Darkest Mysteries Online — The Strange and Unusual Podcast 2025
I Work In An Archive Room And This Is Our Strangest Item
21 Dec 2025
I Work In An Archive Room And This Is Our Strangest ItemBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/darkest-mysteries-online-the-strange-and-unusual-podcast-2025--5684156/support.Darkest Mysteries Online
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hello, and welcome to Stories All the Time. Glad you are here. Let's get into it. I work as an archivist for a historical society in a rather large city in the US, so I get to handle a lot of interesting things and a lot of not-so-interesting things.
There are a lot of items that have been donated or bought, but the backlog is extensive and some items have been sitting for decades, untouched and unexamined. I found this particular document hidden in a false bottom of an early colonial chest. The donator is unknown, and I couldn't find any documentation on when this was obtained by the society. This isn't unusual, though.
Also hidden with the parchment was a broken piece of antler, some herbs and flowers in small apothecary jars, sick bundles, and small iron squares wrapped tightly in remarkably preserved leather with strange symbols carved in them. It speaks of all gods, ancient ones.
Chapter 2: What intriguing item was found in the archive room?
Ever since I opened the chest, I've had a slight headache. So I'll just post this here and see what you all think. Hymn of the Woods. De-illegible. Mama says we are the secret keepers for him of the woods, and no other family in our village has that honor, nor will they ever. I asked her when she initiated me why, why just us?
We've only lived here since Papa was just a little boy and Grandfather took his family from Boston to settle in the untamed Northwoods. Him is Iris, just Mama and mine. I know it is not proper grammar, but Prudence Howard, that busybody, isn't here to chassize me like she does during our lessons, so I write how I please, though I do it poorly. I haven't the mind for it, Papa says, but I digress.
Him has lived here since forever, and it's only a little bit, so it has not been our secret for long. Someone must have come before us, but we do not know who, and him will not say. Mama says it is us now, because she doesn't just hold God's word in her heart, but the words of the old nameless gods before God, our mother and grandmother, and so forth.
They're gods, and now I have the words in my heart too. It was likely the tribe of natives that lived here before the settlers before us drove them out.
Chapter 3: What mysterious contents were hidden in the colonial chest?
Sometimes I wish they'd return and take over some of the biddings of him so I don't have to rise so early in the morning. Well, I think what Mama and I must do is blasphemy against God, just as the preachers say. But Mama knows just about everything, and says it isn't so. The preachers are just confused on that matter, since they've never known the old gods.
So says Mama, and she's almost always right. Almost. And anyways, I've seen him with my own eyes and haven't seen our Lord God yet, even though Papa Says God is in all things, including slimy toads and the big fat spiders that weave their webs in the rafters of the barn. I don't think even God loves spiders, or why do they hide away so if not to shy away from his watchful eye?
They are devils, and demons is why, and that's all I have to say on the matter. I do not think God minds the old gods anyway, or Mama would have been struck down deaf or dumb or both long ago, or her mother, or her mother before that. Or if he does, the old gods are more powerful, and God is afraid, and now I wish I did not put that to paper. I do not know either way.
I'm only 11 years old, and not privy to the mystical wonderings of any of the gods. All I know is our harvest is plentiful. Our goats produce sweet milk most of the time, and my brother and sister are healthy as anything. We have no curses or blasphemy. If we are committing some sin, God is blind to it.
Papa doesn't know about him of the woods, and I bet he would switch both Malman and I probably within an inch of our lives if he did know. But we are very good and it doesn't take up much time and him doesn't allow for our discovery anyways or we'd all perish. So I suppose we are all damned or cursed and it is not specific to Mama nor me or Izid nor I. I digress.
We aren't witches if that's what you're thinking so get that out of your head. Because it isn't so.
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Chapter 4: How does the document relate to ancient gods?
At least, I don't think we are and Mama just laughs when I ask and says that witches probably get a more advantageous deal in the end. We have signed no book, nor exchanged our souls or left newborn babies as sacrifices to dance naked with Satan or his messengers. Though we do sometimes dance in the woods, but only to our own voices and certainly never naked.
And him is not there, and he doesn't like us to linger long. After we see him sometimes, the air still lingers with a sort of nervous energy. And so we dance and skip until the feeling disappears and we are back to our old selves. Still, I will hide this little letter well in my trunk and guard it with my life, for I must tell someone of my secrets.
Even if it is just scratched onto parchment, or I fear I will burst. Perhaps I will write more letters to no one if I should have need of it. But for now, I will hide this carefully, for our lives depend on it, and I do know it to be foolish.
Mama says her prayers and grace most beautifully and does believe in God's word with all her heart, just except a bit about no other gods before him as God has not punished us yet for wickedness and we have seen what him is capable of. He is not demon nor devil, though he would be mistaken for one quite easily.
One time, Mama was too ill to take out his offering and I was too young and hadn't been told of our arrangements. She was gone for most of the day and worried Papa until he came upon her half crawling from the wards with a broken antler in her back and covered in welts, saying a stag came at her out of nowhere but was spooked away by the guard dog.
