Lore 270: On Display

Sometimes appearances can be deceiving. Right beneath the surface, dark stories are hidden from view. All we need to do to uncover the shadows, though, is to pay them a visit. Narrated and produced by Aaron Mahnke, with writing by Alex Robinson, research by Jamie Vargas, and music by Chad Lawson. ————————— Lore Resources: Episode Music: lorepodcast.com/music http://www.lorepodcast.com/music Episode Sources: lorepodcast.com/sources http://www.lorepodcast.com/sources All the shows from Grim & Mild: www.grimandmild.com http://www.grimandmild.com ————————— Sponsors: Mint Mobile: For a limited time, wireless plans from Mint Mobile are $15 a month when you purchase a 3-month plan with UNLIMITED talk, text and data at MintMobile.com/lore http://www.mintmobile.com/lore. To report a concern regarding a radio-style, non-Aaron ad in this episode, reach out to ads (at) lorepodcast.com, and include the name of the company or organization so we can look into it. ———— To advertise on our podcast, please reach out to [email protected] mailto:%[email protected], or visit our listing here https://www.advertisecast.com/lore. ———— ©2024 Aaron Mahnke. All rights reserved.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:07Aaron Mahnke?

  In some ways, they are exactly what you would expect to find in a medical museum. Three separate volumes on women's health, two from French publishers in the late 1600s, and a third from London a century later. Every good medical library needs books, after all. So it's surprising to learn that these three tomes are locked away rather than on display in the facility's museum. Not because the topics they cover have gone out of date, although there's no doubt they are far from current, and not because they had somehow been censored by the institution. No, these three books are not on display at the Mutter Museum in Philadelphia because they are bound in human skin.

• 1:49Aaron Mahnke?

  To be more specific, their spines are bound in skin from the thigh of a woman named Mary Lynch, who passed away in 1869. It seems that the physician who cared for her in the hospital, Dr. John Stockton Huff, also conducted her autopsy, and for some reason, he removed some of her skin and tanned it. Years later, he used that human leather to bind three of his favorite medical books: Texts on Women's Health: Bound in the Skin of a Woman. And that's why they aren't on display for just about every ethical reason you could imagine. What he did was very wrong, and yet, here they are. These three objects, known as anthropodermic books, exist in a duality.

• 2:33Aaron Mahnke?

  They are pieces of medical history valuable for the text they contain, but they are also literally human remains. You just can't tell at first glance. And in many ways, that's true of a lot of history. The people, places, and events we think we know often have another dimension to them. Yes, sometimes what you see is what you get, but every now and then, there's more to the story. Because history is never skin deep. I'm Aaron Mahnke, and this is Lore.

• 3:18Aaron Mahnke?

  A lot of people live there today, and that's always been the case. It's hard to blame them, really. It's a spot of land on the shores of a massive river, roughly 50 miles from the sea, with plenty of space to spread out and turn it into a community. Today, we might call it London, but the settlement there is thousands of years older than first glance might suggest. Archaeologists are always digging and expanding what we know, but right now, it's believed that the London area was first settled around 8,000 years ago. These Iron Age folks built bridges and forts to protect and navigate the marshy land north of the Thames, something that later communities would repeat down through history.

• 3:59Aaron Mahnke?

  Then, as most people know, the Romans arrived in 43 A.D. and set up their own town there, which they called Londinium. They built a large stone wall around the community and then held on for a few hundred years. After they left, settlers from Europe, largely from Germany, Denmark, and the Netherlands, took their place and set up the seven Anglo-Saxon kingdoms that eventually gave us England. That's the backstory. It's an oversimplification of thousands of years of history that misses way too many details. But just hold on to one big idea. That marshland on the north shore of the River Thames has always been important, and it was about to become even more so.

• 4:40Aaron Mahnke?

  In 1066, a guy named William of Normandy invaded Britain and defeated the ruling king, Harold Godwinson, at the Battle of Hastings. It's a touchy subject. For the folks that hated him, he was William the Bastard. For those who loved him, though, they called him William the Conqueror. History records him as King William I, and William knew how to make his mark on a landscape. Recognizing the importance of that spot of land along the river, he had a fortress built there. And he did this in the style that he was used to back home in Normandy, with this massive, square-ish tower jutting up nearly 100 feet into the sky. He even had white limestone brought over from France to help it feel more like home. Creature comforts, I suppose.

