Legends 73: For Better or For Worse

After years of careful scheming and seduction, Anne Bolin had finally married Henry VIII.

“Of course, those years hadn't been without their challenges, Henry had even been forced”

to defy the most powerful religious entity in the world to make it happen. But finally, they were together. Now if you were to travel back in time to Anne Bolin's wedding, I'm fairly certain that she would tell you that in that moment, it was the happiest day of her life. Sadly, as we all know today, her story didn't end as happily as it began.

Unable to produce some male air, she was forced to endure years of her husband's anger and abuse. With each passing month, his affection faded until finally the king decided that it was time to move on. So he accused her of horrible crimes, and then he chopped off her head. It said that your wedding day is the start of that fairy tale goal of happily ever after,

but it doesn't always work out that way.

In fact, according to some tales, the bride never even makes it down the aisle.

“So grab a tissue and take your seat, because the ceremony is about to begin.”

I'm Aaron Manky, and this is Laura Legends. The year was 1911, and the grand galves, or simply hotel galves, as it was known then, had just opened its glittering doors for the first time. And trust me, this is no ordinary hotel. Touched off the coast of the Gulf of Mexico on the island of Galveston, Texas.

The spectacle is a sprawling castle like Goliath, fit for royalty. Over the years, its opulence has attracted such visitors as FDR, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Frank Sinatra, and more. In fact, it was even nicknamed, and I quote, "the playground of the southwest for the American elite."

And yet one of the hotel's most famous guests is a young woman you've probably never even heard of.

Her name was Audra.

“As the legend goes, Audra checked into the hotel galves sometime in the mid-1950s,”

but she wasn't one of the vacationing wealthy, eager to hobnob with fellow one-percentres. No Audra was drawn to this particular hotel for a different reason. That is, love. Her fiancé, you see, was a mariner who had sailed out of Galveston not long before, and would eventually return there to port, and for Audra, while every moment apart from

him was agony, she took comfort, though, in knowing that he'd have to come back to land at some point, and when he did, she would be waiting there for him. Refusing to miss even a moment of her sweetheart's return, she decided to rent a room at the hotel right there overlooking the port, room 501, to be exact. If the stories are true, she burrowed in and made the hotel her new home.

Every day, Audra would take the elevator up to the eighth floor, and then she would scramble up a narrow ladder to the tipi top of the hotel, sneaking inside one of the tourists. There was a small window in the tower, and it's through this glass hidden away from the world that Audra would watch the sea hoping to spy her beloved ship. She watched, and she waited, but the boat didn't come.

Not after a day, not after a week, not after a month. Finally Audra received horrible news. Her fiancé, ship, had sunk. All her worst nightmares, it seems, had come true. Her sweetheart had been lost at sea.

At first, she refused to believe it. She continued to visit the turret, keeping vigil over the cruel sea, searching for the ship. But after a few days of this, she couldn't lie to herself any longer. It was real. He was gone.

With her hope lost, despair took hold. After all, she had shaped her entire life around this man, and, without him, while she simply couldn't see a way forward. According to the legend, Audra hanged herself right there in the west turret. It's a tragic story, and unfortunately, it only gets worse.

You see a few short days after Audra's death, her fiancé appeared on the doorstep of the hotel in search of his bride. It turns out he'd been rescued at sea, and the first thing he had done when he got home was rushed to Galveston, eager to be reunited with his true love. It's like a seafaring version of Romeo and Juliet.

One lover's mistaken death's tragic conclusions, but there's a major difference between Shakespeare's classic and that of the love-loin bride, as the story has come to be known. Because you see in this tragedy, death is not where the story ends. It said that to this day, Audra still hunts the hotel, particularly her former room 501.

Times the keycard is said to stop working, and when the desk clerk scans it for the room

“code, the display chilling the reads expired, 1955.”

The room's phone will ring and ring, even when the switchboard reports that no calls were received, and no one is on the other line. Paranormal investigators have stopped by to pay Audra a visit, too. They've allegedly seen mysterious orbs, felt cold spots, and heard disembodied footsteps and voices.

