THE SEDGWICK CURSE—A conversation with Taylor and Donovan

With Halloween arriving at the end of this month, I thought it would be appropriate to start a series of Halloween blogs by featuring an interview with Taylor MacKenzie and Lord Donovan Sedgwick, from my Harlequin Intrigue mystery/romantic suspense novel THE SEDGWICK CURSE, one of my 18 Harlequin ebook reissues from my 21 book Harlequin backlist of print titles.

Good morning and thanks to both of you for joining us today.  I think my first question is for you, Lord Sedgwick.

Donovan:  Please, call me Donovan.  (pauses) I still haven't been able to completely reconcile being the owner of the title, especially considering the circumstances that passed it on to me from my father.

It's a title that's been in your family for a long time, isn't it?  Along with the large estate located in the Cotswolds area of England?

Donovan:  A very long time…for centuries to be exact, starting in the late 1600s after the monarchy was restored to the throne with Charles II.  (brightens as he grasps Taylor's hand)  But on the other side, if my family history hadn't taken a strange twist along the way I never would have met this lovely lady and would have always felt as if something very important was missing from my life.

So, Taylor…your family history and Donovan's family history were somehow connected?  You're from the United States and had never been to England prior to your initial meeting with Donovan, is that correct?

Taylor:  Yes, it was over a century ago that the connection between our families resulted in the curse placed on the Sedgwick family.  In my correspondence with Donovan's father, I misled him about the purpose of my trip to England.  The reality of it was to trace the origins of the crime that had resulted in the brutal death of my great grandmother and great grandfather who were tenant farmers on the Sedgwick estate.  My grandmother was an infant at the time and was whisked away to safety by some of the villagers and eventually arrived in America by way of Canada.

Donovan…you didn't have any idea who Taylor was when she showed up at your front door one night?

Donovan:  (chuckles) The name Taylor misled me. I assumed my father had been corresponding with a man who wanted to research the annual festival we hold on the estate grounds for a book he was writing on British country festivals.  Our particular festival has been an annual event for over 250 years.  My father had invited the writer to stay at the house while doing research.

And Taylor was that 'man'?

Donovan:  (sly grin) She didn't fool me for a moment.  I knew as soon as I opened the door that it wasn't a man standing there!  (turns serious) But her timing was terrible.  My father had…uh, he had died a couple of months earlier.  It was the night before her arrival that the century old curse had seemed to come to fruition with the evil of the past turned loose on the present, followed by a string of grisly murders…

(Donovan's voice trailed off and Taylor picked up the conversation).

Taylor:  I had never been as frightened in my life as I was shortly after I arrived at the Sedgwick estate that night.  I felt as if I was being stalked by some evil presence.  Sometimes it seemed so close that I could literally reach out and actually touch it.  Or worse yet, that it could touch me.

Was there someone…or something…actually stalking you?  Was any of it real or merely the result of the centuries-old gothic atmosphere of the older sections of the house?

Taylor:  Oh, it was real…very real.  And so was the resulting danger.

Donovan:  There was much more going on than just the sense of a malevolent presence playing havoc with everything and everyone.  There was an entirely separate agenda happening at the same time involving blackmail, deceit, and extortion.  All-in-all, a very messy quagmire of conflicting facts and feelings.

That sounds like quite a tangled web.  Obviously whatever happened was finally put to rest for good and the two of you are now married and still living in the manor house at the estate.  How did all of that come about?

Donovan:  (Taylor started to speak, but Donovan got the words out first) For the answer to that one, you'll need—

Ah…I know what's coming next.  You're going to tell me I have to read the book.

Donovan:  Exactly!

Romantic Times review/4 out of 5:

Shawna Delacorte pens a fun read with lots of spooky ambience and a daring twosome.

CataRomance review/4 stars out of 5:

THE SEDGWICK CURSE by Shawna Delacorte is a spine tingler from the very beginning.  I spent a nail biting evening racing through the pages to a wonderfully, satisfying, aha ending.  Lovers of romantic intrigue and suspense will be totally captivated by THE SEDGWICK CURSE.

