January 6, 2026 • 10 mins
Even dark tales are curious, and today's tour features a pair of mysterious relics worth exploring.
Order the official Cabinet of Curiosities book by clicking here today, and get ready to enjoy some curious reading!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
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 of Curiosities. For the past two years,
(00:37):
on the second Wednesday of every month, a plate of
fifteen to twenty half peeled bananas has appeared on the
corner of Abbey Road and Wendsor Avenue in Beeston, a
small town in the Midlands of England. Residents have been
baffled as to the reason they keep appearing, and to
many the mystery is less important than the mess the
bananas leave in the street. One such resident, clear Short,
(01:00):
decided to try to reason with the mysterious gifter in
a note left in the banana's usual location, reading please respectfully,
no more bananas. The notes had no effect. The next month,
the bananas were there again, and it brings to mind
another such mystery concerning the final resting place of one
of America's most beloved authors. On October third of eighteen
(01:23):
forty nine, A man in crisis appeared outside of Gunner's Hall,
a busy tavern in Baltimore, Maryland. It was a dreary
day and the place was packed to the gills. At
first glance, the patrons took the man as another drunkard
due to his rumpled appearance and his day's demeanor. He
was clearly unwell and was brought to the hospital, where
he died four days later. He was buried in an
(01:45):
unmarked grave at Westminster Presbyterian Church. After a modest funeral.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
In eighteen seventy five, his grave was moved and the
citizens of Baltimore gathered funds for a headstone. After all,
he was one of Baltimore's favorite sons, One Edgar Allen Poe.
One hundred years later, in nineteen forty nine, a shadowy
figure was noticed entering the graveyard. He was dressed in
black with a white scarf, his visage hidden by a
(02:10):
wide brimmed black hat. It was late on the nineteenth
of January, which happened to be Poe's birthday. The figure
was seen to kneel and place three roses on the grave,
after which he poured himself a glass of cognac to
toast the dead author. Once he had drained it, he
left the open bottle beside the flowers and disappeared into
the night. When a balto Our Sun reporter came inquiring,
(02:33):
the Reverend, Bruce McDonald suggested that the visits had been
occurring for years. The reporter noted, the anonymous citizen who
creeps in annually to place an empty bottle of excellent
label against the tomb of Poe on the anniversary of
his death is a jokester, mister McDonald figures, and so
the Poe toaster made his way into the public consciousness.
(02:55):
He returned each year, and each year performed the same ritual,
three roses the grave, a kgnak toast the remainder of
the bottle left for Poe. As the tradition continued, small
crowds began to gather to catch sight of the mysterious toaster.
The man never gave up his identity, and though there
has been much speculation, there has never been an explanation
(03:16):
for the yearly pilgrimage. But he remained faithful to Edgar
for decades, and then in nineteen ninety three he left
a note, perhaps as much for onlookers as for the author.
It read, the torch will be passed. A few short
years later, in nineteen ninety nine, another note was left
to confirm this. The original toaster had died the previous year,
(03:37):
but his successor continued the tradition for many years in
his stead, with modest crowds standing by to bear witness,
and then as inexplicably as it began, it ended Onlookers
in twenty ten found themselves quite disappointed when, for the
first time in over sixty years, the mysterious man failed
to appear. When he didn't show up the following year,
(03:59):
it became clear that the toaster would visit the grave
side nevermore. Although there has been a lot of speculation
around the identity of the original toaster, it remains uncertain
to this day who really was visiting Poe's grave, and
while there were other visitors who left tokens on the
grave as well, these were not seen as serious successors.
(04:20):
In twenty fifteen, the Maryland Historical Society declared that it
was searching for a new toaster. The following January, a
large crowd once again gathered outside the Westminster Graveyard for
a ceremony with food insider provided the audience was treated
to a reading of pose the cask of Amontiado. And then,
for the first time in half a decade, it happened
(04:41):
Poe's toaster entered the burial ground. He placed the three
roses on the grave and poured himself a glass of cognac.
