Archive for
‘August, 2014’

Does the Sea Serpent Really Look Like an Art Nouveau Oar-fish? With Labor Day upon us, we are almost at the end of the Silly Season when sea serpent stories were standard newspaper fare. Here’s a selection of vintage–and most imaginative–depictions of sea serpents.

Acoustic anomalies in earth, air, and water. Aeolian Harps, Silver Bells, and Icebergs

Eating Holy Clay A disturbing ritual from Ireland where clay from graves is eaten to protect against disease and sin. Unfortunately more was ingested than just clay.

Little Angels at a Deathbed Angels or fairy-like creatures urge a dying boy to come with them.

Ending War with Ionic Vibration and a Vacuum Cleaner Dr. Orville W. Owen who “proved” that Bacon wrote Shakespeare and an unknown night watchman from Wisconsin take a crack at ending the First World War.

Sound the fairy pipes for the publication of this extraordinary collection of first-hand reports of fairies! They are found not only in the dim past, but from the 20th century and from ordinary people just up the street.

The Tombstone Censor tells you what you can and cannot have carved upon your gravestone.

Sandpunk fiction from 1916 about photography in ancient Egypt and the perils of photographing the KA.

While we know Black Dogs as harbingers of Death, earthly black dogs were also considered to be a source of a remedy for tuberculosis. Here is an account of that macabre and dubious remedy.