Nicholas Day
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Forest and mountain, sea and ice – the wilds of this world are a rich setting for myths and legends. As this episode shows, the stories told about the wilderness – and the monsters feared lurking within it – can tell us a lot about a people.
The city-loving Ancient Greeks saw it as a realm of the divine – and a dangerous place for mortals. The Norse were master sailors, yet imagined the seas filled with terrifying monsters. The Celts of...
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We all think we know the story of Jack the Ripper. The most famous serial killer in history, the man who murdered five women on the streets of Whitechapel – and got away with it.
In this two-part Murder Maps special, we re-examine those notorious crimes. We reveal how the story we know today was shaped by the sensationalist press of 1888. And we strip back decades of rumour and misinformation to reveal the true lives of the five women slain. ...
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It was a crime which shocked Britain. In 1878, a widow was killed in her own home - and the killer was her own servant. This was a murder which struck at the heart of Victorian society, at the sanctity of the home and the rigid divides between the classes. For the young Kate Webster did not only kill and dismember her employer – she stole her clothes, her property and her identity. And to the Victorians that was almost more monstrous than the murder...
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On a September night in 1895, two railway policemen surprised a gang of thieves at work in a Wigan goods yard. A vicious fight broke out and Detective Sergeant Robert Kidd was stabbed to death. It was the first time a railway police officer had been murdered in the line of duty. But bringing the killers to justice would not be easy. The gang was fiercely loyal and there were no other witnesses to the crime. If there was to be a conviction, one of...
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In 1864, the body of a wealthy banker was discovered on the tracks between Bow and Hackney Wick stations in London. But the death of Thomas Briggs was no accident - it was the first murder on a British railway. The pressure was on for police to solve the crime, but nobody could have predicted the drama that was to come - the desperate flight of the killer and the cross-Atlantic race to bring him to justice.
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Percy Lefroy Mapleton was a talented young writer. But he was also a liar, a thief and a fantasist. By 1881, he had become fixated on a beautiful stage actress. Convinced the two of them belonged together, he concocted an elaborate fraud to win her heart. But Lefroy could not outrun his lies forever and, when exposure seemed certain, he was driven to a darker and more violent
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In 1910, the city of Newcastle was transfixed by a murder trial. A clerk had been killed on a train and his wages bag stolen with hundreds of pounds inside. Accused of the murder was a local man named John Alexander Dickman. But the evidence against him was all circumstantial and, thanks to a recent change in the law, Dickman himself would have the chance to go into the witness box. Dickman was a professional gambler, but he had never faced stakes...
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Stories of heroes and the villains encountered on their adventures are among the most thrilling in all mythology. This episode examines the controversial theory that a common structure exists in such stories that transcends cultural and historical influences.
That was the theory of American mythologist Joseph Campbell. His work has shaped popular thinking about myth and was a key influence on icons of modern culture such as the Star Wars saga and...
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Dr. Ruxton was an Indian born physician. He lived a quiet, respectable life in Lancaster but had a violent jealous streak. He had accused his wife of infidelity for years but in September 1935 Ruxton's jealousy got the better of him. He beat, strangled and stabbed her to death then did the same to the housemaid who witnessed the killing. Ruxton dismembered the bodies to remove identification marks and dumped them across the border in Scotland. Local...
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How does a community form? How does it survive and adapt to change? This episode details the role myths and legends have played in establishing the rules of society and the punishments for those who break them.
The Pied Piper of Hamelin is an old tale of social norms ignored – and punished. The deal agreed with the mysterious Piper is not fulfilled and the town's children pay the price. But what are the origins of the legend? This episode will...
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Amelia Dyer was perhaps the most prolific killer in British history. She earned a living through murder. And her victims were babies. There was a grim trade which flourished in the Victorian age. In a time when unmarried mothers were shamed and shunned, giving up children to a 'baby-farmer' was often the only option. Dyer promised mothers that for a fee she would adopt the babies and raise them as her own. In fact, she neglected and murdered them....
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Until its closure in 2016, Madame Tussauds' Chamber of Horrors was one of the museum's oldest and most popular attractions. And for decades, staring out at visitors was the waxwork of a notorious Victorian double killer, the murderer of a young mother and baby - a woman named Mary Pearcey. In this episode, we reveal how the trouble Pearcey began an affair with her victim's husband. How she inserted herself into the family's life. How she lured her...
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Born in 1832 the story of the Black Widow is a tale of classic Victorian murder. Cotton travelled around the north east of England marrying lonely men getting them to take out life insurance and then murdering them. Arsenic was her preferred means of killing. Once dead she would cash in their life insurance. It was not only her husbands who were the victims, she is also thought to have murdered 11 of her children/step children too. Thanks to the endeavour...
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In the early twentieth century, a new technology changed the way we consume the news forever. No long would we rely on words or still photography alone; moving pictures had arrived. The cameras would be there for the grand funeral of Queen Victoria in 1901. They would be there for the flights of the first powered aircraft, and for the 1908 Olympic Games. And in 1911, they would be there to record police, soldiers, and Winston Churchill, join a gun...
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Love is a universal and powerful emotion, but it can also be destructive. Lust can destroy; betrayal can wound. Such an often-irrational force asks questions of any society.
In this episode of Myths and Monsters, we tell the medieval romance of Tristan and Isolde, whose love affair threatened the fate of their kingdom. We explore how the abandonment of Dido by the hero Aeneas paved the way for Rome. We see how Norse attitudes to sex and marriage...