Not only that, but the distinct fragrance of gardenia, supposedly Audra's favorite scent, was smelled, wafting through the air. And of course, no haunted hotel would be complete without a good ol' classic goafsighting. The love-loin bride has been spotted wandering the halls, wracked with sobs. She often appears near the same elevator she would take a daily to reach her turret, and

children staying in the hotel have been said to scream and point at, "Well, nothing." Some guests have even experienced the overwhelming sensation of something invisible, being with them on their beds, which, as someone who often has to travel for life shows

“and festivals, I would just like to say, "No, thank you."”

Now, okay, I will admit our researchers were not able to find any evidence of an actual woman named Audra dying at the hotel, or any death even vaguely fitting this story at all. But facts rarely get in the way of a good yarn, or, in this case, in the way of an advertising opportunity. Now who knows when the grand-galves hotel realized that they had something valuable on

their hands? I bet that it was around the time the first paranormal investigators showed up. That's any rate the hotel is a business, and they weren't going to let a resource like this go to waste. It was time, it seems, for a publicity stunt.

So in October of 2022, they decided that their saddest guest deserved a little pick me up.

They were going to give her something that she never got to receive in life, a proper wedding.

And all of the travelers staying at the hotel? Oh, yes, they were invited.

“Guests were encouraged to arrive in full costume as if they were part of Audra's official”

wedding party, prizes were sold out for the best outfit, and a full reception was had, all in honor of Audra. And I'm not sure if the love-loorn bride has stopped haunting the hotel, after she finally got to have the wedding she'd been deprived of when alive. One thing is certain, it sure didn't put an end to the stories.

Desperate times call for desperate measures, and in 1927 John Sabold was desperate. The 71-year-old farmer had outlived not just one wife, but two, and had lost his beloved son as well, and so overcome with grief and loneliness, John had reached his limit. He needed a change. Today he probably would have called a therapist, but this was a century ago, so instead

John called a spiritualist medium. Her name was Nellie Moore, and she claimed that she could reunite John with his deceased son, for a fee, of course. But the guy, as I said, was desperate, and he was more than willing to pay. Nellie brought John into a dark room, and dimmed the lights.

He had to be dark, she insisted, or the "Sayons wouldn't work." Oh, and he'd better not even think about turning the lights on, or God forbid touching the spirits, because if he did, well, he'd die, and so would Nellie. A little convenience, if you ask me, but hey, we'll go with it. With that, the "Sayons" began, and amazingly, it wasn't long before a spirit arrived.

It talked through Nellie, and John Sabold was elated to learn that the visitor was not other than his lost son. Not only that, but the young man had a message for his father. He told John that he wished to guide him through the rest of his life, which he would do through Nellie Moore, as long as he kept paying her for her services.

Another spirit named Greer popped up next, who claimed to be a sort of managing director of the other world. This ghostly bureaucrat counsel John to do whatever his son said, as long as he kept

him playing more, he would never have to say goodbye to his son.

And that was that, John was hooked. Now look, it might be easy for us to dismiss John Sabold as a bit, well, gullible, but I want you to put yourself in his position. This is a man who had lost everyone that he loved, and suddenly he was being handed an opportunity to have those people back.

They would surely be tempting, even to the most skeptical person. And John, he was not the most skeptical person. In fact, he was a true believer in spiritualism and had been for over 30 years, and he wasn't about to stop now. When he wasn't dabbling in the dead, Sabold was a rather successful farmer.

He owned multiple farms in Kansas and Oklahoma, and made a good chunk of change from them, too, which was lucky because the ghost demanded a lot of money. Through Nellie Moore, the ghost commanded that Sabold used $3,000 to move to Wichita, where

And he did it.

But apparently the ghost thought that this home was too small, so they demanded a big

or one, and he did that, too. He bought them furniture. He paid for her kid's education, all at the ghost's behest, and still they asked for more. Which, okay, would have made me a little suspicious, but poor John was in too deep to turn

back now. Reconnecting with his son was all well and good.

