Weekend Link Dump

 

Welcome to this Friday's Link Dump!  The name of this week's host is, unfortunately, lost to history, but I love that look of Cattitude.

The Outer Hebrides are really humming!

The importance of a fingerprint from Stonehenge.

Earth's inner core may not be...the inner core.

Isn't it good to know that scientists are hosting wine tasting parties for rats?

The discovery of an ancient city associated with Alexander the Great.

An anecdote of the workhouse.

Tourists find buried treasure in the Czech Republic.   Beats a souvenir t-shirt.

British newspaper headlines from VE Day.

Detective work in 19th century France.

The hero of St. Mary’s Hospital, Paddington.

Stories created by children during wartime.

HMS Wasp, accidental victim.

A historic Moroccan necropolis.

Newspaper coverage of the 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption.

The 1813 Battle of York.

A famed rum-runner.

In which historians ponder all the most important questions.

Pope Francis goes into eternity with really lousy kerning.

The fake Hitler diaries.

A high-status 4,500 year old burial.

The medieval period has lousy PR, and some historians aren't happy about that.

The Napoleon diamond necklace.

The first advice column.

E.T. might turn out to be Ted Bundy.  

A brief history of the word "hillbilly."

The 1911 Champagne Riots.

A British MP who was also an Arctic explorer.

An Irish "close encounter."

The myths of Elisabeth of Austria.

A tour of Shakespeare's London.

The pyramids and hydraulic engineering.

The oldest known domestic cats in what is now the United States.

A glimpse of peasant life in ancient Egypt.

The Fisk assassination.

That's it for this week!  See you on Monday, when we'll look at a mysterious death inside a lighthouse.  In the meantime, bring on the blues.

 

 I thought a version of this song done by Linda Ronstadt some years ago makes an interesting contrast.

 

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

This odd little story--which I suppose goes into the “bits of random weirdness” file--comes from the “New York Sun,” June 25, 1882:

The boarding house at 52 Willoughby street, Brooklyn, is one of a three-story, painted, brick row, on the south side, between Jay and Lawrence streets, a few doors only from the residence of Hugh McLaughlin, and is kept by Mr. and Mrs. William Swift, formerly of Boston, who leased it early in the present year.

The back parlor was let to a lady from Chicago, but about two months ago she suddenly went away, and the room, with a bedroom adjoining it, was rented to a young married couple, who yet occupy it. The room is very prettily furnished and ornamented with bric-a-brac. The walls are adorned with paintings and engravings, while the windows and doorways are heavily curtained. The following stories are told concerning these rooms: 

The couple had occupied the room only a few nights when the springs of a clock standing on the mantelpiece, and known to the trade as a carriage clock, began occasionally to vibrate with a sudden force, thereby transforming the ordinary tick into a sound likened to a prolonged mournful cry. This would occur while the occupants of the room were seated at the table, and sometimes it would break out in the middle of the night, when they were asleep. This peculiar noise has continued at irregular intervals ever since. The clock continued to keep good time, and there did not seem, on inspection, to be anything the matter with it.

Recently there has appeared in the room several times a floating, vaporous body which assumes the shape of a huge foot ball. It is of a dark color, and is transparent. It will start from a corner of the ceiling. take a downward course. and float slowly across the parlor, through the curtained doorway of the bedroom, and disappear under the bed.

In one instance it was discerned by a pet dog lying in his mistress's lap. With a bound the dog was upon the floor barking at it loudly. Two of the occupants of the room were riveted to their chairs, while the effect upon the third, who was lying sick in the bed, is described as like that of a severe electric shock. During the last few nights slight rappings have been heard.

On Thursday night the light was extinguished about 11 o'clock, and just as the couple had fallen asleep a loud pounding awakened them. The pounding ceased for a few seconds, only to be renewed in the shape of loud raps, which appeared to come from a small table by the fireplace. They sounded as though they were caused by a knuckle coming in contact with wood. The table is small, of common wood, and is covered with a cloth which would somewhat muffle the sound of a rap.

The raps heard were sharp and could not have been produced by striking upon the cloth. A thorough investigation failed to elicit any cause for the mysterious rappings, which were kept up almost without cessation until the dawn of day. There was also a rustling sound at intervals, as though something was moving through the air. The curtains trembled. 

The occupants of the house believe that a natural cause will eventually be found for the annoyance, but it is added that there are peculiar circumstances surrounding the affair which are very distressing.

Pastor Schupart Versus the Devil

Pastor Johann Gottfried Schupart (1677-1729) was one of the leading German Lutherans of his day, becoming Professor of Theology and eventually Rector at Giesing University.  However, the part of his career that has earned him a place in this blog deals with his lengthy battles with a supernatural force that he naturally described as “the devil,” but what we today would call an unusually violent and persistent poltergeist.

