Lore - Lore 315: All Shook Up

Episode Date: September 21, 2026

Folklore usually depends on the little things. The daily struggle to survive, the terror of a new location, or even violence and crime. But even when the events are bigger than we can imagine, folklore has a way of showing up. Narrated and produced by Aaron Mahnke, with writing by GennaRose Nethercott, research by Cassandra de Alba, and music by Chad Lawson. ————————— BUY EXHUMED TODAY: aaronmahnke.com/exhumed ————————— Lore Resources:  Get Ad-Free Lore: lorepodcast.com/support Episode Music: lorepodcast.com/music  Episode Sources: lorepodcast.com/sources  Official Lore Merchandise: lorepodcast.com/shop ————————— 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. 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. Squarespace: Head to Squarespace.com/lore to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using the code LORE. SimpliSafe: Secure your home with 24/7 professional monitoring. Sign up today at SimpliSafe.com/Lore to get 60% off a new SimpliSafe system. ————————— To report a concern regarding a radio-style, non-Aaron ad in this episode, reach out to ads @ lorepodcast.com 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 ————————— ©2026 Aaron Mahnke. All rights reserved.

First, the ground began to tremble. Then, the waterline receded as if the ocean itself were running from something. And finally, a mountain appeared on the horizon. Except it wasn't a mountain at all. It was a wave. When the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami hit Indonesia, nearly a quarter of a million people died. It was a catastrophe on a level most of us can't even imagine,

and hopefully never have to. Entire towns wiped off the map. Whole families destroyed. And yet there was one island nearby with an almost impossibly low death toll. It's called Simului, and out of its 80,000 residents, fewer than 10 people died.

And no, it wasn't because the tsunami didn't hit Simului. It definitely did. But you see, the people there had a secret weapon that helped them survive, a weapon that had been honed and cultivated for hundreds of years, passed down from one generation to the next, a weapon called folklore.

There was a tradition there of telling stories about tsunamis, stories that outlined the warning signs and early clues that a tsunami might be coming. These folktales told you what to do and what not to do, and most importantly, when to evacuate. Here in the States, most of us grow up with things like Three Little Pigs and Cinderella. The folks in Simului grew up with tsunami tales, and because of that vital difference, when the ground began to rumble just like it had in their bedtime stories, they knew exactly what to do. In short, when it comes to natural disasters, sometimes a good story can save your life. I'm Aaron Mankey, and this is lore.

Our little planet experiences millions of earthquakes each year, although most are too small for us to sense. And as for the ones that we do feel, well, as frightening as they are, at least we understand what causes them, the shifting of the tectonic plates that make up the Earth's crust. But of course, we didn't always have that knowledge. In fact, the theory of plate tectonics didn't fully coalesce until the 1960s. And before that, well, it's not that we do. didn't have any explanations, they were just a bit more colorful. For example, in Japan, their earliest earthquake legends blame an insect called the Jin Ching Mu Shi, a ten-legged

oblong giant with the head of a dragon, whose burrowing causes the earth to shake. Of course, there isn't really a huge earthquake-causing bug. That's silly, right? No, earthquakes are actually caused by a massive eel, so big that all the islands in Japan sit on its back. This eel theory enjoyed its time in the sun for a while, until finally a catfish known as Namazoo usurped it as the cause of earthquakes in Japan. Even today, signs in Japan warning that a road will be closed because of an earthquake, depict a smiling cartoon catfish.

Meanwhile, parts of Siberia tell of a large mammoth living underground that, yes, causes earthquakes, while in other parts, quakes are blamed on a subterranean sled dog. The tremors occur either when the dog shakes snow, off its back, or scratches at fleas. Now, you might be sensing a theme here. The idea that there's some giant underground animal causing the earth to shake is honestly found in a ton of cultures.

