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. There is a link between horror and sexuality that has persisted for generations. For example, in Bram Stoker's classic novel Dracula, Jonathan Harker is beset upon by three lustful women while staying in the Count's castle one night.
In the book, he says there was something about them that made me uneasy, some longing, and at the same time, some deadly fear. He was attracted to them, but is clearly scared of engaging with them. He loves his fiancée, Mina, back in England, and he possessed a palpable fear of embracing something frowned upon by the moral standards at the time. And in using words like uneasy, deadly, and fear, Stoker has planted a seed of doubt in the reader's mind, pairing sexuality with danger, that if they were to act on their urges, it might lead them down a path of pain and death.
Throughout history, monsters have been used as cautionary tales to deter young people from engaging in ill-advised love affairs. Today, those monsters can be found in the form of vampires, werewolves, or in some cases, succubi. But today, I have four different kinds of monsters to share, all drawn out by folklore from around the globe. And each of them are eager to lead our lustful youth astray.
I'm Aaron Menke, and this is Lore Legends. They're not often thought of as particularly attractive, what with their hairy legs and clusters of eyes. But spiders have a number of tricks up their ace sleeves to entice and deceive others. In Native American folklore, spiders are often portrayed as tricksters, such as Iktomo of the Sioux, Lakota, and Dakota tribes, or Vihu of the Cheyenne tribe.
One moment, they can be clever anti-heroes that push against social boundaries, and the next, they can be quite violent, their stories meant to be taken as warnings. Among the most well-known folkloric spiders is Anansi, who originated in Ghana and became ubiquitous throughout West African, African American, and Caribbean cultures. Anansi, like the others mentioned before, is a trickster, but also a prolific storyteller. He doesn't just weave a pretty narrative like his intricate webs.
He's known for his wits and wisdom, present in the stories he tells. But he doesn't always present himself as a spider. Sometimes he's portrayed as a man with eight legs, or a spider with a man's head, or occasionally as a man with spider-like features. He's something of a shapeshifter, another common trope among spiders of ancient lore.
But few are more feared or frightening than that of the shapeshifting spider of Japan, Jorogumo. Jorogumo is a yokai, which is a class of legendary ghosts and monsters rooted in Japanese folklore. The first written accounts of the creature date back to the Edo period, though word of its exploits most likely existed in oral tradition even before that. The name Jorogumo originally translated to the unflattering moniker Horse Spider, but that was later altered to mean Entanglable Bride, which described not just its behavior, but its appearance as well.
Jorogumo, like many mythological spiders, is said to be a shapeshifter and can change between the spider form and that of a beautiful, enticing woman, or sometimes a blend of the two, with a woman's upper body and the legs of a giant spider. And what would an enticing bride eat? Well, young men, of course. Men in need of companionship.
The Jorogumo catches its prey by donning the appearance of a young, attractive woman who lures a desperate hopeful to her lair where she entertains him with music. Although that's nothing more than a distraction. While he listens to her song, the spider woman wraps him in silken thread before injecting him with venom to weaken him. Once he's been completely entrapped, she devours his body slowly over a number of days.
According to some tellings, the Jorogumo will get the man's attention by begging him to hold her bundled baby. Except it's not a baby at all, it's a giant sack of spider eggs. And as if that wasn't bad enough, this yokai is capable of controlling other lesser spiders to do her bidding. All one needs to do to see if a woman is a Jorogumo is to place her in front of a mirror while she's in her human form.
The reflection will reveal her true self. One particular story about a Jorogumo dates back to the 17th century. It tells of a young samurai who takes shelter in an abandoned building. He notices that it's full of spider webs, but doesn't think much of it, just that it must have been vacant for a long time.
And then suddenly, a young woman appears holding a small child. She approaches him, insisting that he is the child's father. The samurai, however, having never seen the woman before in his life, refuses her and tells her that he is not the child's father. As she continues to press the issue, the child inches toward him, and the samurai grows impatient.
He unsheathes his sword and slashes at the woman, sending her scrambling away. The following morning, the samurai explores more of the building, only to stumble upon a hidden attic where he's staying. And it's there where he sees the impossible, a giant spider dying from a gaping wound across its back, exactly like the one he had given to the strange woman the night before. Beside her is a stone grave marker for a child.
And all around them, dangling from the ceiling, are the Jorogumo's victims, hanging from spider webs. It's no wonder that the Japanese use the name Jorogumo for a very real arachnid too, the golden orb spider, which can grow large enough to actually eat small birds. It's been said that when a golden orb spider reaches the mythical age of 400 years old, it gains magical powers, along with a taste for human flesh. And that is how the Jorogumo of legend is said to be born.
