Two Thousand Infants Sold to Russia for Human Sacrifice May 30, 2012
Posted by Beachcombing in : Ancient, Medieval, Modern, Prehistoric
***Dedicated to Wade who sent the relevant passage in***
The custom of burying infant children in the foundations of new buildings was well established in prehistoric, ancient and even (gulp) medieval times. The bigger and more important a building the more likely it was to a have a tot dropped in the cement. It is pretty ghastly but there you are… Humans are pretty ghastly: no news there.
The custom while not universal seems to have been used through much of Euro-Asia-Africa and large parts of the Americas. Presumably the dried cats in walls that Beach has publicised with a certain abandon in the past are an updated version of this? A sacrifice to ‘ground’ the building and assuage the gods of earthquakes, floods and other misfortunes.
Beach has come across infant burial reports from all over the world and from many different time periods. However, yesterday he ran across this extraordinary piece about the nineteenth-century China to Russia railway.
As the Siberian Railway approached the northern boundaries of the Chinese Empire and surveys were made for its extension through Manchuria to the sea, great excitement was produced in Pekin (sic) by the rumor that the Russian minister had applied to the Empress of China for two thousand children to be buried in the roadbed under the rails in order to strengthen it. Some years ago, in rebuilding a large bridge, which had been swept away several times by inundations in the Yarkand, eight children, purchased from poor people at a high price, were immured alive in the foundations. As the new bridge was firmly reconstructed out of excellent materials, it has hitherto withstood the force of the strongest floods, a result which the Chinese attribute, not to the solid masonry, but to the propitiation of the river god by an offering of infants.
The ‘rumor’ can probably be brushed gently to one side, though it says a lot about nineteenth-century China that such a rumour could grow to maturity: or is this just Russians barbarizing the Chinese with tall tales?
More difficult to deal with is the whole question of the bridge in Yarkand. Beach would bet a substantial amount of money that eight children were not bought from their parents and that they were not built into the bridge. But tradition, depravity and superstition – a particularly hellish threesome - are such that he would not bet his house (which has he hopes not skeletal remains in the foundations).
Can anyone add anything to the tradition of the children in the Yarkand bridge? drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com
(Apologies for all those unanswered emails but Little Miss B been very ill the last four days and this has coincided with a period of manic work chez Mrs B.)
Seventeenth-century English Dragons May 28, 2012
Posted by Beachcombing in : Modern
Beachcombing recently highlighted the case of a giant serpent in nineteenth-century Devon, a snake that was as thick as a thigh. Beach had assumed that this was a one off, but now he is wondering as he found a second reference to go with it. This one comes from a pamphlet with a straight-to-the-point title: The Flying Serpent or Strange News out of Essex. This was published in 1669 and tells how a beast that was spotted at Lodge Farm, Henham-on-the-Mount was
‘8 or 9 foot long, the smallest part of him about the bigness of a Man’s leg, on the middle as big as a Mans Thigh, his eyes were very large and piercing, about the bigness of a Sheep’s eye, in his mouth he had two rows of Teeth which appeared to their sight very white and sharp, and on his back h e had two wings indifferent large but not proportionable to the rest of his body, they judging them not to be above two hand fulls long, and w hen spreaded, not to extend from the top of one wing to the utmost end of the other above two foot at the most, and therefore altogether too weak to carry such an unwieldly body.
A flightless dragon then?! All this makes Beach wonder if (in imaginary terms) the Devonian snake was actually the last traces of belief in wyrms in those parts in the early eighteenth century.
Back to the Henham beast though. One writer, Alison Barnes, has gone on record with (she believes) the true identity of this beast. Crocodile? Salamander? Mutant adder? Well, actually none of the above. AB has argued that it was a practical joke. She claims that the author of the pamphlet, was also the author of the hoax: see further her ‘Ingenious William Winstanley: Poet, Journalist, Bookseller, Historian and Novelist of Saffron Walden and Quendon 1628-1698’. AB argues, in fact, that all the ‘solid witnesses’ were Winstanley’s friends and implies that lots of paper mache was employed.
