WEBVTT - S05 Episode 7 Extra: One Night by the Lake

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<v Speaker 1>and loungers at Alberts dot com. That's alll bi rds

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<v Speaker 1>dot com. Welcome to Unexplained Extra with Me Richard McClain smith,

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<v Speaker 1>where for the weeks in between episodes, we look at

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<v Speaker 1>stories and ideas that, for one reason or other, didn't

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<v Speaker 1>make it into the previous show. In last week's episode,

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<v Speaker 1>A Man of Wealth and Taste, we traveled with the

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<v Speaker 1>enigmatic Count of Saint Germain, who seemingly strange inability to

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<v Speaker 1>age has left many questioning if he'd somehow discovered the

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<v Speaker 1>secret to immortality. It's one of those stories that, on

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<v Speaker 1>first hearing, leads you immediately to suspect it all must

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<v Speaker 1>have been fabricated. And yet Saint German was very definitely

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<v Speaker 1>a real person whose existence was attested to by a

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<v Speaker 1>number of esteemed individuals throughout the eighteenth century, such as

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<v Speaker 1>the mystery surrounding the man in the excitement to fill

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<v Speaker 1>in the gaps of who he might have been and

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<v Speaker 1>where he came from. His story has only gotten more

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<v Speaker 1>and more strange. In truth, I could have filled an

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<v Speaker 1>entire episode just listing the many avenues are neglected to

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<v Speaker 1>go down in telling his story. Some, such as infamous

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<v Speaker 1>occultist Madame Blavatsky, champion Sant German as a master adept

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<v Speaker 1>high up in the Rosicrucian order, unparalleled in his knowledge

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<v Speaker 1>of ancient esoteric truths and secret rites. Others, as the

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<v Speaker 1>episode's title implied, believe he was, or rather is, nothing

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<v Speaker 1>less than the devil. The author, Chelsea Quinn Yabos San

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<v Speaker 1>German cycle historical novel series portrays the Count as a

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<v Speaker 1>vampire born in the Carpathian Mountains in twenty one nineteen BC. Indeed,

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<v Speaker 1>with his reportedly refined manner, aversion to eating food, and

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<v Speaker 1>his elegant sartorial style, not to mention being a count,

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<v Speaker 1>it isn't hard to see where she got the idea from. Interestingly, however,

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<v Speaker 1>although the notion of vampires existed during San German's time,

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<v Speaker 1>or at least the time he is most prominently associated with,

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<v Speaker 1>the eighteenth century, his characteristics were not ones that would

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<v Speaker 1>have been associated with them. It wouldn't be until one

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<v Speaker 1>turbulent night in the summer of eighteen sixteen that the

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<v Speaker 1>idea of a vampire as a suave and sophisticated operator,

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<v Speaker 1>as opposed to the foul smelling wretch it had previously

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<v Speaker 1>been thought of, would first be conceived. It was a

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<v Speaker 1>night that has since gone down in horror history as

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<v Speaker 1>the night that spawned not one but two of the

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<v Speaker 1>genre's most affecting and enduring creations. On April fifth, eighteen fifteen,

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<v Speaker 1>Sambawa Island in Indonesia was rocked by acious explosion equivalent

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<v Speaker 1>to the detonation of an eight hundred megaton nuclear bomb,

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<v Speaker 1>blowing the top from Mount Tambora in the north of

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<v Speaker 1>the island. It was five days later, just after seven pm,

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<v Speaker 1>that the island's residence watched in horror as three giant

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<v Speaker 1>columns of flame burst from out of the volcano, merging

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<v Speaker 1>together in a hellish fountain of molten rock and fire.

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<v Speaker 1>The column of flame was seen raging unabated for the

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<v Speaker 1>next hour, until the sheer density of matter spewing from

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<v Speaker 1>the mountaintop completely obscured it from view, and then the

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<v Speaker 1>stones started to fall, Giant rocks of pumice, some the

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<v Speaker 1>sides of a fist, raining down across the island as

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<v Speaker 1>local villagers tried in vain to run for their lives.

