"...we should pass over all biographies of 'the good and the great,' while we search carefully the slight records of wretches who died in prison, in Bedlam, or upon the gallows."
~Edgar Allan Poe

Monday, June 30, 2025

Malekin of Dagworth Hall

Dagworth Hall as it looks today



As I believe I’ve mentioned before, medieval chronicles are a gold mine for those of us who like our history to be laced with a bit of the bizarre.  In between descriptions of wars, plagues, and other notable events, you are apt to suddenly find deadpan accounts of events that can be best described as barking mad.  

Ralph of Coggeshall was a monk in the Cistercian Abbey of (surprise!) Coggeshall, England.  From 1187 to 1224, he was the author of the Abbey’s “Chronicon Anglicanum.”  What earns our scribe a place in the hallowed halls of Strange Company is his description of an unusually weird…ghost?  Poltergeist?  Changeling?!

According to Ralph, during the reign of Richard I (1189-99) the residence of Sir Osberni de Bradewell at Daghewurthe [Dagworth Hall,] in Suffolk, was frequently visited by a “certain fantastical spirit,” who would converse with the family, always using the voice of a very small child.  The spirit called himself “Malekin.”  He said that his mother and brother lived in a nearby house, and they often scolded him for leaving them in order to speak to other people.

Malekin did and said many things that were “both wonderful and very funny,” although he had the disconcerting habit of revealing people’s secrets.  The knight and his family were initially terrified by their uninvited guest, but they gradually got used to his “words and silly actions,” and wound up casually conversing with him as they would any other member of the household.  Malekin sometimes spoke English, sometimes Latin, and would have learned discussions about the Scriptures with the family chaplain.

Malekin could be heard and felt, but he was only seen once.  “A certain maiden” of the family asked him to show himself to her, but he refused until she made a solemn vow not to touch him.  After this promise was made, he appeared briefly in her chamber, in the form of a small boy clothed in a white tunic.  Malekin told her that he was born in Lavenham, and that his mother had left him in a field where she was harvesting, after which he was “taken away” by unspecified entities.  He added that he had been in his “present position” for the past seven years, and that after another seven years he would be free to live with people again.  

Malekin claimed that he and “the others” had a hat which made them invisible.  He would often ask for food and drink, which, when it was placed on a certain chest, instantly disappeared.

So.  Ralph says no more about the elusive Malekin, but I think we can all agree that he told us plenty.

Friday, June 27, 2025

Weekend Link Dump

 


Don't be a dunce!  Read this week's Link Dump!


History's heaviest conventional bombs.

Another one for the "re-writing human history" file.

New York City's strangest riot.

The final shots of the Civil War were fired in the Arctic.

The oldest known human fingerprint.

The portraits of Emily Dickinson.

Annie Londonderry's bicycle revolution.

The London Monument.

The magical sea coconuts.

When you want a pension so badly you'll marry a corpse.

A cab driver's unsolved disappearance.

Seagulls may be getting drunk on ants.  Now, there's a sentence I never thought I'd write.

A Renaissance villa in the Bronx.

Yet another "rejected suitor" murder.

The man who invented modern zoos.  For animals and humans.

A 19th century Indian novelist.

The importance of garnets.

In search of Madagascar's man-eating tree.

The world's largest jewelry robbery.

A farewell letter from 1796.

The long history of the slop bowl.

The long history of zombies.

The time Boston had a red snowstorm.

The life of Margaret Tudor.

A brief history of Marseille.

The significance of some 23,000 year old footprints.

That's it for this week!  See you on Monday, when we'll meet a very strange being from medieval England.  In the meantime, here's a bit of modern Celtic folk.

Wednesday, June 25, 2025

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com



This odd little story appeared in the “Saint Paul Globe,” October 17, 1903:

COLUMBUS GROVE, Ohio, Oct. 15. Is the farm residence of George Arnold, a leading prohibition politician of the county, located about two and half miles north of here on the Ottawa pike. haunted, and what causes the strange sounds that emanate therefrom? This is the question which not only Mr. Arnold's folks are trying to solve, but neighbors and citizens of Columbus Grove as well. 