Rendezvous review:

Every emotion is felt by the reader in this dramatic story which mesmerizes the reader as it builds to one shattering revelation after another.  A cast of secondary characters add spice to the story.

Blurb:

THE CHILLING TRUTH

To learn the truth behind her great-grandmother's past—and the curse that still surrounded both her family and the old woman's tiny country village—Taylor MacKenzie made her way to England. But from the moment she arrived at her ancestors' manor house, an eerie chill echoed the evil of the past and a shadowy figure seemed to follow her every move.

Donovan Sedgwick, the new lord of the manor, had eyes that pierced Taylor's soul and held her in an otherworldly thrall. But he seemed ravaged by demons of his own—demons that only her kisses were able to calm.

Publisher's Excerpt:

She whirled around, her gaze staring into the darkness of the garden. Someone was watching her, staring from the safety of some hidden place. She gasped for air as if all the oxygen had been taken away from her.

"Who's there? Who…?" The words came out as a whisper then they died in her mouth. Her heart pounded in her chest and the sound roared in her ears. A wall of fear surrounded her. She forced her feet to move, to carry her toward the house. Her plodding steps turned into a run as she headed for the light at the kitchen door.

"Where have you been?" The words came at her from the darkness. A jolt of adrenaline raced through her body before she identified the voice as Donovan's. Then he grabbed hold of her arm and pulled her toward him….

THE SEDGWICK CURSE, a Harlequin Intrigue mystery/romantic suspense by Shawna Delacorte is available in ebook at http://ebooks.eharlequin.com (do search for author name Shawna Delacorte).  Also available from Amazon and other online vendors.  Excerpts and full reviews are available on my website along with information about my other Harlequin ebook reissues.  www.shawnadelacorte.com

Skeleton In A Tree

I came across this news story about an incident that happened in County Sligo, Ireland, in September 2015 and decided to share it on my blog. It seemed appropriate since October is this Friday, the month of Halloween that gives us spooky happenings and things that go bump in the night.

A storm knocked down a 215 year old tree in northwestern Ireland and archeologists discovered a human skeleton tangled in its roots. The skeleton of a young man between the ages of 17 and 20 was determined to be approximately 1000 years old. Numerous injuries were found on his ribs and hand indicating he "suffered a violent death."

The lower leg bones remained in the grave, but the upper part of the body had become tangled in the tree roots, thus being exposed when the tree blew over in a storm. Radiocarbon dating indicated the remains go back to early medieval times, between 1030 and 1200AD. It was assumed that he came from a local Gaelic family and had been killed in a local conflict/battle or personal dispute rather than an incident connected to the Anglo-Norman invasion which occurred in 1169.

The original position of the skeleton indicated that he had received a formal Christian burial, but nothing else was found with the remains. The skeleton is still being studied to see what other information it will yield. It was the only skeleton found in the excavation. 

Say Goodbye To Summer And Hello to Autumn

Wednesday, September 22, 2021, at 3:20pm Eastern Daylight Time, marks the official end of summer and start of autumn here in the Northern Hemisphere—the Autumnal Equinox, the date that daylight and darkness are equal.

This week in my little corner of the world, right on schedule, we have a delightful taste of the fall weather to come. That crisp feel in the air with cooler temperatures replacing the heat and retched humidity of this summer (as in a couple of days ago) finally shoved aside. That change to cool drier air brought a renewed vigor, a revived energy to replace the lackluster feeling resulting from the summer heat and humidity...at least for me. (Do you get the impression that I don't function well in heat and humidity?)

Just as I love the renewal of life in the spring—bright green new leaves on the trees, colorful flowers, the awakening of nature from winter's long hibernation—I also love the change of the leaves to their brilliant array of fall colors in autumn. This year we've exceeded our average amount of rainfall, so I'm hoping for a more colorful autumn than we've had the last couple of years. I moved a few months ago and now have two large oak trees in my front yard and two large oak trees in my back yard. And across the street from me is a small park-like area of grass and trees (maintained by the city). I'm anticipating some lovely fall color views.