Far away from spider-filled Japan is the Arctic, where one might think the only things to worry about are polar bears and frostbite. But the region is also home to numerous Inuit tribes who have passed down their own stories of creatures that use love for nefarious means. Yet one of those mythical beasts doesn't lure men or women to their deaths with promises of romance or illicit trysts. Her fate was born of love, which she had misplaced in two important people in her life.
She's known as Sedna, although she also goes by Sana or Sidna, from the root Sa, meaning its front side, and Na, meaning one who. This results in a name that roughly translates to the one who is before. The tale of Sedna paints her as a beautiful young woman, one who has no shortage of suitors knocking down her door for a chance to be with her. But she has no interest in any of them.
Until one day, when a hunter wearing fine furs and carrying a great big spear enters the village. He's clearly rich and can offer her a good life. He invites Sedna to join him on the open sea, where he will shower her with riches such as ivory and furs and lamps that never run out of oil. She accepts and she leaves her father's home to accompany the stranger on his grand adventures.
But quickly, she realizes that something is wrong. As soon as her homeland is out of sight, the winds change, and so does Sedna's new husband. His arms become monstrous wings and feathers sprout from his skin. She soon discovers that this hunter is no man at all, but a great bird spirit.
He takes her back to a rocky island, the land of the birds. There are no jewels or fur waiting for her, only hard walrus skins for her to sleep on and a diet of raw fish. Her new home is icy and harsh, with rough winds that cut against her skin. Sedna panics and begins to call out to her father, hoping her voice will carry over the waves back to him.
And miraculously, her words reach him, and he sets out in his kayak to bring his little girl home. In another version of the story, however, Sedna's father sets out on his own volition and comes to the land of the birds for a visit. And finds her miserable, begging to go home. Either way, upon reaching the island, she boards his vessel, and the two sneak away, paddling far from the land of the birds.
Sedna's husband awakens later, only to find his bride missing. The other birds fill him in on what transpired while he was asleep, and he becomes furious. He flies over the water, beating his great wings and diving beneath the surface, kicking up waves. The sea gods know what Sedna did, and they are just as angry at her betrayal.
Her father, terrified that the gods will kill him for helping her, does the only thing that he can think to do. He throws his daughter overboard. But she doesn't go easily. She clings to the boat and begs him to pull her back in.
Afraid that she'll capsize the vessel and drown him, he pulls out a blade and cuts off her fingertips. They tumble into the sea and become the first seals. Still, Sedna refuses to let go, so her father keeps cutting, this time up to the first knuckle. As the segments of her flesh fall into the ocean, they become the first walruses, and her blood turns into a school of fish.
Finally, as he cuts her one last time, she releases her grip and falls into the water herself, drowning among her creations. And as she's surrounded by the beings she Some stories say that the Lannan Shi deliberately causes this harm by vampirically feeding on the artist's vitality. Others claim it's an unfortunate side effect of the human fairy relationship, and that the Lannan Shi will often leave her lover when she begins to fear for his safety. Sadly, though, he's in too deep.
His longing tends to do him in, regardless. It makes one wonder if something like writer's block was once thought of as an artist losing their Lannan Shi. Meanwhile, on the Isle of Man, a very similar creature has been written about for generations. It's spelled differently but pronounced the same, Lannan Shi, although this creature is far more dangerous than her Irish counterpart.
Once she finds a lover, she clings to them until they expire, draining their life from them as she inspires their work. But she doesn't develop feelings for him or care for him in the same way as the Irish muse. As William Butler Yeats once wrote, the Gaelic poets die young, for she is restless and will not let them remain long on earth, this malignant phantom. They say that if the artist shuns her advances, she must become his slave.
But if he accepts, then he belongs to her, and the only way out is to find another to take his place. Suffice to say, that doesn't happen often, and the artist is eventually sapped of the vim and vigor that had kept him going. To the writer, musician, or poet, life is about creation. It's about bringing something new into the world to enrich others.
For the Lannan Shi, creation is a means to an end, because if the artist starves, then so does she. William Butler Yeats wrote a lot about the Lannan Shi, but he was hardly the first, or even the only one. The legends of the fairy lover predate Yeats by years, possibly generations. Almost 20 years before Yeats' book Fairy and Folktales of the Irish Peasantry was published, another author by the name of John O'Hanlon wrote about the Lannan Shi in his own book, Irish Folklore.
And she was even mentioned in the quarterly Journal of Science in 1872. But despite Yeats' extensive writing about Lannan Shi, he wasn't actually the person to popularize the folklore. You see, in 1887, an Irish poet by the name of Speranza also wrote about the fairy sweetheart. Speranza was perhaps the first person to immortalize the being in print.
