Lore - Lore 277: In the Rough

Episode Date: April 7, 2025

Some corners of folklore sparkle more than others. But just because the subject matter is pretty doesn’t mean it’s safe. Narrated and produced by Aaron Mahnke, with writing by GennaRose Nethercott, research by Cassandra de Alba, and music by Chad Lawson. ————————— Lore Resources:  Episode Music: lorepodcast.com/music  Episode Sources: lorepodcast.com/sources  Official Lore Merchandise: lorepodcast.com/shop All the shows from Grim & Mild: www.grimandmild.com ————————— Sponsors: BetterHelp: Lore is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at BetterHelp.com/LORE, and get on your way to being your best self. Squarespace: Head to Squarespace.com/lore to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using the code LORE. Mint Mobile: For a limited time, wireless plans from Mint Mobile are $15 a month when you purchase a 3-month plan with UNLIMITED talk, text and data at MintMobile.com/lore. To report a concern regarding a radio-style, non-Aaron ad in this episode, reach out to [e-mail] with the name of the company or organization so we can look into it. ————————— To advertise on this podcast please email: [e-mail]. Or go to: https://advertising.libsyn.com/lore ————————— ©2025 Aaron Mahnke. All rights reserved.

If you love chilling mysteries, unsolved cases, and a touch of mom-style humor, Moms and Mysteries is the podcast you've been searching for. Hey guys, I'm Mandi. And I'm Melissa. Join us every Tuesday for Moms and Mysteries, your gateway to gripping, well-researched true crime stories. Each week we deep dive into a variety of mind-boggling cases as we shed light on everything from heists to whodunits. We're your go-to podcast for mysteries with a motherly touch. Subscribe now to Moms and Mysteries wherever you get your podcasts. It took eight years of study and labor to create the single hand-woven garment, but

in the end, it was all worth it. After all, the robe was stunning, a cape of billowing golden silk embroidered with ornate botanicals and dripping with tassels. Draped on a model, it almost seemed to glow, as if the silk itself were lit from within. And given the sheer number of designers, silk extractors, weavers, tailors, and more required to produce the one brocaded robe, it's no wonder it's the sole example of its kind in the world. Now, let me be clear.

I'm not describing some medieval piece of clothing handmade for a wealthy king. No, the Golden Cape was actually created in the early 2000s, showcased at a London Museum in 2012. And there's a reason it's so special. You see, the fibers in this robe didn't come from silkworms. Oh no, it came from 1.2 million spiders. That's right, spiders. This creepy-crawly garment was created by Englishman Simon Pears and American Nicholas

Godley who sought to recreate extinct 19th century techniques in which Madagascar's golden orb spiders were harnessed for their silk. To do so, Pears, Godley, and their crew would place female spiders in special contraptions while human handlers extracted silk from them by hand. And well, let's just say that there's a reason why spiders aren't used for fabric production more often. You see, on average it took 23,000 of the palm-sized spiders to yield only an ounce of silk, hence the lengthy production time, and the fact that this cape is the largest

spider silk textile in the world. Sure, it may not be practical, but I have to admit, it is beautiful. And of course, a little horrifying. Since the beginning of time, humans have gone to marvelous and often terrifying lengths for fashion. Be it a spider silk robe, lead-based makeup, or belladonna eye drops, we'll do just about anything to adorn ourselves with beauty. But sometimes that hunt for beauty might just cost us our lives.

I'm Aaron Manke, and this is Lore. Some cultural traditions develop organically, are shared around campfires and kitchen tables from generation to generation, storyteller to storyteller, sacred recipes and rituals created by the very people who practiced them. And then there are the traditions invented for an advertising campaign. It was 1947 and the De Beers Diamond Company had sunk a whole lot of money into their African minds. But between the economic depression of the 1930s and the World War of the 40s, folks weren't exactly clamoring to spend their hard-earned wages on something as frivolous as gemstones.

No, if De Beers was going to earn a profit, they had to find a way to make these luxury items seem like must-have necessities. And that's exactly what they did, with the help of a catchy new slogan, Diamonds are forever. And so, De Beers launched a massive ad campaign, equating diamonds' durability and strength with long-lasting marriage. The Diamonds Are Forever campaign was so successful that soon enough, diamond engagement rings became a required talisman for every betrothal.