“But John Sabold was still a widower, remember, and he had grown tired of the single”

life. Surprise, though, Moore had a plan to help with that, too. Apparently she wasn't just a medium, but a matchmaker as well. And so one day, Nellie excitedly told John that she had found him a perfect bride.

There was just one teeny tiny caveat.

This lovely lady just so happened to be dead. That's right, Nellie Moore had arranged a marriage between John and a ghost. This ghost name was Sarah, by the way. Had he ever met her in life? Oh, no.

Did he know her age or what she looked like? No. John didn't care about these details as long as Sarah agreed to have him to hold as well as a dead woman can I suppose, then he was satisfied and so the date was set. The wedding actually had a heck of a turnout, spiritualist traveled from all over to help

“celebrate the happy couple, and the bride's side allegedly turned up as well, although”

they were all invisible to the naked eye. During the ceremony itself, Sabold placed the ring on the ghost finger, being careful not to touch her skin, of course, less TV struck dead. And if you're wondering, yes, the ghost apparently did have fingers. Sabold later testified that he could vaguely discern her outline in the dark sands room,

occasionally her illuminated hands would materialize and grab something. And there you go, the couple were wed, and that would have been the end of it, except of course, it wasn't. As it would turn out, having a ghost bride and a psychic on retainer was rather expensive before long, Sabold's money ran out.

He was flat broke, and not only that, but he started to reflect on his new marriage and realize that, despite Moore's promises, it really hadn't improved his life in any way.

This is when the guy finally, and I mean finally began to suspect that Moore had been

playing him for a jump. And so in the true American way, he took her to court.

“John Sabold sued Nellie Moore for a whopping $7,500.”

The equivalent of about $125,000 today. As you can imagine, the whole thing caused a media frenzy. Ghostbries, con artists, seances, what's not to love. The story shot across the nation, and then the world. Shockingly though, Sabold's case didn't hold up in court.

The judge told him that he could not recover his money unless he could prove that the contract he had entered into with Moore was illegal at the time of its making. And while it might have been a very, very ill-advised arrangement to enter into, he did consent to everything, and nothing about Moore's dealings were technically against the law. In the end, she walked away unscathed, with all of Sabold's money still lining her pockets.

Now you would think that John Sabold would have tossed spiritualism out the window after that, but you'd be wrong. It turns out that this entire experience only shook his belief in one thing, Nellie Moore. In fact, he even continued to believe himself to be married to the Ghostbried Sarah. That said, there it seemed to be some trouble in Paradise.

In short, the marriage was on the rocks. She was quite an absent partner to put it mildly, and so eventually John began pursuing a new course of legal action. Not a lawsuit, mind you. No, he wanted a divorce.

Which, okay, legally speaking seemed a bit tricky, but he did formally denounce the marriage, and for all intents and purposes, the couple had separated. The marriage between John the Human and Sarah the Ghost, formally met its conclusion. I guess at the end of the day, all John Sabold wanted was a wife with a little more substance. On June 27th of 1868, the warm Saturday sun was setting on Alexandria, Virginia.

It was a peaceful summer evening. The crickets were chirping. A humid breeze was blowing in from the Potomac River, and the town was settling in for the night. Over on North Fairfax Street, though, the energy in the Shafer Household was a little more

electric. Located right above a candy shop, the building was bursting with laughter and celebration. It was a big night, after all. The last night before the family's youngest daughter would be getting married. The wedding is a big deal in any family, but a Shafer wedding was an event for the whole

community. The Shafer Patriarch, Christian, was the town's best confectioner, and, like any town worth its salt, Alexandria held its candy man in high regard. He was well-respected, and so were his children.

But pretty or not, she would soon be off the market.

“The local beauty was engaged to the charming Charles Tennyson.”

It said that he had been her constant companion for years. She simply wouldn't let any man but Charles near her, and he wouldn't let any woman but Laura near him. They were truly desperately in love. And so the night before their wedding was a happy one.

Well, for a while, anyway.

Around half past seven, the glowing bride went into her bedroom on the third floor to change

clothes for dinner. Her grandmother was with her, at some point she went to go fetch something from her father's room. It must have been dark by then, because Laura carried a carousine lamp with her to light the way.

