Ancient History Fangirl

Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! ⁠ Ah, Christmas—it's a time of cheer, of gift-giving and generosity; and a time to eat yer babies. This year, we’re focusing on two different cannibalistic...

⁠⁠⁠Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! For thousands of years, horses have been essential to human civilization from warfare to trade and empire-building. All over the world, people have captured...

⁠⁠Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! In our last episode, we detailed the rise of the Beast of the Gevaudan, some of its most gruesome attacks, and the doomed efforts of professional hunters to...

⁠Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! From 1764 to 1767, an area of southeastern France called the Gevaudan was stalked and terrorized by a mysterious beast. Some said it was a wolf. Others that...

Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! ⁠ We’ve covered werewolves in the ancient world before—and their connection to the Berserker myth. But wait til you hear what happened to werewolf mythology...

Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! ⁠ The werewolf myth as we know it today generally involves getting bitten by a werewolf, transforming during the full moon, and being very susceptible to...

⁠Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! Today on the podcast, we’re thrilled to welcome bestselling author Ayana Gray. Ayana is the author of the blockbuster YA novel Beasts of Prey, and is now...

Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! ⁠⁠ This is an episode about a plague that killed up to 100 million people by the time it was done—as many as 60% of its victims. It’s the first documented...

⁠Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! Crater Lake is a caldera lake in the Cascade Mountains in Oregon—the remnants of an ancient volcanic eruption. It’s the deepest lake in the country and one of...

⁠Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! In this episode, we’ll delve into the mystery of Aokigahara, known in Japanese as the Sea of Trees—and to the rest of the world as the Suicide Forest. After...

Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! ⁠ Teotihuacan is an ancient pre-Colombian city in central America, founded two thousand years ago. It’s the home of some of the most iconic Mesoamerican...

Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! ⁠ Lucian’s A True History has been called the world’s first work of science fiction—but above all, Lucian of Samosata was a satirist. And he had a bone to pick...

⁠⁠Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! AD Rhine is the pen name of the authors Ashlee Cowles and Danielle Stinsen, who have been friends and creative partners for over 25 years. Their novels...

⁠Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! It is the End of Season 13--and what a wild ride it's been. We've had so much fun triangulating the Goths for you--and we hope you now are as obsessed with...

Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! ⁠ In our last episode we talked about the opulence of Goth–Gothic architecture, fashion, and art of all kinds–and the connection between this and the opulence...

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! We have come to the end (or almost the end) of our long, sweeping epic history of the Goths. But we have one corner of Gothic history as yet uncovered...

⁠⁠⁠⁠Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! Long after the smoke from the battlefields died down, long after the ravens had eaten their fill, the Migration Era lived on in Germanic heroic legend...

⁠⁠⁠Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! We've told you the story of the Ostrogoths, the Amal ruling family, who built an imperial dynasty only to see that rulership dissolve within two...

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! For a while now, Genn has been hinting at a "Secret Project" in the works--and now it's out in the wild: the Official Lore Olympus Cookbook. Genn was...

⁠⁠⁠⁠Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! When Alaric of the Visigoths sacked Rome, it shocked the world—not least because Rome hadn’t been sacked in a thousand years. But also, while Rome was a...

⁠⁠Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! In our last episode about Amalasuintha and the end of the Ostrogothic Kingdom, we said we were next going to turn to the Visigothic Kingdom. But the story of...

Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! ⁠ This is an episode about a plague that killed up to 100 million people by the time it was done—as many as 60% of its victims. It’s the first documented...

⁠Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! In our last episode, we told you all about the rise of Theodoric the Great and the founding of the Ostrogothic Kingdom in Italy. Now, we’re going to tell you...

Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! ⁠ What was the worst year to be alive? Some researchers have a very specific answer to this question: 536 AD. This is a year when the global temperature...

Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! After 75 years under Hunnic dominion, the Ostrogoths seized their freedom and set about taking over control of the Western Roman Empire. The man who led them...