I can say with all sincerity that I'm happy to welcome the end of summer. Oh, yeah…also happy to welcome the start of fall. But it's mostly the end of summer's heat and humidity that thrills me. I do have to admit that the summer of 2021 was a strange mixture of several consecutive triple digit temperature days and periods of cooler temperatures that dipped back down into the mid 90s. However, we did have many super high humidity days that went along with the triple digit temperatures for dangerous heat warnings. Ugh!

Welcome autumn...I'm thrilled to see you! But, on the other hand, I'm hoping for a mild winter.

10 AWESOME MUSEUMS NOT OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

Museums…those public and private repositories of anything and everything that might be of interest to someone, collections open to the public to enjoy, and that educate.  They encompass a wide variety of interests such as fine art, items showing the natural history of a region, or something as specific as a hair collection.

I recently found a list of 10 very specific museums/collections with a common thread—they are not open to the public.

CIA Museum

Needless to say, one of the most secretive agencies in the entire United States government (and the world) wouldn't just throw the doors of their archives open for everyone. The Central Intelligence Agency's internal museum is one of the most thorough collections of intelligence memorabilia on Earth with over 3,500 items. The collection includes documents from the OSS [Office of Strategic Services created in WW II, the forerunner of the CIA], spy weapons and equipment, and even an AK-47 rifle that belonged to Osama Bin Laden. The only public aspects of the Museum are three showcases at the CIA's headquarters in Langley, Virginia. And that building isn't easy to get into, either.

International Museum And Library Of The Conjuring Arts

If you’re looking for a community of people who like to keep secrets, the CIA isn't the only place to look.  Professional magicians are right up there, too. Considering that their careers hinge on being able to fool people, magicians aren't crazy about opening up to the public. David Copperfield has used his vast fortune to amass a collection of over 150,000 pieces of magic history from practitioners like Harry Houdini and hundreds of others.  It's located in a 40,000 square foot Las Vegas warehouse that has a fake hat shop in the front. [I saw a television special about Houdini including an auction of items from his career with David Copperfield being one of the major successful bidders on several items]

MIT Museum Of Espionage [in Turkey, not the Massachusetts Institute of Technology :) ]

The United States isn't the only nation that keeps its intelligence archives in a private museum. Turkey's MIT spy group has been amassing an impressive collection of memorabilia from top-secret operations for years. Stored at the group's headquarters in Ankara, the museum's glass display cases contain such spy craft relics as a shoe wedge designed to store a hidden microphone, hollowed-out objects for secreting code books, and bugging devices discovered in Turkish embassies abroad during the Cold War. A Turkish newspaper requested access to the museum and was allowed in for one day, but that's the only time the Museum of Espionage has ever been seen by the public.

Canadian Museum Of Making

It is possible to get inside the doors of the Canadian Museum of Making, which is located on a private ranch near Cochrane, Alberta, but it's not easy. The museum's owner, Ian MacGregor, is very picky about who he allows through the doors. From the outside, you'd never know that the 20,000 square foot museum is even there, because he constructed the complex entirely underground. Inside is one of the world's most extensive collections of mechanical objects from between 1750 and 1920. Every once in a while, MacGregor will open the doors to select people, but it's a rare occasion.

El Museo del Enervantes

Intended for use in the training of military staff waging Mexico's seemingly endless war against the drug cartels, El Museo del Enervantes, located in Mexico City, is a private museum that chronicles every aspect of the world of narcoterrorism. In-depth exhibits illustrate the manufacturing process involved in making cocaine, heroin, and other drugs. A huge display case shows off dozens of handguns confiscated from drug lords, many encrusted with gold and jewels. There is also a plaque commemorating all the Mexican soldiers who died on duty since 1976.

The Honda Secret Museum

Many automakers rent out space to spotlight important moments in their history, but Honda defies the trend by making their history museum closed to the public. Assembled by company veteran Lou Staller, it's a collection of almost 50 cars and motorcycles that commemorate Honda's successes and failures. Included in the collection is a Honda N-600 from 1970—the first passenger car the company sold in the States—and the 1997 EV Plus, the very first electric vehicle to be marketed here. The museum is only accessible to Honda employees, and the vast majority of them have never been there, making it a treasure trove for car enthusiasts.