One week ago Saturday night the residence was entered and $35 and a revolver were taken from the bookcase in the living room. Mr. Arnold's pension voucher, which was with the money, was found lying on the floor.

Every night since the Arnolds have been troubled by intruders. When they heard strange sounds night after night an investigation was ordered.  Upon appearing at the front door they saw what appeared to be a man and a woman in a strange little cart in the lane which leads to the house from the road. They had no more than left the shelter of the house when the strange beings threw sticks and rocks at the family. It is said that as soon as members of the family leave the house, even though for but a short time, furniture is turned topsy-turvy and everything is strewn about. 

Becoming tired of the strange happenings and perplexed by the embarrassment which his family is compelled to suffer on account of the trouble, Mr. Arnold came to town and engaged a number of guards to watch the house.  One of these guards is ex-Night Watchman Jacob Sheets. Faithfully has he stood for the past several nights, but as yet not able to locate the mysterious sounds nor find any clew to the rock throwers. 

Arnold's first wife and several children died within short periods of one another of consumption. He married again and the children born of the second union assist him in taking care of his farm.

The children of the first union who are still living have gone out to make a way in the world. Most of the strange happenings are said to occur at the house during the absence of the wife. A year or so ago the Arnolds were bothered by mysterious visitors, but after a while, they ceased to come.

This all sounds very much like a poltergeist account, except the family’s attackers appear to have been corporeal--although this reporter seems to suggest that there was something not-quite-human about the mysterious rock-throwers.  In any case, I have been unable to find any resolution to the story.

Monday, June 23, 2025

The Curious Mr. Jacob

A photo that may be of A.M. Jacob, although the attribution seems dubious.



On January 17, 1921, the normally staid pages of the “London Times” carried a surprisingly colorful obituary:

The wonderfully diversified stage of India has seen no more romantic and arresting figure in our time than that of Mr. A.M. Jacob, the “Lurgan Sahib” of Mr. Kipling's “Kim" and the hero of the late Marion Crawford's most successful novel “Isaacs.”  He won his way from slavery to fame and immense wealth. but has now died in obscurity and poverty at Bombay at the age of 71.

Mystery surrounds the origin, as well as many features of the career, of a man generally believed to be either a Polish or Armenian Jew. but who claimed to be a Turk, and was born near Constantinople. At any rate, he was of the humblest origin, and when 10 years old was sold as a slave to a rich pasha, who, discovering that the boy had uncommon abilities, made a student of him.

It was thus that he acquired the foundation of that wide knowledge of Eastern life, language, art, literature, philosophy, and occultism which made him in later years a great influence at Simla and a most valuable helper of the political secret service. Gaining manumission on the death of his master in early manhood, he made the pilgrimage to Mecca disguised as a Mahomedan, and from Jeddah worked a passage to Bombay, where he landed friendless and with scarcely enough in his pocket for the next meal. Through his intimate knowledge of Arabic he soon obtained a clerkship to a great nobleman in the Nizam Court in Hyderabad. A year or two later a successful deal with a precious stone led him to go to Delhi and to set up in business in this line.

He rapidly made money.  His ideas and interests were too expansive to find scope in the Chandi Chowk, and he removed his business to Simla, the social and administrative capital of India for the greater part of the year.

Mr. Jacob's unrivalled knowledge of precious stones gave him a remarkable clientele of the highest in the land. such as British satraps and Indian princes; but he was much more than a keen man of business. He was endowed by nature with a wonderfully handsome face and form, and there was about him a compelling magnetism, a power and mystery, which led to his being sought for conversation and advice by Viceroys and princes, as well as men only less exalted. Belvedere, his Simla home. furnished in the most lavish Oriental style and filled with priceless ornaments. was thronged by a succession of notable visitors. Yet his own habits of life were ascetic almost to the verge of sternness.

So far from using his immense wealth for the gratification of luxurious tastes, he was a vegetarian. a teetotaller, and a non-smoker, and with good horses in his stables he rode only a shaggy hill pony. A Viceroy is reported to have said of him that “he lived like a skeleton in a jewel room.” The fact was that his deepest interests were in philosophy, astrology, and the occult. At dinner parties he astonished his guests by his “miracles,” and even the late Mme. Blavatsky had to admit his superiority in providing at will supernormal phenomena.  

