Episode 411: Your Urban Legends XCIX - SECRET FUNERAL HEIST
/If you’re not thinking about the best ways to creep people out with your final wishes after you die, you’re not optimizing. An urban legends episode featuring witches’ graves, ladies in green, and spooky sleep things!
Content Warning: This episode contains conversations about or mentions of death, murder, drowning, religious persecution, animal death, pregnancy/pregnancy complications, injury, bodily functions, and violence against women.
Housekeeping
- Recommendation: This week, Julia recommends doing a horror movie cocktail pairing with friends!
- Books: Check out our previous book recommendations, guests’ books, and more at https://spiritspodcast.com/books
- Call to Action: Attach Your Résumé is a brand-new show from Multitude that interviews online creators about how their jobs work and how they got there. Subscribe now in your podcast app!
Sponsors
- Shaker & Spoon is a subscription cocktail service that helps you learn how to make hand-crafted cocktails right at home. Get $20 off your first box at shakerandspoon.com/cool
Find Us Online
- Website & Transcripts: https://spiritspodcast.com
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Cast & Crew
- Co-Hosts: Julia Schifini and Amanda McLoughlin
- Editor: Bren Frederick
- Music: Brandon Grugle, based on "Danger Storm" by Kevin MacLeod
- Artwork: Allyson Wakeman
- Multitude: https://multitude.productions
About Us
Spirits is a boozy podcast about mythology, legends, and folklore. Every episode, co-hosts Julia and Amanda mix a drink and discuss a new story or character from a wide range of places, eras, and cultures. Learn brand-new stories and enjoy retellings of your favorite myths, served over ice every week, on Spirits.
Transcript
[theme]
AMANDA: Welcome to Spirits Podcast, a boozy dive into mythology, legends and folklore. Every week, we pour a drink and learn about a new story from around the world. I'm Amanda.
JULIA: And I'm Julia. And Amanda, it's still spooky month. And so you know what we're doing here. You know what we're doing here. There were five Spirits episodes in this month. There's five Wednesdays in October. So, yeah, we got ourselves started off with a nice Egyptology episode, but now, we're going full spooky.
AMANDA: Yep.
JULIA: Mainly because I realized if we do four urban legends episodes this month, next week's is a 100 urban legends episodes.
AMANDA: And when better to do that than October 30th? Like, truly.
JULIA: Like, really, we're ramping you up into Halloween, and then you can just enjoy, luxuriate in it, I guess.
AMANDA: I can't wait. I can't wait, Julia. I think we're also going to change our numbering and titling system for the urban legends, because I can't count Roman numerals past 100. So we're going to just bring you all kinds of, like, new, fresh, spookily sound designed urban legends for the 101 to 200 era.
JULIA: Yes. Amanda, bold of you to assume that I don't Google 98 Roman numerals every time we put an episode out.
AMANDA: Yeah, but then when I put it on the website, then I have to, like, reverse calculate from Roman numeral back to number and I challenge myself every week, as if that would, I don't know, prove something to myself, and I can't do it. So point being, Julia, I'm so excited. We've gotten a whole lot of hot and fresh urban legends out the kitchen.
JULIA: Hot and fresh.
AMANDA: We've been going into the archive as well from the fresh top of our inbox. So can I give you one from, nay, a couple of weeks ago, just at the beginning of October?
JULIA: Whoa. Yes, I would love that.
AMANDA: Julia, this first one comes from Inkeri, they/them and the subject is Legends from a thousand years ago: The Witch's Grave and The Spooky Rock.
JULIA: Ooh. I like that a lot.
AMANDA: "Hi, Spirits. My name is Inkeri and I am from a small village in Southwestern Finland. While my hometown is small, it's also really old, as people have lived there for 9,000 years or so, give or take a 1,000 years."
JULIA: I don't know. I don't know. Sometimes Europe says things like that. I'm like, "Are you sure?"
AMANDA: Couldn't be me? "It is a place full of folklore, though my classmates tried really hard to come up with new urban legends, unsuccessfully. Some experts say that if the Kalevala really happened, it probably happened there."
JULIA: Yo. Shout out to the Kalevala episode that we did a while back.
AMANDA: So much fun. I was like, "I know how to say that word."
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: "I could tell you of the famous family that lived in the manor house and their shenanigans, the ancient warlord buried under the local theatre."
JULIA: Yo.
AMANDA: "Or of my own haunted house, but I have some spookier stories that are great all year round, though, especially during the spooky season."
JULIA: That's the season right now.
AMANDA: "The second story is especially interesting here in Autumn, but more on that later." And Inkeri suggests the sensitive topic warning for death, natural murder and drowning.
JULIA: Hmm. That really covers most of the bases.
AMANDA: So first is subtitled, "My friend, the Witch."
JULIA: Ooh.
AMANDA: "I'm not sure how long I've listened to Spirits, but I remember listening to you during lockdown when I used to go on long walks around the forest to visit the folkloric places near my house."
JULIA: That sounds so much better than hanging out in my apartment.
AMANDA: "I especially like to visit The Witch's Grave, Ammanhauta in Finnish. It's a big pile of sticks in the middle of the forest. If there wasn't a sign about it right next to it, you might easily just walk by. However, walking past it without noticing it would be a grave mistake."
JULIA: Uh-oh.
AMANDA: Nice pun. Can you believe that Inkeri is doing puns in, like, a second language? Amazing. "This is the story of why the grave is there and what happens to those who ignore it. A thousand years ago, when witches were still appreciated and Christianity had not yet fully gained its chokehold on the North, there lived a wise witch. She was the healer of her community, and many came to her with their ailments. But she was old, and she knew that she would soon die. She'd only one wish for the world. She wanted to be buried in the churchyard. The priest didn't allow this, as he thought witchcraft was un-Christian."