Now, these lamps didn't have bulbs inside them, instead they had little flames. Those flames were powered by a type of fuel called carousine, and as poor Laura was about

“to learn, carousine is extremely combustible.”

She was halfway through her father's room when the lamp cracked, and once the lamp cracked, the carousine spilled out. The fuel touched the flame, and it instantly caught fire as it cascaded until Laura's skirts. In a matter of seconds, she was in gulfed in flames, throwing the lamp down.

She screamed. She ran down two flights of stairs, wailing as she went. The fire only spread as it found more material to devour. Laura was being burned alive. I can't even imagine how terrible it was for her family to hear her screams, or even worse

to see her run toward them completely ablaze. Her brother-in-law later said that her head was completely covered in fire. Through her screams, Laura begged her family to save her, thanks to some quick thinking from her brother-in-law she was soon enveloped in his coat.

“The flames were smothered, but not before they had taken their toll.”

The family called the doctor, but there was little he could do. Her beautiful face was unrecognizable, her entire body covered in severe burns. Laura suffered through the night until she finally passed away the next morning. Her fiancee Charles was by her side when she died, remaining steadfast in the final hours of his bride-to-be's life.

It's a tragic story, and one that I wish I could simply end here, but I'm afraid there was one more casualty on this ill-fated wedding day. Charles, you see, could not bear to go on without the love of his life. Laura passed away at 11am the morning of her wedding, and at 2pm that very same day, Charles put a pistol to his temple.

By the next day he too had passed on, finally with his bride once again. And it might make this terrible story more palatable to believe that these two lovers, so cruelly torn apart in life, were then reunited in death.

There are many who claim that their spirits never moved on, and that they may still

be stuck in the very building where Laura lost her life. Both proprietors and visitors have claimed to have experienced their presence. Laura is said to be a friendly ghost, offering the occasional soft "hello," and not causing much mischief aside from maybe shaking a lamp or two. Charles though, is a different story.

People have claimed to feel a man's energy in the basement of the house, and it's not a happy presence, either. And that makes sense, his spirit may still be dealing with the trauma of watching his fiancé die in the most gruesome way possible, after all. One witness claims that he shouted at her to leave, while the owner of a Christmas

shop that briefly lived at that address, has said that he knocked ornaments around. The most common incident reported though, is the smell of something burning. The scent has hovered around the house for generations now, lingering in the air, like smoke. But nothing puts out a fire like something cold, and their spirits may have finally been

giving a soothing bomb of ice cream. That's right. Today the building has been turned into an ice cream shop, a fitting homage to what was once a confectioners, old memories are slowly being replaced with happier ones. And if I had to guess, that burning smell may be hard to pick out.

For the sweet smell of sugar. A bride, according to many traditions, is meant to be the very picture of youthful innocence. It's a well-known trope, even if it doesn't mesh with reality. In the real world, we know that anyone can get married, no matter how old they are or how much life might have hardened them.

But if we're just going off of Eurocentric literary examples, a bride almost always fits

a certain image. Most of the time, she's described as young, dressed in white, and with her entire life ahead of her. If we want to be poetic about it, we could say that she's like a lamb, sweet, dust-style,

Which is what makes it all the more heartbreaking when the lamb is led to the slaughter.

In that way, a bride will always be the perfect victim.

Here they are with their new life about to begin beside the person they love the most in the entire world until the floor is ripped out from under them. It can even make the most cynical hearts ache, but that's the whole point of telling stories like these, they trigger emotions.

“Perhaps that's why almost every old hotel or historic church contains their own version”

of the ghost bride legend. Not because there's an epidemic of brides, dropping dead on their wedding days, but because for better or for worse, a dead bride will pull on more heartstrings than some random victim elsewhere ever could. In a great example of this would be the burning bride of Alexandria.

