A Leg Up

of stone. It had been carved into the side of a mountain in the desert, somewhere far from England, a place he had never seen before with his own eyes. The visions only grew more intense as Arthur got older, with the image of the city becoming clearer in his mind. As time by. They left him upset, but he couldn't figure out the reason why. It was during a visit to his local beach when the clearest vision presented itself.

Arthur had been playing among the orange and pink colored pebbles along the shore when he was whisked away to the city in the mountain. There was as though he had been teleported there. The beach faded away around him, and he was suddenly standing within the walls of the city itself. What he didn't realize was that the colors of the pebbles had triggered his strongest vision yet due to their resemblance to the son of the city. What confounded him was that he had never seen such a

structure before in his life. He didn't read books about traveling to exotic locations, nor had he left Norfolk, but the place felt so real and familiar. He hadn't invented it. It was like he was living someone else's memories. After that day at the beach, Arthur received more bits and pieces of information. They were being beamed straight into his

brain from some far off satellite. He returned to the beach, to the pink and the orange pebbles under his feet, and just as before, they transported him back to the city in the mountain, but he saw more on each mental trip. There were streets and passageways. A military barracks had been built nearby, and he got the sense that he was a soldier, one who had been killed by a spear in battle. Arthur stopped going to the beach after that. He kept his dreams to himself, although he

continued to have them well into his old age. It wasn't until he was watching a BBC documentary about ancient Jordan when he finally saw the city he had been dreaming about for real. It was Petra, also known as the resting place of the Holy Grail for fellow Indiana Jones fans. Arthur was a static at the realization and reached out to the BBC about the documentary. He told them about his lifelong visions, and rather than hang up

on him, they believed him. He became the subject of a segment on another BBC program and was subsequently interviewed by an archaeologist with a deep knowledge of Petra. The archaeologist was floored by how much Arthur knew about the city, considering he had never laid eyes on it before the documentary. He knew details that no average person would know without having been there themselves. The Jordanian government got wind of Arthur's miraculous story and invited him to Petra to demonstrate

his innate knowledge. Set loose on his own, he walked through it as though he had grown up there. He knew every street and landmark. He was even able to explain parts of the city that had been yet to be excavated. When presented with artifacts and buildings that the so called experts could not understand, Arthur calmly told them about their true purposes, which happened to be correct. All attempts to stump him or prove him to be a

sham failed. Arthur knew more about Petra than archaeologists and the people of Jordan's but how it was believed that he had been glimpsing the past life of a Jordanian soldier, one who had died centuries ago. Arthur was seen by many spiritual leaders as proof that reincard nation was a real phenomenon. True or not, it was certainly curious. Arthur flower Do didn't see much more excitement during his time on Earth, but he and his past life did prove

one thing. Life's a beach and then you die. When someone loses a limb, such as an arm or a leg, the road to recovery can be rough. They may have to fight off infection or learn how to do things with only one appendage that they used to do with two. Tying their shoes, walking, and buttoning up their shirt are all made more difficult. But the story doesn't end with that loss. It goes on as the person at its center continues to grow and adapt. They may get a

prosthetic device, which brings its own set of challenges. But no matter what, the tail of a lost limb is always about the person it once belonged too well. Usually. Henry Paget, the Earl of Uxbridge and the first Marquess of Anglesey, was born in seventeen sixty eight to a wealthy English family. He was well educated and entered Parliament

when he was only twenty two years old. Paget continued to climb the political ladder into the eighteen hundreds, while also joining the military to fight the French in seventeen ninety three. As major general and later lieutenant general, Paget commanded formidable cavalries against France, and his men regularly defeated them in battle. However, it was at the Battle of

Waterloo where Paget had his uh Waterloo moment. On June eighteenth of eighteen fifteen, he was in charge of thirteen thousand cavalry and forty four members of the horse artillery, which he led into the fray after taking on thousands of French infantry. The charge of two thousand British heavy cavaltry led by Paget had successfully managed to drive them back. However, Paget's men continued to chase after them and were eventually

met with force by additional French cavalry. Paget did his best to counter their attacks with roughly nine lightly armed cavalry charges, but he kept running into the same problem. His horses continued to get blown out from under him by cannon fire. Every time he went down, Paget got back up on a new horse. By the end of the fight, it seemed as though he had made it out okay, though the same couldn't be said of the horses. Unfortunately,

the French weren't done yet, though. They fired their cannons a few more times, and as Paget was trotting away beside the Duke of Wellington's one of their cannon balls collided with his knee. It was shattered into a thousand pieces. Although Paget's stiff upper lip refused to buckle, he allegedly said to the Duke, by God, Sir, I've lost my leg, and the Duke of Wellington was believed to have replied by God, sir, so you have. Paget was brought to a surgeon who took one look at his leg and

knew immediately that it couldn't be saved. The limb was amputated shortly thereafter at the Belgian home of a man named Hyacinthe Joseph Marie Kari, but since Paget was in the midst of war with no access to proper health care facilities, the surgery was completed without anesthetic, but that didn't phase the general. He said that the knives felt kind of blunt as the doctor cut the limb away, and when it was all over, Henry Paget was down one leg, and Monsieur Peris had increased his number of

appendages by one. That's right. The owner of the house where the amputation had taken place had also taken possession of Paget's discarded leg. He buried it in his garden outside and turned it into a kind of shrine or altar, complete with a tombstone. Others heard about the strange leg grave at Pari's home and began showing up at his doorstep to see it, and Paris, seeing a lucrative business

opportunity before him started charging a fee for visitors. Sixty odd years later, Paget's son made a pilgrimage to the house to see the shrine for himself. What he found flabbergast at him. The leg had been removed from its grave and placed on display for all to see. The change in ven you had been made after a big storm had disturbed the ground where it had been interred. The British government stepped in and requested the bones be returned to the Paget's family. Peri's Air said that he

would happily hand it over for a price. The Belgian Minister of Justice then told him to put the leg back in the ground so as to avoid an international incident. Paris Airs obliged taking down the public display, but he didn't rebury the bones as ordered. Instead, he tucked them away in his study, only to have them discovered by his widow following his death in nineteen thirty five. She was so upset by the presence that she tossed them

in the homes furnace and cremated them. But Henry Paget, the Earl of Uxbridge, had moved on from his injury long before. After a year long recovery, he was fitted with one of the first ever prosthetic limbs that could bend at the knee. It had been built from wood and leather with springs inside. With it strapped onto his thigh, he was able to ride horses again until his death in eighteen fifty four at the age of eighty five.

Paget never got to see his lost limb again. His son did have the chance to bring it home later in life, but unfortunately, thanks to Monsieur Perry's own air, it would have cost him an arm and a leg. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership

with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can learn all about it over at the World of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.