The link between diamonds and marriage was officially set in stone. No pun intended, I swear. It's honestly amazing how much of the culture we take for granted was consciously orchestrated. But one thing that wasn't planned are the diamonds themselves. No, real diamonds are completely natural. So what is a diamond exactly? Well, scientifically speaking, they're minerals made of pure carbon which develop a whopping 125 miles beneath the Earth's surface.

Now, don't worry, no one is drilling mines that deep. The diamonds we can access are actually pushed closer to the surface in volcanic eruptions called kimberlites. The last known kimberlite eruption occurred around 13 million years ago, which means that every diamond you have ever seen was formed earlier than that. A lot earlier, actually. It's almost unbelievable that any object can remain intact this long, but the diamonds in our jewelry are between 1 and 3 billion years old.

Now, it probably doesn't hurt that the diamond is the hardest naturally occurring substance in the world. In fact, the word diamond is thought to come from the Greek adamos, which literally means unbreakable. Speaking of which, Adamas is also the origin of the word adamant, plus of course that impossibly hard metal adamantium that comprises Wolverine's claws in the X-Men comics. Etymology, as always, is a wild ride. Now for a long time, diamonds were only found in India, and those Indian gems were a rare

treasure, traded throughout the world. And then in 1725 more mines were discovered in Brazil, then Russia, Canada, Botswana, Angola, South Africa, Namibia, and onward. Today most gem quality diamonds come from Africa, although apparently there's one spot in Arkansas that spits out some keepers too. And I'm sure it's no surprise that as the diamond trade spread across the world, something else spread with it. That's right, folklore.

And these mysterious gleaming stones have inspired more than their fair share of legends. Some ancient cultures believe that diamonds were the tears of the gods. Others that they were shards of a falling star. Medieval writers claim that diamonds could reproduce like people coupling up and having baby diamond offspring, which is just really cute to think about. Various cultures believe that diamonds had healing powers. Pliny the Elder believed that they could heal mental illness and counteract poison.

German mystic Hildegard of Bingen was said to have recommended sucking on a diamond to both prevent lying and stave off hunger. While in India, diamond powder was said to have recommended sucking on a diamond to both prevent lying and stave off hunger, while in India diamond powder was said to protect against everything from tooth decay to lightning strikes. For example, if you had been lucky enough to be a wealthy person in the 16th century and you came down with a stomach ache, your doctor would have prescribed you a tasty snack of ground-up diamond to treat it. Heck, when Pope Clement VII died in 1534, the standing medical bill for all the precious stones that were administered to him on his sickbed

was said to have been 40,000 ducats. Even today, many people still believe in the healing properties of diamonds, from curing runny noses and laziness, to bringing good luck and giving courage. One modern crystal healer claims that, and I quote, for best effect, a diamond should be worn on the right pinky on Friday during a waxing moon. But as centuries of healing lore developed, another storyline was growing too. The idea

that diamonds weren't medicinal at all, but a deadly poison. Now, we think that this idea actually started in the Renaissance. Apparently the owners of these diamond mines were having some trouble with their employees. Miners were getting a little hungry for the piece of the financial pie. And I mean that literally. That is, a popular method of theft was to eat a diamond and wait for it to, uh, come out the other side, if you know what I mean. So the bigwigs who owned the mine started to spread a harmless rumor that the diamonds were poisonous when ingested. Not a bad deterrent, right? Well, the rumor caught on, and it spread, and soon death by diamond poisoning became a legitimate

fear among people worldwide. The powerful venom of diamond dust was even blamed for a number of famous deaths. One of those, the Swedish physician and alchemist Paracelsus, which is ironic because today he's considered the father of a relevant field, toxicology. But of course, it was only a matter of time before people would start trying to murder each other with the stuff. Take the 16th century woman who, tired of nursing her sick husband, attempted to poison him with ground-up diamonds. Now I say attempted because it didn't work.

