Surprising origins are full of delight, as today's tour through the Cabinet should demonstrate.
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Welcome to Aaron Manky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all of these amazing tales are right there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. There are plenty of literary examples of characters based off actual real life people. Dracula, for instance, probably comes from the rather bloody story of Ladi Impaler. Zoro is inspired by the Mexican bandit Joaquin Marietta, and the sick yet suave Hannibal Lector is known in real life by the name Dr Alfredo Bali Trevino. But all of these characters have something and men. A regional ruler, a notorious outlaw, a serial killer turned informant. All carry larger than life stories that make for easy storytelling. Who doesn't love a righteous bandit, after all? Who doesn't ponder the existence of vampires? Mark Twain found his muse in someone a little less clamorous. Raised in the small Missouri town of Hannibal, you can find the influences of his upbringing scattered throughout his renowned works. The port city on the banks of the Muddy Missouri River gave Twain access to such inspiration that had granted him his undying status as one of the best writers to have ever lived. Given all the difficult upbringings centered in the relatively poor sector of the Virgin and United States, Twain had writing fodder all around him. As an adventurous child, he found wonder in the exploration of caves and woods, and he found character in the essence of his classmates and friends, the products of these difficult upbringings, one in particular inspired him more than most, that one being Tom Blankenship, who Twain mentions by name in his own autobiography. Born to Woodson and Mahala Blankenship, Tom had a similar upbringing as just about everyone else in Hannibal at the time, a childhood poverty and scant resources. Although he might well have been at the furthest end of the poverty spectrum. Tom's father, Woodson, came to Hannibal in his late forties, a time when it was especially hard to find work among the sawmill industry. Had it not been for the support of kindly relatives, the Blanket Ships would have found themselves homeless in no time. In fact, they may have even been squatters in the first place, since there is actually no evidence that Tom and his family owned any property to begin with, one need only look at the Blanketship House to truly understand the poverty they lived in. Unlike the white picket fence of the Clemens family home, the Blanketship Home looked like it was about one unfortunate gust of wind from tipping sideways and crumbling to dust. All told, though, it was this muse that fueled Twain with the inspiration he needed to take a real life person and turn him into a household name, albeit a much different name. Twain, even in his adult years, clearly recalled Blanketship in detail writing. He was ignorant, unwashed, insufficiently fed, but he had as good a heart as ever any boy had. His liberties were totally unrestricted. He was the only really independent person, boy or man in the community, and by consequence he was tranquility and curiously happy and envied by the rest of us. Twain would never forget his childhood friends. When he visited Hannibal in eighteen sixty one, eight years after having moved away, he remarked that many of his friends were still there, Sam Bowen, Ed Stevens, ab Grimes and others, all of whom were characters that had contributed to Twain's own rise in the literary community. With a birth of Tom Sawyer and his gang, one has to wonder what his friends saw in their old school mate, Samuel Clements. Perhaps he had changed, become daintier as he rose in the social spheres, or perhaps he too was unchanged at his core, as his writing would suggest, still playful, whimsical, and in many ways the same as he had described Tom Blankenship. Given such richness of detail, it's no wonder that Twain would turn Blankenship into his own character the same way he turned himself into Tom Sawyer. Blankenship's fictional adaptation would go by an equally well known name, a name that first appeared in Tom Sawyer before being given his own story not long after. That name being, of course, Huckleberry Finn. Eustace Buckets life was like an action movie. He was a monk born in France in eleven seventy. He to study black magic in Spain before traveling back home to joint St. Sam Or Abbey. This was his lot in life, as he was the youngest son of a feudal lord by Duin Buskett, but he was meant to join the church while his older sibling would inherit their father's land. But Eustace was never well suited to religious work. He often found himself at odds with his fellow monks by pulling pranks and shenanigans in the abbey. For example, when he and his brothers were supposed to be fasting, he would convince them to eat instead, and it wasn't uncommon for him to pass gas in the cloister and encourage others to do the same. After a short time, though, Eustace received word that his father had been murdered. Unfulfilled as a monk and hell bent on vengeance, he left the abbey in eleven ninety to avenge his father. Eustace met with a man named Renault Dave den Martin, the count of Boulogne, seeking justice for his father's murder. You see, he had discovered that a man named han Freud had killed him and used to requested a trial by combat. He chose a champion to fight on his behalf against Henfrey, but the champion was felled in combat and the accused was released. Eustace was then hired by the Count to be his seneschal, or administrative officer to assist with his financial matters. He served the Count for about four years until a figure from his past resurfaced and threw a wrench into his life. Once again, his father's killer, the alleged murderer began spreading rumors about Eustace, which the Count was quick to believe. He accused the monk of embezzlement and sent him fleeing into the surrounding forest to hide out and plan his next move on his own. Fueled by revenge and branded an outlaw by the man who had helped him, Eustace embraced his new situation. He became a pirate. He recruited others to help him in his plot against the Count as well. However, the harmless jokes and tricks he was known for now took on a much darker and in some cases, more sinister to o. For one, he committed arson by setting two of the Count's mills on fire. He also disguised himself as a leper and convinced the Count to give him money. The way a person might toss some loose change into the cup of a homeless person on the street today. One time, Eustace dressed up like a woman and seduced one of the count's knights, offering to spend time with him if he would let the undercover monk climb atop the horse. The knight obliged, at which point used to let out a large fart and stole the knight's horse instead. Though many of the stories of Eustace's exploits ended in theft or destruction with only minor injuries, there are also tales of a much more grim variety, like when he captured five of the count's men at arms and cut the feet off four of them. He let the fifth go free to tell the count about what he had done. Around twelve or six, used to traded the forest for the sea and became a true pirate. He sailed the English Channel and the Strait of Dover as a mercenary for King John of England for a number of years. John was in the middle of a land dispute over the Duchy of Normandy, which was currently under French control. To help his cause, the king employed Eustace and gave him two dozen galleys to disrupt French trade along the channel. With that much firepower, it wasn't hard for the monk to take over one of the nearby islands as his home base and orchestrate his attacks from there. He didn't discriminate either, He went after ships from all countries, including English ships belonging to King John. Unfortunately, after six or seven years, his relationship with the King went sour. Surprise surprise, Eustace and his wife were imprisoned. His daughter, sadly, was even killed. The monks soon found himself on the other side of the fight, working for the French instead. Francis King Philip Augustus was only too happy to employ Eustace and pick his brain about how England's forces operated. Philip made him an admiral and had him transporting supply, eyes and soldiers across the English Channel, resulting in several major victories for the French. But all good things must eventually come to an end, as they say, and in the case of Eustace the Monk, that end was particularly violent. In twelve seventeen, the French prince was hiding out in London after a crippling defeat against England, he was waiting for Eustace to bring him some much needed supplies. When the Monk's ship was caught by English forces, Eustace was executed. His days of pirating were obviously over, but his story doesn't end there. In fact, it only grew. You see, the former monk was of noble birth, hid in the forest with a band of fellow outlaws, stole from the rich, and often used disguises to fool the greedy counts men. While people today may not be familiar with Eustace the Monk, they most certainly know the character that he would one day help inspire Robin Hood. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can learn all about it over at the World of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious. Ye