Beachcombing's Bizarre History Blog

Looking at medieval cat hating Beach came across this reference, from Etienne of Bourbon (again ran into the story in that wonderful book of Barillari, Protostoria della Strega, the translation though is not hers). We are no longer with the cat in a sabat. But this has to be one of the best demon descriptions of […]

Iranian child soldiers go up to the front in the Iraq-Iranian war.

Here is one for a busy day. Not sure if this is anecdote or factual event, but it is written in an amusing fashion, in that dry understated way that some British writers had in the later nineteenth century. Beach would put it down provisionally as an urban legend: he imagines the room exploding with laughter […]

Hayek’s dedication to the Road to Serfdom in manuscript.

The main feature of the Wesley haunting were the noises that the family heard. For the most part these were banal ghost knocks but there were lots of other more exotic sounds. The following could almost stand as a prose poem: the gobbling of a turkey, (142); dancing in a closed room (142); ‘tingling’ of […]

An important preliminary to the haunting is to sketch out the period of Jeffrey’s activity. Most reference works (and this blog) refer rather carelessly to December 1716-January 1717. But a careful reading of the Wesley files shows that actually the haunting was rather more drawn out than that. First, in a very important passage we […]

Margaret Aston, Broken Idols of the English Reformation. Expensive but by all accounts amazing: I’m looking forward to reading this more than any other book this month.

Samuel Wesley was an Anglican churchman who had been given in the late seventeenth century, through royal favour, a living at Epworth in Lincolnshire. He was married to Susanna with whom he had nineteen children: including perhaps the two most important figures in early Methodism, Charles and John Wesley. At the time of the haunting […]

Celinscak, Distance from the Belsen Heap (note apparently cheaper in the UK?) A detailed description of the liberation of Bergen Belsen, by British and Dominion soldiers.

Mother thanks Adenauer for the return of her son (released POW) from the Soviet Union.

‘The Wesley ghost’ is one of the best attested instances of a poltergeist haunting prior to the twentieth century. There were apparently twelve people living in the Parsonage House (pictured), Epworth (Lincolnshire) at the time of the disturbances, disturbances that centred on the period December 1716 to January 1717: three servants, the Wesley parents and […]

Genuine? 15 Nov 2015: Nathaniel writes According to this site, it’s “ Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. Catalog #: 80-G-19948″ . So I’d say yes, it’s genuine!

A few days ago Beach started the hunt for cat hating in the Middle Ages. Here is a second text from Etienne de Bourbonne (aka Stephen of Bourbon) who has sometimes appeared here before. Etienne was a Dominican inquisitor and so is something of an expert, let’s say. Auvergne is in central France. Similarly something of […]

Eisenhower greets the troops: before DDay? 15 Nov 2015: Anon email ‘Gen Dwight D Eisenhower gives the order of the Day. “Full victory – nothing else” to paratroopers in England, just before they board their airplanes to participate in the first assault in the invasion of the continent of Europe. Photo by Moore. SC194399. Possibly […]

The longest war between states in modern history? Well, Wikipedia has a page and there are several freelance attempts to elevate this or that conflict to the most protracted, but what about the Greek-Albanian war of 1940-1987? Albania, in 1940, was an Italian satrapy and in October of that year when the Italians decided to […]