Forbidden Island

We do a little traveling on our tour through the Cabinet today. First, some sightseeing, and then a little snack. Enjoy!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to Aaron Benky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is
full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,
all of these amazing tales are right there on display,
just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet

(00:27):
of Curiosities. Spend enough time at sea and your eyes
could start to play tricks on you. You might see
phantom sea creatures in the distance, or even a massive
land floating above the water. The latter is called the
Fata Morgana and was named after Morgan le Fay, the

(00:50):
powerful sorceress from our theory and legend. It was believed
that her powers had caused fairy castles to sprout above
the waves. For apps, Morgan le Fay was behind another
mysterious ocean mass, one that has confounded explorers and cartographers
for hundreds of years. What was nothing more than a
speck on a map became the legend that launched a

(01:12):
thousand ships. One of those ships belonged to John Nesbitt.
Nesbitt was a soldier after fighting in the Thirty Years
War during the seventeenth century. He probably should have settled
down with his wife and family back in Scotland, but
Nesbitt couldn't shake his sense of duty. He continued to
serve in battles between sixteen sixty six and sixteen seventy

(01:33):
nine before being labeled an outlaw for his extreme religious views. However,
while captaining his own ship one day in sixteen seventy four,
he noticed something in the water. His map showed it
as nothing more than a tiny circle an island. It
had appeared on maps since the mid fourteenth century, yet
no one had ever stepped foot on it before. On

(01:55):
this day, John Nesbitt would be the first. He and
his crew headed toward it. They dropped anchor once they
had gotten close enough and went out in rowboats to investigate.
Once they came ashore, the men lit a fire and
observed the local wildlife. Enormous black rabbits hopped around everywhere.
There was also a large castle made of stone. It's
only occupant, a man believed to be a wizard. As

(02:18):
they explored the island, the crew met another old man
who would lived there for quite a long time. He
gave them gold and silver to take back to their ship.
When Nesbitt told others back on land about his expedition.
He was met with one of two reactions, either laughter
at his expense or more questions than he had answers to.
Another captain, who heard Nesbitt's stories decided to see for himself.

(02:42):
He and his crew sailed to the island and surprisingly
had the same experience. They saw the castle, the rabbits,
and met the old man, who bestowed them with gold
and silver, just like Nesbit. After that, as sightings of
the island shrunk, so would its appearance on nautical maps.
No and saw it for two hundred years, and then

(03:03):
in eighteen seventy two, explorers Robert o'flairti and T. J.
Westdrop claimed to have spotted it from their ship. West
Drop allegedly visited on his own three separate times, before
bringing his family along on the voyage. There, the west
Drops said the island appeared and then disappeared without a trace.
According to the legends, the island only appears once every

(03:25):
seven years, when the fog that normally surrounds it lifts,
allowing sailors to catch a glimpse. And the name of
this mythical land they called it Brazil. No, not that Brazil.
It was also known as High Brazil, named for Brazil,
the Celtic name for the high King of the world.
Maps dating from thirty five all the way up to

(03:47):
the eighteen hundreds positioned it about two hundred miles off
the coast of Ireland, out in the Atlantic Ocean. There's
a long history of mythology and folklore surrounding the island,
aside from the rabbits and the magic, and it's been
said that Brazil is also the Irish version of Mount Olympus,
home to the gods of old. No one has seen

(04:07):
it since and you won't find it on any modern map,
but some say it's still out there waiting to be found.
An island shrouded and missed as well as mystery. When

(04:32):
we die, we leave behind more than we realize. There
are often grieving family members, perhaps a beloved pet now
without its owner, And in far too many cases we
have debts that have gone unpaid. Most debts will be
forgiven or collected by the banks through various means. Other debts, however,
aren't waived so easily. They need more than a signature

(04:54):
to dismiss them. These debts require a unique kind of
payment in the ledge of Rattling Hope, England, Richard Munslow
made himself a reputation for collecting those debts. He was
unlike a lot of folks in his trade, which favored
the poor. He was far from it, in fact, having
been born to a wealthy family and his farm was

(05:14):
quite successful. But Munslow loved his neighbors and wanted to
do something for them at one of the saddest points
in their lives. So whenever one of them died, Munslow
would venture to the graveyard and eat over the body.
You see, a person who died suddenly didn't have the
time to confess their sins to a priest or to God,

(05:35):
thus leaving their souls impure. An impure soul was unable
to move on to heaven. However, there was a way
for the soul to be cleansed after the fact. It
was believed that consuming a meal over the dead would
absolve them of their sins, which would then pass on
to the sin eater, instead allowing the soul to move on.

(05:55):
The practice of sin eating had existed for thousands of
years in various forms. In early Mesoamerica, a dying person
could confess their sins to the Aztec goddess of fertility
and motherhood, who would consume them and purify the soul
that specific term. Though sin eater originated in Wales as
a practice, it gained popularity in specific parts of England

(06:17):
throughout the fifteenth century all the way up until the
eighteen hundreds. Aside from helping the dead move on, the
act of eating one sins would also prevent restless spirits
from tormenting the living, which was a good benefit if
you ask me. Sin eating was originally a paid job
performed by the poor. No one of any wealth or

(06:37):
status would take on the sins of others, which brought
with it the stigma of being a pawn to the
devil himself. Sin Eaters were thought to be blasphemers and
practitioners of black magic. They also became targets for the
Catholic Church, who had cornered the market on absolution. Anyone
caught practicing sin eating could be sentenced to death. The

(06:58):
same was true for folks who hire senators in the
first place, as they had gone against God's will. But
Mounslow didn't mind any of that. He tended to his
farm and occasionally stopped by the graveyard to break bread
with the recently deceased, and his neighbors loved him for it.
He wasn't shunned by them for cavorting with spirits or
working with the devil. He performed a necessary service and

(07:21):
was beloved for it. Sin eating as a practice started
to die out in the mid nineteenth century, but carried
on in some of the smaller towns. The locals found
it an important part of the greeting process. Richard Munslow,
though did not die out until the nineteenth century. Some
believed that he continued the practice out of respect for
his deceased children, who had passed away of scarlet fever

(07:44):
when they were very young. Munslow lived until nineteen oh six,
becoming the last living senator in England. The village of
Rattling Hope erected a memorial for their hometown hero, which
had fallen into disrepair over the years. In two thousand ten,
the town got together to restore it to its former glory,
a lasting homage to the man who sacrificed his mortal

(08:06):
soul for his friends and neighbors. And while they had
no qualms about bringing Manslow's grave site back from the dead,
they apparently drew the line at resurrecting his occupation. Some leftovers,
it seems, just aren't worth saving. I hope you've enjoyed
today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for

(08:29):
free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show
by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created
by me Aaron Manky in partnership with how Stuff Works.
I make another award winning show called Lore, which is
a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can
learn all about it over at the World of Lore

(08:50):
dot com. And until next time, stay curious. Ye