• 5:23Aaron Mahnke?

  But this white structure did something else. It stood out on the London skyline like an alien artifact, reminding everyone who looked upon it that they had a new king, and that king was powerful and ready to defend himself. And as the years passed by, London became synonymous with that tower: the Tower of London. Now, if you've ever visited the place or seen documentaries about it, you know it's not just a single tower anymore. Over the centuries, more and more structures were built around it, almost like satellites. William's son, William II, surrounded the tower with a big wall and a defensive ditch, and other monarchs after him added buildings and towers inside that wall. Look at an aerial view of the place sometime.

• 6:06Aaron Mahnke?

  It's a glorious, orderly mess of lawns and structures. But everyone uses their home in a unique way, and that central tower has been a chameleon over the years. Sure, it started out as a fortress home for the king himself, but it also eventually became a prison. And whenever we think about medieval dungeons, it's easy to envision something darker: torture. In the Tower of London, torture was said to come in three delicious flavors. First and foremost was the rack, a tool designed to literally stretch a prisoner's body to the point that their limbs were dislocated from their torso, sometimes even ripping them off completely. A lot of the time, just being shown the rack was enough to get prisoners talking, and honestly, can you blame them?

• 6:50Aaron Mahnke?

  The second method of torture was a bit less frequently used. Known as the scavenger's daughter, it was a sort of reverse rack, designed to compress someone to death. And the third option was the manacles, those old Hollywood favorites. Using those iron bracelets and their connecting chains, a prisoner could be hung up in all sorts of positions, putting horrible strain on their feet and their hands. And of course, what discussion of a prison would be complete without mentioning the many executions that took place there? Inside the walls of the tower itself, only 22 people are known to have been executed out on the Tower Green. That's where people of high status, like nobility or royalty, were killed. A private affair, if you will.

• 7:32Aaron Mahnke?

  Most executions, though, took place outside the walls and across the road on what is known as Tower Hill. On that spot, over 100 people were killed in public, on full display for anyone passing by, which, knowing how medieval monarchs worked, was often the point. All these ingredients have combined over the centuries to give the Tower of London a dark reputation: a place of domination and protection, of stability and power, and of torture and death. And naturally, that reputation also involves ghosts.

• 8:21Aaron Mahnke?

  Most ghost stories start with a real person, and for this one, we need to go back to the 13th century. Henry III was born in 1207 and inherited the throne when he was just nine years old. The next time you wonder if your kid is spending too much time on Roblox, just be glad they aren't a monarch of... A massive kingdom. Now, if you've read enough history, you know that not all kings and queens were cut from the same cloth. Some were warlords like William the Conqueror, and some, well, weren't. And Henry III was definitely not known for his prowess on the battlefield. Heck, he wasn't even good at diplomacy. But when it came to building things, he was one of the best. If William was the conqueror, Henry was the architect.

• 9:03Aaron Mahnke?

  He had eighteen new chapels built across England, rebuilt Westminster Palace, and made big improvements to Windsor Chapel. And we have him to thank for the Gothic style of Westminster Abbey, one of the city's most famous landmarks. But aside from all of that, Henry poured his penchant for remodeling into the Tower of London. For instance, that outer wall that William II first built now has nineteen little castles on it, known as mural towers. And Henry built nine of them, adding additional defensive capabilities and also a bit more residential space. He added a moat around the tower complex and painted the original central tower white. One key addition was Henry's Watergate. Now, this wasn't a political controversy involving a medieval tape recorder.

• 9:48Aaron Mahnke?

  It's an entrance on the side of the wall facing the river, just to the right of the Traders' Gate. And it comes with a frightening bit of folklore attached to it. Recorded by a monk named Matthew Parris sometime in the 1240s or 50s, it's a story about the construction of that gate. According to Parris, on April 23rd of 1240, the Watergate collapsed, taking down parts of the surrounding walls with it. Henry was livid and instructed his workers to rebuild it, stronger and better than before. So they stuck in and started over. Fast forward to April 23rd of the following year, and that night, an old priest had a dream. In it, the martyr Thomas Becket was seen approaching the new gate, where he pounded a cross against it.

