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  • Spell: Grow a Little Man! March 18, 2018

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Medieval, Modern
    Spell: Grow a Little Man!

    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 place ripe horse manure with the semen inside it. (ii) Seal the gourd up. (iii) After forty days, or after the semen begins to move […]

    What Happened to William Hare? March 17, 2018

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
    What Happened to William Hare?

    Introduction William Burke and William Hare were two ne’er-do-wells who, in 1828, discovered that murdering people in the Edinburgh slums and selling their corpses to doctors made for good money. They were finally arrested after an incredible sixteen men and women had been done away with. Burke was tried, found guilty and hung; his common […]

    Daily History Picture: Roma Children Prisoners March 16, 2018

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical Pictures
    Daily History Picture: Roma Children Prisoners

    Roma children from Transnitra, WW2

    Buddhist Sets Himself on Fire in Ancient Greece? March 16, 2018

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Ancient
    Buddhist Sets Himself on Fire in Ancient Greece?

    Say it quietly, but there is a strong case to be made that, a score of years before Christ was born, a Buddhist monk came to Greece and  set himself on fire in a public display of piety. Sources c. 20 BC an Indian embassy made its way into the Mediterranean to pay tribute to […]

    Daily History Picture: Russian WW1 Artillery March 15, 2018

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical Pictures
    Daily History Picture: Russian WW1 Artillery

    Russian artillery against Austrian-Hungarians in WW1

    Three Beggar’d Tales March 14, 2018

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
    Three Beggar'd Tales

    This is a French story about a beggar in London (though recorded in a London newspaper…) The beggar in question was, it seems, in the habit of sitting at one of our bridges, accompanied by a dog with a placard inscribed ‘Blind’ attached to his neck, and was fortunate enough to awaken the charitable sympathies […]

    Gay Fairies: When and Why March 14, 2018

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Contemporary, Modern
    Gay Fairies: When and Why

    Introduction It was only a matter of time… In English ‘fairy’ has several different meanings. The primary one is, of course, a supernatural creature with or without wings. But somewhere down the list is a gay man. Where does this idea come from and when did it gain currency? Who Cares? It could be argued […]

    Daily History Picture: Sea Serpent 1848 March 14, 2018

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical Pictures
    Daily History Picture: Sea Serpent 1848

    1848 Sea Serpent. It has been pointed out to me that this is very phallic…

    Daily History Picture: Royal Navy Mascot March 13, 2018

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical Pictures
    Daily History Picture: Royal Navy Mascot

    Cat meets fox: a royal navy mascot.

    Victorian Urban Legend: Hypnotic Thievery March 13, 2018

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
    Victorian Urban Legend: Hypnotic Thievery

    Here is a nice French story from a period when hypnotism was given far too much credit for being able to make people do things that they did not want to do. We are in 1894. A strange story is related of an extraordinary affair which is said to have occurred in one of the […]

    Mermaid Monday: Mermaid Exhibited in Rome March 12, 2018

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
    Mermaid Monday: Mermaid Exhibited in Rome

    This horror story dates to 1841. It comes to us by a long route. This text is taken from a British newspaper, which excerpted from an American newspaper, which translated from the Revue Britannique, which took its information from the Italian press. Is it true? Drbeachcombing AT gmail DOT com Can it be traced back […]

    Daily History Picture: Cutting Sunshine March 12, 2018

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical Pictures
    Daily History Picture: Cutting Sunshine

    Cutting sunshine: what is happening in the background? RR, 16 Mar 2018: Regarding the image in the background, it appears to be a musical “parade” of sorts with children wearing folded paper hats. One boy seems to be banging a cymbal as they march in a loose procession. A curious image with the young girl […]

    Victorian Urban Legend: Ox Ring March 11, 2018

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
    Victorian Urban Legend: Ox Ring

    Busy day. Lots of work and final papers to grade, but would love to know whether this can be paralleled: drbeachcombing AT gmail DOT com On the 8th of November, 1871, a public officer at  Colchester reported that having seen a report in the Shipping Gazette that a bullock had been picked up by the […]

    Cake-Eating Fairy in 19C Staffordshire March 10, 2018

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
    Cake-Eating Fairy in 19C Staffordshire

    Introducing Nancy This little passage is a troubling one for all kinds of reasons. In the mid-late nineteenth century, an itinerant preacher recounted an experience from his time in Staffordshire (a Midlands English county that ranged, in this period, from the beautifully wild to the grimily industrial). He had evidently begged a bed in the […]

    Ghosts and a Bleeding Corpse in the Courtroom March 9, 2018

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
    Ghosts and a Bleeding Corpse in the Courtroom

    Introduction In that wonderful book by Andrew Lang, Dreams and Ghosts (1897) there is a description of a phantom finding its way into a British courtroom in 1829 (pp. 143-144). Lang did not have access to the British Newspaper Archive – what fun he would have had there! – so his reference is brief and unsatisfactory. Here is […]