The Chinese have a giant ox, while the Agonquin tribe in America have a giant tortoise. All over India, it's a giant mole, but, hey, at least a mole is supposed to be under the ground to begin with. And then again, not everyone assumes it's a zoo down there. In some cases, it's a god. In New Zealand, for example, Maori tradition holds that quakes are caused by a god named Rua Moko, the child of the sky and the earth, who lives deep beneath the ground. And whenever Rua Moko takes a little stroll down there, the world above shakes.

In other Maori stories about Rua Moko, though, he doesn't actually know how to walk at all. That would be because he's a baby. Some believe Rual Moko was and still is in his mother's womb, and earthquakes are him kicking his mother's belly. Meanwhile, over in ancient Greece, Poseidon wasn't just the god of the sea. He was also the earthquake god. And you might be smart to leave him a sacrifice or two, because if an earthquake did occur,

well, that was a sign that Poseidon was very, very mad at you. Now, admittedly, the notion of an angry god punishing people with natural disasters is alarming. But even worse, that would be Pythagoras' theory. You see, he claimed that earthquakes had nothing to do with gods at all, and everything to do with the dead fighting underground. Now, some Greek philosophers did try to be more specific. Aristotle, for one, had some ideas, but let's just say he didn't quite nail it. Because Aristotle's theory happened to be that the earth was passing gas. Basically, he thought that wind entered the ground via caves, and earthquakes were those winds trying to escape.

Yeah, I think I prefer the theories about gods. Speaking of which in Norse mythology, I bet you can guess who's at fault for the fault lines, and I'll give you a clue, he's also blamed for just about everything else. That's right, the trickster god Loki. But earthquakes are no practical joke. You see, in punishment for causing the death of the god Balder, Loki had been chained underground, and in some tellings, Loki's chains were even formed from the entrails of his own sons.

According to the stories, all day long, poisonous venom from a serpent drips on his face. Loki's loyal wife, Seagan, stays by his side, holding a bowl up to catch the venom. But sometimes the bowl gets full and she has to empty it. And when that happens, a few drops of the venom hit poor Loki, and he writhes in pain, causing earthquakes in the human world above. These explanations may seem fantastical to us, senseless even. But in truth, they're just the opposite. What is senseless is the tragedy and death that before, falls a community when an earthquake hits. And those stories, these gods and giants and animals, they're a way to bring sense back, to look at the carnage and be able to say that there is a reason

for it all. Maybe a strange reason, maybe even one that's horrifying, but a reason nonetheless. Because sometimes belief is the only thing that stays solid when the very ground that you stand upon begins to crumble. It was March 31st of 1650. when a huge 7.5 magnitude earthquake struck the city of Kusko, Peru. Homes collapsed. Schools and markets were flattened. And although the worst of the damage occurred over mere minutes, aftershocks continued to terrorize the people long after the initial quake was over. Now, Kusko was once the capital of the Inca Empire.

But since colonization, the church had been hard at work, stamping out belief in the old Incan gods in favor of their own. and when the smoke from the earthquake cleared, well, the Christian clergy of Kusko realized that they had a tincty problem on their hands. You see, while all the Spanish buildings had been wrecked, do you know what remained perfectly safe? All the remaining Inca buildings

designed to withstand just such a disaster. Suffice to say, if you're trying to convince people that one God is real and another is fake, it's probably not helpful when the seeming act of God protects your only opposition's holy sites. In short, the church had a PR nightmare on their hands, and they needed a miracle. And so they invented one. They began to circulate a legend to prove that the Christian god was powerful after all.

