Between Myth and Belief

This week on Between Myth and Belief, Michelle takes Beth to Lynn, Massachusetts, and the strange story of Dungeon Rock. According to legend, pirate Thomas Veal was trapped inside the cave during a 1658 earthquake, along with a fortune in stolen treasure. Nearly two centuries later, spiritualist Hiram Marble decided he was going to find it. With help from mediums, messages supposedly sent by the d...

In 1903, something strange came to Van Meter, Iowa. For several nights, townspeople reported mysterious lights moving across rooftops, a huge winged creature with a glowing light on its forehead, enormous three-toed tracks, and a smell powerful enough to leave one witness disoriented. Naturally, the people of Van Meter responded by shooting at it. A lot. This week on Between Myth and Belief, Beth...

What do you do when a disease is killing your family, medicine has no answers, and your neighbors are convinced the dead are responsible? This week on Between Myth and Belief, we dig into the New England Vampire Panic, a strange and deeply human chapter of American folklore born from fear, grief, and the devastating spread of tuberculosis, then known as consumption. We talk about the exhumations,...

Meet the Nuckelavee: Orkney folklore's most relentless water horse, a fused horse-and-rider with no skin, a single burning red eye, and breath that poisons crops and livestock. Unlike the Kelpie or the Each-uisge, there's no taming this one, no trick, no deal. Just one rule that might save your life: never let it catch you between salt water and fresh. This episode traces the Nuckelavee back to Wa...

On May 22, 2011, an EF5 tornado tore through Joplin, Missouri, killing 158 people in one of the deadliest storms in modern American history. In the aftermath, something strange surfaced, child survivors across the town began describing the same figure: a tall, human-like being with enormous butterfly wings who appeared in the worst moments of the storm, shielding them from debris and standing betw...

In the late 1980s, a photocopied brochure started circulating through coffee shops, bulletin board systems, and fax machines. It described a research commune hidden in the New Jersey Pine Barrens, a homemade machine called the Egg, and a doorway to a parallel Earth with no people on it. This week Beth and Michelle dig into Ong's Hat, the true ghost town turned collaborative fiction that became one...

They live in the sea as seals. On land, they pass as human. And if someone steals the skin they shed on shore, they can never go home. Selkies are one of the oldest and most quietly heartbreaking figures in Celtic and Norse folklore. Creatures who ask almost nothing of the people around them, and are betrayed anyway. In this episode, Beth and Michelle explore the selkie legends of Scotland, the Sh...

In the highlands of southern France, something was hunting people. For three years, from 1764 to 1767, La Bête du Gévaudan killed over a hundred men, women, and children across 700 square miles of rugged countryside, embarrassed the royal court of King Louis XV, and launched one of the largest coordinated hunts in French history. Soldiers failed. Professional wolf hunters failed. The king's own gu...

Before ghost hunting was a TV staple, Dr. Nandor Fodor was already doing it weirder and smarter than anyone else. In this episode we dig into the strange career of the paranormal investigator almost nobody talks about. From the Thornton Heath poltergeist to his most infamous case: a talking mongoose on the Isle of Man named Jeff who claimed to be born in New Delhi in 1852. Fodor's wild theory that...

This week, Michelle and Beth dig into one of the strangest, saddest, and most compelling folk traditions ever pulled from a forgotten archive box: the Benandanti of Friuli, Italy. Born into a calling, dispatched four times a year in spirit form to wage plant-based warfare in the fields, fiercely proud of who they were — until the Inquisition spent a century grinding that pride into confession. We...

What are dreams, really? Science says your brain is filing memories and simulating threats. Psychology points to the subconscious doing its messy work. Metaphysics suggests something far stranger, that it’s a doorway to other realms, other versions of yourself you can only half-remember come morning. This week, Michelle and Beth float through the dreamscape: shared dreams that two people experienc...

What happens when a community’s justice system fails, and the line between vigilante law and supernatural lore begins to blur? In this episode of Between Myth and Belief (formerly Folkloric), Michelle and Beth travel to the dark hollows of Booger Hole, West Virginia. Known for a string of mysterious disappearances and a history of post-Civil War violence, Booger Hole became the stage for one of Ap...

