Lore - Legends 45: The Only Thing to Fear

Episode Date: January 20, 2025

The legends that fill our world often give us good reasons to be afraid. But there’s one thing most of us fear above all else, and when it succeeds in defeating us, the results can be terrifying. Narrated and produced by Aaron Mahnke, with writing by Alex Robinson and research by Cassandra de Alba. ———————————— Lore Resources:  Episode Music: lorepodcast.com/music  Episode Sources: lorepodcast.com/sources  All the shows from Grim & Mild: www.grimandmild.com ———————————— Sponsors: Hero Bread: Delicious and flavorful bread that has ultra-low NET carbs, zero grams of sugar, and is high in fiber. Get 10% off your order by going to hero.co and using the code LORE at checkout. Acorns: Acorns helps you automatically save & invest for your future. Head to Acorns.com/LORE to sign up for Acorns to start saving and investing for your future today! Squarespace: Head to Squarespace.com/lore to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using the code LORE.   ©2025 Aaron Mahnke. All rights reserved.

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BetMGM and GameSense remind you to play responsibly. BetMGM.com for Ts and Cs. 19 plus to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Welcome to Lore Legends, a subset of lore episodes that explore the strange tales we whisper in the dark, even if they can't always be proven by the history books.

So if you're ready, let's begin. It was the greatest archaeological find in Chinese history. In 1974, a group of farmers uncovered shards of terracotta pottery buried deep in the earth. They didn't know it at the time, but they had just discovered the tomb of China's very first emperor. Known for uniting the warring states and starting construction on the Great Wall of China, Emperor Qin Shi Huang is a borderline mythological figure in Chinese history. And in 210 BCE, once his long tenure had finally come to a close, the emperor was laid to rest in a subterranean chamber built to mimic his palace, complete

with grand halls, fine chariots, and fierce warriors. And yes, you know the warriors. You see, those pottery fragments that the farmers had found were actually shards of the famous Terracotta Army. Deep underground, thousands of those Terracotta soldiers were lined up to defend their emperor, standing guard outside of the 20-square-mile palace. It was a tomb fit for a ruler who had truly been larger than life. Since its discovery, the Chinchirhuang Mausoleum has been made a UNESCO World Heritage Site, its iconic terracotta soldiers have traveled around the world, and the tomb's contents

have become some of the most well-recognized archaeological finds in history. And it all exists because Chinchirhuang was afraid of dying. The emperor was obsessed with achieving immortality, and I do mean obsessed. He spent an untold amount of money and time finding the mythical elixir of life, a concoction that, if ingested, would ensure that he would live forever. In pursuit of this, the Emperor sent his alchemist on multiple quests to find the mythical Mount Penglai, where the legendary eight immortals were said to reside.

The alchemist never found the mountain or the secret to immortal youth, but that didn't stop the emperor. He issued orders to every single regional leader, scholar, and physician to discover the elixir of life. Nobody ever did, although they did send the emperor a number of effusive apologies for failing him. It's believed that Ching Shih Huang eventually turned to mercury pills or even a mercury elixir.

Either way, the prevailing theory is that the emperor's supposed salvation is what actually killed him in the end. Because many historians believe that it was mercury poisoning that finally did him in. Throughout history, people have feared death. Ching Shih Huang was not unique in that regard. But death is unavoidable.

The real trick, it seems, is not allowing your fear of death to push you into an early grave. I'm Aaron Manke, and this is Lore Legends. Most people are afraid to die. If you aren't then congratulations, you're one of the lucky few. But if the majority of us are honest with ourselves, then I think we'd admit that no matter what kind of afterlife we do believe in, we're all a little scared to pass on to the next world. There's no shame in it, it's simple.

Humans fear the unknown, and there is no greater unknown than death. In fact, most anthropologists believe that a fear of death is an essential part of human nature. It's been with us since the beginning of time, an ever-present dark cloud hanging over our heads. The Sinoy people of Malaysia fled from a place after someone died there and they made an effort to never return to that spot. Ancient peoples in India and Laos were said to have the same practice and some ancient nomadic cultures even abandoned their dying comrades

unwilling to be in their vicinity when they took their final breath. From a practical standpoint, it kind of makes sense. Dead bodies sometimes carry diseases, and their decay could raise serious health risks, but they also force people to face their own mortality, and that psychological devastation wasn't something that most people wanted to face on a daily basis. True to form, the ancient Greeks battled this existential horror with philosophy. Aristotle's student Democritus reasoned that death must be accepted as a part of life. Meanwhile, Epicurus believed that the fear of death held humans back from experiencing

real pleasure, and that only by letting go of their terror could they truly embrace peace. Of course, that was more easily said than done. Even after people started burying their dead instead of abandoning them, it was still taboo to handle the bodies too much. For most of Western culture, post-mortem autopsies were forbidden, and bodies usually needed to be buried in a very specific way.

