The Leprechauns of Liverpool and the Bowling Green from Hell May 14, 2012
Posted by Beachcombing in : Contemporary, Modern
Beachcombing has been spending some time in the last few days looking at the fairy lore of Irish immigrants: spurred on by his continuing failure to find the New York changeling case. Not surprisingly the city of Liverpool stuck out: Liverpool was flooded by Irish workers in the nineteenth century, particularly after the horrors of the famine, and Liverpudlian is, to this day, the one English ‘accent’ that shows signs of Irish influence. Beach has managed to track down a thin gruel of nineteenth-century fairy references from Liverpool, in a period where one fifth to one third of the city was of Irish decent. He would be extremely grateful for any help here: drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com However, he also stumbled upon the curious story of the Liverpool Leprechauns.
Beach should start by saying that this story is somewhat outside his normal remit. It is very modern, it involves lots of screaming children, and, worst of all, UFOs (hats off to Magonia) make an unwelcome sweep over the Mersey… But it is also entertaining and, hey, rather the Summer of the Leprechauns than the Summer of Sam.
30 June 1964 children (number unspecified) saw ‘little men’ (numbers variable) in Jubilee Park near that vortex of northern necroticism, ‘the bowling green’. (If Beach ever writes a horror short story it will be called simply, ‘the Bowling Green’ and it will be illustrated by a man with bushy eyebrows drinking piss-weak ale.) Quite what the children saw has been much debated. ‘White hats’ on the little men were noted, as were their antics in throwing sods at each other. What is documented is that very rapidly the little men were interpreted (by the press?) as being leprechauns.
Leprechauns are, of course, an Irish solitary fairy known for shoe-making and vast wealth: Beach’s daughter recently shared with him the insight that the leprechaun might be rich because he sells lots of shoes. Legend claims that if you grab and hold a leprechaun you will be able to claim the fey’s treasure. So was ‘leprechaun’ just a reflex word picked up by a local journalist: leprechaun are always male, the connection might have been as simple as that? Or do we have here third of fourth generation Irish children living the stories told them by their grandparents? And in either case was this all hysteria? Beach’s belief system requires him to nod sagely here. But some modern Liverpudlians have memories. Make what you will of the following two.
I was one of the school children that saw those leprichauns I attended Brae Street School and we all saw them popping in and out of a window overlooking the school yard , there were about 4 of them all tiny dressed like a school book idea of a typical gnome and they sat swinging their legs on the window ledge getting in and out. What they were I don’t know I only know what they looked like. I’d love to know the truth!!!
I certainly [remember leprechauns], and I actually saw a few of them on Kensington Fields, close to the library, but my parents and other adults tried to convince me that I”d been seeing things. This would be one afternoon in early July 1964, around 4.30pm, and I remember it as if it were yesterday. I was 10 at the time and on my way to play football with my mates and saw these little (I”d say just a few inches tall) men dressed in red and black, standing in the grass, looking at me. I’m sure one of them had some type of hat on. I panicked and ran all the way home. My mum said there had been reports of leprechauns and little men on Jubilee Drive and Edge Lane the day before. That same evening crowds turned up on Jubilee Drive, and I remember a girl with a jam jar that she was going to put the leprechauns in!
Luckily, a history blog can leave the existential questions to one side and go like a hungry ferret after the hysteria. By the 1st word was spreading among the little folk (the children not the fairies) and swarms descended on Jubilee Park to see for themselves.
It was all too much for Irish parks constable James Nolan. ‘I don’t believe in leprechauns myself’, he said. He called in the city police. Police in cars and on motorcycles arrived. They cleared the hundreds of youngsters from the bowling greens — the reported playground of the wee folk — closed the gate, and stood guard. But beyond the bowling green gates the youngsters milled, tiny tots to 14-year-olds. They crammed the top of the covered reservoir for a better view of the bowling green. Tolerant bobbies wandered about trying to get the youngsters on the move. But the kids would not believe that there were no little green men. It was not until after 10pm that the park was cleared. How the story started was not known, but last night was the second night running of the leprechaun hunt. And how did those little brownies who help the Irish housewife with her chores come to arrive in Liverpool? Maybe they flew from old Ireland. A woman resident in Crosby last night reported seeing ‘strange objects glistening in the sky, whizzing over the river to the city from the Irish Sea’. 1 July 1964
The Crosby UFO and perhaps the ‘green’ men can be dismissed. They both sound like a journalist’s fugue. But by 10 July rumour had come to nearby Kirkby where children believed that there were fairies in the churchyard of St Chad’s there. It took ten days and the intervention of clergy and policemen to get the children out from among the graves. Beach wonders very vaguely if the ‘hunting’ element, children with jam jars and (by some accounts) air rifles (!) were responding to the idea of capturing the leprechaun and his treasure.
Beach should end by noting that rational explanations have been offered up, as they always are in these cases. There is the circus school that claims that the leprechaun scare began with a household of travelling midgets. There is the James Nolan school that claims that Nolan (the park constable) set up the rumour mill as a prank: evidence includes the testimony of a colleague. Then there is the diminutive gardener, Brian Jones, who may have set off the leprechaun fever and who claimed as much in a Liverpool newspaper in 1982. In any case, the Liverpool-Kirkby kerfuffle would make a great final chapter for a book of modern fairy.
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14 May 2012: Southern Man quotes direct from the great Janet Bord, The Traveller’s Guide to Fairy Sites on the Liverpool episode. ‘The city was an unlikely setting for a series of reported fairy sightings in the summer of 1964. Little green people, varying from 3 inches tall to garden gnome-sized, were being seen at night in the city’s parks and golf courses, as well as at people’s houses and flats. The excitement grew so intense when the reports were widely publicised, that on one occasion a crowd of people gathered near the bowling green in Edge Hill in August 1964 hoping to see fairies (or whatever they were) and had to be restrained by the police. Later the same year, a woman living in Wavertree claimed that three little men in green clothes had been sitting on her backyard wall, throwing stones at her dog, and other women saw them climbing a tree in Wavetree Park. These events demonstrate the difficulty the researches sometimes has of easily distinguishing between reports of fairies, aliens and other non-human beings…‘ Invisible coincidentally points to the report ‘Janet Bord’s Fairies, Real Encounters with Little People for the Wollaton little people sighting–also in a park-like setting, also by children. This was in 1979 and reminded me very much of the Liverpool case you cited, except it was kept much quieter so there was no crowd hysteria and there are no mention of jam jars.’ Thanks SM and Invisible!
