Episode 180: Above the Law

This is the story of the one.

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Elos seano nos connecta.

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It's really amazing what some people manage to find.

For metal detector enthusiasts everywhere, that dream is usually coin-shaped, perhaps a nice round silver dollar or a rare penny from the earliest days of the United States.

But no one was prepared for what came out of the ground back in 2014.

It was a number of small silver coins discovered under the grass in an orchard in Rhode Island.

Arabian coins minted in 1693.

And more have been found elsewhere, including Massachusetts and Connecticut.

But their origin story might be the most surprising thing of all.

Back in 1695, an English pirate named Captain Henry Every crossed paths with the wrong man.

After sailing around South Africa and up its eastern coast, he spotted a ship in the Arabian Sea.

It was a passenger ship carrying Muslim pilgrims home to India after a visit to Mecca, and Captain Every and his crew brutalized and robbed them.

In doing so, he made an enemy out of the Emperor of India, one of the most powerful rulers in the world at the time.

And to avoid an international scandal, King William III of England also put a price on Every's head.

So the pirates and his crew made a run for it, first to the Bahamas and then to the east coast of North America, where they ditched their ships ships and blended in with the settlers there.

And if the coins are any indication, their escape worked.

The most fascinating aspect of this story, though, isn't the discovery of Arabian coins in North America that predate the United States.

It's the obsession historians have had with tracking down Captain Henry Every,

because he was an outlaw that got away.

A man who slipped through the net thrown out by two powerful rulers.

Everyone loves a good outlaw story.

From From the bandits of the Wild West to the tricksters of modern adventure films, there's something attractive about the bad characters, and our obsession with them has been going on for a lot longer than you might believe.

So long, in fact, that many of the most legendary criminals throughout history have become archetypes of an entirely new kind of folklore, because some of them even became heroes.

I'm Aaron Mankey, and this is lore.

The world has always had criminals.

For as long as humans have been gathering in communities, there have been those rare individuals who violated the laws of the group.

Nearly 4,000 years ago, a Babylonian king named Hammurabi published a set of laws, setting his rules into stone, along with the consequences for breaking them, demonstrating just how prevalent criminals were even then.

But within the general world of criminals, the concept of the outlaw is unique and special.

In simple terms, an outlaw is a person who operates outside the law on an ongoing basis.

Back in the Roman era, to be branded an outlaw meant having all your legal rights and protections stripped from you, which meant that anyone could legally harm or kill you.

In a lot of cultures, an outlaw wasn't even a human being in the eyes of the law, and while there have been a few female outlaws over the centuries, individuals such as Grace O'Malley, Belle Starr, and Anne Bonney come to mind, the overwhelming majority of people labeled as an outlaw have been men.

Every now and then, though, an outlaw came along who was different.

Yes, they might have broken the law, but framed within the goal of bringing trouble and strife to the doors of those in power.

And in doing so, they became something more than mere criminals.

They became heroes.

Historians and folklorists have nailed down a pretty simple list of qualities we can find in hero outlaw stories.

Their tales almost always involve crimes that benefit the community, and their endings usually come at the hands of friends or insiders who betray them to the evil authorities.

They have been cast as thieves, magicians, gallant warriors, and saints, and you've probably heard of more than a few of them.

One of the earliest outlaws was a former Roman gladiator known as Spartacus, who lived about 2,000 years ago.

His crime was leading a rebellion against the Roman authorities, but he did so by freeing enslaved people and redistributing his plunder equally among his followers.

In Japanese history, we have the outlaw known as Ishikawa Goiman, who operated around the city of Kyoto about 500 years ago.

He was known known as the leader of a group of bandits who occasionally stepped into the political arena, which ultimately led to his demise.

In 1594, he tried to assassinate the emperor, but was captured before he could complete his mission.

As punishment, his wife, child, and nearly two dozen other family members were all rounded up and executed.

Goimon himself was reportedly boiled in a large tub of oil.

Over the centuries, though, his legend has grown.

His story has been featured in a number of traditional kabuki plays and as a character in novels, television, manga, and film.

If we're going to talk about outlaw heroes who have become legends over time though, I think we can all agree that there are few more prominent than Robin Hood.

Most people know the basics of his story.

He was a criminal archer who lived in the woods with his band of merry men, dressed all in green, had a romance with Maid Marion, and constantly battled with his arch nemesis, the powerful sheriff of Nottingham.

