Victorian Urban Legend: Ox Ring March 11, 2018
Author: Beach Combing | in : ModernBusy day. Lots of work and final papers to grade, but would love to know whether this can be paralleled: drbeachcombing AT gmail DOT com On the 8th of November, 1871, a public officer at Colchester reported that having seen a report in the Shipping Gazette that a bullock had been picked up by the […]
Cake-Eating Fairy in 19C Staffordshire March 10, 2018
Author: Beach Combing | in : ModernIntroducing Nancy This little passage is a troubling one for all kinds of reasons. In the mid-late nineteenth century, an itinerant preacher recounted an experience from his time in Staffordshire (a Midlands English county that ranged, in this period, from the beautifully wild to the grimily industrial). He had evidently begged a bed in the […]
Ghosts and a Bleeding Corpse in the Courtroom March 9, 2018
Author: Beach Combing | in : ModernIntroduction In that wonderful book by Andrew Lang, Dreams and Ghosts (1897) there is a description of a phantom finding its way into a British courtroom in 1829 (pp. 143-144). Lang did not have access to the British Newspaper Archive – what fun he would have had there! – so his reference is brief and unsatisfactory. Here is […]
Daily History Picture: Reading the Communist Manifesto March 9, 2018
Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical PicturesDisney (?) does their bit. EC writes 9 Mar 2018: Not Disney. It’s from a Tom and Jerry (MGM) cartoon called “Life with Tom”. The hammer and sickle is a recent meme modification; here’s a screenshot with the original book – titled “Life with Tom”: (left to right: Tom, Topsy, Meathead, Butch, and nameless cat). The full […]
The Origins of Forehead Cross Tattoos? March 8, 2018
Author: Beach Combing | in : MedievalThe Forehead Cross The forehead cross has become a relatively common modern tattoo, both in the industrialized west and among some developing countries. However, those who wear it will probably not know that the first record of this design dates back to the sixth century AD. Let us travel through time and space to the […]
Daily History Picture: Clinton in the Bushes March 8, 2018
Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical PicturesDaily History Picture: Birth Outside Marriage March 7, 2018
Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical PicturesDaily History Picture: Medieval Children March 6, 2018
Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical PicturesThe Coker Hill Haunting 4: The Counter Spells March 5, 2018
Author: Beach Combing | in : ModernThe Coker Hill haunting is unusual, first, in that we know that the locals believed it was a case of ‘overlooking’ or witchcraft (rather than a ghost); and, second, in that we know two of the spells employed against this malicious use of witchcraft. Spell One Matters were beginning to look serious and it is […]
Daily History Picture: 1950s US Girl March 5, 2018
Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical PicturesThe Coker Hill Haunting 3: A Witness March 4, 2018
Author: Beach Combing | in : ModernThe journalist himself arrived once the haunting had officially come to an end. However, he found one individual, ‘a well-to-do, respectable, intelligent man’, who had been in the building on Sunday 13 June when as many as three hundred neighbours had gathered to hear the noises. When I got in the sound seemed to be […]
The Coker Hill Haunting 2: The Events March 3, 2018
Author: Beach Combing | in : ModernThe haunting began after the resident mother had a fit 4 June 1880. Noises started up immediately around the house. This went on for several nights – the knocking performances commencing shortly after midnight, in the orthodox fashion. The woman became somewhat alarmed these singular visitations, she could not sleep, the children were frightened, and […]
Daily History Picture: Delightful Fairies March 2, 2018
Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical PicturesThe Coker Hill Haunting 1: Dramatis Personae March 2, 2018
Author: Beach Combing | in : ModernBeach has recently become interested in a nineteenth-century ghost case from Somerset in southern England that has it all: there are witches, there are sprites, there are magpies, there are spells and counter spells, there is a spirit that rolls around the room, and there is a magic lantern. There are unfortunately few sources: only […]
Beachcombed 93 March 1, 2018
Author: Beach Combing | in : BeachcombedDear Reader, a weird end to February with a sudden blizzard that has covered our Italian village. Biggest snowfall I’ve seen here in ten days, so we are all here at home. There follow the most interesting words sent in to StrangeHistory. Thanks to all contributors and linkers… Note that the new email address is drbeachcombing […]