Lore 315: All Shook Up

Folklore usually depends on the little things. The daily struggle to survive, the terror of a new location, or even violence and crime. But even when the events are bigger than we can imagine, folklore has a way of showing up. Narrated and produced by Aaron Mahnke, with writing by GennaRose Nethercott, research by Cassandra de Alba, and music by Chad Lawson. ————————— BUY EXHUMED TODAY: aaronmahnke.com/exhumed https://www.aaronmahnke.com/exhumed ————————— Lore Resources: Get Ad-Free Lore: lorepodcast.com/support https://www.lorepodcast.com/support Episode Music: lorepodcast.com/music https://www.lorepodcast.com/music Episode Sources: lorepodcast.com/sources https://www.lorepodcast.com/sources Official Lore Merchandise: lorepodcast.com/shop https://www.lorepodcast.com/shop ————————— Sponsors: BetterHelp: Lore is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at BetterHelp.com/LORE http://www.betterhelp.com/lore, and get on your way to being your best self. 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. Squarespace: Head to Squarespace.com/lore http://squarespace.com/lore to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using the code LORE. SimpliSafe: Secure your home with 24/7 professional monitoring. Sign up today at SimpliSafe.com/Lore http://simplisafe.com/lore to get 60% off a new SimpliSafe system. ————————— To report a concern regarding a radio-style, non-Aaron ad in this episode, reach out to ads @ lorepodcast.com with the name of the company or organization so we can look into it. To advertise on this podcast please email: [email protected]. Or go to: https://advertising.libsyn.com/lore ————————— ©2026 Aaron Mahnke. All rights reserved.

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

• 0:00Aaron Mahnke?

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• 0:45Aaron Mahnke?

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• 1:49Aaron Mahnke?

  First, the ground began to tremble. Then, the water line receded as if the ocean itself were running from something. And finally, a mountain appeared on the horizon. Except it wasn't a mountain at all. It was a wave. When the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami hit Indonesia, nearly a quarter of a million people died. It was a catastrophe on a level most of us can't even imagine, and hopefully never have to. Entire towns wiped off the map, whole families destroyed. And yet, there was one island nearby with an almost impossibly low death toll. It's called Similue, and out of its 80,000 residents, fewer than 10 people died.

• 2:33Aaron Mahnke?

  And no, it wasn't because the tsunami didn't hit Similue. It definitely did. But you see, the people there had a secret weapon that helped them survive. A weapon that had been honed and cultivated for hundreds of years, passed down from one generation to the next. A weapon called folklore. There was a tradition there of telling stories about tsunamis. Stories that outlined the warning signs and early clues that a tsunami might be coming. These folktales told you what to do and what not to do, and most importantly, when to evacuate. Here in the States, most of us grew up with things like Three Little Pigs and Cinderella. The folks in Similue grew up with tsunami tales.

• 3:18Aaron Mahnke?

  And because of that vital difference, when the ground began to rumble, just like it had in their bedtime stories, they knew exactly what to do. In short, when it comes to natural disasters, sometimes a good story can save your life. I'm Aaron Mahnke, and this is Lore.

• 3:52Aaron Mahnke?

  Our little planet experiences millions of earthquakes each year, although most are too small for us to sense. And as for the ones that we do feel, well, as frightening as they are, at least we understand what causes them: the shifting of the tectonic plates that make up the Earth's crust. But of course, we didn't always have that knowledge. In fact, the theory of plate tectonics didn't fully coalesce until the 1960s. And before that, well, it's not that we didn't have any explanations, they were just a bit more colorful. For example, in Japan, their earliest earthquake legends blame an insect called the Jinxing Mushii, a 10-legged oblong giant with the head of a dragon, whose burrowing causes the Earth to shake.

• 4:37Aaron Mahnke?