But there's more to the legend of Robin Hood than that.

The earliest version of his story in print dates back to 1377, in a poem written by William Langland.

There are earlier mentions of similar sounding names, possibly as far back as the 1260s, but it's hard to prove any are the Robin Hood.

That's because Robin was a common nickname for men named Robert, so in a lot of ways, his name was sort of an everyman's title.

And Robin Hood, of course, was the stereotypical outlaw hero.

His best-known best-known quality was literally stealing from the rich to give to the poor.

And ever since, those who do the same are typically referred to as the Robin Hood of X in their field.

But in the early years of his legend, his story wasn't a good thing for officials in England.

You see, they really didn't like the fact that people everywhere were falling in love with the idea of rebelling against authority.

It set a bad example and it gave people courage where they might not have had it before.

A good example of this tension can be found in some rules passed in Scotland in 1555.

People there would gather for public festivities throughout the year and many would arrive in costume.

It seems that a large number of people enjoyed dressing up as Robin Hood and his band of loyal warriors, so the Scots Parliament banned them.

Now, they claimed that the reason was because these individuals tended to cause trouble through drinking and fighting.

But the punishment for the crime, actual banishment, seemed to be aiming at an even higher issue.

They really just didn't want an outlaw to be treated like a hero.

The fact that we are still obsessing over his legend all these centuries later, though, makes it clear just how utterly they failed.

Looking back, a lot of these characters from history were more of a hybrid of fact and fiction.

Most of them were real people who did real things, but as the centuries ticked by, details and qualities were added on to the legend, turning them into something more.

For many hero outlaws, those later additions were their most redeeming qualities, the crimes against the powers that be, for the benefit of the underrepresented.

But some outlaws actively worked against something darker than general injustice.

And in doing so, they created their own spin on hero outlaw folklore because they rebelled against enemy occupation.

They had good reasons for fighting back.

The English had occupied Ireland for centuries and all the people wanted was to see them leave.

But while they waited, they couldn't help but make life difficult for their colonial overlords.

So as you might imagine, the concept of the hero outlaw took on new meaning and power all across the Emerald Isle.

There, an outlaw was known as a Tory, a word that literally meant to pursue, because these criminals were wanted by the law.

They acted as bandits and highwaymen, raiding the English in an effort to help the resistance.

One early hero outlaw was a man named Redmond O'Hanlon.

Born around 1640, he was the stereotypical gentleman robber, stealing from the wealthy and sharing his spoils with the less fortunate.

But for him, a life of crime seems to have been personal.

O'Hanlon's family had been aristocrats but had lost their estate when he was a child.

You can imagine how that had an impact on Jan Redmond, seeing the English come and take everything away that his family owned.

The fact that he turned to a life of crime against them almost feels like a superhero origin story.

O'Hanlon quickly progressed from horse theft to robbery to running a gang of over 50 men.

He became such a thorn in the side of the English that they even tried to use the church to offer him a pardon deal.

Give up your life of crime and you can go free.

But O'Hanlon wouldn't hear of it.

His family had been wronged and the English had to pay.

True to most stories about heroic outlaws, O'Hanlon's end came at the hand of an insider.

An enormous bounty had been placed on his head and one of his own gang of men got greedy.

During a planned robbery on a group of traveling merchants, the entire group of bandits had hidden themselves in the trees along the road.

But before they could attack, the traitor in their midst shot O'Hanlon and left with his head as proof.

A century later, another hero arrived on the scene.

Donald O'Keeffe was a highway robber mostly active in the 1740s in County Cork.

His targets were the people the Irish hated most, the English Protestants.

And just like every hero outlaw before him, O'Keeffe shared his ill-gotten gains with this community, the Irish Catholics living in poverty under the English thumb.

O'Keeffe's betrayal story has a lot more detail than most.

It's said that when he wasn't raiding the English, he was with his lover, a woman named Margaret Kelly.

They would meet at his secret hideout in a cave overlooking the Blackwater River, where the authorities couldn't find them.

But when Margaret heard about the bounty on his head, she reached out to the English and struck a deal.

She arrived at the cave one day, just like she always had, and greeted O'Keeffe with a passionate kiss.

What the outlaw didn't know was that the English had placed riflemen on the river and were waiting for her to lure him out of the cave.

But in their moment of passion, he discovered the letter from the crown, promising her reward, and quickly ran her through with his sword.