• 10:32Aaron Mahnke?

  In that moment, Parris tells us, the real gate collapsed again to the ground. And when Henry III learned of this priest's dream, he saw a solution. He called for a small chapel to be built nearby, dedicated to Saint Thomas. And once this was finished, the Watergate... stood strong and never collapsed again. Which gives new texture to a report by a yeoman warder who lived in that tower in the 1970s. He claimed that on more than one occasion, he watched as one of the doors in that space silently opened on its own, paused for a moment, and then closed again, all without any visible person to cause it. And others there have reported seeing the figure of a monk, as well as the sounds of leather sandals on the floor.

• 11:16Aaron Mahnke?

  So, maybe Saint Thomas liked the new tower so much that he moved in and never really left. Near the Watergate Tower is another tower with its own dark reputation. Known as Wakefield Tower, its story has a connection to a later Henry, Henry VI, who ruled during most of the 15th century. Henry is best remembered for being king during the War of the Roses, which was a struggle between two major houses, the Yorks and the Lancasters. During the War of the Roses, Henry found himself captured and imprisoned inside the Tower of London multiple times, inside, according to tradition, the Wakefield Tower. Well, in the spring of 1741, Henry was captured for a third and final time, and taken back to the tower.

• 11:59Aaron Mahnke?

  On May 21st of that year, the same day that Edward IV rode into London as king, Henry VI died in the tower, and right away, foul play was suspected. And still, time moves on. Henry was buried at a chapel outside of London for a while, but about a decade later, his remains were moved to Windsor Castle. They used a lead chest to transport his body, but because it didn't fit properly, they dismembered it and piled the pieces inside. The perfect bit of chaos to hide a crime. You see, in 1910, over 400 years later, Henry's remains were exhumed for study, and a shocking surprise was uncovered. It seems that one of Henry's arms had been stolen back in 1484 and replaced with the leg of a pig.

• 12:44Aaron Mahnke?

  During the examination, it was determined that Henry's skull had been shattered, leading experts to assume that, yes, he had been murdered in the Wakefield Tower. His missing arm, though, has never been found. It's been reported that every year on the anniversary of his death, Henry's ghost is spotted in Wakefield Tower just as the clock begins to strike 12. Witnesses have claimed to see Henry's pale form materialize and then pace around the room. And finally, as the last of the 12 chimes rings out, his ghost apparently stops and begins to fade, melting back into the stones of the tower that once held him.

• 13:38Aaron Mahnke?

  It's one of the most popular exhibits to see. For anyone who has ever had the privilege to visit the Tower of London firsthand, they always walk away with strong memories of the armory. Now, on sun level, this is sort of a "well duh" moment, right? England, in many people's minds, is the "place where medieval stuff happens", right down to swords and armor and jousting contests. Tourists expect a little bit of a knight's tale when they visit the place, and truth be told, the Tower of London delivers that in spades. Now, of course, the tower started right off as a fortress, so it was a military site from the beginning. By the 15th century, it was even home to the Office of Armory and the Office of Ordnance, who were officially in charge of making the stuff.

• 14:23Aaron Mahnke?

  And the more they made, the more they had to store. By the end of the 16th century, people were reportedly starting to pay for a tour of it all. After the Civil War and the Restoration of King Charles II, the collection was reorganized to be more tourist-friendly and also to put some positive spin on the monarchy. Wooden figures were carved to wear the armor and displays were created, and this includes the armor of King Henry VIII. Now, most of us know Henry VIII from his creation of the Church of England in response to the Catholic Pope refusing to allow him to get divorced. He's usually depicted as an overweight, round-faced guy with a red beard and a lot of wives. But he started off as a fit, young ruler who loved to joust, and you can see this in his slender armor on display.

• 15:07Aaron Mahnke?

