Speaker 1: Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
Speaker 1: is an open book, all of these amazing tales right
Speaker 1: there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome
Speaker 1: to the Cabinet of Curiosities. History is a lens. By
Speaker 1: looking through it, we can examine how we got to
Speaker 1: where we are today. There's much to learn from major
Speaker 1: events or discoveries of the past, and what they can
Speaker 1: tell us help us chart our journey from our first
Speaker 1: steps on Earth to our walk on the moon. History
Speaker 1: also allows us to see what went wrong and how
Speaker 1: we can do things better than next time around. It
Speaker 1: brings things into focus, so to speak, and perhaps the
Speaker 1: Vikings were looking for some of that focus when they
Speaker 1: came across rock crystals in eleventh century Sweden. In nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety seven, a team of scientists from a university in
Speaker 1: Germany arrived on the island of Gautland off the coast
Speaker 1: of Sweden to study the rock crystals the Vikings had
Speaker 1: left behind. These weren't like the jagged crystals most people
Speaker 1: are used to, with pillars of clear quartz seeming to
Speaker 1: grow out of the rocks. No, these crystals were smooth,
Speaker 1: impossibly so, and they'd been fashioned into convex bi aspherical lenses,
Speaker 1: not unlike contact lenses made today, except modern contacts and
Speaker 1: prescription lenses are made in labs by computer guided hardware.
Speaker 1: In many cases, one inch thick plastic discs called lens
Speaker 1: blanks are loaded into machines that grind and shaped them
Speaker 1: until they're the perfect curvature based on the patient's prescription.
Speaker 1: But the Viking crystals from Visby in Gautland, also known
Speaker 1: as the Visbye lenses, were made by a craftsman using
Speaker 1: a lathe that he turned as he shaped them by hand.
Speaker 1: It's easy to think of them as jewelry, especially since
Speaker 1: some of them were found cradled in silver fittings, but
Speaker 1: these crystals were too large to wear. Clearly the Vikings
Speaker 1: had bigger plans for them. They were most likely used
Speaker 1: to magnify small objects for artists, or maybe to start
Speaker 1: fires more easily by focusing the sun's rays at a
Speaker 1: pile of kindling. It's also possible that they were used
Speaker 1: in a similar fashion to cauterize wounds on the battlefield,
Speaker 1: and researchers haven't ruled out the possibility that the Vikings
Speaker 1: had tried to assemble them into some kind of telescope,
Speaker 1: but their craftsmanship wasn't the only thing special about the
Speaker 1: Bisbee lenses. In fact, the lenses have broadened our vision
Speaker 1: of what was capable. Hundreds of years before mathematicians had
Speaker 1: calculated the ideal lens shape. Without the proper formulas available
Speaker 1: to them, Viking artisans would have had to shape each
Speaker 1: crystal by trial and error. And we know this because
Speaker 1: subsequent excavations of the area uncovered other artifacts, such as
Speaker 1: beads and partial lenses, all failed attempts on the road
Speaker 1: to the perfect lens. Of course, one has to wonder
Speaker 1: what happened to the knowledge that led those lensmakers to
Speaker 1: their final design. Had it been available to others for
Speaker 1: use and expand upon, it's possible the first telescope might
Speaker 1: have been created much earlier than sixteen o eight, when
Speaker 1: Galileo gazed up at the stars. Unfortunately, any research or
Speaker 1: information on their creation has been lost to the ravages
Speaker 1: of time. One thing is certain, though, the lenses were
Speaker 1: not a Viking origin, nor were they native to the region.
Speaker 1: According to one expert, these rock crystals were imported from
Speaker 1: the Middle East into Western Russia before they were purchased
Speaker 1: by Swedish merchants who brought them home. Another theory states
Speaker 1: that the crystals were brought to Sweden by the bodyguards
Speaker 1: of Byzantine emperors, bodyguards who just happened to be Vikings.
Speaker 1: They were most likely fashioned in Eastern Europe, where they
Speaker 1: were set in silver before being passed through the Vikings
Speaker 1: extensive trade network. Today, a large collection of these lenses
Speaker 1: resides in Bisbee at the Foreign Sole Historical Museum. More
Speaker 1: lenses can be seen in the Swede National Museum in Stockholm.