It wouldn't be until much later that the English would track down O'Keefe, but they would still owe their success to an insider who was willing to betray him.

Needing a safe place to lay low, it's said that he visited the home of one of his partners in crime, a man who, like Margaret before him, had struck a deal with the authorities.

But as the legend goes, this man's wife was not a fan of her husband's betrayal, so when O'Keeffe asked for a glass of milk to be warmed for him, she replied with a phrase in Gaelic that meant, if you want to live long, drink cold and warm.

But the Gaelic word for warm, when spoken, sounds an awful lot like the word for run, as in, if you want to live, run.

So that's exactly what he did.

But after exiting the house, he found himself surrounded by soldiers who all opened fire.

And with that, the legendary career of Donald O'Keefe came to an end.

But no journey through the list of Irish hero outlaws would be complete without mentioning Willie Brennan.

He might have come later than the others, but it's clear he's the most well-known of them all.

Heck, he's even got his own ballad, Brennan on the Moor.

Not much is known about his early life, though.

One writer in the 1870s claimed that Willie Brennan's parents were tenant farmers, but during his childhood they were all evicted and put out on the street, despite the fact that his mother was sick in bed.

She passed away a short time after that, and Willie never stopped blaming the English authorities for her death.

As a youth, he was a prankster and a thief, but quickly grew in his skill and his reputation.

By the early years of the 19th century, he was already whispered about as a hero of the everyday people, and there were countless stories describing his generosity, sharing the goods and money he stole with the people in his community who needed it most.

His partner in crime was a man named Pedlar Bond, who had previously previously been, surprise, surprise, a peddler.

But after an unusual encounter where Willie tried to rob the man and was beaten at his own game, the two paired up and began working together, and they became legendary for it.

Yes, Brennan was a thief.

He robbed people, and that was clearly illegal.

But in the eyes of most Irish folk, as long as he was committing those crimes against the English, he was welcome and valuable, and they would do anything they could to support him, as one fun story story illustrates perfectly.

It's said that Willie was captured by the English at one point and was being transported quite a long distance to the court where he would be tried for his crimes.

So at some point in the journey, the English stopped at a makeshift informal pub to have a bite to eat and a cold drink, and Willie wanted a break too, so he asked for his pipe, which they gave him.

Then, looking up at the cautious barmaid, Willie sort of tilted his head to the side, looked her straight in the eyes, and said rather deliberately, give me fire.

It sounded like he was asking for a light for his pipe, but the barmaid caught the underlying meaning.

She left for a moment, and when she returned it was with a loaded rifle hidden beneath her apron, which Willie used to make his escape.

But even legends have to come to an end.

They say it happened in the mountains where Willie had been hiding out with another woman.

True to the pattern in these hero outlaw stories, she decided the price on his head was just too good to pass up, and so she sent word for the authorities.

Not long after, Willie Brennan was captured, tried for his crimes, and then hanged as punishment.

But while his life as an outlaw had come to an end, his legend has lived on, because everyone loves telling stories of the people who are willing to stand up to oppression, no matter the methods or the risk.

But I have one last story to share with you.

Partly because it serves as the perfect demonstration of this type of folklore in action, but also due to its many thrills and chills, and proof of just how deadly an outlaw's reputation can truly be.

John was a legend before he was even gone.

And if we're honest, that might have been the problem.

But let's start at the beginning, shall we?

John was born in East London in 1702, but his carpenter father died early, leaving John's mother to care for him and his siblings.

She did her best, but in the end it meant that John had to get a job, which is why at the far too early age of six he was already toiling away in a workhouse.

Now it should be easy to see why John would want out of there.

Workhouses were sort of a live-in factory.

Up to eight children would share a single bed and then start their 12-hour workday around 6 a.m.

The most schooling any of them received was maybe an hour each day.

Their main purpose there was to work, to work hard, and work fast.

John lucked out though.

A few years in he managed to land an apprenticeship to an old wool draper named William Neebone.

He was a kind old man who also employed John's mother.

He might have been a family friend or just someone trying to do the right thing.

But he even took time to teach John to read and write, which was a huge advantage for someone of his social status.

And John did alright.

He earned a few nicknames around that time.

Jack the Lad, Gentleman Jack, and Honest Jack, just to name a few.

He was charming and had the sort of smile that would instantly put others at ease.

But he was also ambitious and hungry for more.

So in 1717, At the age of just 15 years old, he moved on and became an apprentice to a carpenter named, appropriately, Owen Wood.

