Speaker 1: All Zone Media.
Speaker 2: Hello and welcome to Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff,
Speaker 2: your weekly reminder that people can do good things like
Speaker 2: kill their husbands. This is a rerun episode. Did you
Speaker 2: know that I get weeks off sometimes? And I got
Speaker 2: last week off, and I got last week off because
Speaker 2: of the Founding Fathers, who I don't like very much,
Speaker 2: but I appreciate my week off. And I thought to myself,
Speaker 2: what rerun should I give you all? And then I
Speaker 2: read a headline that says, quote conservatives in red States
Speaker 2: turn their attention to ending no fault divorce laws. So
Speaker 2: I thought I'd tell a little story about what happened
Speaker 2: before divorce was legal, which is that women killed their husbands,
Speaker 2: just poisoned them, a lot of them, because it was
Speaker 2: the only way that they could get out of the situation.
Speaker 2: Divorce saves lives, it saves men's lives. You think they'd
Speaker 2: be happy about it anyway, This is a rerun and
Speaker 2: it's about women who poison their husbands. Hello, and welcome
Speaker 2: to Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff. I'm your host,
Speaker 2: Margaret phil Joy. Sophie says that I have to start
Speaker 2: each episode with a joke in order to be part
Speaker 2: of the cool Zone Media Network of Podcasts. Yeah, so okay,
Speaker 2: let me tell you. I remember that detail in my
Speaker 2: contract because I've got a photographic memory. It's just that
Speaker 2: I left the lens cap on. That's my joke. Okay.
Speaker 2: And today we've got a returning guest, the one and
Speaker 2: only Sharen Shreen.
Speaker 3: How are you hi, I'm okay, Hi, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what do you do? How do you justify your existence?
Speaker 3: That's a hard question for me to answer right now.
Speaker 3: I've been going through a very extended existential crisis, like
Speaker 3: extended by like years.
Speaker 2: Oh now I feel guilty.
Speaker 3: It's fine. I should know at this point how to
Speaker 3: answer that after all this time. But I uh, I
Speaker 3: make stuff and try every day to stay alive. But yeah,
Speaker 3: I I write and direct and I can't say that
Speaker 3: I've done that in a while though. So there's where
Speaker 3: that there's where the imposter syndrome comes in. But you're
Speaker 3: not asking you all these questions. This is not therapy.
Speaker 3: I do need a therapist. I want to shut up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know. I'm just trying to get you to
Speaker 2: talk about your podcast really quickly.
Speaker 3: Oh my podcast. I do co host a podcast called
Speaker 3: Ethnically Ambiguous it's uh, it's evolved over the years. It
Speaker 3: used to be about news, and we do a lot
Speaker 3: of guest interviews now because the news hurts.
Speaker 2: So that's true. Yeah, Sophie is our producer and is
Speaker 2: on the line too. How are you?
Speaker 3: So it's just Sophie.
Speaker 1: As we established ahead of this podcast, we do believe
Speaker 1: I have been cursed. So if you're listening and you
Speaker 1: we are the one who did that, how dare you?
Speaker 3: How dare you?
Speaker 2: And I believe we could probably do like a Peter
Speaker 2: Pan thing or if everyone starts clapping and says I
Speaker 2: believe in Sophie, Oh, then that will help lift Sophie's curse.
Speaker 2: If everyone who listens to this does.
Speaker 1: That, yeah, please let me know. Or if you know
Speaker 1: how to lift a curse, you know, yeah me on Twitter. Thanks.
Speaker 2: Ian is our editor and unwoman wrote our theme music,
Speaker 2: so sharene. I want to talk to you today about
Speaker 2: that sacred bond between two people, the bond of marriage. No,
Speaker 2: in particular, we're going to talk about the most important
Speaker 2: part of any successful marriage, which is to say, today
Speaker 2: we're going to talk about women who've murdered their husbands.
Speaker 3: Okay, that's better, Okay, cool, I'm down. I'm down, I'm
Speaker 3: doun I like that twist.
Speaker 2: I told Sharene that we picked this episode specifically for
Speaker 2: so it would have been particularly cruel.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I do. I mean the context behind that
Speaker 3: is that I do not like marriage, and that's all
Speaker 3: you need to know.
Speaker 2: Oh great, well, yeah, today we are going to talk
Speaker 2: about a multi generational crew of witches, roughly we'll call
Speaker 2: them witches in seventeenth century Rome, who sold poison to
Speaker 2: anywhere between forty six and six hundred women so that
Speaker 2: those women could murder their abusive husbands during an arrow
Speaker 2: when I know, big play, big play, And this is
Speaker 2: during an arrow where divorce wasn't a thing and where
Speaker 2: women were basically the legal property of men. And we're
Speaker 2: also going to talk about the the real and yet
Speaker 2: also mythical concoction that they came up with called Aqua tafauna.
Speaker 2: And along the way, we're going not to also talk
Speaker 2: about skincare routines like bathing in the Blood of Innocence.
Speaker 3: I do love skincare.
Speaker 2: All right, well, this is some good stuff for you today.
Speaker 3: Cool.
Speaker 2: Cool, So everyone buckle up for the How to Kill
Speaker 2: Your Husband episode, which we're going to call the how
Speaker 2: to Kill your Husband. We're just gonna call it how
Speaker 2: to Kill your Husband and see if we get in trouble.
Speaker 3: Cool.
Speaker 2: Cool, So first we have to talk about whenever we
Speaker 2: talk about the cool things that people did, we have
Speaker 2: to talk about the bad things that they're going against. Right. So, marriage,
Speaker 2: m the history of marriage in Europe, really anywhere that's
Speaker 2: been controlled by Catholicism or even more importantly, patriarchy. But
Speaker 2: the research I did for this episode was primarily about Europe.
Speaker 2: It's dark as fuck. It's so dark. The history of
Speaker 2: marriage is so bad. Yeah, Italy didn't legalize divorce until
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy.
Speaker 3: What.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well it's waste too late.
Speaker 3: Years ago, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, it feels like thirty years ago.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it feels like thirty Yeah, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: The real ones know, Okay, Yeah, Spain didn't legalize it
Speaker 2: until nineteen eighty one.
Speaker 3: What.
Speaker 2: Ireland didn't legalize marriage until nineteen ninety six.
Speaker 3: I was alive through in both of them. Wait, what
Speaker 3: was the second one eighty one?
Speaker 2: No, I was eighty one.
Speaker 3: I'm a spring chicken, but that was way to ninety six.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the reason for I mean The reason for
Speaker 2: those three is all Catholicism, but Ireland in particular, because
Speaker 2: they the Catholic Church of that very clever thing where
Speaker 2: they position themselves is like the anti colonial choice for
Speaker 2: the Irish rebels right against that damnable Protestant England. And
Speaker 2: so when Ireland got its like kind of independence, the
Speaker 2: Catholic Church was like, hell, yeah, now you're free from
Speaker 2: England and you can just serve the pope and no
Speaker 2: one's allowed to enjoy sex anymore, and kind of instituted
Speaker 2: a theocracy, which is not what we're talking about today,
Speaker 2: but I always want to get that off my chest.
Speaker 3: Yeah no, yeah, I don't like marriage for a lot
Speaker 3: of reasons. One of them is that it's usually really
Speaker 3: based in religion and control, and it's just become the
Speaker 3: archaic thing we've gotten used to in my opinion. But
Speaker 3: that's just my two cents. Because also, not all religious
Speaker 3: hashtag not all religions, but I'm not I don't really
Speaker 3: believe in anything, but I will say that in the
Speaker 3: Muslim faith, the woman keeps her name because she's not necessary,
Speaker 3: because why would you take your name if she's not
Speaker 3: related to you? Is the logic behind that like, she's
Speaker 3: not your sister, she's not your mom. So she's going
Speaker 3: to keep her maiden name or just her name, and
Speaker 3: she can divorce anytime she wants. Like it's in the
Speaker 3: it's in, it's allowed.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: So I'm not saying every religion is that way. I
Speaker 3: think it's become I think the institution of marriage itself
Speaker 3: has become something really out of our control, regardless of religion.
Speaker 2: That makes sense, Yeah, totally. I started trying to look
Speaker 2: up more, you know, like I was looking up a
Speaker 2: divorce in Islam, and you know, finding overall a much
Speaker 2: better history than divorce into various Christian faiths. Although ironic,
Speaker 2: the Puritans, who hated sex and all this other shit,
Speaker 2: they were more pro divorce than the Catholics.