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: "But the witch was not disheartened. She decided she need not seek his approval. Instead, she got four men to help her. And after she died, they would dress her and carry her in a coffin to the church at night to bury her in secret."
JULIA: Yo. Secret funeral.
AMANDA: It never occurred to me you could perpetuate a heist after your death, and I really need to take notes from this witch. This is incredible.
JULIA: Amanda, if you pass away and your will is not also instructions for a heist, I'm going to be extremely disappointed.
AMANDA: Yeah. I'm going to have to work on, like, an acrostic poem to give you some kind of, like, two-factor code to some secret Google Drive.
JULIA: Hell yeah.
AMANDA: I'm going to work on it.
JULIA: I love it.
AMANDA: "However, if they didn't manage to fulfill this task before dawn, they were to bury her exactly where they were when the first light broke. You can see where this is going, right?"
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: "So the witch died. As the night fell, the men started their journey. The shortest way was through the forest, so they took the shortcut, but it was dark and traveling was difficult. There are rocky hills and swamps all over, not to mention the underbrush and huge rocks. The men struggled on, and as the night got lighter and lighter, they hurried faster and faster. Still, their efforts were in vain. And as the first sunbeam of the morning found the coffin, they found that they couldn't move it. It had suddenly frozen in place. They pushed and pulled, but the coffin remained unmovable. Defeated, the men dug a grave right there in the forest. They buried her, and fearing the revenge of the witch, threw sticks onto the grave so she couldn't curse them from the afterlife."
JULIA: Hmm. Maybe it was a specific kind of branch or stick that—
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: —boarded off against curses or evil.
AMANDA: "So even to this day, locals always throw a stick onto the grave to prevent getting cursed by the witch."
JULIA: Yo.
AMANDA: "Hence why there's a pile of sticks to this day. Once my friend forgot to throw a stick onto the pile and got into a really toxic relationship soon after, so now I take extra care to be nice to the witch."
JULIA: Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. That makes sense.
AMANDA: "The pile of sticks is now as tall as a person, and it's many, many meters in diameter. Some hundreds of years ago, it used to be an Easter tradition to burn the pile of sticks, but either it wouldn't burn or reappeared in its entirety the next day."
JULIA: Hey, what? Hey, what?
AMANDA: I love this. Inkeri finishes, "While the place is a bit spooky, I really enjoy visiting the witch. I think she might get a little lonely."
JULIA: Yeah, probably. But, like, at least she's always acknowledged. It's not like you're walking past her grave and not thinking about her. You know what I mean?
AMANDA: Yeah. I just— I was really taken by this image of, you know, bury me where the first light of dawn strikes. You know, my mortal remains.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: It's beautiful.
JULIA: It's very trolls in Lord of the Rings, is how I would describe it, because they're the— I'm pretty sure trolls are the ones where— if they get caught in the light, they turn into stone.
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: So I think that's—
AMANDA: Nice.
JULIA: —kind of fun. That's kind of exciting.
AMANDA: I love that these men were like, "Yeah, we'll help the witch." And then they're like, "Oh."
JULIA: "Yeah."
AMANDA: "Oh, no. Oh, no."
JULIA: She probably promised them nice things or, like, paid them for their labor in some way.
AMANDA: I think it's really good. They're all like, "Yeah, the priest is full of shit. We'll help you. Don't worry."
JULIA: I also love that this witch was like, "I got one request, please bury me in the Christian graveyard."
AMANDA: Awesome.
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: Maybe a mental [8:20] for her.
JULIA: Maybe she's got non-witchy family members who are also buried there or, like, the majority of the— she wants to be a part of the community.
AMANDA: Maybe it's just nice, you know?
JULIA: Maybe it's just nice.
AMANDA: Some nice landscaping, peaceful, someone looking after you.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: It seems lovely.
JULIA: Uh-hmm. Yeah.
AMANDA: Well, here's the second story. It's titled This Rock is Spooky.
JULIA: Uh-huh.
AMANDA: "Growing up, I knew never to go on a frozen lake or into the forest after dark. Our lakes and the forest here in Finland are vast. You might get lost or worse. Both the forest and the lake are alive, and their inhabitants are not always kind to those who trespass."
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: "There is a big rock, aka glacial erratic. They are huge, near where I live."
JULIA: I love that phrase.
AMANDA: "It's a lovely place to camp, and you can hide from the weather underneath, and even light a fire beneath this rock."
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: "This is called the House of luck, Onnenkota in Finnish, and near it runs a small river. Now, a thousand years ago, perhaps some hundreds of years before the witch was alive from the last story."
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: "There lived a young maiden. She and her family practiced the old religion with the old gods. However, when some Christian missionaries came to the village, she met with them in secret. Christians were not welcomed with open arms by many at the time. She listened to their teachings, and soon after, got baptized in secret."
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: "Her father wanted her to marry a man who practiced the old religion like her own family did. As a newly converted Christian and someone who's firm in her belief, she didn't want to marry who she now saw as a pagan. She told this to her father, but instead of listening to her, he and the rest of the community burnt her alive at the rock."
JULIA: Very saint martyr vibes, you know?
AMANDA: Yes. Very dying for her righteous cause in her worldview.
JULIA: Big early Christian story.
AMANDA: "So she died, obviously, and was eventually forgotten about. Centuries later, some 300 years ago, a group of sailors had to camp out for the night near the village, as they were a little bit lost on the lake. They found a great place to camp. It was a big rock and underneath it, they were safe from bad weather. Amazing."
JULIA: Okay. But to be fair, my like— if I saw a big rock that I could crawl under, I would also be so excited.
AMANDA: Oh, hell yeah.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: To be lost on the seas in a storm, like amazing. "So they lit campfire where they saw evidence that others had lit one too, and had a merry evening. They eventually fell asleep."
JULIA: Nope. Bad.