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<v Speaker 1>This was followed by a violent rush of hot air

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<v Speaker 1>that swept down the mountain, destroying everything and anything in

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<v Speaker 1>its path. By the time, the largest volcanic eruption in

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<v Speaker 1>thirteen hundred years had finally dissipated. Ten billion tons of

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<v Speaker 1>igneous rock had been expelled into the atmosphere, and Mount

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<v Speaker 1>Tambora was more than a kilometer shorter than it had

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<v Speaker 1>been before. Seventy one thousand people are thought to have

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<v Speaker 1>died as a direct result of the eruption, but the

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<v Speaker 1>effect on the world's climate was only just beginning. Within months,

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<v Speaker 1>due to the volume of ash ejected into the atmosphere,

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<v Speaker 1>the planet found itself in the grip of a volcanic winter,

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<v Speaker 1>causing temperatures to plummet and setting in motion a vicious

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<v Speaker 1>cycle of endless storms and flooding. By the following year,

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<v Speaker 1>the world seemed to be experiencing some terrifying affliction of

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<v Speaker 1>biblical proportions, with red snow falling in Italy and candles

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<v Speaker 1>having to be lit by midday, such was the lack

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<v Speaker 1>of sunlight. By the afternoon, evens had fallen silent. As

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<v Speaker 1>Lord Byron said of that most ominous year, known as

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<v Speaker 1>the Year without Summer, I had a dream which was

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<v Speaker 1>not all a dream. The bright sun was extinguished, and

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<v Speaker 1>the stars did wander darkling in the eternal space, rayless

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<v Speaker 1>and pathless, and the icy earth swung blind and blackening

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<v Speaker 1>in the moonless air. In May eighteen sixteen, Byron twenty

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<v Speaker 1>eight at the time and his personal physician, twenty one

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<v Speaker 1>year old John Polidori, were en route to Lake Geneva

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<v Speaker 1>in Switzerland to rendezvous with another group of fellow travelers

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<v Speaker 1>from England, for whom all was not well. Never was

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<v Speaker 1>a scene more awfully desolate. The trees in these regions

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<v Speaker 1>are incredibly large and stand in scattered clumps over the

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<v Speaker 1>white wilderness. The vast expanse of snow checkered only by

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<v Speaker 1>these gigantic pines and the poles that marked our road.

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<v Speaker 1>No river or rock encircled lawn relieved the eye, so

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<v Speaker 1>wrote then eighteen year old Mary Godwin, as she and

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<v Speaker 1>her boyfriend Percy Shelley, along with their four month old

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<v Speaker 1>baby William, slowly made their way through the mountains to

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<v Speaker 1>Lake Geneva. But it wasn't just the landscape that was

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<v Speaker 1>weighing heavily on her mind. Only the year before, the

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<v Speaker 1>couple's first child, Clara, died a few weeks after her birth,

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<v Speaker 1>having been born two months premature. Not a day went

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<v Speaker 1>by that Mary hadn't thought about her Mary's travel sickness,

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<v Speaker 1>and Shelley's struggles with mental illness at the time did

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<v Speaker 1>little to lighten the mood. The trio were joined on

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<v Speaker 1>the trip by Mary's stepsister, eighteen year old Claire Claremont.

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<v Speaker 1>It was in fact Claire's idea to meet with Byron,

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<v Speaker 1>whom she knew was also keen to meet Percy Shelley,

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<v Speaker 1>a new kid on the block whose work he greatly admired.

