Beachcombing's Bizarre History Blog

Beach recently ran with a story that Napoleon was believed to have visited Britain incognito in 1803: Wales to be exact. Here is an annex to that post. The wonderful idea that Napoleon’s brother had holed up in a convent in Dorset at Marnhull no less! These were the glory years when the French were […]

It is a WIBT (wish I’d been there) moment from Chinese history. One night in the mid-late eighth century the warriors of the Chinese warlord Ch’Eng-szu (704-778) were preparing a sacrificial feast. Some struck up music to add to the festive atmosphere when suddenly a very strange thing. Dozens of the war horses in the field […]

First the problems with dates. This appears in a 1913 newspaper and had been borrowed from the Observer, which had taken it from a newspaper from ‘A Hundred Years Ago’, named Drakard’s Paper. 1813, c. 1813? For the record this does not sound like a report from 1813, but why spoil a good story Wednesday, […]

Jesse’s bloodline

Gargoyle from Rheims

Remarkable piece: late 1500s. Note that the two bare-bottomed men, top left, may be professional farters…

Couldn’t forget this one. At leas there are flowers.

Much of British folklore has been carefully curated and packed into volumes on library shelves: but most of British folklore lies, in truth, uncollected out in the fields. This brings us to one of the heroes of modern British folklore, Roy Vickery. RV is a botanist with a long-term interest in the folklore of plants: […]

1942 Stalingrad: unlikely he survived… Tim from Detritus writes: ‘I realize that the History Photos are subject to less reader scrutiny than the formal posts.  But your “Grizzled German Soldier” caught my eye.  The uniform was odd. It has a Luftwaffe “eagle” and an Infantry combat badge. Perhaps an antiaircraft unit that was forced into a […]

Mermaid images from medieval Britain and not particularly common. There are quite a few medieval carvings, some explored in an interesting  2013 book Of Sirens and Centaurs by Alex Woodcock. But actual drawings or paintings are rare. This is why this fabulous doodle in a fourteenth-century Welsh manuscript is so exciting. The manuscript in question […]

Location: Roman Italy where leprosy is well documented. This is one of these ancient treatments that is presented as science but reeks of magic. Aim: limit progression of leprosy Ingredients: bugs, fire, earthenware pot, linen cloth, rose leaves, salt, vinegar and water. Method: (i) Gather some insects in. These should be cantharides (spanish fly, fat […]

An important fairy institution are bad productions of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in which a little girl with brown butterfly wings runs on stage being announced as Moth, one of Titania’s maids. Yet bad moth costumes may all be based on a misunderstanding. The basics. Titania, it will be remembered, has four servants: Peaseblossom, Mustardseed, […]

Young Sinatra in the bathroom

  Beach has been worrying for a while about  the death of the last Abbasid Caliph in February 1258. The man in question, al-Musta’sim-Billah Abu-Ahmad Abdullah bin al-Mustansir-Billah had had the misfortune, fifteen years into his reign, to be confronted with a massive Mongol invasion under Hulegu. Al-Musta’sim-Billah was not a particularly martial sort and […]

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