October 29, 2019 • 10 mins
What better way to celebrate the week of Halloween than a tour through the Cabinet, complete with ghosts and ghouls.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
is an open book, all of these amazing tales right
there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome
to the Cabinet of Curiosities. Photography during the late eighteen
(00:29):
hundreds and the turn of the centuries saw a drastic
leap in progress from the pinhole cameras and digara types
of the past. Peter Houston invented the first role film camera,
in which he then licensed to George Eastman of the
Eastman Kodak Company. From then on, photographers of all kinds,
from amateurs to professionals, were able to capture special events
(00:50):
and daily life with the press of a button. However,
speed wasn't everything. There was something about those old cameras,
the way that they could capture the truth of a moment.
One photographer used her camera to capture more than a moment,
though she managed to snap a picture of something entirely unexpected.
In eight Wellington Henry Stapleton Cotton, also known as Lord Combermere,
(01:15):
was killed while visiting London. He had been injured in
a horse drawn carriage accident, and weeks after the incident,
a blood clot in his heart resulted in cardiac arrest.
Four days later. He was laid to rest in the
town of Wrenbury in Cheshire, County England. His wife's sister,
Sybil Corbett, had been staying with them for a short
time when he passed away. She joined Lady Combermere at
(01:35):
the funeral, providing support for her grieving sister. However, before
she left the house, she set up a camera in
the abbey library. It was an older camera, unlike the
small point and shoot camera's Eastman Kodak was producing back
in the United States, it required any subjects sitting in
front of it to remain completely still for the duration
of the photograph. Miss Corbett decided to avoid the hassle
(01:58):
of a fidgety subject and let the camera capture the
empty library. Almost no one was in the house. Staff
were either attending the funeral or relegated to their quarters
until the family had returned from the cemetery. The cameras
shutter remained open for an hour. When Miss Corbett returned
to the abbey, she packed it up and stowed it
until she was able to have the photographic clay inside developed.
(02:21):
Eight months later, she got her chance, and upon examining
the photos she had taken, noticed something odd about the
picture of the library. For one, the light from the
windows had blown out much of the left side of
the shot, casting a blinding glow across the bookshelves and
some of the furniture. And seated in the chair in
the foreground was a person, well not a whole person.
(02:43):
He was transparent, almost a blur. The visage wore a
high collared shirt and black cloak. His hair was white,
and he had a beard his Corbett showed the photo
to her sister, who confirmed that it was, in fact
the late Lord Combermere. Corbett couldn't believe it. She went
back to check the date the photograph had been taken
and was shocked to find that as the camera was
(03:03):
capturing the ghostly image of Lord Combermere, everyone else was
attending his funeral. Very few people within the family knew
about the picture, and for several years things stayed that way.
Then in a secret society of paranormal researchers known as
the Society for Psychical Research published a journal detailing Ms.
(03:24):
Corbett's fantastic photo. It turns out a friend of hers
had contacted them about looking into whether Lady combamere sister
had in fact captured a ghost on film. The plate
she'd used to take the photo had been prepackaged and
had not been exposed prior to the day's events. She
had also only ever taken pictures of landscapes and buildings,
(03:44):
both subjects devoid of people. The obvious answer, then, was
that someone in the house had taken a brief rest
in the chair before getting up again. However, the person
sitting in the chair did not resemble any of the
men who might have been in the house at the time.
There was something else, though, too. While the top half
of Lord Combermere's ghost was visible in the photograph, his
legs were not. They weren't hidden behind anything. They simply
(04:08):
weren't present, which made sense given his condition. Just before
he died, the horse drawn carriage that had injured him
had also crushed his legs. A relative who attended him
before his death claimed to a reporter at the time
that his legs had been so badly damaged he would
never walk again. Perhaps that's why he needed to sit
(04:29):
in the first place. Evil's origins are nebulous. The debates
over nature versus nurture whether a person is made evil
or born That way has raged on since the beginning
(04:51):
of time. For some, their environment and youth shapes who
they become as an adult, where others it's as though
the darkness is a part of from birth. One man, however,
was so terrible he was considered the first in a
new breed of evil. His story had been told to
William Danwberg by a local monk who had witnessed the
(05:12):
event's firsthand. William was a medieval chronicler in England during
the twelfth century, and the monk had lived near an
antis castle where the events had taken place. A man
who had performed terrible deeds in York had fled to
the castle to hide. The lord of the castle welcomed
him in, providing him shelter from the people chasing him.