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<v Speaker 1>For her part, Claire had hoped to use the meeting

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<v Speaker 1>to rekindle the brief romance that she and Byron had

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<v Speaker 1>shared a few weeks previously. Having eventually arrived at the

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<v Speaker 1>Hotel D'angletaere, the group were joined by Byron ten days later,

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<v Speaker 1>announcing himself with characteristic flare by pulling up just after

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<v Speaker 1>midnight in a grand Napoleonic carriage. The following day, with

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<v Speaker 1>the women expected to entertain themselves, Byron and Shelley spent

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<v Speaker 1>the morning getting to know each other as they danced

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<v Speaker 1>and probed around each other's egos. By the end of

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<v Speaker 1>the day, having established themselves as firm friends, the pair

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<v Speaker 1>decided to leave the hotel and rent houses near by instead.

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<v Speaker 1>Despite each renting a property, the incessant rain eventually forced

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<v Speaker 1>them all into Byron's place, a large, grand porticoed house

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<v Speaker 1>on the edge of the lake known as Villa Diodati.

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<v Speaker 1>One night, with the newly acquainted friends forced to find

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<v Speaker 1>ways to pass the time indoors, Huddling round the fire

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<v Speaker 1>as the endless thunderstorms raged outside, Byron suggested they take

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<v Speaker 1>advantage of the atmosphere and read ghost stories to each other.

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<v Speaker 1>After a few evenings reading from Phantasma Gorriana, a collection

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<v Speaker 1>of German horror stories, Byron eventually board of the game

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<v Speaker 1>and suggested they try something else, challenging them all to

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<v Speaker 1>come up with the horror story of their own to share.

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<v Speaker 1>And so it was, under the flicker of candle light,

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<v Speaker 1>with the thunder rolling off the mountains and violent stabs

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<v Speaker 1>of lightning flashing into the room, the group set about

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<v Speaker 1>penning their latest masterpieces. Percy attempted something inspired by his childhood,

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<v Speaker 1>while Byron composed a story written in the form of

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<v Speaker 1>a letter describing a journey taken by the narrator while

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<v Speaker 1>in the company of a strange man named Augustus Darville.

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<v Speaker 1>As the journey progressed, the man appeared to become weaker

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<v Speaker 1>and weaker, until finally he succumbed to whatever illness had

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<v Speaker 1>been ailing him. Byron had intended to have him rise

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<v Speaker 1>again as a vampire, but neglected to finish the story,

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<v Speaker 1>while Polydori tried something involving a skull headed lady that

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<v Speaker 1>was roundly regarded as a miserable effort. As for Mary

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<v Speaker 1>or though she tried her best to come up with

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<v Speaker 1>something that would, as she put it, speak to the

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<v Speaker 1>mysterious fears of our nature and awaken a thrilling horror,

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<v Speaker 1>in the end she had nothing. It was a few

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<v Speaker 1>nights later, as lightning flashed and the wind and rain

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<v Speaker 1>continued to whip unceasingly at the windows, the talk eventually

0:12:27.080 --> 0:12:30.640
<v Speaker 1>turned to the nature of life and the contemporary fascination

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<v Speaker 1>with galvanism, the use of electricity to stimulate muscle movement.

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<v Speaker 1>Although it was mostly the men who talked among themselves

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<v Speaker 1>all the while, Mary sat listening quietly as talk moved

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<v Speaker 1>on to whether it might even be possible to bring

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<v Speaker 1>a dead body back to life through such methods. It

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<v Speaker 1>was for her an especially difficult conversation, bringing back memories

0:12:55.280 --> 0:12:58.600
<v Speaker 1>of the night her baby died, and although dreams she'd

0:12:58.600 --> 0:13:02.200
<v Speaker 1>had since of her and Percy sat by the fire

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<v Speaker 1>with the child in her arms, hoping that if only

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<v Speaker 1>they could warm her up, she might yet come back

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<v Speaker 1>to life. When Mary's head finally hit the pillow that night,

0:13:14.600 --> 0:13:17.280
<v Speaker 1>her face lit up by the lightning as it flashed

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<v Speaker 1>through the curtains. With thoughts of her dead daughter flooding

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<v Speaker 1>her mind, there would be little chance of sleep, and

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<v Speaker 1>so she lay eyes closed, listening to the rain lashing