But the day came when this bright star suffered eclipse. Hearing that the "Imperial diamond” was for sale in this country, he went to the late Nizam of Hyderabad, Sir Mahbub Ali Khan, and obtained an offer of 46 lakhs, then the equivalent of over £300,000. He obtained Rs.20 lakhs on account, and finding by cable that he could obtain the stone for £150,000, he at once paid the amount.  Mr. Jacob always alleged that it was owing to a personal intrigue against him that a high dignitary in Hyderabad, acting for the Government of India, brought pressure to bear on the Nizam, whose finances were at that time in an unsatisfactory state, to renounce the transaction.  Mr. Jacob was sued for the return of the Rs.20 lakhs, and was criminally indicted on a charge of cheating. After a trial at the Calcutta High Court lasting 57 days he was acquitted, but he had incurred enormous legal expenses. He claimed that ultimately the Nizam agreed to pay Rs.17 lakhs for the diamond, but this, as well as some other large liabilities by Indian Durbars, could not be obtained by legal process in British Courts, since they have no jurisdiction over the ruling Princes.

This, in brief, is the version of the collapse of his fortune which Mr. Jacob gave. At the age of 55 he went to Bombay a ruined man, and earned a scanty living for some years as a dealer in old china. But he remained cheerful and alert, sustained by a philosophy of life which gave him unshaken faith in immortality.

During all his prosperous years, he kept a full diary day by day, and it is to be hoped that this record of a fascinating career, believed to be very frank, will one day be published.

It appears that, if anything, the “Times” downplayed Jacob’s capacity for weirdness.  (A side note: His modern biographer, John Zubrzycki, believes "Jacob" was born in 1849 in what is now Turkey, and that his real name was "Iskandar Meliki bin Ya'qub al-Birri."  Perhaps he was, perhaps he wasn't.  Jacob was very good at creating a dense fog around his life.)  The Indian publication “The Pioneer,” gave a contemporary report about this remarkable enigma.  Jacob, we are told, could make himself invisible any time he chose.  At dinner parties, the other guests were entertained by the spectacle of Jacob seeming to vanish into ether, with only the movements of his knife and fork being visible.  At one gathering, a general asked Jacob to show some of his “tricks.”  Jacob, offended by this demeaning word, ordered a servant to bring him the general’s walking stick, made of thick grapevine, and a glass bowl full of water.  He then thrust the stick into the bowl.  “After a time,” the Pioneer’s correspondent wrote, “they saw numbers of shoots, like rootlets, begin issuing from the handle until they filled the bowl and held the stick steady, Jacob standing over it, muttering all the time.”  Then the stick began making crackling sounds, and twigs began sprouting from the stick, which soon turned into leaves and buds, the latter of which turned into bunches of black grapes.  All of this took place within some ten minutes.

Jacob was not through with his little show.  He told one of the guests to close his eyes and picture himself in the bedroom of his bungalow, which was about a mile away.  The guest obeyed.  “Now open your eyes,” Jacob said.  When the man did so, he was understandably flummoxed to find that he and Jacob were standing in the bungalow.  Jacob then told him to close his eyes again, so they could rejoin the dinner party.  However, the man, apparently having enough of being teleported here and there, refused.  “Oh, well,” said Jacob, “since you won’t come, I must go alone.  Goodbye.”  And then he vanished.  What the other dinner guests thought of this Fortean floor show is unfortunately not recorded.

In 1896, the Spiritualist publication “Borderland” carried a report about Jacob.  Their correspondent said he had spoken to Jacob about the “Pioneer” account.  Jacob essentially confirmed it all, except that he denied having performed the “miracle” of the grapes with a guest’s stick.  Rather, he had used a pre-prepared stick, which made his little stunt an easy one.  “In fact, he asserted that I or any one else could do the trick as soon as we were shown how.  Further, he admitted the truth of the fact that he had thrust your contributor through with a naked sword, but while he admitted it, he explained it away, for he said it was a mere trick, which was frequently performed by the natives.”

