Romanian Witches | Spooky Folklore: Muma Pădurii, Baba Cloanța & More | Ep #63

0:00 Welcome stranger to Madam Strange ways, where I Madam Strange ways narrate your true strange stories of the unexplained. Whether you're a skeptic, A believer, or some secret third thing. Stick around after the story where I'll share my strange thoughts and research about said strange story, and along the way I'll also drag you down a slew of strange rabbit holes, kicking and screaming if needs must. But before we get to the true strange story, the strangest of Shout outs to my Patreon patrons TJ Hotter, G Man Music, Ted Keith, Tori, Octavia, Corvidae, Keith 2, and Marielle. Thank you so much for supporting the show. Hear your name at the beginning of every episode. Get a free sticker.

0:50 Get bonus Madam Strange notes, episodes and guided sleep meditations by joining the Patreon today at patreon.com/madam Strange Ways or Madam strangeways.com Sounds like it's about to rain Hellcats and Hell Hounds outside, so you know what that means. Settle in for a true strange story here with Madam Strange Ways. I think she was a witch by Crimson Crusader.

1:36 This is my first time writing about this and I want your opinion. I grew up in a very isolated rural area surrounded by forests and mountains. This village was 60 miles away from a big town. We had bears, wolves, wild boars, usually things you might find in a wild forest in Europe. So I was 15 at the time. Our garage was by the main road and our house was down a hill which was 30 minutes of walking, only accessible by foot. It was October around 6:00 PM. My dad sent me to get a toolbox from the garage and bring it to him at home. I went there and opened the garage, got the toolbox, locked the door and as I was locking it I look to my right and see this old lady standing there on the side just staring into nothing.

2:31 I said hello, no response. I was a bit creeped out because I had never seen this lady before and in a village or small town you know everyone. She was dressed all in black, had a walking stick that was made of wood and crooked. She just started walking towards the forest and remember it was getting dark at this point it was almost 7 PMI started following behind her. I was curious and I was just a kid, a dumb kid TBH. Now I would never follow an old lady into the forest. Anyway this lady was fast so I followed her almost all the way to the forest and saw her go into the forest which was up a hill.

3:16 Who does that? Why would she go there? There wasn't any house in the forest, no one ever went there at night for any reason, especially in that area where there were so many wild, dangerous animals. And why did I follow her? At the time it felt like I was in a trance or something. What do you guys think? Was it a witch? Please let me know if you have any similar experiences. Hello, Salute.

3:56 Welcome to Madame Strangeways and Crimson Crusader. Thank you so much for sharing your story with us on the show. You did you you. You know what, Crimson Crusader? I know. You know what I just did. I know, you know. But maybe not everybody knew. You know, y'all know, You know the the Numa Numa song, You know Numa Numa. Yay, that's Romanian. Did you know that's from Romania? Well, I guess technically the band is Moldovan from Moldova, but it's in Romanian. That's how we're starting the episode. That's how we're we're starting off strong here, folks. We're starting off strong. Thank you so much for joining me for another episode of Mad and Strange Ways. So happy to have you, Crimson Crusader. I just wanted to make sure that the world knew that they do know a Romanian song.

4:43 If someone asks you, do you know any songs in Romanian? Yes, you do. Yes, you do. Anyway, Crimson Crusader, thank you so much for letting me Share your story on the show. Very, very scary, very ominous. I love a story with dread. I love dread. I love dread. You know, I don't want to see the monster in a movie. I don't want to, you know, This is why I will continue to say The Blair Witch Project is my favorite scary movie because you never see the Blair Witch. Does the Blair Witch even exist? What's what's actually happening? I don't know. And not knowing, it's so scary. I know I've said it on the show before. Not knowing is the worst thing that can happen to me is not having an answer immediately.

5:28 You know, maybe that's maybe that's sure, it's some anxiety. Maybe it's some mild OCD. Yeah, definitely it is those things. But I hate not knowing. But that's what makes a story really scary. So that's why I that's why I was so drawn to this. Well, first of all, a Romanian witch. Hello. Like I'm not going to like I'm not going to share that story, but also just not knowing the you know, is it a witch? Is she a witch? Is she just some really weird old lady? But then, you know, Crimson Crusader, you were, you kind of described almost being sort of like in a trance like state, you know, kind of like following her, not really knowing why, you know, like that's a bad idea. Why am I following her?