Cultures from all around the world developed more intricate death rituals, believing that if these practices weren't followed to a T, then the dead could become restless. But despite being surrounded by death, most people found it hard to take Epicurus's advice to let go of their fear. Death may have been more normalized in days gone by, but that didn't mean that many people were ready to embrace it. The fear of death itself remained firmly entrenched. And that fear was, of course, eventually connected to ghosts.

In ancient Rome, ghosts were believed to manifest after a body wasn't buried correctly. If the dead were disrespected, then they would have no rest in the afterlife. And in medieval England, ghosts were more similar to zombies. Called revenants, they were essentially reanimated corpses who had risen from their graves to torment the living, either by spreading disease or chasing their victims. It was believed that wicked people often became revenants in death, but revenants could also be born after dying horribly and violently. A bad death meant no rest in the afterlife, and that threat was just as frightening as

the painful death itself. By the post-medieval era, walking corpses were replaced with the transparent ghosts we're familiar with today. But they were still often believed to spread illness, bringing death to an otherwise healthy household. People also believed that they were messengers, specifically that they were portents of death. In the same way that a banshee might scream to warn someone of their impending demise, the sudden appearance of an apparition could be a sign that you were about to pass away.

These proverbial canaries in the coal mine were called wraiths, and they weren't your average ghost. You see, wraiths, and they weren't your average ghost. You see, wraiths weren't actually dead. Rather, they were apparitions of someone who was still alive. And seeing a wraith that looked like you meant that you were not long for this world. But it wasn't always an unavoidable fate. According to some folktales, you could avert your own death if you spoke to the wraith firmly enough.

One story from the English town of Gisborough claimed that a man who once saw his own Wraith didn't cower, he instead scolded it. Then he yelled for it to go away, and it did. The Wraith never bothered him again, and he lived a long and happy life. It's a nice thought, but when faced with our own death, very few of us would have the wherewithal to reprimand our doom. Not only would it take a lot of courage, but it would probably be in vain. After all, you can't stop death. You can only decide how you will greet it. The July air was still. The moon's light reflected off the fog that hovered just above the ground, and King Frederick

William IV of Prussia was going to bed unaware of what was coming for him. The king and his wife were staying the night in Pillnitz Castle, using the Grand Palace as a pit stop on their way to a spa vacation. It was the kind of trip that should have been completely frivolous, but it would be overshadowed by dread. Vacation or not, we can never control when death will come for us. Between the hours of midnight and one in the morning, a guard standing watch outside the palace heard the sound of distant footsteps echoing through the eerily silent darkness. Gradually, a shadowy group emerged from the fog. The party was led by a woman dressed all in white. She was followed by four men carrying a coffin on their shoulders.

They were pallbearers, and to his horror, the guard realized that they were all headless. The guard stood rooted to the ground in fear, unable to move as this horrific funeral procession walked right past him through the front door of the palace. He was still frozen when they came back out, but this time they had someone else with them. Lying inside the open coffin was another body. He was dressed in a general's uniform, complete with a badge for the Order of the Black Eagle, the highest possible military award in Prussia. But where his head should have been, there was only a royal crown.

And that's when the guard realized that the headless body was that of King Frederick. Now it wasn't his actual body. No one had snuck into the king's bedroom to decapitate him. But it was a warning and one that would come to pass sooner rather than later. After this ghostly vision, King Frederick's health began to decline. For months he suffered a string of strokes, leaving him paralyzed and practically comatose for years. He finally passed away in 1861, nearly four years after the woman in white had appeared. Obviously the lady in white and her pallbearers weren't wraiths cloned to look exactly like the king.

But sometimes death omens aren't tied to one individual. They're tied to a family. You see, wraiths don't necessarily have to look like the person whose death they're predicting. In fact, if they're in the business of following around an entire family, then they tend to look more generic, usually some variation of a dark, mysterious figure or a veiled woman. Of course, not every family will have their own personal wraith. Usually, only very important people receive such a high honor. People like nobility.