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<v Speaker 1>down as a vision slowly came to her. A pale

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<v Speaker 1>student of the unhallowed arts, kneeling beside a thing he

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<v Speaker 1>had put together, A hideous phantasm of a dead man

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<v Speaker 1>stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine,

0:13:48.440 --> 0:13:52.600
<v Speaker 1>slowly it began to show signs of life and stir

0:13:52.760 --> 0:13:58.120
<v Speaker 1>with an uneasy, half vital motion. Rising from her bed,

0:13:58.679 --> 0:14:03.160
<v Speaker 1>Mary grabbed a pencil and began to write. It was

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<v Speaker 1>on a dreary night of November that I beheld my

0:14:06.120 --> 0:14:10.320
<v Speaker 1>man completed, and with an anxiety that almost amounted to agony,

0:14:10.840 --> 0:14:14.440
<v Speaker 1>I collected instruments of life about me, and endeavored to

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<v Speaker 1>infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that

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<v Speaker 1>lay at my feet. The first words of the as

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<v Speaker 1>yet unnamed Victor Frankenstein. Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus, was

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<v Speaker 1>first published on January the first, eighteen eighteen, when Mary

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<v Speaker 1>was twenty years old. The book, however, was published anonymously

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<v Speaker 1>with a forward written by Mary's then husband to Percy Shelley,

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<v Speaker 1>leading many to suspect that Percy was in fact the

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<v Speaker 1>true author. Such an arrangement was common among publishers of

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<v Speaker 1>the time, fearful of the public's response to authors who

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<v Speaker 1>were women. When Mary Shelley as she was then known,

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<v Speaker 1>eventually had her name added to the book, it had

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<v Speaker 1>become so popular that it no longer mattered, despite a

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<v Speaker 1>number of critics doing their best to disparage what they

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<v Speaker 1>now suddenly perceived as its many feminine infused flaws. To day,

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<v Speaker 1>the book is widely regarded as a landmark in not

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<v Speaker 1>only Gothic literature, but science fiction too, and is among

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<v Speaker 1>the most influential novels of all time. Though many have

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<v Speaker 1>pointed to the death of Mary's child and indeed those

0:15:37.000 --> 0:15:41.760
<v Speaker 1>darkling atmospheric nights spent at Lake Geneva as key inspirations

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<v Speaker 1>for the novel, The tale of a creature so callously

0:15:45.600 --> 0:15:50.160
<v Speaker 1>created and then abandoned also shares parallels with Mary Shelley's

0:15:50.160 --> 0:15:54.160
<v Speaker 1>own complicated childhood, with some speculating that the death of

0:15:54.200 --> 0:15:58.840
<v Speaker 1>Mary's mother in childbirth, celebrated writer and women's rights activist

0:15:58.960 --> 0:16:03.840
<v Speaker 1>Mary Wolston Craft had inevitably left Mary angrily pondering her

0:16:03.880 --> 0:16:07.440
<v Speaker 1>own sense of abandonment. Though Mary would go on to

0:16:07.560 --> 0:16:10.200
<v Speaker 1>establish herself as one of the most revered writers of

0:16:10.240 --> 0:16:15.640
<v Speaker 1>all time, life did not get any easier. A third child, Clara,

0:16:15.880 --> 0:16:19.680
<v Speaker 1>born in eighteen seventeen, died the following year from dysentery,

0:16:20.600 --> 0:16:25.440
<v Speaker 1>then in eighteen nineteen. The next year, Mary and Percy's son, William,

0:16:25.560 --> 0:16:30.840
<v Speaker 1>also died from malaria. Though the couple's fourth child, also

0:16:30.960 --> 0:16:35.280
<v Speaker 1>named Percy, would go on to survive childhood. Only three

0:16:35.400 --> 0:16:39.560
<v Speaker 1>years later, his father and Mary's husband, an undoubted genius

0:16:39.560 --> 0:16:42.800
<v Speaker 1>in his own right, drowned in the Gulf of Spezzia

0:16:43.320 --> 0:16:46.800
<v Speaker 1>off the coast of Italy. He was twenty nine years old.

