Legends 89: Mother Dearest

September 28, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

Legends 89: Mother Dearest

In a Moroccan village, dozens of men found themselves trapped—not by an army or a rock slide, but by a single woman. She was the most beautiful woman they had ever seen, and one by one they approached her, helpless against her pull. Then her skirt lifted just enough to reveal feet that weren't human. They were camel hooves. The spell broke, but her influence was too powerful to resist for long, so the men set their own turbans on fire to shock themselves into fear. They had barely survived an encounter with Aisha Kandisha, a man-eating jinn who preys on men near bodies of water, concealing her animal lower half beneath a long robe.

This episode of Lore Legends weaves together three folkloric figures—Aisha Kandisha, the Scarlet Woman, and the Aztec goddess Coatlicue—to explore how traditional cultures understood the intimate connection between women, life, and death.

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What you'll learn

1 Lore Legends 89: Mother Dearest
2 (00:00) **Advertisements** - Quo business phone system and Rubrik security platform
3 (01:31) **Maria Bochkareva's Escape** - A 19-year-old woman jumps into freezing Russian waters to escape her abusive husband, setting up her transformation into a legendary figure
4 (03:54) **Aisha Kandisha: The Moroccan Man-Eater** - A single woman traps an entire village of men using seduction, revealing her true nature only when it's too late
5 (05:44) **The Legend of Aisha Kandisha Detailed** - Her methods of hunting, her appearance, and how to ward her off
6 (08:23) **The Scarlet Woman (Al-Karisi)** - A demonic entity from Turkish shamanism that preys on pregnant women and new mothers across the Middle East and Central Asia
7 (10:37) **How the Scarlet Woman Attacks** - She paralyzes mothers during childbirth and steals their organs, leaving bloodless corpses

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app

Show Notes

Folklore is often about powerful beings that deserve our fear and respect. Which is why one big category of legends around the globe is about someone very close to home.

Narrated and produced by Aaron Mahnke, with writing by Alex Robinson and research by Jamie Vargas.

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