Beachcombed 43 January 1, 2014
Author: Beach Combing | in : Beachcombed , trackback
Dear Reader, A very happy new year to you and all yours. A pretty difficult 2013 is coming to an end here and there is the hope that the Beachcombing family will have washed their hands of all their legal and financial problems by the end of January. Included below is a slightly revamped Beachcombed with a digest of the comments given over the last month. When it was 8000 words it was manageable, when it was 10,000 words it was a pain but now there are often close to 15000 words of comments this is arguably the best form of organisation.
Before getting to the comments though here are the best of offworld links from this month (thanks to all who have sent in) and after the 26 best history links.
A Medieval Christian Fairy World: Andy K looked again at the Latin and retranslated.
A Newland to the West of Iceland: Wade wades in with the bibliography and crucially a curious Swedish Nyland from the same period in Finland! WtH!
Carter and the Translator: Andy the Mad Monk (a Polish speaker) gives some language background and James suggests that Russian may have played its part.
Durham Lights #2: Chris S began to push on the whole mirages/temperature inversions/fata morgana thing. Wish I’d done more of that. Alan offers some links and thoughts on earth lights. Nemo, meanwhile, is more sceptical about earth lights and points out that contemporary reports did not describe them in this way.
Dysfunctional Family: Tacitus from Detritus pushes the House of Constantine and gives a nod to the mad Kims of North Korea. Andy points to a TV series of the Ptolemies: brilliant stuff! And Judith from Zenobia talks Seleucids.
Earthquakes in Scotland: Andy the Mad Monk and the Count both express, with good reason, scepticism about this earthquake: was it a landslide, had it been confused with an earlier quake?
English Vampire in Spain: Mike Dash sent in a great email pointing to grease collectors elsewhere in the Spanish-speaking world. Jose Cervera, meanwhile, gives background on the Tío Saín.
Executing Christ: Open Sesame has found a new photograph from the sad Spanish Civil War with a mummified nun.
Fairies and Funerals: Chris from Haunted Ohio Books comes up with some ghostly parallels.
Flying Boy Across the Mersey: Borky reinterprets the boy’s fancy.
Hippophugi: Chris from Haunted Ohio Books writes in with a Babylonian theory for the Hippophugi.
Inevitability of the First World War: LTM sent in a fascinating series of telegrams that give pause for thought.
Killing A Nineteenth-Century Nessie: Lots of emails on this one. The Count wrote in with an overview of the kelpie phenomenon. Bob sent in the email of the month with a fascinating newspaper article with new details and the correct date for the killing. Southern Man also found some other quotations.
Mass Misunderstandings: Southern Man has found a brilliant Lap examples of the pagan misunderstanding/shock at Christian mass.
Men Wearing Mirrors: Borky got all linguistic and actually started dipping into his Aboriginal dictionary…
Mummified Cats: Bob S writes in with a letter from the Times explaining how the Egyptian cats caused serious archaeological confusion in later years! He also offered a brilliant pdf of all the Egyptian cat articles in pdf.
Napoleon and the Pyramids: The Count pokes a big hole in the account and Nene in some brilliant library work tracks the account back to Walter Scott.
Paranormal Smells: James G sent in a great article about fear and smells.
Place of Stillborn Children: Invisible sends in an article on buried children from across the Atlantic.
Swan Court: KMH is sceptical about the whole question and Chris from Haunted Ohio Books has other issues: ‘Oh, on that swan trial – how did the witnesses know the female was accused of adultery and not assault, or arson?’ Images of a swan with a matchbox…
The Gannet Club: CM writes in with a Canadian candidate.
Was Nessie a Kelpie: The Count offers a brilliant rebutal. I hope to come back to some of the points he has made.
Water that Wouldn’t Boil: Borky gave a scientific explanation here.
Witches and Brambles: Jill has found some new bloody references.