23 May 2012: Larry writes ‘In 1989 when the USSR started being more open about themselves, some Moscow children reported seeing robot aliens in a nearby park. At the time the Western press ate this up because the Soviets usually never reported such things. If these little green men are aliens, I hope their taxpayers never find out that they came countless light years to Earth just to throw rocks at dogs and goof off in various parks. For what this is worth, there was an experiment done circa 1982 in a local radio station where someone pretended to report seeing a UFO. Nothing fancy, just a disk shaped light zipping across the night sky. In a matter of hours the station got over 300 calls from people who also swore they saw it. And the stories ramped up to where some were reporting seeing the ship land and aliens coming out to abduct them. Yes, separating the wheat from the chaff when it comes to UFO reports has always been very difficult.’ Thanks Larry!
Fairy Shysters April 26, 2012
Posted by Beachcombing in : Modern
One part of Beach’s fairy fascination with Ireland has been the whole question of what might be called ‘fairy shysters’. Sharp swindlers who, in the nineteenth and twentieth century, went around taking innocent and usually vulnerable men and women for ‘a ride’. Beach has gathered some remarkable examples together, including three extraordinary instances of ‘fairy shysters’ posing as fairy kidnapped family members (another post another day). But for now what about a bit of fairy smoke and mirrors?
A young man died suddenly on May Eve while he was lying asleep under a hay-rick, and the parents and friends knew immediately that he had been carried off to the fairy palace in the great moat of Granard. So a renowned fairy man was sent for, who promised to have him back in nine days. Meanwhile [the fairy man] desired that food and drink of time best should be left daily for the young man at a certain place on the moat. This was done, and time food always disappeared, by which they knew time young man was living, and came out of the moat nightly for the provisions left for him by his people.
The fairy man gets off to a good start. The logic behind this act is, of course, that the young man will not have to eat fairy food: that would see him permanently imprisoned in fairy land, Persephone-style. Instead, the fairy man presumably got to eat to his heart’s content while the mourning parents looked on. The fairy man also needs to bring a young man back from the dead though: a harder task, but not, as we shall see, an impossible one.
Now on the ninth day a great crowd assembled to see time young man brought back from Fairyland. And in time stood the fairy doctor performing his incantations by means of fire and a powder which he threw into the flames that caused a dense grey smoke to arise. Then, taking off his hat, and holding a key in his hand, he called out three times in a loud voice, ‘Come forth, come forth, come forth!’ On which a shrouded figure slowly rose up in time midst of the smoke, and a voice was heard answering, ‘Leave me in peace; I am happy with my fairy bride, and my parents need not weep for me, for I shall bring them good luck, and guard them from evil evermore.’ Then the figure vanished and the smoke cleared, and the parents were content, for they believed the vision, and having loaded the fairy-man with presents, they sent him away home.
Let’s hope the fairy-man’s assistant who wore the shroud and who played his role so well also received some decent recompense. Beachcombing is fascinated in fairy shysters. If any one has come across any instances do please let him know: drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com Beach should also note that this particular case appears in the work of an Irish folklorist. Other cases are beyond rumour and appear in legal proceedings. It goes without saying that some fairy men and fairy women were honest and quite beyond such shenanigans.
Irish Merman Off Connemara April 21, 2012
Posted by Beachcombing in : Contemporary
***Beach dedicates this to Mike Dash who sent in the clipping***
The Nottingham Evening Post, Aug 26 1937 ran with a merman story that was new (at least to this mermaid enthusiast). Note curious claims for his dimensions or is this just a misunderstanding on the part of the journalist in the English Midlands.
The ‘monster’ season has opened in Ireland – if the tale of two Connemara fishermen is to be believed. A bigger [?] and better ‘monster’ than than of Loch Ness, it is claimed, has been discovered at Ballinakill Bay, near Renvyle, Connemara. He is described as a ‘merman’. It is nearly nine months, according to the highest local authority, since he first made an appearance. On that occasion, after creating a mild sensation, he retired to winter quarters. A few days ago he woke and discovered it was summer. He also discovered that he was hungry, and cast an eye about for something to devour. At this point two Connemara fishermen, Thomas O’Toole and Michael Ward appeared on the scene in their curragh (a canvas covered canoe). The ‘merman’ according to them bobbed up beside the curragh.
Fishermen believed, it must be remembered, that mermaids were unlucky. And these two were also understandably terrified at this manifestation of the deep and they put their oars into the water with some rapidity.
The fishermen at once made efforts to set up a new world’s record for the flying half mile with curragh. The ‘merman’ started in pursuit. After a time, the story goes [?], the fishermen asked themselves whey they should run away from a mere ‘merman’. Up came the ‘merman’. The fisherman took stock of him. He had according to their version, strawlike, shaggy hair and beard, with very red lips and bushy eyebrows. His skin was fair in front and by way of variety, blue on the back. He swam head and shoulders above the water.
It would be interesting to see if any creature recognised by marine biologist comes close to this curiosity: ‘very red lips’? The best Beach could do was a seal whose spent too long near a nuclear power plant: drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com. Note the next scene with its fish-feeding recalls a nineteenth-century record from the south coast of the UK previously examined in this place.
When Ward threw him a mackerel [the merman] seized it eagerly, and dived under the water to consume it. In a few moments, according to the fishermen, he reappeared, smacking his lips and coming alongside the curragh with the evident intention of coming aboard. O’Toole decided that familiarity had gone too far, and gently chided the ‘merman’ with an oar. The ‘monster’ whinnied in pain and dived into the depths. The fishermen made tracks for the shore which they reached in safety, to tell their tale of adventure in the countryside.
Why was it a merman rather than a mermaid? An absence of breasts? The beard?