  Of course, there isn't really a huge earthquake-causing bug. That's silly, right? No, earthquakes are actually caused by a massive eel, so big that all the islands in Japan sit on its back. This eel theory enjoyed its time in the sun for a while, until finally, a catfish known as Namazoo usurped it as the cause of earthquakes in Japan. Even today, signs in Japan warning that a road will be closed because of an earthquake depict a smiling cartoon catfish. Meanwhile, parts of Siberia tell of a large mammoth living underground that, yes, causes earthquakes, while in other parts, quakes are blamed on a subterranean sled dog.

• 5:17Aaron Mahnke?

  The tremors occur either when the dog shakes snow off its back, or scratches at fleas. Now, you might be sensing a theme here: the idea that there's some giant underground animal causing the Earth to shake is honestly found in a ton of cultures. The Chinese have a giant ox, while the Akanqun tribe in America have a giant tortoise. All over India, it's a giant mole, but hey, at least a mole is supposed to be under the ground to begin with. And then again, not everyone assumes it's a zoo down there. In some cases, it's a god. In New Zealand, for example, Maori tradition holds that quakes are caused by a god named Rua Moko, the child of the sky and the earth, who lives deep beneath the ground.

• 6:01Aaron Mahnke?

  And whenever Rua Moko takes a little stroll down there, the world above shakes. In other Maori stories about Rua Moko, though, he doesn't actually know how to walk at all. That would be because he's a baby. Some believe Rua Moko was, and still is, in his mother's womb, and earthquakes are him kicking his mother's belly. Meanwhile, over in ancient Greece, Poseidon wasn't just the god of the sea, he was also the earthquake god. And you might be smart to leave him a sacrifice or two, because if an earthquake did occur, well, that was a sign that Poseidon was very, very mad at you. Now, admittedly, the notion of an angry god punishing people with natural disasters is alarming. But even worse, that would be Pythagoras's theory.

• 6:46Aaron Mahnke?

  You see, he claimed that earthquakes had nothing to do with gods at all, and everything to do with the dead fighting underground. Now, some Greek philosophers did try to be more specific. Aristotle, for one, had some ideas, but let's just say he didn't quite nail it. Because Aristotle's theory happened to be that the Earth was passing gas. Basically, he thought that wind entered the ground via caves, and earthquakes were those winds trying to escape. Yeah, I think I prefer the theories about gods. Speaking of which, in Norse mythology, I bet you can guess who's at fault for the fault lines. And I'll give you a clue: he's also blamed for just about everything else. That's right, the trickster god Loki. But earthquakes are no practical joke.

• 7:30Aaron Mahnke?

  You see, in punishment for causing the death of the god Baldur, Loki had been chained underground. And in some tellings, Loki's chains were even formed from the entrails of his own sons. According to the stories, all day long, poisonous venom from a serpent drips on his face. Loki's loyal wife, Seegun, stays by his side, holding a bowl up to catch the venom. But sometimes the bowl gets full and she has to empty it. And when that happens, a few drops of the venom hit poor Loki, and he writhes in pain, causing earthquakes in the human world above. These explanations may seem fantastical to us, senseless even, but in truth, they're just the opposite.

• 8:12Aaron Mahnke?

  What is senseless is the tragedy and death that befalls a community when an earthquake hits. And those stories, these gods and giants and animals, they're a way to bring sense back, to look at the carnage and be able to say that there is a reason for it all. Maybe a strange reason, maybe even one that's horrifying, but a reason nonetheless. Because sometimes belief is the only thing that stays solid when the very ground that you stand upon begins to crumble.

• 8:55Aaron Mahnke?