6:14 I just feel like oh, so spooky. Also very scary. So Crimson. Well, can I call you Crimson? Crimson, I'm sorry that that happened to you. Unless, unless you like spooky things happening to you, in which case I hope more spooky things happen to you so long as you are not harmed. But if it keeps you up at night still and you kind of don't like having that story, I'm very sorry that that happened to you. It sounds very scary, especially because like, you know, if you know everyone there and you don't know this old lady, you would have you would have at least heard you would have at least heard tale of a creepy old lady that lives in the woods. You know, everyone will be talking about the crazy old hermit lady.

7:00 I mean, that's what I aspire to be when I grow up. Honestly, I feel like, oh, I might have grown up. I think I might actually be the old crazy hermit lady, but you'd think you would have at least heard whispers of her. But to have not even heard that? Very, very eerie. Do I think she was a witch? I don't know. Maybe she might have been a witch. But are witches bad? Are witches bad? I don't know that they are. I know that they scare people. I don't think all witches are bad. I think some witches are bad. Was that witch bad? I don't know. Was she kind of luring you into the forest? Crimson? Possibly, but she didn't. But she has survived to tell the tale, so maybe that means she's a good witch.

7:47 Or maybe she's just an old lady. Aside from actually reminding me of a scene in the book Howl's Moving Castle, Not the movie, but the book. Aside from reminding me of that, and of course that also having to do with witches, which I thought was a really interesting coincidence, I've never actually heard of anything quite like this happening. Especially because, yeah, what? There's bears and wolves and wild boars. Oh my, and she's just going into the forest where the bears and wolves and wild bears, Oh my live. And she has a weird gnarled stick. Probably for witchcraft purposes. But before we get into any of our theories and folklore, we need to learn a little bit about Romania first. It's not a lot, I promise.

8:31 This is not like school. School sucks. Stay in school though, kids. So Romania. This is Wikipedia. Romania has one of the largest areas of undisturbed forest in Europe, covering almost 27% of its territory. Romania also has about 50% of Europe's, excluding Russia, brown bears. That's a lot of brown bears. 50% of all of Europe excluding Russia's brown bears and 20% of its wolves. Romania's got Romania's got a lot of animals that can kill you. Is Romania the Australia of Europe? That just that just occurred to me. Is there another country in Europe that has animals that want to kill you as much as animals in Australia and Romania?

9:17 Let me know about them strangeways@gmail.com. Also, fun fact, here's a trick that you can learn if you ever need to identify countries by their shape. Romania, if you squint, looks like a goldfish. How fun. So it's unclear exactly where in Romania the story is set. However, how am I going to talk about Romania and not talk about Transylvania? It could be in Transylvania. You don't know. Crimson knows. I could have asked Crimson. I could have asked you and I didn't. Here we go. Transylvania is a region, not a town or city, in the heart of Romania, in the Carpathian Mountains. As Americans, of course, we associate Transylvania with Dracula and Vlad the Impaler, which is practically Dracula if you ask some people.

10:03 But it's also known, did you know Transylvania is also known for its werewolves and witchcraft? Two of the best W words by the way, which is to say, which is to say, OK, which is to say that Romania itself is also known for all those cool W words, werewolves and witchcraft. So maybe Romania, just like the brown bears and wolves, maybe Romania has a a high percentage of all of Europe's witches. It's possible. Stranger things and all that. But this got me thinking. I started wondering to myself, Madam, I said to myself, Madam, how common is belief in witches in Romania? If Romania is known for its witchcraft and werewolves, does that mean that the people in Romania tend to believe in those things more often than other people? Here we go.

10:57 This is from scienceandorthodoxyaroundtheworld@projecthyphensow.org. According to the Religiosity and Atheism Index released by Gallup International, Romania is the most religious country in Europe. It ranks 7th in the whole world and is the only EU country that makes it into the top ten. OK. It is also one of the very few countries where interest in religion has been on the increase, rising from 85% to 89% in just seven years. From 2005 to two. Wow, from 2005 to 2012. I don't know what it's at right now, but that's a pretty big jump. Wasn't there all this discussion in the 70s or in the late 60s around is God dead like that Time magazine cover famously depicted in Rosemary's Baby?

