Beachcombing's Bizarre History Blog

19C taken from Walter Scott.

In the famous image of Henry VIII’s family from 1545 there is a mysterious figure walking on the left in the background. The woman apparently has no hair (note the back and front of her head and compare with the princesses in the picture) and she seems rather lost, perhaps even confused. Different theories for […]

Christian woman stolen off.

Beach goes to the motherland today with daughters and without dog or wife. Mixed feelings. Here is a familiar sounding story. Eugene Delacroix has persuaded the richest man in Europe, Baron James de Rothschild to pose as a beggar for a painting. Rothschild, a gentleman, agrees. Delacroix hung a tunic on his shoulders, placed a […]

Prohibition era. Bruce T, 30 Jul 2017: Cane flasks are still being produced, for amusement purposes only, of course, and used at certain sporting events were liquor is banned, or events where drinking is considered inappropriate during the ceremonies, graduations, recitals, funerals, weddings, church, anywhere the long winded and so-called upright reign and go on for […]

Outstanding story about coming face to face with the devil in Paris. This first appeared in October 1888. The folklore motif that rounds the tale off is: G303.16.3.1. Happy reading… The chief persons named are a Russian Prince, Pomerantseff, and a French Abbé, Girod, who ridiculed the whole theory of apparitions. The conversation at a dinner […]

Beautiful detail.

Chances of survival nil.

Chicago police arrest bathers for indecency… 1920s?

British folklorists badly screwed up their own discipline in the late nineteenth century. When they should have been collecting the rich crops from the home counties and the north and midlands they, instead, indulged in premature comparative work, looking overseas for answers to stupidly ambitious questions. The comparison with some of Britain’s smaller European neighbours […]

Location: This spell is only attested in the Countryman, a British magazine in 1949, for Cornwall. Bit suspicious of its authenticity, but then desperate circumstances… (Anon 1950, 155) Aim: To assure that a sinner of his or her deathbed will get through the pearly gates. Ingredients: A black rooster, a death bed, a dying man […]

Dear Reader The above image comes from the web but my elder daughter wanted this picture of record on the web of two of Beach’s favourite friends. Happy times in the garden here. There follow the most interesting words sent in to StrangeHistory. Thanks to all contributors and linkers… Enjoy July! The mosquitoes have arrived […]

The Index Biography is a quiz pioneered by this blog and introduced in a previous post. The creator must find a biography of a famous individual from history, they must turn to the index and write down eight peripheral facts about the individual’s life. We offered up previously here Sheridan le Fanu and Joseph Stalin (he of ripe […]

The King’s Evil (aka scrofula) was a form of tuberculosis that created horrific injuries on the skin’s surface, particular in the neck area. It could only be cured, many early modern French and British sufferers believed, by contact with royalty: a sufferer would go to the king or queen, be touched, and cured. The practice […]