Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild.
Speaker 2: Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
Speaker 2: is an open book, all of these amazing tales are
Speaker 2: right there on display, just waiting for us to explore.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. There is no name
Speaker 2: more controversial in modern Indian politics than oring Zeb. But
Speaker 2: he's not a modern politician.
Speaker 1: No. He was an emperor who ruled from sixteen fifty
Speaker 1: eight to seventeen oh seven. Indian Muslims see him as
Speaker 1: a national hero, while Indian Hindus see him as a
Speaker 1: murdering tyrant, and because of this, frequent violent clashes have
Speaker 1: erupted over his tomb as recently as last year. It's amazing,
Speaker 1: but perhaps not surprising, that someone from hundreds of years
Speaker 1: ago could still be having such an impact today. All
Speaker 1: countries like to co opt certain historical figures and push
Speaker 1: a modern narrative, but for the curious, the actual historical
Speaker 1: details can bring us closer to the truth. Oringzeb's childhood
Speaker 1: is a familiar one to cabinet listeners. Born into royalty,
Speaker 1: he had to murder or imprison his family in order
Speaker 1: to become king. The most notable detail from his childhood
Speaker 1: has to do with his mother's death. You've heard of
Speaker 1: taj Mahal right, well, that was his mother's tomb, built
Speaker 1: by his grief stricken father. However, Oringzeb was less interested
Speaker 1: in building monuments and more interested in expanding his power.
Speaker 1: His kingdom, known as the Mughal Empire, was a Sunni
Speaker 1: Muslim empire with its origin in modern day Afghanistan. His
Speaker 1: great grandfather had expanded it to cover half of India,
Speaker 1: but Oringzeb thought that he could unite the entire Soub continent.
Speaker 1: He believed that he could do this through Islam, bringing
Speaker 1: various regional princes under his control by forcing them to
Speaker 1: more closely obey religious law. Once he had done this,
Speaker 1: he started to tax Hindus and Shia Muslims at double
Speaker 1: the rate of Sunni Muslims. This was obviously unpopular, to
Speaker 1: say the least, but Oringzeb would put down any resistance,
Speaker 1: violently burning the temples of those who didn't comply. However,
Speaker 1: he would spare those who did and adamantly protected their communities. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: only a small fraction of Hindu temples were ever destroyed.
Speaker 1: There are several cases of Muslims harassing Hindu temples and citizens,
Speaker 1: and in such cases Orringzeb often sided with the Hindus
Speaker 1: and had them protected and compensated. But his taxation policy
Speaker 1: did more than create violence. It inherently made Hindus into
Speaker 1: a second class citizen, and Oringzeb's protective tendencies only extended
Speaker 1: so far. Three major challenges to his rule would test
Speaker 1: his power and lead him into violent action. First, the
Speaker 1: Sikh Guru of the time, the leader of that entire faith,
Speaker 1: had a popular following within India. He was said to
Speaker 1: perform miracles and was actively converting people to his faith,
Speaker 1: which was in direct conflict with Oringzeb's policies. On top
Speaker 1: of this, he had a large nomadic army that sometimes
Speaker 1: followed him around. Oringzeb couldn't allow this threat to his rule,
Speaker 1: and so he had the Guru captured and executed. Second,
Speaker 1: he didn't anticipate what would become his greatest rival of all,
Speaker 1: the Marata Empire. It was a Hindu empire in southern
Speaker 1: India that had only recently risen against the previous oppressors
Speaker 1: and started to expand once Oringzeb encountered them, he found
Speaker 1: their hit and run guerrilla tactics hard to contend with.
Speaker 1: By sixteen eighty one, the Marata Empire was led by
Speaker 1: King Sambachi, whose men were known for their violent burning
Speaker 1: of villages and the raping of women. This was in
Speaker 1: contrast to Oringzeb's treatment of women, which was traditional and
Speaker 1: tricked by any modern standard, but still afforded them protection
Speaker 1: and certain rights. Simbaji contributed to Orringzeb's third great challenge,
Speaker 1: the defection of his fourth son, Akbar. Akbar had been
Speaker 1: sent to put down rebellions in the south, but was
Speaker 1: instead tempted to join them and depose his father. When
Speaker 1: this failed, Simbaji took him in and tried to help
Speaker 1: him muster more support. When this didn't happen, Simbaji sent
Speaker 1: Akbar to safety in Persia, while Oringzeb ultimately captured Simbaji
Speaker 1: and had him executed in sixteen eighty six. Oringzeb never
Speaker 1: did find his son Akbar, but he swore that he
Speaker 1: would outlive him if nothing else. Oringzeb would continue to
Speaker 1: fight rebellions his entire reign, but by the end of
Speaker 1: his life in seventeen oh seven, he had conquered almost
Speaker 1: the entirety of India. Despite all of the turmoil, his
Speaker 1: kingdom was incredibly wealthy, producing more goods than any other
Speaker 1: on the planet at the time. He was more powerful
Speaker 1: than contemporaries such as Louis the fourteenth and Frank and
Speaker 1: the Qing dynasty emperors in China. His strict religious policies
Speaker 1: may have led to violence, but they did bring about
Speaker 1: a unification that India wouldn't enjoy again for decades after.