And what of the reports that Jacob could walk on water?  “Ah,” he replied, “I cannot do that now.”  Jacob explained, “I did not walk on the water, as the article says, although I appeared to do so, but I was supported in the air by my friend, who was invisible to the others.”  He added that this “friend” was someone who died 150 years previously, “and had been kind enough to act as his guardian through life.”  Alas, this “spirit guardian” had deserted him four months ago, leaving Jacob unable to repeat that particular stunt.  The “Borderland” correspondent also informed us that Jacob always wore a certain charm around his neck.  When he would wave it around, “a storm of butterflies, so dense, that no object in the room or its walls or ceiling could be seen through; and again with another word the storm disappeared.”  On another occasion, he showed his drawing-room “to be on fire, filled with large flames, but without warmth.”

As if Jacob’s life wasn’t peculiar enough, he also appears to have been some sort of intelligence asset.  Edward Buck, who had been a correspondent for Reuters in Simla for many years, and who knew Jacob well, wrote, “From papers which Mr. Jacob showed me there is no doubt in my mind that he was at one time treated as a secret agent of Government in certain matters.”  Buck did not say what these “certain matters” were, but he implied that the answers to many of the questions surrounding Jacob could be found in the files of “the mysterious Secret Department” of the Indian government.  

A.M. Jacob--or whoever and whatever he really was--died in Bombay on January 9, 1921.  He is buried in that city’s Sewri cemetery, but the exact location of his grave is now lost.  He would probably prefer it that way.

There is one rather charming footnote to our story.  The “Imperial Diamond” which led to Jacob’s financial ruin is now known as the “Jacob Diamond,” thus giving him a certain immortality.

[Note:  Many thanks to John Bellen for introducing me to this unusual character.]

Friday, June 20, 2025

Weekend Link Dump

 



Welcome to this week's Link Dump, where we've got the blues!



The eternal mystery of the Lost Colony of Roanoke.

An ultra-penal colony.

The Boston Bread Riot.

When the CIA tried to turn animals into assassins.  Because, CIA.

There's an "underwater staircase" in the Baltic Sea, and scientists are a bit freaked out.

A lot of strange things go on in Dulce, New Mexico.

It turns out that ChatGPT is a lousy therapist.  Golly, there's a shocker.

The Enlightenment's philosophical gravediggers.

A Kansas UFO incident.

Why "Jack" became a nickname for "John."

Convicts take a brutal journey to Australia.

The slow death of the semicolon.

Why Tokyo has "third-party toilet consultants."

We now have an idea of what Denisovans looked like.

A British MP's museum.

The tribe that doesn't dance, sing, or make fire.

A column wondering why birds haven't developed a complex culture.  I dunno, maybe it's because they have more sense than we do.

The "most coveted and desirable book in the world."

The magic of feathers.

"Jaws" turns 50.

The science behind near-death experiences.

A brief history of Americans being abducted by aliens.

The very weird murder of "God's banker."

Panic in Mattoon: A Mad Gasser or mass hysteria?

A famed rat-catcher.

A famed bookbinder.

The birth of "Mark Twain."

The Case of the Murdered Coachman.

The war dead of St. Paul's Cathedral.

The "General Slocum" disaster.

A "sea devil incarnate."

The Jumping Frenchmen of Maine.

A philosopher's "repugnant conclusion."

The theory that we're not the first advanced civilization.

Nothing to see here, just mysterious radio pulses coming from beneath Antarctica's ice. 

The "Holy Grail" of shipwrecks.

More Thundercrows!

Why Mars is currently confusing scientists.

A forgotten Founding Father.

Ancient treasure that's really out-of-this-world.

The discovery of an ancient underwater settlement.

A very weird ghost story from ancient Greece.

The cattiest countries in Europe.

A club for bores.

A brief history of pizza.

When you think you're getting a marriage proposal, and it turns out to be a book deal instead.

That's it for this week!  See you on Monday, when we'll look at a strange figure from Indian history.  In the meantime, here's Stevie:

Wednesday, June 18, 2025

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com



This poltergeist case is sadly lacking in detail (I could not find any more informative reports,) but I thought the final line of the story made it worth sharing.  “Truth,” December 1, 1946:

The people of County Clare, Ireland, are agog with anxiety and perplexity at reports of the impish activities of a Poltergeist, which this week showed up in their midst! So strange is the situation which the poltergeist is stirring up, that profound interest is registered throughout the United Kingdom this week-end. A poltergeist is described as "a ghost which causes noises and gets up to all sorts of impish pranks." Many citizens of County Clare are inclined to believe that a Walt Disney creation has got loose and is causing all kinds of trouble.

