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Lore

Lore 314: Hive Mind

Duration
34m
Broadcast on
07 Sep 2026
Audio Format
other

Not all big stories are about equally large characters. In the world of folklore, sometimes even the littlest players have a massive stage to perform upon.

Narrated and produced by Aaron Mahnke, with writing by GennaRose Nethercott, research by Cassandra de Alba, and music by Chad Lawson.

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Lore Resources:

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©2026 Aaron Mahnke. All rights reserved.

This episode is sponsored by Bromstoker's Dracula from Audible, a new full cast audio thriller starring Ella Purnell from Fallout as Mina Harker, Jonathan Bailey from Wicked as Dracula, and an A-list cast including Maggie Gyllenhaal from The Dark Knight as Van Helsing, Amy Lou Wood from The White Lotus as Lucy, David Johnson from Industry as Dr. Seward, and many more. Mina and a small, fearless band race against time to stop this ancient terror. Using her intellect, her resolve, and a gift for drawing the unseen lines between clues, Mina just may hold the key to bring down the count if he hasn't already found his way inside her mind. Featuring a haunting original score by Lelande Ishkere from Audible's 1984 and Spatial Dolby Atmos Sound Design, Audible's Dracula invites you to welcome literature's most shadowy figure into your home. Feel the terror of being hunted, and the thrill of the hunt. Don't miss this year's best new audio thriller, Bromstoker's Dracula, Audible's new full cast original adaptation, written by Robin Ahern and directed by Mary Lambert. Now on Audible, listen to The Darkness, go to audible.com/listen to Dracula. Hey, I'm running out to drop off a stack of letters and packages. Need anything shipped while I'm gone? Save the gas. Stamps.com lets you print postage and schedule pickups right from your desk. Sync your contacts into the address book. Get detailed accounting insights, and get notified the moment your certified mail is delivered. All from my desk? All from your desk. Join the 4 million businesses using Stamps.com right now with code podcast and get your free welcome gift, Stamps.com code podcast. Stamps, taxes, and fees apply. Walking around here in Massachusetts, it's hard not to think about the past. Everywhere you look, there are Puritan graveyards, old creaking churches, and crumbling stone walls built by long dead hands. History is both all around us, and something so impossibly distant, it can be hard to imagine the people who lived in those times were ever truly real. But then again, the past is relative. After all, the Massachusetts Bay Colony was founded less than 400 years ago. Compare that to the Colosseum or the Great Pyramids, and me and John Proctor are practically twins. And then, there's folks like the San people of Southern Africa, one of the world's oldest continuous cultures, still practicing traditions they started 44,000 years ago. And way back then, even they found themselves thinking about what came before. You see, the San people have a myth that tells the story of how humans were first created. It starts with the insect Mantis, a legendary figure in San mythology. Now Mantis wanted to know the meaning of life, and he figured that he needed to do some traveling to find it. Unfortunately at this time, the Earth was still covered in water, and so he asked a winged insect to help carry him across the waves. The insect did carry Mantis for days. Eventually it grew tired though, and it dropped Mantis down onto a large white flower floating atop the water. And then, so exhausted from the journey, Mantis's generous friend died.

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