Speaker 3: Maybe hating sex has something to do with that, I wonder.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, maybe, oh yeah, they're like, oh yeah, I
Speaker 2: get divorced. They can't fuck anymore. Yeah, totally, all right,
Speaker 2: So divorce hard. In a lot of times and places
Speaker 2: and a lot of places, men were allowed to divorce
Speaker 2: their their wives, but not vice versa. So like, because
Speaker 2: the woman is property, the man can be like I'm
Speaker 2: done with this property. But the property can't be like
Speaker 2: I'm done with my owner, you know.
Speaker 3: M makes sense?
Speaker 2: Yeah and and yeah, so okay, throughout history you've got
Speaker 2: this this shit that says wives of the legal property
Speaker 2: their husbands. In medieval England it was called coverture, which
Speaker 2: means that the wife's legal identity is subsumed by her husbands.
Speaker 2: And so an unmarried woman could own property, but a
Speaker 2: married woman couldn't because if once you're married, it all
Speaker 2: goes to the husband.
Speaker 3: Wow, that is backwards as shit.
Speaker 2: I know. So it's like, why the fuck would anyone
Speaker 2: get married? And mostly it's because of arranged marriages and
Speaker 2: being forced to.
Speaker 3: So there wasn't any like benefit. There wasn't the excuse
Speaker 3: of like tax breaks, right like back then, there wasn't
Speaker 3: really like why wouldn't women get married if she had
Speaker 3: the choice?
Speaker 2: I you know, everything that I was reading just basically
Speaker 2: had the like you kind of like couldn't. It was
Speaker 2: very hard to also in many ways, it was very
Speaker 2: hard to go through life as an unmarried woman. And
Speaker 2: I think this, I think it does change like century
Speaker 2: to century and like country to country, like exactly how
Speaker 2: free people are kind of in the same way that
Speaker 2: I feel like whenever I read about like historical gayness,
Speaker 2: it's so different. It'll be like twenty years of awesome
Speaker 2: on this island and then everyone dies and that, you know,
Speaker 2: it's like and I feel like the rights of women,
Speaker 2: as best as I can tell, in medieval Europe would
Speaker 2: would fluctuate a lot. But I think people were getting
Speaker 2: married because you were like fucking told to.
Speaker 3: Basically, it's just like the path of life that was
Speaker 3: laid out for you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think you also literally don't have a
Speaker 2: choice in a lot of cases. And so English law
Speaker 2: does this thing. And there's this problem where if English
Speaker 2: law does this thing, then the rest of the fucking
Speaker 2: world's law does this thing. Because I don't know if
Speaker 2: you knew this stream, but England hasn't always stayed on
Speaker 2: its island.
Speaker 3: Oh really?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Has it got other places? English people been places they
Speaker 3: don't belong.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, you know, and they showed up as tourists
Speaker 2: and took some pictures and went home. And then for
Speaker 2: some weird reason, when they showed up as tourists, all
Speaker 2: the other countries swore allegiance to their monarchy and anyway
Speaker 2: with all colonization and shit, their bullshit legal institutions get
Speaker 2: inherited by legal systems all around the world, including the US,
Speaker 2: and in the US all coverture wasn't really challenged until
Speaker 2: the nineteenth century, and it lingers in legal codes today
Speaker 2: still in various places, but state by state, each state
Speaker 2: slowly got rid of coverture.
Speaker 3: I'm the stand in for the dummies in the room.
Speaker 3: What is coverture?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 2: Sorry, So that's the the idea that the wife's legal
Speaker 2: identity is subsumed by the husband's.
Speaker 3: Okay, got it.
Speaker 2: And so it's a little bit like the wife is
Speaker 2: the property, but it's a little bit like the wife
Speaker 2: doesn't exist.
Speaker 3: Like legally, you know, it kind of disappears.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Louisiana was the last state to get rid of coverture.
Speaker 2: Nineteen seventy nine, they finally got rid of it, and
Speaker 2: then nineteen eighty the Supreme Court ruled it federally unconstitutional.
Speaker 2: And I'm currently I'm hoping that the current Supreme Court
Speaker 2: is not listening to this podcast at getting any ideas. Yes,
Speaker 2: I hope not, Sophie. Can we add a legal disclaimer
Speaker 2: that anyone who is currently serving on the Supreme Court
Speaker 2: or who determines what cases are heard by the Supreme
Speaker 2: Court isn't allowed to listen to this episode.
Speaker 1: I think you just did all right.
Speaker 2: If you are listening and you are on the Supreme Court,
Speaker 2: you have broken the law and you should report directly
Speaker 2: to jail.
Speaker 1: Also, most of you fuck off.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: Non English conquered areas also managed to have similar shit
Speaker 2: because of other kind of internal colonization of Europe. You
Speaker 2: have the Napoleonic Code, which spread throughout Europe, which made
Speaker 2: women the property of husbands as it went. Ironically, the
Speaker 2: Napoleonic Code, I think also like spread legalization of homosexuality,
Speaker 2: but it also spread anyway.
Speaker 3: Mixed bags, yeah, double edged.
Speaker 2: Yeah. French women didn't get the right to work outside
Speaker 2: the home without their husband's permission until nineteen sixty five.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: Wow, famously liberal or I guess famously neutral. Switzerland didn't
Speaker 2: offer marriage equality until nineteen eighty eight, with like a
Speaker 2: super narrow vote.
Speaker 3: That is unsettling.
Speaker 2: I know, it was like it was like fifty three
Speaker 2: or fifty six percent of the population was like, yeah,
Speaker 2: let's make women equal in marriage.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're all was just like, oh, that place is fine,
Speaker 3: they're neutral, nothing bad happens over there.
Speaker 2: They make pocket knives. Yeah, exactly, and hide all the money. Okay,
Speaker 2: So in the US didn't have the right to open
Speaker 2: credit card accounts, or rather, they could be denied opening
Speaker 2: credit card accounts if they don't have their husband's permission
Speaker 2: or whatever until guess what year.
Speaker 3: I mean at this point nineteen ninety eight.
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, well it was actually nineteen seventy four. I
Speaker 2: kind of set you up.
Speaker 3: I was really, yeah, thinking the worst of humanity, which
Speaker 3: is fine, usually usually that's true.
Speaker 2: Yeah, in nineteen seventy four, the Equal Credit Opportunity Act
Speaker 2: prevents creditors from discriminating against people based on race, sex,
Speaker 2: or marital status. And even then, the thing about sex
Speaker 2: and marital status was literally slipped into the bill at
Speaker 2: the last minute. There was a congress person named Lindy
Speaker 2: Boggs who hand wrote it onto the bill and made
Speaker 2: photocopies to pass out and was like, oh, I'm sure
Speaker 2: this was just an oversight that you made this Credit
Speaker 2: Opportunity Act and didn't include women in marital status in it, right,
Speaker 2: And they were like, okay, fine, and they passed the bill.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: Interesting critical support for someone I know nothing else about.
Speaker 2: Box plus So most of the past thousand years or so.
Speaker 2: Western women again, at least Western women. That's what I've
Speaker 2: looked at in the context of this particular episode shit
Speaker 2: run of it. When it comes to marriage, there's this
Speaker 2: essay that I think you Scherene would like. It's from
Speaker 2: nineteen oh seven and it's by Vulturing Declaire and it's
Speaker 2: called those who marry do ill.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, that sounds sick.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it was a response to there was like
Speaker 2: this like debate and someone else presented those who marry
Speaker 2: do Well, and so she was like, Nah, those who
Speaker 2: marry do.
Speaker 3: Ill well epic nineteen oh seven. That was that's a
Speaker 3: good on you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, who is it? By Vulturing Declare One Future Friend
Speaker 2: of the Pod Vulturing Declare she wants some she's like
Speaker 2: against the prison system, and so when someone tries to
Speaker 2: assassinate her, she like doesn't call the cops on them,
Speaker 2: even though he shot her, and then like gets handled
Speaker 2: in other ways and all this shit. I don't think
Speaker 2: he disappears or anything. Anyway. I don't know enough about
Speaker 2: that story yet because I haven't researched that episode yet.
Speaker 2: But Future Friend of.
