Beachcombing's Bizarre History Blog

…with 1 and, on reflection, 3)… The Lady of the Key: Lisa L with a parallel story (can’t get it because in Europe…) The Rolling Muff of Gross Isle: Steven…

Location Germany, mid Europe? Aim to create a small living man Ingredients horse manure, semen, a gourd, some human blood. Method (i) Hollow out the centre of the gourd and…

…with aprons, etc., and knit, gossip and crotchet; balls, where men adopt the ladies’ evening dress, are well known in Europe. ‘The Fairies’ of New York are said to be…

…or at midnight? The ultimatum expired at midnight in Berlin. That was midnight according to Central Europe time: it meant eleven o’clock according to Greenwich time. We resolved to wait…

…killed each other in their own contest of honour with swords. Did it actually happen? First consideration, Ireland was the dueling capital of Europe, and Galway was arguably the dueling…

…as a survivor from Europe’s fin de siècle (c. 1900 not c. 2000) upper middle classes who had a little too much time on his hands; and who in a…

…ancient Mediterranean then. But how much older? Does it appear in northern Europe, perhaps in enthusiastic Renaissance readers of Pliny? Help: Can anyone find any parallels to this medical ritual,…

War over in New York. The false 1918 celebrations: a wrong report from Europe set off the celebrations prematurely….

…order to see the exhibition at an early stage, and so they went by express across Europe, reaching Paris at nine o’clock one evening. At the Gare de Lyon their…

…another change which is much more important. In the Middle Ages (and in some very rural parts of Europe up until the Second World War) fairies were a mirror of…

…as one of the facets of the supernatural: or perhaps better why did the rest of Europe not choose the turkey? Likewise why did the Irish not tell stories about…

The three great totalitarian states that dominated Europe in the 1930s were the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. Did these have their own urban legends? Of course. But…

…West. There would have been both cherubs and Cupid with his bow in the still remaining murals and illustrations from the pagan era throughout Western Europe in the era the…

…I’ve heard many stories about people emerging from trees from the European perspective but I do know that some African peoples have traditions of their ancestors being formed from plants…

…ancestors) breast-fed and this was, of course, true anywhere. There were no aristocratic neanderthals who opted out. However, not all human communities milked animals. Northern Europe and North-Eastern Africa were…