  You also, incidentally, get to see his 1540 Greenwich armor, which was made for him when he was 49. If you've toured the armory, you will remember this particular set because it features a, shall we say generously sized codpiece. Seen by most historians as propaganda, it's clearly proof of Henry's tendency to overcompensate. And you can't blame the guy, either. His father, Henry VII, named his oldest son Arthur because he was obsessed with the legend of King Arthur and wanted a real King Arthur in the family tree. All hope and energy was poured into young Arthur, and when he died at the age of 15, young Henry became a sort of afterthought turned backup plan. Not the best way to build confidence. Thus,

• 15:50Aaron Mahnke?

  perhaps, the enormous codpiece. Anyway, it seems that Henry VIII's armor is also haunted. Over the years, many guards and other staff have reported a suffocating sensation when they enter the room where it's on display. Some say it feels like strong hands trying to strangle them, while others just feel it's an overall oppression. In one story, a guard patrolling the tower in the middle of the night claimed that he was attacked by a ghost wearing a real, physical cloak. This ghost apparently wrapped the cloak around the guard's throat and began to strangle him with it. He managed to break free, but back in the guardroom, he pulled the cloak off and discovered livid red marks all around his neck. Oh, and one other thing. Henry's armor has been moved around over the years,

• 16:35Aaron Mahnke?

  from one room to another, and every time this happens, the reports of hauntings and feelings of oppression have followed it. But no discussion of Henry VIII can be complete without mentioning his second wife, Anne Boleyn. She is famous for being the reason he sought that divorce from his first wife, and, of course, for being falsely accused of plotting against Henry a few years later, leading to her imprisonment and death by execution. On May 15th of 1536, Anne was declared guilty of high treason and sentenced to death by execution. Three days later, she was taken outside the White Tower and beheaded by sword. One legend says that when Anne learned about the Frenchman who had been hired to swing

• 17:16Aaron Mahnke?

  that blade, she jokingly told the constable, "I heard say the executioner was very good, and I have a little neck," suggesting that her short neck required a skilled swordsman. After she was dead, her body was placed in a chest and buried inside the chapel of St. Peter, right there beside the Tower Green. But it wasn't the last time poor Anne Boleyn has been seen. If the stories are true, she has haunted the chapel and the tower ever since, making frequent appearances. Her headless ghost has been seen wandering through the Tower Green, sometimes with her head tucked neatly under one arm. But it's one incident from 1864 that truly paints the darkest picture. According to the report, a soldier from the King's Royal Rifle Corps was on duty at the

• 18:00Aaron Mahnke?

  Queen's House near the Tower Green when he saw the ghost of Anne Boleyn appear inside the room. Frightened out of his mind, he stabbed at the figure with his bayonet, but the blade passed right through her. After that, the sentry fainted from the terror of the experience, and when he was discovered by his superior officers a while later, the man assumed the soldier had simply fallen asleep on the job. Just before the poor soldier was set to be tried for dereliction of duty, a pair of witnesses came forward to back up his supernatural claims. They had seen the dead Queen as well. Over the years, sightings of the beheaded Queen have continued, but whether true or not, their persistence makes one thing abundantly clear: The darkest deeds of the past always

• 18:45Aaron Mahnke?

  have a way of haunting us here, in the present.

• 19:04Aaron Mahnke?

  There are few places like it on Earth. The Tower of London is a relic from another age, and you can tell that from the moment you set foot inside. In fact, it's widely considered to be the best-preserved 11th-century fortress in all of Europe. But it's so much more than that. The Tower of London, spanning all of its many buildings and smaller towers, has become home to much of what we associate with medieval England. It holds the crown jewels, it's served as a prison for traitors, and maintains that massive collection of weapons and armor. And of course, there are the ghosts. I've skipped over some of the better-known ghost stories on this journey into the past because they have been discussed in previous episodes. Tales like "The Two Princes"

• 19:49Aaron Mahnke?

  feel right at home alongside stories of beheaded queens, which might explain the enduring nature of those legends and the persistence of the sightings. Back in 1876, due to a sinking floor and crumbling columns, Queen Victoria ordered the chapel of St. Peter be restored and remodeled. In the process, the pavement over the site marked as Anne Boleyn's grave was peeled back, and then, they began to dig down. At a depth of just two feet, they found a collection of bones, exactly what you would expect to find after a wooden box containing a naked corpse was given nearly three-and-a-half centuries to decompose. The bones were identified as those of an adult female in good health,

• 20:31Aaron Mahnke?