Why not? Well, because diamonds aren't poisonous, nor have they ever been proven to be medicinal. They're just, you know, rocks. But just because they aren't poisonous doesn't mean they can't kill you. Especially if those diamonds happen to be cursed. It's a chilling quote. There have been death and disaster enough, and more than enough, to make a peg on which to hang a tale of imprisoned evil, reaching out

to blight whom the diamond's baneful rays may reach. So wrote a journalist back in 1908. He was warning the public of a cursed jewel that had been taking victims across the world. But let's be honest, the public didn't need an article to tell them this. After all, everyone had already heard of. The Hope Diamond. Currently in the Smithsonian collection, the Hope Diamond is a 45.52 carat diamond in the brilliant shade of deep blue. These days it's set into a necklace surrounded by 16 smaller white diamonds. And if Celine Dion's My Heart Will Go On just popped into your head, that's because the Hope Diamond actually inspired the Heart of the Ocean necklace from the Titanic movie.

Now, while it's in Washington, D.C. today, it certainly didn't start there. This shiny blue beauty first hit the historical record in 1668 when a French merchant named Jean Baptiste Tavernier sold it to King Louis XIV. And in all likelihood, he probably sourced it from a diamond mine. But then again, there are other rumors. Legend says that the merchant actually pulled a full-on Indiana Jones maneuver, plucking it from the eye of a Hindu statue of the goddess Sita.

As the story goes, when the Hindu priests discovered it was gone, they put a terrible curse on the diamond, dooming anyone who possessed it. And I'll be honest, evidence of a curse is compelling. First, it passed through generations of the French monarchy, eventually landing in the hands of none other than Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI, and well, we know how things turned out for them. Stolen during the Revolution, it popped up again in 1812 in London, or rather, we think it did.

You see, the gem had been re-cut, so it looked a little different than the original. The jeweler who supposedly re-cut it, well, he was killed by his own son in a murder-suicide in what was said to be a fight for the stone itself. But the Hope Diamond wasn't done taking victims just yet. Through the 1900s, it went through several owners, each with a more gruesome tale than the last.

One drove his car off a cliff with his wife and child inside, another lost her son to a car crash, her daughter by suicide, and her husband to another woman, all while in possession of the diamond. Now, to be fair, that same lady, a woman named Evelyn Walsh McLean, was also said to have fixed the Hope Diamond to her dog's collar and let him happily scurry around her apartment with it, so you can't say that she didn't at least have a few good times. Eventually though, the diamond made its way to the Smithsonian in 1958 to become U.S. public property, traveling by postal service in a brown paper bag, if you can imagine that.

And apparently the diamond wanted to go out with a bang because Todd Field, the mailman who delivered it, spent the next year of his life having a spectacular string of tragedies befall him. His leg was crushed by a truck. His wife died of a heart attack. He suffered a head injury after being thrown from his car. His dog died in a freak accident and his house caught on fire, and that's just to name a few. But despite it all, Field wasn't the superstitious sort. I don't believe any of that stuff, he said. If the hex is supposed to affect the owners, then the public should be having the bad luck.

Still, if you ask me, that big blue gem could use a new name. The Hope Diamond doesn't sound very hopeful at all. Now, I wish that I could say that this was a singular sort of curse, but unfortunately it's not. Another diamond called the Koh-i-Noor, or Mountain of Light in Persian, has a remarkably similar story. Like the Hope Diamond, it too originated in India and ended up as part of Europe's crown jewels.

Oh, and it's also very, very cursed. The Koh-i-Noor's first recorded appearance was in 1628 as the centerpiece of the Mughal Empire's Peacock Throne. It glistened in the head of a gemstone peacock, right at the very top of that glorious royal seat. But then in 1739, Persian ruler Nader Shah invaded Delhi. In addition to killing tens of thousands of people, he hauled off so much of the city's treasure that it took 700 elephants, 4,000 camels, and 12,000 horses to pull it all.