It wasn't long after that that he stumbled into the Black Lion, a local tavern on Drury Lane, and over his visits there he met a cast of unsavory characters, people who held jobs that were less than legal, Joseph Blueskin Blake, who would become his trusted partner in crime, Elizabeth Lyon, his eventual lover, and Jonathan Wilde, a high-on-himself crime boss who secretly had connections to the London police as an informant.

By 1723, John, now going by Jack, had ditched his apprenticeship in favor of easy money.

That same year, Elizabeth stole a ring and Jack showed up and broke her out of jail.

Not long after, he himself was arrested for robbing an alehouse and fencing the goods and found himself in jail.

But using an old razor he found, he managed to carve the ceiling out of his jail cell and escape.

And that became the first of many.

In May of 1723, Jack was arrested for stealing a gold watch that a man was stupidly holding up in the middle of a crowd.

A few days later, some of his friends visited him and gave him the tools that he would use to file through his chains, remove an iron bar from the window, and then climb down using bedsheets.

It was all enough to get people buzzing.

Jack Shepard, it seems, was becoming a hero.

His third great escape would be much of a closer call.

In 1724, Jack was becoming a target of other criminals because they felt that he was stealing their limelight.

One of those jealous thieves was Jonathan Wilde.

After Jack refused to cut him in on the share of the spoils from one of his recent jobs, Wilde set him up and got him arrested.

Jack was taken to Newgate Prison in London and awaited his execution there.

Just five days before he was scheduled to hang, he received a visit from his lady friend Elizabeth Lyon, who gave him a set of women's clothing.

Jack proceeded to loosen one of the bars in his cell and then walk right out of the jail right beside her.

Just one of the ladies.

His final escape was the stuff of legends.

Rather than leaving London after his previous brush with the law, Jack Shepard stuck around to keep working.

Soon enough, he stole three watches from a watchmaker's shop and was again turned in by Jonathan Wilde.

And the man who showed up to take him away was the same jailkeeper from Newgate that he had fooled just days before.

Needless to say, the guy was angry.

So when he got Jack back in jail, he took extra precautions.

Jack was moved to the innermost cell, deep inside the jail, and then fastened to the floor so that he couldn't reach the bars of his cell.

And yet, Jack proved why he was becoming a legend by producing an old rusty nail from somewhere on his person, which he then used to unlock his handcuffs and slip out to freedom.

Two weeks later, Jack's run of luck finally came to an end.

He was caught in a local pub, drunk out of his mind, wearing a silk suit that he had stolen from someone else.

The authorities offered him a reduced sentence if he would just snitch on his partners, but he refused, so they put him back in jail, this time with a few more precautions.

Jack was chained down to the floor of his jail cell and 300 pounds of iron weights were placed on the shackles to keep him from going anywhere.

Then, on November 16th of 1724, after his sentence was declared, death by hanging, of course, he was taken to the Tyburn Tree Gallows in London, where he would meet his end.

But Jack had one final trick up his sleeve.

You see, before his final capture, he had contracted an author to write a pamphlet called A Narrative of All the Robberies, Escapes, etc.

of John Shepard, and then had a printer named John Appleby make a bunch of copies for sale.

He also paid that same printer to hire a medical doctor and a wagon for the day of his execution.

The idea was simple.

It was common practice to allow a criminal to live if they survived the drop.

Most saw it as an act of God or a divine intervention.

So, the wagon and the doctor would make that possible by whisking away his nearly dead body to a safe location where he could be revived.

Then, he and the printer would split the profits from the sale of his sure-to-be-a-bestseller biographical pamphlet.

The plan was simple, if also a little risky.

All he had to do to secure his freedom was die.

The hero outlaw is a complex character.

Clearly, they've been part of folklore for a very long time.

It might even be safe to include mythological characters like Loki on the list, people who broke the law but did so in a way that made them larger than than life, heroes to the everyday person, or a symbol to rally around.

And one of the things that I find so fascinating from a storytelling point of view is how so many of these historical figures, like Willie Brennan or Donald O'Keefe, follow the same patterns.

They pull money out of the hands of the rich and bring it back to the poor, but ultimately get betrayed by someone they trust.

And those characters have become some of the most evergreen for storytellers.

We still talk about about Spartacus today, thousands of years later, and Robin Hood doesn't seem to ever get a break from books, TV, and film despite being nearly six and a half centuries old.

