The World of Lore: Wicked Mortals

Folklore is the thing that fills the vacuum created by a lack of knowledge.

I believe there are monsters born in the world to human parents. —JOHN STEINBECK, EAST OF EDEN

The history of invention

We assume the people around us are who they claim to be. That they have our best interests at heart. That they care. But all too often

safety is core to who we are as people. It’s not unique to humans, for sure—animals are very good at finding and building homes wherever they can—but it’s undeniable that safety drives a lot of our decisions.

In many ways, the stories we tell and the lessons we pass on are like a tree. There are branches that reach out into generations and cultures, sometimes in obvious ways, and other times reaching surprising new places.

Yes, our world is still full of dangerously irrational people—people that allow hate and jealously and their own deep insecurities to drive them toward monstrous actions.

Because in the end, as sad as it seems, there’s always another witch to burn, isn’t there?

Sometimes the evil queen is real.

In fact, some drugs were completely misunderstood. Morphine, for example, wasn’t seen so much as a painkiller back then as a sleep aid…albeit one that was highly addictive. So much so that a former Confederate colonel named John Pemberton created a coca wine—a sort of tonic made of wine and cocaine—as a medicinal cure. When the city of Atlanta passed prohibition laws in 1886, Pemberton swapped out the wine for carbonated water, but the cocaine stayed in the beverage for almost two more decades. Today Pemberton’s drink is still sold as Coca-Cola, but the medicinal roots are long gone.