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	<title>Beachcombing&#039;s Bizarre History Blog</title>
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	<link>https://www.strangehistory.net/</link>
	<description>The outlandish, the anomalous and the curious from the last five thousand years</description>
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		<title>The Deerness Mermaid: Our Best Attested Nineteenth-Century Cryptid</title>
		<link>http://www.strangehistory.net/2025/05/06/the-deerness-mermaid-our-best-attested-nineteenth-century-cryptid/</link>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Beachcombing]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Tue, 06 May 2025 11:51:13 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Modern]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mermaids]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Orkney]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.strangehistory.net/?p=45214</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[Dear friends, this month&#8217;s podcast is on the Deerness Mermaid: the Best Attested Nineteenth-Century Cryptid Background. What is the DM? Between 1887 and 1899, something strange haunted the waters off Deerness, Orkney. Locals called it a mermaid; newspapers across Britain ran breathless headlines. It had a black head, long white neck, and a white body [&#8230;]]]></description>
		
		
		
			</item>
		<item>
		<title>Are Mermaids Fairies?</title>
		<link>http://www.strangehistory.net/2024/07/01/are-mermaids-fairies/</link>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Beachcombing]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Mon, 01 Jul 2024 11:32:52 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Contemporary]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Medieval]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Modern]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mermaids]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.strangehistory.net/?p=45205</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[Chris starts our new podcast episode (Mermaid 101) with this question (see title) and I answer &#8216;yes&#8217;. Mermaids (which have featured for over a decade on this site) are social supernatural beings who happen to live in the water rather than on land. They are essentially marine fairies. But there is an important difference in [&#8230;]]]></description>
		
		
		
			</item>
		<item>
		<title>Early Modern Fairy Sex Spell</title>
		<link>http://www.strangehistory.net/2024/06/01/early-modern-fairy-sex-spell/</link>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Beachcombing]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Sat, 01 Jun 2024 12:30:24 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Modern]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Fairies]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.strangehistory.net/?p=45191</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[This month’s podcast is on sex and the supernatural. The most extraordinary text I ran across in preparing for our hour ride is the following spell from an early modern English text, edited by Frederika Bain in her &#8216;The Binding of the Fairies: Four Spells&#8217;, Preternature 2 (2012), 323-354. It describes the ritual you should [&#8230;]]]></description>
		
		
		
			</item>
		<item>
		<title>Karl Banse: The Man Who Made the Case for Mermaids</title>
		<link>http://www.strangehistory.net/2024/05/01/karl-banse-the-man-who-made-the-case-for-mermaids/</link>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Beachcombing]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Wed, 01 May 2024 10:00:59 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Modern]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.strangehistory.net/?p=45113</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[Just a quick post as we move towards the summer. The podcast goes on with me and Chris recently talking about fairy artifacts, the Philip experiment (&#8216;how to invent a ghost&#8217;) and this month &#8216;spectral evidence: the supernatural in court&#8217;. I, meanwhile, am diving into mermaid-lore, a love that started many years ago on this [&#8230;]]]></description>
		
		
		
			</item>
		<item>
		<title>Victorian Urban Legends: Fine Art</title>
		<link>http://www.strangehistory.net/2024/02/25/34181/</link>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Beachcombing]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Sat, 24 Feb 2024 23:01:55 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.strangehistory.net/?p=34181</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[A couple of fine art urban legends. We live in a world where painting no longer has the same social value: what would be the modern equivalents of these? Drbeachcombing At yahoo DOT com A man who was furnishing saw in Wardour-street an old portrait which he admired, but for which the dealer asked, as [&#8230;]]]></description>
		
		
		
			</item>
		<item>
		<title>Headingley Monster</title>
		<link>http://www.strangehistory.net/2024/02/24/headingley-monster/</link>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Beachcombing]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Sat, 24 Feb 2024 08:48:43 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Modern]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Leeds]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Poltergeists]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.strangehistory.net/?p=38281</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[Here is a weird and disturbing story from the Sheffield Evening Telegraph, 16 Apr 1912: Leeds Family Terrorised; Woman Bitten. For three months past, a strange little beast has been alarming a Headingley household. It has been variously held to be weasel, a rat, or some strange creature from the East. On several, occasions the animal [&#8230;]]]></description>
		
		
		
			</item>
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		<title>The Wood Diva</title>
		<link>http://www.strangehistory.net/2024/02/05/the-wood-diva/</link>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Beachcombing]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Mon, 05 Feb 2024 08:16:28 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Contemporary]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Fairies]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Nova Scotia]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.strangehistory.net/?p=45104</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[***I&#8217;ve been absent for a couple of months because I was locked out of the account! Just to let you know that Chris and I continue to do our podcasts and there has been an episode on medieval x-files and now bird spirits. This is a fragment of an article on Fairy Census 2 I&#8217;ve [&#8230;]]]></description>
		
		
		
			</item>
		<item>
		<title>The Dancing Fairies of Sennen Cove:</title>
		<link>http://www.strangehistory.net/2023/12/12/the-dancing-fairies-of-sennen-cove/</link>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Beachcombing]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Tue, 12 Dec 2023 09:19:45 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Modern]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Cornwall]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Fairies]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.strangehistory.net/?p=45089</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[This month Chris and I have been enjoying, on the Boggart and Banshee podcast, a fascinating fairy encounter at Sennen Cove, a hamlet, in Cornwall. In 1888 two young women go out to the well at midnight, up on the hill behind their house. I’ve put on this Victorian OS map a red line for [&#8230;]]]></description>
		