So dragons were truly extinct by the seventeenth century in Britain? Well, yes and no. In 1614 another text was published whose title will speak for itself. True and Wonderfull: A Discourse relating a strange and monstrous Serpent (or Dragon) lately discovered, and yet living, to the great annoyance and divers slaughters both of men and cattell, by his strong and violent Poyson: in Sussex, two miles from Horsam, in a woode called St. Leonards Forrest, and thirtie miles from London, this present month of August, 1614. With the true generation of Serpents.
Who needs annotated bibliographies when you have a hundred word titles? A description of the ‘dragon’ follows.
He is of countenance very proud, and at the sight or hearing of men or cattel, will raise his necke upright, and seem to listen and look about, with great arrogancy. There are likewise on either side of him discovered, two great bunches so big as a large footeball, and (as some thinke) will in time grow to wings
He was eight or nine feet in length and his middle part (the thickest) was, reportedly, like the axle tree of a cart.
What on earth is happening here? drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com
The Wandering Jew in Burnley May 27, 2012
Posted by Beachcombing in : Medieval, Modern
Today it is the turn of the Wandering Jew.
For those who have never met him WJ refused to help Christ (as he was carrying his cross) or made fun of Jesus as he hung between the thieves. This proved a bad idea. WJ now meanders cursed around the globe and will do so until the end of time in penance for his oversight. The WJ legend in some senses institutionalises European anti-Semitism: it was a medieval, perhaps a thirteenth-century creation. But it is difficult not to feel sympathy for this extraordinary individual doomed to ‘walk the earth’ like Caine. And so an anti-semitic rant actually becomes a bridge to understanding and shared humanity.
Most modern studies claim that by the nineteenth-century belief in the Wandering Jew had become purely symbolic. What then to make of this news report from that very century.
We are informed that a new race of religionists have lately risen in this locality (Burnley), who pretend to have more extensive acquaintance with the ‘mysteries of the kingdom’ that any of their predecessors. They assert with much gravity that in the darkest shades of night they are permitted to hold converse with departed spirits, and for this purpose it is their custom to meet together, and hear a sweet response from heaven. The latest intelligence they have received from the invisible world is to the effect that the Wandering Jew is in some part of Lancashire, and that he will shortly pass through Burnley, when he will make a call at a certain house and communicate such important information relative to a subject that is as yet entirely ‘unknown to mortal mind’, as will ‘astonish the natives’. Really we may inquire, what will come next?
Beach doesn’t want to set up today’s post as a Borges short story, but he found this clipping at the bottom of a pile of newspapers while preparing his tax documentation. A note says that it came from the Blackburn Times but neglects to give the date: woops… If anyone can dictate the words to any blanks here then Beach would love to fill them in. drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com
In the meantime Beachcombing might note that Blackburn is something of a rival to Burnley. Was this a bit of garden green slander then or some honest to God non-conformism gone very very wrong. For what it is worth Beach’s money is on the second. As a Yorkshireman Beach, in fact, can share the intelligence that folk across the border in Lancs (Blackburn, Burnley etc) are a LITTLE strange.
Cellini and the Salamander May 26, 2012
Posted by Beachcombing in : Medieval, Modern
***Dedicated to Michael F who sent this in***
We last saw Benvenuto Cellini (obit 1571) imprinted on a French/Spanish/Scottish canon. Fourteen months on, here is a little doodle from Cellini’s infancy, judging by his autobiography the happiest years of his chaotic life.
When I was about five years old [c. 1505] my father happened to be in a basement-chamber of our house [in Florence], where they had been working, and where a good fire of oak-logs was still burning; he had an instrument in his hand and was playing and singing alone before the fire. The weather was very cold. Happening to look into the fire he spied in the middle of those most burning flames a little creature like a lizard, that was sporting in the core of intensest coals. Becoming instantly aware of what the thing was, he had my sister and me called, and pointing it out to us children, gave me a great box on the ears which caused me to howl and weep with all my might. Then he pacified me good-humouredly and spoke as follows. ‘My dear little boy, I am not striking you for any wrong that you have done, but only to make you remember that that lizard which you see in the fire is a salamander, a creature which has never been seen by anyone of whom we have credible information.’ So saying he kissed me and gave me some pieces of money.