Musée d'Anatomie Delmas-Orfila-Rouvière

The Musée d'Anatomie Delmas-Orfila-Rouvière permanently closed its door to everyone—public and invited only—in 2005. Prior to that time, it was the largest and most complete anatomy museum in France. The Museum's collection began in 1794 and expanded steadily over the years to include upwards of 5,800 anatomic items from humans and other animals. Some of the items on display includes casts of the heads of executed 19th century criminals, comparative anatomy displays of reptiles and birds, and skulls of deceased mental patients. It occupied the eighth floor of the Descartes University's school of medicine, and access was granted only to the medical elite.

The Black Museum

Scotland Yard, one of the most famous crime-fighting institutions in history, has amassed some serious items. If you want to see them, they're kept in the Black Museum. Located at police headquarters in London, this collection of evidence from some of Scotland Yard's most notorious crimes includes the pots serial killer Dennis Nilsen used to cook his victims and a taunting letter from Jack the Ripper. Also on display is a vast array of weapons used in the commission of crimes, including some cleverly disguised tools of mayhem. There is a current discussion about finally making the museum open to the public, but as of now it's still police only.

The U.S. Secret Service Museum

It appears that taxpayer money is supporting a disproportionate number of museums that aren't open to the public. Located in the nondescript office building that houses the Secret Service headquarters is a small private museum that's only open to invited guests. Inside the one-room museum are artifacts from some of the most shocking crimes in American history—assassination attempts on Presidents. Among these artifacts is the bullet-scarred window from Ronald Reagan's limousine on the day that John Hinckley attacked and the assault rifle that Francisco Duran used to spray bullets into the White House in 1994.

The Zymoglyphic Museum

The Zymoglyphic Museum in San Mateo, California, is open to the public—but only for two days out of every year. The museum's creator houses his collection in a small outbuilding off of his garage, down a nondescript suburban cul-de-sac. Inside is the world's largest assemblage of animals and artifacts from the Zymoglyphic Era…a period in Earth's past that never existed. The dioramas, housed in aquarium tanks, are well thought out and executed with incredible attention to detail.

Dark Origins Of Fairy Tales

The origin of fairy tales dates back thousands of years. The history of fairy tales or fairy stories have fantasy creatures and talking animals. Enchantments and far-fetched events are also usually part of the plot. Unlike legends and folklore tales, they seldom contain any references to religion, actual places, persons or events. The term "once upon a time" is used rather than an actual reference to a date. Early oral fairy tales and folklore were for adults as much as for children. The early written fairy tales of the literary type definitely contained strictly adult material. In many instances, they were quite gruesome. They became more children's fairy tales in the 19th and 20th centuries.

There are two theories that have attempted to explain the common elements in the text of the different fairytales found spread over many continents. One theory is that a tale comes from a single source and spreads from culture to culture over time. A good example of this is the story of Aladdin, his flying carpet, magic lamp, and the genie. Disney made an animated movie of the tale and a live action film was recently made. We all associate the story and the characters with the mideast/Arab world. In reality, the original tale came from China. The other theory is that these tales reference common human experience from many cultures and over time evolved into tales of similar human experiences. The first written fairy tales were from ancient Egypt and occurred around 1300 BC. It is amazing to find very similar stories/plots occurring in the folklore from different countries at different times and in totally different cultures.

Many of our most pervasive stories can be found in the tales of the Brothers Grimm and even earlier and have changed a great deal along the way. All the blindings, sexual misconduct, and death has been mostly scrubbed away in the last century or so. None of the stories with people getting nailed into barrels and thrown down hills or into ponds have really made it into the mainstream. Take a look at a few terrifying, gruesome, often bizarre early versions of ubiquitous fairy tales. Warning—the original versions of these fairy tales contain grisly details.

