Beachcombing's Bizarre History Blog

Beach tries not to exaggerate – at least in this place* – but of his forty odd flight stories this is perhaps his favourite. Not a mean feat given that those stories include flying Anglo-Saxon monks and Chinese kite men. We are in Paris in 1840 A man, carrying a large bundle, applied some days […]

Those trousers, those beards, that hair…

There is a long tradition of witches having familiars, animals who act as a source of power, or perhaps the medium between the witch and the devil. Britain has rather few references to sabbats and witch orgies compared to continental witch trials: but it arguably has more familiars than French, German and Polish witch investigations. Here […]

Seems remarkably insincere… ‘So, Bill,…’

BFF

22 April 1903 a British column was attacked at Daratoleh (Somali) by dervishes: the British, as so often happened in Africa, were vastly outnumbered and the Imperial troops did the only sensible thing they could in these circumstances. They formed into a square and put their maxims to best use. Superior weapons did for superior […]

In 1906…

This little tale appears in a vaguely sceptical Aulus Gellius, whose Attic Nights provides some very enjoyable reading for those wishing to travel back into the ancient world. that which Archytas the Pythagorean [obit 347 BC] is said to have devised and accomplished ought to seem no less marvellous, but yet not wholly absurd. For […]

Beach has recently been searching for records of bodies within trees. There is a lot ill-informed nonsense about such tree burials (in a living tree) as being part of a British magical tradition. Here is one quoted reference from the Gentleman’s Magazine, 30 (1760), pp. 346. The problem is that the text does not live […]

The society where this picture this manuscript was illuminated clearly had an embarrassing lack of experience with actual stoning…

Presumably the same uboat as a couple of weeks ago… She came afloat as she was being towed away for scrap.

Beach has had talked about Walter and his thesis, Walter and the fairies, Walter and money, now is it is time for Walter with no clothes on: Walter Yeeling Evans Wentz’s sexual habits.  At this point we better recite the ritual ‘not that there is anything wrong with that’. Beach has absolutely no interest in […]

Sudeten Germans forces to walk past SS victims….

Regular readers will know that over the years Beach has confessed to a fascination for Walter Yeeling Evans Wentz, the American mystic and sometime fairy writer. Beach is interested, above all, in Walter and the fairies. However, there are a number of other aspects of Evans Wentz’s life that are intriguing and that help to […]

Russian soldiers inspect public suicides in Vienna at ‘liberation’.