Innella età di cinque anni in circa, essendo mio padre in una nostra celletta, innella quale si era fatto bucato ed era rimasto un buon fuoco di querciuoli, Giovanni con una viola in braccio sonava e cantava soletto intorno a quel fuoco. Era molto freddo: guardando innel fuoco, accaso vidde in mezzo a quelle piú ardente fiamme uno animaletto come una lucertola, il quale si gioiva in quelle piú vigorose fiamme. Subito avedutosi di quel che gli era, fece chiamare la mia sorella e me, e mostratolo a noi bambini, a me diede una gran ceffata, per la quali io molto dirottamente mi missi a piagnere. Lui piacevolmente rachetatomi, mi disse cosí: – Figliolin mio caro, io non ti do per male che tu abbia fatto, ma solo perché tu ti ricordi che quella lucertola che tu vedi innel fuoco, si è una salamandra, quali non s’è veduta mai piú per altri, di chi ci sia notizia vera – e cosí mi baciò e mi dette certi quattrini.
It is a cute story and one with perhaps special significance for our author. Cellini, after all, would become famous through fire, he was first and foremost a goldsmith: was this creature even his totem? As to the identity of the salamander, the renaissance saw growing belief in elementals and salamandre were the spirits of flame. Almost as curious is the strange parental technique of causing pain to induce pleasant memories.
Any other historical pre-theosophy reports of salamanders: drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com
The Talking Dog and King’s Fellow May 25, 2012
Posted by Beachcombing in : Modern
Horror upon horrors, today is tax day in the Beachcombing household. Somewhere in this study there are the various documents that justify Beach’s fiscal probity and he must now find them. The next twelve hours will be the most tedious of the year. Forgive then a small post as Beach plunges into the piles of paper. Here is a cute passage from R.W.Evans quoted by Jennifer Westwood in her wonderful Albion. Evans has been asked to gather evidence to settle two bets. (It goes without saying that Beach would far rather be doing this).
The first [bet] was as to whether so-and-so had ever been a fellow of King’s College; my researches disclosed that he had in fact once been an assistant teacher in an elementary school in King’s Road Chelsea. The second was as to a remarkable dog owned by a long-defunct classical fellow of another college; the beast had been taught to speak Latin and conversed in the most agreeable fashion with any superior person who would open the conversation by enquiring after the animal’s health. My researches showed that there was such a classical fellow attended in his old age by a servant called Airedale, who had picked up a few tags of dog-latin which, for the price of half-a-pint of beer he would recite.
Beach has long concentrated on ‘cobblers’, myth-making in history. However, he asks himself now how many of these misunderstandings are based on linguistic stupidities like this: ‘the disease of language’ of good old Max Müller. He would be extremely grateful for any extra examples, drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com and, reader, PLEASE have a better day than Beach is about to have…
The Problem with Sea Apes May 24, 2012
Posted by Beachcombing in : Actualite, Contemporary, Modern
***Dedicated to Andy the Mad Monk and Invisible***
Beach has, since the early days of this site, shown a persistent interest in mermaids. It would be outrageous then to pass by the important new documentary coming out (or has it already aired?) on Animal Planet. The following is borrowed from Wikipedia (courtesy of the inestimable Invisible).
Mermaids: The Body Found is a two hour Animal Planet… The fictional film tells the story of a scientific team’s investigative efforts to uncover the source behind mysterious underwater recordings and an unidentified marine body. Two former National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) scientists tell their story on camera for the first time. After investigating mass strandings of whales, the team claimed to have recorded mysterious underwater noises coming from an unknown source. This sound resembled a sound previously recorded in 1997, called the ‘bloop’. They also claimed to have recovered 30% of the remains of an unknown creature from inside a great white shark which was said to possess attributes of the human body. They alleged that the marine creature had hands, not fins, and the hip structure of an upright animal. These findings, along with many others led the team to determine that this unknown animal was very closely related to humans, possibly a mermaid.
