Beachcombing's Bizarre History Blog

From 1060-1091 Christian warriors, ‘Normans’, defeated the Islamic powers in Sicily and returned the island to the Catholic flock. For most historians this is the end of Arab civilization there, with the exception of some starbursts of Arab architecture and Arab art through the next two to three generations. However, there is one final Arab […]

Frankel, High Noon: The Hollywood Blacklist and the Making of an American Classic As long as it is not too political (ahem)….

An autobiographical post. For the last months I have been invited by a friend to help with her shiatsu training. Shiatsu, for readers who might not know, is a form of Japanese massage where the body is pressed in certain key locations. It is frequently described, in fact, as acupuncture without the needles: the shiatsu […]

Carolyn Purnell, The Sensational Past. Beach hates the enlightenment, but loves senses… What to do?

Edith Turner (deceased 2016) was a well-known British anthropologist. She is honoured here as a rogue researcher* for an experience in 1985 among the Ndembu in Central Africa. She was particularly interested in spirit healing and was allowed, at the very end of November of that year, to attend a healing ceremony where Meru, an […]

Bloody Sunday was an atrocity (simply no other word) that took place in Derry, Northern Ireland, 30 Jan 1972. On that day British paratroopers opened fire on groups of protestors and killed, over several minutes, fourteen men. Who was to blame, the individual British soldiers, their officers, the politicians who had tried to put down […]

Soviet artillery dragged into the Oder.

Here is a nice immortal story from late seventeenth century Italy. It appears in a very curious book entitled: Johann Heinrich Cohausen, Hermippus redivivus, or, The sage’s triumph over old age and the grave. If you want to be immortal you should probably give it a read. In any case, Beach introduces Signor Gualdi. There […]

Night-time Soviet Women Flyers…. Note the medals.

Location: West Ireland Aim: To rescue a man, woman or child captured by the fairies as they ride by in their fairy breeze: note that in Ireland it was commonly believed that the fairies travelled across the country is winds, typically whirling winds. Ingredients: A fairy wind, some dirt. Method: Ireland 1808 (Neilson 1808) (i) […]

Sounds finders allegedly from WW1. They are listening for planes….

Naval sweethearts say goodbye. Love the bags…

A few weeks ago Beach offered a description of fairy traditions from Marrie Walsh’s An Irish country Childhood (1996). While reading he was also struck by this tradition about weasels. What is fascinating here is that the weasel is given (in a country where snakes are in short supply) the role normally given in European […]

Sorry… Nathaniel, an old friend of this blog, 30 Mar 2017, sends this in. We clearly have a genre. I (Beach) prefer the Christ one.

James Stejskal, Special Forces Berlin One of the two books I’m most looking forward to this month (if as advertised!)