The Irish Invade Canada April 12, 2012
Posted by Beachcombing in : Modern
Beachcombing used to run a series of tags on weird wars and he thought that he would resurrect these with references to one of strangest invasions in world history. 11 June 1866 between 600 and 800 Irish Fenians based in the United States declared war on the British Empire with its population running to hundreds of millions. Now if they had declared war and nothing more then this would have been another sterile act of nationalism by a group who could ‘talk the talk’ but was not always ready to ‘walk the walk’. But, after the declaration, Erin’s warriors then proceeded to cross the Niagara River and started, incredibly, a successful-ish invasion of Canada.
The Fenians were usually well infiltrated by British security forces. But in the US this infiltration was clearly lacking and an army was gathered and organized without the authorities in Canada learning anything. Once it had started there were two reasons that Britain and its North American dominion had to fear the attack.
First, many of those involved were the victims or the children of victims of the potato famine of the late 1840s. There are still arguments about Britain’s culpability in that pitiful episode, but what is certain is that the Irish diaspora blamed London for the halving of the Irish population c. 1840.
Second, many of the ‘Irish’ soldiers (how many spoke Gaelic Beach wonders?) had fought on the Union side in the Civil War. These were not then some Irish drunks with broken bottles singing Danny Boy and looking to beat up a peeler. This was a trenchocracy of hardened soldiers about to strike a blow against the hated Brits Canadians.
In that rather naïve fashion of political passionates the Fenians reckoned that the oppressed of Canada would flock to the standard: French-speakers, Roman Catholics, the poor… As it was the Canadians pulled a militia together and marched out to meet the Fenians at the battle of Ridgeway fought on 2 June.
Ridgeway is a peculiar battle not only because it involved Irish combatants an ocean away from Ireland. It also saw extraordinarily, Beach is tempted to write unbelievably, low casualties. About 700 men fought on both sides and yet four or five or perhaps six Fenians were killed and about twelve Canadians: a civilian woman was also accidentally shot by the ‘imperial’ forces.
The Fenians defeated the Canadians: though quite how with the rather unserious biffing that went on is a nice question. They took a number of Canadian prisoners and, how they must have whupped with joy, one British private in chains. But they then heard news that the ‘regulars’ were marching on them and sensibly let their prisoners go and skeddadled back to the US side of the border, leaving Washington and London to shout hysterically at each other.
Not that it did much good: in the next five years Fenian invasions of Canada became something of a hobby among Irish Americans. In Canada, meanwhile, habeas corpus was suspended and a medal was minted that pretty much says it all.
Any other freelance invasions? Drbeachcombing AT yahoo COM
***
17 April 2012: The great Mike Dash writes in: There are “men who would be king” stories, and then there is the saga of William Walker, the American journalist who led several private armies – the “filibusters” – into central America in the 1850s. A great believer in white supremacy and Manifest Destiny, Walker kicked off with a 45-man invasion of Baja California and managed to hold it briefly as the Republic of Lower California before being ejected by the Mexicans. Seeking a softer target, he raised a second tiny force and invaded Nicaragua in 1854. Opportunely arriving in the middle of a civil war (perhaps not such an unlikely coincidence in the Americas of that period) with a mere 60 men, he recruited a few more locally and took sides, backing the Democrats against the Legitimists and fairly rapidly succeeding in installing himself as the power behind a Democratic government. From there he was but a short stab in the back from setting himself up as President of Nicaragua. Walker controlled the country for about a year, thanks in part to the financial backing of good old Cornelius Vanderbilt, and made plans to extend his rule to neighbouring countries. He also tried to recruit more men from the Southern US states by proposing to reintroduce the institution of slavery, outlawed in Nicaragua in 1824. His career ended messily; expelled by a coalition of Guatamalan, Honduran and Salvadorian troops, Walker made an attempted comeback in 1860 only to fall into the hands of a Royal Navy squadron based on the Mosquito Coast. The British handed him over to the Hondurans, who shot him in September 1860. I am sure there must be quite a few other examples – the founders of quite a few Chinese dynasties started out as minor league peasant rebels, for instance – but Walker is probably the most spectacular relatively recent one; and despicable as his intentions were, his military successes, however short-lived, do faintly echo those of Stout Cortez. I thought enough of Walker’s story to pitch the idea as a book a few years back, but oddly enough American publishers weren’t interested in a study of maverick right-wing American Exceptionalists wreaking havoc in less technologically advanced nations on behalf of the nineteenth century equivalent of Big Oil. Thanks Mike!
St Patrick and Confusion March 17, 2012
Posted by Beachcombing in : Ancient, Medieval
Beach has always been fascinated by questions of uncertainty in history, in part because these teach modesty, in part because they are a useful way to annoy colleagues. And, in tribute to question marks past, he thought that he would celebrate St Patrick’s day – finally a correct date for an anniversary! – by concentrating on the extraordinary uncertainties about when St Patrick lived, died, preached and was born.
Wikipedia tells us that Patrick came into the world c. 387 which is both cute and mendacious: combining chronic uncertainty (the Latin c.) with spuriously exact knowledge (’387′). But, in fact, even a great, whopping circa dropped from a ten-storey building does not do justice to just how little we know about Pat’s chronology.
First, Beach must give some sense of the incredible extremes that have been offered. In 1931 John Roche Ardill published a work entitled St. Patrick A.D. 180, whereas other scholars have tried to place St Patrick’s death date in the sixth century! How many ‘great men’ can be said to have a floruit floating over four hundred years!! Any other examples of utter uncertainty of dates for historical individuals: drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com
This should be humbling for anyone looking back over the bare expanses of the past: especially in a veritable Dark Age like the first six centuries AD in Ireland. But Irish scholars have never felt any modesty where St Patrick is concerned. In fact, they have defended positions with extraordinary energy and venom. As was noted by one Celticist ‘not a stone has been left unthrown’ in the various attempts to fix Patrick’s dates.
From out of this unpleasant debate has come though an important methodological principle. All evidence relating to Patrick derives from one of two sources: his own writings, two extremely confusing letters or ‘pamphlets’; and later memories and myths about St Patrick. Put simply later writings about the saint are of uncertain value and it is probably safer to simply ignore them for chronological purposes. Patrick’s writings are though reliable and there are some chronological clues to be dug out there.
