Beachcombing's Bizarre History Blog

Just in case you need to swim a long way…

Loved this one…

Location: Only attested in the English West Country and only found in one source (Anon 1870) Aim: To discover the name of your future spouse. Ingredients: a bowl, water, some paper, pens and scissors, a literate family member. Method: West Country Spell (anon 1870) (i) Get a literate family member to write out all 26 […]

The Toros of Guisando in Spain

Big Ben the great bell that rings out from Westminster is a central part of British identity: not least because its chimes have, for many years, sounded on national radio and television programs. It would hardly be surprising then that there are superstitions about Big Ben, but what is surprising is that these seem not […]

These words came from an article in All the Year Round 1869 trying to explain ghosts as problems of sensation. It is unusually well written, and goes into some areas of perception that modern studies don’t deal with: we tend to be obsessed by sight. Next to sight, hearing is the sense most frequently imposed […]

In 1989 Janet Abu-Lughod published her Before European Hegemony. In a series of graphics and discussions she attempted to map out not the trade routes, but the trade zones (‘trade circuits’) that divided up Eurasia and, indeed, Africa to the north of the Sahara and down the Horn. As with many bold economic books, these […]

A study in British attitudes, this one, in the decades before the famine.

Beach is coming back to the Battle of the Frigidus in 394, by all means click the link if you need to refresh your memory. As Theodosius is bringing his army up to fight Eugenius’s army something rather strange is described by the historian Rufinus. But the pagans [Eugenius’ army], who are always giving fresh […]

‘The clocks go back…’

Wow…

This is a lovely tale. An elderly chap meets a young man in a tram car who confesses that he was once a pickpocket. He gives the story of his conversion. I was lounging about, when in came a gentleman with a long basket. It was the most curious basket I had ever seen, with two […]

Beach wants to induct E. E. Evans-Pritchard into his Rogue Researchers club for an experience that befell the great British anthropologist during his field work in Africa. This passage comes from his famous first chapter in Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande (1937). The experience is probably from 1925 or 1926: I have only […]

Allegedly Titanic lifeboats…

Truman: ‘what have I got myself into here?’