A Milk-Drinking British Boa March 30, 2016
Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
There are lots of tall tales about snakes and lots of tall tales about snakes taking milk from udders and breasts, but this is unusual for the apparent quality of the witness and its impact in the local countryside. The journalist who wrote, and doubtless loved researching, the initial piece was from the Birmingham Gazette. […]
Daily History Picture: Child with Bodyguard March 29, 2016
Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical PicturesImmortal Meals #28: Freedom and Chicken March 29, 2016
Author: Beach Combing | in : Medieval
The date, sometime in the 1440s; the place, the English village of Long Newnton in what is today Gloucestershire; the meal, a table of chicken; the host, Thomas Carter; the occasion, Thomas’s freedom. Thomas Carter had been born a bondsman sometime in the 1370s around the time Richard II was crowned king and the first […]
Daily History Picture: Roman Owl March 28, 2016
Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical PicturesRichard and Saladin’s Swords March 28, 2016
Author: Beach Combing | in : Medieval
One of the pleasures of writing a history blog is revisiting certainties, some picked up in infancy, and exposing them for the callow lies that they are. Many moons ago when Beach was learning to read he had a ladybird book on Richard the Lionheart. In those revered pages there was an image of a […]
New History Books: Washington’s Immortals March 27, 2016
Author: Beach Combing | in : New History BooksWitch Bone Breaking? March 27, 2016
Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
This story needs to be linked with a veritable collection made on this blog of witch bleeding. Interesting here though that not just blood but allegedly a bone will do the trick. And the date? 14 June 1895. From Lincolnshire comes a story which in these days of compulsory education seems almost incredible. In a […]
New History Books: Confederate Sharpshooter March 26, 2016
Author: Beach Combing | in : New History BooksCreepy Scythian Graves March 26, 2016
Author: Beach Combing | in : Ancient
Here is an extraordinary royal burial ritual for the Scythians described in Herodotus, 4,73: The tombs of their kings are in the land of the Gerrhi, who dwell at the point where the Borysthenes is first navigable. Here, when the king dies, they dig a grave, which is square in shape, and of great size. When it is […]
Daily History Picture: Damn Rabbits Again… March 25, 2016
Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical PicturesImage: Hitler Bows to Hindenburg March 25, 2016
Author: Beach Combing | in : Contemporary
Two of the most important men in twentieth-century German history stand on the steps of Potsdam Garrison Church, 21 March 1933. On the right one of the great generals of the First World War, Paul von Hindenburg, in full Imperial uniform with the Prussian Pickelhaube. Hindenburg was, of course, the victor of Tannenberg, a decisive, […]
Daily History Picture: Roller Skates March 24, 2016
Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical PicturesHeadless Mine Ghost March 24, 2016
Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
This ghost story comes from a Derbyshire hill town, New Mills. It is deep in boggart country and it is very likely that the miners referred to the ghost as a boggart. Note Ollersett in the top right of the map. We are in 1914, the beginning of the year that would change the world. […]
Daily History Picture: Robin Williams in Skirt March 23, 2016
Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical PicturesFor the Birds? Francis and the Feathered Tribe March 23, 2016
Author: Beach Combing | in : Medieval
This brilliant illustration is from Hark The curious episode when St Francis preaches to the birds is one of those famous (everyone knows it) but little read (well have you?) experiences in western hagiography. Today Beach tracked down an English translation from this site and more importantly the Latin from Thomas of Celano, Francis’ first […]