0:16:48.520 --> 0:16:51.440
<v Speaker 1>As for Lord Byron, he died two years later in

0:16:51.560 --> 0:16:55.400
<v Speaker 1>Greece at the age of thirty six of suspected sepsis,

0:16:55.440 --> 0:16:59.000
<v Speaker 1>while helping to fight for Greek independence against the Ottoman Empire.

0:17:00.040 --> 0:17:03.320
<v Speaker 1>In fact, within only eight years of that year, without

0:17:03.360 --> 0:17:06.200
<v Speaker 1>summer or three of the men that shared the trip

0:17:06.240 --> 0:17:11.080
<v Speaker 1>with Mary and her steps as Declare were dead. In

0:17:11.160 --> 0:17:15.639
<v Speaker 1>eighteen nineteen. Having tidied up the scraps of Byron's vampire story,

0:17:16.400 --> 0:17:19.800
<v Speaker 1>his physician John Polydori, decided to take a stab at

0:17:19.840 --> 0:17:24.680
<v Speaker 1>reworking it, retitling it the Vampire and reimagining its lead

0:17:24.720 --> 0:17:28.480
<v Speaker 1>as the suave and the charismatic Lord Ruthven, a thinly

0:17:28.560 --> 0:17:33.480
<v Speaker 1>veiled impression of Lord Byron himself. Polydori's creation would become

0:17:33.520 --> 0:17:37.359
<v Speaker 1>the template for almost all vampire stories that followed, most

0:17:37.400 --> 0:17:43.400
<v Speaker 1>famously Browmstoker's Dracula. Unlike Mary, however, he would not live

0:17:43.440 --> 0:17:46.480
<v Speaker 1>to enjoy the success of his creation, dying by a

0:17:46.520 --> 0:17:52.880
<v Speaker 1>suspected suicide in eighteen twenty one years later, Mary returned

0:17:52.880 --> 0:17:56.480
<v Speaker 1>to the Villa Diodati on the edge of Late Geneva,

0:17:56.800 --> 0:17:59.520
<v Speaker 1>saying of her return there that she felt like a

0:17:59.560 --> 0:18:03.639
<v Speaker 1>companion of the dead, for all were gone, even my

0:18:03.760 --> 0:18:08.160
<v Speaker 1>young child. Storm and blight and death had passed over

0:18:08.720 --> 0:18:14.160
<v Speaker 1>and destroyed all. But something had lived, something that she'd

0:18:14.160 --> 0:18:18.199
<v Speaker 1>brought to life one dark and stormy night many years before,

0:18:18.920 --> 0:18:23.879
<v Speaker 1>that would eventually outlive them all. A wondrous story that

0:18:24.080 --> 0:18:29.120
<v Speaker 1>remains today as thrilling moving and influential as the day

0:18:29.119 --> 0:18:34.679
<v Speaker 1>it was born. Please note Unexplained will be taking a

0:18:34.720 --> 0:18:39.639
<v Speaker 1>short break next week, but will return on Friday, January first,

0:18:39.640 --> 0:18:44.199
<v Speaker 1>twenty twenty one. If you enjoy Unexplained and would like

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<v Speaker 1>All donations, no matter how large or small, are greatly appreciated. Unexplained,

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<v Speaker 1>the book and audiobook, featuring ten stories that have never

0:19:10.000 --> 0:19:12.760
<v Speaker 1>before been covered on the show, is now available to

0:19:12.840 --> 0:19:16.760
<v Speaker 1>buy worldwide. You can purchase through Amazon, Barnes and Noble,

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<v Speaker 1>the show's music, are produced by me Richard McClain smith.

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<v Speaker 1>Please subscribe and rate the show wherever you listen to podcasts,

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<v Speaker 1>or ideas regarding the stories you've heard on the show.

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