A "Truth" correspondent in London got in touch with Ireland when the news was first received of the poltergeist. The correspondent says there appears to be some jealousy over Walt Disney visiting Dublin before County Clare. From the Ballymakea district of Mullagh there comes the story of a poltergeist which takes pride in throwing butter in the face of a farmer's wife and in scaring children out of their wits, in broad daylight. By way of repaying the hospitality, this poltergeist causes chairs to be smashed, windows and china broken, bread finger-printed and ash thrown in the stew. This, of course, does not include the unseemly behavior with the bedclothes.

A policeman at Quilty, in County Clare, told "Truth's" correspondent that the poltergeist disturbance was being investigated. They claim that the reports are true, believe in the occurrence, and are seriously investigating the "mischievous phenomena.” If the phenomena continues, there will be a "clerical investigation," the policeman added. 

People in Eire do not dismiss the affair as an "old wives' tale." 

It is pointed out that these poltergeists must not be confused with the benevolent little men called Leprechauns. Poltergeists are reputed "to be able to cause real damage and sometimes physical pain.” 

Spiritualists believe poltergeists to be the spirits of vicious monkeys.

Monday, June 16, 2025

Where Are James and Nancy Robinson?

The following is yet another case where a husband and wife disappear simultaneously, but in this instance the circumstances were particularly inexplicable, not to mention sinister.

Up until the day their lives took a sudden dark turn, we know very little about 39-year-old James Robinson and his 25-year-old wife Nancy, other than that they had been married a relatively short time and were, as far as anyone can tell, happy with each other.  When our story opens, they had spent the last seven months as caretakers for the Winter’s Creek Equestrian Ranch in Washoe Valley, Nevada, with no apparent problems on or off the job.

Winters Creek Ranch


On Saturday, March 8, 1982, a Reno family came by the ranch to rent horses for the day.  Unfortunately, the weather took a sudden turn for the worse, forcing them to cut their ride short.  James and Nancy assured them that they could come by the next day to finish their excursion, at no extra charge.  However, when the family returned the following morning, they found the ranch locked up, and seemingly deserted.  The only signs of life were the horses roaming free in the yard.  The group apparently just shrugged and left.

On the morning of Monday, March 10th, a man who had been hired to do some construction work on the ranch became concerned when he saw that the Robinson’s living quarters had a broken window and blood on the front steps, and contacted police.

When the police entered the house, it was immediately obvious that something terrible had happened.  The place was in disarray, and pools of blood were found on the floor.  Several saddles and a few pieces of jewelry were gone, but many other items of at least equal value remained.  Several guns were found inside the house, but none of them had been recently used.  Later that day, the Robinson pickup truck was found on the side of the road on Highway 50, near Lake Tahoe, with a flat tire.  More blood was found inside the truck, along with the missing saddles and jewelry, and another gun which had also not been fired.  (Oddly, tests performed on all these blood stains were reported as being “inconclusive” about the blood types.  In 2000, it was reported that the blood samples would be resubmitted for DNA testing, but I’ve been unable to find what the results may have been.)  The last known person to talk to James and Nancy was the owner of the ranch, who phoned them on the evening of March 6th to talk about a horse show they had attended that afternoon.  He stated that everything seemed perfectly normal.

Although it’s assumed that some sort of foul play was involved, to date, we still have no idea what happened to the Robinsons.  The only possible clue to their disappearance was the fact that three months before the couple vanished, the main house on the ranch burned down in what was believed to be an act of arson.  The Robinsons had agreed to take a polygraph test as part of the investigation, but they went missing before this could be done.  It was never determined who set the fire, or if it had any connection to James and Nancy’s disquieting exit.  Eighteen years after the couple vanished, Larry Canfield, the lead detective in the mystery, could only say, “Everybody loves a mystery, and this is a good one.”

Not the sort of epitaph anyone wants to leave behind.