11:46 But it was actually a real cover. And here we are. Religions on the increase, at least in Romania. But I wanted to know more about, you know, superstitiousness. Superstitiousness. So here's a study by the Romanian Institute for Evaluation and Strategy. Sample size was about 1200 people and they were 18 years and older and it was taken on Halloween 2014. Here's the study. Over 3/4 of Romanians, so 76%, just over 3/4 believe in wonders, you know, meaning unexplained wonders. And 65% believe in the evil eye. Now I have talked about the evil eye in the Three Greek Witches episode, but put a pin in that because it's not exactly the same.

12:32 Anyway, 20% of Romanians consider themselves superstitious, which seems low. I wonder if their definition of superstitious is different than my definition of superstitious because 55% believe in curses, 52% believe in demons, 46% believe in bad spirits, which I'm not quite sure exactly why that number is different. It feels like demons in bad spirits would be kind of the same, but OK. Only 19% believe in phantoms. And I'm not quite sure how phantoms differentiate between bad spirits and demons. I don't know. I don't know how you pick those out, but very few people believe in phantoms there apparently. 95% of course, believe in God, like, you know, the Christian God. 78% believe in angels, which is high, 19% believe in witches who can foretell the future, and 4% admit that they have asked a witch to tell the future.

13:27 So it feels like 20% of Romanians being superstitious does feel, I feel like my initial thought that it was low feels low after learning all those numbers. But you know what else I wondered? I said to myself, Madam, how does this compare to Americans in the United States? Here we go in a September 1996 Gallup poll. We're going to get, listen, pause. We're going to get to more Romanian witch stuff. OK, just let me have this. In a September 1996 Gallup poll, a sample size of about 1025% of Americans acknowledged that they were very or somewhat superstitious. The poll also shows that younger people tend to be more superstitious than older people, which is weird and not at all what I was expecting them to say. Of course, this was 1996.

14:12 Obviously, things have changed, so let's look at something more modern. In 2015, a different survey by 60 Minutes in Vanity Fair showed half of the respondents were at least a little superstitious. So we've gone from 25% superstitious to 50% superstitious. So our superstition levels are getting off the charts. So compared to Romania, Americans are actually more likely to believe in witches. Americans, 24% of Americans believe in witches. In Romania, only 19% believe in witches. Although to be fair, the question was witches. Who can tell the future?

14:52 But clearly, Crimson, Crimson, you are in the 19% of Romanians who believe in witches. And Speaking of witches, yes, we're here. Finally, Romanian witches. Are you a Romanian witch? Let me know, madamstrangeways@gmail.com. For that matter, Baba Yaga, if you're listening, I know you're not Romanian. But if Baba Yaga is listening, girl, you know I want to hear from you. e-mail me, madamstrangeways@gmail.com. You are my hero. So Romania has a long history of witches and fortune tellers and healers. And you know what? Let's just go ahead and wrap the Band-Aid off. You may already be you are already familiar with Romani healers and witches and fortune tellers. Unfortunately what we have typically referred to them as are gypsies, which is not a term that they appreciate. So instead we say Roma or Romani. Or if you really want to talk specifically about the itinerant like nomadic fortune tellers and caravans, then traveler Traveler works.

15:58 OK, so this is from phmuseum.com written by Lucia Blayeva. So the term the Romani term. So the Romanian term for witches or fortune tellers or healers is Veraji Tuare. And as always I do practice my pronunciation but I do not speak Romanian so apologies. So here's the little brief snippet for you. In the past, fortune telling had a strong tradition within many traveling Roma groups wandering across the European area. Fortune telling abilities were primarily attributed to older women, undoubtedly for their lifelong experiences. Their potential clients were to be found anywhere in the streets of the villages and towns where the caravans happened to have stopped before the revolutionary year 1989, Romanian witch's work was affected by the communist regime which prohibited fortune telling and witching activities.

16:48 Which I love that phrase, witching activities. I think I'm going to need to start using that anyway. The communist regime prohibited fortune telling and witching activities under the threat of imprisonment, but in recent years the popularity of their services is again on the upsurge and the topic is widely discussed at home and in the media. On the other hand, Romanian witches names are mentioned in police reports and they are charged with blackmail and with manipulating their clients. So clearly the sentiment about witches has not completely changed since the times of the communist regime, since the times of the communist regime, unfortunately, and really 1989, that was not that long ago. That was really not that long ago, especially for public sentiment to have, you know, fully changed and turned around. This is from mysterious adventure Tours. Romanian witches, known as Witches of the Balkans or or again Vrajitwade in Romanian, are practitioners of folk magic and witchcraft, traditions that have been passed down through generations in Romania.