  and when put back together, they clearly belonged to someone with a short, petite neck. Anne's remains were eventually re-interred in the restored chapel, but it's much more difficult to rebury the past. You see, years later, another guard was keeping watch one night, patrolling the grounds around the tower green, when he spotted something alarming. It was a flickering light, coming from inside the chapel of St. Peter. Curious to see who might have entered the chapel without permission, this guard quickly made his way over to the outer wall of the building and lifted himself up to peer through one of the windows. And there, visible through the old glass, was a scene that he never expected to witness. It was a full procession of figures, all clearly lords and ladies,

• 21:16Aaron Mahnke?

  with some even dressed in armor as if they were knights. They were slowly walking from the entrance of the church toward the altar, giving the scene a somber appearance. And there, at the head of the procession, was a small, youthful woman, dressed in the clothing of royalty. It was Anne Boleyn. After watching the group walk up the aisle for a few moments, they finally reached their destination. As Anne came near the altar, near in fact where her body is now buried, she and the others began to slowly fade away, the lights of their procession vanishing with them. The past, as I've already said, is very persistent, and it seems that the darker the event,

• 21:58Aaron Mahnke?

  the louder and further it echoes down through the ages. Yes, we can remodel and rebuild, and give old places a fresh coat of paint, but for those who know where to look, the shadows of those darker days are still right there, on display.

• 22:28Aaron Mahnke?

  I truly hope you've enjoyed this visit to the historic and haunted Tower of London. Whether or not you've had a chance to tour its ancient halls in person, I think these stories do a great job of covering the horrible deeds of some historic personalities. After all, where there are people, there is often darkness. But the stories that haunt the Tower aren't limited to humans. In fact, we've set aside one last bit of folklore for you that sits outside the normal history of the Tower. Stick around through this brief sponsor break to hear all about it. This episode was made possible by Mint Mobile. You know when you discover a new binge-worthy show or a song that you bump on repeat and you have to share it with your friends so that they can experience just how awesome it is? That's kind of what it feels like when you discover

• 23:12Aaron Mahnke?

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• 23:55Aaron Mahnke?

  Cut your wireless bill to 15 bucks a month at mintmobile.com/lore. $45 upfront payment required, equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on first three-month plan only. Speeds slower above 40GB on unlimited plan. Additional taxes, fees, and restrictions apply. See Mint Mobile for details. This episode was sponsored by BetterHelp. If you could permanently delete one thing from your brain, what would it be? Maybe it's an awkward interaction from years ago, irrational worry, or a minor annoyance that somehow takes up way too much mental space. And maybe just as important, why do you think this particular thing has stuck with you? Well, one way to explore all of that is through therapy, and that's where BetterHelp comes in.

• 24:38Aaron Mahnke?

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• 25:23Aaron Mahnke?

  And if you don't have eligible insurance or live outside the US, you can still get 10% off your first month. Sign up and get 10% off at betterhelp.com/lore. That's better H-E-L-P dot com slash lore.

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• 26:56Aaron Mahnke?

  Everyone has heard about the ravens. One of the first things you see when you enter the interior grounds of the Tower of London is a caged area that contains a number of blackbirds. And they are clear proof of just how powerful folklore can be. As the legend goes, the Tower of London will continue to stand as long as the six ravens who call it home never fly away. There's some very detailed story to go along with that, explaining why the ravens are important, but let's just say that the modern presence of those beautiful blackbirds has nothing to do with loyalty to the tower. No, their wings have been clipped, and they're treated like royalty with twice-daily meals and their very own raven master to look after them.

• 27:37Aaron Mahnke?

  So, sure, the ravens haven't flown away, and the tower still stands. And those two details really just have nothing to do with each other. But something that is rooted ...in fact, is the tower's long history as an actual zoo. And to understand why that happened, we need to step back into the days of William the Conqueror. It seems that his son Henry kept a collection of exotic animals at his palace at Woodstock. Maybe that was just part of normal behavior for European royalty, or maybe it was a new and unique seed that was about to take root. The proof, I suppose, arrived a century later. In 1204, during the reign of John I, a collection of animals was brought to the Tower of London, and they would end up staying there for good.

• 28:21Aaron Mahnke?