AMANDA: Which part was bad? The merry evening or falling asleep?
JULIA: You can't fall asleep.
AMANDA: Oh, okay.
JULIA: You can't fall asleep. Someone has to stay up and be guarding.
AMANDA: Fair, fair. "So at night, the sailors woke up to a strange feeling. There was a weird glow in the forest. They felt a Presence, capital P, and quickly came out from underneath the rock. As they turned, they saw a young maiden dressed in white dancing upon the rock above them. No sound came from her feet, and the wind didn't ruffle her hair. The men got scared and ran deeper into the forest, fearing that the Lady of the Forest, Mielikki, had come to punish them for trespassing."
JULIA: Don't go deeper into the forest. No.
AMANDA: Right? Like at least go on to the ocean. I feel like all of my folkloric instincts tell me that, like, some things can't trespass moving water, and so, like, I might as well be in the lake.
JULIA: Correct.
AMANDA: "So the next morning, an unsuspecting villager went to fetch water from the small river behind her house. Instead of water, she found the bodies of the sailors."
JULIA: No.
AMANDA: "They had fallen in and drowned, and this is why the river is called the Creek of Death."
JULIA: Ooh.
AMANDA: "Tuonenoja in Finnish."
JULIA: Amanda, you're crushing the attempts at the Finnish. I really appreciate it.
AMANDA: Julia, I'm doing them with confidence after having Googled a few basics on Finnish pronunciation.
JULIA: Excellent.
AMANDA: "So perhaps the young maiden is lonely. I like to visit her, too, for this very reason. And now you might be asking, why is the rock called the House of Luck if the creek is called the Creek of Death? That doesn't make any sense, right?"
JULIA: Maybe it's ironic.
AMANDA: Maybe it's Maybelline, Julia. We don't know. "So there is a belief that if you spend an Autumn night under the rock, you will be in a serious relationship by the next midsummer."
JULIA: I was taking a sip of coffee at the time. Whoa.
AMANDA: Huge. "The ancient warlord buried under the theatre did it, and he got a beautiful wife soon after."
JULIA: Oh, good for him.
AMANDA: This has real your mom being like, "Listen, my friend from the gym, her daughter went on a blind date. They're engaged now." Blah, blah, blah.
JULIA: "That could work for you, too."
AMANDA: I'm loving this. "So when it's my time to consider marriage, I will camp under that rock and I'll email you if I ever get to it."
JULIA: Ooh.
AMANDA: "Thank you for reading. The folklore of my hometown would fill up several podcast episodes, so perhaps I'll write again. Stay creepy, stay cool, Inkeri."
JULIA: Please. Again, I— every time I beg people to write more. Please send more in. More, more, more, more, more.
AMANDA: That was fabulous. That's the appetizer. You know, there's a lot coming in the main course.
JULIA: Yum, yum, yum. All right. I have an email from Rachel, she/her. Titled Benevolent Matriarch Hauntings.
AMANDA: I love that. I hope to become a benevolent matriarch one day.
JULIA: One day, one day. All right. So Rachel writes, "Hello, first and foremost. Thank you so much for creating such a wonderfully creepy, cool space. I've been listening to you for about six years now, and you helped me enjoy my commute. After listening to your most recent urban legends episode, I think that's 96, I am doing my best to guess, I felt inspired to write in. I must admit at the top that I and at least two of my three siblings were creepy children."
AMANDA: Okay, okay. You're safe here.
JULIA: "I apparently spoke with angels. My sister had a whole other life in a pink house when she described in so much detail that her preschool teachers asked my parents if they— if there was a second family. And one of my brothers said an alien stole his toothbrush, although he maybe was just trying to get out of brushing his teeth. But I really wanted to share it with you two stories of instances from my less creepy adulthood that affirmed to me that those who love us never leave. The summer that my husband Bea and I eloped, his parents drove out from the Midwest to see us in Washington State. With them, they brought a truck full of bins and boxes and memorabilia from Bea's childhood bedroom, as well as a quilt that was made for him by his grandmother. The quilt also came with a wooden rack on which to hang it." Is that a thing, Amanda? You know more about—
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: —quilting than I do.
AMANDA: Yes. My grandma tends to put, like, pockets up at the top of her quilt so you could put it on a rod.
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: And then either, like, nail the rod to the wall, or these days, there are all kinds of cute, little quilt holders. But a rack where you could, like, fold it artfully and display it is totally a thing.
JULIA: Ooh, I love that. Well, Rachel thinks, "I believe that this quilt brought the spirit of Bea's grandmother to our home, at least for a little while. We finally set it up after a year during a bedroom remodel and hung it over our headboard. About a month later, one of our dogs got very sick while my husband was home alone with them. This is our rescue baby. She is not one to call attention to herself with her needs. Even when she needs to go outside, she will wait patiently until we offer a walk."
AMANDA: Oh.
JULIA: "So it was par for the course when she wasn't feeling well. Instead of going to her dad, she went to the master bathroom and was quietly miserable all by herself."
AMANDA: I'm attaching this picture.
JULIA: I'm taking this picture, and I don't like it. "When Bea was recounting finding her to me, he reported hearing a female voice say his name that seemed to come from the bedroom. Because he was home with just the dogs who haven't yet developed the ability to speak English."
AMANDA: Yet.
JULIA: "He followed the voice and found both of our pups, one of whom looked anxious, and the other one who had very clearly been sick."
AMANDA: Aw.
JULIA: "Because of this, he was able to get her to the vet, and she felt better in a few days. Even not being a believer, when I delicately suggested that it might have been his grandmother, Bea had no alternative explanation to provide."
AMANDA: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm.
JULIA: "It's very sweet. She's like, "Hey, psst, your dog's feeling sick, and she's not gonna tell you."
AMANDA: I know. It's like, "Oh, honey. Honey, over here, over here."