17:51 These traditions often blend elements of Pagan rituals, Christian beliefs, and folklore. Romanian witches are known for their diverse practices, which may include casting spells, divination, herbalism, and ritualistic ceremonies. If you can hear Cleocatra scratching on the recording room door, well then that's good luck. That's a sign of good luck. She has blessed you with good luck on this day, one of the most. This continues. One of the most famous and enduring symbols of Romanian witchcraft. Is the Strigoi, a type of vampire or a malevolent spirit in Romanian folklore. No vampires. Romanian Romania Witches are believed to have the power to ward off or protect against strigoi through various magical means. So witches are good.

18:40 They're on your side. See Crimson? What if that witch was like setting wards and stuff to protect you from vampires? You're welcome. Or, you know, maybe this is a witch and maybe she is a hermit witch and she just wants to be left alone. But she had to venture out of the woods to go, I don't know, run an errand. And she's so charismatic that you just couldn't help Crimson. You just couldn't help but following in her wake. Maybe she needed to buy some crystals. She had to go to the crystal store, The witchy new age crystal crystal store playing Stevie Nicks. Do y'all have one of those in your in the town where this happened, which was like 60?

19:23 What was it like 60 miles or something away from anything else? Did you have one of those new age shops? Probably not. OK, but this is this. Here we go. We're getting into Romanian folklore. This is not a witch from Wikipedia in Romanian folklore. Pause. I didn't. I didn't hold on. I didn't research how to pronounce this. OK, starting over and Romanian folklore, Muma Paruri is an ugly and mischievous or old madwoman. Wait, is an ugly and mischievous or mad old woman living in the forest in the heart of the virgin forests, in a Hut or cabin or an old tree? And if this is already sounding a little bit like another old evil witch that you may have heard of from European folklore, hold on, hold on.

20:16 Give me a second. Mumba Perduri is also the protector of the animals and plants, brewing potions and helping injured animals. So see, like the herbalism that we just talked about from from traditional Romanian witches. That's what she's doing. But this is she's not a witch, OK? She's not a witch. Don't get it. Don't get it twisted. She's just a mischievous or mad old woman. It does sound like she's a witch, but she's not. But she does cure the forest if it is dying, and she keeps unwanted trespassers away by driving them mad and scaring them. So Crimson, are you a trespasser? Were you an unwanted trespasser? Was she perhaps driving you mad to keep you away?

20:57 She can also be associated with witches, like the witch from the story of Hansel and Gretel, but she is a neutral creature, harming only those who harm the forest, which Crimson is probably why she didn't harm you. You passed the vibe check. OK? Wikipedia continues. Mumba Perduri is a spirit of the forest in a very ugly and old woman's body. Which rude. Can we maybe not comment on people's bodies? Thank you. Sometimes she has the ability to change her shape, which is something that you hear in so much folklore. So many different creatures in folklore have the ability to change their shape. It makes you wonder why? It makes you wonder two things. It makes you wonder 1.

21:38 So if this is so common amongst all these different cultures, does that mean that our ancestors were definitely encountering something that shape shifted? What were they encountering? Do they still exist? And it also makes you wonder maybe. Maybe maybe this is kind of like how we used to think that bees came from like cow carcasses, you know what I mean? Because we just kind of didn't understand how that worked. Or, you know, again, maybe it's #3 maybe it's the third question. You know, how I talk about the fanficification of, of, you know, folklore and, and mythology, how people just kind of change things.

22:26 Maybe they were trying to scare their kids, you know, to say, oh, well, I know that person didn't look like what you think Mumma Powdery looks like. But in fact, she can shape shift. She can shape shift, Yeah. So she was definitely watching you. And if you don't go to sleep, she's going to eat you. You know, just makes you wonder. And it's so funny because I completely did not remember making this note, which I did like a week ago. But the next line on the next line of my notes is she is thought to attack children. And because of this, a large variety of spells are used against her to protect the children. Her name literally means mother of the forest. However, she kidnaps little children and enslaves them in one popular story. Popular and one popular story of child enslavement. She tries to boil a little girl alive in a soup. You're not going to get a lot, you know you're not going to get a lot out of that little girl.

