What you'll learn

• 1 (02:44) **A Glowing Mermaid Warning** - The Ama Bia, a three-legged bioluminescent mermaid from Japanese folklore, allegedly warned a government official of a coming plague in 1846, and the creature made a major comeback during COVID as a charm on candy.
• 2 (05:07) **Monsters with a Sweet Tooth** - Folklore from around the world features monsters who are pleased or distracted by candy, from Japan's Kuchisake Ona to Estonia's knack and the Slavic Domovoy.
• 3 (06:45) **Funeral Candy and Death-Themed Treats** - In 19th-century Sweden, candies were handed out at funerals with macabre wrappings depicting skulls, crossbones, and poems about death, before the imagery was replaced with religious iconography.
• 4 (10:04) **Chocolate: From Divine Offering to Love Drug** - The Aztecs and Mayans viewed cacao as divine, offering it to gods with blood and using the beans as currency, before Europeans transformed it into a sweetened aphrodisiac.
• 5 (13:44) **A Deadly Box of Chocolates** - In June 1871, four-year-old Sidney Barker died after eating chocolates from Maynard's candy shop in Brighton, England, poisoned with strychnine by a mysterious veiled woman.
• 6 (15:43) **The Lovesick Murderess** - Christiana Edmonds, from a family "saturated with lunacy," moved to Brighton and developed a full-blown obsession with Dr. Charles Beard, leading her to poison his wife and then escalate her scheme.
• 7 (19:30) **The Trial and Aftermath** - Christiana Edmonds was convicted on overwhelming evidence, including eyewitnesses, her purchase of poison, and her handwriting on poisoned packages, and was committed to Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum.

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app