When the heat died down, the man ventured into town,
(05:34):
eventually finding a woman with whom he could settle down
and start a new life. But there was trouble in paradise.
Rumors had begun to circulate about the wife that she'd
been seeing another man behind her husband's back. Determined to
get to the bottom of things, the man told his
wife that he'd be leaving for a trip and would
be gone for several days. Once he was gone, however,
(05:55):
the truth about his wife was finally revealed. As she
welcomed her lover into their home. Her husband saw the
whole thing. He'd snuck back into the house and hid
among the rafters in the bedroom waiting. He was furious
about the revelation, and in his rage, he lost his
footing he fell off a beam and landed hard beside
(06:16):
the bed. His wife's lover ran out while she hurried
to her husband's aid, telling him he must have bumped
his head rather hard as there had been no one
else in the house. Whatever he thought he'd seen must
have been a hallucination from the fall. But the man
actually had hurt himself quite badly, and he was ordered
to strict bed rest until he was healed. The monk
(06:38):
went to visit him. He had heard the stories of
what the man had done in his previous life. He
urged him to confess his sins and take holy communions
so that he would be free of spiritual burden if
his condition took a turn for the worse. The man, though,
couldn't be bothered with the monk's request. He knew what
he had seen, and no amount of misdirection could make
(06:59):
him forget his wife had been with another man in
their bed, and he couldn't rest until he had gotten justice.
He told the monk he'd consider his request the following day,
but as the old saying goes, don't put off till
tomorrow what you can do today. The man's condition did,
in fact worsen, and during the nights he passed away.
(07:20):
Despite not confessing his sins or taking the Eucharist, the
man was given a Christian burial, and perhaps that's where
the monk's plan had gone wrong. A man with as
much unquenched evil coursing through his veins could not be
stopped by such a ceremonial end. The nights after his
burial he rose from the dead. He wandered all over
(07:42):
town with a pack of barking dogs in tow, exacting
vengeance on anyone in his path. Villagers refused to go
out at night for fear of being attacked. Everyone locked
their doors at night. Each evening he emerged, his rotting
corpse growing worse. Its stench caried with it a cloud
of death and decay that killed those who got too close.
(08:04):
Many who survived moved far away, leaving those who chose
to stay to deal with the undead monster tormenting their town.
The monk held gathering of other religious men from all
over Europe to help him deal with it. However, some
in the town couldn't wait any longer. The problem had
to be dealt with immediately, so while the religious men
(08:24):
ate and brainstormed, two brothers took matters into their own hands.
Their father had died after coming in contact with the
walking corpse, and they didn't want anyone else meeting a
similar fate. Shovels in hand, they went to the cemetery
where the man had been buried. It didn't take them
long to dig him up. He hadn't been buried as
deeply as they had expected, and he didn't look the
(08:47):
way a dead body was supposed to look. Rather than
a rotting husk of dried skin and bones, he was
instead filled with blood. The shroud he had been buried
with was ripped up as well. Something was odd about
the ave. It had been disturbed from the inside. The
brothers stabbed the corpse, the blood inside oozed all over.
(09:09):
They hauled the body out of the grave and took
it just outside of town, where they built a funeral
pyre To finish it off once and for all. The
brothers beat the body repeatedly with the shovel, before ripping
its heart out and tossing the body and the hearts
on the fire. Once the corps had been reduced to ash,
the two men told the monk and his companions at
the church of what they had done. The monster was gone.
(09:32):
No one else died from the evil man's poisonous clouds
after that, but something else had emerged that night. It
wouldn't be given a name for another five hundred years
or so, but the Monk's story had given birth to
a legend as immortal as the man it was based on.
The monk and the townsfolk had faced off against what
is widely considered to be the first known vampire. I
(09:59):
hope you've been joined today's guided tour of the Cabinet
of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.
