Lore - Lore 261: Attraction

Episode Date: August 26, 2024

Folklore is often confined to circles around the campfire or whispered stories at slumber parties. But for a time in America, people turned folklore into things worth traveling to see. And their methods were rather tricky. Narrated and produced by Aaron Mahnke, with writing and research by GennaRose Nethercott, and music by Chad Lawson. ————————— Lore Resources:  Episode Music: lorepodcast.com/music  Episode Sources: lorepodcast.com/sources  All the shows from Grim & Mild: www.grimandmild.com ————————— Sponsors: BetterHelp: Lore is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at BetterHelp.com/LORE, and get on your way to being your best self. Acorns: Acorns helps you automatically save & invest for your future. Head to Acorns.com/LORE to sign up for Acorns to start saving and investing for your future today! To report a concern regarding a radio-style, non-Aaron ad in this episode, reach out to [e-mail] with the name of the company or organization so we can look into it. ————————— To advertise on our podcast, please reach out to [e-mail], or visit our listing here.

Hey folks, Aaron here. I know I've mentioned this before, but the release date for my brand new book is almost here. Cabinet of Curiosities has been the sister podcast allure for over five years now, so it's time to get it into bookstores around the country and into the hands of fans and new readers alike. The hardcover is gorgeous. Really, the folks over at St. Martin's Press did an amazing job with it.

And by gathering nearly 200 of my favorite stories from the podcast into one place, I was able to curate and organize them into a really useful topical guide to some of history's most curious tales. Now here's what you probably already know, but I want to repeat it just in case you don't. Any pre-orders between now and the book's release on November 12th all magically count toward its first week of sales. Which means the more pre-orders there are, the better chance this book has of landing on the big bestseller lists. So, you know the assignment, right? Go pre-order today. I have a pre-order link for the Cabinet of Curiosity's book right in this episode's text description,

so you could just tap on that link and do your thing. Or you can head over to grimandmild.com slash curiosities and find the pre-order button at the top of the page in a massive gold banner. Let's make this new book a bestseller and share the gift of wild historical tales with a whole new generation of fans. If anyone can do it, it's the Lore Army, right? And now on with the show.

The war was bloody and brutal. 40,000 troops swarmed the island, swords and axes in their fists. And at only about 540 square miles, roughly an eighteenth the size of Vermont, the small Greek island of Rhodes was wholly unprepared. Death rained down on the islanders for months on end. But this wasn't a simple conquering. No, this was a punishment. You see, in the late 4th century BC, the island had teamed up with Egypt to fight against their common enemies in Macedonia. And Macedonia wasn't too thrilled about that. So in the year of 305 BC, Macedonia

retaliated, army in tow. Hence, the invasion. But here's the thing, the payback didn't exactly go as planned, because after a year of terror, Egypt sent reinforcements to help its former allies. Ships full of hardened warriors arrived in droves, and suddenly the Macedonians were outnumbered. They were forced to abandon the siege and go home, leaving their weapons behind. Naturally, the citizens were overjoyed. I imagine there must have been dancing in the streets, wine and music, and the ancient Greek version of a ticker tape parade.

And to celebrate the victory, the islanders decided to take all the brass weapons the Macedonians had left behind and melt them down to create something new, something big and bold and commemorative, symbolic of their great victory. And so, from the melted metal of their enemy swords, the islanders built a massive 105-foot tall statue. It depicted their sun god, Helios, and it was such a wonder that people traveled from all over the world just to see it. And they named this statue the Colossus of Rhodes.

Looking back, some might call it one of the original roadside attractions, to see it, and they named this statue the Colossus of Rhodes. Looking back, some might call it one of the original roadside attractions, or should I say roads-side. You see, there's nothing like a giant tourist trap to get the wheels of the imagination spinning, and they've kept on spinning down the highways of folklore for centuries. I'm Aaron Manke, and this is Lore. Close your eyes for a moment. Imagine yourself as a passenger on a locomotive chugging down the eastern coast.

Out of the train car window, you ogle at flickering gas lamps, thick forests, and harborside towns. It's the 1880s in America, after all, and the world is full of marvels. But nothing holds a candle to the spectacle awaiting you just after the train leaves Atlantic City. You've heard the legends, sure, but even those can't prepare you. Because you see, right there beside the railroad looms none other than a 65-foot tall wooden elephant. It's mind-blowing, really.

