Beachcombing's Bizarre History Blog

Toby the Sapient Pig.

1960s advert (?) from UK

An immortal, Truman Capote looking wonderfully rafish.

Location: nineteenth-century Ireland Aim: to find out who you are destined to love Ingredients: a snail, two plates, a May night Method: (i) find a snail while walking at night in May (perhaps May 24, the night between the worlds?) (ii) put this snail between two plates before going to sleep (iii) sleep (iv) in […]

Horrific WW1 pic from German lines.

This is a mermaid account from mid late 1910 and from County Clare in Ireland. The last reported appearance of a mermaid is so recent as the end of April, 1910. Several people, including Martin Griffin, my informant, saw what they are firmly convinced was a mer-woman in a cove a little to the north […]

If you want to write a wacko book about humanoid lizards and immortals with kilts and poor sword etiquette living among us this might just be the passage for you. Beach’s reading from today is from Herodotus (‘I never disappoint’) of Halicarnassus and the hero is one Aristeas (seventh century BC), known among the Greeks […]

There are a number of antique and medieval references to massive numbers of arrows creating arrow storms in battles. Some readers will remember, for example the arrows blotting out the sun at Thermopylae: ‘Good, we shall fight in the shade etc’. But did these arrow storms really take place? Just how many arrows could an […]

You may not believe it, at first glance, but this painting is among the most terrifying ever hung in a gallery in Ireland. It shows a supernatural force threatening a series of Irish men and women. Confused? We’ll return to the fear in a minute. The artist was a young man of twenty two from […]

Warrior puts on inflatable! Late medieval?

Progressive vs Moderate Thinker: so which are you?

1953, Atomic Test observed from Las Vegas: get into the hotel and hide under your bed!

Roosevelt in a wheelchair: 40,000 pics in Roosevelt presidential library, only two have Roosevelt in a chair.

At the trial for Duke of Norfolk, at the very end of Henry’s reign, Bess Holland, Norfolk’s mistress gave the following testimony about Henry VIII’s obesity. She claimed that the Duke had told her: That the king was much grown of his body and that he could not go up and down stairs and was […]

Heavy or light persecution of witches: note the Celtic fringe and Italy. It has been suggested that ‘highland’ areas attracted persecution.