Deeper Lore: 312 (18, 113, & 122)

This episode of Lore isn’t a typical narrative installment. Instead, host Aaron Mahnke releases a “Deeper Lore” bonus episode to act as a curator’s guide. After the main episode 312, “To Serve Man,” which tackled the folklore of cannibalism, he digs into the show’s eleven-year archive to recommend three older episodes that explore the same dark territory from different angles. The throughline is clear: cannibalism in folklore isn’t a single, simple horror story. It appears in at least three distinct forms—as a supernatural predator, as a medical practice, and as a desperate act of survival—each carrying its own moral weight and historical baggage.

The Wendigo as a Cautionary Beast

The first recommendation is Episode 18, “Hunger Pains,” which focuses on the Wendigo, a creature from Algonquian folklore. Mahnke calls it “that hungry beast from the North” and notes it’s one of his favorite monsters. The Wendigo isn’t just a monster for the sake of scaring people; it embodies a specific cultural warning against greed, insatiability, and the breaking of taboos during the brutal northern winters. The episode likely explores how the belief in the Wendigo intersected with real-life tragedies, where people accused of Wendigo possession or transformation were sometimes killed by their own communities. The horror here is less about a literal beast and more about how a folk beli