Beachcombing's Bizarre History Blog

Jim Ottaviani and Maris Wicks, Primates This blog has a tradition of, from time to time, flagging up excellent children’s books on history and the supernatural. Primates, a 140-page comic, falls very much into the first of these two categories. It takes the lives of three biological anthropologists, only two of whom are still alive: […]

Another flying legend.

This is a lovely story from Paisley (Scotland), ‘about the truth of which there is no doubt’. The other morning there were, as usual, standing the Cross several journeymen dyers, one of whom had the reputation of being clever in his way in providing the needful when thirst is requiring to be quenched. They looked […]

Got this from twitter but can’t find source or user: sorry! 31 Jul 2017: Larry writes  I don’t think they’ll ever learn: “St. Petersburg woman injured after bullet left inside oven explodes,” Tampa Bay Times, 2017 July 13. 

Late 19C, Marines.

Fairy legends are common in the Celtic fringes and the north of Britain. They are to be found in northern England and south central England: they also occasionally crop up in the English Midlands. However, they were as rare as gold dust in south-eastern England and East Anglia by the time that folklore records were […]

Student = Sharon Tate

19C taken from Walter Scott.

In the famous image of Henry VIII’s family from 1545 there is a mysterious figure walking on the left in the background. The woman apparently has no hair (note the back and front of her head and compare with the princesses in the picture) and she seems rather lost, perhaps even confused. Different theories for […]

Christian woman stolen off.

Beach goes to the motherland today with daughters and without dog or wife. Mixed feelings. Here is a familiar sounding story. Eugene Delacroix has persuaded the richest man in Europe, Baron James de Rothschild to pose as a beggar for a painting. Rothschild, a gentleman, agrees. Delacroix hung a tunic on his shoulders, placed a […]

Prohibition era. Bruce T, 30 Jul 2017: Cane flasks are still being produced, for amusement purposes only, of course, and used at certain sporting events were liquor is banned, or events where drinking is considered inappropriate during the ceremonies, graduations, recitals, funerals, weddings, church, anywhere the long winded and so-called upright reign and go on for […]

Outstanding story about coming face to face with the devil in Paris. This first appeared in October 1888. The folklore motif that rounds the tale off is: G303.16.3.1. Happy reading… The chief persons named are a Russian Prince, Pomerantseff, and a French Abbé, Girod, who ridiculed the whole theory of apparitions. The conversation at a dinner […]

Beautiful detail.

Chances of survival nil.