Boris Karloff in "Bride of Frankenstein" (John Kobal Foundation/Getty Images)

On Monday’s podcast, Sarah and I got to wear our English major hats – our favorite chapeaux of all.

In honor of Halloween, we talked about a little ghost story competition that gave us both “Frankenstein” and the vampire.

In the summer of 1816, a party of five was staying at the Villa Diodati in Switzerland: Lord Byron, Mary Shelley, Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Polidori and Claire Clairmont. Illustrious company, to be sure – Byron and Percy Shelley were well-known poets, and Mary Shelley was the daughter of writers Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin. Polidori was Byron’s physician, and Clairmont Mary’s stepsister.

One rainy day, Byron challenged them all: “We will each write a ghost story,” he said, and they set to scribbling. But interest soon wanes, and Byron himself only completes a fragment. Mary Shelley, however, receives the story of Frankenstein in a terrifying dream vision, and Polidori takes Byron’s fragment about an eccentric nobleman and turns it into “The Vampyre.”

But it’s not as simple as that – Polidori’s story was published under Byron’s name, and Mary Shelley’s introduction to “Frankenstein” paints the picture a bit differently. For instance, she claims Claire Clairmont wasn’t even a member of the party … even though Claire gave birth to Byron’s baby several months later. Why the discrepancies? Listen to the podcast on iTunes and find out. And if you liked this one, be on the lookout for a couple of podcasts we have coming up: one on Byron, and one on his daughter, Ada Lovelace.

Wednesday’s podcast brought us Marie Laveau, voodoo queen, a person Sarah and I had a devil of a time researching. The problem is partly that there were two Marie Laveaus – the original and her daughter, Marie II – and partly that research isn’t there to be had. There aren’t a lot of primary sources from the period, and many of those that do exist have been altered – names cut out, for example, by people who wanted to hide their ancestors of color.

The legend of Marie Laveau speaks of a 20-foot snake named Zombie and powerful magic that could make people crawl on their bellies on the floor, disappear or fall in love.

But the reality of Marie Laveau was a bit different, as was the reality of Voudoo at the time. So what do we know about her? And if you mark her tomb in St. Louis Cemetery in New Orleans with three X’s, what happens? Listen to the podcast and find out what we know.