And when he'd finished the tipple, he placed the bottle
beside the flowers, and then, to the delight of everyone there,
pulled out a violin and played Camille Sainssan's dance macab
And then he took his leave, identity still a secret,
(05:04):
and thus the tradition continues onward, bolstered by the passion
of its fans, who are bound together by the shared
love of a good old fashioned mystery. The abbey was
(05:28):
a peaceful place, nestled in the remote French countryside, many
miles from the east of Paris. There was a small
village nearby, but the monks largely kept to themselves. But
on this day they had a visitor. He was one
of the most famous philosophers of the Enlightenment, come to
stay in their village. He was eager to peruse the
extensive library kept within their walls. The priest came out
(05:51):
to greet him and welcome him. The visitor's name was Voltaire,
but this story isn't about him. It's about the priest
who welcomed him to Sunna be in seventeen fifty four.
His name was dom Augustine Calmet, and for someone who
lived a life as a monk, he left an indelible
mark on history. He was born in sixteen seventy two,
(06:12):
the son of a blacksmith. Without much in the way
of prospects for life, he began studying to become a
Benedictine monk at the age of fifteen. A student of rhetoric, philosophy,
and theology, he was an intelligent and capable learner. Even
as a priest, he was frequently engaged in scholarly work.
Dom Calmet's first published work was printed in seventeen oh seven,
(06:33):
and it was called a Literal Commentary on All the
Books of the Old and New Testaments. An extremely popular
work among Catholic thinkers, it would be printed and reprinted
several times over the following decades, during which Calmet also
worked on several other works of Christian and popular histories.
He wrote one called a Dissertation on the Highways of Lorraine,
(06:54):
and another called History of the Famous Men of Lorraine,
as well as a Tome of Universal History published beginning
in seventeen thirty five. As varied and specific as these
topics are, they would not be the topic that would
make him famous. That would be a little niche topic
that he turned his attention to. In the seventeen thirties, Europe,
you see, was in the middle of a strange period.
(07:16):
An epidemic of weird, superstitious stories had started popping up
throughout the countryside. They were mostly focused on Eastern Europe,
but some occurred in various other countries as well as
far south as the coast of Italy. And the stories
were about vampires. No two vampire stories were identical, but
all included elements of resurrection after death. And we know
(07:39):
that these were caused by a collision between the folk
beliefs of the people and Christianity as a religion. Peasants
who were used to burning their dead had to adopt
a religion that said that the body was necessary for
resurrection during the end times. It's a paradox that helped
create a monster. Meanwhile, dom Calmet knew none of this.
(07:59):
What he knew was that the people across Europe claimed
to have encountered men who came back from the dead,
a belief that was as heretical as it was impossible.
With the eye of both a historian and a Christian theologian,
he set out to write a study of these various
accounts and see what he could find. The majority of
vampire accounts at the time were written by Hungarian army
(08:20):
doctors sent to study the vampire panics by Empress Maria Theresa.
Calmet's Studies of Vampires gathered these altogether, as well as
several other stories from across the continent, to create a
study of what he saw as a modern phenomenon. His
resulting study was published in seventeen forty six as Dissertations
on the Apparitions of Angels, Demons and Spirits and on
(08:43):
the Revenants and Vampires of Hungary, Bohemia, Moravia and Cilicia.
And I'm sure that you won't be surprised to hear
that it was a best seller. It seems that everyone
had an opinion on the monk who wrote about the occult,
but much of the popular opinion was not a positive one.
Calmet's peers thought that he had succumbed to superstition writing
(09:04):
about the ravings of peasants far Afield. Even Voltaire, who
had greatly admired Calmet's theological writings, publicly decried this work.
But of course the book was also not without its
many admirers, and the subsequent attention was enough for Calmet
to expand it in seventeen forty eight, and the result
of his genuine curiosity was a much stronger foundation for
(09:26):
what this creature would become. Before his writing, vampire stories
vary greatly from region to region, but Calmet's efforts ensured
that the monster would become a specific thing in the
minds of the public. It's a curious story the few
people today remember. While bram Stoker gets all the credit
for the modern vampire, none of what he did would
(09:46):
have been possible at all without the efforts of a
Benedictine monk who lived a century earlier. Augustine Calmets would
never know it, but through his religious writings he left
a faint fingerprint on an entire genre of popular which
in a way has helped him live on long after
his death. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of
(10:11):
the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts,
or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast
dot com. This 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, and you can learn all about it
(10:32):
over at the Worldoflore dot com. And until next time,
stay curious.
Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
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 of Curiosities. For the past two years,
(00:37):
on the second Wednesday of every month, a plate of
fifteen to twenty half peeled bananas has appeared on the
corner of Abbey Road and Wendsor Avenue in Beeston, a
small town in the Midlands of England. Residents have been
baffled as to the reason they keep appearing, and to
many the mystery is less important than the mess the
bananas leave in the street. One such resident, clear Short,
(01:00):
decided to try to reason with the mysterious gifter in
a note left in the banana's usual location, reading please respectfully,
no more bananas. The notes had no effect. The next month,
the bananas were there again, and it brings to mind
another such mystery concerning the final resting place of one
of America's most beloved authors. On October third of eighteen
(01:23):
forty nine, A man in crisis appeared outside of Gunner's Hall,
a busy tavern in Baltimore, Maryland. It was a dreary
day and the place was packed to the gills. At
first glance, the patrons took the man as another drunkard
due to his rumpled appearance and his day's demeanor. He
was clearly unwell and was brought to the hospital, where
he died four days later. He was buried in an
(01:45):
unmarked grave at Westminster Presbyterian Church. After a modest funeral.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
In eighteen seventy five, his grave was moved and the
citizens of Baltimore gathered funds for a headstone. After all,
he was one of Baltimore's favorite sons, One Edgar Allen Poe.
One hundred years later, in nineteen forty nine, a shadowy
figure was noticed entering the graveyard. He was dressed in
black with a white scarf, his visage hidden by a
(02:10):
wide brimmed black hat. It was late on the nineteenth
of January, which happened to be Poe's birthday. The figure
was seen to kneel and place three roses on the grave,
after which he poured himself a glass of cognac to
toast the dead author. Once he had drained it, he
left the open bottle beside the flowers and disappeared into
the night. When a balto Our Sun reporter came inquiring,
(02:33):
the Reverend, Bruce McDonald suggested that the visits had been
occurring for years. The reporter noted, the anonymous citizen who
creeps in annually to place an empty bottle of excellent
label against the tomb of Poe on the anniversary of
his death is a jokester, mister McDonald figures, and so
the Poe toaster made his way into the public consciousness.
(02:55):
He returned each year, and each year performed the same ritual,
three roses the grave, a kgnak toast the remainder of
the bottle left for Poe. As the tradition continued, small
crowds began to gather to catch sight of the mysterious toaster.
The man never gave up his identity, and though there
has been much speculation, there has never been an explanation
(03:16):
for the yearly pilgrimage. But he remained faithful to Edgar
for decades, and then in nineteen ninety three he left
a note, perhaps as much for onlookers as for the author.
It read, the torch will be passed. A few short
years later, in nineteen ninety nine, another note was left
to confirm this. The original toaster had died the previous year,
(03:37):
but his successor continued the tradition for many years in
his stead, with modest crowds standing by to bear witness,
and then as inexplicably as it began, it ended Onlookers
in twenty ten found themselves quite disappointed when, for the
first time in over sixty years, the mysterious man failed
to appear. When he didn't show up the following year,
(03:59):
it became clear that the toaster would visit the grave
side nevermore. Although there has been a lot of speculation
around the identity of the original toaster, it remains uncertain
to this day who really was visiting Poe's grave, and
while there were other visitors who left tokens on the
grave as well, these were not seen as serious successors.
(04:20):
In twenty fifteen, the Maryland Historical Society declared that it
was searching for a new toaster. The following January, a
large crowd once again gathered outside the Westminster Graveyard for
a ceremony with food insider provided the audience was treated
to a reading of pose the cask of Amontiado. And then,
for the first time in half a decade, it happened
(04:41):
Poe's toaster entered the burial ground. He placed the three
roses on the grave and poured himself a glass of cognac.
