Beachcombing's Bizarre History Blog

How long did fairy beliefs survive in different parts of Ireland? And how well did these beliefs survive? In some senses the question should be easy to answer. After all, Ireland has the most detailed folklore records in the world. But unfortunately Irish folklorists were, after independence, more interested in folklore tales and tale types […]

This is a cute story from the States, picked up by an Irish newspaper in 1873. Whether this story is true or false we do not know; but it is said here that recently in the parish of St. Martin, Iberia, or somewhere down that way, an old widow lady, whose children had all married […]

Six Tory MPs: 1992 (?) fronted by Teresa Gorman, one of the UK’s more eccentric MPs in the later 20C.

The Yasgurs at the end of Woodstock: what have they done to our land…

19C Naval Bombardment of Bomardsung

This poker story comes from an extremely rare poker book that has, unfortunately, never been scanned and put online, John Lillard’s Poker Tales. It is perhaps the best collection of poker anecdotes the world has seen and dates to 1896: A certain very well known New Jersey politician – an old man, whose fame extends […]

The Palace of the Soviets, begun in 1937 and never finished thanks to the war: it now has a cathedral on top of it which says it all…

Beach lived for three glorious years in Spain and there is something very Hispanic about the following Spanish duel. Honour, pain and everyone taking themselves a little too seriously. Two officers have decided to fight. The duellists are fencing experts of unusually high standard, and the bitterness between the two men was so great that […]

Catherine Lacey and Forsyth Harmon, Art of the Affair An ‘illustrated history’: could be very good or rather bad…  

Location: the spell is described by the English writer John Aubrey in the 1680s. He alleges though that it was from ‘[t]he Jewes’. Aim: to grow a number of magic beans that will render the eater briefly invisible. Ingredients: some black beans, a decapitated human head, a young child. Method Aubrey’s Spell (Aubrey 1881, 102-3) […]

Matthews, House of Spies British intelligence in the 20C

Two slaves and their owner.

Location: tradition found in the Germanic regions of Continental Europe and Scandinavia, and also in parts of Britain. Aim: The collection of the raven stone (korp-sten in Scandinavia, Lloyd 1854, 331) that will render the owner invisible, though note that the stone is also credited with bringing luck and curing humans and cattle of diseases: […]

Beach has a heaving filing cabinet full of spells: spells from the Middle Ages, spells from early modern Europe and spells from as recently as the Second World War. Some of these apparently date back to deepest antiquity; some are probably the spontaneous invention of men and women with borderline psychologies and would, as such, […]

Not sure about this one…