So a mockumentary has been created to entertain and to offer the latest theory on mermaids. And what is this theory? This time Beach borrows from part of a Fox News report (courtesy of Andy). Note how there is absolutely no mention here of the fictional content unless the word ‘compelling’ (as in ‘the punters don’t do simple facts’) is supposed to cover that!
In the two-hour CGI Special Mermaids: The Body Found, Animal Planet dives deep into the idea that mermaids may have been real, and, even better – related to humans! ‘It’s a very radical theory on human evolution, but we have approached an age-old myth and really chased its origins,’ Animal Planet honcho Charlie Foley told FOX411’s Pop Tarts column. ‘It has been compiled in a way that is very compelling, making us think that mermaids might not just be mythical creatures.’ The show unravels mysterious underwater sound recordings and presents a bone-chilling argument for the Aquatic Ape Theory, which suggests that during the transition from apes to hominid, some humans went through an aquatic stage. This stage is argued to have resulted in ‘aquatic ape-like’ creatures. ‘There are striking differences between us and other primates, yet [there are] many features we share with marine mammals, like the webbing between our fingers, which other primates don’t have, a layer of subcutaneous fat, and a loss of body hair,’ Foley explained. ‘We also have an instinctive ability to swim, and control over breath. Humans can hold breath up to 20 minutes, longer than any other terrestrial animal.’ Mermaids: The Body Found ponders the concept that coastal flooding millions of years ago turned some of our ancestors inland, while another group branched off into the deep water out of necessity and for food.
Beach has already highlighted sea apes. In fact, he dug up, to the best of his knowledge, the earliest reference to the concept that dates back to the eighteenth century. And this is where the problems begin… Readers might want to flag up problem concerning biology, which Beachcombing is, sadly, not qualified to do: drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com However, Beachcombing would like to stick his oar into the epistemology of sea-bourne monkeys.
If you want to explain the unicorn then it makes sense to look for a now extinct creature. After all, people no longer see unicorns (with very few exceptions) and those sightings there are usually involve travelers far from home confronted by unusual but known animals. If there was a unicorn-like animal ten thousand years ago then it is possible that this animal got trapped in an early phase of human myth and that it was passed down to us from there.
However, the problem with explaining mermaids in this way is that sightings continue into the present. There are dozens of sightings, for example, from the Hebrides (Scotland) in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Beach can only see three ways forward in relation to the sea-ape theory.
(i) There is a small population of sea apes that survived (or survives) on and off the British coast and yet no body or photograph has ever turned up.
(ii) The mermaids that are seen cannot be explained as physical entities. Here you can give a psychological, a theosophist or a ‘pagan’ explanation, but sea apes are out.
(iii) By some bizarre mechanism presently beyond our understanding the sea ape, which has not lived on the Scottish coast for a thousand or ten thousand years, entered ‘collective memory’ and has reappeared in the imagination of locals: go to (ii) above but with sea apes ‘in’.
Beach just might be able to conceive, against all his better judgement, that in the wild backwoods of New Zealand or in the expanses of the Rocky Mountains there are giant flightless birds or unknown hominids. But if anyone finds a sea ape community on the coast of Scotland, he’ll eat a tonne of boiled sweets. He has never seen (pace Jungians) any proof for ancestral memory. And so he would plump for number (ii), as he would for fairies.
In fact, forget sea apes, mermaids seem to be sea fairies. And in many ways the sea ape theory is to mermaids what the late nineteenth century pygmy theory was to the fey.