And when he'd finished the tipple, he placed the bottle
beside the flowers, and then, to the delight of everyone there,
pulled out a violin and played Camille Sainssan's dance macab
And then he took his leave, identity still a secret,
(05:04):
and thus the tradition continues onward, bolstered by the passion
of its fans, who are bound together by the shared
love of a good old fashioned mystery. The abbey was
(05:28):
a peaceful place, nestled in the remote French countryside, many
miles from the east of Paris. There was a small
village nearby, but the monks largely kept to themselves. But
on this day they had a visitor. He was one
of the most famous philosophers of the Enlightenment, come to
stay in their village. He was eager to peruse the
extensive library kept within their walls. The priest came out
(05:51):
to greet him and welcome him. The visitor's name was Voltaire,
but this story isn't about him. It's about the priest
who welcomed him to Sunna be in seventeen fifty four.
His name was dom Augustine Calmet, and for someone who
lived a life as a monk, he left an indelible
mark on history. He was born in sixteen seventy two,
(06:12):
the son of a blacksmith. Without much in the way
of prospects for life, he began studying to become a
Benedictine monk at the age of fifteen. A student of rhetoric, philosophy,
and theology, he was an intelligent and capable learner. Even
as a priest, he was frequently engaged in scholarly work.
Dom Calmet's first published work was printed in seventeen oh seven,
(06:33):
and it was called a Literal Commentary on All the
Books of the Old and New Testaments. An extremely popular
work among Catholic thinkers, it would be printed and reprinted
several times over the following decades, during which Calmet also
worked on several other works of Christian and popular histories.
He wrote one called a Dissertation on the Highways of Lorraine,
(06:54):
and another called History of the Famous Men of Lorraine,
as well as a Tome of Universal History published beginning
in seventeen thirty five. As varied and specific as these
topics are, they would not be the topic that would
make him famous. That would be a little niche topic
that he turned his attention to. In the seventeen thirties, Europe,
you see, was in the middle of a strange period.
(07:16):
An epidemic of weird, superstitious stories had started popping up
throughout the countryside. They were mostly focused on Eastern Europe,
but some occurred in various other countries as well as
far south as the coast of Italy. And the stories
were about vampires. No two vampire stories were identical, but
all included elements of resurrection after death. And we know
(07:39):
that these were caused by a collision between the folk
beliefs of the people and Christianity as a religion. Peasants
who were used to burning their dead had to adopt
a religion that said that the body was necessary for
resurrection during the end times. It's a paradox that helped
create a monster. Meanwhile, dom Calmet knew none of this.
(07:59):
What he knew was that the people across Europe claimed
to have encountered men who came back from the dead,
a belief that was as heretical as it was impossible.
With the eye of both a historian and a Christian theologian,
he set out to write a study of these various
accounts and see what he could find. The majority of
vampire accounts at the time were written by Hungarian army
(08:20):
doctors sent to study the vampire panics by Empress Maria Theresa.
Calmet's Studies of Vampires gathered these altogether, as well as
several other stories from across the continent, to create a
study of what he saw as a modern phenomenon. His
resulting study was published in seventeen forty six as Dissertations
on the Apparitions of Angels, Demons and Spirits and on
(08:43):
the Revenants and Vampires of Hungary, Bohemia, Moravia and Cilicia.
And I'm sure that you won't be surprised to hear
that it was a best seller. It seems that everyone
had an opinion on the monk who wrote about the occult,
but much of the popular opinion was not a positive one.
Calmet's peers thought that he had succumbed to superstition writing
(09:04):
about the ravings of peasants far Afield. Even Voltaire, who
had greatly admired Calmet's theological writings, publicly decried this work.
But of course the book was also not without its
many admirers, and the subsequent attention was enough for Calmet
to expand it in seventeen forty eight, and the result
of his genuine curiosity was a much stronger foundation for
(09:26):
what this creature would become. Before his writing, vampire stories
vary greatly from region to region, but Calmet's efforts ensured
that the monster would become a specific thing in the
minds of the public. It's a curious story the few
people today remember. While bram Stoker gets all the credit
for the modern vampire, none of what he did would
(09:46):
have been possible at all without the efforts of a
Benedictine monk who lived a century earlier. Augustine Calmets would
never know it, but through his religious writings he left
a faint fingerprint on an entire genre of popular which
in a way has helped him live on long after
his death. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of
(10:11):
the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts,
or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast
dot com. This 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, and you can learn all about it
(10:32):
over at the Worldoflore dot com. And until next time,
stay curious.
Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities News
Host
Aaron Mahnke
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