Sleeping Beauty:

In one of the very earliest versions of this classic story published in 1634, the princess does not prick her finger on a spindle, instead getting a sliver of flax stuck under her fingernail. She falls down, apparently dead, but her father cannot face the idea of losing her, so he lays her body on a bed in one of his estates. Later, a king out hunting in the woods finds her, and since he can't wake her up, rapes her while she's unconscious, then heads home to his own country. Some time after that, still unconscious, she gives birth to two children, and one of them accidentally sucks the splinter out of her finger, so she wakes up. The king who raped her is already married, but he burns his wife alive so he and the princess can be together. To keep everything "morally sound," the wife tries to kill and eat the babies first. Not exactly the type of story to tell children at bedtime.

Little Red Riding Hood

The Brothers Grimm actually made this story a lot nicer than it was when they originally got their hands on it. In the original version from 1697, there is no intrepid huntsman. Little Red simply strips naked, gets in bed, and then dies, eaten up by the big bad wolf. In another even darker version, she eats her own grandmother first. In the Chinese version of the story, it is a tiger instead of a wolf that is the villain and eats the girl.

Rumpelstiltskin

This story is pretty simple. The miller's daughter is trapped and forced to spin straw into gold or be killed. A little man appears to her, and spins it for her, but says that he will take her child in payment unless she can guess his name. In the Grimm fairy tale, when she finally figures out Rumpelstiltskin's name, he yells, "The Devil told you that! The Devil told you that!" He stamps his right foot so hard that he drives it into the ground right up to his waist. Then he takes hold of his left foot with both hands and tears himself in two. Again, certainly not acceptable fare for children, whether bedtime or not.

Cinderella

In the Grimm story, not only do the stepsisters cut off parts of their feet in order to fit into the glass slippers where the blood pooling in their shoes gives them away, but at the end, they have their eyes pecked out by doves, just for good measure.

Snow White

In the original 1812 Grimm Brothers version, the evil Queen is Snow White's actual mother rather than her stepmother, which makes the story more terrifying. The Disney version also left out the fact that the Queen sends the huntsman out to bring back Snow White's liver and lungs, which she then means to eat. In the Grimm version, she's not in a deep sleep when the prince finds her—she's dead. The prince, being an enthusiastic participant in necrophilia, is taking her dead body to his castle when his servant trips, jostles the coffin, and dislodges the poison apple from her throat. And once again, the Grimms gave the story a gruesome consequence for the villain. When the queen shows up at Snow White's wedding, she's forced to step into iron shoes that had been cooking in the fire, and then dances until she falls down dead.

Hansel and Gretel

The version of the story we know is already pretty gruesome—the evil stepmother abandons the children to die in the forest, they happen upon a cannibalistic witch's cottage who fattens them up to eat They outwit then kill the witch and escape. The Grimm version is basically the same, but an early French version, called The Lost Children, has an even more gruesome ending.

Rapunzel

Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair. In the Grimm version, she does just that for a prince on numerous occasions and winds up pregnant. She innocently mentions to her jailer witch that her clothes feel too tight. The witch doesn't want any competition so she chops off Rapunzel's hair and magically transports her far away, where she lives as a beggar with no money, no home, and after a few months, two hungry mouths to feed. As for the prince, the witch lures him up and then pushes him from the window. Some thorn bushes break his fall, but also poke out his eyes. But, surprisingly, there is a happy ending.

Goldilocks and the Three Bears

In this tale's earliest known incarnation, there was no Goldilocks—only the three bears and a fox named Scrapefoot, who enters the three bears' palace, sleeps in their beds and messes around with their salmon of knowledge. In the end, she either gets thrown out of the window or eaten, depending on who's telling the tale. Interestingly, it has been suggested that the use of the word vixen to mean female fox is how we got to Goldilocks, by means of a crafty old woman in the intervening story incarnations.

Weird Origins Of 12 Beloved Nursery Rhymes

Nursery rhymes and fairy tales, thought of as children's fare—yet many have dark and disturbing origins.  This week's blog talks about nursery rhymes. Next week's blog will shine a light of reality on fairy tales.

You have to admit that there's something a little strange about a group of toddlers chanting a nonsensical nursery rhyme. But if you stop and examine the lyrics of these iconic ballads, you'll notice the songs barely conceal their wicked origins.

Behind most nursery rhymes lurks hundreds of years of history that we routinely ignore. But the veil of light-hearted fun has been lifted revealing their dark origins.