The show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership
with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
called Lore, which is a podcast book series and television show,
(10:22):
and you can learn all about it over at the
World of lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious. Yeah,
Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
is an open book, all of these amazing tales right
there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome
to the Cabinet of Curiosities. Photography during the late eighteen
(00:29):
hundreds and the turn of the centuries saw a drastic
leap in progress from the pinhole cameras and digara types
of the past. Peter Houston invented the first role film camera,
in which he then licensed to George Eastman of the
Eastman Kodak Company. From then on, photographers of all kinds,
from amateurs to professionals, were able to capture special events
(00:50):
and daily life with the press of a button. However,
speed wasn't everything. There was something about those old cameras,
the way that they could capture the truth of a moment.
One photographer used her camera to capture more than a moment,
though she managed to snap a picture of something entirely unexpected.
In eight Wellington Henry Stapleton Cotton, also known as Lord Combermere,
(01:15):
was killed while visiting London. He had been injured in
a horse drawn carriage accident, and weeks after the incident,
a blood clot in his heart resulted in cardiac arrest.
Four days later. He was laid to rest in the
town of Wrenbury in Cheshire, County England. His wife's sister,
Sybil Corbett, had been staying with them for a short
time when he passed away. She joined Lady Combermere at
(01:35):
the funeral, providing support for her grieving sister. However, before
she left the house, she set up a camera in
the abbey library. It was an older camera, unlike the
small point and shoot camera's Eastman Kodak was producing back
in the United States, it required any subjects sitting in
front of it to remain completely still for the duration
of the photograph. Miss Corbett decided to avoid the hassle
(01:58):
of a fidgety subject and let the camera capture the
empty library. Almost no one was in the house. Staff
were either attending the funeral or relegated to their quarters
until the family had returned from the cemetery. The cameras
shutter remained open for an hour. When Miss Corbett returned
to the abbey, she packed it up and stowed it
until she was able to have the photographic clay inside developed.
(02:21):
Eight months later, she got her chance, and upon examining
the photos she had taken, noticed something odd about the
picture of the library. For one, the light from the
windows had blown out much of the left side of
the shot, casting a blinding glow across the bookshelves and
some of the furniture. And seated in the chair in
the foreground was a person, well not a whole person.
(02:43):
He was transparent, almost a blur. The visage wore a
high collared shirt and black cloak. His hair was white,
and he had a beard his Corbett showed the photo
to her sister, who confirmed that it was, in fact
the late Lord Combermere. Corbett couldn't believe it. She went
back to check the date the photograph had been taken
and was shocked to find that as the camera was
(03:03):
capturing the ghostly image of Lord Combermere, everyone else was
attending his funeral. Very few people within the family knew
about the picture, and for several years things stayed that way.
Then in a secret society of paranormal researchers known as
the Society for Psychical Research published a journal detailing Ms.
(03:24):
Corbett's fantastic photo. It turns out a friend of hers
had contacted them about looking into whether Lady combamere sister
had in fact captured a ghost on film. The plate
she'd used to take the photo had been prepackaged and
had not been exposed prior to the day's events. She
had also only ever taken pictures of landscapes and buildings,
(03:44):
both subjects devoid of people. The obvious answer, then, was
that someone in the house had taken a brief rest
in the chair before getting up again. However, the person
sitting in the chair did not resemble any of the
men who might have been in the house at the time.
There was something else, though, too. While the top half
of Lord Combermere's ghost was visible in the photograph, his
legs were not. They weren't hidden behind anything. They simply
(04:08):
weren't present, which made sense given his condition. Just before
he died, the horse drawn carriage that had injured him
had also crushed his legs. A relative who attended him
before his death claimed to a reporter at the time
that his legs had been so badly damaged he would
never walk again. Perhaps that's why he needed to sit
(04:29):
in the first place. Evil's origins are nebulous. The debates
over nature versus nurture whether a person is made evil
or born That way has raged on since the beginning
(04:51):
of time. For some, their environment and youth shapes who
they become as an adult, where others it's as though
the darkness is a part of from birth. One man, however,
was so terrible he was considered the first in a
new breed of evil. His story had been told to
William Danwberg by a local monk who had witnessed the
(05:12):
event's firsthand. William was a medieval chronicler in England during
the twelfth century, and the monk had lived near an
antis castle where the events had taken place. A man
who had performed terrible deeds in York had fled to
the castle to hide. The lord of the castle welcomed
him in, providing him shelter from the people chasing him.