Speaker 3: The Yeah, that's a little crumb for later.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, And so if you know this show, you know,
Speaker 2: if there's a bad set of laws and social practices,
Speaker 2: there are people fighting against it. And how do you
Speaker 2: think people fought against marriage, Sharen when divorce wasn't.
Speaker 3: An option assuming they're already married or like, yeah, I
Speaker 3: mean the only logical like a solution seems like they
Speaker 3: would have to kill their husbands.
Speaker 2: Yeah, poison, Yeah, poison is a really women solve the
Speaker 2: problem of marriage with poison?
Speaker 3: Hell yeah. So but like, honestly, like really think about it.
Speaker 3: What was the choice there was like not all murder.
Speaker 3: Actually I shouldn't say that, but I think when you push
Speaker 3: people against a wall. This is in context of so
Speaker 3: many things, so many things, but people will do things
Speaker 3: that they wouldn't normally do, and everyone's capable of the
Speaker 3: same amount of things. You know, no one's like born
Speaker 3: unless it's like actually like a chemical thing. But I
Speaker 3: think anything that you see someone do and you're like,
Speaker 3: oh my god, you can also do that because you're
Speaker 3: like you're just the same species and you have the
Speaker 3: capability of, like, in my opinion, anything can push you
Speaker 3: to the edge. Yeah, you know. So my point is
Speaker 3: I support this kind of murder. Yeah, and that's all
Speaker 3: I'm gonna say.
Speaker 2: I mean, I am putting them on my show, cool
Speaker 2: people who did cool stuff. So no, but that that
Speaker 2: makes a lot of sense, And even that point about
Speaker 2: anyone can do any of these things is worth thinking
Speaker 2: about also from the other point of view of like,
Speaker 2: you know, when when we do episodes that are about
Speaker 2: like people who like organized and did all this crazy
Speaker 2: shit that is a little bit more above board and
Speaker 2: a little bit less murder, that's stuff we can do,
Speaker 2: you know, And I like, I do a history podcast
Speaker 2: not to be like all the cool people are dead
Speaker 2: and everyone who listens to this sucks, you know.
Speaker 3: But like I mean, it's hard for me to remember
Speaker 3: that even like I just said it out loud, like
Speaker 3: sounding like I really believe that I was saying. But
Speaker 3: it's hard for me to believe that like real change
Speaker 3: can happen because you hear about all those revolutionaries, and
Speaker 3: you hear about people that were like fighting in a
Speaker 3: much more impressive time, and you're like, wow, those are badasses,
Speaker 3: and you forget that you can do the same thing.
Speaker 3: I forget anyway for myself, because I think we get
Speaker 3: a little bit complacent, And also I think like history
Speaker 3: in general makes things seem really romantic and like far away.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I think reminding ourselves that we are just
Speaker 3: as capable of not more so, if we wanted to be.
Speaker 3: But it's just about wanting to be, and it's about executing,
Speaker 3: executing that.
Speaker 2: Want, executing something.
Speaker 3: Executing something good. Job, Wow, I cannot up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, no, And it's such a I don't know.
Speaker 2: That's an important point. And and I will say the
Speaker 2: institution of marriage is still not inherently great, but is
Speaker 2: a different structure than it was before, and divorce is
Speaker 2: available to more people. So I'm not advocating, I'm just
Speaker 2: describing what people who had their backs up against the
Speaker 2: wall chose to do. So Medieval Italy had this reputation
Speaker 2: that may or may not have been deserved of being
Speaker 2: fucking obsessed with poison. Supposedly, Medieval and Renaissance Italy had
Speaker 2: in whole poison factories. The authorities were like constantly testing
Speaker 2: poison and antidotes on prisoners and animals. Italian perfumers had
Speaker 2: side gigs making poison.
Speaker 3: Wait, so what was this? What was most of this
Speaker 3: poison comprised of? Like, was there like a so hot one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, we'll actually talk about a lot of what
Speaker 2: people use to poison people in detail on this episode,
Speaker 2: but the big new poison on the scene for most
Speaker 2: of what we're talking about is Arsenic.
Speaker 3: Okay, Okay, I was I was gonna say that. I
Speaker 3: was just like, I don't know, Yeah, it's a smart suggestion,
Speaker 3: but I'm glad my mind was in the right track.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, no, totally. And so Italians had this reputation
Speaker 2: of being these master poisoners, and so they would get
Speaker 2: hired by courts all over Europe to be like, oh,
Speaker 2: we need a court poisoner, come on over, or like
Speaker 2: at one point supposedly, and but all of this is
Speaker 2: wrapped up in myth, right, and we'll talk about that
Speaker 2: some too, But supposedly at one point, like you know,
Speaker 2: some monarch is like, oh, I need fifty poisoners to
Speaker 2: win this war for me by going and poisoning all
Speaker 2: the wells over and you know, enemy land or whatever.
Speaker 2: Crazy one English guy wrote at the time, the Italians,
Speaker 2: above all other nations, most practiced revenge by treasons and
Speaker 2: are especially and especially are skillful in making and giving poisons.
Speaker 2: And so it's kind of this like, oh, those sketchy Italians, right,
Speaker 2: but you know whatever, that's so interesting.
Speaker 3: I mean, I guess it kind of it makes sense,
Speaker 3: like I mean, obviously they're movies or whatever. All the
Speaker 3: stories you hear about that time, there is a lot
Speaker 3: of poison involved. There's a lot of like assassinations evolving
Speaker 3: poison or like whatever. Yeah, and so I guess I
Speaker 3: for I forget that that's like an actual thing that
Speaker 3: makes sense.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because it seems like like a like a wizard's
Speaker 2: spell or yeah, yeah, the dragon came or the court
Speaker 2: poisoner slipped their ring open and poisoned the.
Speaker 3: King drank the wine and then fell over and whatever.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh no, And I actually didn't write this in
Speaker 2: a script, but the kings and shit were fucking obsessed
Speaker 2: and paranoid where they would have like food tests, and
Speaker 2: the food testers would like, like the kings ate shit
Speaker 2: because like the food tester would come and eat a
Speaker 2: little bit of everything, but sometimes we just stir it
Speaker 2: all up together and like and so the food by
Speaker 2: the time it like is ready for the king to
Speaker 2: eat is like cold and like take like just destroyed.
Speaker 2: And also strong flavors would mask the scent and taste
Speaker 2: of poison, so they would avoid the like strong flavors,
Speaker 2: and their concept of strong flavors was like onions and garlic.
Speaker 3: Maybe not explains English cuisine.
Speaker 2: I know, That's what I was trying to figure out.
Speaker 2: I couldn't find a direct link, but it seems because
Speaker 2: it's like, well, we don't know about those. But then
Speaker 2: I'm like, but I bet the peasants, I mean, they're
Speaker 2: already like turnips and shit, right, so the peasants are
Speaker 2: probably eating some spicy shit.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean the solution to that, mister Kings, wherever
Speaker 3: you are is to make your own fucking.
Speaker 2: Food, totally. Yeah, And they would like eat alone, and
Speaker 2: then they would like, like one king, I can't remember
Speaker 2: which one cause again it didn't make it in the script,
Speaker 2: he would like wet all of his napkins and have
Speaker 2: his like testers lick the napkins, and so the like
Speaker 2: the fucking handkerchief he's cleaning his face with or whatever
Speaker 2: is like wet and covered in someone else's spittle. Wall
Speaker 2: why in case there's poison on the napkins.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, that's a little bit too far.
Speaker 2: Oh And the best part is none of it worked,
Speaker 2: because these these poisons don't take five minutes to show up.
Speaker 2: They take take a couple hours at least, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so poison times, ye oldie poison times. But a lot
Speaker 2: of it was fake. But there was like everyone was
Speaker 2: like freaked out about it, and it's hard to tell
Speaker 2: how much was real or not.
Speaker 3: Mm hm.
Speaker 2: One Italian poison of note was used by the Borgia
Speaker 2: family to murder a ton of political folks like bishops
Speaker 2: and all that stuff. And it was a cantarella or
Speaker 2: thought and it might have been copper arsenic and phosphorus
Speaker 2: prepared and the decaying carcass of a hog.
Speaker 1: Hmmm.
Speaker 2: Because what's cool. And we're gonna get to more of this.
Speaker 2: This is the time when science and magic are just fucking.