The kind of sight that you've only read about in the storybooks. And little do you know, this giant will go on to change American travel forever. Lucy the Elephant, as she's called, was built by a real estate fella named James V. Lafferty. In 1881, Lafferty was gearing up to sell a chunk of land just south of Atlantic City. And so he did what any savvy businessman would do. He spent $38,000 building a humongous elephant on the undeveloped land. He based his creation on P.T. Barnum's Jumbo the Elephant, except this one was, well, bigger. A lot bigger. Lucy was not only 65 feet high, but also 60 feet

long, 18 feet wide, and weighed a good 90 tons, constructed from nearly a million pieces of wood. And look, I think we all have the same question for Mr. James V. Lafferty, and that is, why? Well, Lafferty had a plan, you see. He knew that to sell land, he had to get people out to see the land first. As it was, that New Jersey plot wasn't much to look at. But if he plopped something strange and fantastical smack dab in the middle of that land, then maybe, just maybe, people would flock there to stare at it. You know, the classic, if you build it, they will come approach.

And it worked. Located right next to the railroad, the huge elephant lured in prospective buyers and curious sightseers alike. All the while, Lafferty would stand right on the very top of his creation, auctioning off parcels of land to the onlookers below. And that was that. The first American roadside attraction was officially born. In the 1920s and 30s, something arrived on the scene that would prompt countless more attractions

to sprout up all over the nation. And that is everyday people traded out train travel for automobiles. Long distance car travel was all the rage, and that meant tourists were passing through towns that they never had access to before. For the residents of those smaller towns, there was one goal,

to get those travelers to stop and to spend. And hey, what better bait to get someone to slam on the brakes than a gigantic oddity? Of course, Lucy was only the first oversized thing of many. Soon she was joined by giant paper cups, baskets, chairs, ketchup bottles, and of course, balls of well, everything, twine, rubber bands, stamps, barbed wire, and more. West Virginia boasted the world's largest teapot, a 12-foot-high, 44-foot-wide piece of dishware that may be short but is certainly stout.

And then there's the giant Paul Bunyan in Brainerd, Minnesota, a 26-foot tall lumberjack sporting a pair of size 80 boots. And what I can only imagine is a deeply unsettling display this massive animatronic man can blink his eyes, wave, and horrifyingly speak to you by name. Now Brainerd's neighbors in Jamestown, North Dakota were immediately jealous of this abomination. Set on building an attraction to rival that 26-foot-tall Paul Bunyan, Jamestown began constructing the world's largest buffalo statue. Completed in 1959, Jamestown unveiled a 60-ton concrete buffalo

that just so happened to be, and I love how petty this is, exactly 26 feet tall. The roadside rivalries didn't end there either. When the Guinness Book of World Records hit the shelves in 1955, the battles only got fiercer. Suddenly every town wanted to outdo its neighbor. And then a year later, in 1956, America's roadways changed again. The Federal Aid Highway Act brought Eisenhower's interstate system to life in the form of a 41,000-mile web of asphalt. Ultimately, it was a military initiative.

The main goal of the interstate was to allow tanks to fit on American roads and to allow for easy evacuation in case of a nuclear event. But the rise of the interstateates had an unexpected side effect. That's right, more roadside attractions. And these attractions, well, they were getting more and more elaborate by the year. Tourists weren't wowed by wooden elephants anymore. It would take a lot more to get the modern public's attention. Now, you may have seen copious billboards for, or even visited, The Thing in Arizona, a strange

labyrinth of curios and exhibits leading to what is allegedly the remains of a mummified mother and child. Or South Dakota's Wall Drug, a sprawling series of cowboy-themed emporiums along which the 80-foot-tall brontosaurus statue is somehow just a footnote to the bizarre. And of course, the 200 billboards spread out over 500 miles of highway wouldn't let us forget South Carolina's very racist Mexican caricature themed south of the border.