JULIA: "Come check on the dogs. Come check on the dogs."
AMANDA: So cute.
JULIA: "The other story is more of a ghostly activity log. On October 4th, almost a year before I'm writing this email, my mother passed away. My mom was one of my favorite people. She loved when I got into my more witchy habits and regularly asked me to read her tarot, claiming that it was a gift that ran in the family because her mother had reportedly had prophetic dreams."
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: Losing her was very difficult, but luckily, she found ways to visit me after her death. My mom used to say that there's a song for every moment and a moment for every song, and often sang both real songs and her side of the conversation." Adorable. I love people who make up silly songs kind of just on the fly. It's one of my favorite—
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: —like characteristics of a person. "When going through old voicemails from her, I found one that consisted of her singing Jolene in the most howling fashion in order to get my dogs to sing with her for my enjoyment."
AMANDA: Oh, mom.
JULIA: "After finding that, I heard Jolene probably six times that week on the radio, at the bakery and in the background of a TV show I was watching. And I knew it was her checking in and letting me know that everything would be okay. A more physical representation of her presence came after one morning where I lost one of the very small push back earrings from my ear." Like the, like, back of the earring.
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: "I didn't notice until later in the day, at which time I knew the likelihood of finding it was slim to none."
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: "I was pretty sure I knew when it had happened, so I did some looking around when I got home. I found the longer back piece on my side of the bed, but I could not find the earring itself. I resigned myself to it being lost, because, as we know from True Crime shows, after the first 24 hours, those are the most crucial."
AMANDA: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm.
JULIA: "Two days later, I had the house to myself, so I decided to take some time and try again. I took a flashlight this time, thinking it might reflect off the metal, but I didn't have a lot of hope. Just when I was about to give up, I found it, laying nearly centered on the floor in front of my dresser, as if to say, 'Here, it's right here.'"
AMANDA: You know, Julia, when I would lose something as a kid, and I'd be like, "Mom, I can't find my bola." She'd be like, "Okay, look with your jammy eyes," because my grandma was, like, so organized had, you know, everything in its place, and also, I think, had a lot more patience than—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: —me as a child. And so I'd be like, "Oh, okay." And then inevitably, find it later. So to me, I really associate the finding of precious lost objects with either St. Anthony if you're Catholic, or my specific grandma. So I love this, like, maternal gift of being like, take a breath, calm yourself, center yourself, you'll find it.
JULIA: I also love that kind of phenomenon, I'll call it, where it's like, "Oh—" you're— usually, you're saying it to your spouse, maybe your roommate, someone else and you're like, "Oh, can you grab that? It's in the drawer." They're staring at the drawer and they're like—
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: —"I don't see it. I don't see it. I've spent 10 minutes looking at this drawer, I don't see it." And then that other person goes and then comes over and immediately finds it. And you're like, "Damn. Damn. You got me."
AMANDA: You gotta look with your jammy eyes.
JULIA: You gotta look with your eyes. Yeah, we used to say that all the time at my house. I was like, "Did you look with your eyes? Did you look with your eyes, though?" Inevitably, the other person would come over and find the thing, so—
AMANDA: "Yeah, I guess I did not."
JULIA: Rachel continues, "This is especially odd, as we don't have a lot of floor space in our bedroom. We have a trail between the bathroom and the entrance to the room that leads between our dressers and the closet and our bed."
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: "But the space in front of my dresser is also next to the dog beds, where Bea had been kneeling in that space the night before to play with the pups. So wouldn't he have least felt it, or maybe accidentally moved it?"
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: "The last piece feels made up, but I promise it's true. While writing up this story for you, I went back to my messages where I shared the story with my friends to help me remember the details. The message on the day that I found the earring was sent on April 6th, but I had originally lost it on April 4th, six months after my mom passed away."
AMANDA: Oh.
JULIA: "That's all I have for now. Thank you again for all you do, Rachel."
AMANDA: Well, Rachel, thank you for writing in to us, and I'm glad that you can remember your mom on the anniversary of her passing, during a season in which it feels like it was really close to her and close to you, and that we can honor and remember her by airing the story a couple weeks after her anniversary.
JULIA: Yeah. I'm glad we can.
AMANDA: All right, Julia. Well, let's check that her earrings are in securely, a thing I do every few minutes.
JULIA: I'm wearing over the head earphones so I do not have earrings on.
AMANDA: And pop into the kitchen for a quick refill.
JULIA: Let's go.
[theme]
JULIA: Hey, it's Julia. And welcome to the refill. First off, let's thank our newest patron, BirdyTM. Thank you for joining us at patreon.com/spiritspodcast, where you're getting some cool rewards, like ad-free episodes, recipe cards, cocktails and mocktails for every episode, including also bonus urban legends episodes every single, gosh darn month. And the one that we're putting out this month on Halloween is a doozy. I really had a lot of fun recording it. And if you want to listen to that, you too can join us at patreon.com/spiritspodcast today and sign up and get some cool rewards. Check it out. That is patreon.com/spiritspodcast. Also, my recommendation for you this week is, hey, invite your friends over and do a little, like, horror movie, Halloween movie cocktail pairing. It's something that I've been doing with my friends recently. We both like— it's myself, my husband, and then another couple. We pick a theme, and we surprise the other couple with the movie that we picked, and then we also make a cocktail that pairs well with that movie that we picked, and it's very fun. It's a great way to just, like, hang out and have a good time and, like, try some new things, new movies, do cocktails. It's really fun, and it gets me into the spooky holiday spirit. So hey, try it out. Also, something I want you to try out is Multitude's newest show, Attach Your Resume. Attach Your Resume is a brand-new show from Multitude that interviews online creators about how their jobs work and how they got there. You can hear personal stories behind seismic events in digital media and learn what concrete steps we can take to build a sustainable media landscape hosted by longtime podcasters and business owners, Eric and our own, Amanda. Attach Your Resume proves that the best credential for deciding the future of media is actually making stuff. New episodes every Thursday until they run out of episodes and have to go make more. Subscribe to Attach Your Resume in your podcast app right now, right now. And then finally, we are sponsored by Shaker & Spoon. Shaker & Spoon is a subscription cocktail service that helps you learn how to make handcrafted cocktails right at home. Remember how I was saying earlier, it's really fun to make cocktails for yourself and your friends? Well, you can do that using Shaker & Spoon. Every box comes with enough ingredients to make three different cocktail recipes developed by world-class mixologists. All you need to do is buy one bottle of that month's spirit, and you have all you need to make 12 drinks at home. That is four drinks per three different cocktail recipes that they send you. It's incredibly cool. And at just $40 to $50 a month plus the cost of the bottle, it is a super cost-effective way to enjoy craft cocktails, and you can skip and cancel boxes at any time. Invite some friends over class of your night caps, or be the best house guest of all time with your Shaker & Spoon box. And you can get $20 off your first box at shakerandspoon.com/cool. That is shakerandspoon.com/cool. And now, let's get back to the show.