		
		
			</item>
		<item>
		<title>The Modern Western Ghost and Its Zombie Origins</title>
		<link>http://www.strangehistory.net/2023/11/01/the-modern-western-ghost-and-its-zombie-origins/</link>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Beachcombing]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Wed, 01 Nov 2023 09:13:34 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Medieval]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Modern]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ghosts]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Zombies]]></category>
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					<description><![CDATA[This month’s Boggart and Banshee podcast is on ghosts and shrouds (Shrouded in Mystery: The Origins of the Iconic Sheeted Ghost). As often with Chris’s choices I didn’t at first get the point: I can only get so excited about textiles&#8230; But my attention picked up as I realised (ever the slow learner) that the [&#8230;]]]></description>
		
		
		
			</item>
		<item>
		<title>Horse Spirits: Colt-Pixy or Pixy-Colt?</title>
		<link>http://www.strangehistory.net/2023/10/01/horse-spirits-colt-pixy-or-pixy-colt/</link>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Beachcombing]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Sun, 01 Oct 2023 09:51:22 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Modern]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Fairies]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ghosts]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Horses]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.strangehistory.net/?p=45070</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[The latest episode of Boggart and Banshee is on horse spirits and Chris and I disagree on, well, just about everything… There is also a fun accompanying book with seventeen different tales of horse spirits (UK, US). However, you can listen to the podcast for that. I’ve, instead, been caught up with one very simple [&#8230;]]]></description>
		
		
		
			</item>
		<item>
		<title>The When of Levitation in the West</title>
		<link>http://www.strangehistory.net/2023/09/01/the-when-of-levitation-in-the-west/</link>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Beachcombing]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Fri, 01 Sep 2023 07:19:15 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Modern]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.strangehistory.net/?p=45055</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[Fun and games on the latest Boggart and Banshee podcast with almost an hour given over to questions of levitation and teleportation. As always when I talk to Chris there were revelations, things I’d not realised before. The point that really blew me away was the chronology of levitation. I had assumed that people had [&#8230;]]]></description>
		
		
		
			</item>
		<item>
		<title>The Fairy Census: End Game</title>
		<link>http://www.strangehistory.net/2023/08/01/the-fairy-census-end-game/</link>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Beachcombing]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Tue, 01 Aug 2023 11:24:28 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Actualite]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.strangehistory.net/?p=45048</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[In 2014 (inspired by Marjorie Johnson’s Seeing Fairies, which I had just edited) I started the Fairy Census. The aim was to gather together first-hand encounters with fairies; or unusual supernatural experiences that could be understood in fairy terms. It took me to 2017 to get to 500 encounters, which were then published freely online. [&#8230;]]]></description>
		
		
		
			</item>
		<item>
		<title>Immortals and Itinerants</title>
		<link>http://www.strangehistory.net/2023/07/01/immortals-and-itinerants/</link>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Beachcombing]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Sat, 01 Jul 2023 09:26:41 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Modern]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.strangehistory.net/?p=45037</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[This month’s Boggart and Banshee Podcast concerns the immortals in our midst: the men and (in some rare cases) the women who are supposed to live for ever. I’ve long been interested in the most famous of these, the Wandering Jew: the individual cursed by Christ who traipsed from place-to-place imparting wisdom or (in some [&#8230;]]]></description>
		
		
		
			</item>
		<item>
		<title>Devil at the Wedding (Ritual)</title>
		<link>http://www.strangehistory.net/2023/06/01/devil-at-the-wedding-ritual/</link>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Beachcombing]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Thu, 01 Jun 2023 05:59:04 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Modern]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.strangehistory.net/?p=45024</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[Chris twisted my arm this month to do a podcast on wedding superstitions. I was rather pessimistic about how interesting this would be (dresses, jilting&#8230;), but after a couple of weeks of reading I’d changed my mind. As one folklorist explained things to me ‘it’s all about sex and death’. Here just to give you [&#8230;]]]></description>
		
		
		
			</item>
		<item>
		<title>The Voodoo Soldiers of Arthur’s Seat, Edinburgh</title>
		<link>http://www.strangehistory.net/2023/05/01/the-voodoo-soldiers-of-arthurs-seat-edinburgh/</link>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Beachcombing]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Mon, 01 May 2023 08:41:30 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Modern]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.strangehistory.net/?p=45009</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[In 1836 some children discovered a hidden niche on the edge of Arthur’s Seat. In this niche were three shelves, two with eight and one with one miniature coffin and body. Each ‘unit’ had four elements: a coffin, a coffin lid, a doll and clothes. These coffins are the subject of this month’s Boggart and [&#8230;]]]></description>
		
		
		
			</item>
		<item>
		<title>Zombies and Shapechangers in Medieval Yorkshire</title>
		<link>http://www.strangehistory.net/2023/04/01/zombies-and-shapechangers-in-medieval-yorkshire/</link>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Beachcombing]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Sat, 01 Apr 2023 10:36:08 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Medieval]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.strangehistory.net/?p=45001</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[There are twelve medieval supernatural tales in Byland collection, which I’ve just published in a booklet for Pwca press (UK, US)* and which Chris and I discuss on this month’s podcast. And there are four important questions to ask about their author and how they came to be written: the ‘Where’, ‘Who’, ‘When’, and ‘Why’ [&#8230;]]]></description>
		
		
		
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