When the heat died down, the man ventured into town,
(05:34):
eventually finding a woman with whom he could settle down
and start a new life. But there was trouble in paradise.
Rumors had begun to circulate about the wife that she'd
been seeing another man behind her husband's back. Determined to
get to the bottom of things, the man told his
wife that he'd be leaving for a trip and would
be gone for several days. Once he was gone, however,
(05:55):
the truth about his wife was finally revealed. As she
welcomed her lover into their home. Her husband saw the
whole thing. He'd snuck back into the house and hid
among the rafters in the bedroom waiting. He was furious
about the revelation, and in his rage, he lost his
footing he fell off a beam and landed hard beside
(06:16):
the bed. His wife's lover ran out while she hurried
to her husband's aid, telling him he must have bumped
his head rather hard as there had been no one
else in the house. Whatever he thought he'd seen must
have been a hallucination from the fall. But the man
actually had hurt himself quite badly, and he was ordered
to strict bed rest until he was healed. The monk
(06:38):
went to visit him. He had heard the stories of
what the man had done in his previous life. He
urged him to confess his sins and take holy communions
so that he would be free of spiritual burden if
his condition took a turn for the worse. The man, though,
couldn't be bothered with the monk's request. He knew what
he had seen, and no amount of misdirection could make
(06:59):
him forget his wife had been with another man in
their bed, and he couldn't rest until he had gotten justice.
He told the monk he'd consider his request the following day,
but as the old saying goes, don't put off till
tomorrow what you can do today. The man's condition did,
in fact worsen, and during the nights he passed away.
(07:20):
Despite not confessing his sins or taking the Eucharist, the
man was given a Christian burial, and perhaps that's where
the monk's plan had gone wrong. A man with as
much unquenched evil coursing through his veins could not be
stopped by such a ceremonial end. The nights after his
burial he rose from the dead. He wandered all over
(07:42):
town with a pack of barking dogs in tow, exacting
vengeance on anyone in his path. Villagers refused to go
out at night for fear of being attacked. Everyone locked
their doors at night. Each evening he emerged, his rotting
corpse growing worse. Its stench caried with it a cloud
of death and decay that killed those who got too close.
(08:04):
Many who survived moved far away, leaving those who chose
to stay to deal with the undead monster tormenting their town.
The monk held gathering of other religious men from all
over Europe to help him deal with it. However, some
in the town couldn't wait any longer. The problem had
to be dealt with immediately, so while the religious men
(08:24):
ate and brainstormed, two brothers took matters into their own hands.
Their father had died after coming in contact with the
walking corpse, and they didn't want anyone else meeting a
similar fate. Shovels in hand, they went to the cemetery
where the man had been buried. It didn't take them
long to dig him up. He hadn't been buried as
deeply as they had expected, and he didn't look the
(08:47):
way a dead body was supposed to look. Rather than
a rotting husk of dried skin and bones, he was
instead filled with blood. The shroud he had been buried
with was ripped up as well. Something was odd about
the ave. It had been disturbed from the inside. The
brothers stabbed the corpse, the blood inside oozed all over.
(09:09):
They hauled the body out of the grave and took
it just outside of town, where they built a funeral
pyre To finish it off once and for all. The
brothers beat the body repeatedly with the shovel, before ripping
its heart out and tossing the body and the hearts
on the fire. Once the corps had been reduced to ash,
the two men told the monk and his companions at
the church of what they had done. The monster was gone.
(09:32):
No one else died from the evil man's poisonous clouds
after that, but something else had emerged that night. It
wouldn't be given a name for another five hundred years
or so, but the Monk's story had given birth to
a legend as immortal as the man it was based on.
The monk and the townsfolk had faced off against what
is widely considered to be the first known vampire. I
(09:59):
hope you've been joined today's guided tour of the Cabinet
of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.
The show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership
with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
called Lore, which is a podcast book series and television show,
(10:22):
and you can learn all about it over at the
World of lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious. Yeah,
Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities News
Host
Aaron Mahnke
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.