That was a real incident reported in local newspapers all over the DC area. Which is one of the few actual tragic bride stories out there. The rest can typically be chalked up to overactive imaginations and urban legends hoping for a bit of shock value. All of them though are powered by the same underlying heartbeat, which is that few legends

are more powerful than the ones that show us beauty and hope and promise and then take it all away. I hope you've enjoyed crashing a few legendary weddings with me today.

These unions were not always blessed as you might have noticed, but they sure provided

a few chills as compensation.

“Brides of course, common all shapes, sizes and colors, and can present vastly differently”

depending on the culture and the era they're from. In fact, as one last story will reveal, some can even look a little green around the girls. Stick around through this brief sponsor, Brick. To hear all about it.

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It was by all accounts, a beautiful wedding. The entire village showed up to celebrate singing and feasting as they lifted the happy couple up on their shoulders. The bride and groom were anointed with oils and cleansing waters and tumouric.

They were joined in a hand-fasting ritual, and finally to everyone's delight, they were announced

married. Now sure, it was the villagers themselves who had made the match, but they're in India arranged marriages weren't uncommon. What was uncommon, however, was the couple's species, because they weren't exactly human.

No, these blissful sweetheart's just so happened to be, frogs. It's known as Bakulibia, or Frog Marriage, and it's an ancient tradition practiced among Hindus in the Asan region of India and parts of Bangladesh. Now while specifics differ from village to village, it usually goes a little something like this.

First participants catch a male frog and a female frog, which are tied together upon a woven fan. Then a sort of amphibious trick or treating situation takes place where kids put the frog fan on their heads and go door to door throughout the town. At each location, the children get a snack of rice while the frogs get a bit of water

port on them. And during this procession, special songs and poems are sung aloud, until eventually the rounds have all been made, and the duo are set free into the water officially pronounced frog and wife.

“And I know what you're thinking, why exactly are people marrying frogs?”

Well, here, just take a listen to the lyrics of one of those aforementioned ritual songs as one Bangladeshi anthropologist recalled from their childhood. It goes something like this. Cloud King, you are my brother. Our doorsteps are drying up due to no rain.

Although it is raining, it is not enough. Our prophet is true. Please, Allah give us rain. The marriage of frog's daughter is arranged with a metal made of gold, so the female frog gives some rain.

That's right, frog marriages are performed to help bring the rain during times of drought. In fact, believe it or not, this is far from the only frog related rain ritual native

In Nepal, for example, frogs are bribed with milk, rice, incense, and ghee to bring on

rain while in Madras, falling rain is celebrated by tying a frog to a rice winnowing fan and wandering the town singing and I quote, "lady frog must have her bath," which

“now that I think about it is a phrase I might just have to start whispering to myself”

before my daily shower. But all of these traditions are quite so adorable, though.

In the kumau district of northwest India, a frog is hanged from a tree to bring on rain.

Meanwhile in the particularly gruesome example from the Ganges Valley, women will attempt to break a drought by putting a frog in a rice press and slowly crushing them with a lever. The more the tortured animal screams, the better the rain spell is supposed to work. Now I will admit, it's not hard to see why people would choose to use frogs in a rain spell.

“They're an animal that thrives in the rainy season and they come out croaking whenever”

the skies open up. It's easy to imagine the post-hawk fallacy that led to these traditions. When it rains, frogs croak. Therefore the frogs must be causing the rain. And the thing is, while these practices stretch back to ancient times, they're still hopping

to this day. In fact, as recently as the spring of 2024, the Assam town of Biswanat performed a frog

“marriage ritual during one particularly devastating drought.”

Oh, and by the way, if the marriage goes a little too well and your drought becomes a deluge, don't worry, there's a solution for that as well. Just ask the folks who during India's 2019 floods gathered together to perform none other than a frog divorce. This episode of "Lore Legends" was produced by me, Erin Manky, with writing and research

by generous Nethercot and Alex Robinson. Today's stories were all pulled from the vast archive of "Lore Bites bonus episodes," usually enjoyed only by our paid subscribers. To support the show for a small monthly fee and get ad-free regular episodes, as well as those weekly bonus "Lore Bites" episodes and so much more, visit lorepodcast.com/support

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