[theme]
JULIA: Amanda, we are back, and I wanted to ask you, it is spooky season. Have you been enjoying any particular spooky cocktails or bevies right now?
AMANDA: I had the great pleasure of visiting a friend down in Virginia near the Bold Rock Cidery, which is some of my favorite cider and they always have some incredible seasonal choices each year. So I essentially took flights just through their whole tap list and tried everything that they had on tap at the actual cidery.
JULIA: Hell yeah.
AMANDA: It was so good.
JULIA: Hell yeah. I am normally not a pumpkin spice girlie, and the only exception to that rule, truly, is pumpkin beer.
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: I love a pumpkin beer. Big fan in particular of the Pumking from Southern Tier, but one that I want to recommend that's kind of local to me, there is the Greenport Brewing Company.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: And they make a really good pumpkin spice beer called Leaf Pile, which is very evocative in its own sense. But this year, they actually made a, like, pastry style version of that called Leaf Pile Pie, which is like very pumpkin spice, but also has, like, notes of like vanilla and cocoa and cinnamon, and like all of these other, like, kind of Graham cracker-y crust flavors. And it is extremely good, and also 8.5%.
AMANDA: Love when you just, like, sip on the eight ounces of beer and be like, "This is me for the next hour and a half, baby."
JULIA: Yeah. And they're tall boy cans, too. So you're like, "I'm either splitting this with someone, or this is the rest of my night."
AMANDA: This is my whole night. Uh-hmm.
JULIA: I'm kind of into it. I really like it.
AMANDA: Me, too. Julia, would you be open to an urban legend that's also some follow-up to a recent episode of El Silbon?
JULIA: I love follow-ups.
AMANDA: Yay. This email came in hot and fresh from Carlos, titled El Silbon in the city?
JULIA: Ooh.
AMANDA: Not really. So Carlos, he/him, writes, "Hi, Spirits Team. Love the show. I've been wanting to write for an urban legends episode for a long time, but haven't experienced anything that I thought was truly spooky until the El Silbon episode. First off, kudos on telling the different versions and killing it on the sound design." Shout out, Bren.
JULIA: Shout out, Bren.
AMANDA: "Then I remembered something that happened to me when I was about 11 years old. Maybe it's fun enough to make it onto the show."
JULIA: Okay, okay.
AMANDA: "I was going to a slumber party to a friend's apartment in the Center of Caracas, Venezuela. Nothing like the plains where the story of El Silbon takes place, but that story had recently been featured on a terrifying episode of a popular horror TV show. Then, of course, it was told and retold in our classrooms, so we were all very familiar with the particular whistle that was used on the show."
JULIA: My favorite thing about being a kid is there's always that one kid who was allowed to watch the scary stuff that none of the other kids were allowed to watch.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: And so you were getting a lot of these stories secondhand from, like, what this kid remembered from the TV show that happened last night, or, like, the 60 minutes episode that they sat in on their parents watching or something like that. And there's nothing better than that weird, fucked up version of the story that the kid told via a game of telephone.
AMANDA: Yeah. Or, like, someone has an older sibling or a cousin, where it's like, "Oh, it's happened to my cousin, so whatever." I love that so much.
JULIA: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: "So a few friends canceled on this slumber party, and when everyone that had confirmed they would be there had arrived, we started playing a kind of, like, war game with toy guns in the apartment and in the space that was between the apartment door and the outside gate that would lead to the building's hallway."
JULIA: Okay, okay.
AMANDA: "We sometimes have extra gates made out of bars that lead to either one or two apartments on each floor for added security." So almost like a gate before a landing in an apartment building.
JULIA: Gotcha. Makes sense.
AMANDA: "So suddenly, me and a friend that were in that place outside the apartment door heard something and shouted to make everyone else shut up and listen."
JULIA: I love when kids tell other kids to shut up.
AMANDA: "As you can guess, it took a few tries, but we heard it distinctly. That was El Silbon's whistle. By that point, all of us were outside the apartment, frozen, didn't know what to do. A strong wind blew behind us, and wham, the door to the apartment was shut in the wind. And yes, the kid that lived there had left the keys inside, so we were stuck outside the apartment with El Silbon—"
JULIA: No.
AMANDA: "—whistling, terrified."
JULIA: No. The worst scenario. Straight out of a horror movie.
AMANDA: "a couple of the kids with us started to bang on the door as if it would, like, open because of their pleas, and the whistling continued through all of this. Then from the stairwell, we heard laughter, and from there, emerged one of the friends that had canceled, wiping tears of laughter off of his cheeks."
JULIA: Rude. Highly rude, sir.