King Frederick, you see, was a member of the Hohenzollern family, and in the mid-19th century that was about as noble as you could get. And it turns out the Lady in White had been appearing in the family records since the 1400s. Clearly she had a comfortable gig following them around and forewarning of their demise. No one knows who or what she truly is, although one legend claims that she's actually the spirit of a woman who died in the 14th century, a woman named Kunagunda. She was allegedly a beautiful widow with two children.

She fell in love with the handsome man from the Hohenzollern family, but he told her that he could never marry her because four eyes were in the way of their happiness. The man had meant two of his disapproving family members, but Kunagunda, driven mad by his rejection, assumed that he had meant her children. She drove a hairpin into their heads, killing both of them. When she told her lover what she had done, he was horrified. He sent her to the castle dungeons where she died, cursed forever by what she had done. As you might imagine, there aren't a lot of records to back up the truth of this legend,

and even fewer that might actually connect Kunagunda to the woman in white. But somehow the story stuck into the popular imagination. Her spirit was forced to achieve penance by following around her ex-lover's family forever. And legend claims that she really has followed them ever since. A huge number of Hohenzollerns have seen her before their death. It's alleged that during World War I, she even appeared to Kaiser Wilhelm II, and not just once, but several times.

But it's possible that the overall peril of the war messed with her accuracy, because the Kaiser didn't actually die until 1941. Still, he was aware of the war, messed with her accuracy, because the Kaiser didn't actually die until 1941. Still, he was aware of her presence, and he forbade anyone else to speak of her. She didn't stop showing up until after Kaiser Wilhelm abdicated the throne, and in turn relinquished the Hohenzollern's rule over Germany. Once that power disappeared, so too did the woman in white.

Alexander III was the most unlucky ruler in Scottish history, and one of the few whose misfortunes couldn't really be blamed on England. Reigning over Scotland for the better part of the 13th century, Alexander's position was tenuous at best. The English were circling like vultures, trying to nudge their way into power. And Alexander's ascension to the throne didn't exactly fill the nobility with confidence that their nation would become a bastion of strength any time soon. You see, Alexander was crowned at the tender age of seven years old. The boy could hardly hold a scepter,

let alone run a kingdom. Even so, he didn't do as bad a job as you might expect. He actually made a valuable alliance with England by marrying King Henry III's daughter, Margaret, when he was only 10 years old and she was only 11. And when his new father-in-law tried to take advantage of the young king, demanding homage from Scotland, Alexander shut him down.

Alexander and Margaret went on to have three children together, a daughter and two sons. But their happy family wouldn't stay happy for long. Tragedy struck when Alexander's wife fell ill and passed away in 1275. Then only six years later, their youngest son died when he was just eight years old. In 1283, his daughter died in childbirth, and finally in 1284, less than ten years after his wife's death, his oldest son succumbed to illness, leaving Alexander without a family

and without an heir. So the Scottish Parliament named his one surviving grandchild, also named Margaret, as their heir apparent. But she was only a baby, and at 44 years old, Alexander knew he could still father another successor. And so in 1285, he married a French noblewoman named Yolande. It was on their wedding day that things got… weird. After the ceremony, Alexander and his new bride

hosted a masked ball for their guests. Candles were burning, wine was flowing, and the nobility were dancing the night away. Now there are two versions of what happened next. The first claims that a procession of musicians was parading through the room, entertaining the guests during the wedding dinner, and at the end of the parade there was an uncanny, dark-hooded figure who seemed to glide instead of walk. Then, in front of everyone, he faded from view. The other version claims that this figure actually burst through the doors of the Great Hall in the middle of the party. He was dressed head to toe in black with white bones painted on his outfit to make him look like a skeleton. Alexander, of course, was furious at the interruption and called for his guards. But when they rushed at the skeleton with their spears, they hit nothing but cloth.

There was no body inside the clothes. He had vanished, if he had ever truly been there at all. A naturally vey event left everyone rattled, and so the guests went home soon after. Alexander and Yolanda were left alone in the Great Hall, forced to face the implications of their skeletal visitor. They were in agreement, though. He had been an omen of death. After the wedding, Alexander lived with the cloud of fear hanging over his head.

He knew that he, or someone he was close to, would soon die, but it was impossible to know when or how. A few months later, in March of 1286, Alexander was in Edinburgh for a meeting with his advisors. A strong storm was raging that evening, but Alexander didn't seem to care. Once he had wrapped up his royal duties, he had his horse saddled and prepared to ride through the night to Kinghorn Castle. Everyone warned him against traveling in the storm

But he ignored them the next day was Yolanda's birthday and he was determined to be with her for her first celebration in Scotland But Alexander never made it home that night the following morning his body was discovered just a mile from Kinghorn Castle He had a broken neck and it was clear that he had fallen from his horse. The King of Scotland was dead. Alexander had died without ever siring more children. His grandchild, three-year-old Margaret, was named his heir. But even that plan went awry after Margaret died at only seven years old. And with her death, there was no clear successor to the throne. And so England stepped in, appointing their own leaders over Scotland. This one single regime shift resulted in centuries of political instability and years of rebellions.