This not so casual rest stop includes a sombrero wearing mascot named Pedro who at 104 feet tall is only a foot shy of the colossus of roads. The roadside attraction is part of the very fabric of American culture, for better or for worse. A crossroads, no pun intended, I swear, between the vastness of the land, military might, road trip culture, and our national taste for all things kitschy. But see, there is one particular type of roadside attraction that's a little different than

the rest. Unlike its cousins, this spectacle doesn't claim to be man-made. And I'm not talking about a beautiful waterfall or staggering mountains or caverns. In fact, it isn't natural at all. Some might even say it's just the opposite. The Mystery Spot, Gravity Hill, the Montana Vortex and House of Mystery, the Wonder World Anti-Gravity House, Confusion Hill. We've all seen the signs dotting highways across the U.S., advertising a very particular brand of roadside attraction. That is, places where gravity seems

a little wonky, off-kilter. Locations where water runs uphill or a penny dropped from a roof falls to earth at an angle. In fact, according to RoadsideAmerica.com, the U.S. of A has contained nearly 40 of these attractions over the years. Heck, California alone has boasted seven. But back in 1930, there was only one, a true original, and that spot was called the Oregon Vortex. The Oregon Vortex is nestled in the town of Gold Hill, Oregon. The town was named for a gold deposit called the Big Bar, discovered on a local

hill during the 1850s, and that find transformed the area into a boom town. Seemingly overnight, prospectors poured in from all over the country, hoping to strike it rich. Now, one such prospector was a man named John Lister, a Scotsman born back in 1886. But Lister didn't go to Gold Hill to hunt for gold. No, he was there for a much stranger treasure. In the year 1914, John Lister's friend William McCullough wrote him a letter. William had been prospecting in Gold Hill and stumbled upon something, well, kind of freaky. It was a spot, you see, where gravity seemed crooked.

Assuming that his buddy John, a geologist and engineer by training, would be interested, McCullough invited Lister to come to the US and check it out for himself, which is exactly what Lister did. And what he found in Gold Hill was nothing short of a 165-foot circle of Earth with the ability to bend light, defy gravity, and alter mass.

You know, no big deal. Suffice to say, Lister started conducting experiments immediately. He wanted to gather all the data that he could on what he believed to be a paranormal phenomenon. According to Lister, the spots must be resting on what he called terra lines, which caused the mysterious effects.

At least that was one of his theories. At various points, Lister also attributed the anomalies to magnetic fields, warped atoms, mysterious minerals in the hill, and even an ancient buried supercomputer. "'It will be readily understood,' wrote Lister, that following the widespread interest in the Oregon Vortex, various attempts would be made to imitate it. This has been done in various places, but it is impossible to duplicate the entire situation since it is wholly natural. And so begins a 34-page scientific document titled Notes and Data Relative to the Phenomena at the Area of the Mysterious House. The booklet is stuffed

full of charts, graphs, and map coordinates, but the most notable feature of all? Well, that would be the photographs. Dozens of photographs depicting people who just so happened to be standing a little bit slanted. After allegedly spending years on this research, Lister finally opened the site to the public in the year of 1930. He called the spot the Oregon Vortex, and anyone could come marvel at its wonders.

For a price, of course. Now, okay, it bears saying it's hard to know exactly what of this origin story is true, because much of it comes directly from Lister himself. Was this really a natural phenomenon? Did he actually spend years conducting experiments? Or did he invent the whole thing? Simply clever stories to back up a well-built hoax. You'd think that taking a look at all the data he claimed to have written down might clear it up some. But well, he insisted that the world wasn't ready for what he had learned, and so, fearing

blowback, he burned most of his notes. Convenient, I know. Only the 32-page pamphlet, Notes and Data, remains, which, for what it's worth, reads like that Charlie Day meme with the conspiracy board and the string. Even so, Lister's claims about the land were pretty compelling. Compelling because, well, a tourist could watch the anomaly take place right in front of their own eyes.

Walking toward Magnetic North, for example, a person appears to grow taller, and then shorter again when walking south. Bottles and balls will roll uphill. Brooms stand on end, balanced at a perpetual tilt. Those hardware store levels that use air bubbles refuse to even out. And then there are the physical sensations. Visitors growing seasick right there on dry land and even feeling back pain alleviates or sometimes worsen.