Most important of all, St Patrick quotes Jerome’s Latin Vulgate in his writings that means he must have been writing post 383 when Jerome’s translation of the New Testament appeared: in other words we can say goodbye to Ardill and his early ilk.
After that though Patrick’s words have been bent to fit almost every circumstance. For example, does his description of his childhood in Britain – Patrick was actually British rather than Irish – describe Late Roman (350-400), what we might call Collapsing Roman (400-420) or Post Roman Britain (420-500)? There have been attempts to defend all of these positions. None have commanded respect, let alone devotion.
Some scholars have tried, likewise, to establish an upper limit to Patrick’s life claiming that he cannot have written later than about 500 because he refers to the Franks as pagans: the Franks had converted to the cross at the end of the fifth century. However, this is a lot of weight to put on a throwaway phrase, particularly given that the Franks continued with their pagan ways well after their official Christianisation!
So perhaps not 400 years of uncertainty but close to 200? Patrick could have died in 390 or he might have died in 540. The joke is that his death date, 17 March, is actually fairly secure: death dates were usually transmitted well. Only that there may have been two or even (according to some) three saints called Patrick in Ireland in the fifth and sixth centuries…Which begs the question which Patrick died on 17 March?
But no, no, enough for this year, back to the green beer: anything more and depression will descend.
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27 Mar 2012: Jonathan Jarret from a Corner writes in with a new Patrician theory from a Cambridge scholar. ‘Roy Flechner’s argument more or less requires on an early fifth-century floruit for Patrick. The Life of St Germanus appears to show a Roman civil hierarchy functioning as late as 429, and London was still defensible around 457 if the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle’s entry for that year can be trusted (which is hard, given the path that any such date must have had to written record even in the Chronicle’s obscure sources), but how much longer could a decurionate have persisted? Who on earth would have been *taking* the taxes they were supposed to raise, and for what? There is some case for the structures of government hanging on longest in the north-west of England, though, where Carlisle seems still to have had a bishop as late as the 630s, so those who see Patrick as a Strathclyder might line up with Roy anyway… All so much conjecture, of course, given what you rightly say about the sources, but it ties up with several of your regular topics so I thought it was worth pointing out to you!’ Thanks Jonathan!
Irish Changeling in New York February 18, 2012
Posted by Beachcombing in : Modern
Ok there has been a lot of energy and desperation spent on this one: Beach has wasted, in fact, about six hours of his life trying to chase down the story. If any reader should happen to find a newspaper version there will be a bright shiny book of some description put in the post in the very near future: at least to the first. Drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com The book need not involve fairies.
As we have noted here on other occasions the nineteenth-century Irish sometimes mistreated children who they believed to be changelings. To the best of Beachcombing’s knowledge, among western Europeans, this rather worrying behaviour was restricted to the Gaels, at least in the later nineteenth century. However, as the Irish travelled across the world at this date it follows that they may have brought their habits with them to other places.
Beach knows of two sources that suggest that an Irish family in New York mistreated and, in fact, killed a child believing that it was a fairy. They seem to have burnt the poor bairn. Beachcombing tries not to think about it too much.
‘In 1877, in the city of New York, an Irish immigrant and his wife burned their child to death under the delusion that they were ridding themselves of a changeling.’ ‘Superstition and Crime’, Popular Science Monthly 54 (1898), 206-221 at 210. The author here, one Evans is inexact and, as life is brief, Beach would have given up on it or perhaps better would have come to the conclusion that the city, the year and likely the outcome had got mixed up in Evans’ sieve-like mind.
However, another reference is more difficult to kick around the backyard. The estimable, brilliant and witty Robert Hunt in Popular Romances of the West of England: The Drolls, Traditions, and Superstitions of Old Cornwall (London 1881) writes, 94: ‘A friend writes me: ‘I saw an account in a newspaper the other day of an Irishwoman who was brought before the magistrates, in New York, for causing the death of a child by making it stand on hot coals to try if it were her own truly-begotten child, or a changeling.’’
So it happened and it seems to have happened in New York and it happened prior to 1881. But where is the article in question? Are there any other examples of Irish families bringing Irish fairy customs with them?
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24 Feb 2012: The great Boria Sax has written in with an article not to the changeling case in question but from the New York Times in 1895 and referring to Bridget Cleary, perhaps the last changeling killing. What Beachcombing finds fascinating is the way that changeling violence had to be explained to Anglo-Saxon audiences. It is this that makes Beach think the missing ‘article’ was not, as two readers have suggested, an invention. ‘An Irish correspondent of the London Spectator writes to inform the readers of that paper that the English papers seem to have missed the real point of that horrible chapter in the history of superstition – the murder of Mrs Cleary in the County of Tipperary. She did not fall victim to the belief in witchcraft or in demoniacal possession – neither has any real hold in Ireland. She perished owing to the belief to this hour singularly prevalent in Munster, and, I am told, also in the West. A prominent tenet of the believers in the fairies and their powers is the superstition of ‘the changeling’. Spenser in the Faery Queen writes. From thence a Fairy thee unweeting reft, There as thou slepst in tender swaddling band/ And her base elfin broods there for thee left; Such men do changelings call, so change’d by fairies theft. In Munster when a child appears delicate or a young woman consumptive or hysterical, the conclusion often is that the child or woman has been carried off by the fairies, to be made a playmate or nurse to the young fairies, and that a fairy substitute resembling the person taken away is deposited in its place, which belief is that if the changeling be tortured by fire, its fairy parents will hear its cries, rush to its aid, carry it back to fairyland, and at the same moment restor the real person, who will be found sleeping calmly on the bed. Cleary and ‘the neighbours’ evidently believed that the being they tortured was not Cleary’s wife, but a changeling. He addressed her ‘In the name of God, are you Bridget Boland?’ (her maiden name) believing that thus adjured the being would confess it was a fairy. He said when he set fire to her: ‘You will soon see my wife come down the chimney’ believing that the fairies would snatch away the tortured fairy and restore his real wife. Again, after the burning, many of the men of the locality sat up all night in a ‘fort’ (earth embankment of ancient Irish village) armed with black-handled knives [this detail is incorrect, Beach!]. These poor people thought that a fairy procession would pass by; that in its midst would be Mrs Cleary riding on a gray horse, and that if any one rushed forward and cut her bonds with a black-handled knife (a potent weapon against all evil spirits) she would at once be restored to the world. In the tales of Terror Wonder it was thus that Fair Janet rescued Tam Lin from the fairies. She sat at Giles Cross on Halloween at the ‘murk and midnight hour’ when she sees the fairy host go by. ‘First she let the black pass/ and next she let the brown/ But quickly ran to the milk-white steed, And drew its rider down’ Thus fair Janet rescued Tam Lin; thus the poor dwellers on the slope of Shere-na-mon (the witche’s Hill, a haunted mountain) believed they would rescue Bridget Cleary.’ Thanks Boria!
