Beachcombing's Bizarre History Blog

The whole question of where pumpkin heads or Jack o’ Lanterns come from is fascinating. No one has been able to drag the date convincingly back beyond the nineteenth century and the point of origin is very generally: ‘Britain’ or ‘Ireland’ with constant references to ‘the Celtic areas’, with the implication that the tradition is […]

Edwardian pic? 25 Feb 2015, Nathaniel writes in ‘According to this site, “New York circa 1921. Stage actress Marilyn Miller in the driver’s seat.”

This particularly forgotten kingdom was to be found in a small area of medieval northern Syria near Antarados (marked on white on the map above). At its height it included ‘ten strong castles with the villages and environs’ and perhaps 60,000 citizens: its real centre was at Kadmous and Masyad. So what, thinks the reader, […]

Blackfoot mother and child, Alberta?

He knocks at doors wheer new-born babs Hev kaled him throo t’ black heawrs o’ dark; He knocks wheer deoth stalks in an’ grabs, Or age hes thrown fooak eawt o’ wark. He knows heaw mony raps ‘ll rouse Young lusty Dick, or sleepy Nan. He knocks ’em eawt o’ t’ second snooze, ‘Rat-tat, rat-tat, […]

Supposedly a British family greeting the troops out of Dunkirk

Love or hate Gandhi, and God knows there are plenty of reasons for both, there is something remarkable about this abortive correspondence between he and Hitler (see below the post): ‘correspondence’ might not be the right word as Hitler never wrote back. The first letter dates to late July of 1939 when the world was […]

Giles Milton, When Hitler Took Cocaine and Lenin Lost His Brain, History’s Unknown Chapters I’m always a sucker for these books…

This is a one of these stories where the problem is not with the facts but with interpretation. As it involves human facts it is not a very happy story: be warned a little girl dies. We are in 1871 in Ashton-under-Lyne just outside Manchester. Mr F. Price is the coroner and he held his […]

Laura Cumming’s The Vanishing Man: by all accounts ‘a great detective story’.

You are living in the middle of the nineteenth century and, man or woman, you have failed to get your mate for life. Perhaps you regret, saying, ‘no’ to the third son of a duke: or perhaps you regret asking twelve daughters of men in ecclesiastical offices. The point is that, tick toc, time is running […]

Beer Day in Iceland, end of prohibition, 1989

Perhaps the real key to the Red Fairies problem is language. As we have established they are referred to as y Gwilliaid Cochion Mowddwy in Pennant our first extensive source. Let’s work backwards. Mowddwy refers to their region, modern Mawddwy. No problem there. Cochion refers to a deep red colour. Again no problem or controversy. (Some […]

Colorised image, beautiful face 25 Feb 2016: it has been pointed out multiple times now that this is not a 19 cent teacher but probably Edwardian. Leif can speak for all those readers who objected: The Nineteenth century teacher photograph is lovely, but do double check the date. Women wore long hair throughout the 19th […]

One curious folklore tradition survives about ‘the red fairies’. This is David Pennant our earliest extensive source. The traditions of the country respecting these banditti, are still extremely strong. I was told that they were so feared, that travellers did not dare go the common road to Shrewsbury, but passed over the summits of the […]