Now Lister claimed that Native Americans had been aware of the place for centuries and had even labeled the land as a forbidden ground. Their horses, he claimed, refused to set foot there. In fact, this detail is still unapologetically displayed on the Oregon Vortex's websites. Is there any verification of this from the indigenous tribes in the area? Certainly not that my researchers could find, but that sure hasn't stopped the rumors. Of course, for the Oregon Vortex to be a proper attraction, it couldn't just be an empty spot in the woods. People needed something to look at. Enter the House of Mystery, a structure

at the heart of the Vortex. Lister claimed the building had originally been built by the Old Grey Eagle Mining Company back in 1904, until one day it slid right off its foundation, sucked in by the whirlpooling vortex. To this day, it sits tilted at an impossible angle. Lister made a life,

and a pretty penny, running the Oregon Vortex and the House of Mystery. He continued as the property's proprietor until his death in 1959, at which point his wife sold it to new owners. And with new owners came new visitors. Visitors with theories of their own. For example, some people insist that one corner of the House of Mystery contains a portal

through which Sasquatches travel between worlds. Yes, you heard that right. Folks even took the throwing pizza into that corner to feed those otherworldly travelers. Because Sasquatches famously love pizza. Everyone knows that, right? Snake oil salesman or serious scientist. John Lister left behind a heck of a legacy. But if there's anything we've learned from John Lister's prospector friends, it's that

when one man finds gold, there's always a horde of others, ready and waiting, with shovels in hand. George was, on the surface, your definition of a regular guy. Born near Fresno, California, he was an electrician and a mechanic. He'd carved out a living working with practical things—engines and wires, gears and pipes. But then again, George Prather was also a self-proclaimed hypnotist and a clever inventor. He even had five original patents under his belt for automotive parts of his own design. In short, he had a wilder imagination than met the eye.

So when George visited the Oregon Vortex sometime in the 1930s, he already had a unique way of seeing things. And where others saw magic at the Vortex, George Prather saw money. So he returned to California inspired. And on October 21st of 1940, he purchased a three acre plot of land from the Newcomb family in Santa Cruz. And then he hit the books. Prather spent hours and hours studying the math of optical illusions until he knew exactly what angles and tricks and equations a builder would need to recreate the sort of illusion that Lister had made his fortune on.

And then, enlisting the help of the Newcomb family's strapping young sons, George began to build his masterpiece. He built crooked fences to confuse visual reference points, and he buried magnets in the soil to throw off compasses. But George's crowning achievement was a humble, wooden, two-room cabin. First, he built it level, like any house should be. But once it was done, George and the Newcomb boys lowered it slowly and carefully down onto a hill, leaving it to rest at a jaunty and dizzying 20-degree angle.

But of course, with the crooked fence posts and the other landmarks sketched to match, the house looked even. So hey, it must have been you that's crooked, right? In June of 1941, George opened his new attraction with a catchy name to match, the Santa Cruz Mystery Spot. The Mystery Spot claimed to be a 150-foot diameter gravitational anomaly nestled in the California Redwoods. This spot claimed to be a 150-foot diameter gravitational anomaly nestled in the California Redwoods.

And it had a shiny supernatural story attached, too. Prather and his fellow tour guides, all of the Newcombs, insisted to visitors that he had bought the property not knowing that there was anything strange about it. Then, while out for a stroll one morning, George found himself growing dizzy. Next, he checked his compass, you know, as you casually do while walking on your own in your yard, and found it spinning out of control. And so, like Lister, he began conducting experiments. Discovering something strange afoot, George insisted that he built the Topsy House to showcase the land's natural eerie properties and oh-so selflessly

share his discovery with the world. George Prather and his guides suggested that the gravitational anomaly was caused by underground meteorites, although other options included buried alien spacecraft, an extremely localized hole in the ozone layer, and, I quote, magma vortex. Plus, a lot more. And the public ate it up. In 1948, Life magazine even published an article on the place featuring photos of people standing a slant while kissing and making silly faces. Here's what it said,

The preoccupied people apparently pitching and leaning all over these pages are not acrobats. They are simply enjoying the force of gravity. Operating on the theory that loss of perspective can drive a man crazy, the Mystery Spot offers a tour through a two-room shack that slants at an angle while a guide delivers a bewildering sing-song. Before long, the happy customers are all leaning sideways. A 1950s Mystery Spot brochure giddily announced, and I quote, It's crazy, it's perplexing, it's nature's black magic. George Prather had nailed it. The Santa Cruz Mystery Spot quickly became one of the most beloved attractions on the West Coast. There was one person, though, who very notably did not love

the Mystery Spot. That is, John Lister. This is a story about America, after all, and what's more American than some good old-fashioned litigation. In short, Lister lawyered up and marched over to Santa Cruz, where he threatened to sue George for all he was worth. He claimed Prather had stolen his idea from the Oregon Vortex and had even copied building specifications out of his own notes and data pages. But Prather just laughed him off. See, you can't claim to have invented a natural phenomenon. To actually sue him, Lister would have to admit that his own attraction wasn't natural

at all. That is, a hoax. Not only would this blow a hole in the whole scheme on which Lister relied for his income, but it would get both Lister and Prather in serious legal trouble, far greater than their own petty feud. Why? Well, you can't patent a natural phenomenon, but you can patent the invention of a crooked house as public amusement. And in fact, someone already had.