AMANDA: "When we understood it was not El Silbon after all, but our stupid friend, who could whistle really good, we were pretty pissed, especially because we had to wait two hours outside of the apartment, and the friend was on the other side of the bars because no keys. We couldn't, you know, get him in until our friend's mom got home from work. Still don't know if it counts as an urban legend, TM TM, but I think it's amazing how open we were as kids to be influenced by media and stories, to believe that anything could happen to us any time. Because, yes, while El Silbon attacks lonely drunks and unfaithful men in the plains at night, why not punish a bunch of kids playing in an apartment building in the city, in the early afternoon? You know?"
JULIA: Why not?
AMANDA: "Kid logic."
JULIA: Kid logic.
AMANDA: "So keep doing what you do. Love from Venezuela, Carlos."
JULIA: I like this idea of like kid logic is, like "I'm doing something wrong, and so I deserve to be punished."
AMANDA: I mean, basically.
JULIA: Yeah, yeah.
AMANDA: I don't know if these kids were Catholic, though it strikes me as a very Catholic kid thing to think.
JULIA: Yeah. That's real Catholic guilt territory, for sure.
AMANDA: Well, thank you for writing in.
JULIA: All right, Amanda. I have one that is from Molly, but it's not quite from Molly.
AMANDA: Oh.
JULIA: Molly sent in a email titled The Green Lady, and she writes, "Hello, spooky, cool people. I've been wanting to share an urban legend with y'all, but the only one I knew was read on one of the first urban legends episodes, Virginia, the ghost of Southern Utah University. But I came across this story on Reddit, and I knew I had to share with y'all. I take zero credit for the story. Credit goes to Reddit user cricketboogie."
AMANDA: Great username.
JULIA: "Okay, so this is kind of creepy. I'm an adult that says I don't believe in ghosts and such. But then I think about this experience, and I wonder, what the fuck is wrong with me for being so stupid? I'd hardly call it a 'friend', quote, unquote, but when I was younger, like 12, I lived with my brother and his family. We moved to a house and one of my nieces, who was about four or five, would avoid certain corners of the house. She was scared of, quote, the green lady." Pretty much always the same corner in the family room, but on a couple of occasions, she'd move. So her big sister, about nine at the time, would pick on her. Throw her toys in that corner, et cetera. My little niece would avoid it like the plague. And then one day, her big sister pushed her into that corner." Now, I'm— again, only child mentality, so I don't know the dynamics of siblings very well, but if my younger sibling was ter— well, Amanda, you could speak to this. If one of your younger siblings was terrified of a corner in the house, would you, I guess, bully them in this way?
AMANDA: I mean, 100% that's what the older siblings there to do. Yeah.
JULIA: Okay, cool. Good to know. "One day, her big sister pushed her into this corner that she was afraid of. I swear, never in my life have I heard such a blood curdling scream."
AMANDA: Oh, no.
JULIA: "Never again have I yet and I hope to never hear that kind of scream again. She didn't even run away from the corner. She was backed into it, looking upwards. The fear had us scared, I think. My niece never messed with her little sister about that corner again, and none of us really fucked with that corner. Friends thought we were joking when they would come over and we casually would say, 'Oh, and stay away from that corner, because we're pretty sure an evil ghost lives there.'"
AMANDA: Haha. Yeah, but really don't.
JULIA: Haha, but really don't, please don't. I loved stories about, like, house hauntings where you're like, "Yeah, it's weird that my family feels a certain way about that corner of the house," and then a friend comes over and they're like, "What the fuck is wrong with that corner?"
AMANDA: Yeah. Always.
JULIA: That confirmation is always even more scary, I think.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: "So when did the green lady move? Here's the fucked up part. According to my niece, my brother and his wife were discussing moving out of the house. The green lady did not like that, and at bedtime, she followed them into their room. The other time, my sister-in-law got pregnant and the green lady got mad again."
AMANDA: Ah, competition.
JULIA: Yeah. I don't like. "She moved to the nursery and would stay in there. During this time that we lived there, about two and a half years, my sister-in-law was having difficulties with the pregnancy. And when she had the baby, all kind of shit went wrong. And the baby was in the NICU, and it was at least a month before he got to come home. Not only that, her mom, who use a walker, falls into the fucking pool and injures herself during that time, and we can't keep any of our pets alive anymore. Like several of the dogs got sick and passed away. The cat got injured, the guinea pig got sick, and weirdly, like all the pet rats they had were fine."
AMANDA: Okay.
JULIA: "Finally, we moved the fuck out. But we all agreed that even after all this time, something was wrong with that place. And whatever that green bitch was, she was fucking evil, and was probably what made so many horrible things go wrong while we lived there." And then that's the end of the story. Molly says, "Hope you enjoyed." Molly, not enjoyed.
AMANDA: Molly, I didn't enjoy, but I do appreciate your curation. You know, we're not one of those podcasts that just reads Reddit posts and reacts to them. It is, you know, a thing that podcasts do.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: But I think a well-curated urban legend, we're here to give our expert commentary on. And this one, Julia, makes me actually hopeful, because if all the bad shit stopped when they moved out of the house, that means everyone's better now.
JULIA: And it also means that it didn't follow them to where they needed to go.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: I also— I'm so curious too, whenever like a ghost is described as, like, the blank woman or like the blank man, like the descriptor of it, and usually it's a color. I'm like, is that the color they're wearing?
AMANDA: Ah.
JULIA: Are they just, like, all green? Like, is it rotting flesh? Like, what is the green aspect of this lady that this five-year-old was saying, "The green lady."? You know?
AMANDA: Well, when we got on the call this morning, Julia, you said, "You're so green." So I don't—
JULIA: Oh, no.
AMANDA: —know if I'm the green lady, if she's the green lady, if I should never wear green on this podcast again.