Papa was furious, not at Mama though for he has a special tenderness for her. The next day, all the men in the village went hunting for a stag with a broken antler and found none, but they did bring back a hearty venison feast and we all ate rather well over the next few weeks. It is a tradition now in March, though I put cotton in my ears so I don't have to hear the stag scream.
Mama says it's only in my head, but I hear them all the same. However, Mama says I'm not to worry. Kim is always kind to me, even when angry, and not always to Mama. I do not know why.
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Chapter 5: What secrets does the protagonist reveal about their family?
Once I dreamed I had married him and we lived in the forest as wild things and I told Mama. She looked more afraid than I had ever saw her and she slapped me so hard I heard bells for the rest of the day. She came to me later that night when the others were asleep, red-eyed and very sorry. I forgave her because she's my mama, though I never shared my dreams with her again.
There is another dream that I dare not put into writing for fear that words will make it true. It happens to me sometimes. While others welcome sleep, I dread it. But I digress once more. I must go to bed. We will be up early in the morning for our offering to him under the guise of cleaning linens of the stream.
There's always so much to do, and the little ones are crying for bedtime stories, and oh dear, here they come now. I knew I started this recollection for some reason, and it is to tell the story today, not the dribbling of yesterday. It has all gone wrong, and I am to blame.
Mama and I went to the woods as the dawn rolled into our sleepy village, hauling all our dirty linens as usual in Papa's creaky handcart. We dropped the little ones at Good Wife Carpenter's house with Day Old Lovers' payment.
She likes the little ones well enough anyways, especially my little sister with her cherubic face and soft curls, but Good Wife Carpenter is a greedy thing and won't lift a finger unless she has some benefit.
We brought him three fresh rabbits from the traps and some fresh berries I picked along the way, though Mama told me not to dawdle so, for the berries were not worth as much effort as I put in gathering them and scolded me for staining my apron with their sticky juices.
She forgot we would be doing learning soon anyways, but she gets a terrible nose before seeing him and is more irritable than Grandfather's donkey, who is always crossing and biting at some one hateful thing. Him does not frighten me unless angry, but Mama says that may change one day and I will always be frightened. I hope not.
I hope my own daughter will not be frightened when I teach her Sunday, too. The offering spot is deep in the woods near an old knolled oak that grows halfway on an old rock. It is a lopsided thing and looks like a giant snake of a tree swallowing that rock, all tangled roots weaving this way and that. Him tells me each root is a story, but I don't know how to hear them yet.
I don't think I want to know him's stories, though. They're old and not of our world, and I doubt I would understand them anyhow. We left the unskinned rabbits and bearers on the stone slab. It is very old and smooth from use, carved into the base of the rock with ancient tools.
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Chapter 6: What unusual events occur during the offering to him of the woods?
I hear distant chimes when he is near, though I don't know the source. Perhaps he has invisible bells in his antlers, ones I cannot see but can only hear. Nearly. twice more in a creature larger than rabbit. Then you will rest in winter. I will stave off the darkness with what you have brought me. We exhaled in relief and exchanged a satisfied glance.
Our exchanges are usually brief, though Mama goes without me sometimes to convene with him. I felt his eyes searching me curiously, and my cheeks felt flesh. Him asked how I fare, and I answer healthy and well. Him appeared satisfied with my answer, and moved toward his great oak. But, alas, a twig snapped nearby and him disappeared so quickly, all I felt is wind flaring my bonnet.
We strayed frozen in place, not daring to move. I heard a struggle nearby with crunching leaves and branches and a muffled cry. I had Mama and prayed it is not the little ones or father come to look for us. They will die if they do. When him returned, he clutched a struggling child with bulging, scared eyes. Mama exhaled in relief. It was not my mischievous brother nor my sister.
But alas, it was Prudence Howard, the nosy, busybody. Had I condemned her by writing her name yesterday at nightfall? My dreams, my thoughts, what I write. Sometimes I feel I conjure things or make them happen by giving them name. She is a curious thing, always wandering off where she shouldn't go, but we were deep in the woods where she shouldn't be. Where's her mother? Is this yours?
Mama shook her head. Prudence met my eye, confused and scared. Her eyes burned with something else, too. Anger, I think. Recognition, perhaps, as well. She once called me a witch when I refused to share a maple sweet with her several years back, and I slapped her in return. I suppose she thought in those moments that perhaps she was right after all, even if accidentally so.
Something dripped from her foot, and I worried as blood, but she had wet herself in fear. Him of the woods tightened his grip on her neck until it snapped with an awful crunch, and she dropped lifeless to the ground. Her body sounded like a sack of flyer hitting the ground, a gentle thud to the soft earth.
Her eyes were frozen wide in terror, even in death, and a little blood trickles from her nose. I held back tears, and him speaks to me, to only me. Do not be afraid.
She will be your ruin. You would die from the words she tells your others. This I saw in her heart. I nod. I suppose he can see all.
Do we put our blood on her? I asked Mama. She looked up at him with fear in her eyes, and after a moment she shakes her head. He does not consume our kind, she said. I thought it a pity, as it would save us another trip later on, but then felt guilty when I see Prudence's scared dead eye staring back at me. She was my age, though a great deal smaller, as she was a sickly child.
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