Multiple someones, actually. Such as Arthur B. Griffin, who had patented a slanted Trick House in 1905, and Hollis C. Conradore's Amusement House of 1925, the first patent to also include the ball rolling uphill trick, by the way, and the famed ride builder John A. Miller's 1926 amusement structure, and the list goes on. All of this meant that if Lister or Prather admitted that their attractions were not natural, then they would both get sued by all those other trick houses. When Prather reminded Lister of this teeny tiny detail, well, that was it.

Lister backpedaled, saying something like, oh, right, yes, natural, of course, it's all natural. And then he immediately dropped the suit. And so Lister slunk back to Oregon, the two men agreeing to be enemies in grudges alone, rather than by law. But of course, that didn't stop a little vendetta from brewing. In fact, anyone suspected to be affiliated with the mystery spot was, from then on, barred from visiting the vortex, on the grounds that they might be out to steal secrets. But all of this leaves one big, lingering question. When are we going

to get a remake of The Prestige, but all about two rival owners of weird roadside attractions? Come on Hollywood, give the people what they want. Terra Lines. Buried meteorites, supercomputers, Sasquatch portals. When it comes to gravity spots, it's hard to know what to believe. But lucky for us 21st century folks, we have a little something called science. You see, not everyone's on board with the idea of a magical atom-warping vortex. Scientists argue that the weird effects actually have a simple explanation. It's all caused by an optical effect called the ponzo illusion, which although it sounds like a magic trick performed by a muppet, it's something even

cooler. You know how things seem to be smaller when they're farther away, and yet you intuitively know a person in the distance isn't really the size of a squirrel? Your brain understands that they are a person-sized thing, despite how they appear. This is because our brains automatically adjust perspective based on other visual clues, things like horizon lines. But what happens if those very landmarks that your brain relies on are askew? It turns out if you mess with references, it creates an optical illusion where the brain is no longer able to accurately read something's size, making it look disproportionate, crooked,

or here's the kicker, appear to shrink or grow as it moves. This is, of course, how Peter Jackson filmed hobbits and dwarves in his Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movies. Sound familiar? I thought so. Based on what we know of its construction, it's pretty clear that the Mystery Spot is a clever architectural illusion, and honestly that's almost more impressive than the idea of a natural phenomenon.

Prather was a brilliant creative inventor, and the Mystery Spot is essentially a work of geometric art. And, I assume, Lister could boast a similar artistry. Except the thing is, neither ever did. In fact, both men insisted to their dying day that their attractions were genuine, and those who continued to run the sites in the generations to come maintained that exact same story. And maybe that insistence is why, for decades, scientists have made visits to the Mystery Spot and Oregon Vortex alike, eager to see exactly what's going on. In fact, if the story is to be believed, one scientist who visited the Mystery Spot staunchly

disagreed with the Ponzo Illusion explanation, proposing instead a theory of his own. Specifically what he called the theory of light relativity, in which light entering the attraction is refracted by rising carbon dioxide, causing the light to bend. Now, okay, I'll admit that maybe there is no truth to this rumor at all. In fact, the idea that this scientist ever even visited the mystery spot doesn't seem to be verified anywhere except for in the mouths of the mystery spot tour guides, and it's the sort of thing which probably would have been recorded. Because, you see, this particular scientist's life was pretty well documented. That is, the life of a little theoretical physicist named Albert Einstein.

Mystery spots are a fun experiment in folklore. Weird unusual places that make the leap from whispered rumors to tourist attractions. They turn the supernatural into an exhibit. And while that's not new, it certainly is fun to learn about. One thing is clear, though. Gravity Hills seem to have an inescapable pull, dragging both rumors and road trippers into their orbit. And I have one final story for you that flips logic on its head.