1. Mary, Mary Quite Contrary: Vivid images of a sweet little gardener pruning rose bushes leap to mind. However, the Mary in question was far more sinister than a flower enthusiast. Mary I of England, otherwise known as Bloody Mary, was given the gruesome nickname due to her ruthless persecution of Protestants. In the rhyme, the cockleshells and silver bells refer to instruments of torture. Not so kid friendly!

2. Three Blind Mice: Queen Mary was so bloodthirsty she inspired several nursery rhymes chronicling her behavior. The knife-wielding farmer's wife mentioned in the story? Yep—it's Queen Mary I again.

3. Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush: Kids on the playground skipping in circles and singing the familiar tune don't realize is was created by the female inmates of England's Wakefield Prison. Doing laps around the mulberry bush was the daily exercise routine for prisoners. In fact, the bush in question still exists on the grounds of Wakefield.

4. Pop Goes The Weasel: If you grew up in the U.S., this rhyme was lumped together with Mulberry Bush which makes sense as they use the same musical tune. In England, children were familiar with different lyrics… "Half a pound of tuppenny rice, half a pound of treacle; That's the way the money goes," were the weekly groceries paid for by pawning off Dad's suit, or "Pop! goes the weasel."

5. Rub-A-Dub-Dub: As far as bath-time songs go, it's a safer bet to teach your kids Ernie's "Rubber Duckie" tune from Sesame Street. The nursery rhyme Rub-A-Dub-Dub is the opposite of squeaky clean. In the 18th century, embarrassed butchers, bakers, and candlestick makers had to endure the shame of their indiscreet recreational behaviors being revealed such as visiting peep shows and bathhouses and being immortalized in song. No one is quite sure how it ended up as a nursery rhyme.

6. Goosey Goosey Gander: Running through the lyrics you'll discover that the song describes a moral enforcer who busts into women's rooms and tosses their unmarried, and therefore sinful, partners down the staircase. This one doesn't bother pretending to be kid friendly. But it still has a more layered meaning. Back in the 16th century when Goosey Gander emerged, the Protestants offered rewards for Catholic Priest's heads. Apparently, the rhyme details the popular execution method reserved for the clergyman.

7. Rock-A-Bye Baby: Believe it or not, the gentle lullaby stems from the scandalous family drama surrounding King James II's first son. Rumor had it the King and his second wife, Mary of Modena, arranged to take in someone else's baby and presented him as their male heir.

8. Jack and Jill: This one is definitely not about a pair of clumsy siblings. Jack falling down, and subsequently breaking his crown, was the twisted spin on France's King Louis XVI's death by guillotine. Jill, now known to be King Louis XVI's wife Marie Antoinette, went the same way as her husband. The nursery rhyme paints her grim guillotine ending as "tumbling down after."

9. Baa Baa Black Sheep: This baaad boy sheep was presenting his "yeah, you know I've got wool" face. But even with a hefty coat like the one wrapped around this fluffy guy, somebody is going home wool-less. "None for the Little Boy that cries in the lane," seems like a harsh snub for that poor child. That's exactly what the originators intended since the rhyme was a commentary on the high wool taxes in medieval England.

10. Georgie Porgie: The crude rhyme poked fun at the weight of George IV of England, who apparently had a habit of stepping outside of his marriage. Georgie notoriously fathered many illegitimate children and recognized a second wife, ignoring the public perception.

11. London Bridge Is Falling Down: Over the years, there hasn't been a definitive explanation of this bizarre yet cheery song of structural collapse. However, in 1844, a travel writer named Samuel Laing spotted a big clue while translating a Norwegian text. Tracing through the Norse text he found a verse about Viking King Olaf II leading a brutal attack on the famous bridge in the years 1009 or 1014. However, this was never confirmed.

12. Humpty Dumpty: If you take a quick look at the lyrics, you'll notice there's not even one example of identifying Humpty as an egg-like creature. Nevertheless, everyone is sure he's an egg. However, there's more to the story. Humpty Dumpty represents two different subjects: one human, one weapon. The man: King Richard III, nicknamed The Hunchback King. The device: a trusty English Civil War cannon. 