JULIA: I think you can— I think green looks great on you, Amanda. You should totally wear green on the podcast. I just don't think that— when we're describing this green lady, I'm curious if it is green being worn or if there is a green aspect to this ghost. And I like the idea of, like, green rotting flesh.
AMANDA: We didn't even think about the envy. Maybe she's envious, that someone else—
JULIA: Oh.
AMANDA: —is becoming a mother in this household, hence all of the, you know, involvement and trouble.
JULIA: Or the fact that she was, like, mad that they were leaving. She's envious that they can leave, perhaps.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: Ooh. Interesting, interesting. I just like the color choice as well, because usually we get like, ah, the woman in white or the woman in black, and it's usually not green. So—
AMANDA: Usually not.
JULIA: —I'm very interested by green being the choice. All right, Amanda. What do you got for me? What do you got for me?
AMANDA: All right. Here is a another installment from our buddy Leo, he/they, with the subject I'm apparently genetically terrifying.
JULIA: That's really cool. Go on.
AMANDA: So you may remember that Leo's written us two emails about the aquarium ghosts that they work with.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: And while this is a different kind of story, he was very happy to write back in again.
JULIA: Awesome.
AMANDA: "So when I was younger, my parents, siblings and I lived about a 24-hour drive away from any of our extended family, except for our Uncle Chuck and Aunt Becky, who lives about eight hours away."
JULIA: That's still very far.
AMANDA: Still very far, and also great names for an uncle and aunt. "So, obviously, whenever we visited anybody, it was a really big deal. And so a lot of the times when we would visit my mom's parents, our cousins would spend a night with us there as well. People, like, made an occasion of us visiting.|
JULIA: Cool.
AMANDA: "So since there weren't enough beds for every single person and kid to have their own, the kids would often get paired up to sleep in the same bed."
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: "I always wanted to share the bed in the Blue Room with my older cousin Hailey. But after a couple of visits, Hailey decided she didn't want to do that anymore."
JULIA: Oh.
AMANDA: "'I don't want to sleep with Rosie,' she'd say. 'She always stares at me. It's creepy.' And that's how I learned that I sleep with my eyes open."
JULIA: Oh, no, Leo.
AMANDA: "Not the 'normal', quote-unquote, amount of eyes open that a couple Googles will have you think, there's like a little sliver, like a kid who's pretending to be asleep, but still wants to see their parents peeking into their room, like that level of asleep. But instead, wide and attentive, like I was fully awake."
JULIA: Terrifying. I hate that.
AMANDA: "I've had friends at sleepovers tell me I sat up, mumbled something, and flipped up the hood of my onesie before laying back down and ignoring my friends screaming at me in fright."
JULIA: This is, like, every camp story that we've told on this podcast, too, where there's just one terrifying sleeper in your cabin and you for— and you remember that for the rest of your days.
AMANDA: "Once, just over a year ago, I woke up in the morning wrapped in a blanket that had never before been in my room. I asked my mom about it, and she told me that I had come into the living room, grabbed the blanket, looked her directly in the eyes, and said, 'I'm cold.'"
JULIA: Oh, no.
AMANDA: "I'd waited for her to tell me I could take the blanket before walking away to go back up to my room. Mom decided to check on me about 15 minutes later, where she found me cocooned in the blanket that I'd taken with the two larger, softer blankets I usually sleep with, balled up at the end of the bed."
JULIA: Not good enough, not good enough for sleeping, Leo.
AMANDA: Right? Or they had, like, kicked them off in the night and then been like, "There's no blankets here." And then, like, had to go get them somewhere. "So after my mom told me what happened, she told me, 'It's so funny. I did the same thing in college.'"
JULIA: Oh, no. Genetically terrifying. Here it is.
AMANDA: "Her roommate would come in after she fell asleep, and my mom would sit up and have a full intelligent conversation while still asleep."
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: "Apparently, she doesn't do it anymore, though, so I might grow out of it? I'm not sure exactly what's going on in my sleep, but knowing it's genetic, simultaneously makes it better and also so much worse. All I know is I'll never complain about my little sister screaming in her sleep from nightmares ever. Always conspiring, Leo Rose."
JULIA: Oh, I love that. Amanda, can I share the one time I can remember in childhood sleep walking? Because I—
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: —don't think I've ever sleep walked, slept walked, I don't know, besides this incident.
AMANDA: Okay.
JULIA: And it was so funny. I was a little kid at the time, like I was definitely potty trained at this point, you know?
AMANDA: But, like, sub-school age, like, real, like, four-ish?
JULIA: Right. I— maybe I was like six, you know what I mean? But I remember having a dream where I was in one of those dreams, you know, where you have to pee so badly that in the dream, you're like, "I have to pee."
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: I remember getting out of bed, walking to the bathroom, sitting on the toilet, and peeing. That's apparently not what happened. Apparently, sleepwalking Julia overshot it a little bit and then went to squat in the middle of my parents' room and started peeing. And they were like, "Whoa! No!" And then picked me up, put me in the bathroom. And my dad was like, "What the fuck?"
AMANDA: Well—
JULIA: "What the fuck, kiddo?"
AMANDA: That's pretty funny.
JULIA: Yeah. So— and I was really confused, because all of a sudden he was lifting me.
AMANDA: You were aiming for the right thing, but yeah, it must have been confusing to wake up mid-pee and mid-lift.
JULIA: Yeah. It was very funny.
AMANDA: Like a dog, where you're like, "Not there." And lift the dog.
JULIA: "Not there. Outside." Yeah, it was— I was basically the dog in that situation.
AMANDA: Oh, Julia.
JULIA: Oh. All right. I think I have one more, Amanda. And—
AMANDA: Let's do it.
JULIA: —this is actually kind of interesting, because it does make reference to a sleep situation.
AMANDA: Okay.