According to their tale, when Kusko was still being rocked by aftershocks, a statue of Christ on the cross was removed from one of the damaged churches so that services could be held outside. And lo and behold, as soon as the statue was carried out of the church, the earthquakes stopped. So why do we think that the story was probably deliberate church propaganda and not based in fact? Well, contemporary reports of the earthquake don't mention the same details, which only appeared after the fact. But even so, the plan worked. The statue became revered as Christ of the earthquakes,

and to this day, it's carried in a procession through Cusco every year on March 31st. And that's not the only post-earth earthquake folklore to make it. impact on the future. In the 1980s, the U.S. government wanted to build nuclear power stations in Northern California, and so they had the United States Geological Survey look into whether the area might be an earthquake risk. It was really more of a formality. After all, there were no records of earthquakes there in the past. At least, so they believed. But when the researchers began looking into Native American folktales from the region, they found very different implications. Among the Ho and Quilute people of what is now coastal Washington,

there were tales of thunderbird and killer whale having a battle that shook the mountains, tore the trees from the ground, and caused the water to rise. Meanwhile, on Vancouver Island, the Nuchanul told a story about dwarves who lived in the mountain inviting a human to dance around their drum. When the human accidentally kicked the drum,

he got earthquake foot, and every step he took after that caused a quake until the ground turned to liquid and eventually a giant wave struck. And there were more. Up and down the coast, tribe after tribe had passed down stories just like these. Soon, geological work confirmed what the legends implied, but a massive earthquake, followed by a tsunami, had once decimated the region. And data from tree rings eventually pinpointed the date.

January 26th of 1700, far before a European explorers ever laid eyes on the area. Unsurprisingly, the government did not build those nuclear power plants there. And remember that Japanese earthquake causing catfish known as Namazu? Well, in November of 1855, a major quake rocked the city of Edo, Japan, what is now Tokyo. And the date is important, because according to the lunar calendar, the disaster took place during what's known as the Month Without Gods. Basically, this was a time when all the major Shinto deities were said to go on vacation. And And what do you know, but one of the gods absent that month just so happened to be the one in charge of keeping Namazu the catfish under control.

And here's the wild part. Within days of the quake, woodblock prince depicting Namazu were on sale in the city. But here's the thing. He wasn't drawn as a monster. No, he was represented as a hero. Because that earthquake, it had destroyed a very specific area of the city. That is, the part where all the rich people lived. The poor areas, on the other hand, were unscathed.

And so overnight, Namazoo became a symbol of allyship with the working class. These prints depicted the catfish as causing a shake-up of not just the earth, but of the social order. As you might imagine, the authorities in Edo weren't too stoked about this rebel symbol. And about two months after the earthquake, they succeeded in suppressing the sale of catfish prints. But not before thousands had already been disseminated. We all expect folklore to pop up in the wake of a disaster as people try to make sense of the wreckage. But what's less expected is for the earthquake lore to arrive before the earthquake even hits. And yet one 19th century preacher would go down in infamy for attempting to deliver just that.

It was fair to say that Mariah Woodworth Etter had a difficult life. Her father was an alcoholic, or as she put it, addicted to the accursed cup, and he died when she was still a girl, forcing her to work instead of attending school. Then she became trapped in an unhappy marriage, a marriage where five of her six children died young. Clearly, life wasn't going the way Mariah had hoped. And so when she turned 35, she decided to take matters into her own hands and do the one thing that she had always really, really wanted to do. She became a preacher.

Did she have the theological training to do so? No. Did her church let women join the ministry? Also, no. But that wouldn't stop Mariah, who began to host her own meetings and preach the gospel. And it turns out she was good at it. Good enough, in fact, that she was soon invited to speak at other churches, which is when people began responding rather uniquely to her sermons. That is, they would start to scream and babble. They would sway and shake and collapse on the floor, at which point the crowd would fall into a trance, reporting visions of heaven and damnation upon waking. It was one hell of a spectacle, literally, and it wasn't long before her tent revival meetings were attracting thousands of people, first throughout the Midwest and then later in California. Now, not everyone was a fan of Mariah's style. One late 1800s newspaper referred to her as a, and I quote, voodoo priestess, while another called her a sorceress. Articles describe the goings on at her sermons as mental debauchery,

And one California doctor declared Mariah's true believers as suffering from, and I quote, a perverted nervous system condition bordering on hysteria. But, hey, if you think that's dramatic, just wait, because the papers were about to have an absolute field day after what happened next. On January 27th of 1890, Mariah made an announcement. She received a revelation from God, insisting that within 80 days a chunk of California would be destroyed by an earthquake, followed by a tidal wave. And not unlike Noah before the flood, he had sent Mariah to usher people to higher ground, in this case by fleeing to the mountains.