People sometimes see things that are not physically present: whether they are truly external or not Beach will happily leave to the philosophers. What is absolutely terrifying about this is that if our perception can play these kinds of tricks on us (or ‘pull back the veils of creation’ if you prefer) can our senses be trusted under any circumstances? On just that subject, looking forward to the documentary…
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25 May 2012: Wade writes in ‘Your sea ape post instantly reminded me of the aquatic ape theory, first proposed by a German pathologist, Max Westenhofer, in 1942, then proposed again British marine biologist, Alister Hardy, in 1960. It has since been championed by Elaine Morgan, a Welsh writer (per Wikipedia). I saw a special on this years ago. It is a fascinating idea. My impression is that most anthropologists have either actively hated or completely ignored the theory as pseudo-science. Here are two links: Elaine Morgan’s and an anthropologist’s view that examines the controversial theory and yields the sceptical response. Thanks Wade!
The Postures: A Missing Erotic Classic May 22, 2012
Posted by Beachcombing in : Modern
Beachcombing has often celebrated in this place lost books and burning libraries. Today he wants to celebrate a book that while not lost (it can be found in a modern edition on the top shelves of academic institutions around the world) got through to us by the skin of its erotic teeth. Beach refers, of course, to I modi (the postures): an opusculus best avoided by those with back problems.
I modi included a series of sixteen possible and borderline impossible positions in coitus: dressed up, this was the renaissance, in the rags of classical myths. (‘Yes, that’s Pandora giving head” etc). These images had been originally drawn by Giulio Romano who was, legend claims, so frustrated that the Vatican had not paid his bills that he drew them on the walls of the Hall of Constantine. From there Marcantonio Raimondi engraved the ‘positions’ and, in 1524, an edition was brought out. This edition may have been limited but one copy fell into the grubby little hands of the Italian poet Pietro Aretino who wrote a number of sonnets around the theme. A second edition then appeared in 1527 that included Aretino’s non-too gentle works.
The Pope, Clement VII (obit 1534), struck back. The Papal police rushed through the capital confiscating every copy and while Aretino’s poems survived the book disappeared from view: full credit to the papal security forces, getting rid of two editions is quite an achievement. A very few fragments survive in the British museum: where there are only the faces divorced of sexual activity (see the image above). There are rumours too that an edition was brought out at All Souls (Oxford) in the seventeenth century where it almost got several dons expelled: might this have come from the same book, later ripped up as it travelled archive-wards?
Apart from these BM fragments not a single copy of the original survives but by good fortune a pirated copy was brought out in Venice (Europe’s publishing capital at this date) in 1527. The fine original engravings were reproduced with blurred or missed details and, horrors!, one of the postures was missing. The lovers of Europe gnashed their collective teeth. But at least a shadow of the original survives and it was that which was brought to the university presses in 1988 with a commentary by Lynne Lawner. In the stacks of academic libraries ‘bald heads forgetful of their sins’ breathed a collective sigh of relief.
Beach is always on the look out for lost or almost lost books: drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com
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23 May 2012: Angel W from robertstephenhawker writes ‘Hope this isn’t too lowbrow but I’m rather fond of Sarah Dunant’s novel In the Company of the Courtesan and the name Aretino rang a bell. Dunant structures her story (which begins in 1527) around a surviving copy of ‘Giulio’s Positions’ with Marcantonio’s original engravings and with ‘The Licentious Sonnets’ attached. If you haven’t come across it already and like that kind of thing it’s an entertaining romp, better than The Birth of Venus which I seem to remember receiving more attention.’ Thanks Angela!
Marco Polo and Pasta May 21, 2012
Posted by Beachcombing in : Medieval, Modern
***Dedicated to Zach Nowak and Beach’s good friends over at FoodinItaly***
The lunatic idea that Marco Polo brought back spaghetti from China to grateful Italians is a modern food myth. There is no proof for this in MP’s writing: though there is an interpolated passage that might have started the confusion. In fact, the idea of MP hauling kilos of Barilla can be disproved by external sources that show pasta was already around in Italy before MP’s birth. When did this myth begin? We don’t know, but it was certainly running up steam in 1926 when it became the subject of an American advertising campaign. Enjoy this.