Thousands upon thousands of Scottish lives were lost, all because Alexander was cursed to always be surrounded by death. If the legends are true, Alexander's wedding day death omen didn't just predict his own downfall, but the downfall of all of Scotland. And that's the main message about death. It is the end. The end of a life. The end of the of Scotland. And that's the main message about death. It is the end. The end of a life. The end of the status quo. The end of a regime. Because of that it's easy to be afraid of death. After all, just about everyone in history has been.

And that fear extended to anything that could help death arrive faster. A doppelganger. A black dog. Even a wraith. And Alexander's skeletal party-crasher was no exception. But if a death omen at a lavish masquerade ball sounds familiar to you, well, there's a reason for that. It's believed that Alexander's wedding masquerade was the inspiration behind Edgar Ellen Poe's short story, The Mask of the Red Death. In the story, a terrible plague called the Red Death is ravaging the land, but the prince in this fictional kingdom ignores it.

He shuts himself inside his palace walls, leaving his people to die. After a few months of hiding out, the prince hosts a masquerade for all the wealthy people who survived the Red Death. But the party is interrupted by a mysterious man whose costume resembles that of a corpse who died of the Red Death. As soon as the prince confronts this unwelcome guest, he dies. The other guests attack the mysterious killer as well, only to find that, just like King

Alexander's skeleton, there was no one inside the costume. The Red Death had infiltrated the party and killed everyone there. Humans will do anything to escape death, even if it means sacrificing the less fortunate for our own sake. But we can't outrun death forever, no matter who we are, because every regime must come to an end. I hope today's tour through the concept of the fear of death gave you a few chills and added some valuable lessons along the way. After all, nobody wants to die, as the legends from the past make painfully clear. But be careful that you don't spend your whole life living in fear of death.

After all, fear itself can also kill you, as one last story will reveal. Stick around through this brief sponsor break to hear all about it. This episode of Lore was made possible by Hero Bread. Every morning, I sit down with my family before the day begins, and I eat a pretty consistent breakfast. Fruit, eggs, and toast. It's exactly what I need and exactly why Hero Bread is such a great upgrade

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like PDFs, music, or ebooks. So what are you waiting for? Head over to squarespace.com slash lore for a free trial website and when you're ready to launch, use the offer code LORE to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Squarespace. Build something beautiful. In the spring of 1855, 48-year-old Hannah Rawlingson dropped dead. The official cause?

Sudden death in a fit believed to have been brought on by fright. But there's so much more to the story. You see, the people of Sheffield have blamed that heart-stopping fear on a ghost. Before her untimely death, Hannah and her husband John were both members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a new religion that, at the time, boasted some 50,000 members in the United Kingdom. The Rawlingsons' home of Sheffield contained

only a small portion of that number. Even so, Sheffield's little religious community was a close-knit one, and the Rawlingsons regularly met with their fellow churchgoers, families like the Favils, who lived just down the road from them on Campo Lane. The Favils were your typical nuclear family, but with one unusual addition. Right before moving to their Campo Lane house in 1855, the Favils had opened their home to a young widow named Harriet Ward.

She was only a recent convert to the Church of Latter-day Saints, but John Faville and the rest of his family were more than happy to welcome her into their fold. After all, she needed the emotional support. You see, Harriet was a bit, well, traumatized. Apparently her husband's death was not actually the last time she saw him up and about. A local newspaper reported that after his death, Harriet was frequently visited by his ghost. And the Faville family knew about Harriet's spiritual encounters, but they just shrugged them off. She was a

widow and she missed her husband. Surely she was just imagining things, but that assumption was challenged soon after Harriet moved in. The Favilles and Harriet moved into the house on Campo Lane in February of 1855, and as soon as they did, the trouble started. On their very first night there, the Favilles were kept awake by strange sounds. Then a few mornings later, John Favilles saw a ghostly figure

that looked like it was pushing through a window into their cellar. He ran downstairs and was greeted by a broken cellar window, but the intruder was nowhere to be seen. And naturally, this could all have just been blamed on a burglar or a group of neighborhood pranksters, but soon it would be impossible to explain any of it

