Daily History Picture: Last Cig November 2, 2017
Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical PicturesBeachcombed 89 November 1, 2017
Author: Beach Combing | in : BeachcombedDear Reader, A crappy October. Three bouts of flu and a three-day migraine: never in my life anything like this. Not sure what is going on but I’ve been confidentially and confidently told that it will mark a change in my life! Sceptical, but looking forward to being able to swallow without pain again. Certainly […]
Index Biography #47: Prize a book October 31, 2017
Author: Beach Combing | in : Contemporary, Modern***Melissa gets it, scroll down for the answer*** The Index Biography is a quiz pioneered by this blog and introduced in a previous post. The creator must find a biography of a famous individual from history, they must turn to the index and write down eight peripheral facts about the individual’s life. We offered up previously […]
Portuguese Werewolf October 30, 2017
Author: Beach Combing | in : ContemporaryThis note was published in Folklore in 1942 by, of all people, Violet Alford, one of a handful of impressive interwar British folklorists. Following Professor Hutton’s Presidential Address on Werewolves, this note may be of interest. An English friend, born and brought up in Portugal, remembers, when she was about seven years old, the mysterious […]
Daily History Picture: Cruiser Tank October 30, 2017
Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical Pictures1941 (in England?) Stephen D. 31 Oct 2017 writes: Re your tank picture: these are, I think, the infamous Covenanter tanks (Cruiser Mk V; A13 MkIII), ordered in 1939, declared obsolete in 1944 after no combat use, and after over 1,700 had been built. They were designed for whatever reason by the London, Midland and […]
Napoleon and the Dorset Convent October 29, 2017
Author: Beach Combing | in : ModernBeach recently ran with a story that Napoleon was believed to have visited Britain incognito in 1803: Wales to be exact. Here is an annex to that post. The wonderful idea that Napoleon’s brother had holed up in a convent in Dorset at Marnhull no less! These were the glory years when the French were […]
Immortal Meals #35: Bewitched Chinese Dancing Horses October 28, 2017
Author: Beach Combing | in : MedievalIt is a WIBT (wish I’d been there) moment from Chinese history. One night in the mid-late eighth century the warriors of the Chinese warlord Ch’Eng-szu (704-778) were preparing a sacrificial feast. Some struck up music to add to the festive atmosphere when suddenly a very strange thing. Dozens of the war horses in the field […]
Ghost Procession or New Invention? October 27, 2017
Author: Beach Combing | in : ModernFirst the problems with dates. This appears in a 1913 newspaper and had been borrowed from the Observer, which had taken it from a newspaper from ‘A Hundred Years Ago’, named Drakard’s Paper. 1813, c. 1813? For the record this does not sound like a report from 1813, but why spoil a good story Wednesday, […]
Daily History Picture: Family Tree October 27, 2017
Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical PicturesDaily History Picture: Grotesque October 26, 2017
Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical PicturesDaily History Picture: Irish Feast October 25, 2017
Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical PicturesRemarkable piece: late 1500s. Note that the two bare-bottomed men, top left, may be professional farters…
Daily History Picture: Sad Grave October 24, 2017
Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical PicturesRoy Vickery, the Green Man October 24, 2017
Author: Beach Combing | in : ContemporaryMuch of British folklore has been carefully curated and packed into volumes on library shelves: but most of British folklore lies, in truth, uncollected out in the fields. This brings us to one of the heroes of modern British folklore, Roy Vickery. RV is a botanist with a long-term interest in the folklore of plants: […]
Daily History Picture: October 23, 2017
Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical Pictures1942 Stalingrad: unlikely he survived… Tim from Detritus writes: ‘I realize that the History Photos are subject to less reader scrutiny than the formal posts. But your “Grizzled German Soldier” caught my eye. The uniform was odd. It has a Luftwaffe “eagle” and an Infantry combat badge. Perhaps an antiaircraft unit that was forced into a […]
Mermaid Monday: Early Welsh Mermaid October 23, 2017
Author: Beach Combing | in : MedievalMermaid images from medieval Britain and not particularly common. There are quite a few medieval carvings, some explored in an interesting 2013 book Of Sirens and Centaurs by Alex Woodcock. But actual drawings or paintings are rare. This is why this fabulous doodle in a fourteenth-century Welsh manuscript is so exciting. The manuscript in question […]