But it wasn't just Mariah telling this story. Several of her followers also claimed to have similar disastrous visions. And by several, I mean about 60 of them. One guy even named the exact date. The disaster would take place on April 14th of 1890. Desperate to save, as many people as possible, Mariah's devotees started preaching on street corners and handing out flyers. They would go door to door, warning whoever answered that the earthquake was coming. One follower, known for shouting warnings while riding his bike, was even dubbed by papers as the Paul Revere of the bicycle. And altogether, while this brigade of doomsday preachers earned themselves a little media nickname, they were known as the Doomsealers. The months went on,

and before you knew it, April had arrived. And suffice to say, the doom sealers were absolutely freaking out. They begged the governor of California to take them seriously, petitioning the state to relocate those incarcerated in the doomed areas to higher ground. Meanwhile, the doom sealers themselves began heading for the hills. Mariah Woodworth-Edder fled to St. Louis. Many of her followers ran off to California mountain towns, their most valued possessions in their arms.

One woman carried a parrot in a cage, while a man hauled an antique clock. Basically, imagine that scene from Fiddler on the roof where all the citizens are marching out with their belongings in tow, knowing that they will never see home again, except with more yelling about the end being nigh. Finally, the morning of April 14th arrived, and the doom sealers waited anxiously. Up to a thousand people had fled their homes, with about a hundred gathered together atop California's Taylor Mountain, for a picnic and spiritual festival. And the hours wore on. Slowly, day turned to night.

And when April 15th dawned, California remained stubbornly intact. The earthquake they had waited for never came. I'd imagine that it's a complicated feeling, to be wrong about the end of the world. On one hand, the doom sealers must have been relieved. They had spent months doing everything they could to save the people of California,

and now here they were totally safe. Sure, they were never in danger in the first place, but still, it was a good thing, right? On the other hand, though, to have believed in something so strongly only to find out it wasn't real, it must have felt like the very ground they stood on had just fallen away,

or not quite as literally as they thought that it would. In the days after April 14th, the doom sealers quietly returned to their lives. They went back to jobs as grocers and bankers, gardeners and lawyers and nurses. Ordinary people who, for a moment at least, had taken on the extraordinary duty of trying to save the world. But there were some folks for whom things would never go back to normal.

Take the man who had first named April 14th as the official date of the quake, a guy named George Erickson. Erickson had been unable to join his fellow doom sealers on the mountaintop that day because back in March, he'd been locked in the mental ward of the state hospital. And it was from there in the asylum that he told reporters and I quote, God may have made a mistake in the date, but the cities named will be destroyed in time. Little did America know, but George Erickson was right. Because the cities named in Mariah's prophecy, why they were none other than Oakland,

Alameda, and San Francisco. And 16 years later, in 1906, smack dab in the month of April, the region was destroyed in a massive, devastating quake. A few years after that, Mariah Woodworth-Eder paid the Bay Area a visit. She hadn't been back since she fled all those years before, and now a great sense of deja vu overcame her. I remembered, she wrote,

how the Lord had shown me at the time the great earthquake that was coming on San Francisco, Oakland, and adjoining towns, and that I would live to work over the ruins. Now, after all these years, I saw the prophecy fulfilled. To date, the 1906 San Francisco earthquake remains the deadliest earthquake in U.S. history. Thank you for shaking things up with me today as we explored earthquake stories from around the world.

But quakes aren't the only dangers lurking beneath our feet, and I happen to have one last story for you about a hazard you've probably been haunted by since you were just a kid. Stick around through this brief sponsor break to hear all about it. Off the coast of Essex, England, lies a miles-long path across the tidal flats. It's called the broomway. But some locals know the broomway by another name, and it's enough to give any traveler pause. They call it the Doomway.

