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  • 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 […]

    Victorian Urban Legends: Wrong Trousers January 21, 2018

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
    Victorian Urban Legends: Wrong Trousers

    The rarest form of Victorian urban legend is the sexual one: it is not the Victorians did not tell racy stories, it is that generally speaking no one dared to publish them. Here is one that somehow slipped through the net. Beach’s favourite detail are the stripes. In a suburb of Dundee a golden discovery […]

    Hilarious Ghost-Ewe Incident in Scotland January 19, 2018

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
    Hilarious Ghost-Ewe Incident in Scotland

    Bureaucracy hell at the moment in Italy so here is a simple but marvelous stocking filler from 1870. Reminds Beach of one of his favourite ever posts, on a hare in a Manx courtroom. Perhaps not quite as good but almost… We are in northern Scotland near Inverness. The other evening, while two servant girls […]

    Mermaid Monday: The Mermaid’s Tail in Argyll December 18, 2017

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
    Mermaid Monday: The Mermaid's Tail in Argyll

    In early October 1811 two young Scots in Argyll claimed to see mermaids: one aged twenty-three, the other aged eight. That is interesting enough, but what is fascinating for the historian is how this news fed through into the wider world. In early November the two witnesses and the eight-year-old’s father were deposed, in other […]

    Mermaid Monday: A Mad Mermaid? December 4, 2017

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
    Mermaid Monday: A Mad Mermaid?

    Nice mermaid story from 1886 (anon). A young man comes across a mermaid in Aberdeen harbour. Interestingly the experience ended in a police court. The latest ‘mermaid’ story is a local one. It evolved itself in the Aberdeen Police Court on Monday this wise: About seven o’clock Sunday a young son of the sea who […]

    Mermaid Monday: Nude Scottish Mermaids November 13, 2017

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
    Mermaid Monday: Nude Scottish Mermaids

    Here is a Scottish account from 1833 (Anon) of what were apparently river mermaids. What is most interesting here is certainly the reaction of the community, though the resolution of the mystery has some entertainment value. Some time back, the inhabitants of some hamlets, situated near the Tay, a little below Dunkeld, had been kept in […]

    Mermaid Monday: Mermaids Off Islay October 2, 2017

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
    Mermaid Monday: Mermaids Off Islay

    Here is a mermaid story from the Scottish islands 1857 (Anon 1857). The declaration of two fishermen on the Argyleshire coast appears in the Shipping Gazette. They say: ‘We the undersigned, do declare that on Thursday last, the 4th June 1857, when on our way to the fishing station, Lochindaal, in a boat, and when […]

    Fireball in Perthshire? September 29, 2017

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
    Fireball in Perthshire?

    ***dedicated to Roberto*** This story is Perthshire in northern Scotland. It was recorded in 1906 after the even more striking account of the Sutherland fire ball. Late on Saturday night in autumn some seventy years ago, friends of the present writer were engaged in bringing in and stacking their corn. The day had been fine […]

    War Heroes’ Bones for Manure in Scotland September 17, 2017

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
    War Heroes' Bones for Manure in Scotland

    We have seen on this site, several times, urban legends about body parts being used in industrial production: fat for glass or telegraph wires; body parts for soap, something, of course, found too in the First World War. The following story is a not so elaborate practical joke but the attitudes behind it suggest that […]

    Sutherland Fire Ball September 7, 2017

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
    Sutherland Fire Ball

    ***dedicated to Roberto*** This appeared in Blackwood’s Magazine under the title ‘A Southron in Sutherland’, Sutherland being a Scottish county. The year of publication was 1906: the year of the experience was 1882. An unusually vivid account of a fire ball of some kind. Note the way that it rises out of the road. In […]

    Mermaid Monday: Red Hair Off Mull August 28, 2017

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
    Mermaid Monday: Red Hair Off Mull

    Mermaid Monday again and this week we have a marvel from Mull, a Scottish island in the Inner Hebrides. Note that the Ross of Mull is the neck of land stretching towards Iona and that Beach’s rudimentary Gaelic show two islands with the name Eilean Dubh, the Black Island: one at the centre of the […]

    Letter from the Enemy August 23, 2017

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Contemporary
    Letter from the Enemy

    Beach ran across this very sad piece in the Dundee Evening Telegraph (8 Oct 1915), 4. It is perhaps not remarkable that an enemy soldier honour the body of a fallen foe: who is it who says that you can best measure relations in a war not by how soldier treat their enemies alive but […]

    Victorian Urban Legends: Pawn Trick July 13, 2017

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
    Victorian Urban Legends: Pawn Trick

    This is a lovely story from Paisley (Scotland), ‘about the truth of which there is no doubt’. The other morning there were, as usual, standing the Cross several journeymen dyers, one of whom had the reputation of being clever in his way in providing the needful when thirst is requiring to be quenched. They looked […]

    Victorian Urban Legend: The Mourning Trick June 22, 2017

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
    Victorian Urban Legend: The Mourning Trick

    This is a great story which appears with the heading, ‘Scotch Ghost Story’. We are in Glasgow. Beach has no doubt though that it is a Victorian urban legend. Let’s face it, the tale is so satisfying that if it ever actually happened it would have been abstracted and told to everyone who would listen. […]

    Bog Book in Benbecula? May 27, 2017

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Medieval, Modern
    Bog Book in Benbecula?

    It is always such fun when folklore produces an impossible story that is actually credible. Here is one recorded from the Hebrides in J. F. Campbell’s Popular Tales of the West Highlands. Note that the Feen are the Fenians, Gaelic Robin Hoods. I was told in Benbecula how a man had found a book, containing the […]