  The first payment on record for a zookeeper there at the Tower was in 1210, and as the years went by, the different types of animals there just kept growing, often through gifts received from other monarchs. For example, in 1235, Henry III, our builder king, was given three live leopards by the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II. A few years later, the King of Norway sent him a polar bear, and right after that, the King of France sent a full-grown African elephant, although sadly, that gift didn't live too long. It seems the zookeepers believed that it could subsist on a diet of raw meat and wine, despite being an herbivore who needed fresh drinking water. By the time Queen Elizabeth I was in power, even the public could come see the menagerie

• 29:06Aaron Mahnke?

  there at the Tower, before a fee, of course. And her successor, James I, also received an elephant as a gift, this time from the King of Spain, although it too sadly died after being given too much wine to drink. And then, in 1822, the zoo there really took off. That was the year that the Tower hired a new zookeeper by the name of Alfred Cops, and during his tenure there, he managed to bring in over 300 new specimens. And true to form, my research team gave me a really long list of all the different kinds of animals, so here's just a sample from their notes. A grizzly bear, Bengal lions, a Barbary lioness, African bloodhounds, a jackal, mongoose,

• 29:47Aaron Mahnke?

  kangaroo, various monkeys, an elk, a zebra, a porcupine, an alligator, and a boa constrictor. But with all of these wild animals... came risk and responsibility. Aside from the elephants that were killed by what was essentially alcohol poisoning, there were several incidents of animal cruelty. James I once ordered his zookeeper to experiment with the violent nature of the lion by sending mastiffs, these large hunting dogs, into the enclosure to see who would win in a fight. Two mastiffs died and a third was wounded before they called it off. On another occasion, the wife of a zookeeper reached into the lion's cage with the hope

• 30:27Aaron Mahnke?

  of patting its gigantic paw, only to get her arm so viciously clawed that she bled to death before anyone could help her. Oh, and that 1822 zookeeper Alfred Cops, you know, the one who brought in over 300 animals, was attacked by one of his own additions, the boa constrictor, that nearly broke his spine. His assistants only managed to save the man by breaking the snake's fangs. Thankfully, after concerns over the welfare of the animals at the Tower Zoo, the Duke of Wellington managed to get it shut down in 1835, shipping most of them to the Regent's Park Zoo. But while the animals themselves might be gone, their spirits live on at the Tower, and quite literally, according to some. Visitors and staff over the years have heard the sounds of invisible horses galloping

• 31:12Aaron Mahnke?

  on the cobblestones. Others have heard the roar of lions that no longer live there, shattering the night with their terrifying call. And in 1815, one of the guards of the Jewel House spotted something that should not have been possible. The man was standing just outside the Martin Tower when he heard the clock strike midnight, and as it did, a massive bear seemed to emerge from the shadow-filled archway leading into the tower. Terrified for his own safety, the guard raised his rifle and drove the bayonet right through the huge beast. Only, it passed through the bear and instead embedded itself in the thick wooden door of the tower. When his fellow guards heard the noise and shouting, they ran to help, but when they arrived, they found the guard passed out cold on the ground.

• 31:57Aaron Mahnke?

  The next day, the guard was described by his superior officer as "haunted by fear, a man changed beyond recognition." And the day after that, he was dead, supposedly frightened to death by what he saw. Strange? You better believe it. But considering the location and its long, dark history, I'm honestly not surprised. It's a miracle that things like that don't happen more often at the Tower of London. For a structure built to keep a city safe and secure, it seems to have played host to far too many dangerous moments for any one person to bear.

• 32:47Aaron Mahnke?

  This episode of Lore was written and produced by me, Aaron Manke, with research by Jamie Vargas and music by Chad Lawson. I have a confession to make. Just like you, I do not like ads in podcasts. But thankfully, we create an ad-free version of this show. It's available on Apple Podcasts and Patreon, and it's 100% ad-free. Pick your platform, sign up for the community, and once you're in, not only do you get ad-free episodes, but you'll also get weekly mini-episodes called Lore Bites. It is a bargain for all of that ad-free storytelling and a great way to support the show and the team behind it. And you can learn more about the pricing and the features all over at lorepodcast.com/support. And of course, Lore is much more than just a podcast. There's the book series available in bookstores and online

• 33:31Aaron Mahnke?

  and the television show on Amazon Prime. Learn more over at lorepodcast.com. And you can also follow this show on Threads, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube. Just search for Lore Podcast, all one word, and then click that follow button. And when you do, say hi. I like it when people say hi. And as always, thanks for listening.

• 34:04Speaker 05

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