without the supernatural. Around midnight on February 24th of 1855, Harriet went down to the cellar to grab something. A moment later, the Favilles heard her scream. The entire family rushed down to the cellar, where they found Harriet, her entire body tensed and her eyes glued to one spot. She swore that she could see a ghost, but there was nothing there. As gently as they could, the Favilles told Harriet that she was the only one who could

see anything, and then poor Harriet dropped into a dead faint. Once she awoke, she described what she had seen. She claimed that it was a stern-faced old woman dressed in a cap and a white nightgown. Whether or not Harriet had actually seen this woman, she believed that she did, and in fact, in the nights that followed, the woman even started appearing in Harriet's dreams, telling her that she had once buried gold underneath the flagstone floor of the cellar. The next Sunday, the entire Church of Latter-day Saints was all aflutter about the Campo Lane ghost. Everyone wanted to know, was it real?

And if it was real, was there really gold buried underneath the house? There was, of course, only one way to find out. After the service, a group of churchgoers went back to the house with the Favils, including the couple from the beginning of our story, Hannah and John Rawlingson. Harriet showed everyone the spot on the cellar floor that the ghost had indicated, and the community got to work. They removed the flagstones, and then they started to dig. But this wouldn't be the quick treasure hunt that everyone seemed to think it would be. Digging through a tight

packed foundation was a slow process, and by the time midnight rolled around, a large group of the Latter-day Saints were still at the Faval house. A small crowd had even gathered outside, peering through the cellar window to catch a glimpse of the rumored gold. Fearing that a mob outside would try to break in, Mrs. Faville asked if someone would go down to the cellar to block off the window from their prying eyes. Hannah Rawlingson volunteered, and she made her way downstairs. Down in the cellar, Hannah quickly covered the window, but when she turned around, her heart stopped with fear, and then Hannah Rawlingson fainted. The thud of her body sent everyone running downstairs.

Hannah briefly awoke to describe seeing a woman in white rushing towards her and vanishing. And then she passed out again. After this, the group took Hannah upstairs to revive her. But while they clustered around Hannah, Harriet let out a shout. The ghost was at the top of the cellar stairs, and Harriet claimed that the apparition had just opened its nightgown collar to reveal a deep, bloody gash on her throat. Harriet commanded the ghost to tell her what it wanted, and the ghost motioned for Harriet

to follow her. She led Harriet back down into the cellar, knelt at the hole that had been dug, and then she disappeared into thin air. Once Harriet returned back upstairs, the ghost was already there again, waiting for her. And according to Harriet, the ghost held up a piece of paper that read, I am murdered. No one else in the room could see the ghost, so we have to take Harriet's word for all of this. But she said that as she asked the ghost questions, the words. So we have to take Harriet's word for all of this. But she said that

as she asked the ghost questions, the words on the paper faded to make room for the ghost's answers. And eventually Harriet was able to piece together the entire story. The ghost claimed that she had once been a woman named Elizabeth Johnson. She told Harriet that she had been murdered by her nephew William Dawson on March 26th of 1722, who then buried her underneath the cellar. Her final message on the paper read, and I quote, The garret and the cellar are now marked with my blood. You must quit this house, because William will trouble you if you don't.

And with that, Harriet joined Hannah, falling to the ground in a faint. Harriet woke up soon after, but Hannah never did. Her husband took her home where she passed away the following morning. Hannah Rawlingson had quite literally died of fright. As for Harriet Ward, she survived the spiritual encounters, but her end was still not a happy one. The ghost may not have stopped her heart, but it did cause her to be excommunicated from the church. The Latter-day Saints determined that the spirit was satanic in nature, and that as the sole living witness to its form, Harriet was cooperating with the devil.

And the fables weren't much better off, either. To their chagrin, the ghost story and Hannah's subsequent death were widely publicized, drawing the ire of the entire community. Soon after the entire ordeal, hundreds of ghost hunters started breaking into their house and drunkenly fighting each other in the streets outside. Looking to point fingers, the neighbors blamed the Favils for believing in ghosts in the first place, even going so far as to insult their religious beliefs. The Favils were forced to move out of the Campo Lane house as soon as they possibly could.

In the end, the body of Elizabeth Johnson was never found underneath the cellar. It's unknown if she actually ever existed at all, or for that matter, if her ghost did. But real or not, her specter had ruined lives. Something the fear of death is very good at. This episode of Lore Legends was produced by me, Aaron Manke, with writing by Alex Robinson and research by Cassandra Dayalba. Don't like hearing the ads? I've got a solution for you.

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