25/2/2012: Invisible writes in with this from The Democrat and Standard Coshocton , Ohio 12 May 1903 from a story called “Something About Ghost Stories, People Who Believed in the Supernatural.” By James Mugness. ‘The author talks about the ghost of Caesar, jack-o-lanterns, and ghostly folklore, but also mentions ghost stories told by local men, including a black dog story, which I have seen in earlier newspapers. I don’t know if this tale is something local or, more likely, folklore which he had read somewhere. Another man, we are told, lost his wife in child bed. She was a beautiful woman in life, but in death looked haggard and cadaverous. He buried her, but afterwards a spectre haunted him which purported to be the ghost of his wife, telling him she was not really dead, but was living: and that haggard figure he had buried was not his wife, but was substituted by some fairies for her. This spectre haunted him nightly, claiming to be his wife, and one night, to convince him more fully, she let the babe she had left with him nurse at her breast, and dropped a few drops of breast milk on the bed-clothes, which was plainly visible in the morning. The husband believed it an illusion but couldn’t get rid of the phantom. He told the matter to his pastor who told him it was an illusion and to shake it off if he could. But the man never fully got rid of it.’ As Invisible goes on to note this is a classic changeling tale. It would be fascinating if this was recorded in the US!’ Thanks Invisible!
Irish Giants: Prehistoric and Otherwise February 7, 2012
Posted by Beachcombing in : Modern, Prehistoric
Beach stumbled the other day on this passage from the Dublin Freeman’s Journal, August 1812.
‘It is not a little surprising, considering our veneration for Irish antiquities, that no notice should be taken of the skeleton recently disinterred at Leixlip. This extraordinary monument of gigantic human stature was found by two laborers in Leixlip churchyard on Friday, the 10th [?difficult to read] ult., when making a kind of sewer, near the Salmon leap, for conveying water, by Mr. Haigh’s orders. It appears to have belonged to a man of not less than ten feet in height. It is believed to be the same mentioned by Keating, Phelim O’Tool, buried in Leixlip churchyard, near the Salmon leap, 1,252 years ago. In the same place was found to be a large finger ring of pure gold. There was no inscription or characters of any kind upon it, a circumstance to be lamented, as it might throw a clear light upon this interesting subject. Our correspondent saw one of the teeth, which was as large as an ordinary forefinger.’
We have seen before in these pages the confusion of fossils with humans. Then there is too the danger of expectation: there was apparently a legend of a medieval giant in this part of the world. As one sage commentator put it thinking of Irish giants more generally.
Often, when opening a ‘Giant’s Grave’, workmen have drawn attention to the great size of the human bones which they disinterred, when in reality the bones had formed the framework of a man of but medium stature. The minds of the searchers were imbued with the idea that the bones must of necessity be of superhuman size, for were they not found in a ‘Giant’s Grave’? In the same way the judgment of an antiquary may, insensibly to himself, be biased by his own imagination regarding some preconceived theory. A distinguished writer on archaeology has observed: ‘There is no failing to which antiquarian observers seem more liable than seeing too much’.
Perhaps something similar happened in Leixlip and before things could be contained a report had made its way into the not particularly scientific pages of the Freeman’s Journal? Or could ‘it’ have been real? Well, Robert Wadlow reached almost nine feet and and he certainly didn’t have teeth as big as an ‘ordinary forefinger’.
Another great and much better known giant story also comes from Ireland: the perhaps even more famous picture heads this post.
Pre-eminent among the most extraordinary articles ever held by a railway company is the fossilized Irish giant, which is at this moment lying at the London and North-Western Railway Company’s Broad-street goods depot, and a photograph of which is reproduced here. This monstrous figure is reputed to have been dug up by a Mr. Dyer whilst prospecting for iron ore in Co. Antrim. The principal measurements are: Entire length, 12ft. 2in.; girth of chest, 6ft. 6.5.in.; and length of arms, 4ft. 6 in. There are six toes on the right foot. The gross weight is 2 tons 15 cwt.; so that it took half a dozen men and a powerful crane to place this article of lost property in position for the Strand Magazine artist. Dyer, after showing the giant in Dublin, came to England with his queer find and exhibited it in Liverpool and Manchester at sixpence a head, attracting scientific men as well as gaping sightseers. Business increased and the showman induced a man named Kershaw to purchase a share in the concern. In 1876, Dyer sent this giant from Manchester to London by rail; the sum of £4 2s. 6d. being charged for carriage by the company, but never paid. Evidently Kershaw knew nothing of the removal of the ‘show’, for when he discovered it he followed in hot haste, and, through a firm of London solicitors, moved the Court of Chancery to issue an order restraining the company from parting with the giant, until the action between Dyer and himself to determine the ownership was disposed of. The action was never brought to an issue.
What most delicious nonsense. Beach loves the way that the iron prospector (from Country Antrim!) turned impresario. What happened to the body? Drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com
Then just to round off this giant post a nice story recalling the superstitious venality of the Irish peasant in the nineteenth century.
Near the village of Cliffoney are the remains of a ‘Giant’s Grave’, presenting no feature of interest. No inducement could prevail on the tenant to allow of an excavation. He and his father before him, he stated, refused to do so, although ‘untold gold’ had been offered. However, some few days afterwards, having occasion to verily the compass bearings of the monument, a return to the spot has necessitated, when it became evident that, in the interval, the grave had been dug out to a great depth. In short, the suspicious yokel, imagining that the contemplated search was for a crock of gold, had determined to retain the treasure for himself.