Accordingly [Marco Polo] steered his ship as close to the shore as safety would permit, and sent several of his men off in a small boat in quest of fresh water. One of the sailors in the party was a Venetian named Spaghetti, and it is around this man that the legend centers. When the small boat reached the beach the 3 or 4 sailors comprising the party separated, each striking out in a different direction. They knew there would be fresh water close by, but of course did not know its exact location. Spaghetti in his search, soon came to a little patch of huts. He realised that water must be close but before advancing into the village his attention was drawn to a native man and woman working over a crude mixing bowl. The woman appeared to be mixing a dough of some kind, particles of which had overflowed the mixing bowl and extended to the ground. The warm, dry air characteristic of the country, had in a short time hardened these slender strings of dough, and had made them extremely brittle. Spaghetti observed the ingredients used, the simple method of mixing, and it immediately occurred to him that a dry food of this kind would be a welcome addition to their ship’s menu. His curiosity prompted him to approach the couple and make known his wants as best he could. Through signs and gestures he managed to obtain a quantity of the grains used in making this strange dough, also a batch of the ready mixed dough and several strings which had dried. After relating his experience, upon returning to the ship, Spaghetti ‘worked’ the entire quantity of dough into long slender ribbons. As they dried he broke them into shorter and more convenient lengths. The problem of preparing the food had not been given much thought and it was one which would have to be experimented upon. The sticks were not palatable if eaten dry, and when cooked in fresh water were not much better. Thereupon Spaghetti conceived the idea of boiling strips in sea water, which, as every one knows, is intensely salt [sic]. This method seemed to produce the best result, and to bring out the flavour of the food. Before returning to Venice Spaghetti learned much of this new and appetising food. He discovered its energy providing qualities, its ability to remain fresh [? copy not clear] and wholesome for long periods to time and noted the acclaim with which it was received by his shipmates and other Europeans to whom he introduced it. Upon Spaghetti’s arrival home the popularity of this new delicacy spread among the villagers and before long a similar food made of home grown wheat was to be found on every table.
John Dickie in his history of Italian food claims that this campaign marks the origin of Marco Polo pasta-myth: note, incidentally, the way that the advertisers don’t entirely give the credit to the Chinese. It was from there, then, that we surmise that the myth was picked up by the 1938 film The Adventures of Marco Polo, in which there is a memorable scene showing some Chinese Christians eating spaghetti with MP and his imbecile sidekick. Beach can’t find the videoclip on line, sorry… It is well worth seeing.
However, as an extract that we, long ago, passed on to FoodinItaly has shown the legend dates back to at least 1900 when this appeared in an English language cookbook.
And why, so far, no word of pasta, that ever present, ubiquitous Italian dish? For the reason that Pasta, whatever it may be to-day, is said not originally to have been a native of the country, but is alleged to be one of the many wonders brought home by the 13th century explorer, Marco Polo, from his travels in China. Nevertheless, although Pasta, in its many shapes and forms, may not have started off as a true native of Italy, to-day it seems as much a part of the country as an operatic tenor, and anyone wanting to present a truly Italian meal must perforce learn a few of the ways of preparing and cooking Pasta…
The myth seems to have already been around when this was written. So where does the myth come from and when does it begin? Can anyone help Beach and FoodinItaly track the myth down? Drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com
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23 May 2012 John G writes in with this link that contains the Marco Polo link at about twelve minutes. Beach does not have a media player on this computer so he has not been able to check the exact seconds. Thanks John!
Transvestite President? May 19, 2012
Posted by Beachcombing in : Contemporary, Modern
Beachcombing isn’t big on cross-dressing but this fabulous pastiche of poor old Jefferson Davies’ capture caught his attention. Some accounts – Union accounts it should be noted – claim that Jefferson tried to escape wearing his wife’s clothing. This comes from the New York Times.