And not only because it leads to a plot of land called, I kid you not, foulness island, no, this path got its ominous moniker for another reason. It's said that over 100 people have died along that murky trail. How, you might ask? Oh, they were killed. By Quicksand. Now look, if you're like me, you probably grew up thinking that Quicksand was going to be a much bigger day-to-day problem than it actually is.

From Batman and Scooby-Doo to Days of Our Lives and The Simpsons, not to mention at least five separate episodes of Lassie, we have all been primed since childhood to think that a slow, sticky death awaits us around every corner. Heck, Quicksand is even depicted in the 11th century Bayou Tapestry and Edmund Spencer's the Fairy Queen. But how dangerous is QuickSand really? Well, before we determine that, I should probably outline exactly what QuickSand is. The word itself comes from Middle English, in which Quick means living, living sand. Except it's not sand at all, not technically speaking. QuickSand is actually comprised of the finer-grained substance known as silt. In short, when silt becomes

saturated with water, it can't generate enough friction to hold weight. Hence, the sinking. But what makes it so tricky is the fact that it doesn't actually behave like a liquid until you step on it. You see, quicksand is a non-Newtonian fluid, meaning that its viscosity changes with pressure. Apply pressure to quicksand, and it turns to liquid. Oh, and by the way, other non-neutonian fluids include the beloved cornstarch and water combo Ublec, silly putty, ketchup, honey, and human blood. So, let's just say that, you do step in quicksand, what's your next move? Well, here's the good news for you. Contrary to just about every action movie from the 1960s onward, it's basically impossible to fully sink in

quicksand. For one, most areas of quicksand are only a few feet deep, so you're more likely to lose a shoe than your life. And more importantly, it's way denser than the human body, so if you just relax, you can easily float on the top. But look, just because you can't really drown in quicksand doesn't mean that it can't kill you in other ways. And those 100 or more victims of the Essex Doomway are proof of that. You could, for example, get stuck at low tide only to drown when the high tide came in, or perish from heat exhaustion, dehydration, or hypothermia after being trapped too long. Essentially, quicksand can turn a person into an insect on a piece of flypaper. But if you do manage to get a leg stuck, don't panic. Flailing around will cause you to

sink further. Now, of course, the best way to survive quicksand is to avoid it altogether, and luckily for visitors to one part of England, the royal family can help you out with that. Ever since 1548, the British monarch has appointed a formal guide to the sands in northwest England's Morcombe. The guide's entire job is to lead people safely across the bay during low tide, where quicksand is a real risk. But even the guide to the sands can't always beat the elements. In one 1846 incident, nine people died when their cart tumbled into a sinkhole known locally as the Black Scar. Another spot to be wary of quicksand, anywhere an earthquake hits. You see, the shaking can cause some kinds of soil to literally liquefy, particularly on beaches

and river fronts, along with areas that were once watery, now filled with artificial man-made fill soil. And while earthquakes often only last seconds, 15 seconds of the ground, under your house turning to liquid is more than enough time to be a problem. Speaking of that artificial land, you know where you can find plenty of it? Lurking beneath entire neighborhoods in Tokyo, Dubai, San Francisco, and Boston, Massachusetts. This episode of lore was produced by me, Aaron Mankey, with writing by Genaro's Nethercut, research by Cassandra DeAlba, and music by Chad Lawson. My brand-new history book Exhumed is finally here in hardcover e-book and an author.

audio version narrated by me. Exhumed explores the strange and twisted roots of the New England Vampire Panic and its star player, Mercy Brown. Grab your copy today over at Aaron Mankey.com slash Exhumed. Don't like hearing ads on this show? Well, there's a paid version available on Apple Podcasts and Patreon that is 100% ad-free. Subscribers also get weekly mini bonus episodes that we call lore bites, and Patreon members specifically get discounts on lore merch and access to my inbox. Learn more over at lorepodcast.com slash support. You can follow this show on various social media platforms, YouTube, threads, Blue Sky, 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.