And amongst the loot was, you guessed it, that opulent peacock throne, from which Shah had the diamond removed and set into an armband. For the next 70 years, the Koh-i-Noor passed from ruler to ruler, always in the wake of a bloodbath. One former owner had his shaved head coronated in molten gold, Game of Thrones style. Another was placed under house arrest and forced to watch his sons be tortured until he agreed to give up the stone. And at last, it fell into the hands of the British, which is a nice way of saying that they forced their way into India and as just another evil cherry on top of the colonialist project, they stole it. Oh, and by the way, the ship that carried the diamond back to Britain,

it suffered a nasty cholera outbreak on the way. And suddenly the Koh-i-Noor had a new owner, none other than Queen Victoria. A succession of British queens inherited it after that, but mysteriously they all seemed immune to the curse. Why? Well, legend has it that the curse can only harm men. Today the Koh-i-Noor is on display at the Tower of London, along with the rest of Britain's

crown jewels. And I can't help but wonder, what will the diamond do now that England once again has a man on the throne? With some gems, it's obvious how they gained their cursed reputation. Death and despair followed the Hope Diamond and the Koh-i-Noor across oceans and centuries alike. But other stones, well, their curses are a little subtler.

Take the Eagle Diamond, for example, which I'll admit has never been officially labeled as cursed. But after hearing its whole story, I'll let you be the judge of that. In the summer of 1876, workers were deepening a well on a farm in the small town of Eagle, Wisconsin, when a strange golden glint caught the light.

It was a yellow stone, roughly the size and shape of a canary egg. Not thinking that it was valuable, they gave it to a little girl who was playing nearby, a relative of the tenant farmers who lived there. When the girl tired of it, she left it with those same relatives, who, after being told that it was probably just a bit of topaz, sold it to a jeweler in Milwaukee for the equivalent of roughly $35 today. Now, this jeweler was a fellow named Samuel Boynton who didn't exactly know much about gems, so in early 1884 he took the stone to an expert in Chicago to get it identified.

There Samuel got what must have been the shock of his life, because you see he hadn't bought topaz at all. No that strange yellow stone was none other than a 15 carat yellow diamond. The largest diamond in fact that had ever been found in the United States at that time. And it was worth a whole lot more than he paid for it. In fact, in today's currency, it would be worth between 25 and 35 thousand dollars. Now sure, Samuel might not have been great at identifying diamonds, but he did know one thing about them.

Wherever you found one, there were likely to be more. Keeping the news of his gigantic gemstone a secret, he quietly purchased four acres of the farm on which it had been found. He pretended to be chicken farming. All chicken farmers erect giant black curtains around their land to keep out prying eyes, though, right? Nothing suspicious there at all. Yeah, it was not exactly subtle.

And despite his best attempts, it wasn't long before the people of Eagle put two and two together. Samuel Boynton wasn't chicken farming. He was mining for diamonds. And that mining effort, well, it didn't seem to be going so great. In May of that year, newspapers announced that two new smaller diamonds had been discovered in the Boynton mines. But when a gemologist from Tiffany and Co. stopped by later to examine them,

he made a slightly scandalous proclamation. They weren't Wisconsin diamonds. They weren't even American. No, they were African diamonds, which Samuel had clearly planted in his own mine, probably to lure in investors. Awkward, right? Well, Samuel must have thought so too,

because he sold that original yellow diamond to Tiffany and co. and then slunk out of town and out of the story altogether. In 1889, Tiffany displayed the eagle diamond at the Paris World's Fair, alongside 381 other precious gems. While it was there, it caught the eye of J.P. Morgan, who bought the entire exhibit on behalf of New York's American Museum of Natural History. And there, in the museum, the eagle diamond finally found a home.

Or it did for a while. Because little did anyone know, that humble stone, once found in a Wisconsin well, would soon become a player in one of the biggest jewel heists the world has ever seen. Scaling the fence couldn't have been easy. After all, that man was wearing a green velour jacket, a turtleneck sweater, and corduroy trousers. Not your standard getup for some late night breaking and entering. But this guy wanted to look good.

You got to have a little flair, he would go on to tell the New York Times decades later. If you get arrested and end up on the news, you don't want to look like a schlub. And so, dressed to the nines and with a gun in his pocket, Jack Murphy and a companion ascended the fence, scrambled up a fire escape, inched their way along a narrow ledge, and, using a rope to swing through a fourth-story window like Indiana Jones rescuing his father from the Nazis, broke into the American Museum of Natural History. The year was 1964, an absolute heyday for jewel thieves.