To Maj. Hudson was given the duty of surrounding the tent of the great rebel. He picked fifteen of his best men and proceeded to execute the order, which was done with consummate skill, and to the entire satisfaction of his superior officer… After the order had been properly executed of surrounding the tent, the Major proceeded to the tent of Davis, where he was met by Mrs Davis somewhat en dishabille. She inquired if they intended to invade the privacy of a lady’s apartment. The Major thought not. At this juncture an individual having the appearance of an antiquated grandam, dressed with a lady’s waterproof cloak and shawl, minus the inevitable hoop skirt, however, accompanied by a young negro servant girl, bringing a small bucket, emerged from the tent, apparently for the purpose of going to the spring for a bucket of water. This was an ingenious device of Mrs Jefferson Davis to get her husband through the lines. The ruse failed, and Jefferson Davis was discovered. The servant girl ran back to the tent, and Jefferson Davis was soon effectually procured. For some time he remained sulky, very much after the fashion of an old lady in need of her usual compound extract of strong tea; but the ‘President’, after a while, got over his ‘fits’, and became quite communicative; conversing freely on ordinary topics, but maintaining a prudent silence on current military and political events.
Here is another Union account this time from Harper’s Weekly.
The captors report that [Davis] hastily put on one of his wife’s dresses and started for the woods, closely followed by our men, who at first thought him a woman, but seeing his boots while he was running, they suspected his sex at once. The race was a short one, and the rebel President was soon brought to bay. He brandished a bowie-knife and showed signs of battle, but yielded promptly to the persuasions of Colt’s revolvers, without compelling the men to fire. He expressed great indignation at the energy with which he was pursued, saying that he had believed our Government were too magnanimous to hunt down women and children.
Note the differences. The northern press clearly found the story so irresistible that they began to make hay with it. Within a month Barnum was actually running sketches of Davis stumbling in dresses before circus crowds.
And so the Confederacy ended not with a bang but bangs and a petticoat.
Here, instead, is a letter from the always formidable Varina Davis describing the moment of her husband’s arrest. Essentially, if we are to believe her words – and they are pretty consistent with the report in the NYT – she was responsible (perhaps accidentally) for making her husband into a woman. Though note she quickly jumped on the cross-dressing bandwagon by calling him her ‘mother’. JD always passionately denied he had put on women’s clothing and his wife’s account suggest that he may not have realised what was happening.
Just before day the enemy charged our camp yelling like demons. Mr Davis received timely warning of their approach but believing them to be our own people, deliberately made his toilette and was only disabused of the delusion when he saw them deploying a few yards off. He started down to the little stream hoping to meet his servant with his horse and arms. But knowing he would be recognized, I plead [sic] with him to let me throw over him, a large waterproof which had often served him in sickness during the summer season for a dressing gown, and which I hoped might so cover his person, that in the grey of the morning he would not be recognized. As he strode off I threw over his head a little black shawl which was round my own shoulders, seeing that he could not find his hat and after he started sent my colored woman after him with a bucket for water, hoping that he would pass unobserved. He attempted no disguise, consented to no subterfuge, but if he had, in failure is found the only matter of cavil. Had he assumed an elaborate female attire as a sacrifice to save a country, the heart of which trusted in him, it had been well. When he had proceeded a few yards, the guards around our tents with a shocking oath called out to know who that was. I said it was my mother and he halted Mr. Davis, who threw off the cloak with a defiance and when called upon to surrender did not do so – and but for the interposition of my person between his and the guns would have been shot. I told the man to shoot me if he pleased to which he answered he ‘would not mind it a bit’, which I really believed.
It is, in wartime, the duty of POWs to make for the hills and Davis was trying to do just that and his shame at women’s clothing is curious: though looking at these cartoons…It should go without saying that a long line of men from Achilles, through Bonny Prince Charlie, Antonio López de Santa Anna, Charles II and a half dozen other famous individuals owe their lives to a skirt: any others, drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com.
There is also, Beach notes, a recent trend among Islamists to use burkas to evade capture, most notably Hamdi Adus Isaac, one of the failed London bombers, who, in 2005, got to Rome relying on the multicultural sensibilities of Britain’s border police. Hamdi got back to London thanks to an international arrest warrant.
