Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Benky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is
Speaker 1: full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,
Speaker 1: all of these amazing tales are right there on display,
Speaker 1: just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet
Speaker 1: of Curiosities. According to legend, every year, for over one
Speaker 1: thousand years, riders and their horses would gather in the
Speaker 1: Middle East for a race. It was a test of
Speaker 1: endurance known as the Ocean of Fire, and it spanned
Speaker 1: three thousand miles of desert. Frank T. Hopkins wrote a
Speaker 1: detailed account of his participation in that race, which he
Speaker 1: had competed in toward the end of the nineteenth century.
Speaker 1: While many don't remember Hopkins today, they certainly were member
Speaker 1: his horse hid I'll go. Today, the Ocean of Fire
Speaker 1: has been deemed nothing more than a tall tale. Hopkins
Speaker 1: and his brave steed probably never traversed the Middle Eastern desert,
Speaker 1: but similar tests of endurance are still run to this day.
Speaker 1: One such competition was held in the French city of
Speaker 1: Nant back in Racers gathered from all over Europe to
Speaker 1: show the world, Who was the best, who had the stamina,
Speaker 1: the drive, the determination to get back to England and
Speaker 1: take home the gold. The racist motto translated to English
Speaker 1: as at dawn we go, and at six thirty in
Speaker 1: the morning on June, that's what they did. The racers
Speaker 1: took off, making their way across the English Channel with gusto.
Speaker 1: Some hit top speeds of fifty miles per hour out
Speaker 1: the gate. One such racer was Champion white Tail. White
Speaker 1: Tail had thirteen wins under his belt by the time
Speaker 1: he'd reached not that day. He made this trip over
Speaker 1: a dozen times. White Tail's owner, Tom Rodin went home
Speaker 1: to Manchester, England, knowing his prized racer would find its
Speaker 1: way back eventually. White Tail should have arrived a week
Speaker 1: later on the afternoon of June, but by two pm
Speaker 1: he was nowhere to be seen. In fact, thousands of
Speaker 1: racers up and disappeared after the event started. A few
Speaker 1: of them ever made it home, and there was no
Speaker 1: explanation for it. Five years passed without a sign of
Speaker 1: the champion white Tail. Apparently he was gone for good.
Speaker 1: Then one day, after Rodin had leashed up his dog
Speaker 1: for a walk, he opened the door to see a
Speaker 1: familiar sight. Standing there, Champion white Tail had found his
Speaker 1: way home. Tom knew it was him because of his
Speaker 1: white tail feathers and the identification ring around his leg.
Speaker 1: You see, Champion white Tail hadn't participated in a horse race.
Speaker 1: He was a pigeon. They all were. The incident had
Speaker 1: become known as the Great Pigeon Disaster of n So
Speaker 1: what had caused all those pigeons to vanish, leaving only
Speaker 1: one to find its way home? According to some scientists,
Speaker 1: it's possible that the birds heard the rumble of a
Speaker 1: storm way off in the distance that sent them scattering. However,
Speaker 1: the weather hadn't been rough that week. There had been
Speaker 1: no fog or heavy winds. But there had been a
Speaker 1: plane flying straight across the pigeons path. And not just
Speaker 1: any plane. It was a Concord Supersonic Transports or SST
Speaker 1: that had been soaring overhead way overhead. The concorde was
Speaker 1: able to reach speeds of over thirteen hundred miles per hour,
Speaker 1: faster than the speed of sound, and flew so high
Speaker 1: that passengers who looked up could glimpse where Earth ended
Speaker 1: and space began. When the s s T broke, the
Speaker 1: sound barrier. It left in its wake a sonic boom
Speaker 1: that sent a shock wave straight toward the pigeons. Disoriented,
Speaker 1: the animals abandoned their race for safer ground. Weeks after
Speaker 1: Whitetail's miraculous reappearance, Tom Rodin came home to find a
Speaker 1: letter waiting for him. It had come from a man
Speaker 1: named Jean Bouchard, who happened to live in Nuts, where
Speaker 1: the race had started. He told Tom that he'd stumbled
Speaker 1: upon an exhausted pigeon in his garden and took it
Speaker 1: in to help it regain its strength. He'd even built
Speaker 1: a cage or to keep it safe from his neighbor's cats.
Speaker 1: He noticed the ring around the bird's ankle with a
Speaker 1: number on it, which he used to track down Tom.
Speaker 1: Once white Tail was strong enough to fly, Bouchard took
Speaker 1: him to the Natural History Museum in town. He had
Speaker 1: been unaware of the race and thought this was where
Speaker 1: the pigeon had been released. He opened the cage out
Speaker 1: flew champion white Tail, who was set free in two
Speaker 1: different locations, disappeared for five years, and eventually found his
Speaker 1: way home. A true test of endurance and a true
Speaker 1: test of the bond between a man at his bird.
