Hi, we're your host's Anthony Delaney and Maddie Pelling.

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Hello and welcome to After Dark. I'm Maddie.

And I'm Anthony.

And in this episode, we are going to be talking about the lost colony of Roanoke.

This is one of the greatest mysteries in American history. And the myths that grew up around it

in the decades and centuries that followed focused on one particular mother and child.

Eleanor and her daughter, Virginia, Dare, the first English child to be born on the American

continent. It's a story that takes us right up to the 20th century to get us started. Here's Anthony.

It's the summer of 1587 and Eleanor Dair is on the Atlantic waves.

Tall spars reach up into the cloudy sky above her head where sails bulge outwards, lugging the colonists on.

Eleanor Dare is somewhere around 18 years old and pregnant, in her second trimester by now.

Her husband is on the voyage with her. Her father is too. He is the leader of the whole endeavor. He's been to this new

world before, brought back incredible paintings of what he saw there, the landscapes, the people,

the food. Now Eleanor is coming with him to establish a colonial outpost for Sir Walter Rally and

for England in this far-flung most foreign land that she knows will be the place she gives

birth to her first child. The ocean swells and the salt air strikes her skin. The rhythm

of the ship rises and falls, creaks and groans.

Eleanor turns back to her work.

...