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27/May 2012: John M writes in. It seems that the Jeff Davis in a dress story is a spurious legend with no credible evidence to back it up. Cobblers, I think you call it? A most telling paragraph from this article: The arrival in Washington of the so-called petticoats proved to be a big letdown. When Stanton saw the clothes, he knew instantly that Davis had not disguised himself in a woman’s hoop skirt and bonnet. The “dress” was nothing more than a loose-fitting, waterproof raglan or overcoat, a garment as suited for a man as a woman. The “bonnet” was a rectangular shawl, a type of wrap President Lincoln himself had worn on chilly evenings. Stanton dared not allow Barnum to exhibit these relics in his museum. Public viewing would expose the lie that Davis had worn one of his wife’s dresses. Instead Stanton sequestered the disappointing textiles to perpetuate the myth that the cowardly “rebel chief” had tried to run away in his wife’s clothes. The above account seems to originate from a relatively neutral source, but I’m sure you could suss that out more adequately than I. more on the story, can be found on the lost museum and memory (scroll down a bit). thanks John M!
Shape-Shifting in a Nineteenth-Century Court-Room May 18, 2012
Posted by Beachcombing in : Modern
Beachcombing has visited the Isle of Man on several occasions in this blog (he has only been once physically): there was the mermaid sighting from an early submarine, the drunk Manx buggan, and the early medieval kingdom of Mannau. But he is confident that this story will trump them all. Our author has been describing the execution of a witch on Man in less happy times. What follows is remarkable proof of the survival of superstition and, more importantly, high comedy.
Suspected witches are now [mid 1840s] differently treated in the Island, as appears by the following case, of recent occurrence. A farmer named John Quine, residing at Ballaharry, in the parish of Marown, having lost in succession a heifer, a cow, and a horse, stupidly attributed the death of these animals to the influence of witchcraft, though it was plain to other people that his loss, in each instance, was only the effect of a natural cause. On the 19th December, 1843, he obtained from one of the deemsters a trespass warrant, under authority of which a jury was sworn and a great number of persons summoned as witnesses, and examined on the premises. The examination was conducted chiefly in Manks; and such questions as the following were put: ‘Did you ever witch Quine’s cattle?’ ‘Do you bear any malice against Quine?’ ‘Did you hear any body talking about Quine before his cattle died, and seemingly grudge him what he possessed?’ The jury was ultimately adjourned, and on the following day similar questions were proposed; but one of the jurymen interfered and refused to allow any interrogatories irrelevant to matters of trespass, and the proceedings were further adjourned till Thursday, the third day of January, in the present year 1844, when those who were summoned and did not attend on the previous day, were brought up in the custody of constables, amongst whom was Quine’s sister-in-law, a midwife in his immediate neighbourhood.
At this point Beachcombing needs to intervene to note how (1) midwifes were often suspected of witchcraft: if you ever find yourself in the 1500s do stay away from that particularly career path. Also (2) witches were, it was claimed, able to transform themselves into a hare.
After being sworn in the common form, the question put to [the midwife] was, ‘Did you ever come in any shape or form to do Quine or his goods an injury?’ The poor woman confessed that she had once passed through Quine’s fields without leave, on being called, in great haste to attend a neighbour’s wife in labour; and being frightened into the belief that she was consequently liable for the expenses of the court, before a verdict was pronounced by the jury, she agreed to pay the costs, amounting to nearly five pounds. While the advocate, employed in this case, was busily employed in taking minutes of the evidence, some wag managed to let loose, unperceived, in the room, a wild rabbit. On the appearance of this unexpected visitor, all in an instant became terrified, and a scene of confusion ensued, that may be better conceived [?] than it is possible to describe. The jury, in particular, with staring eyes, hair on end, and mouths distorted, shouted ‘the witch! the witch!’ This uproar continued for several minutes, till one of the party, more courageous and daring than the rest, seized the supposed witch, and while depriving the harmless creature of existence, triumphantly exclaimed ‘You shall not trouble poor Quine again’.
Please let this be true! The circumstantial details surely speak in its favour and our author is a meticulous early Victorian writer. Beach wagers no one will come up with a witch story as good as this one: drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com
