Beachcombing's Bizarre History Blog

Aristotle writes in his Politics (7, 2) that ‘among the Iberians, a warring people, they fix obeliskoi in the earth around a man’s grave corresponding to the number that they have killed’. This is a much quoted sentence and one that has caused some confusion over the years because of the translation and mistranslation of obeliskoi. […]

Not sure what is going on here, but my guess is a peasant is finishing off a knight, possible with the knight’s sword. 23 May 2016, lots of emails pointing out what should have been obvious. This is David on Goliath. D’oh. E.g. Tarcangel: Your May 20, 2016 drawing of a “peasant killing a knight” […]

Beach likes to think that he presents an interesting series of monsters to the international anomalist, folklore horror and ghost community. But he has one regret. In largely limiting himself to British and Irish newspapers the range of fauna is often fairly modest, certainly when compared to the marvelous stuff that appears in some American […]

The other big three, Wilson, Clemenceau, Lloyd George: would you put the future of Europe in their hands?

  There follows a particularly vivid description of an African execution/sacrifice of a witch. The witness, Paul B. Du Chaillu (obit 1903) was describing his travels in West Africa in the 1850s: Du Chaillu has gone down in history as the first westerner to see gorillas (though there is Hanno…) Here he instead he learns […]

Unexciting title but this thirteenth century MS has something

Beach came across this reference to postal messengers being delayed the inference being that this was because of a fear of Derbyshire bogeys: we are near the ivy-covered village of Longnor in the deep Peaks (UK 1874). For the guidance of our friends and neighbours we learn that our post-messenger will for the future be […]

Shiver….

English is a Germanic language and its closest living relation should be one of the Continental Germanic tongues, German, Dutch and the like. However, try speaking English to a German who knows no English, or try understanding German (with just English) and you will find that they are very distant relations. An Italian listening to Spanish: or […]

Daily Mirror just as war is declared, a bit late of course…

Beach has previously examined the frequent paranormal experiences of sentries in the nineteenth century: with the help of Chris from Haunted Ohio Books. It has, long-time readers will remember, been suggested that lonely, potentially violent men asked to spend the night, attentive to every noise and movement, might easily conjure up ‘something’. Here are two […]

Anyone but a fool or a wishful (?) thinker would have understood that the Third Reich was doomed by early 1945. Yet, as we all know, the Nazi high command kept shooting. Tanks were sent west for the Battle of the Bulge and German soldiers frequently fought to the last man a week after Hitler […]

Rick Antonson has just brought out Full Moon with Skyhorse. Always intrigued by the Noah’s Ark legend…  

Beach recently stumbled upon a small book of early nineteenth-century British toasts: literally hundreds of them, composed in a time where standing an offering a pithy sentence at drinking was a fundamental part of being a gentleman. Of course, toasts went out with the Second World War so it is difficult to compare them with […]

Andrew J. Bacevich, America’s War for the Greater Middle East A long military perspective. Greatly looking forward to this one.