Speaker 1: Although it's clear that many have been lost over the years,
Speaker 1: their existence is a wonder and it reminds us that
Speaker 1: history goes far deeper than we might think. Today's modern
Speaker 1: conveniences may have gotten their start many centuries ago as
Speaker 1: people look for ways to make their lives easier with
Speaker 1: new technology. And thanks to what these pioneers left behind,
Speaker 1: we have a better understanding of humanity's journey toward advancement
Speaker 1: and progress, which means it might be fair to say
Speaker 1: that these lenses have brought the past into focus. The
Speaker 1: best stories, the ones that transcend time and stay with
Speaker 1: us for generations, are often grounded in a little bit
Speaker 1: of truth. The fictional Overlook Hotel in Stephen King's The
Speaker 1: Shining was inspired by the very real and very haunted
Speaker 1: Stanley Hotel in the Colorado Rockies. In fact, King suffered
Speaker 1: a nightmare while staying there. They gave him the seed
Speaker 1: for a story about a family trying to survive the
Speaker 1: winter in a haunted hotel. Jaws by Peter Benchley didn't
Speaker 1: make people afraid of the water. No, that happened in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixteen when one shark killed five people during a
Speaker 1: summer at the Jersey Shore. But the news reports inspired
Speaker 1: Benchley's tale of Underwater Terror and the blockbuster film based
Speaker 1: on it. But there are stories that go back even further.
Speaker 1: They've lasted hundreds of years too, changing and transforming with
Speaker 1: each retelling, but still holding onto the magic that made
Speaker 1: them timeless in the first place. And at the heart
Speaker 1: of one of the most famous ones is Maria Sophia
Speaker 1: von Earthel. Maria was a baroness from Bavaria. She was
Speaker 1: born in seventeen twenty nine to Prince Philip Christoph von
Speaker 1: Earthel and Baroness von Bettendorff. Philip owned large swaths of
Speaker 1: land and was well respected among the Bavarian elite. After
Speaker 1: the birth of his daughter, though his wife passed away.
Speaker 1: Not wanting to live alone in his castle nor to
Speaker 1: raise his children by himself, he married the Countess von Reichenstein,
Speaker 1: Claudia Elizabeth Maria von Venningen. But the Countess was not
Speaker 1: what anyone would call motherly. She hated her stepchildren and
Speaker 1: was frequently cruel, especially to Maria. Her father didn't know
Speaker 1: about it, though, or if he did, he didn't care.
Speaker 1: He was too busy tending to royal business, such as
Speaker 1: the factory he owned that specialized in making glass and
Speaker 1: mirrors for the town. In fact, one mirror produced by
Speaker 1: the factory had a surface so perfect it was known
Speaker 1: as the talking mirror because they said it always spoke
Speaker 1: the truth. It lived within the castle along with Maria,
Speaker 1: her father, and her stepmother. There was also a mine
Speaker 1: in the nearby town of Bieber, reached only by traveling
Speaker 1: over seven mountains. Due to the mind's narrow tunnels and
Speaker 1: short ceilings, children and small adults were often employed to
Speaker 1: navigate them. They even wore brightly colored hoods when going
Speaker 1: through the particularly small tunnels. And if all of this
Speaker 1: sounds familiar, you wouldn't be wrong. It's believed that Baroness
Speaker 1: Maria Sophia vun Earthl was the real life inspiration for
Speaker 1: snow White, the princess who fled her evil stepmother for
Speaker 1: the nearby woods, only to encounter seven dwarves who provided
Speaker 1: her with safety and shelter. Of course, snow white stepmother,
Speaker 1: the evil queen, then used her magical talking mirror to
Speaker 1: find snow White, who then fell into a mysterious sleep
Speaker 1: after biting into a poison apple. Snow White was then
Speaker 1: placed in a glass coffin, where she awaited her prince
Speaker 1: to deliver true love's kiss and break the spell. The
Speaker 1: talking mirror already existed within the castle, The dwarves were
Speaker 1: based on real men who worked in the mines nearby,
Speaker 1: and the poison apple that was most likely inspired by
Speaker 1: the deadly nightshade plant that grew all over the region.
Speaker 1: A legend has it that the glass coffin was a
Speaker 1: nod of the glass factory owned by Maria's father. But
Speaker 1: unlike her fictional counterpart, the Baroness never found true love,
Speaker 1: nor did she marry a prince. She was poisoned by nightshade, though,
Speaker 1: but rather than putting her to sleep, it took her eyesight. Instead,
Speaker 1: she lived to the ripe old age of seventy one
Speaker 1: before passing away unmarried and without children, a far cry
Speaker 1: from the fairy tale told to young children at bedtime.
Speaker 1: And although she didn't quite get that happily ever after,
Speaker 1: she deserved her story still lives on today. Tales of
Speaker 1: the Baroness probably circulated by word of mouth around town,
Speaker 1: so it's a good thing. Jacob and Wilhelm lived only
Speaker 1: fifty miles from where she lived. They'd been known to
Speaker 1: gather folklore from all over Europe. Their first batch of
Speaker 1: stories was published in eighteen twelve, with a second volume
Speaker 1: released three years later, and although you might not know
Speaker 1: them by their first names, you definitely know them by another,
Speaker 1: the brothers Grimm. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour
Speaker 1: of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast
Speaker 1: dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Manky
Speaker 1: in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award
Speaker 1: winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series,
Speaker 1: and television show, and you can learn all about it
Speaker 1: over at the World of Lore dot com and until
Speaker 1: next time, stay curious, yeah,