Speaker 2: Science and magic are just in bed, just fucking.
Speaker 3: I appreciate that. Yeah, I was gonna say that sounds
Speaker 3: kind of witchy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know. Yeah. And one of the reasons why
Speaker 2: I think that's a lot of this is exaggerated. There's
Speaker 2: so many things to say. Yes, Italy was obsessed with poison.
Speaker 2: There's all these poisons blah blah blah blah blah. But
Speaker 2: then like for example, Palmero, Polermo, pal marrow, you'd think
Speaker 2: I would have spelled it right when I wrote it
Speaker 2: down into my script. So town is sicily that a
Speaker 2: lot of this story takes place in It only had
Speaker 2: over like a three hundred year period, there was only
Speaker 2: seven executions for poison. So, like, I think a lot
Speaker 2: of this is this sort of moral panic where basically
Speaker 2: anytime anyone important dies, people are like it was poison.
Speaker 3: You know, Yeah, they've just like perpetuated this like fearful
Speaker 3: rumor yea more than it probably was. Yeah, yeah, that
Speaker 3: sounds like what we do now, So I know checks.
Speaker 2: Out, But people definitely fucked with poison. Killing people never
Speaker 2: goes out of style, and poison has always also been
Speaker 2: a weapon of those who don't have access to more
Speaker 2: direct means of violence, which is to say, a woman's
Speaker 2: weapon again or has it been? Who knows? Because women
Speaker 2: kill people, right, Obviously we're going to talk about some
Speaker 2: women who absolutely kill some people, but patriarchal society condemns
Speaker 2: women in what amounts to witch trials over and over again. Also,
Speaker 2: and everyone loves a good moral panic. So a lot
Speaker 2: of the killing we're going to talk about this week
Speaker 2: of women and Buy Women was actually about robbing property,
Speaker 2: and so I want to talk I'm going to go
Speaker 2: on this like little side quest before we get back
Speaker 2: to the main quest. I'm really excited about the side quest.
Speaker 2: I want to talk about Countess Elizabeth Buttori, which I
Speaker 2: always thought was pronounced Bathory. Have you ever heard of
Speaker 2: this person?
Speaker 3: Just that not I have not heard of, but Torri.
Speaker 2: Okay, So this just to be clear listeners. Also, there's
Speaker 2: a little bit more of a content warning than usual
Speaker 2: on this episode because I'm not going to linger on
Speaker 2: anything in graphic detail. But there's some torture and murder
Speaker 2: and sexual assault and shit in this week's topic. It's
Speaker 2: very medieval, and I'm sort of making a pun but
Speaker 2: also realizing that's just where the fucking word medieval, meaning
Speaker 2: torture and shit comes from.
Speaker 3: I guess that's yeah, that makes sense, that's the root
Speaker 3: meaning of that word.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Okay, So the story goes there is this woman,
Speaker 2: Countess Elizabeth Battore, the Blood Countess, the alleged inspiration for Dracula.
Speaker 2: She's been claimed to be the most successful serial killer
Speaker 2: in history, with upwards of six hundred and fifty bodies. Wow,
Speaker 2: and I'm gonna tell I'm going to tell the most
Speaker 2: commonly heard version. First, but first before we do that,
Speaker 2: I want to know, so normally we're sponsored by very
Speaker 2: positive things. I think this time we're sponsored by Arsenic.
Speaker 2: But I'm wondering, Sharen, if you have anyone that you
Speaker 2: would like this show to be sponsored by something that's
Speaker 2: just like a pure on adulterated positive thing for the world,
Speaker 2: like potatoes or arsenic.
Speaker 3: A positive thing for the world. Yeah, I mean, I
Speaker 3: need more of this. This is sponsored by my will
Speaker 3: to live because it's running out and I need more.
Speaker 3: So if I can buy some, that'd be great.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So if you purchase the products and services that
Speaker 2: we advertise, you will have more will to live. That
Speaker 2: is the promise and trap of consumer capitalism. Yep, here's
Speaker 2: some ads. Okay, So the commonly heard version of Betty.
Speaker 2: She was born in fifteen sixty Royalty in the Kingdom
Speaker 2: of Hungary. She wasn't born in Transylvania, but which was
Speaker 2: a region in Hungary at the time now Romania, but
Speaker 2: her uncle was in charge of Transylvania, and she was
Speaker 2: epileptic child or what got called at the time the
Speaker 2: more metal name falling sickness. And how do you treat
Speaker 2: falling sickness. Well, Scharene, you should try rubbing the blood
Speaker 2: of someone without falling sickness on your lips or just
Speaker 2: drink that blood mixed up with powdered skull.
Speaker 3: Oh, I mean they do do that like plasma facial
Speaker 3: these days, the vampire facial where they like literally take
Speaker 3: plasma out of you and put your on your face.
Speaker 3: Really so yeah, and it's supposed to like do wonders
Speaker 3: for keeping you young forever and like skin rejuvenation. So no,
Speaker 3: it sounds like she was onto something.
Speaker 2: Then, buttre is definitely ahead of her time because we're
Speaker 2: going to get to even more of her skin care routine.
Speaker 3: Oh hell yeah, she probably looked so.
Speaker 2: Good, I know. So her family was inbred as hell
Speaker 2: because their royalty and falling sickness and insanity ran in
Speaker 2: her family. Again, this is the sort of legend version
Speaker 2: of all this. Her family raised her up to be cruel,
Speaker 2: as rulers were at the time, so she grew up
Speaker 2: watching brutal torture and executions at the hands of her family.
Speaker 2: Watched one Roma woman who is accused of stealing and
Speaker 2: selling children into slavery, which was almost certainly like a
Speaker 2: racist attack on the Roman woman because Roma people get
Speaker 2: accused of that kind of ship. This woman was sewn
Speaker 2: into a horse's stomach. Yeah alive, Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 2: Not for that long though. M yeah, I'm sorry. There's
Speaker 2: gonna be some yep, some medieval ship. She watched her
Speaker 2: own cousin cut out the ears and noses off her
Speaker 2: bellious peasants.
Speaker 3: Mm hmm.
Speaker 2: Now I feel bad. I feel like I've done a
Speaker 2: bastard's No, you have.
Speaker 1: Notice. Notice how I'm not flinching.
Speaker 3: Not the sewing of the inside of the horse. I've
Speaker 3: never heard that, and if I have, I blocked it
Speaker 3: out of my memory. That is that is sick.
Speaker 2: There are numerous types of torture and execution in this
Speaker 2: episode that I had never heard of, and I have
Speaker 2: been reading fantasy books since before I knew how to read.
Speaker 2: I don't know how that worked, but I was probably
Speaker 2: doing it genius. Her family was Calvinist on paper, but
Speaker 2: they practiced Satanism and witchcraft at home. She spoke Hungarian, Slovak, Greek, Latin,
Speaker 2: and German, and was one of the most educated people,
Speaker 2: let alone women, of her era. When she was thirteen,
Speaker 2: she bore her first child, who was fathered by a
Speaker 2: peasant boy. The child was whisked away and never seen again,
Speaker 2: and the peasant boy was castrated for having dared such.
Speaker 2: And in the same year she was married off to
Speaker 2: a baron named ferent Nedazsi, who was about five years
Speaker 2: older than her and was from a family that supposedly
Speaker 2: wasn't all fucked up like the Batteries. And this joined
Speaker 2: like two of the most powerful families in the country, right,
Speaker 2: because women don't have any fucking choice in know they marry,
Speaker 2: especially if you're fucking royalty and you're thirteen. Yeah, totally.
Speaker 2: She did get given a castle that she didn't even
Speaker 2: have to live in. She had a different castle to
Speaker 2: live in. She got like her own extra castle and
Speaker 2: seventeen villages to own, because feudalism is fucking weird. Her
Speaker 2: husband was a noble and a soul journey, was always
Speaker 2: away from home, which I think probably suited her just fine.
Speaker 2: They didn't conceive their first child until they've been married
Speaker 2: for like ten years. He fought mainly against the Ottomans,
Speaker 2: because I think everyone who was an Ottoman was fighting
Speaker 2: against the Ottomans at that point, and he was a
Speaker 2: brutally effective leader and a monster to his prisoners. He
Speaker 2: would impale them for fun. The Black Knight of Hungary,
Speaker 2: leader of the Hungarian troops and hungry.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's pretty cool. I can't deny that it's kind
Speaker 3: of metal, I know, I know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, this whole there's multiple metal bands that I mean.