People love these stories.

I know I do, and they show no sign of going away.

Which is why the tale of Jack Shepard is so amazing.

And yeah, I know it's not the most bloody or violent or dark story around, but it fully represents a key archetype of folklore, and one that's still just as relevant today as it was three centuries ago.

Even though his life of crime lasted less than two years, Jack still managed to capture the hearts of the people of London.

He lived in a time when the gulf between the haves and the half-nots was incredibly wide and difficult to cross, so his adventures in taking some of that wealth away from the people at the top were applauded and followed closely.

Which is why his final plan had some merit.

If Jack could survive the hanging, he would become something bigger than a hero outlaw.

He would move into legendary status, giving characters like Robin Hood a run for their money.

So I hope you can see how much he had writing on this.

It's said that over 30,000 people arrived to watch his execution at the Tyburn Tree Gallows.

Maybe they were just there for the free show, to watch a random criminal hang for his misdeeds.

But I think it's fair to assume that a good number of them were drawn by his name.

Jack Shepard, after all, was the hero outlaw of his day.

With the crowd watching, he was walked up the steps to the platform and the noose was placed around his neck.

Then the trap door opened and Jack dropped through, stopping violently at the end of the rope.

But he was a small, slight man, and his body weight wasn't enough to snap his neck, which, of course, he had been counting on.

So the guards left him hanging for a full 15 minutes, after which his body had stopped moving.

And that was when the hired carriage and doctor made their move.

They quickly approached the gallows to cut Jack down, cart him away, and resuscitate him.

But something unpredictable happened instead.

You see, the crowd assumed that the carriage and doctor were there for a different reason.

Back then, the only bodies that could legally be used for dissection by medical students were those of executed criminals.

So when they saw the carriage approaching, they freaked out.

Jack was a hero, and no one was going to disrespect his body.

In the end, the doctor couldn't reach him, and Jack's elaborate and risky plan crumbled to pieces.

His death remained final, and his story came to an end.

The reputation he had cultivated as a hero outlaw became the very thing that ensured his death.

Oh, and that pamphlet that Jack had commissioned, the one that described his life and exploits so that no one would forget him, it was written by someone known for his use of the pen, a storyteller who was known to publish writings without his name attached.

In fact, just five years earlier, he had published a novel about a shipwreck survivor and the adventures involved in being rescued, and it became a massive hit.

So, after the first edition that proclaimed the main character as also the author, he swapped out that name for his own.

The author of Jack Shepard's pamphlet was none other than the same man who wrote Robinson Crusoe: Daniel Defoe.

The world of hero outlaws is a fascinating one, and as we've learned today, it's full of so many colorful characters.

From misty figures like Robin Hood to concrete criminals like Jack Shepard, hearing their stories is always fun and thrilling.

But I have one more to share with you, although it doesn't take place in the British Isles.

Note for this one, we'll have to travel around the globe.

And if you stick around after this brief sponsor break, I'll tell you all about it.

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Algunos el maravillan aunt el colorido mundo vajo la superficial.

Elo seano nos alimenta.

Otros en cuentransubstento en swagundancia.

El seano nos insenia.

Quen nuestras decisiones díaras affectan hasta los lugares more profundos.

E loceano nos mube.

Ya sía sulfiendo una hola or admirando su impersión de velleza.

Elos seano nos connecta.

Descuber tú conectción en Monterrey Bay Aquarium punto or que di agonal conecta.

Edward was born around 1855 in the little town of Beveridge, about 25 miles north of the city of Melbourne in Australia.

His father had been convicted of stealing a couple of pigs a few years prior back in Ireland and had been sentenced to life halfway around the world.

It was there that his parents met and married.

His mother Ellen came from a family with her own notorious reputation, which always seemed to draw the watchful eye of the law.

But before Edward had even turned 11 years old, they all watched as his father was accused of theft once more, thrown in jail, and then drank himself to death after his release.

One of the stories told about Edward's childhood was that when he was nine years old, he managed to save another child who was drowning in the nearby river.

That boy's mother gave Edward a green silk sash, which he would go on to wear for the rest of his life.

But those early heroics changed course after he got older.

Around the age of 14, Edward met a man named Harry Powers, and the pair teamed up on small robberies.

Both were arrested a number of times, but always managed to get off without punishment.

But it was also around this time that Edward got tangled up in one of my favorite anecdotes about him.

