totally agree! there's a lot to unpack re: the dehumanization of historical (and modern) women the patriarchy villainizes. i recommend picking up Joan DeJean's "Mutinous Women," i only was able to cover a bit of it in the episode, but it's got some fascinating info about the actual casket girls!

more pictures on Instagram for this one as well! including the Russian Sleep Experiment picture which is just so deeply challenging and creepy

(peep it @ your own risk 👀)

Third/Fourth image: Author: Ted Hegemann. Ted the Diver, one of the original CreepyPastas following the story of amateur spelunker Ted and friend B, through a series of increasingly ominous epistolary forum posts.

Second slide: artist: Erik Knudsen. One of the original Slenderman pieces created for the Something Awful paranormal imagery contest held in June 10, 2009. This one has really cemented itself in my mind and hey, if that ain’t folklore!

First image: Blue Star Tattoo XeroxLore warning, a fictitious legend that was passed around via fix that warned parents of lick-and-stick tattoos (like the ones found in bubblegum) were laced with LSD. I remember this one still being around a little when we were kids, so this one really had legs.

Fourth image: cheeky book rec! a fictional account of how St. Nicholas’ body ended up in Bari, by M.T. Anderson; it’s a fun &fantastical historical read

(don’t @ me if the ending is bad 💀 I’m only half way through and it’s been great so far)

Third image: image of a “Manna bottle” often seen in Bari, Italy, which holds the miraculous secretions of St. Nicholas’ bones mixed with holy water (courtesy of stnicholascenter.org)

Second slide: a popular image used to depict Giulia Tofana, but actually a 1903 painting by Evelyn De Morgan depicting a witch, called A Love Potion; though it’s not actually Giulia Tofana, it still explores the interesting cross section in folkloric imagery of female sorcery and female power

First image: headline of recent article discussing the #MATGA (Make Aqua Tofana Great Again) trend on TikTok (from The Times, written by Charlotte McDonald-Gibson); check Insta for an excerpt of the article!

third image: “Lizard People” headline from the front page of the LA Times in 1934, next to an article about flood relief, in reference to the Crescenta Valley Flood that took out homes and killed 12 earlier that year.

second image: hand drawn map of the supposed tunnels under Fort Moore Hill, discovered by Shufelt with his device. he believed the tunnels were once home to intellectually advanced humans who dug the tunnels to escape natural disasters. Shufelt believed a set of golden tablets were also housed here.

first image: George W. Shufelt and his x-ray “mining machine”

fourth image: a weird little poem about the Casket Girls, presumably written by Walter Hart Blumenthal, author of Brides from Bridewell.

third slide: the Old Ursuline Convent that was built in 1751, after the original one’s brick and mortar succumbed to the humidity and sea air. Arrows point to the shutters that were allegedly nailed shut with holy silver nails 👀.

second image: what would have likely been the size and shape of the real casket girl’s “caskets,” courtesy of the New York Historical Society’s curriculum Women & the American Story (check it out online! it’s free!)

first image: map from Joan DeJean’s book Mutinous Women: How French Convicts Became the Founding Mothers of the Gulf coast showing some locations that the real casket girls were shipped to, incl. Mobile, Bolixi, and of course, New Orleans.