Speaker 2: One of them is just called Bathory or maybe Victory.
Speaker 2: Maybe it's pronounced correctly. I'm not sure. He teaches his
Speaker 2: wife even more cruelty. At one point, he punishes a
Speaker 2: girl by smearing her with honey so insects bite her.
Speaker 2: He has this whole game called kicking the Stars. I
Speaker 2: don't understand this game. To quote Alexandra bartoso Witz's right
Speaker 2: up of this legend, it consisted of putting a piece
Speaker 2: of oil soaked paper between the fingers of a disobedient
Speaker 2: servant and setting it on fire. What was the thing called, uh,
Speaker 2: kicking the stars? I don't know. If it was between
Speaker 2: the toes, it would make a little bit more sense.
Speaker 3: That sounds way more pleasant than it is.
Speaker 2: It's totally Hey, kid, you want to play kicking the stars? Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's where I set some stuff on fire in your hand.
Speaker 3: That's interesting and strange. Never heard of that.
Speaker 2: From the same I know, from the same source. He
Speaker 2: also presented Elizabeth with a pair of gloves that ended
Speaker 2: in claws, which she used to punish her servants.
Speaker 3: The original Wolverine and Dracula. Well she really had had
Speaker 3: had layers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, like like Shrek.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I also just like a side note that I
Speaker 3: haven't forgotten since you said it. I forget that Transylvania
Speaker 3: was a real place, And I know there are people
Speaker 3: out there that do the same thing. So that's already
Speaker 3: wild to me, Like it's already set in this fantasy
Speaker 3: reality time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally, Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I have a friend of
Speaker 2: mine gave me a necklace that's a little vial of
Speaker 2: dirt from Transylvania. Oh that's cool, Okay. And so meanwhile,
Speaker 2: while her brave and cruel husband is off at war,
Speaker 2: Lizzie Batore is at home and she's getting into the
Speaker 2: evil shit all of her own. Now. She's making potions
Speaker 2: and casting spells and fucking people, even women. She travels
Speaker 2: around and has lesbian orgies. She invites witches and wizards
Speaker 2: to court. She keeps a guy who looks like a
Speaker 2: vampire around. He's pale and has sharp teeth and wears
Speaker 2: all black. Huh, and she gets the name the Beast
Speaker 2: of Setya, which is the name of her castle.
Speaker 1: Was.
Speaker 3: I mean, this is definitely not something you need to know.
Speaker 3: But when did the vampire myths start? Like, when when
Speaker 3: did that being first get introduced into lore? I wonder.
Speaker 2: I used to know the answer to this better I got.
Speaker 2: I fell into a vampire rabbit hole a couple of
Speaker 2: years ago, I want to say. I mean, historically versions
Speaker 2: of it have kind of existed forever. It's kind of
Speaker 2: from the like we thought someone was dead, so we
Speaker 2: buried them, but they weren't dead, so then they came
Speaker 2: back and it scared us, right. But it's around this
Speaker 2: time period that you start getting more and more folkloric vampires,
Speaker 2: and they're kind of interesting. In the old vampire stories,
Speaker 2: some of them are like aristocrats, and it's kind of
Speaker 2: this like fear of the aristocratic, but then some of
Speaker 2: them are also like all kinds of other shit. I
Speaker 2: should do a vampire episode at some point when I
Speaker 2: actually know this off the top of my head.
Speaker 3: So you're reatively sucking the blood of the people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, exactly, like staying young forever by you know,
Speaker 2: and so by our mid twenties against posedly, she's torturing people,
Speaker 2: mostly peasant women in her castle because you see Sharene,
Speaker 2: have you ever had a migraine?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah, they suck.
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, what if I told you that nothing cures
Speaker 2: a migraine like the screams of your victims.
Speaker 3: Hmmm, I do. I am pausing for a moment of thought. Yeah,
Speaker 3: that would be hard to turn down if it was
Speaker 3: a really bad migraine. I'm not gonna lie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, fair enough. So so she starts torturing people to
Speaker 2: cure her migraines. And but that's what she believed, Like,
Speaker 2: my my, if my victims are screaming, Yes, this is
Speaker 2: what the legend about her has, right, right, right, yeah,
Speaker 2: all of this. Yeah, and she's doing all kinds of
Speaker 2: shit according to this legend that I'm not going to
Speaker 2: get in the details about. By the time she's forty one,
Speaker 2: she's got a witch best friend who moves in with her,
Speaker 2: just a gal pal named Anna Darvulia, who is described
Speaker 2: as a while old beast in a female body, which
Speaker 2: is objectively cool. So when Anna around, but Torri gets
Speaker 2: crueler and starts killing her victims. She claims that there's
Speaker 2: a cholera outbreak, and that excuses all the dead people,
Speaker 2: including now the daughters of the gentry who've come to
Speaker 2: learn manners in her court. So she's like, oh, send
Speaker 2: your daughters to learn manners. They will live as prey
Speaker 2: in my castle and I will hunt them. She probably
Speaker 2: leaves that part out of the letters Interesting and most Famous, so.
Speaker 3: She's not just killing peasants at that point.
Speaker 2: Then, right, she moves on to the royalty or the gentry.
Speaker 2: Most famously, she's known to bathe in her victim's blood
Speaker 2: to stay young forever, which is why it's a shame
Speaker 2: it's pronounced batory instead of bathroy.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say hot.
Speaker 2: Supposedly she put other girls and women into iron maidens
Speaker 2: with drains at the bottom of the iron maiden and
Speaker 2: like attached it to a chain that swings above her
Speaker 2: takes showers and blood.
Speaker 3: Huh, And I know.
Speaker 2: And the way that she learns that blood is good skincare,
Speaker 2: much like twenty first century has learned that blood is
Speaker 2: good skincare, is that whenever maids would fuck up while
Speaker 2: doing her hair for she would massacre them and noticed
Speaker 2: that their blood was good for her skin. But the
Speaker 2: blood of aristocrats works better. So I would say that basically,
Speaker 2: the blood of billionaires will keep you young forever.
Speaker 3: I would say that is a fact.
Speaker 2: Yeah, O, caase anyone's wondering, Yeah, is this where.
Speaker 1: The super problematic vampire facial thing comes from?
Speaker 3: I was thinking about that. I don't know, there's no
Speaker 3: way this is how it started. Maybe, but like the
Speaker 3: modern version of that is definitely interesting to think about
Speaker 3: because a lot of people dismissed it, but apparently it's
Speaker 3: actually a very it works like because I mean, what
Speaker 3: the first thing you have to do is though, is
Speaker 3: like you have to like micro needle your skin, so
Speaker 3: you're wounding your skin and then the blood over it
Speaker 3: your your face is apparently like the act of your
Speaker 3: face healing the wound and like generating you skin.
Speaker 1: It used to be. And the reason why it was
Speaker 1: where where there was primarily is they were using not
Speaker 1: your own blood. That was the thing.
Speaker 3: I can't do that, that was a thing.
Speaker 2: But you can't create market for blood.
Speaker 3: Where does the blood come from?
Speaker 1: Great question? And there was all kinds of you know,
Speaker 1: as you can imagine health and sanitary issues there.
Speaker 3: That is that is bad.
Speaker 1: But yeah, no, no, but what I know exactly what
Speaker 1: you're talking about, which is, you know, less.
Speaker 3: Pr or like collagen, and it's.
Speaker 1: Done by like board certified like dermatologists.
Speaker 3: No, no, it's like that.
Speaker 2: But no, this other thing. You can't create a market
Speaker 2: for blood. That's the bad thing. Yeah, ahead, I did
Speaker 2: not realize that.
Speaker 1: But that, Yeah, it was in fact a thing. I'm
Speaker 1: just wondering if this is the original source of it.
Speaker 1: I mean it sounds like it, which would be kind
Speaker 1: of cool. Yeah, and what Margaret's saying is you're renfercing
Speaker 1: something from pop culture Sharen and Sophie. I don't know
Speaker 1: the answer to that.
Speaker 2: Fair enough, Yes, that is what's happening.
Speaker 1: Fair enough, Yeah, please continue.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I mean, you know, sixteenth and seventeenth century vampires.