  It was March 31st of 1650 when a huge 7.5 magnitude earthquake struck the city of Cusco, Peru. Homes collapsed, schools and markets were flattened, and although the worst of the damage occurred over mere minutes, aftershocks continued to terrorize the people long after the initial quake was over. Now, Cusco was once the capital of the Inca Empire, but since colonization, the church had been hard at work stamping out belief in the old Incan gods in favor of their own. And when the smoke from the earthquake cleared, well, the Christian clergy of Cusco realized that they had a teensy problem on their hands. You see, while all the Spanish buildings had been wrecked, do you know what remained

• 9:38Aaron Mahnke?

  perfectly safe? All the remaining Inca buildings, designed to withstand just such a disaster. Suffice to say, if you're trying to convince people that one god is real and another is fake, it's probably not helpful when the seeming act of God protects your only opposition's holy sites. In short, the church had a PR nightmare on their hands, and they needed a miracle. And so they invented one. They began to circulate a legend to prove that the Christian god was powerful after all. According to their tale, when Cusco was still being rocked by aftershocks, a statue of Christ on the cross was removed from one of the damaged churches so that services could be held outside. And low and behold,

• 10:22Aaron Mahnke?

  as soon as the statue was carried out of the church, the earthquakes stopped. So, why do we think that the story was probably deliberate church propaganda and not based in fact? Well, contemporary reports of the earthquake don't mention the same details, which only appeared after the fact. But even so, the plan worked. The statue became revered as Christ of the Earthquakes, and to this day, it's carried in a procession through Cusco every year on March 31st. And that's not the only post-earthquake folklore to make an impact on the future. In the 1980s, the US government wanted to build nuclear power stations in Northern California, and so they had the United States Geological Survey

• 11:06Aaron Mahnke?

  look into whether the area might be an earthquake risk. It was really more of a formality. After all, there were no records of earthquakes there in the past. At least, so they believed. But when the researchers began looking into Native American folktales from the region, they found very different implications. Among the Ho and Quillute people of what is now coastal Washington, there were tales of Thunderbird and Killer Whale having a battle that shook the mountains, tore the trees from the ground, and caused the water to rise. Meanwhile, on Vancouver Island, the Nucha Nool told a story about dwarves who lived in the mountain inviting a human to dance around their drum. When the human accidentally kicked the drum,

• 11:48Aaron Mahnke?

  he got earthquake foot, and every step he took after that caused a quake, until the ground turned to liquid and eventually, a giant wave struck. And there were more. Up and down the coast, tribe after tribe had passed down stories just like these. Soon, geological work confirmed what the legends implied, that a massive earthquake, followed by a tsunami, had once decimated the region. And data from tree rings eventually pinpointed the date, January 26th of 1700, far before European explorers ever laid eyes on the area. Unsurprisingly, the government did not build those nuclear power plants there. And remember that Japanese earthquake-causing catfish known as Namazu? Well, in November

• 12:33Aaron Mahnke?

  of 1855, a major quake rocked the city of Edo, Japan, what is now Tokyo. And the date is important, because according to the lunar calendar, the disaster took place during what's known as "the month without gods." Basically, this was a time when all the major Shinto deities were said to go on vacation. And what do you know but one of the gods absent that month just so happened to be the one in charge of keeping Namazu the catfish under control. And here's the wild part. Within days of the quake, woodblock prints depicting Namazu were on sale in the city. But here's the thing, he wasn't drawn as a monster. No, he was represented as a hero. Because that earthquake, it had destroyed

• 13:16Aaron Mahnke?

  a very specific area of the city. That is, the part where all the rich people lived. The poor areas, on the other hand, were unscathed. And so overnight, Namazu became a symbol of allyship with the working class. These prints depicted the catfish as causing a shakeup of not just the earth, but of the social order. As you might imagine, the authorities in Edo weren't too stoked about this rebel symbol. And about two months after the earthquake, they succeeded in suppressing the sale of catfish prints. But not before thousands had already been disseminated.

• 14:02Aaron Mahnke?