Now, I know this number sounds wild, but at the time, a US gem heist was occurring roughly once every 32 seconds. In 1963 alone, Sticky Finger Crooks stole a staggering $41 million worth of precious and semi-precious stones. And that's just counting the stuff that was insured. Jack Murphy, better known as, and I swear this is true, Murph the Surf, was no stranger to jewel theft. Having earned his moniker due to a love of surfing, the fellow was known for using his

swimming skills to make off underwater with stolen jewels. Meanwhile, his two co-conspirators, Alan Kuhn and Roger Clark, were similarly experienced. All three had taken part in their fair share of robberies back home in Miami. Now don't get me wrong here. The trio hadn't traveled to New York to commit a heist. No, they were tourists. The World's Fair was in town and the three fashionable 20-somethings wanted to see the spectacle for themselves.

And I'm sure they had a blast eating and drinking and carousing through the Big Apple. So how did they go from sightseers to breaking into one of the country's major museums? Well, as far as I understand it, it went a little something like this. First, they went to see a movie called Topkapi, a film that just so happened to be about a jewel heist. Second, they paid a visit to the Museum of Natural History, where they saw the J.P. Morgan gem exhibit, yes, the very exhibit containing the eagle diamond. And third, with Topkapi still fresh on their minds, the guys thought, hey, I bet

you we could steal these gems. Which brings us back to the night of October 29th of 1964. With Clark acting as lookout, Coon and Murph the Surf scrambled their way up to that open fourth-story window and entered the museum, which was honestly a breeze. And I mean that literally. The window you see had been left wide open for ventilation. The rest of the break in process was just as easy as all the alarms had dead batteries and not a single security guard was on duty.

You would think that during an era in which there were about two jewel heists every minute, they would take a bit more precaution. But it was a different time. Using duct tape and a glass cutter, the thieves began their careful work. They sliced a hole in the case, removed one jewel, then another, and another. The famous Star of India Sapphire, the DeLong Star Ruby, and the Midnight Star Sapphire, and then the Eagle Diamond. It tossed off a bright golden glint in the low light before vanishing into Murph the Serf's pocket.

With their work complete, the thieves slipped back out and were on their way. Shortly after leaving the property, Murph spotted a pair of cops standing on the corner. Another two waited nearby, and here he was with a coil of rope over one shoulder and a sack of stolen gems over the other, like some sort of cartoon henchman. Thinking fast, he saw a man walking a pet collie and whistling the dog over. Murph the serf pretended that he and the man were old friends. Together they strolled right past the police. Murph even greeted them with a smile and a jaunty, good evening, officers. And it worked. The thieves vanished into the night.

In one fell swoop, they had stolen four million dollars worth of gems. Twenty-four stones in total. Now, if you're wondering what on earth a person would get up to after committing one of the world's biggest jewel heists, I'll let Murph tell you. I figured, he said, if I wind up going to jail for this, I might as well party a little. And so he did He hailed a cab jewels still in his pocket and headed to Times Square where Gene Krupa's jazz band was playing They pulled it off now. It was time to have some fun a little too much fun

It turns out they spent so much money that night someone called the cops to report three men Dropping so much cash and I quote you'd think they were making it with a machine. When the authorities searched their hotel room, they found illegal drugs, a few books about precious stones, and a floor plan of the Natural History Museum. Yeah, not a good look at all. As damning as that all sounds though, it was still circumstantial evidence. So although the trio were briefly arrested, they were soon released on low bail. As the police tried to figure out a way to strengthen the case against them, Murph the

Surf went back to doing what he did best, having a dang good time. He became something of a media sensation. In fact, he's been referenced as television's first true crime celebrity. And it's easy to see why. His quippy sound bites, his flashy clothes, his general vibe. When asked in an interview how he felt about the whole arrest situation, he puffed on a cigar and complained, I was supposed to be on my way to Hawaii to surf.

Now all this inconvenience has followed things up. But celebrity or not, it wasn't long before the New York police were able to connect Murph and his buddies to other jewel robberies, and so they were tossed back in jail. Everybody that is, except Kuhn. You see, the authorities still hadn't found any of the missing gems. Like it or not, they needed the thieves' help, and so they sprung Alan Kuhn free. And for days, Kuhn led the authorities around, at one point insisting that they rent a red Cadillac while he spoke to various underground contacts.