Speaker 2: I have a little bit more knowledge about.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thank god, I will say I if I had
Speaker 3: the money. I don't think I'm above of the like
Speaker 3: the actual version of the PRP plasma facial thing, because
Speaker 3: collagen your body can't create college and once it's gone,
Speaker 3: you're just gonna get more hollow and sad. There's nothing
Speaker 3: wrong with be hollow and sad. But but the thing is,
Speaker 3: if something works, regardless of how weird it is, you
Speaker 3: will do it. And I think this lady is doing
Speaker 3: the same thing, you know, like it's working for her,
Speaker 3: and so she's gonna keep doing it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, fair enough in sick oh okay, and so yeah,
Speaker 2: so she's doing this bathing of blood, and she also
Speaker 2: keeps girls as prey in her castle to be hunted
Speaker 2: at a whim.
Speaker 3: Why girls? Why just girls? I'm not sure it easier
Speaker 3: to get probably so.
Speaker 2: I actually I do have an answer that I'll come
Speaker 2: in the second half of when I'm talking about her,
Speaker 2: when I say what the actual story is, and I
Speaker 2: think that all In sixteen oh four, her husband, the
Speaker 2: Black Knight, is off at war again, and he's forty
Speaker 2: eight fucking years old, and he either gets slain in
Speaker 2: battle or gets poisoned by his wife, depending on the
Speaker 2: story you read. And with him dead, suddenly his widow
Speaker 2: inherits everything, and rumors are spreading about what's happening in
Speaker 2: the castle at this point, and the king sends this
Speaker 2: guy his palatine is the name of the title, basically
Speaker 2: the Hand of the King. I can make a pop
Speaker 2: culture reference, it just has to be about just shows
Speaker 2: about people with swords, fair enough, The Hand of the
Speaker 2: King goes to go investigate. Over three hundred witnesses to
Speaker 2: torture and murder come forward and they are exhooming all
Speaker 2: these bodies and shit from graveyards to find all the torture.
Speaker 2: They find other bodies and the tunnels under the castle.
Speaker 2: So on December thirtieth, sixteen ten, the Hand of the
Speaker 2: King goes personally to her castle and arrests her and
Speaker 2: four of her servant accomplices. When they arrive, she's covered
Speaker 2: in blood over the corpse of a mutilated girl with
Speaker 2: another livingess prey in the castle. And when they search
Speaker 2: her castle, they find her journal detailing the deaths of
Speaker 2: six hundred and fifty people.
Speaker 3: She kept a diary about all of this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, again, we'll get with anything.
Speaker 3: Totally, like no DNA nothing, you're writing about how many
Speaker 3: people you've killed? But I have a question. Sorry, side,
Speaker 3: it's okay about the answer. What was the gender of
Speaker 3: the kid that they had together? Was it a boy
Speaker 3: or a girl?
Speaker 2: And I don't know what the one that was secret?
Speaker 3: Oh no, no, no, you said that they.
Speaker 2: Oh they did. I think she had up having like
Speaker 2: ten of his kids in the end. Oh, but like
Speaker 2: I don't remember how many of them survived all of
Speaker 2: these stories are like, and then they had seven children,
Speaker 2: three of whom survived to adulthood.
Speaker 3: Right, I guess my question is, like, would normally the
Speaker 3: air get everything versus the queen.
Speaker 2: I oh, it's an interesting point. I don't know how
Speaker 2: the inheritance was working in this particular setup. I do
Speaker 2: know that she inherited everything from her dad husband.
Speaker 3: That's pretty I mean, that's a cool point to think about,
Speaker 3: because it's a pretty sick deal.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And it might have been because she wasn't a ruler.
Speaker 2: I mean, she was a ruler, but you know, not
Speaker 2: high up, right, Or she was high up, but she
Speaker 2: wasn't the fucking queen of Hungary or whatever.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: So they all get arrested, The accomplices confess, and three
Speaker 2: of them are executed, one is given life in prison,
Speaker 2: and the countess gets convicted of vamporism, sorcery, paganism and
Speaker 2: was bricked up in a room in her own castle
Speaker 2: and lived out the rest of her days. And the
Speaker 2: blood Countess was defeated. Wow, except basically none of that's
Speaker 2: fucking true. Oh, which is like, I know, I'm a
Speaker 2: little bit like, I mean.
Speaker 3: She's a terrible person if that was true. If that
Speaker 3: was true, she's like a disgusting torturer, serial killer person
Speaker 3: that had great skin. But uh yeah, interesting.
Speaker 2: But I find I found a bunch of things in
Speaker 2: this when I'm when I'm finding this kind of history
Speaker 2: where there'll be like a woman who is like attacked
Speaker 2: as this horrible witch or whatever, right, and then it'll
Speaker 2: be like, oh, actually, all that's lies, And so then
Speaker 2: people will be like, actually, she was perfectly fine and
Speaker 2: normal and everything was fine and she was upstanding, and
Speaker 2: then you go like one step further and you're like, oh, no,
Speaker 2: she was really interesting and cool in a different way
Speaker 2: than being a vampire.
Speaker 3: Okay, I'm I'm in. You've hooked me.
Speaker 2: So she was raised Calvinist, she had falling sickness, she
Speaker 2: might have been treated with blood. She probably witnessed cruelty
Speaker 2: at the hands of her parents. The sewing the woman
Speaker 2: into the stomach of a horse. Thing it was probably
Speaker 2: didn't happen, not because they didn't do that, but because
Speaker 2: they did that to They didn't do it to peasants,
Speaker 2: because a peasant's life isn't worth killing a horse for.
Speaker 2: Because a peasant is worth less than a horse. Wow,
Speaker 2: So she probably did see someone get sewn into a
Speaker 2: stop horse of was whatever stomach of a horse. She
Speaker 2: certainly married the Black Knight, who absolutely was the Black
Speaker 2: Knight and a cruel, fucking, terrible person. He likely didn't
Speaker 2: die valiantly in battle. It's also really unlikely that she
Speaker 2: poisoned him, although I would not rule it out. He'd
Speaker 2: been mysteriously sick for several years before he died, and
Speaker 2: actually had been unable to walk the last several years
Speaker 2: of his life. It was likely that he had poisoned
Speaker 2: himself with a treatment he was taking for venereal disease,
Speaker 2: but some of those same treatments were used in popular
Speaker 2: poisons around that same time, so I don't know. She
Speaker 2: might have been trying to get rid of her cruel husband.
Speaker 2: That's the head canon for me, is that she did
Speaker 2: poison him and deserved it. But the investigation into Batory
Speaker 2: about wanton murder and witchcraft it started at the same
Speaker 2: time as her husband started getting sick, because when they
Speaker 2: knew that she was going to inherit his wealth and
Speaker 2: most importantly, the king owed them a fuck ton of money,
Speaker 2: and that debt was canceled when she was convicted. Interesting,
Speaker 2: so the whole trial was almost certainly just about money
Speaker 2: and power, and then later the folkloric demonization of this
Speaker 2: Hungarian aristocrat was useful for Slovak nationalism, so it became
Speaker 2: a useful folklore. Right when she was arrested, she was
Speaker 2: eating dinner and not probably covered in blood. The evidence
Speaker 2: of her journal was that a servant claimed to have
Speaker 2: talked to investigator who saw the journal, but the journal
Speaker 2: was never entered into evidence during the trial, so it
Speaker 2: didn't exist. Her three accomplices did confess to doing all
Speaker 2: those things while they were having their fingers ripped off
Speaker 2: with red hot pinchers and being burned alive. One who
Speaker 2: was I think you say, little person. He got off
Speaker 2: lucky and he was just beheaded. It wasn't quick and
Speaker 2: they never acted as witnesses in court. They just had
Speaker 2: their confessions before they were tortured to death.
Speaker 3: Wait, so you're saying the killing of the young girls
Speaker 3: to stay young thing was true?
Speaker 2: No? No, so they didn't know. They didn't kill anyone
Speaker 2: as far as they can tell.
Speaker 3: No, so they only confess under torture. Yeah the deal.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and.
Speaker 3: Huh.
Speaker 2: Interesting, she was never bricked into her castle. She was
Speaker 2: just put under house arrest, despite theoretically having like personally
Speaker 2: murdered more people than anyone before since it ever personally murdered.