Stick around through this brief sponsor break to hear all about it. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Kids are always learning and growing, aren't they? I mean, mine are about to return to school, but as adults, sometimes we lose that curiosity. What's something that you would like to learn? Gardening, a new language, or maybe how to finally beat your best friend in bowling? Well, believe it or not, therapy can help you reconnect with your sense of wonder, because your back-to-school era can come at any age.

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Investing involves risk. Acorns advisors, LLC and SEC registered investment advisor view important disclosures at acorns.com slash lore. If you happen to be a kid in the town of Lake Wales, Florida, you probably ended up attending one of the local elementary schools. Maybe you were a Polk Avenue Cardinal or a Hillcrest Hawk. Or maybe, just maybe, you were a kid with a slightly eerier fate.

That is, a student at the school whose mascot is not your standard bird or bear or lightning bolt, but a ghost. Casper the friendly ghost, in fact. This, you see, is the mascot for a school called Spook Hill Elementary. Why Spook Hill? Well, that would be due to its proximity to a very special roadside attraction,

a gravity spot known by the same name. And at this anomaly, its weirdness isn't attributed to buried meteorites or terror lines, whatever those are. No, Spooky Hill defies gravity simply because it's haunted. And, okay, by now we know the actual deal with these things, right? Due to an obscured horizon and some uncommon visual landmarks, objects appear to roll up instead of down. And when it comes to Spook Hill by objects, I mean cars. Park at the bottom of Spook Hill and shift into neutral, and your car will appear to

slowly start rolling backwards, up the hill. It's been a popular roadside attraction since the 1950s, but of course optical illusion wouldn't be a tantalizing enough explanation to draw crowds in. No, Spook Hill would need a more exciting story. And luckily, it has a few. In one version of the local lore that's been whispered since at least the 1950s, it all started in 1511. That, you see, is when two fearsome pirates decided to retire in Fort Wales. Gentlemen by the name of Tentiente Vanilla and Captain Gimmi Sarsaparilla. Which I know, sounds fake already.

But it's worth noting there are actual records of a real pirate named Captain Sarsaparilla who lived during the 1500s. Anyway, as the story goes, when Sarsaparilla died, he received a classic Davy Jones burial at the bottom of North Lake Wales. When Vanilla's time came, though, he was buried at the bottom of North Lake Wales. When Vanilla's time came though, he was buried at the bottom of a hill. I'm sure you can guess in which direction this story is rolling, so to speak. According to urban legend, centuries went by, and in 1926, a fisherman had parked his car at the bottom of the hill only to glance back and watch his automobile being pushed

uphill by invisible forces. It seems like Vanilla was none too pleased about having a car parked on his final resting place. Some say that he called out to his old friend, Sarsaparilla, and the two Phantom Pirates joined forces like they had in the good old days, pushing the car off poor dead Vanilla's chest. To this day, it's said that the ghosts of Tentiente Vanilla and Captain Gimmi Sarsaparilla will push any parked car right up the hill away from his grave. Now, ghost pirates are all well and good, but a little run of the mill.

After all, you can find ghost pirates in any seacoast town. If you want a really Floridian explanation for the Gravity Hill, you've got to go with Spook Hill's official story. That is, the one emblazoned on a large black sign installed beside the hill itself, vana-whited by a tall cartoon ghost. The sign reads, and I quote, Ages ago, an Indian town on Lake Wales was plagued with raids by a huge gator. The town's great warrior chief and the gator were killed in a final battle that created

the huge swampy depression nearby. The chief was buried on its north side. Later pioneer haulers coming from the old army trail atop the ridge above found their horses laboring here at the foot of the ridge and called it Spook Hill. Is the gator seeking revenge or the chief protecting his land? And there you have it. A giant gator, undead pirates, or a simple trick of the eye. One thing though is for certain. Nothing has a stronger attraction than a good story. This episode of Lore was produced by me, Aaron Manke, with research and writing by Jenna

Rose Nethercott and music by Chad Lawson. Don't like hearing the ads? I've got a solution. There is a paid version of Lore on Apple Podcasts and Patreon that is 100% ad-free. Plus, subscribers get weekly mini-episodes called Lore Bites. It's a bargain for all of that ad-free storytelling and a great way to support this show and the team behind it for more Information about all of those ad free feeds go to lore podcast comm slash support More is much more than just a podcast though

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