Eventually, the trail of breadcrumbs led them to a key which opened a locker at a Miami bus terminal. There, inside the locker, were two pouches soaked in saltwater, clearly having just been retrieved from a hiding place in the ocean. And inside, nine of the 24 stolen gems, none of which were diamonds. Diamonds have fascinated us for centuries. Perhaps it's their history that draws us to them, how each diamond represents billions of years of geology, each brilliant stone a literal fragment of the past.

Or perhaps it's their beauty, the way they sparkle like fallen stars, mesmerizing as if made of light itself. Maybe we love them for the stories we associate with them, those marriage myths created for advertising campaigns or fantastical tales of curses and cures. But to be honest, beyond any of that, I think our obsession with diamonds comes down to an obsession with something else altogether. Power. Diamonds, you see, represent wealth. If you're buying a diamond, it means that you can afford to toss money into something as frivolous and opulent as a rock.

You aren't living paycheck to paycheck. You aren't scrambling to feed your family. No, you can spend the value of a house on nothing more than a pretty bauble. History has always been a record of the haves and the have-nots. And what could be a more tangible, gaudy symbol of that divide? Then the diamond. It's why we tend to root not for the victims of a heist, but the perpetrators. The Danny Oceans and the Robin Hoods representing not the elite, but the everyman, beating the rich at their own game. It's fair to say that the myths that we make up about these

people are often far holier than the people themselves. Murph the serf, for example, was eventually put back in prison, not only for robbery, but first degree murder. He wasn't a good person, but a story is more powerful than the facts. And there are few stories more powerful than those in which oppressed classes and peoples win out over their oppressors.

As Marie Antoinette, Queen Victoria, J.P. Morgan, and the rest of their ilk worried about whether their jewelry was cursed or stolen, real working class people starved in the streets. The diamond represents all of that and more. And at the end of the day, this is what I love about history. How even the smallest objects, the tiniest stories, can serve as a microcosm for humanity as a whole. And speaking of stories, I didn't quite finish the tale of the Eagle Diamond.

You see, of the 24 gems lifted from the National History Museum that fateful night in 1964, 14 of them remain missing to this day, including all of the stolen diamonds, the Eagle Diamond among them. Which means that giant golden gem is still out there somewhere, still waiting to be found. It's likely that the eagle diamond was cut up into smaller pieces before being placed into jewelry and sold in a way that made it unrecognizable. So hey, the next time you're in a jewelry store, take a peek at the yellow diamonds. Who knows, they might just be the eagle diamond in disguise.

But then again, there's always a chance that it's still whole and intact. Perhaps like the other gems, it was hidden in the ocean. Maybe it's still there, tucked beneath the waves, just waiting for a treasure hunter to come along and add a new chapter to an ever-twisting legacy. I hope today's exploration of diamond folklore helped you see just how many facets there are to these tales. I'll be honest, I'm a sucker for a good treasure hunt. If I live near those Miami beaches where Murph and his team hid their jewels, it would be

hard to pull me away from the shoreline. And I know I'm not alone. Humans love the thoughts of buried treasure. Which is why I have one last story for you all about a treasure hunt that continues to this very day. Stick around through this brief sponsor break to hear all about it. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Therapy can feel like a big investment, but the state of your mind is just as important

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then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile for details. The first man to die was scalded to death in a boiler eruption. The second plunged into oblivion when a pulley failed. The next four suffocated on engine gas or swamp fumes, with a fifth barely escaping with his life, bringing the total death count to six. And yet every year, more men suited up, steeled themselves, and descended into the depths

of the Oak Island Shafts. What was so compelling, you ask, that even the threat of death wasn't deterrent enough? It's simple, buried treasure. The legend begins in 1795 when a teenager named Daniel McGinnis noticed an unusual depression in the ground on Oak Island, a 140-acre landmass just off the coast of Nova Scotia. And immediately, Daniel had the same thought

that any kid his age might if they'd found a mysterious hole in the beach. What if this was a sign of pirate treasure? Daniel dragged two of his buddies over to the spot and together they began to dig. According to the story, the boys found a 100-foot-deep shaft with wooden platforms every 10 feet. But that's it, no treasure. At least, not yet. Eventually though, one of Daniel. But that's it, no treasure, at least not yet. Eventually though, one of Daniel McGinnis's friends, Jack Smith, ended up purchasing the property where they had found the shaft, and he kept digging.

