Victorian Urban Legends: Story-Killers! August 27, 2022
Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
***I’m putting a series of Victorian Urban Legends posts up to draw the reader’s attention to my just released book: The Nail in the Skull and Other Victorian Urban Legends. This legend (with full references) will appear in a second volume. If anyone can fill in missing pieces or offer other sources… I’ll be grateful and you’ll be […]
Victorian Urban Legends: Coffin Child August 1, 2022
Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
***I’m putting a series of Victorian Urban Legends posts up to draw the reader’s attention to my just released book: The Nail in the Skull and Other Victorian Urban Legends. This legend (with full references) will appear in a second volume. If anyone can fill in missing pieces or offer other sources… I’ll be grateful and […]
Victorian Urban Legends: The Smiths and the Rookery July 8, 2022
Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
***I’m putting a series of Victorian Urban Legends posts up to draw the reader’s attention to my just released book: The Nail in the Skull and Other Victorian Urban Legends. This legend (with full references) will appear in a second volume. If anyone can fill in missing pieces or offer other sources… I’ll be grateful […]
John Clare and ‘Will O Wisp’ July 1, 2022
Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
John Clare (1793-1864) was a Northamptonshire poet from a poor rural background. He includes in his writings a series of supernatural experiences that are more usually filtered through the educated writing of Clare’s ‘betters’. As Chris Woodyard and I speak, on this month’s Boggart and Banshee, about spook lights, I thought I’d revisit Clare’s run […]
Victorian Urban Legends: Canine Protector June 20, 2022
Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
***I’m putting a series of Victorian Urban Legends posts up to draw the reader’s attention to my forthcoming book: The Nail in the Skull and Other Victorian Urban Legends. This legend (with full references) will appear in a second volume. If anyone can fill in missing pieces or offer other sources… I’ll be grateful and you’ll […]
Victorian Urban Legends: The Gentleman Crossing-Sweeper June 10, 2022
Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
***I’m putting a series of Victorian Urban Legends posts up to draw the reader’s attention to my forthcoming book: The Nail in the Skull and Other Victorian Urban Legends. This legend (with full references) will appear in a second volume. If anyone can fill in missing pieces or offer other sources… I’ll be grateful and you’ll […]
Victorian Urban Legends: Incognito Aristocrat June 4, 2022
Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
***I’m putting a series of Victorian Urban Legends posts up to draw the reader’s attention to my forthcoming book: The Nail in the Skull and Other Victorian Urban Legends. This legend (with full references) will appear in a second volume. If anyone can fill in missing pieces or German sources… I’ll be grateful and you’ll be […]
William, the Fairies and the Bath June 1, 2022
Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern*This is the subject of Chris and my most recent Boggart and Banshee podcast* **For the source file; and for other Puca books and pamphlets** William Butterfield’s run in with the fairies at Ilkley is one of the best-known encounters in British supernatural folklore. An account appeared in the first number of Folk-lore Record in […]
Victorian Urban Legends: Nose Duel May 28, 2022
Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
***I’m putting a series of Victorian Urban Legends posts up to draw the reader’s attention to my forthcoming book: The Nail in the Skull and Other Victorian Urban Legends. This legend (with full references) will appear in a second volume. If anyone can fill in missing pieces or German sources… I’ll be grateful and you’ll […]
Explaining Death Omens May 1, 2022
Author: Beach Combing | in : Contemporary, Modern
I just can’t take pre-cognition and death omens seriously: a bat flying into the window, a rooster singing loud at midnight, even an encounter with a tall woman combing her hair. Yes, yes, all these are picturesque folklore confetti. But to say, as many of our ancestors did, that they represent the grim reaper throwing […]
Headless Badgers and Witchy Rabbits April 1, 2022
Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
Boggart and Banshee’s new podcast is here on the Wesley Poltergeist. Readers of many years may recall that I visited this case in a long thread of posts back in 2015. Well, now Chris and I have returned to rake through the poltergeist ashes. I was struck again by how while this might not be […]
Working a Spell at Boggart Hole Clough March 1, 2022
Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
Boggart Hole Clough, the subject of this month’s Boggart and Banshee podcast, is a large park to the north of Manchester. Now it is well within the conurbation (the modern park is discussed in my new book): once it was an obscure, haunted (as the name suggests) ravine between two parishes. In the podcast we […]
The Boggart: A Study in Shadows February 15, 2022
Author: Beach Combing | in : Contemporary, Modern
This morning, my new book comes out – The Boggart: Folklore, History, Placenames and Dialect. It is three hundred pages long and has just shy of a thousand items in the bibliography. There are lots of maps and images and, reader, if it dropped on your head from a three-storey building it would brain you. […]
Dark Thoughts on the Wollaton Gnomes January 31, 2022
Author: Beach Combing | in : Contemporary
Introduction The Wollaton Gnomes was a classic anomalous encounter. 23 September 1979, a half dozen primary school children went for an evening walk in Wollaton Park in Nottingham. A number of these children then saw thirty small cars each with a gnome driver and passenger. The encounter lasted, according to the children, about fifteen minutes, […]
Poltergeists and the Boggle Factor January 8, 2022
Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
The boggle factor is a crucial concept in anomaly studies: at what point do you just lose all patience with an account. For instance, John Smith tells you that he saw a ghost with its head tucked underneath its arm. OK, we smile politely. John Jones, meanwhile, tells you that he saw a ghost with […]