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Beachcombing's Bizarre History Blog

strangehistory.net

Beachcombing’s Bizarre History Blog is dedicated to strange, anomalous and weird historical events from the ancient, medieval and the modern world.

History

’10’15’20’25
Posts
3,818 from 30 May 2010 to 6 May 2025
Posting
now and then
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personal blog
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Latest

May 2025

  1. The Deerness Mermaid: Our Best Attested Nineteenth-Century Cryptid

July 2024

  1. Are Mermaids Fairies?

June 2024

  1. Early Modern Fairy Sex Spell

May 2024

  1. Karl Banse: The Man Who Made the Case for Mermaids

February 2024

  1. Victorian Urban Legends: Fine Art
  2. Headingley Monster
  3. The Wood Diva

December 2023

  1. The Dancing Fairies of Sennen Cove:

November 2023

  1. The Modern Western Ghost and Its Zombie Origins

October 2023

  1. Horse Spirits: Colt-Pixy or Pixy-Colt?

September 2023

  1. The When of Levitation in the West

August 2023

  1. The Fairy Census: End Game

July 2023

  1. Immortals and Itinerants

June 2023

  1. Devil at the Wedding (Ritual)

May 2023

  1. The Voodoo Soldiers of Arthur’s Seat, Edinburgh

April 2023

  1. Zombies and Shapechangers in Medieval Yorkshire

February 2023

  1. Pitchforks and Witchcraft in Nineteenth-Century Warwickshire

January 2023

  1. Early New Fairy Wing Reference
  2. Do You Feel Lucky, Historian?

November 2022

  1. Ghosts and ‘Our Own Dear Dead’

October 2022

  1. The Fewston Witches: A Yorkshire Coven

September 2022

  1. Fairy Fashions: The Three Rules

August 2022

  1. Victorian Urban Legends: Story-Killers!
  2. Victorian Urban Legends: Coffin Child

July 2022

  1. Victorian Urban Legends: The Smiths and the Rookery
  2. John Clare and ‘Will O Wisp’

June 2022

  1. Victorian Urban Legends: Canine Protector
  2. Victorian Urban Legends: The Gentleman Crossing-Sweeper
  3. Victorian Urban Legends: Incognito Aristocrat

May 2022

  1. Victorian Urban Legends: Nose Duel
  2. Explaining Death Omens

April 2022

  1. Headless Badgers and Witchy Rabbits

March 2022

  1. Working a Spell at Boggart Hole Clough

February 2022

  1. The Boggart: A Study in Shadows

January 2022

  1. Dark Thoughts on the Wollaton Gnomes
  2. Poltergeists and the Boggle Factor

November 2021

  1. Ann Jefferies and the Fairies: A Cornish Fairy Witch

October 2021

  1. British and Irish Women in Black Spirits
  2. Getting Spiked: A New Social Contagion?

September 2021

  1. The Scariest British Fairy Encounter? The Elf Dancers of Cae Caled (&Podcast)

December 2020

  1. Urban Legend? Razor Blades Behind Posters

June 2020

  1. A Manx Wizard in Victorian Liverpool
  2. Ghost or Fairy on the Road from Wilden to Ravensden?
  3. Ghosts and Fairies Attacking Railways
  4. Beachcombing’s Back

March 2019

  1. Catching a Leprechaun: A Modern Morality Tale

December 2018

  1. Christmas Update

May 2018

  1. Family Emergency
  2. Daily History Picture: Marijuana Hell
  3. Daily History Picture: Signing Peace
  4. Daily History Picture: British Troops Post Mareth
  5. Biggest European Cities: 1800-2018
  6. Daily History Picture: Kill the Dragon
  7. Mermaid Monday: Brewster Mermaid
  8. Daily History Picture: German Space Program
  9. Immortal Meals #36: Courtesan and Parsley
  10. Daily History Picture: Headless Men
  11. The Aura Machine!
  12. Graffiti Trick Against the Persians
  13. Daily History Picture: Wright Flies in New York
  14. What Poltergeists Do and Poltergeist Noise