Speaker 2: And they just were like, whatever, you have to stay
Speaker 2: in your castle because we successfully robbed you. It would
Speaker 2: also take about thirty people's blood to fill a bath,
Speaker 2: and the detail about the blood baths was added to
Speaker 2: the folklore one hundred years after her death. There were
Speaker 2: probably no lesbian orgies, which is the saddest part for
Speaker 2: the word damn, And she acted the galpal, so is
Speaker 2: she real? Yes? And I believe in the galpal being
Speaker 2: gal pals mm hmmm, because and she wasn't accused of
Speaker 2: witchcraft or satanism in court, just the murders. All the
Speaker 2: witchcraft was added later. The Iron Maiden never really existed
Speaker 2: in Europe. It's an invention. Like the concept of the
Speaker 2: Iron Maiden is like so weird. The Victorians were like
Speaker 2: kind of being like it was like a Victorian like
Speaker 2: con artist was like, look at this murder thing that
Speaker 2: the medieval people had pay me a dollar to go
Speaker 2: look at it or whatever.
Speaker 3: Damn, that guy really grifted.
Speaker 2: I know, I know. Speaking of more metal bands that
Speaker 2: came out of this. And you know, an iron maiden
Speaker 2: For anyone listening who doesn't listen to iron maiden, it's
Speaker 2: an upright human shaped coffin with metal spikes that you
Speaker 2: put the person in your close in and they die, right.
Speaker 2: But it is true that they would sew people up
Speaker 2: into the stomachs of horses. So maybe they did have
Speaker 2: spikey boxes. It wouldn't surprise me if they had spikey boxes.
Speaker 2: You know, they also had things close to iron maidens.
Speaker 2: They would like put you in like kind of a
Speaker 2: barrel with spikes, but you the spikes don't puncture you
Speaker 2: unless you move, so it's a like, hey, don't move
Speaker 2: kind of bullshit.
Speaker 3: I mean, if you were rolling down a fucking hill,
Speaker 3: that sounds worse than just a quick little snap of
Speaker 3: the iron maiden, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: That's true, that's true.
Speaker 3: That's that's bad.
Speaker 2: And where did have an iron maiden? Was ninth century Bagdad.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, the vizier Ibn al Zayat made a wooden
Speaker 2: chest full of spikes and would like throw people in it.
Speaker 2: But live by the wooden chest full of spikes, die
Speaker 2: by the wooden chest full of spikes. And in eight
Speaker 2: hundred and forty seven he got thrown into his own
Speaker 2: box and killed.
Speaker 3: Wow, karma, I guess that's what you would call that.
Speaker 2: But what but Torri was is really fucking interesting. She
Speaker 2: was a healer and her accomplices basically were witches. They
Speaker 2: were midwives and healers that she hired and her she
Speaker 2: turned her castle into a place that taught women anatomy
Speaker 2: and medicine, which of course was all medieval as hell
Speaker 2: and involved blood letting and like burning people's wounds with
Speaker 2: hot irons and shit. The like red handed that she
Speaker 2: got caught was well, actually, before I tell you that,
Speaker 2: you know who else will heal you and heal your
Speaker 2: soul and give you the will to live. Everything that
Speaker 2: comes after which we have personally that we have not
Speaker 2: personally vet it. The ads that are coming after are
Speaker 2: randomly generated.
Speaker 4: And we are back from those ads that we all
Speaker 4: personally endorse and love because everyone who participates in capitalism
Speaker 4: appreciates their own role in the perpetuation of a society
Speaker 4: that's destroying the entire globe.
Speaker 2: Yep ah, okay, where were we?
Speaker 3: Uh? Red handed? She was caught red handed.
Speaker 2: So she was caught red handed which was because yeah,
Speaker 2: she was there. She was in the middle of like
Speaker 2: I mean, she was in a middle of eating dinner,
Speaker 2: but there was someone there who was being treated, a
Speaker 2: young local woman who had been attacked by a wild
Speaker 2: animal and so had like been taken to the castle
Speaker 2: where you know, the weird ass countess with all of
Speaker 2: her like weird ass probably lesbian witch friends would heal
Speaker 2: you up. And so that was where like the dead
Speaker 2: bodies and stuff would come from that, and like there
Speaker 2: were all of these you know, disease outbreaks happening at
Speaker 2: the time that was killing a lot of people.
Speaker 3: But interesting, that's that's a really unfortunate twist or like
Speaker 3: way to change that story. And you know, like she
Speaker 3: was just uh because before you said but you described
Speaker 3: her as very smart, like knowing all these languages and
Speaker 3: like all this stuff, So it makes sense that she'd
Speaker 3: be interested in like their version of medicine back then.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Uh, that's that's a I mean, not surprised that I
Speaker 3: got twisted that way, but it's unfortunate.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's just like such a classic way that
Speaker 2: like I mean it all has to do with witch
Speaker 2: hunts and not serial murder, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and also just like that stereotype of like, uh,
Speaker 3: I guess it's like a witchy stereotype, like an older
Speaker 3: like someone uh like sucking the life out of a
Speaker 3: young person to stay young because that's what they because
Speaker 3: like it's vanity and like whatever.
Speaker 2: Totally, so in.
Speaker 3: This case it was literal. But I mean you can
Speaker 3: say that about a lot of uh, I don't know,
Speaker 3: shitty people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but in my head canon version, they're doing blood
Speaker 2: letting and they're using leeches and shit on people. Why
Speaker 2: not use some of that blood for your own skin?
Speaker 3: So, I mean you said that when she was young,
Speaker 3: her epilepsy was treated that way, right, I don't think
Speaker 3: she's above that. I think if especially with these vampire facials,
Speaker 3: I'm calling them that because that's essentially what they are. Yeah,
Speaker 3: there's blood, but they work apparently, and so yeah, I
Speaker 3: don't think she would have had to go on gone
Speaker 3: out of her way if that, if she was already
Speaker 3: doing healing and stuff anyway, like blood living, you know
Speaker 3: what I mean?
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally, yeah, exactly. Yeah, And it's like, you know,
Speaker 2: because like people want to be like, aha, she was
Speaker 2: actually perfect, right, Like she's still like in my head
Speaker 2: she still might have murdered her husband, who might probably
Speaker 2: had it coming, you know, and she's still like I
Speaker 2: don't know, like it like we just don't know. Because
Speaker 2: when things get muddied so completely by like misogynist trials
Speaker 2: and the misogynist folklore, you take someone who is probably
Speaker 2: genuinely really weird, but you don't know how you know?
Speaker 3: Right, Wait, so did you tell me how she died
Speaker 3: yet or no?
Speaker 2: So she so she gets put on house arrest and
Speaker 2: she kind of just like waste. So she like doesn't
Speaker 2: actually live all that long after that, but she doesn't
Speaker 2: die of any like particularly notable way. Maybe she can don't.
Speaker 3: Kill her now, just like exile her.
Speaker 2: Essentially into her own castle. Yeah, but I banish There
Speaker 2: is one really interesting end of this story. Okay, So
Speaker 2: she was buried at the local church and the locals
Speaker 2: were like, no, what are you fucking doing. She's like
Speaker 2: an evil vampire sorceress, demon from hell. Get her out
Speaker 2: of here. So she was moved to the family crypt
Speaker 2: somewhere else in the country. But that crypt was opened
Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety five and her body wasn't there.
Speaker 3: Oh damn, that's cool as shit, right, is Uh? That's
Speaker 3: so interesting.
Speaker 2: So maybe she was a vampire maybe. Okay, so she's
Speaker 2: like a healer vampire, right, who like occasionally has to
Speaker 2: kill people, you know or whatever, but like mostly.
Speaker 3: She's like, yeah, she uses her powers for good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, her husband sucks so away with him and you
Speaker 2: know who.
Speaker 3: I mean, where is her body that you have to wonder?
