Beachcombing's Bizarre History Blog

Whoops, lost my note on this one, but I think this is Puck of Pook’s Hill introducing himself and British history to Kipling’s children.

Vampire legends arrived in Britain and Ireland from the east of Europe in the eighteenth century and were, then, celebrated in fiction in the early, mid nineteenth century (The Vampyre, 1819 and Varney the Vampire, 1847). Two of the great popularisers of vampires in, what was then, the UK were, of course, Irish: the brilliant […]

Beach has been enjoying Pickpockets, Beggars and Ratcatchers by Kellow Chesney on London’s underworld in the teeming, dirty and unmatchable nineteenth century: the illustrations are great too. One of the joys about entering this world is the lively slang used by the underclass. The following come from Pickpockets but also from one of the most […]

Brian Hughes, Defying the IRA? Not sure about the question mark but hope to read this before the summer.

Royal parents have a unique problem. They have to bring up their children like anyone else (or, ok, pay others to do so), but they also have to convince their children that they are God’s anointed. Infants painfully learn that the world does not revolve around them: yet, in the case of royal children, particularly heirs […]

Gordon Thomas and Greg Lewis, Shadow Warriors of World War II: The Daring Woman of the OSS and SOE A good few months for espionage and spy books. I look forward to reading this one…

Goodbye Christmas…

These nine stories were published in 1825, then somehow fell through the cracks of history. William Wilde (Oscar’s dad) claimed in 1852 that they were the best things out there on Irish folklore. Yeats later (from what Beach can see) pretended to have read them, but there is suggestive evidence that he had not. Here […]

We have literally hundreds of British and Irish fairy sightings from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and it is striking how often fairies are seen in battle garb: the fairy armies. Yes, there are important folklore traditions about fairies fighting each other: the hosts of Ulster against the host of Connaught, the host of Ireland […]

When these animals were frightening. The intricacy and unreality of the horns… Invisible, 8 Jan 2017: While the creature in the painting is a little Seussian, I don’t see that the horns are completely unrealistic. The Cincinnati Museum Center has a prehistoric elk skeleton that is utterly terrifying; the horns depicted aren’t that far from the genuine […]

***dedicated to RJ*** Fakelore – fake folklore – is a term which we owe to Richard Dorson, who first employed the word in print in 1950. Beach recently followed suit in an article and was surprised at the howl of rage from several readers. It seems that fakelore is off-limits in decent society: whoops! Here is Francisco […]

When the gown goes ‘boo’!

The originality of Victorian criminals is often breath-taking. Here is a particularly fine dodge and something that would have made a quite excellent Sherlock Holmes short story. A remarkable case of attempting to extort money is reported from New York. Some years ago, it may be remembered, a Mr Rosenbaum, in London, was annoyed in […]

The Wandring Whore was a mysterious late seventeenth-century English dialogue between a number of ladies of the night, which was published in five numbers 1660-1661. It is titillating stuff and, after some back and forth between these bawds, each edition included a list of London prostitutes. Of course the publisher did not approve. God forbid! […]

Dear Reader, Beach has been a bad blogger. The past week he has barely put a post up as he was – writing his new book… The book in question is about the supernatural in the island whose cold, harsh Atlantic sands you see above. Apart from crazy and happy writing hours still a lot […]