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11/2/12: PJT has some good giant material here: Your Irish giant reminds me of the Cardiff giant, an infamous American ‘petrified man’: The world seems to be awash with giant bones, if YouTube is to be believed: Nothing fakey or photoshopped in this presentation–no sirree. 
‘ Thanks PJ!
29 March 2012: MacMac writes in with this brilliant piece: The Irish Giant is an enigmatic character to be sure. But the creator of the Giant, and the back story associated, would test the fancies of Munchhausen. I can also address for you the fate of the body. I have researched for several years an Australian petrified giant displayed to the public of Sydney in May 1889. He was known as the “Marble Man of Orange”. His creator was one Guiseppe F. Sala. In tracing his exploits, I discovered that Sala under the pseudonym Salle was in fact one of the carvers of the original Cardiff Giant. He was not the originator of that hoax, the honour of which belongs to George Hull, who intended to lampoon religious zealots faith in the literalness of the Biblical “there were giants in the earth”. Sala confessed his part in 1902, and Hull named him that year just prior to his own death. Sala was one of two stone carvers engaged in Chicago and kept on site with “buckets of beer” so that they wouldn’t wander off for a drink and give the game away. Having observed the success of the 1869 Cardiff Giant in gathering coin from the curious, Sala moved to Troy NY where gainful employ as a monumental sculptor (the Clock Tower in Buffalo NJ is adorned with his statues) soon gave way to a hoaxing of his own with a “petrified man” in New Hampshire. I’ve traced his (and his sons) exploits through at least six more hoaxes, including the Irish Giant (see below) and the Australian Marble Man, and even a second Marble Man after debts forced the sale of the first. If you would indulge me, rather than re-write the episode, I’ve lifted from an earlier draft article of mine (with footnotes) not as yet having found a publisher. I hope you find some amusement in the story. “Back in 1876, New York had been scandalised by the exhumation and abduction of the body of the recently deceased retail magnate Alexander T. Stewart. While ransoms had been sought for return of the body, accusations levelled and rumours floated, the corpse had still not been found by 1879. In August of that year, Guiseppe Sala put in a clandestine appearance before one Judge Hilton with a confession to a tale of treachery involving international grave robbing, petrifications and a New York femme fatale.[35] Sala claimed that towards the end of his time in Troy [1876], he had fallen in with a gang of three men and a woman of “rare beauty” and “notorious past”, both banker and controller of the gang. Sala had bragged to the woman of knowing the secret of petrifying bodies, seeming to imply he could turn old or fresh corpses to stone. Soon Sala found himself discussing schemes of substituting petrifications for buried celebrities, or “resurrecting” bodies for a ransom. For a sum, Sala then embarked with the gang for London with no less an intention than digging up the body of the infamous American traitor Benedict Arnold and ransoming the body. The local police confounded their plans, and Sala with two members of the gang departed for Ireland. Sala traveled there with another stone-cutter named Dye or Dyer, and another gang member named E. J. Ford, whose father had been Superintendent of the Poor back in Troy county.[36] An initial scheme once in Ireland was to disinter a statue to be secreted on the property of the Earl of Leitrim that would be exhibited as “the true St Patrick”. This idea quickly gave way to another equally audacious. In May 1876, Sala carved a limestone colossus at the coastal village of Green Isle, located about 10 miles north of Belfast and 2 miles from Carrickfargus. The body was secreted away on a farm owned by an accomplice named Coleman located close to the Giant’s Causeway. In June, the figure was unearthed in County Antrim and claimed, to the great astonishment of the Irish who flocked to the site, as the petrified body of none less than the mythical Irish Giant, Finn MacCoul. With due apologies to purists of the Feanna myth cycles, MacCoul will forever be mainly associated with the more populist legend involving the creation of the Giant’s Causeway. This story goes that the geological feature was created by the hurling of rock’s at a rival Scottish giant Fergus during a legendary feud. With the close association by geography, the claimed petrified body was also known as the “Causeway Giant”. [37] The giant was a sensation at first, and was attended by a throng of sightseers intent on viewing the 12 foot 2 inch [3.7 metres] high figure with the heroically non-petite 6 ft 6 inch [2 metres] chest, weighing in at over 2 ton (2.03 tonnes) and with six toes upon one foot.[38] The gang appeared not to have heard of the legends of an entire “petrified city” beneath the waves of Lough Neagh just a few miles south of their chosen location, or they could have swollen the petrified population.[39] Sala claimed that he departed Ireland at the end of May 1876 just before the “discovery”. After a successful exhibit in the area local to the find, the “Irish Giant” was taken by Dye or Dyer to Dublin, thence to Liverpool and Manchester with viewing at 6 pence per head [40]. An interest in the Giant was sold to a local entrepreneur named Kershaw, and the giant shipped to London. The strangest item in left luggage history was occasionally reported upon in local papers through the years. The Strand of 1895 claimed it had been abandoned by Dyer without Kershaw’s knowledge, and ownership was disputed in the courts. Sala’s story instead was that suspicion had been aroused concerning the Giant’s genuineness and the police had prevented further exhibition until this was resolved. The Irish Giant’s unfitting demise in the 1940s was noted recently in Fortean Times, which reported that the body—cleverly nicknamed “Patrick”—had apparently been used to fill a WWII bomb crater [see Fortean Times 217:72]. RIP Patrick the Causeway Giant. Sala went on to tell Judge Hilton that on the return to New York the gang soon plotted robbing A.T.Stewart’s body from its vault. The idea developed over several more meetings almost up to the actual event, but when Sala demanded more money to play his part in the scheme, the lady banker cooled his involvement.[41] Sala’s accusations against Ford and others soon quietened when he was paid a small stipend and travelled to Troy with detectives to point out accomplices. On arrival there, Sala claimed the money was not sufficient to betray the culprits, fearing reprisals. Judge Hilton and his detectives lost patience, and the grave robbing tale eventually appeared to be little other than a false lead.[42] Stewart’s remains were never recovered. [35] New York Times, 14 August 1879, p. 2 [36] New York Times, 15 August 1879, p. 5 [37] The Galveston Daily News, 2 January 1878, col G [38] The Strand Magazine, December 1895, pp. 646-647. The Leeds Mercury,1 June 1876, p. 2. [39] See James Joyce, Ullyses. It is an Irish superstition based on frequent discovery of petrified wood [known locally as “petrified potatoes”] along the shore. See Buckland, W., ‘On the Occurrence of Nodules [called Petrified Potatoes] found on the Shores of Lough Neagh in Ireland’, Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, 1846, v. 2, issue.1-2, pp. 103-104. [40] Liverpool Mercury, 8 July 1876; Fortean Times 215:75 [41] New York Times, 14 August 1879, p. 2 [42] New York Times, 15 August 1879, p. 5; Fanebust, W., The Missing Corpse: Grave Robbing a Gilded Age Tycoon, 2005.’ We are in awe of Mac Mac!