  We all expect folklore to pop up in the wake of a disaster, as people try to make sense of the wreckage. But what's less expected is for the earthquake lore to arrive before the earthquake even hits. And yet, one 19th-century preacher would go down in infamy for attempting to deliver just that. It was fair to say that Mariah Woodworth-Edder had a difficult life. Her father was an alcoholic, or, as she put it, addicted to the accursed cup. And he died when she was still a girl, forcing her to work instead of attending school. Then she became trapped in an unhappy marriage, a marriage where five of her six children died young. Clearly, life wasn't going the way Mariah had hoped. And so when she turned

• 14:47Aaron Mahnke?

  35, she decided to take matters into her own hands and do the one thing that she had always really, really wanted to do. She became a preacher. Did she have the theological training to do so? No. Did her church let women join the ministry? Also, no. But that wouldn't stop Mariah, who began to host her own meetings and preach the gospel. And it turns out, she was good at it. Good enough, in fact, that she was soon invited to speak at other churches, which is when people began responding rather uniquely to her sermons. That is, they would start to scream and babble. They would sway and shake and collapse on the floor, at which point the crowd would fall into a trance, reporting visions of

• 15:31Aaron Mahnke?

  heaven and damnation upon waking. It was one hell of a spectacle, literally. And it wasn't long before her tent revival meetings were attracting thousands of people, first throughout the Midwest, and then later in California. Now, not everyone was a fan of Mariah's style. One late 1800s newspaper referred to her as a, and I quote, "voodoo priestess," while another called her a sorceress. Articles described the goings-on at her sermons as "mental debauchery," and one California doctor declared Mariah's true believers as suffering from, and I quote, "a perverted nervous system condition bordering on hysteria." But hey, if you think that's dramatic, just wait, because the papers were

• 16:14Aaron Mahnke?

  about to have an absolute field day after what happened next. On January 27th of 1890, Mariah made an announcement. She received a revelation from God, insisting that within 80 days, a chunk of California would be destroyed by an earthquake, followed by a tidal wave. And not unlike Noah before the flood, he had sent Mariah to usher people to higher ground, in this case by fleeing to the mountains. But it wasn't just Mariah telling this story. Several of her followers also claimed to have similar disastrous visions. And by "several," I mean about 60 of them. One guy even named the exact date. The disaster would take place on April 14th of 1890.

• 16:59Aaron Mahnke?

  Desperate to save as many people as possible, Mariah's devotees started preaching on street corners and handing out flyers. They would go door to door, warning whoever answered that the earthquake was coming. One follower, known for shouting warnings while riding his bike, was even dubbed by papers as "the Paul Revere of the bicycle." And altogether, while this brigade of doomsday preachers earned themselves a little media nickname, they were known as "the doom sealers." The months went on, and before you knew it, April had arrived. And suffice to say, the doom sealers were absolutely freaking out. They begged the governor of California to take them seriously, petitioning the state to relocate those incarcerated in the doomed

• 17:44Aaron Mahnke?

  areas to higher ground. Meanwhile, the doom sealers themselves began heading for the hills. Mariah Woodworth-Edder fled to St. Louis. Many of her followers ran off to California mountain towns, their most valued possessions in their arms. One woman carried a parrot in a cage, while a man hauled an antique clock. Basically, imagine that scene from Fiddler on the Roof where all the citizens are marching out with their belongings in tow, knowing that they will never see home again, except with more yelling about the end being nigh. Finally, the morning of April 14th arrived, and the doom sealers waited anxiously. Up to 1,000 people had fled their homes, with about 100 gathered together atop California's

• 18:27Aaron Mahnke?

  Taylor Mountain for a picnic and spiritual festival. And the hours wore on. Slowly, day turned to night. And when April 15th dawned, California remained stubbornly intact. The earthquake they had waited for never came.

• 19:01Aaron Mahnke?

