Beachcombing's Bizarre History Blog

Introduction The Wollaton Gnomes was a classic anomalous encounter. 23 September 1979, a half dozen primary school children went for an evening walk in Wollaton Park in Nottingham. A number of these children then saw thirty small cars each with a gnome driver and passenger. The encounter lasted, according to the children, about fifteen minutes, […]

The boggle factor is a crucial concept in anomaly studies: at what point do you just lose all patience with an account. For instance, John Smith tells you that he saw a ghost with its head tucked underneath its arm. OK, we smile politely. John Jones, meanwhile, tells you that he saw a ghost with […]

The subject of this month’s podcast is Ann Jefferies (1625-1713), a Cornish fairy witch. An accompanying Pwca book is available on Amazon: Ann Jefferies and the Fairies A Source Book for a Seventeenth-Century Cornish Fairy Witch Introduction: Ann and the Fairy Witches Ann Jefferies (aka Anne Jefferies, Ann Jeffries etc) started seeing fairies in 1645. […]

In today’s Boggart and Banshee podcast Chris Woodyard and I talk about the Woman in Black, a largely forgotten and utterly terrifying supernatural figure of American provenance. WiB, as devotees fondly call her, started to be seen in the 1860s in the United States. She would, in the next decades, be spotted in all corners […]

Introducing Spiking Zara a nineteen-year-old fresher at Nottingham Uni (UK) had, 11 October of this year, an extremely unpleasant experience. After entering a nightclub in the city Zara had a ‘complete blackout’ and the next morning she could, on waking, remember nothing of what had happened to her: ‘It’s not a blur of memory, it […]

Introduction Take three children, an adolescent, a score of dancing elves, an unnerving chase and a stile. What do you get? Perhaps the scariest British fairy encounter. The Dancers It was summer 1757, and about midday. At Lanelwyd House to the south of Bodfari (Wales) four children decided to play outside, as the adults prepared […]

I’ve never heard of these shenanigans before but my immediate reaction is ‘urban legend’. In urban legends, remember, ‘razor blades’ are put in everything from Halloween sweets or apples (US) to lipstick (Iran), to slides (stuck there with chewing gum) so why not behind posters? After all, ‘if someone was to tear [a poster] off […]

Introducing the Magic Mersey Between 9 March 1857 and 22 June of the same year the Liverpool Mercury ran a series of thirteen articles on ‘fortune-tellers and their dupes’. I’ve just published these articles (about 30,000 words) in a pamphlet entitled: The Wizards, Astrologers, Fairy Seers and Witches of Victorian Liverpool.*  Taken together they are […]

1873, 2 women see a weird humanoid on the road between 2 Bedfordshire villages. Was it a ghost, a fairy, death or an itinerant tramp?

In nineteenth century Britain we have several references to ghosts and fairies attacking newly constructed railways…

I have had a couple of years off from the Beachcombing Blog and thought that it was time that I got to work again. When I started this blog ten years ago I was at a crossroads in my life. I’d just had a ‘bothersome’ medical diagnosis and I realised that I could no longer […]

There are several reports from early twentieth-century Ireland of crowds of boys chasing leprechauns. This is the best attested of what we might call ‘leprechaun riots’ (named for ghost riots): Belief in the fairies, the ‘good people’ is still prevalent in many of the country districts in Ireland. During the past few days the superstition has been revived in […]

Dear Friends, many of you have written over the past months to ask me how I am and whether Beachcombing will return. I can’t answer that yet: though if it comes back it will be in a different form – there is muttering for example about a podcast. For now thanks for your interest and […]

Events have unfortunately overtaken the Beachcombings and this blogger is about to travel around the world to see a sick relative. Beachcombing is suspended until better weather. Might be a week might be a month…

Marijuana facts…