This is an I-Heart podcast. January 6, 1896. I went to see the sick man today, and he's a pitiful-looking devil. They had him with about six blankets, and he still was nearly freezing. I can do nothing for him. January 12th. I went to see him today, and he looks worse than ever. I gave him a dose of castor oil, but he says his heart is freezing. He keeps insisting he'll become a cannibal. He wants the Algonquins to kill him before he gets worse. January 20th. Francois came here and asked me if I would read some prayers for the sick man. He doesn't look like a human being. He seems to be terribly swollen in the body and face. The sight of him is enough to frighten any person. The poor Algonquin slept very little here for the last 19 days. Since he arrived, they have been watching him all the time. I don't know how this will end. January 21st. Francois came for me last night, and I went with him. I told him we ought to take some rope with us and tie him up if we could. The sound of him was terrible. It was like the calling of a wild animal. We tied him with the ropes, and I left to find some more, but I couldn't find any. And when I got back, the cords around his arms were already breaking. The Algonquins asked what we should do. They said that when he got up, he would kill all of us. I told them to do what they had to do as I had no more ropes with which to bind him.

Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from How StuffWorks.com.

Hey, welcome to Stuff to blow your mind.

My name is Robert Lamb.

And I'm Julie Douglas.

And that was the account of Francis Work Beaton, the Orkney HBC clerk at the Trout Lake outpost, the winter of 1896 during the alleged windigo possession of Nepapin Agar.

Edited slightly for clarity's sake, but otherwise

exactly what's in

the history books. And we

wanted to bring that bit to your

attention because what we're talking about is

a creature or a possession

that has to deal with cannibalism.

Yeah, and even though the creature itself is obviously a creature of myth, we've talked

before about the power of myth, the power of paranormal scripts within a culture, as well as

the real-life incidences that have allegedly occurred because of or alongside the

Windigo belief.

Because if the oral account of this particular Windigo possession story, as collected

by the University of Alberta's Nathan D. Carlson holds true, then the Algonquin tribes

people gave Napappan boiling bear grease in attempt to cure him after this account

that I read.

And then when that didn't work, they executed him with an axe,

...