23:23 You got to have. There's got to be better choices of things to put in a soup. Or you could argue maybe you got a Stu going. However, the little girl's brother outsmarts her and pushes the woman monster into the oven instead. Similar to the story of Hansel and Gretel. Hansel in Gretel, Yeah. The story ends on a happy note, though, when all the kids are free to go back to their parents. Yay. Here's one more fun fact about Muma Peduti. Instead of saying she's ugly, instead of calling a woman ugly, Romanians sometimes say she looks like Muma Peduti. Which, again, which can we like?

24:06 Can we not? Can we not can we leave her alone? Leave her alone now, some say. Some say that this next folkloric old woman is related to Muma Parudi and her name is Baba Klansa. If the Baba in Baba Klansa is reminding you of Baba Yaga, which is apparently the correct way to pronounce Baba Yaga yaga, the emphasis goes on the second syllable. Anyway. If Baba is reminding you of Baba Yaga, that's because it is common for people to confuse the two or to just say that Baba Klansa is just a Romanian version of Baba Yaga, who is of course Russian, not Romanian.

24:49 Baba Klansa is a completely different character than Baba Yaga, and I don't think she would appreciate you mixing them up. In fact, I don't think Baba Yaga would appreciate that either, so maybe think twice next time before you lump all the babas together. So here we go. This is from a dark rainbow on Tumblr, which has a shocking amount of well researched folklore. Just Tumblr in general, but specifically a dark rainbow. Here we go. Baba Klansa is one of the central witches of Romanian fairy tales and a well known figure of the Carpathian folklore. But there is already a difference established between her and the Russian Baba Yaga. By her very name indeed, Klansa means an old woman in Romanian an ugly woman, a toothless woman.

25:36 Not only does this name evoke A toothless hag, it also insists upon her mouth, because Klansa is a pejorative name for a mouth. So the Babaklansa is a figure associated with the mouth as much as the decrepit, toothless whole of an old ugly woman, as the devouring maw of the fairy tale monster, and as the mouth from which ancient wisdom and magical secrets come from. As such, in fairy tales, she is the monster to fight and avoid as much as the magical woman that will help the hero in his fight against a supernatural power, guide a lost traveler, or assist a woman with her tragic love story. We love a complicated character who does not love a complicated hero or an anti hero.

26:21 Some stories depict Baba Klansa exactly like the evil old hag witch in Hansel and Gretel. And that's probably what a lot of people picture when they think of any kind of old European witch, right? And you know, there's reasons for that. There's reasons that we all have this one image of an old haggard witch. I know I've referenced this before but if you have not already listened to the podcast called Witches or Witch, it's one of the two Which one? Unclear which. Or Witches by BBC. It's a multi part series and it goes deep into where the origins of witches came from. And that includes where we get our modern understanding of what scary old witches look like and why they're all old women and scary old women, you know? And if she is ever pretty, she's also secretly not pretty. She's also secretly old and evil and she's tricking the hero to, you know, see what I mean?

27:19 There's something, there's a lot there. And so I really recommend listening to the podcast because because they do a much better job of explaining that. But wait, there's more. In addition to Baba Klansa, there's also Baba Huruka. Here we go, Wikipedia. The Baba Horuka is a folktale character, an old witch who lives alone in a cavern within the depths of the woods because she is afraid of humans. See, See. They're more afraid of us than we are of them. Isn't that what you? Isn't that what you say to make yourself feel better? Because not all witches, I tell you what, not all witches are afraid of humans. Anyway, moving on, this is still Wikipedia. She typically uses skulls, human or animal, for her magic rituals. Horka is a depreciative term for an old woman. Again, what?

28:05 An ugly woman, or a wicked woman, or all three at once? Can we, What is it? Are there? Is there, I'm, I'm curious, are there as many? Are there as many rude germs for old men as there are for old women, especially in folklore? Why is it? Why are there so many anyway? Horca also means skull, hence why the witch uses them to perform her spell work. Skull work, skull magic, that's pretty cool. I mean come on, that's that's pretty cool. That's pretty metal. Of all of them, I'm kind of leaning towards Baba Horca honestly.