Speaker 1: Following his reign, infighting among the different groups in his
Speaker 1: empire made India an easy target for British invasion. This
Speaker 1: also gets blamed on Oringzeb but it's hard to know
Speaker 1: if a more pluralized India would have stood a better chance. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: he was less the tyrant that modern pundits paint him
Speaker 1: as and more a stern, traditional leader, no more violent
Speaker 1: than any other leader of the time, And for those
Speaker 1: who are curious, he lived to the age of eighty eight,
Speaker 1: outliving his hated son Akbar by just one year. A
Speaker 1: long time ago, a stagecoach was rolling through the Wealth countryside,
Speaker 1: not far from the town of Clandilo. The road ran
Speaker 1: alongside a river. As the passengers looked out over the water,
Speaker 1: they noticed a strange phenomenon, three red lights hovering over
Speaker 1: the waves. Not knowing what to make of it, the
Speaker 1: coach rolled on and the passengers put the strange sight
Speaker 1: out of their minds. Soon after, three men found themselves
Speaker 1: traveling down that very same river in a small boat
Speaker 1: known as a coricle. They fought against the raging currents. However,
Speaker 1: their boat overturned and all three were drowned in exactly
Speaker 1: the same spot where the lights had been seen hovering
Speaker 1: over the water. These lights, of course, have a special
Speaker 1: name in Welsh folklore. They're known as a corpse candle.
Speaker 1: They're rarely depicted as literal candles with wax and a wick.
Speaker 1: There more often just lights hovering in the dark like fireflies.
Speaker 1: Whenever a corpse candle appears, it's said to be an
Speaker 1: omen of impending death, sometimes for someone nearby and other
Speaker 1: times for the person who saw them. Their size can
Speaker 1: correlate to how old the victim will be, and the
Speaker 1: location can show where their final resting place will be.
Speaker 1: When the lights are red, the doomed individual will be
Speaker 1: a man, and when they are white, it will be
Speaker 1: a woman. If the light is tall, it means that
Speaker 1: they'll be old and if it's short, they'll be a child.
Speaker 1: The earliest corpse candle stories are much like the one
Speaker 1: with the men on the boat, simple ambiguous tales of
Speaker 1: strange phenomena connected to the dead. Of course, if there
Speaker 1: was a connection between the lights and the deaths, it
Speaker 1: was a circumstantial one. The candles pointed to a location
Speaker 1: where death would lurk, but they did little more than
Speaker 1: shine ominously in the dark. Travelers saw them beside long
Speaker 1: and lonely roads, pointing off into the gloom. Some of
Speaker 1: these are known as corpse roads, which usually lead to
Speaker 1: a cemetery or a churchyard, a place for rest for
Speaker 1: those who have passed on. But as the legends expanded,
Speaker 1: corpse candles were more than just a creepy signpost. If
Speaker 1: you followed them, they said, you might find where some
Speaker 1: or forgotten soul had died or been buried. One particularly
Speaker 1: vivid story tells of a roving corpse candle that perfectly
Speaker 1: traced a future funeral procession, right down to a fifteen
Speaker 1: minute pause they had to make along the road to
Speaker 1: the churchyard. Over time, they began to serve a dual purpose,
Speaker 1: both as an omen and as a memorial. At first, glance,
Speaker 1: it's impossible to tell if the corpse candle signals a
Speaker 1: death that will happen or one that already has. If
Speaker 1: you see one, you might even foretell your own impending doom. Later,
Speaker 1: Welsh legends tell of corpse candles burning from within the
Speaker 1: mouth of a dead man, or bringing a ghost to
Speaker 1: pronounced doom upon a household. It became the proverbial light
Speaker 1: that dying men and women would see as they passed on.
Speaker 1: Like many folk tales, though these stories were first documented
Speaker 1: in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, with their origin stretching
Speaker 1: back into oral tradition, finding the very start of such
Speaker 1: legends can be nearly impossible, even for experts in the
Speaker 1: but of course folklorists have their own theories. Some have
Speaker 1: suggested that the essential roots of the story, that is,
Speaker 1: someone seeing a mysterious light on a road, are true,
Speaker 1: and the supernatural elements are what came in later. According
Speaker 1: to them, the story of the stagecoach near Clandilo may
Speaker 1: not have literally happened, but someone might have had a
Speaker 1: similar sighting and related it into the world of legend.
Speaker 1: But what they saw wasn't an impossible flame floating over
Speaker 1: a river. Now theories suggest that the first corpse candles
Speaker 1: were in fact glow worms or electrical phenomena in the air,
Speaker 1: natural things that the early Welsh people wouldn't have understood,
Speaker 1: but would have been awed by all the same. Our brains,
Speaker 1: after all, love to make connections. It's easy to imagine
Speaker 1: that someone saw one of these optical effects and then
Speaker 1: heard the story of a drowning nearby, and simply connected
Speaker 1: the two. Rumors and speculations about deaths are temporary things,
Speaker 1: but once a rumor becomes a ghost story, it tends
Speaker 1: to have a much longer afterlife. I hope you enjoyed
Speaker 1: today's guided tour through the Cabinet of Curiosities. This show
Speaker 1: was created by me Aaron Manke in partnership with iHeart Podcasts,
Speaker 1: researched and written by the Grim and Mild team, and
Speaker 1: produced by Jesse Funk. Learn more about the show and
Speaker 1: the people who make it over at Grimandmild dot com
Speaker 1: slash Curiosities. You'll also find a link to the official
Speaker 1: Cabinet of Curiosity's hardcover book, available in bookstores and online,
Speaker 1: as well as ebook and audiobook, and if you're looking
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Speaker 2: stay curious.