Speaker 3: I don't fucking know, Like maybe someone like unearthed her
Speaker 3: to keep the legend alive or something. Oh yeah, total
Speaker 3: lot of effort though to like think about years and
Speaker 3: years later, I don't know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it was before black metal kids were really
Speaker 2: much of a thing, so like mm hmm. Although I
Speaker 2: mean basically black metal kids have always you know, the
Speaker 2: black metal kids in our hearts have been doing this
Speaker 2: kind of shit forever. So so there absolutely were some
Speaker 2: women doing some poisoning, and like most cool things in history,
Speaker 2: they wasn't done by a single person. And we're going
Speaker 2: to talk the main Okay, we finished our side quest
Speaker 2: and we're off to the main quest. We're going to
Speaker 2: talk about a whole multi generational ring of women in
Speaker 2: seventeenth century Italy. Collectively, they've got upwards of six hundred kills,
Speaker 2: which might make them the most successful serial killer group
Speaker 2: in history. But as you can kind of pointed out
Speaker 2: the top of the hour, I think that murdering men
Speaker 2: who legally own you from whom there is no divorce
Speaker 2: should not be a crime, and neither should be providing
Speaker 2: the poison. So I don't really see them as serial killers.
Speaker 3: Yeah, if anything, gets an act of self defense, because
Speaker 3: who knows what they were experiencing to to like need
Speaker 3: to have to do that.
Speaker 2: Oh we we unfortunately know, oh what they what they
Speaker 2: were experienced. I won't get into the details about that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm prepared, prepared.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And maddeningly, this beautiful, like multi generational group of
Speaker 2: women gets their complex history has been reduced to a
Speaker 2: legend of a single woman, which is also untrue. It's
Speaker 2: the era of arranged marriages seventeenth century Italy, So not
Speaker 2: only are women incapable of leaving unhappy marriages, they don't
Speaker 2: even get to pick them at husbands in the first place.
Speaker 2: They're basically auctioned off. So your best bet was to
Speaker 2: be a aspiring widow and to get a sense for
Speaker 2: the life of married women. At the time, there was
Speaker 2: a best selling book from the previous century, Rules for
Speaker 2: Married Life which advised husbands, you must be your wife
Speaker 2: if she delights in standing at the window and willingly
Speaker 2: lends a ready ear to any dishonest young men.
Speaker 3: Wow, the rule book.
Speaker 2: Yeah, sir, what Yeah, them's the rules, Sophie.
Speaker 3: Yeah, k gates like forloringly or whatever out of window
Speaker 3: because it's the only thing that they could do and
Speaker 3: there wasn't any TV.
Speaker 1: They're like window, window, not fine door Okay, yeah.
Speaker 2: No, Yeah, it's just such a like you can't Yeah,
Speaker 2: the fact that you can't even gaze forlornly out the wind, like, oh,
Speaker 2: you better not be looking sad in your life, that
Speaker 2: I have made into a nightmare thoughts. Yeah, no, basically yeah,
Speaker 2: And so this is gonna be the murkiest story I've
Speaker 2: ever told on this show, because it's the one I've
Speaker 2: found the greatest variety of versions of. I'd even written
Speaker 2: a ton of this script before I found a history
Speaker 2: book that basically threw out everything else. And so I'm
Speaker 2: gonna do my best. But I'll say that half the
Speaker 2: pop retellings of the story you'll find on various websites
Speaker 2: are completely fucking wrong, and so mine might be completely
Speaker 2: fucking wrong. But again, I've read a fuck ton of
Speaker 2: sources around this try to piece it all together.
Speaker 3: I mean, essentially all of history is made up.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 3: You know, no one actually knows whatever happened, and history
Speaker 3: books are written by people that wanted to write them.
Speaker 2: If that makes sense, Yep, absolutely, And I have so
Speaker 2: much respect for historians who actually just like do the
Speaker 2: work of trying to piece together all of these fucking
Speaker 2: things and be like, Okay, here's why the court record
Speaker 2: might be biased in the following ways, and here's why,
Speaker 2: you know. And I'm one of these pop historians I'm
Speaker 2: complaining about because I'm not actually a historian. But uh,
Speaker 2: the story that gets passed into legend is that there's
Speaker 2: a woman in Italy, Julia Tufauna. She's a second generation poisoner,
Speaker 2: and she concocted a poison that mixed arsenic lead and
Speaker 2: Bella donna. It was odorless and flavorless when put into wine,
Speaker 2: that would kill a man with only four drops over
Speaker 2: the course of months. You do one drop like once
Speaker 2: a month or so, and it made the man appear
Speaker 2: to die of natural causes. She sold this poison to
Speaker 2: ambitious and evil women who wanted to rob their poor
Speaker 2: unsuspecting husbands. It was sold as Aqua tafauna, a cosmetic
Speaker 2: so as to not arouse suspicion, or alternatively a vial
Speaker 2: of holy water with Saint Nicholas on the label. Wow,
Speaker 2: this was a whole con Oh like, oh yeah, we'll
Speaker 2: get to them.
Speaker 3: An entire operation.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Respect.
Speaker 2: Juliet Tafana supposedly worked for fifty years killing those six
Speaker 2: hundred people before being found out and executed in sixteen
Speaker 2: fifty nine, which is an awkward way for her to
Speaker 2: have to work for fifty years because she was born
Speaker 2: in sixteen supposedly born in sixteen, twenty thirty nine years
Speaker 2: before supposed to death. Never mind such details. Fifty years,
Speaker 2: six hundred people, all by herself. When she died, she
Speaker 2: passed on her legacy to her kid. And that version
Speaker 2: of the story conflates a ton of people, Like I
Speaker 2: was saying, so, I'll try my best to get it right.
Speaker 2: But this isn't like the Elizabeth Batore's story. Don't worry.
Speaker 2: They actually did some murder, a lot of people getting poisoned,
Speaker 2: and the lies and the histories are around the motives
Speaker 2: and around who did the poisoning and the scope of
Speaker 2: the world they lived in. But that's where I'm going
Speaker 2: to cliffhanger. It nice because that's where we're going to
Speaker 2: leave it today. When we come back Wednesday, we're going
Speaker 2: to hear the true story, which is actually cooler, like
Speaker 2: just frankly cooler, and involves a whole underworld of magicians
Speaker 2: and witches and cities, which is cool, which is very cool.
Speaker 3: You're a pro even I'm excited about that. Even there is.
Speaker 1: DREI do you have any thing you'd like to plug? Uh?
Speaker 3: Not particularly. You can follow me on the internet if
Speaker 3: you want, but to be honest, I don't even post
Speaker 3: on there anymore. I'm very disillusioned with the act of
Speaker 3: posting right now and have been for a minute. But
Speaker 3: you know what, follow me anyway give me a little
Speaker 3: ego boost when I say, when I see it on
Speaker 3: my phone, which is sometimes all I need.
Speaker 1: And you you host a podcast with uh on an
Speaker 1: ambiguous and listeners can also catch you on on cools
Speaker 1: on Media's Daily Show. It could happen here like several
Speaker 1: times a month.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, Sophie, can you just do all my fight
Speaker 3: now on? I mean, because I appreciate that I do
Speaker 3: Margarets too, what.
Speaker 1: H so you could uh, you can follow Margaret on
Speaker 1: Twitter at Magpie kill yep okay, and you can follow
Speaker 1: her on on Instagram at Margaret Killjoy.
Speaker 3: I knew there was my handles, okay, okay.
Speaker 1: You can follow Sharene on Instagram at shiro hero and
Speaker 1: you can follow Sharen on Twitter at shearer Hero six
Speaker 1: six six.
Speaker 2: Hell yeah, okay, I.
Speaker 1: Really I really know that. Also, Margaret, you have a
Speaker 1: book coming out. Correct or it is out.
Speaker 2: It's already out.
Speaker 1: It's out.
Speaker 2: I'm on tour for it right now.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Margaret is recording in a in a car vehicle.
Speaker 2: Very true.
Speaker 1: Yeah, dedicated yeah to to Uh you know her book
Speaker 1: and her podcast. Oh yeah that too, Margaret. What what
Speaker 1: what's your book called? And where can people find it?
Speaker 2: Well, it's called we Won't be Here Tomorrow because we'll
Speaker 2: be here Wednesday. No, I I've already made that.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, that was perfect though.
Speaker 2: Thanks.
Speaker 3: Pretty good.
Speaker 2: It's a book of short stories. If you like the
Speaker 2: kinds of things that I tell stories about here, whether
Speaker 2: it's witches or revolutionaries, you will find both in my
Speaker 2: book about people who feed men to mermaids or whatever. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and you can get from a cake Press.
Speaker 1: By Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff is a production
Speaker 1: of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media,
Speaker 1: visit our website coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out
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Speaker 1: your podcasts.