Episode 196: Bad Seed (ad-free)

Some of the oldest—and most bizarre—folklore in the world is about something we use to fill awkward conversations these days. But if more people knew how truly disturbing those stories are, they’d view the sky in an entirely different way.

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Further Reading:

1. Benner, Allen Rogers, and Francis H. Fobes, trans. The Letters of Alciphron, Aelian and Philostratus. LCL 383. Edited by Jeffrey Henderson. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1949.
2. Cooper, Brian. “The Word Vampire: Its Slavonic Form and Origin.” Journal of Slavic Linguistics 13, n. 2 (Summer-Fall 2005), 251-270.
3. “Death by Lightning.” The Brooklyn Daily Eagle. 7/24/1857. Page 2. https://bklyn.newspapers.com/image/50409793/?terms=robert%2Bmcknight.
4. Godley, A. D., trans. Herodotus: Books V-VII. LCL 119. Edited by Jeffery Henderson. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1922.
5. Jensenius, Jr., John S. “A Detailed Analysis of Lightning Deaths in the United States from 2006 through 2019.” Published February 2020. https://www.weather.gov/media/safety/Analysis06-19.pdf.
6. Kovacs, Maureen Gallery, trans. The Epic of Gilgamesh, Tablet XI: The Story of the Flood. Electronic Edition by Wolf Carnahan. 1998. http://www.ancienttexts.org/library/mesopotamian/gilgamesh/tab11.htm.
7. McCartney, Eugene S. “Magic and the Weather in Classical Antiquity.” The Classical Weekly 18, n. 20 (March 30, 1925), pp. 154-57, 163-66.
8. “Priest is Buried Alive in Russia.” The Dexter Tribune. 11/9/1905. Page 3. https://www.newspapers.com/image/425718868.
9. “Rain Dance.” Indians.org. http://www.indians.org/articles/rain-dance.html.
10. “Russian Priest Buried Alive.” Aberdeen Press and Journal. 8/9/1905. Page 6. https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000576/19050809/071/0006.
11. Schafer, Edward H. “Ritual Exposure in Ancient China.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 14, n. ½ (Jun. 1951), pp. 130-84.
12. Spencer, Luke. “8 Unusual Deaths from the Victorian Era.” Mental Floss. 4/5/2016. https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/78166/8-unusual-deaths-victorian-era.
13. Sugg, Richard. “The Hidden History of Deviant Burials.” History Today. 2/21/2017. https://www.historytoday.com/hidden-history-deviant-burials.
14. Sugg, Richard. The Real Vampires: Death, Terror, and the Supernatural. Gloucestershire: Amberley, 2019.
15. Ward, Donald J. “Warning Signs and Weather Magic: Some Ideas on Causality in Popular Belief.” Pacific Coast Philology 3 (April 1968), pp. 67-72.
16. Warner, Elizabeth A. “Death by Lightning: For Sinner or Saint? Beliefs from Novosokol’niki Region, Pskov Province, Russia.” Folklore 133, n. 2 (Oct 2002), pp. 248-59.
17. Warner, Elizabeth A. “Russian Peasant Beliefs Concerning the Unclean Dead and Drought, Within the Context of the Agricultural Year.” Folklore 122 (August 2011), pp. 155-75.
18. Warner, Elizabeth A. “Russian Peasant Beliefs and Practices concerning Death and the Supernatural Collected in Novosokol’niki Region, Pskov Province, Russia, 1995. Part I: The Restless Dead, Wizards and Spirit Beings.” Folklore 111, n. 1 (April 2000), pp. 67-90.
19. White, Sam. “‘Shewing the Difference Between their Conjuration, and our Invocation on the name of God for Rayne’: Weather, Prayer, and Magic in Early American Encounters.” The William and Mary Quarterly 72, n.1 (Jan 2015), 33-56.
20. Wigington, Patti. “Weather Magic and Folklore.” Learn Religions. 6/25/2019. https://www.learnreligions.com/weather-magic-and-folklore-2562497.