It seems that he had an argument with another man in town, and when they were done fighting, Edward sent the man's wife a nasty letter, along with a pair of cow testicles.

This apparently got him thrown in jail, although it also created quite a buzz, as you might imagine.

But it was in 1877, at the age of 22, that he really started to build his reputation.

That was when he was pursued by police for stealing a horse and riding it while intoxicated.

Sort of a Victorian DUI, I guess.

That chase led him to hiding out in a boot shop where he got into a gunfight with the authorities.

Somehow he managed to slip away though, and he used that freedom to keep on with his life of crime.

The turning point in his career would probably be the incident at Stringy Bark Creek in 1878.

Edward, now going by the nickname Ned, was on the run with his gang, being chased everywhere they went by two separate police groups.

But one night they came upon one of these groups camped alongside a small stream and decided to make life difficult for them.

No killing.

just some good old-fashioned sabotage.

Unfortunately, the police weren't as restrained with their weapons, and shots were fired.

Ned defended himself, killing three of the officers before making a run for it.

Now wanted for murder, every new job was a risk for him and his men.

But they didn't slow down or lay low.

That wasn't Ned's style.

Thanks to a new law called the Felons Apprehension Act, not only was he a murderer on the run, but anyone, law enforcement or citizens, could shoot him on sight.

But that didn't stop him from robbing a few banks.

During one of these robberies, it's said that he took hostages and entertained them for hours with his horsemanship.

Honestly, how could you not love the guy?

Despite a growing reward for Ned's capture and security being tightened all throughout the area, the police were still desperate to find him.

They even started arresting known supporters of Ned's, holding them through the harvest season, which caused their crops and livelihood to fall to ruin.

Ever the showman, Ned soon gave his supporters something to rally behind.

During a robbery in the town of Gerilderi, he and his gang took more hostages inside a bank, where they gave everyone free drinks and burned all the mortgage deeds they could find.

And while they were in town, he dropped a 56-page letter off at a printer with instructions to make copies and distribute it far and wide.

It was a sort of manifesto, giving people the motives behind his crimes and calling others to rise up.

He might have been a hero outlaw from a small town, but he was dreaming big.

Among his requests was that funds be taken from the wealthiest in the land and used to care for widows and orphans.

It was just the Robin Hood sort of thing his reputation needed.

For the next year and a half, Ned Kelly and his gang avoided the law and stayed out of jail.

But in 1880, Ned started to worry that one of his men was actually a double agent working with the authorities to pass along information about him.

So he and some others confronted the traitor at home and shot him dead.

What they didn't know was that four police officers were hidden inside the man's house at the time, and they witnessed the whole thing.

Ned Kelly's final battle happened at the Glen Rowan Inn.

He and his gang had taken over 70 people hostage and had started plotting how they would derail the train that would be bringing in police reinforcements.

But that plan fell apart and the authorities arrived, ready for a fight.

In one of those amazing moments that reminds me of old episodes of MacGyver, Ned and a few others crafted suits of armor out of pieces of iron from a plow and then held off the siege for over seven hours.

In the end though, Ned was injured and captured, still wearing that green silk sash beneath his metal suit.

Ned Kelly was tried and found guilty of multiple counts of murder and then sentenced to death by hanging.

On November 1st of 1880 at the Melbourne jail, he took the final drop.

He was just 25 years old at the time.

But because of the power of folklore and the magical lure of hero outlaw characters, Ned Kelly has never really gone away.

In fact, over the century and a half since his death, he's only grown in popularity.

There have been countless publications about him over the years, as well as a good number of representations in other mediums.

Part of this is probably due to the fact that his final battle and execution were telegraphed around the world to eager audiences everywhere.

In a way, he was the first mass media outlaw.

But he also struck a chord with his message about shrinking the gap between the rich and the poor to care for those in need.

A century after his death as a criminal, Ned Kelly was featured on an Australian postage stamp, and when Sydney hosted the Olympics in 2000, part of their opening ceremony performance featured images of him.

And that's what's utterly fascinating about Ned Kelly.

Every hero outlaw had their draw.

of magnetism and attractiveness that brought fame and admiration to what was, at the basic level, a life of crime.

But I'm not sure any of them ever rose above their illegal activities to the point that an entire nation regarded them as a symbol of their country's values.

None, that is,

except Ned Kelly.

This episode of Lore was written and produced by me, Aaron Mankey, with research by Megan Day Roche and music by Chad Lawson.

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