An Eagle, A Basket and A Boy January 12, 2012
Posted by Beachcombing in : Modern
Beachcombing probably owes his ever patient readers an apology today. This post hardly counts as bizarre history: but there are eagles (much visited in previous posts, particularly involving children being carried away) and a young man’s hair turning white and a classy illustration to go with it. The story relates to the West of Ireland where such shenanigans were still going on late in the nineteenth century.
Two eagles, in the wildest part of a neighbouring county, had for some time depredated on the neighbourhood, and bore away lambs, kids, &c., for the sustenance of their young. Some peasants determined, if possible, to obtain the young birds, and ascended the mountains, but found that the nest was in a part of the perpendicular rock, near one hundred feet below the summit, and about three hundred feet above the sea, which, with terrific appearances, dashed against its base. They had provided themselves with ropes, and a lad, armed with a cimeter [sword], was by this means lowered by the rest. He arrived in safety at the nest, where, as he expected, he was attacked with infinite fury by one of the old eagles, at which he made a stroke with his sword that nearly cut asunder the rope by which he was suspended. Fortunately one strand of it remained. He described his state to his comrades, waiting in horrible expectation that the division of the cord would precipitate him to the bottom ; but though he might have been to die by a rope, it was not in this manner [!!!]; he was cautiously and safely hauled up, when it was found that his hair, which, a quarter of an hour before, had been of a dark auburn, had in that short period become perfectly white.
So fair play to the eagles!
Beachcombing is always on the look out for eagle stories, so go on, knock yourselves out: drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com
Accidentally Obscene January 7, 2012
Posted by Beachcombing in : Contemporary, Medieval, Modern
***This is dedicated to Amanda who put Beachcombing onto Effin***
The Belfast Telegraph recently ran a story on the Limerick town of Effin – named for St Eimhin no less! ‘Ann Marie Kennedy is proud to live in Effin – and now she has launched an online campaign to have Facebook recognise the town whose name was blacklisted for being too offensive [urban dictionary]. Ann Marie said the social networking site would not allow her to list Effin in Co Limerick on her profile page because it deemed it obscene.’
Effin is one of a long list of casualties of language fluidity. Placenames get mutated through the generations: Londinum becomes London. Swear words are invented and reinvented. And occasionally there is overlap as a placename comes worrying close to an obscenity (saints or not); or a swear word develops that happens to be the name of some poor town or village (and the neighbours laugh).
It goes without saying that these names should not be compared with deliberately obscene names.
At least today no one seriously thinks of changing a settlement name because of such unfortunate overlaps. In fact, one senses a certain dogged pride in keeping up the old word and the world be damned. But in previous centuries sensibilities were so preened that embarrassment had to be avoided at all costs.
This brings us to the unhappy ‘shit’ villages: Shittlington, Middle Shitlington, Nether Shitlington and Over Shitlington. All of these names come from Yorkshire and while they might have sent an eighteenth-century visitor into gentle giggles; by the nineteenth-century they were giving elderly matrons aneurisms.
And so in the way of things Shittlington became Littleworth (the lack of imagination is striking), then the closely associated Middle Shittlington, Nether Shittlington and Over Shittlington became, in 1855, respectively Middleton, Netherton and Overton and the world could breathe again.
A pity in some ways as the original name is an interesting one. Shitt seems to come from Anglo-Saxon scytel that probably means ‘something shot’, though there is (naturally) much disagreement.
Any other unlucky town or village names: drbeachcombing AT yahoo COM
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9 Jan 2012: The Jannie writes in with this: ‘Further to Shitlington, Yorkshire seems to have a wealth of dodgy names. Within easy reach of here we have Penistone, Wombwell, Grimethorpe and Greasbrough.’ JC reminds us of an Austrian town whose signs keep disappearing Ray G writes in about Exeter: ‘Shitbrook Street (named because it ran down toward the Shit – aka Shute – Brook, a stream that was the city’s open sewer) is now called Paris Street. The date of the renaming isn’t clear, but it was pre-Victorian.’ Marvin has some State-side examples: ‘In Michigan there is a small town of Hell which, appropriately, is a considerable distance south of the town of Paradise. Pennsylvania also has a town of Paradise along with Intercourse and Blue Ball, and it is well known that the best way to go from Blue Ball to Paradise is through Intercourse.’ [!!!] Mike L puts us onto some rude name sites at telegraph, newslite and irgenius. Then Rick at the Anomalist has Athol. ‘It’s a town in Massachusetts, and it’s always amusing to hear someone mention it, especially if they’re the sort prone to call a spade a thpade.’ [!!!!] Pascal meanwhile remembers ‘On an album by Paul Young (wherever I lay my hat, love of the common people) called No Parlez (1983) there is a photograph of a sign saying “SHITTERTON”, it’s not a ‘Welcome to…’ type, looks more like a street name but the word stands alone, it’s not followed by road, street, lane or anything. Terrible shame it never had avenue at the end of it ‘cos that would make a questioned sentence in itself, chortle mirth’ Thanks to Jannie, JC, Pascal, Rick, Mike L. and Ray G!!!