  I'd imagine that it's a complicated feeling to be wrong about the end of the world. On one hand, the Doomsealers must have been relieved. They had spent months doing everything they could to save the people of California, and now here they were, totally safe. Sure, they were never in danger in the first place, but still, it was a good thing, right? On the other hand, though, to have believed in something so strongly only to find out it wasn't real, it must have felt like the very ground they stood on had just fallen away, or not quite as literally as they thought that it would. In the days after April 14th, the Doomsealers quietly returned to their lives. They went back to jobs as grocers and bankers, gardeners and lawyers and nurses, ordinary

• 19:45Aaron Mahnke?

  people who, for a moment at least, had taken on the extraordinary duty of trying to save the world. But there were some folks for whom things would never go back to normal. Take the man who had first named April 14th as the official date of the quake, a guy named George Erickson. Erickson had been unable to join his fellow Doomsealers on the mountaintop that day because back in March, he'd been locked in the mental ward of the state hospital. And it was from there, in the asylum, that he told reporters, and I quote, "God may have made a mistake in the date, but the cities named will be destroyed in time." Little did America know, but George Erickson was right.

• 20:27Aaron Mahnke?

  Because the cities named in Mariah's prophecy, why, they were none other than Oakland, Alameda, and San Francisco. And 16 years later, in 1906, smack dab in the month of April, the region was destroyed in a massive devastating quake. A few years after that, Mariah "Woodworth" Etter paid the Bay Area a visit. She hadn't been back since she fled all those years before, and now, a great sense of déjà vu overcame her. "I remembered," she wrote, "how the Lord had shown me at the time the great earthquake that was coming on San Francisco, Oakland and adjoining towns, and that I would live to work over the ruins.

• 21:08Aaron Mahnke?

  Now, after all these years, I saw the prophecy fulfilled." To date, the 1906 San Francisco earthquake remains the deadliest earthquake in US history.

• 21:35Aaron Mahnke?

  Thank you for shaking things up with me today as we explored earthquake stories from around the world. But quakes aren't the only dangers lurking beneath our feet, and I happen to have one last story for you about a hazard you've probably been haunted by since you were just a kid. Stick around through this brief sponsor break to hear all about it. This episode was made possible by Squarespace. Way before I ever created Lore, I was a branding designer helping businesses craft a professional presence that customers could trust. Because if you don't put your best foot forward, it's hard to start your business journey, which is something that Squarespace allows anyone to do with ease. Squarespace is the all-in-one website platform that's designed to help you stand out and succeed online.

• 22:18Aaron Mahnke?

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• 23:01Aaron Mahnke?

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• 23:46Aaron Mahnke?

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• 24:27Aaron Mahnke?

  And when you order, please write in "Lore" in the "How did you hear about us?" survey to let them know that we sent you. Don't forget, there's no safe like SimpliSafe. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. If you could wake up tomorrow and be better at one thing, what would it be? I know what I would pick: being better at not reaching for my phone every time there's a pause in my work or personal life. I'm starting to enjoy the quietness of boredom just a bit more, and learning the power of living with my own thoughts instead of doom-scrolling to avoid them. One way to achieve whatever goal you might have dreamed up: therapy. And that's where BetterHelp comes in. BetterHelp has an average live therapy session rating of 4.9 out of 5, based on over 1.7 million client reviews.

• 25:12Aaron Mahnke?

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• 25:55Aaron Mahnke?

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• 26:40Aaron Mahnke?

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• 27:25Aaron Mahnke?

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• 27:40Aaron Mahnke?

  Off the coast of Essex, England, lies a miles-long path across the tidal flats. It's called the Broome Way, but some locals know the Broome Way by another name, and it's enough to give any traveler pause. They call it the Doom Way, and not only because it leads to a plot of land called, I kid you not, Foulness Island. No, this path got its ominous moniker for another reason. It's said that over 100 people have died along that murky trail. How, you might ask? Oh, they were killed by quicksand. Now, look, if you're like me, you probably grew up thinking that quicksand was going to be a much bigger day-to-day problem than it actually is. From Batman and Scooby-Doo to Days of Our Lives and The Simpsons, not to mention at

