Beachcombing's Bizarre History Blog

…Suicide Together: German Phrenologists: Serpent Mounds: Eilmer Flies at Glastonbury: Flight in Warsaw: Rescue in Shangrila: Human Sacrifice: Golden Spurs: Changelings and the Law: Fifteenth-century knowledge of Australia: Ecclesiastical Harems:…

…the standard of proof for mermaid and sasquatch affidavits, exhume the details of changeling murder cases, and put a rapping medium on trial for disturbing the peace in church. The…

…happens to mean “Elf gift”(Changeling??)) seems to be a noble woman and among the most popular theories is a scandal involving her having an affair with the priest, being raped,…

…they went over the sea? I [Beach] can’t answer to the Danan of Greece, but my experience reading about changeling babies is that it is never explained in fairy sources.It…

…authority and power of the ‘good people’. She certainly identified one sick child as being a changeling and her most famous act of magic was rich in fairies. In 1864…

…into help ‘the Jews’ in medieval times, and there are hints that changeling beliefs date back beyond the Middle Ages. Then, in modern times, there are the most bizarre legends…

All European fairy traditions have two features: kidnapped children (the changeling tradition) and misled travellers (the pixy-led tradition). Being pixy-led (a Cornish or Devon term originally but one that has…

…abandoned again, this time into the hands of the police. ‘And they went for that Ginx to whom says the author, ‘the hapless changeling was one day delivered by a…

…Munster: Munster was the part of the island where changeling belief survived the longest. It goes without saying that rather than Melbourne or London it would be good to get…

…which is a very earnest and valuable book about changeling traditions. Miss Piaskchewski had spent a little too much time reading the Brothers Grimm, but she knew her stuff and…

***Beach dedicates this to an old friend of the blog, Wade, presently recuperating in hospital: the New York Changeling needs you, Wade!*** There is a case to be made for…

…infant, the changeling of our stories. Any one who has seen as much of the Central African Pygmies as I have, and has noted their merry, impish ways; their little…

…far Harvard had nothing to worry about: all that was needed was a nice long monograph comparing abduction to fairy changeling myth with some waffle about this or that pathology…

…changeling case. Not surprisingly the city of Liverpool stuck out: Liverpool was flooded by Irish workers in the nineteenth century, particularly after the horrors of the famine, and Liverpudlian is,…

…Frank: Witty Gravestones: Operation Mincemeat: Jeanne Barret: Lancashire Kick Boxing: Vikings Vikinged: Cat Music and Cat Organs: WW1 Countdown or Surprise: Fake Fairies: Changeling in New York: Slave Free Centuries:…