Speaker 1: In five, a farmer in the English village of Silchester
Speaker 1: was plowing his field when he spotted something shiny at
Speaker 1: his feet. It was a large ring, the kind that
Speaker 1: would fit comfortably over a thumb but fall off of
Speaker 1: any other finger. Now, the area where it was found
Speaker 1: had originally been a Roman occupied settlement until the seventh century,
Speaker 1: and the ring showed a connection to that lost era,
Speaker 1: having been crafted out of twelve grams of gold, with
Speaker 1: the head of Venus etched into one of its ten sides.
Speaker 1: Along the other nine sides was a Latin inscription that
Speaker 1: translated as Senechianus live well in God. Now, if someone's
Speaker 1: name was chiseled onto the side of a ring, it
Speaker 1: might be safe to assume that they were the rings
Speaker 1: original owner. However, the strange story of this ancient piece
Speaker 1: of jewelry would only get stranger. Years later, a mysterious
Speaker 1: curse tablet was discovered in the village of Lydney in Gloucestershire,
Speaker 1: also known as Dwarfs Hill, roughly one miles away from Silchester. Now,
Speaker 1: curse tablets were a common fixture of the Roman world.
Speaker 1: Oftentimes they were nothing more than scraps of lead or
Speaker 1: stone with a message scratched onto them. They were typically
Speaker 1: tossed into wells or placed in temples as a way
Speaker 1: of forming a contract with the gods. This particular tablet
Speaker 1: was found in an old Pagan temple dedicated to a
Speaker 1: Celtic deity called Nodens, and it read Sylvianis has lost
Speaker 1: a ring among those who bear the name Senechianus to
Speaker 1: none grant health until he bring back the ring to
Speaker 1: the temple. What's amazing is that for almost a hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty years these two artifacts remained separate, their connection
Speaker 1: as yet undiscovered. Then, in the late nineteen twenties, archaeologist
Speaker 1: Sir Mortimer Wheeler began to wonder about their story. However,
Speaker 1: he needed confirmation from an expert on English etymology and history.
Speaker 1: He invited his colleague John, who was a professor of
Speaker 1: Anglo Saxon at Pembroke College in Oxford, to examine the
Speaker 1: ring and tablet. Growing up, John had developed a passion
Speaker 1: for subjects like botany and Latin. As he got older,
Speaker 1: he explored other tongues such as Esperanto. He even constructed
Speaker 1: alphabets of his own invention, which bloomed into full functioning languages.
Speaker 1: At the start of World War One, John was shunned
Speaker 1: by his family and community for not rushing to enlist,
Speaker 1: but he valued his education above all else. He deferred
Speaker 1: enlistment until he earned his degree, at which point he
Speaker 1: joined a regiment, married his high school sweetheart, and fought
Speaker 1: until he was too sick to fight. Once he was
Speaker 1: discharged from the military, he found a job working for
Speaker 1: the Oxford English Dictionary as an etymologist, someone who studies
Speaker 1: the origins and histories of words, with his focus mainly
Speaker 1: on Germanic words. From there he began a career in
Speaker 1: academics that took him from the University of Leeds to
Speaker 1: Pembroke College at Oxford University. So when Sir Mortimer Wheeler
Speaker 1: pulled John into his mystery, the younger man was well
Speaker 1: suited to examine the ring and tablets, and he saw
Speaker 1: the connection right away. He deduced that a Christian man
Speaker 1: named Senechianus had stolen the ring from its Roman owner
Speaker 1: Silviannis sometime during the fourth century. Sylviannas then did what
Speaker 1: he thought would help. He made a cursed tablet and
Speaker 1: traveled to the temple, where he asked the pagan god
Speaker 1: to bring illness upon the thief until they returned the
Speaker 1: ring to its rightful home. Unfortunately, the ring never made
Speaker 1: it back, and the thief solidified his new ownership by
Speaker 1: having his own name inscribed around it. John helped put
Speaker 1: the pieces together for his friend, but the story of
Speaker 1: the Cursed Ring left him intrigued. Not long after, he
Speaker 1: started working on a story, one that followed the adventures
Speaker 1: of someone who finds their own cursed Golden Ring. And
Speaker 1: while that old Roman ring and its associated cursed tablets
Speaker 1: are pretty much forgotten by most today, the entire world
Speaker 1: knows the stories that John wrote. They span a number
Speaker 1: of novels, all of which have been adapted for the
Speaker 1: big screen, and it formed much of the foundation of
Speaker 1: modern fantasy literature. All thanks to John John Ronald Ruel
Speaker 1: Token and his stories The Hobbit and The Lord of
Speaker 1: the Rings. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of
Speaker 1: the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast
Speaker 1: dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Mankey
Speaker 1: in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award
Speaker 1: winning show called Lore which is a podcast, book series,
Speaker 1: and television show and you can learn all about it
Speaker 1: over at the world of Lore dot com. And until
Speaker 1: next time, stay curious. Yeah,