• 28:24Aaron Mahnke?

  least five separate episodes of Lassie, we have all been primed since childhood to think that a slow, sticky death awaits us around every corner. Heck, quicksand is even depicted in the 11th-century Bayou Tapestry and Edmund Spencer's The Fairy Queen. But how dangerous is quicksand, really? Well, before we determine that, I should probably outline exactly what quicksand is. The word itself comes from Middle English, in which "quick" means "living," living sand. Except it's not sand at all, not technically speaking. Quicksand is actually comprised of the finer-grained substance known as silt. In short, when silt becomes saturated with water, it can't generate enough friction to hold weight, hence the sinking.

• 29:10Aaron Mahnke?

  But what makes it so tricky is the fact that it doesn't actually behave like a liquid until you step on it. You see, quicksand is a non-Newtonian fluid, meaning that its viscosity changes with pressure. Apply pressure to quicksand, and it turns to liquid. Oh, and by the way, other non-Newtonian fluids include the beloved cornstarch-and-water combo, Oublak, silly putty, ketchup, honey, and, uh, human blood. So, let's just say that you do step in quicksand. What's your next move? Well, here's the good news for you. Contrary to just about every action movie from the 1960s onward, it's basically impossible to fully sink in quicksand.

• 29:51Aaron Mahnke?

  For one, most areas of quicksand are only a few feet deep, so you're more likely to lose a shoe than your life. And more importantly, it's way denser than the human body, so if you just relax, you can easily float on the top. But look, just because you can't really drown in quicksand doesn't mean that it can't kill you in other ways, and those 100 or more victims of the Essex Doom Way are proof of that. You could, for example, get stuck at low tide only to drown when the high tide came in, or perish from heat exhaustion, dehydration, or hypothermia after being trapped too long. Essentially, quicksand can turn a person into an insect on a piece of flypaper. But if you do manage to get a leg stuck, don't panic.

• 30:36Aaron Mahnke?

  Flailing around will cause you to sink further. Now, of course, the best way to survive quicksand is to avoid it altogether, and luckily for visitors to one part of England, the royal family can help you out with that. Ever since 1548, the British monarch has appointed a formal "guide to the sands" in northwest England's Morecambe Bay. The guide's entire job is to lead people safely across the bay during low tide, where quicksand is a real risk. But even the guide to the sands can't always beat the elements. In one 1846 incident, nine people died when their cart tumbled into a sinkhole known locally as the Black Scar. Another spot to be wary of quicksand? Anywhere an earthquake hits.

• 31:21Aaron Mahnke?

  You see, the shaking can cause some kinds of soil to literally liquefy, particularly on beaches and river fronts, along with areas that were once watery, now filled with artificial, man-made fill soil. And while earthquakes often only last seconds, 15 seconds of the ground under your house turning to liquid is more than enough time to be a problem. Speaking of that artificial land, you know where you can find plenty of it? Lurking beneath entire neighborhoods in Tokyo, Dubai, San Francisco, and Boston, Massachusetts.

• 32:07Aaron Mahnke?

  This episode of Lore was produced by me, Aaron Mahnke, with writing by Jenna Rose Nethercutt, research by Cassandra DeAlba, and music by Chad Lawson. My brand-new history book, Exhumed, is finally here in hardcover ebook and an audio version narrated by me. Exhumed explores the strange and twisted roots of the New England vampire panic and its star player, Mercy Brown. Grab your copy today over at aaronmahnke.com/exhumed. Don't like hearing ads on this show? Well, there's a paid version available on Apple Podcasts and Patreon that is 100% ad-free. Subscribers also get weekly mini-bonus episodes that we call Lore Bites, and Patreon members specifically get discounts on Lore merch and access to my inbox.

• 32:50Aaron Mahnke?

  Learn more over at lorepodcast.com/support. You can follow this show on various social media platforms: YouTube, Threads, Blue Sky, Instagram. 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.