April 2018

  1. Beachcombed 95
  2. Index Biography #53: Prize a book
  3. Jack the Ripper and the Spiritualists
  4. Beware Fairy Home Invasion!
  5. Daily History Picture: Cigs Per Head
  6. A Motor Car A Hundred Years Too Early
  7. Daily History Picture: Greek Slingshot
  8. Daily History Picture: Early Modern Swimming
  9. Victorian Fancy Dress
  10. Daily History Picture: Egyptian Spelling
  11. Smuggling by Hot Air Balloon, 1838
  12. Daily History Picture: Egyptian Eye Code
  13. Mermaid Monday: Thames Monster!
  14. Monsters with Eyes Like Saucers
  15. When Muhammad Rose from the Dead
  16. Daily History Picture: Paris Fainting 1967
  17. Daily History Picture: Fort Sill Explosion
  18. Daily History Picture: Fairies Dancing
  19. Mysterious Sloth Monster in Patagonia
  20. Daily History Picture: Franz Ferdinand Hunting
  21. ABCs: When and What
  22. Daily History Picture: WW1 French soldiers
  23. Mermaid Monday: Killed with Sticks
  24. The Mysterious Case of the Falkland Toothpaste Tube
  25. Die of the Pox or on the Gallows?
  26. Daily History Picture: Germany Invades Britain
  27. York-London Horse Race
  28. Daily History Picture: German Patrol in Alsace
  29. Daily History Picture: Ice Cold Drinks
  30. Daily History Picture: German WW1 Toys
  31. Daily History Picture: Ghost Illusion
  32. Mermaid Monday: Lough Swilly Mermaid Encounter
  33. Victorian Urban Legend: Doppelganger
  34. Iron Key to a Lost World
  35. Daily History Picture: Headless Ghost
  36. Fairies in Seventeenth-Century Surrey
  37. Assassination by Plane
  38. Daily History Picture: German Cavalry WW2
  39. Daily History Picture: Ripper Cartoon
  40. Daily History Picture: John Wayne and Famous Drunk
  41. Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road? History
  42. Daily History Picture: Malinowski Letter
  43. Mermaid Monday: Doctor Examines Mermaid

March 2018

  1. Beachcombed 94
  2. Index Biography #52: Prize a book
  3. Charles Montgomery Skinner, Rogue Researcher
  4. Seventh Bastard!
  5. Daily History Picture: Korean Poster
  6. Daily History Picture: Earthy Medieval Art
  7. Daily History Picture: Paolo and Francesca in Hell
  8. Hanging a Twelve Year Old, Lancaster 1812
  9. Daily History Picture: New York Fairy, 1918
  10. Mermaid Monday: Mermaid in London
  11. Wilhelm and Alfred Meet Stalin
  12. Daily History Picture: Ghost Misunderstanding
  13. Helen Duncan and HMS Hood: A Coincidence?
  14. Helen Duncan and HMS Barham: A Sceptic Speaks
  15. Daily History Picture: Pooh at Hastings
  16. Daily History Picture: Blitz Reading
  17. Daily History Picture: Bikini Fine
  18. If I Were Your Husband I Would Drink It: History of a Joke
  19. Daily History Picture: Romanian Soldiers WW1
  20. Mermaid Monday: Grimsby Lady
  21. Spell: Grow a Little Man!
  22. What Happened to William Hare?
  23. Daily History Picture: Roma Children Prisoners
  24. Buddhist Sets Himself on Fire in Ancient Greece?
  25. Daily History Picture: Russian WW1 Artillery
  26. Three Beggar’d Tales
  27. Gay Fairies: When and Why
  28. Daily History Picture: Sea Serpent 1848
  29. Daily History Picture: Royal Navy Mascot
  30. Victorian Urban Legend: Hypnotic Thievery
  31. Mermaid Monday: Mermaid Exhibited in Rome
  32. Daily History Picture: Cutting Sunshine
  33. Victorian Urban Legend: Ox Ring
  34. Cake-Eating Fairy in 19C Staffordshire
  35. Ghosts and a Bleeding Corpse in the Courtroom
  36. Daily History Picture: Reading the Communist Manifesto
  37. The Origins of Forehead Cross Tattoos?
  38. Daily History Picture: Clinton in the Bushes
  39. Daily History Picture: Birth Outside Marriage
  40. Daily History Picture: Medieval Children
  41. The Coker Hill Haunting 4: The Counter Spells
  42. Daily History Picture: 1950s US Girl
  43. The Coker Hill Haunting 3: A Witness
  44. The Coker Hill Haunting 2: The Events
  45. Daily History Picture: Delightful Fairies
  46. The Coker Hill Haunting 1: Dramatis Personae

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