28:45 She seems the most metal. But one more thing on her. Because yes, all of these witches, some of them are not witches. This one is a witch. Baba Klansa, also a witch. Baba Yaga Russian, a witch. But then going back up to Mama Paduti. Nope, Muma Paduti. She's not a witch, she's just an old lady. She's just, she's just your baby, she's not a witch. Anyway, one last note on Baba Huruka, she is a character. Hold on, let me explain where this is coming from. This is actually the Romanian Wikipedia entry that I've translated into English, which is different from the English Wikipedia, not just because of a translation. Baba Hurka is a character from Romanian mythology. She is a witch.

29:32 OK, she's a witch. She came down in a bubble dog. She's a witch who congeals the waters, OK, and lives isolated in a hollow or on top of a large tree. See, there were There was no mention of a tree. There was no There was no mention of a tree in the English Wikipedia. What do you like a hollow or on top of where I now I have questions. It goes on Often fairy tales present her giving useful advice to honest young men engaged in a fight. She is therefore also a beneficial character. Oh, see, they don't mention anything about being ugly or wicked. Probably because if you're Romanian, reading the Romanian Wikipedia about this character, you speak Romanian. So you kind of get, you know what I mean? That's probably something, that's probably something to do with it.

30:21 So in conclusion, was this a witch from the original story that I recorded 500 years ago? Was this actually a witch or was it just some old lady who didn't like to be near people? Was it Babaklansa? We don't know. Was it one of the Papas? Was it one of the mummas? I guess there's only one. Or was it some secret? Fourth thing, it does beg the question, how did this little old lady go into the forest and not get killed by bears or wolves or boars? Oh my, how? I mean, I guess we don't know. Oh, no, I guess we don't really know if she survived. What if she was confused? What if she has dementia and she's out wandering and we're like, is she a witch and she Oh no, and she legitimately needed our help. I hope that's not the case.

31:12 I hope that was just an old cool witchy lady living her best life and she befriended all the animals in the forest. But you might say, you might say that someone living that life, let's say back in the day, right? Let's say back when this kind of folklore was getting started. So we'll, we'll jump back to like, let's let's just go to 1200, Say it's 1200, the year is 1200. You want to just live in the forest alone. You don't want to live with all these people. You want to just get away. You go live in the forest alone. You're a woman, you're alone. You grow, you grow old. And people don't like that. They don't like it when women get old. They don't like women when they get old. And you're just minding your own business. You're living alone in the forest. You're living off the land.

32:02 You know, maybe you're doing some healing now. And then because people need healing, they come to you in the forest. They brave the forest to come to you so that you can use your knowledge of herbs to cure their ailments. And now there's whispers in the village of a witch. She lives in the forest, alone in a cavern. She's toothless and ugly. And really, she's just some old lady. Like, what do you mean? Why do we have to do this? Why do we have to paint all older women like this in folklore? It's interesting. But then I feel like there's also something to do with Maiden Mother Crone. Maiden, Mother, Crone, You know, obviously those are the three life stages of every woman.

32:51 I'll tell you what, I go, I go. I went straight from Maiden to Crone, straight from Maiden to Crone. And I'm having a great time with my Crone years. So what do you think? Was it a witch? Was it just some old lady living her best life in the forest? Let me know if you think that this was some sort of unexplainable phenomenon. I realized I hadn't said it this entire episode, and I think the episode before, and that's just too long. Can't go that long without saying that so if you are also living your best Crone life or if you happen to have a true strange story that you'd like to hear narrated on the show, e-mail it to me e-mail it to me right now. I want you to I want you to e-mail it to me right now so that I can read it because I can't wait. I'm so excited and it might be featured on the show. So I'm going to need you to do that right now. Type, type, type.

33:43 Give me an e-mail. Send it over right now. Right now, because I, I can't wait to read it. Remember that you can feel afraid and not be in danger. You're safe here with me, probably. Thank you for joining me for more true strange stories of the unexplained. I'm running A1 Madam Show here, so please do me a strange solid and follow the podcast. Leave me a rating on Apple or Spotify and maybe even join the Patreon at patreon.com/madam Strangeways for bonus content.

34:26 Madam Strangeways is produced and narrated by me. Madam Strangeways theme music is by marina.ryan@marinamakes.co. Cover art is by Andrea Shiselle Roldan at Cult of Teddy on Instagram. Every strange story is shared with the permission of the author. You can submit your own true strange story to madamstrangeways@gmail.com. See you soon, she said ominously. It's kind of like the ending of Weapons. Oh, that's a spoiler.

35:17 Don't put that in. Lots of witches. Romanian Romania.