They wrote, the Lannan Shi, or the spirits of life, was supposed to be the inspirer of the poet and singer, as the Banshee was the spirits of death, the foreteller of doom. Speranza not only conveyed the legend itself, but expanded its lore with the story of a great king who vanquished his foes in battle thanks to the valor and strength his Lannan Shi had bestowed upon him. After the war was over, the king went off to Spain where he lived in the lap of luxury for almost a decade. He even married the king of Spain's daughter.
He eventually returned to Ireland, though, only to find his kingdom in shambles. Strange people were living in his castle and eating in his banquet hall and spending his kingdom's fortunes for their own gain while his people went hungry. His people hated him for leaving them, so when he finally tried to retake his throne, they refused to listen to him. Desperate, he turned to the Lannan Shi who had helped him the first time.
She gave him the power to take back his kingdom, which he did, and he returned everything back to the way it was. But Speranza was not this poet's true name. It was a pen name. The author's real identity was that of Jane Wilde, mother of Oscar and Willie Wilde.
She had no idea that just over a decade after writing about the Lannan Shi, both her poet sons would be dead before the age of 50. For as long as humans have been around, it seems we have been interested in the spirit world and romance among our many passions as people. Knowing that there are whole worlds of folklore that combine the two is both eye-opening and it makes perfect sense. Lucky for you, we have one more tale to share.
Stick around through this brief sponsored break to hear all about it. Not all supernatural lovers are insidious. Some have been known to bring joy and contentment to those they are with, and perhaps none more so than Bessie Brown. This story appeared in a single newspaper article from October of 1900, and it was reprinted verbatim in newspapers all over North America, including Canada, which I think speaks to its popularity.
Bessie Brown was a young Christian woman from a wealthy family in Oklahoma. She lived in the town of Cameron and was described as being possessed of many natural charms, one of which included her great beauty. Her neighbors thought quite highly of her too, believing her to be honest and truthful in all of her endeavors. Sometime around 1898, Bessie fell in love with a man named John Allen, and the two were quickly engaged to be married.
Bessie, assuming that she and her husband-to-be would have a long, fruitful life together, made a playful vow that if he were to die before her, then she would marry his ghost instead. Two weeks before they tied the knot, that macabre joke came true. John Allen lost his life in a tragic railroad accident. Bessie was despondent, to the point where her parents called a doctor to check on her.
They were worried that her grief was so intense, it would cause her to lose her mind. The good news, according to the doctor, was that Bessie's mind was safe, but her physical health was flagging. She was consumed by her depression for almost a year, until one morning, everything changed. Bessie awoke totally cured of her misery.
And it wasn't just that she had stopped grieving, she was elated, but nobody knew why. Once again, her parents got involved, assuming the worst. In fact, they started to think that she was taking drugs. But as it turned out, the only thing she was high on was love.
Days after her miraculous turnaround, Bessie confessed to her parents the reason for her abrupt change of mind. John Allen's ghost had appeared to her, and that meant that she could finally honor her promise to him. She was going to marry his spirit, and the couple would finally be together. As you can probably assume, this did not alleviate her parents' suspicions.
Her mother sent her to a specialist to examine her brain. Not only did he give her a clean bill of health, but he suggested that her story was so strange, she must have actually seen the ghost of her lost love. Bessie assured her parents that while they couldn't see John, he was always there with her. And it didn't matter what they thought anyway.
She was going to marry him no matter what. A short time later, she rented a five-room cottage where she and her betrothed would live. Well, live might not be the right word. Cohabitate, maybe?
She then called the family minister and asked him to perform the ceremony. As you might imagine, being a man of God, he refused, claiming that to do such a thing would be a sin. But somehow, over time, Bessie was able to convince him. And in early October of 1900, she and the minister met at midnight in the cemetery where John Allen had been buried.
And the pair were wed. Two years after their original engagement, Bessie moved into the cottage. And ever since, witnesses claimed to hear the two talking, laughing, and sharing their life together as if John were still alive. People in town would often see Bessie talking to someone beside her that only she could see.
But because she was so beloved by her friends and neighbors, they just assumed that her husband must really be there. Her parents, on the other hand, were less approving. According to a quote given by her father, We are trying to do everything we can to make her forget her ghost, but it seems as if we are going to fail. Which honestly makes sense.
True love never dies, they say. Even, it seems, if one of the lovers does. This episode of Lore Legends was produced by me, Aaron Manke, with writing by Harry Marks and research by Jenna Rose Nethercutt. Lore is much more than just a podcast.
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