Summary of Legends 66: Devour

Overview of Legends 66: Devour (Lore — Aaron Mahnke)

This episode of Lore (Legends 66: "Devour") collects folktales and urban legends about devouring—literal and metaphorical—exploring how taboos, othering, inherited curses, and unchecked power turn people (or their spirits) into monsters. Aaron Mahnke presents five stories from different places and traditions: a French incest case, Indigenous North American visions and the Wechuge, a San Jose urban legend about albino cannibals, the Sawney Bean tale from Scotland, and Japan’s flying, blood-drinking nukakubi. Throughout, the episode ties these tales together thematically: transgression feeds monstrosity, and community (or propaganda) shapes how we remember and fear the “other.”

Stories covered

Julienne (Julian) and Marguerite — France (1603)

• Siblings unusually intimate from childhood; family separates them, Marguerite forced into abusive marriage.
• They reunite, live as man and wife for months; servants find them sharing a bed.
• Arrested, tried for incest and adultery in 1603, convicted and beheaded. Their tomb in Paris reads: “Here lie the brother and sister. You who pass by, do not inquire as to the cause of their death, but go and pray to God for their souls.”
• Theme: taboo transgression punished; cautionary moral tale.

Danesa (Daneza) vision-quest traditions and the Wechuge

• Indigenous belief (as presented): children undergo vision quests and are “chosen” by animal spirits; each animal has a song and gives powers and a medicine bundle.
• These animal spirits are remnants of ancient man-eating beasts trapped under the earth. Contact with them grants hunting power but also risk.
• Taboos (general or animal-specific) can strengthen the spirit to the point the person becomes a Wechuge—a cannibalistic, ice-filled creature. Signs include self-harm (eating lips), internal freezing; to kill a Wechuge you must melt the ice inside it.
• Folktale example: a Wechuge attacks and roasts a man on a spit; a search party ultimately kills it by burning/melting the ice over a day.
• Emphasis: spiritual power can corrupt; community intervention (protecting someone from taboos, restoring medicine bundles) can save them.

Hicks Road “blood albinos” — San Jose urban legend

• Long, sparsely populated Hicks Road is said to hide a colony of albino cannibals with paper-white skin, glowing red eyes, and sometimes missing toes.
• Variants: trailer colony, satanists, asylum escapees, ghosts/aliens; they supposedly eat anyone they catch, and graffiti rituals (writing a name on a bridge) invite them to hunt someone down.
• Origins unclear; speculative sources include:
  • Misremembered pale Swedish settlers.
  • Local white supremacist compound (“Holy City”) memories morphing into monstrous legends.
  • Government/air-force scare to deter trespassers near a radar station.
  • Drug cartels inventing cannibal stories to keep people away from illegal marijuana farms.
• Conclusion: no evidence supporting the legend; it’s an example of fear and othering producing monstrous myths.

Sawney Bean — Scottish cannibal clan

• Story of Sawney Bean and Black Agnes: a family living in a mile-long cave in Ayrshire, ambushing travelers, murdering them, looting them, and eating their flesh. Over generations they grow into a large clan accused of eating hundreds or thousands.
• In the tale, a search party and King James I send men and bloodhounds; the cave is found with human limbs, bones, and stolen valuables. 48 clan members are captured, marched to Edinburgh and executed brutally.
• Historical accuracy: widely regarded as a fabricated or propagandistic story—first pamphlet appears in early 1700s, likely English anti-Scottish propaganda tied to Jacobite tensions. No contemporary official records corroborate the grisly events.
• Cultural impact: despite doubt, the legend persists in tours and popular culture (noted inspiration for horror films such as The Hills Have Eyes).

Nukakubi — Japan (detachable, hunting female heads)

• A curse that causes a woman’s head to detach in sleep and fly off hunting for blood (or biting people to death). The woman usually has no memory of nighttime acts.
• The curse can be inherited matrilineally or result from one’s own or a husband’s misdeeds.
• Ways to stop or mitigate:
  • Hide the headless body while the head is out (kills the woman too).
  • Folktale cure: feeding the afflicted woman the liver of a white dog—one story has a man killing his white dog to cure his wife; their daughter later still inherits a variant of the curse (hunting white dogs).
• Social stigma: households with a nukakubi are shamed; there are tales of selling afflicted women to circuses or brothels, and suicides occur.

Key themes and takeaways

• Devouring as metaphor and method: these stories often literalize moral, social, or political consumption—taboo acts (incest, cannibalism, curse-breaking) literally “devour” bodies and souls.
• Power and corruption: contact with ancient power (animal spirits, inherited curses) or accumulation of criminal power (Sawney Bean) tends toward moral and physical degeneration.
• Community as check or creator:
  • Positive: in the Daneza account, friends and family can intercede to prevent spiritual overgrowth and save someone from becoming a monster.
  • Negative: fear and propaganda (Sawney Bean, Hicks Road) use monstrous tales to justify prejudice, control movement, or demonize entire groups.
• Folklore as social tool: legends enforce taboos, explain misfortune, warn against outsiders, and can also be weaponized (politically or commercially).
• Historicity vs. myth: some stories are likely rooted in cultural belief (vision quests, nukakubi), while others (Sawney Bean, Hicks Road’s albinos) reflect rumor, propaganda, or deliberate creation.

Notable quotes and insights

• “Long ago, the world was inhabited by man-eating monsters. Today, the only monsters left are us.” — episode framing line.
• Riddington on vision quests: “In a moment of transformation, the child enters a visionary state... Each animal has a song that is emblematic of its power. As the animal sings its song to the child, the animal's way of being becomes the child's way of being.”
• On Sawney Bean mythmaking: the tale likely served as anti-Scottish propaganda—an example of how portraying a people as “disgusting” removes sympathy for them.
• Paris tomb inscription for Julienne and Marguerite: “Here lie the brother and sister. You who pass by, do not inquire as to the cause of their death, but go and pray to God for their souls.”

Context & production notes

• Host: Aaron Mahnke; episode part of the Lore “Legends” series.
• Production credits noted in-episode: writing and research staff mentioned.
• Sponsors and promotional material are interspersed (standard Lore ad reads).
• Stories submitted by listeners; the show invites local legend submissions.
• The episode highlights both culturally specific supernatural beliefs (e.g., nukakubi, Wechuge) and modern urban legends/propaganda—listeners should consider historical sources and cultural context when evaluating such tales.

Further reading / suggestions

• Treat sensational folktales (Sawney Bean, Hicks Road) with skepticism—check contemporary records and scholarship.
• For deeper context on Indigenous belief summaries, look up reputable ethnographies on specific groups (e.g., Danezaa/Dane-zaa or other Northern Indigenous nations) and the scholarly work of anthropologists referenced in such accounts.
• Consider how folklore is used to police taboos, stigmatize groups, or mobilize fear—use stories as a lens to study social anxieties and power.