JULIA: This is from Flick, she/her, and this is titled Manly quarantine station/explanation for team ignorance.
AMANDA: Okay.
JULIA: "Hi, friends. I am a longtime listener, and I've been wanting to write in for a while, but I don't really believe in ghosts, so I haven't had anything creepy happen to me, until my cousin came up from Melbourne, and I, wanting to be the perfect host, naturally took her to a ghost tour at the old Manly quarantine station." Now, I don't know what this is, so I'm gonna very quickly look with— I typed this in and the autofill said, "ghost tour," immediately after, so that is promising.
AMANDA: All right. So it's a location, Manly?
JULIA: So this is a quarantine station on the edge of Sydney Harbor.
AMANDA: Oh, for like people or livestock coming into the country?
JULIA: Quarantine for early immigrants who might have been afflicted with disease, according to the New South Wales National Parks website.
AMANDA: Well, thank you, NSW Parks.
JULIA: "The night was going by without any hitch, no unexpected flying objects, or shadowy figures. Towards the end of the tour, our guide walked us to one of the old cottages and let us explore before giving us any details." I love when ghost tour peoples do these, where they're like, "Oh, yeah, just go in, look around. By the way, fucking spooky shit happened in here."
AMANDA: You look around, and you're like, "Oh, very nice,” They're like, "Did you notice the window?" And you're like, "I did notice the window!" Like, I'm so suggestible. I'm so ready.
JULIA: So she continues, "There was really nothing strange about the cottage. It was old, sure, and a little run down, but that was to be expected. I walked into the main living room and then the first bedroom, but stopped at the second. I didn't see anything beyond the empty room, but everything in my being screamed, "Do not enter."
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: "My cousin tried to squeeze past me to follow the other patrons in, but I grabbed her arm and dragged her back. She looked at me strangely, as she, too, does not believe in ghosts. Thankfully, she turned around and we explored the rest of the cottage without any incident. I even went back to the second bedroom, telling myself I was being stupid. But upon getting to the threshold again, I could not force myself to go in."
AMANDA: Listen to yourself, man. Listen.
JULIA: "The tour guide gathered us back into the living area. As he started talking about the cottage, a woman screamed from the back of the group. She had been standing in front of the second bedroom when she felt someone grab her, pulling her into the room."
AMANDA: Okay. I was judgmental at first, Julia, but I would also scream.
JULIA: "The tour guide asked all of the women to step towards the center of the room, away from the door. He said the cottage had belonged to a man who murdered several women, and that one of the female guides left after being somehow locked in the second bedroom, and it had taken several hours before they were able to get her back out."
AMANDA: Oh, shit.
JULIA: That is scary.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: Flick says, "Thanks for the heads up, Mr. Tour Guide, maybe a warning before letting the women walk through the cottage all willy-nilly, but that's just me."
AMANDA: That's so funny.
JULIA: "I still don't believe in ghosts, but definitely think people can get a vibe for things. I'm sure there's some sort of scientific explanation for that. As a side note, I decided to write this after listening to urban legends." I think it's 65, it's in Roman numerals. I don't know. "And the person who would hear a shower at night, but then no one was there. I have some kind of sleep condition. It's never been formally diagnosed, so I'm not entirely sure if there's a name for it, but it's basically the opposite of sleep paralysis."
AMANDA: Oh.
JULIA: "I can get caught between being awake and asleep, acting out my dreams as if I'm sleepwalking, but I remember all of it."
AMANDA: Oh.
JULIA: "These can last several minutes. And while they sound fun, they are mostly terrifying."
AMANDA: I believe you.
JULIA: "I have a bunch of stories about this if you're interested, but for now, some of the small ones are just auditory hallucinations? I hear the TV on when it's not. Someone opening the cutlery drawer or upstairs cupboard when there's no one home. The most common one I hear is whispering." Terrifying. "But the more I concentrate, the more I wake up, and thus, the less I can hear. For team ignorance, whenever I hear a story similar to the one with the shower, I always think of the noises I hear when I'm caught in between. Love the podcast. Recommend it to anyone with ears. I think you're all great. Stay creepy, stay cool. Flick."
AMANDA: Flick, thank you so much. That was an incredible story. Flick is such an Australian name, so, like, I'm already obsessed. And then lastly, that gives me an idea, Julia, what if we try to find a, like, neurologist of sleep?
JULIA: Ooh.
AMANDA: Like somebody who studies, like, how people fall asleep and why. And we can ask them all of our questions about why all the spooky liminal shit happens.
JULIA: Amanda, that would be so cool. I would love to talk to someone about, like, sleep paralysis and, like, shadow figures and, like, how to combat them, I guess. I think that would be really—
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: —interesting. Because I—
AMANDA: Or at least to understand them.
JULIA: Yeah, because I think a lot of the, like, spooky things that happen to us or that happen in a lot of these stories that are submitted by our listeners, probably have some connection to the weird stuff our brain does when we are asleep or partially asleep.
AMANDA: Yeah. Okay. So I'll work on— I'll get into JSTOR. I'll get into, you know, to Google Scholar, see what I can get.
JULIA: Okay.
AMANDA: But if anyone happens to study or know someone who studies sleep, please get in touch.
JULIA: We should also ask Dr. Moiya McTier. She might know someone.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm. She knows all of science. That's true.
JULIA: She knows all of science. That is true. Famously.
AMANDA: Well, Julia, I am so glad that we have decided to make it a four out of five urban legend October. I can't believe we also get five Wednesdays in October. It always feels like a special little gift to us specifically.
JULIA: It does. It does. Specifically to me, this is my month.
AMANDA: It is. It is.
JULIA: This is my time.
AMANDA: And listeners, next time you hear ghostly whispering when you're trapped between sleep and wake, remember—
JULIA: Stay creepy.
AMANDA: —stay cool.
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