6 Important Lands that Never Existed

This week's blog is about 6 lands believed to be real at the time but since have proven to be no more than myths.

Ancient travelers (and by ancient I mean many centuries ago, maybe even millenniums) told stories of mysterious places located in the unexplored reaches of the world—fabled cities, phantom islands and exotic civilizations.  Even though these lands were usually dismissed as myths and legends, a few of them found their way onto world maps and helped inspire some of history's most important journeys of discovery.  From a fabled Christian empire in Asia to a supposed lost kingdom in Canada, find out more about six of the most influential lands that never were.

1) Thule

A subject of fascination for ancient explorers, romantic poets and Nazi occultists.  Thule was an elusive territory believed to be located in the frozen north Atlantic near Scandinavia. Its legend dates back to the 4th century B.C., when the Greek journeyman Pytheas claimed to have travelled to an icy island beyond Scotland where the sun rarely set and land, sea and air combined into a bewildering, jelly-like mass.

Many of Pytheas' contemporaries doubted his claims, but that didn't stop distant Thule from lingering in the European imagination.  It eventually became synonymous with the northernmost place in the known world.  Explorers and researchers variously identified it as Norway, Iceland and the Shetland Islands, and it served a recurring theme in poetry and myth.  The island is perhaps most famous for its connection to the Thule Society, a post-World War I occult organization in Germany that considered Thule the ancestral home of the Aryan race. The Munich-based group counted many future Nazis among its members, including Rudolf Hess, who later served as Deputy Führer of Germany under Adolf Hitler.

2) The Kingdom of Prester John

For more than 500 years, Europeans believed a Christian king ruled over a vast empire somewhere in the wilds of either Africa, India or the Far East.  Talk of this mythical land first surfaced in 1165 after the Byzantine and Holy Roman emperors received a letter—most likely a European forgery—from a monarch calling himself Prester John.  The mysterious king claimed to serve as supreme ruler of the three Indies and all its 72 kingdoms.  He described his realm as a utopia rich in gold, populated by exotic races of giants and horned men.  Perhaps most important of all, Prester John and his subjects were Christians—even the name Prester meant Priest.

Despite the fact that a Papal mission to find Prester John's court disappeared without a trace, the myth of his kingdom took hold among Europeans.  Crusading Christians rejoiced in the idea that a devout ruler might come to their aid in the struggle against Islam during the Crusades, and when Genghis Khan's Mongol hordes conquered parts of Persia in the early 1200s, many mistakenly credited Prester John's forces with the attack.  The kingdom later became a subject of fascination for travelers and explorers.  Marco Polo provided a questionable account of encountering its remnants in Northern China.  Vasco da Gama and other Portuguese mariners searched for it in Africa and India.  While explorers eventually discovered a Christian civilization in Ethiopia, it lacked the grandeur and the gold Europeans had come to associate with Prester John's realm. By the 17th century, the legend had faded, and the famed empire was dropped from most maps.

3) Hy-Brasil

Long before Europeans ever stepped foot in the New World, explorers searched for the island of Hy-Brasil, an ethereal land said to exist off the west coast of Ireland.  The story of Hy-Brasil most likely comes from Celtic legend—its name means Isle of the Blest in Gaelic—but its precise origins are unclear.  Hy-Brasil first appeared on maps in the 14th century, usually in the form of a small, circular island with a narrow strait splitting it in two.  Many mariners accepted it as a real place until as recently as the 1800s, and it became popular as the basis for myths and folktales.  Some legends described the island as a lost paradise.  Others claimed that it was perpetually obscured by a dense curtain of mist and fog, only becoming visible to the naked eye every seven years.  [which sounds as if it might have been the genesis of the Lerner & Lowe musical BRIGADOON about a village in Scotland that appeared out of the mist every one hundred years]

Despite its somewhat whimsical reputation, Hy-Brasil was widely sought after by Britain-based explorers in the 15th century. The navigator John Cabot launched several expeditions in an attempt to find it.  It's suggested that he had hoped to locate it during his famous journey to the coast of Newfoundland in 1497.  Documents from Cabot's time claim that previous explorers had already reached Hy-Brasil, leading some researchers to argue that these unnamed mariners may have inadvertently traveled all the way to the Americas prior to Christopher Columbus.