In the spring of 1973, in a small Southern Illinois town of about 800 people, something scratched at Henry McDaniel's door. He opened it. What he described was four feet tall, three-legged, pinkish-grey skin, eyes catching the porch light. It sent him rushing for his gun and sent the rest of Enfield into chaos. Michelle and Beth dig into the 1973 Illinois cryptid sightings from the ground up, the...

They were here before us. They will be here after we're gone. And in the meantime, they are definitely watching. For as long as people have been brave enough to go into the woods, trees have given us shelter, oxygen, fruit, and stories. People from all over the world and throughout history have looked up into those branches and felt something old looking back at them. So the question isn't if tree...

Let's breathe in the strange and suffocating tale of the Mad Gasser of Mattoon, the phantom prowler who paralyzed an entire Illinois town in the summer of 1944 with nothing but a sweet smell and a whole lot of wartime dread. We dig into the moments that lit the fuse, the armed vigilantes who followed, and why the army chemical experts found absolutely nothing. Plus, we trace the long, weird histor...

Let’s take a walk through a blood soaked history of Greyfriars Kirkyard and the apparitions who do or maybe do not haunt there. We discuss the plague victims, mass graves, the Covenanters, and the monster who may be lurking in the dark. Plus, a bonus illness-induced, emotional rant about humanity and how we treat one another.          R4_00597_EXP01_Horror_atmosphere by kevp888 -- https://freesoun...

Follow along with us as we enter a different realm, beyond the known and into... Toronto, Canada. Where we watch the 1970s every day citizens embark upon a journey of mysticism and science. Philip never existed but he has gained a life in the minds of those who created him and for those of us who uncover this, for all intents and purposes, successful attempt to create a ghost.    View the document...

Most of us love to dance. School dances, dance clubs, weddings, etc., are all opportunities for those of us with the passion but not the professional skill to shake our groove thing. We dance until we need a drink or they switch to a song we dislike. But what if you couldn’t stop? What if your friends and neighbors were all dancing with you? What if none of you could stop? Join us as we explore th...

Time is like a river, or perhaps a babbling brook. Michelle and Beth jump into the time stream and visit fantastical places like across the street or down the road. Every place has a time slip story, those moments that capture you like a leaf in a dust devil and keep you twirling until you find yourself no longer in Kansas but out of time.

The mystery, the history, and the…science? This week Beth and Michelle discuss an area of the U.S. they both love as they set the scene for many myths and lore to come. This area can make a person ask a lot of questions and give few answers in return but will definitely leave a ton of room for speculation. So, close the curtains, don’t whistle, and ignore the voice in the woods calling your name....

Some beings endure over the centuries, not just surviving the encroachment of the modern world but thriving within new mediums. Whether it is in a Marvel movie, video games or a podcast about folklore, some beings still retain their relevance. Michelle and Beth discuss the nature and duality of Baba Yaga and her walking hut.    Beyond the Mother Metaphor: Baba Yaga's Ecofeminist Manifesto   Music...

Michelle's favorite cryptid finally swoops into an episode! Beth takes a skeptical, if empathetic, eye to the cryptids origins. Everything you ever wanted to know -or hypothesize- about the Mothman is in this episode. Is the Mothman real or a mass hallucination? A harbinger or a watcher? Or maybe a lonely soul looking for a companion. The Mothman may be the only one who knows.   " The Mothman Song...

The Cailleach, ancient hag, goddess of winter, she is the shaper of mountains. She is the keeper of storms and the weaver of endings. In this episode we discuss her steps through Celtic myth from Ireland to Scotland and beyond. We will uncover tales of icy reign, the power to sculpt land and her dual nature which is in the end so very human.   Music track: Heritage by Pufino Source: https://freeto...

What started as a morbid fascination with how some saints met their deaths, this episode turned an emotional corner as we discuss different martyrs and how they came to be. Michelle focuses on the ancient past and the more ‘creative’ endings these saints met. Beth touches on more recent history and we find ourselves angered and appalled. Why does someone need to die just to further their message?...

Fog hangs heavy, the road ahead is barely visible by the light of your lantern. You hear the thudding beat of hooves in the distance, perhaps a messenger on his task. An angry orange light ahead pierces the fog, and the heavy lantern drops away from your numb fingers as you stare in shock at the headless figure wrapped in a dark cloak astride a black steed. It's upheld hand gripping a jack-o'-lant...