And in 1804, Smith reported that 90 feet down into the shaft, he had discovered a flagstone bearing a thrilling encrypted message. Decoded, it read, 40 feet below, two million pounds are buried. Now remember, this was more than 200 years ago, far before the invention of motorized drills and cranes, not to mention ventilation systems. Sending men 100 feet into a hole and asking them to dig another 40 feet was a formidable

task. But hey, for buried treasure, suffice to say the digging continued, and it kept going for years. In the mid-1800s, though, disaster struck. That shaft so carefully hollowed out over so many years, filled with water. And Jack Smith and his team didn't think that it was an accident. No, they believed that it was evidence of an elaborate trap designed to keep eager treasure hunters away from the prize.

Which, of course, convinced Smith that they were on the right track, closer than ever before. They dug new shafts. Some collapsed, as did the original, but with each failing site, new holes were quickly dug to replace them. But mining shafts weren't the only things multiplying around the dig site. There were also a fair share of rumors, namely theories about who had set the traps and whose treasure was buried deep, deep below. Some stories said that Captain Kidd buried his pirate treasure there. Others that Francis Drake's looted Spanish treasure was inside the pit, along with his body, while others believed Aztecs had made their way to Oak Island and buried their gold

there to hide it from the Spanish. Heck, even FDR had a pet theory convinced that Marie Antoinette's lost crown jewels were buried there. In fact, he was so sure of this that in 1909, the future president even invested in one of the digging companies. There's honestly been a staggering number of theories about what was down there. As for the wildest, I'd have to say it's that the Knights Templar buried the Holy Grail and the Ark of the Covenant on Oak Island, or that it's a box of lost Shakespearean manuscripts which the bard himself left clues to in his works. So, were any of these true?

Well, here's the thing. We don't know. Because 200 years on, the treasure hunters are still digging. That's right, no jackpot has ever been found, but true believers have not given up. In fact, those four men who died by inhaling poisonous gas, that didn't happen in the 1800s. No, they lost their lives in 1965. There's even a History Channel show that's been running since 2014 following one particular

search for the treasure. Over the 12 seasons so far, their investigation has unearthed coins from the 17th and 18th centuries, a lead cross, a garnet pin, and a spike from a Spanish galleon, and a lot of really unusual buried structures. But alas, no great hoard of riches. And maybe there's a reason for that. It turns out Jack Smith, the guy who originally bought the shaft and had been digging in earnest, ran a treasure hunting business.

And the flagstone he claimed to have found with that coded message, well, he conveniently discovered it right at a time when he was searching for investors. The whole thing may have been a publicity stunt to drum up interest. In fact, no one appears to know where that supposed flagstone ended up. Oh, and the mysterious 100-foot shaft the boys originally found? Well, geologists believe that this was, in fact, a natural sinkhole. But despite all of this, people haven't given up looking. And that says something about us, doesn't it?

That humans would rather believe a beautiful fiction than a boring truth. That we would rather chase after the potential of a glinting hopeful boon in the distance than accept the life we've been given, even when it might mean forfeiting that life altogether. Then again, who knows? There could still be something down there. One legend insists that the treasure will be found

when the last leaf on the last oak tree on the island blows away. Perhaps we only have to be patient. Then again, maybe the answer lies in another, more gruesome legend. According to this story, the treasure will be found once seven men have died in pursuit of it. The scalded man made one, the fallen man two, the four lost to the gas made three, four, five, and six, which means it may only take one more sacrifice, one more priceless treasured

human life, for all to be revealed. This episode of Lore was produced by me, Aaron Manke, with writing by Jenna Rose Nethercott, research by Cassandra Dayalba, and music by Chad Lawson. Don't like hearing the ads? I've got a solution for you. There is a paid version of Lore on Apple Podcasts and Patreon that is 100% ad free. Plus, subscribers also get weekly mini episodes called Lore Bites. It's a bargain for all of that ad free storytelling and a great way to support this show and the team behind it.

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