4) El Dorado

Beginning in the 16th century, European explorers and conquistadors were intrigued by tales of a mythical city of gold located in the unexplored reaches of South America.  The city had its origin in accounts of El Dorado (The Gilded One), a native king who powdered his body with gold dust and tossed jewels and gold into a sacred lake as part of a coronation rite.  Stories of the gilded king eventually led to rumors of a golden city of untold wealth and splendor.  Adventurers spent many years—and countless lives—in a futile search for its riches.

One of the most famous El Dorado expeditions came in 1617, when the English explorer Sir Walter Raleigh traveled up the Orinoco River on a quest to find it in what is now Venezuela.  They didn't find any trace of the gilded city, and King James I later executed Raleigh after he disobeyed an order to avoid fighting with the Spanish.  El Dorado continued to drive exploration and colonial violence until the early 1800s, when scientists Alexander von Humboldt and Aimé Bonpland branded the city a myth after undertaking a research expedition to Latin America.

El Dorado wasn't the only gilded city supposedly tucked away in the New World.  European explorers also hunted for the Seven Cities of Cibola, a mythical group of gold-rich settlements said to be located somewhere in what are now Mexico and the American Southwest.  The most famous search for the Seven Cities came in the 16th century, when the Spanish conquistador Francisco Vasquez de Coronado scoured the Great Plains of the U.S. in search of a city of riches called Quivira.

5) St. Brendan’s Island

St. Brendan’s Island was a mysterious manifestation of Paradise once thought to be hidden somewhere in the eastern Atlantic Ocean.  The myth of the phantom island dates back to the Navigatio Brendani, or Voyage of Brendan, a 1,200-year-old Irish legend about the seafaring monk St. Brendan the Navigator.  As the story goes, Brendan led a crew of pious sailors on a 6th century voyage in search of the famed Promised Land of the Saints.  The journey on the open sea describes attacks by fireball-wielding giants and run-ins with talking birds.  According to the tale, Brendan and his men landed on a mist-covered island filled with delicious fruit and sparkling gems. The grateful crew are said to have spent 40 days exploring the island before returning to Ireland.

Although there is no historical proof of St. Brendan’s voyage, the legend became so popular during medieval times that St. Brendan's Island found its way onto many maps of the Atlantic. Early cartographers placed it near Ireland, but in later years it migrated to the coasts of North Africa, the Canary Islands, and finally the Azores. Sailors often claimed to have caught fleeting glimpses of the mystical isle during the Age of Discovery, and it's likely that even Christopher Columbus believed in its existence.  Its legend eventually faded after multiple search expeditions failed to track it down. By the 18th century, the famed Promised Land of the Saints had been removed from most navigational charts.

6) The Kingdom of Saguenay

The story of the mirage-like Kingdom of Saguenay dates to the 1530s, when French explorer Jacques Cartier made his second journey to Canada in search of gold and a northwest passage to Asia.  While traveling along the St. Lawrence River at what is modern day Quebec, Cartier's Iroquois guides began to whisper tales of Saguenay, a vast kingdom that lay to the north. According to a chief named Donnacona, the mysterious realm was rich in spices, furs and precious metals and populated by blond, bearded men with pale skin.  The stories eventually transitioned into the realm of the absurd when the natives claimed the region was also home to races of one-legged people and whole tribes possessing no anus.  Cartier became intrigued by the prospect of plundering the riches of Saguenay.  He brought Donnacona back to France, where the Iroquois chief continued to spread tales of a lost kingdom.

Legends about Saguenay haunted French explorers in North America for years, but treasure hunters never found any trace of the mythical land.  Most historians now dismiss it as a myth, but some argue the natives may have been referring to copper deposits in the Canadian northwest.  Others have suggested that the Indian tales could have been inspired by a centuries old Norse outpost left over from Viking voyages to North America.

Fortunately, today we have Google Earth to confirm or deny such rumors of mythical places.  :)