

So startling was their appearance that Anne fell into a seizure, which was how the Pitt's found her moments later, convulsing on the ground. After being taken inside, Anne continued to have seizures off and on throughout the rest of that day. But whenever she regained control, she would tell the Pitt's that she could see little people climbing in through the window. She asked if anyone else had seen them as well. But of course, everyone shook their heads.

It took a number of weeks for Anne to recover enough to be trusted with work. The seizures continued off and on, but Anne threw herself into her work and attended church as frequently as possible, which is why Jane Pitt felt right to leave Anne home with the children one autumn afternoon while she headed into town to run an errand. On the way back, Mrs. Pitt fell and injured her leg. After finding someone to give her a ride back to the house, she arrived to find Anne doing well. The woman saw the injury that Mrs. Pitt had sustained, though, and offered to help.

It seems that she passed her hand over the wound, and in front of everyone's eyes, the injury was healed. It was the fairies, Anne told them. They had given her special powers that she could use to heal others, which of course sounded like dangerous nonsense to the rest of the household. As you might imagine, rumor of her claim started to spread outward from the farm, and soon enough, people started coming to see Anne for help. It was a reputation that got her in trouble with the local church authorities.

As I said earlier, claiming to have interacted with the fairies was a great way to have yourself accused of witchcraft, so Anne was arrested and moved to a nearby jail cell. Things only got weirder after that. You see, the authorities thought they might be able to get her to drop her fantasy and tell them the truth if they just withheld food from her. But even after weeks in prison with no food, she never showed signs of starvation. Her secret? Anne claimed that the fairies were bringing her pieces of bread to live off of.

Later in life, the Pitt's son, Moses, spoke about that bread. He said she lived off it at their house, too, and once she even let him have a taste of it, he claimed it was the best bread he had ever eaten, and would never forget it. Where she got it from, though, would remain a mystery. Yes, of course, you believe that it was from the fairies. The authorities eventually lost interest in Anne, and she went on to marry a local farmhand. The rest of her life would be much less remarkable as that early fairy episode, and she passed away many years later, sometime around 1698.

She never denied what happened, and never stopped healing those who came to her for help. But she also never asked for payment, and refused to do anything that might have increased her fame. Unusual behavior, I'd like to point out, if she really was faking it. All we can do now, over three centuries later, is listen to her story, form our own opinions, and stay open to unexplainable experiences. As Fox Mulder often said, the truth is out there.

I just wonder if we'll like it when it finally appears. This episode of Lore was written and produced by me, Aaron Mankey, with research by Ali Steed and music by Chad Lawson. Lore is much more than just a podcast. There is a book series available in bookstores and online, and two seasons of the television show on Amazon Prime Video. Check them both out if you want more lore in your life. I also make and executive produce a whole bunch of other podcasts, all of which I think

you'd enjoy. My production company, Grim and Mild, specializes in shows that sit at the intersection of the dark and the historical. You can learn more about all of those shows and everything else going on over in one central place. Grimandmild.com. And you can also follow this show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Just search for Lore podcast, all one word, and then click that follow button.

And when you do, say hi. I like it when people say hi. And as always, thanks for listening.