True Stories From The Past That Are Not For Faint-Hearted

Stories that some of you may wish you never have read.

Our history is full of all kinds of stories — some are for kids, while some are so iconic that they are for all age groups.

Then come to the ones which are for legends and not for the faint-hearted. The stories that we have gathered for you in this article are those which you will never read or get to know in schools.

One reason for that is these stories are either just too gore, or maybe it just serves much of a purpose for our educational institutions.

Anyhow, let’s move on to the stories that some of you may wish you never read.

The Tragic Death Of Heraclitus Of Ephesus

Strange tales about death have been told throughout history, and the Greeks are no exception.

The erudite poet Philitas is reported to have starved to death while writing about someone’s wrong use of terminology, whereas the great intellectual Empedocles is said to have plunged into a volcano in an unsuccessful attempt to establish his immortality.

However, Heraclitus’ death wins the award for being both disgusting and absurd at the same time.

He apparently sought medical attention because he was suffering from dropsy, a term that defined the accumulation of fluid in the body, especially under the skin.

Being known as someone who loved riddles, he stayed true to form while presenting his case to the doctors; he presented them with a riddle that they couldn’t solve.

After knowing his situation was out of the hands of the present doctors, Heraclitus took matters into his own hands and attempted to cure himself by covering himself in cow dung.

The idea was that the heat from the dung would cause the fluid to evaporate, but little did he know.

He died covered in the same excrement that he thought would save him — Heraclitus became trapped in the cow dung because when it dried, it formed a plaster-like mould around, making him unable to move, making him an easy target for dogs and there he was eaten alive.

Well, Shit happens!

Creepy And Twisted Story Of Famous Author Mary Shelley

Frankenstein author Mary Shelley is well-known to everyone.

However, there is a very unsettling and tragic aspect of her that is hardly known. Percy was Mary’s husband, and when he was 29 years old, he was sailing with two other men when, on July 8, 1822, they were trapped in a storm and perished by drowning.

Ten days later, the men’s bodies were discovered, and they could only identify them by their clothing.

It goes without saying that this is heartbreaking and sad and that Mary losing her husband in just about any way would have been terrible.

Although this in itself was pretty freaky at first, Percy’s friend Lee Hunter eventually ended up keeping his heart, and later it was given to Mary.

Percy was cremated, and for some reason, his heart was the only part of his body that refused to burn. Doctors believe this was because of calcification from an earlier case of tuberculosis.

Mary ultimately decided to retain the heart and carried it about with her for years rather than disposing of it or doing anything else customary with it.

It wasn’t until one year after her passing that this strange little memento was discovered in the drawer of her desk, wrapped between the pages of one of his final poems.

What a heartbreakingly beautiful and incredibly unsettling story. When Percy and Mary’s son passed away in 1889, his heart was ultimately buried in the family vault beside him.

The Vampires Of Rhodes Island

The issue of witch and vampire hunts isn’t typically addressed in most history lessons, but this is a genuinely bizarre tale.

Tuberculosis was quickly spreading across Connecticut, Vermont, and Rhode Island in the late 1800s.

Obviously, the occupants of these areas would have found this to be rather alarming, but things rapidly turned quite grim.

Many of the victims of this sickness had faces that were sunken and drained and were very clearly unwell.

People’s reasonable response was to assume that they had been a vampire’s prey for a variety of reasons.

Some individuals thought that one member of a family in Exeter, Rhode Island, must be the feeding vampire because the family experienced many deaths as a result of the sickness.

These folks even went so far as to exhume the remains of some of the family members who had passed away in order to confirm that they were still alive.

Because one of the excavated bodies had died more recently, her body was in better shape, which naturally led many to conclude that she was the vampire.

As a result, they set fire to her heart and liver before mixing the ashes with water. This is obviously a crime in today’s world, and it’s also rather frightening.

They made matters worse by distributing the mixture to sick residents of the community in an attempt to treat them. Imagine having to consume it and yet contracting tuberculosis — not a wise trade-off.

Final Words

There are many stories that are just made up; even some of the oldest legends are nothing more than made-up stories, which are kind of heartbreaking.

However, it is these kinds of stories which are not easy to digest, yet our fascination with them is never-ending.

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