Beachcombing's Bizarre History Blog

Merry Wives and Fairy Wings

Beach has previously celebrated the (entirely unrealistic) myths about Kitchener’s survival from a shipwreck in June 1916. There were a number of theories: namely that the Germans had got him; that Kitchener had been kidnapped in Russia or was secretly helping the Russian army reorganise (perhaps he was killed in the revolution?); or some version […]

Dear Readers, fifth female in house (above) just arrived, acclimatizing. There follow the most interesting words sent in to StrangeHistory. Thanks to all contributors and linkers… Enjoy June! B Bodies in Elm, 1760? Bruce on bodies in roots… Bodies in Trees: Filip G. and some continentals… Evans Wentz and Money: Filip G. with banks… Evans […]

  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 here Sheridan le Fanu and Joseph Stalin (he of […]

This is a great supernatural stories from 18C England. The earliest version known to this blogger dates to 1793. Note that this is a much later version that claims to be based on actual records. Beach doesn’t believe that for a second. Ha! It is almost identical and entire passages word-for-word the same. An Account of Mr. […]

‘Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,/ Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,/ Silence the pianos and with muffled drum/ Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.’ 2 Apr Fri, 1830, Britain’s oldest inhabitant died. Solemn notices appeared in the newspaper Death Extraordinary. On Friday se’nnight [a week Friday], at […]

Location: Ireland (Wilde 1888, 195), late nineteenth century Aim: ‘To Cause Love’ Ingredients: new plate, new butter, a bucolic retreat, and an ‘O woman loved by me’ Method: (i) buy a new plate, make sure that it has never been used (ii) Put golden butter on the plate. (iii) Find the one you love. (iv) […]

It is always such fun when folklore produces an impossible story that is actually credible. Here is one recorded from the Hebrides in J. F. Campbell’s Popular Tales of the West Highlands. Note that the Feen are the Fenians, Gaelic Robin Hoods. I was told in Benbecula how a man had found a book, containing the […]

Here is a curiosity: a plate that plays magical music to your sleeping ear. The passage comes from the writing of John Beaumont (obit 1731) a geologist and reluctant British mystic who sometimes saw ‘spirits’. In one of his works (Account, 188) Beaumont claims: I may here note, That some Persons have told my self, […]

Nina Burleigh, The Fatal Gift of Beauty In 2007 a young British student Meredith Kercher was murdered in her flat in Perugia, Italy: she had possibly been raped before her death. The crime was a horrible one, but the victim was all too often forgotten in the events that followed. The prosecutors in Perugia decided […]

Woolwich UK 1917

It is absolutely unsurprising that there is a strong liberal bias in university classrooms, particularly in the social sciences and to a slightly lesser extent in the humanities: and that this is true throughout the Anglo-Saxon and, indeed, the western world. It has been estimated, for example, that only one in forty sociologists in the […]