24, 1, 12: Andy the Mad Monk and Invisible write in with a Swedish version of the obscene name problem. Invisible adds: On a similar note, Vicks VapoRub, a decongestant remedy, had to have its name changed to market it in Germany, as the German pronunciation was “fick.” As an undergraduate studying medieval exempla, I ran across a tale of a lecherous cleric named something like ”Henry Fickerer.” My dear professor, no doubt seeking to spare my schoolgirl innocence, told me it meant “deceiver.” Thanks Andy and Invisible!
30/4/2012: Invisible sends in this extract from a major British newspaper. It seems that that Austrian village is about to cave in. ‘A pictured postcard Austrian village is being forced to bow to the power of the English language by changing its name. The good people of F*****g hadn’t had a problem until pranksters began making fun of them, with phone calls and joke postcards. Now the village is set to vote on a switch and the 16th century version of the name ‘Fugging’ is likely to be adopted. It may be an end to the random telephone calls which recipients find considerably less amusing than the people making them.’ Thanks Invisible!
Snakes, Fairies and St Patrick January 5, 2012
Posted by Beachcombing in : Medieval
***Dedicated to Adrian Sterling***
A lead up to tomorrow’s epiphany gift to all readers: Scary Fairies: the Proto Edition.
Bede begins his Ecclesiastical History of the English in 731 with a geographical overview of the island of Britain and also, given its importance in the conversion of the English to Christianity, Ireland. It is a memorable passage not least because of what it has to say about snakes and other reptiles.
Ireland is broader than Britain and has a much healthier and milder climate; for the snow scarcely ever lies there above three days: no man makes hay in the summer for winter’s provision, or builds stables for his beasts of burden. No reptiles are found there, and no snake can live there; for, though snakes are often carried thither out of Britain, as soon as the ship comes near the shore, and the scent of the air reaches them, they die. On the contrary, almost all things in the island are efficacious against poison. In truth, we have known that when men have been bitten by serpents, the scrapings of leaves of books that were brought out of Ireland, being put into water, and given them to drink, have immediately absorbed the spreading poison, and assuaged the swelling. The island abounds in milk and honey, nor is there any lack of vines, fish, or fowl; and it is noted for the hunting of stags and roedeer. It is properly the country of the Scots, who, migrating from thence, as has been said, formed the third nation in Britain in addition to the Britons and the Picts.
Hibernia autem et latitudine sui status, et salubritate ac serenitate aerum multum Brittaniae praestat, ita ut raro ibi nix plus quam triduana remaneat; nemo propter hiemem aut faena secet aestate, aut stabula fabricet iumentis; nullum ibi reptile uideri soleat, nullus uiuere serpens ualeat; nam saepe illo de Brittania adlati serpentes, mox ut, proximante terris nauigio, odore aeris illius adtacti fuerint, intereunt; quin potius omnia pene, quae de eadem insula sunt, contra uenenum ualent. Denique uidimus, quibusdam a serpente percussis, rasa folia codicum, qui de Hibernia fuerant, et ipsam rasuram aquae inmissam ac potui datam, talibus protinus totam uim ueneni grassantis, totum inflati corporis absumsisse ac sedasse tumorem. Diues lactis ac mellis insula, nec uinearum expers, piscium uolucrumque, sed et ceruorum caprearumque uenatu insignis. Haec autem proprie patria Scottorum est; ab hac egressi, ut diximus, tertiam in Brittania Brettonibus et Pictis gentem addiderunt.
Now there is no question that Ireland, as many islands, has a slightly different set of fauna than its neighbours and this includes the absence of reptiles except the viviparous lizard that Bede forgot. (We can forgive him). New Zealand also has no snakes, Hawaii has only sea snakes… Attempts have been made to introduce reptiles (follow this link for a particularly silly one) in Ireland, but while the land did not exactly shrug these off, nor have the legless ones prospered.
A friend of this blog, Adrian Sterling from over at at the Anomalist brought up a question concerning the snakes. ‘I’m writing up a small piece about snakes in Ireland and I immediately thought of you when I read ‘Bede ( Hist. gent. Anglor i. 1) points out that there are no serpents in Ireland and if any are introduced from Britain they quickly die on breathing Irish air’. Why? Your post about the Proddies and Romans interactions with the Good Folk. The infuriatingly unsourced quote that the Gentry left England with the arrival of Protestantism. The tradition with the little people remains strong in Ireland (what do I know, I’m American) so perhaps they crossed over to the Emerald Isle and take up arms against these wee dragons. Are there any historical correspondences of animosity between snakes and the sidhe?’
The official answer is that the pagan Irish were quite happy with snakes but that St Patrick drove the devilish reptiles out. However, this legend clearly came after the fact to explain a natural absence and, in any case, is rather late first appearing in Gerald of Wales’ writings in the twelfth century. Nothing about St Patrick and snakes appears in the seventh-century saints lives, nor even in the Tripartite Life.
Knowing Irish lore a little what Beachcombing finds absolutely extraordinary – now Adrian has put him onto it – is that there is not a native Irish explanation, perhaps even one with pre-Christian traces, that explains why there were no reptiles in the land. In fact, writing this out there comes the suspicion that perhaps there was a legend but that the legend was too ‘pagan’ to be written down and that St Patrick as snake-banisher was a late and efficient Christian replacement of some unspeakable lore. If so then Adrian may be close to the truth. Were the sidhe credited with driving the slivering ones out?
Is Beach at fault: any early Irish legends about snake? drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com
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28/March 2012: Karen writes in: In response to “Snakes, Fairies, and St. Patrick” wherein you were wondering about prechristian Irish mythology regarding snakes, this seems to be applicable. I say seems to be, because the author, A. V. Koltypin, did not give the reference on this page. However, since Fomorian lore is of Irish origin, if this quote is valid it must have come from Irish myth. Mr. Koltypin does mention that sources are in his book, apparently written in Russian.It mentions “holding an arm in a snake nest” a curious thing in a land without snakes. “Truly, to fight against Fomorians was all the same to punch a wall by head, to hold an arm in a snake nest, or to substitute a face to flame.” One more interesting note: here we might have the first source for the saying “It’s like beating your head against a wall” which we all still recognize to this very day… Thanks Karen!