As we are now dealing with the subject of the fallen angels, and at the same time enquiring, "An Diabolus possit gere in corpus?"—I will tell what has happened to me—and I call the thrice-blessed Creator to witness that it is true—and I am prepared, upon demand, to substantiate it, not only with my own oath, but with the evidence of more than a hundred witnesses. I know well, it is true, that many old wives’ fables are mingled among the relations of ghostly happenings; but I earnestly assert, that in all my days I have never been superstitious, and have thought lightly of such things; but, though I kept no journal of the matter, I will relate what I remember. For six years I fought with the devil, and was never sure for one quarter of an hour that he would not wring my neck.

The beginning was so :—

I was lying asleep in bed in my cabinet, and my wife, who had a fever, was in the opposite bed, when, about one or two in the morning, some one or something came to the door, and gave it a blow hard enough to drive it into pieces. I sprang out of bed; but, though I had not been sound asleep, but only dozing, and though my wife was also much startled, I supposed that we had both dreamt it, and lay down again. And yet I had, none the less, my own thoughts about the matter, for a brother of mine, who was ill at the time, afterwards died. But I said to myself, “It’s only a dream!” and settled down again in bed. Then the door was struck again, just as hard as before, and I saw clearly that it was no dream; but I put it out of my mind.

Next evening, when the maid put the light on the table, the spirit struck it so that it fell a good distance off upon the floor, but continued standing and kept alight, which caused me much thought. And from that time forward these things went on. Stones, weighing six, eight, nine, ten pounds, were thrown at my head, as violently as if shot from a bow; they whistled through the air, and struck out the whole window—glass, lead and all. I was not touched by them, but I had to get new windows put in nearly every day. Often I did not take off my clothes for four weeks at a stretch. I was struck in the face, stuck with pins, bitten, so that men saw the marks of both rows of teeth; the two great teeth were there, and were as pointed and sharp as pins. After I had been at confession, I had always the greatest annoyances, and had, generally, after returning home, to pick up all my books, that had been thrown from the shelf and mixed up together. When I wanted to sleep, I had to lay one cheek on the pillow, and cover the other side with another pillow, to protect me from slaps in the face; even then I was pinched and even struck.

At last I used to set my back to the wall at night and read, and thus I read through Syen's Histoire de l’Eglise, four thick quartos. Once the house was set on fire, in seeming, as it were, and then I begged the Prince for a guard, urging that not only I, but other poor loyal subjects were endangered; and I said I wished to pick out honest and pious men, according to my own judgment; and this was granted me. And these guards saw how It beat me, and they got some boxes on the ear themselves, though they hit about them in the room with their swords.

In the presence of twelve persons, It struck my wife so hard on the cheeks that the sound was heard five rooms away. In another house, to which she had retired, I having gone out, she received, in the presence of three persons, more than fifty slaps on the face, till she said, "I might as well bear the blows in my own house as in another’s." But although the strokes resounded so terribly, they did not hurt as much as one would have supposed from the sound of them.

As things were so bad, I procured leave to include myself in the public prayers in the Church, and begged my hearers not to be scandalized, or to adopt sinful opinions, even if God should allow Satan to kill me, and I should be found lying dead in this place or in that. When I had evening prayers according to custom—for my congregation attended diligently—and the whole room was full of people who saw and heard all, I was, during the prayers, pricked, bitten, struck and pinched, till my wife and I had to cover our legs with the clothes of those sitting by us. Cords were thrown around my neck and my wife’s, so that, had we not been quick in pulling them off, we should have unquestionably been strangled. Of all my books, the Talmud had the most to suffer. The book of Church regulations was torn, also the prayer-books and hymn-books. It tore Hedinpro’s Testament and threw it at my feet. It tore the Gospel of St. John, and quod maxime notandum , when I was expounding the Epistle to the Romans in the course of my exordia, and had come to viii. 17 and 18.  It tore the leaf on which the text was—the leaf began with those verses—out of the book, so that, when I came into the pulpit, I had not got the text; but the leaf, torn into little pieces, was strewn on the bed of my wife, then lying sick at home.  Nothing was done to the Bible, save that the Fourth Chapter of the Prophet Isaiah was once splashed with ink.

Once when I was lying in bed, the carving-fork was flung at me, but only the handle struck me; the knife came immediately after the fork, but did me no damage. Another time this great knife was thrown at me again; I heard it come whistling like an arrow, and started; it hurt me, but did no material harm. Once I was sitting in my room in my shirt, and a very sharp little knife was hurled at my side; my wife heard it whiz by, and cried, “You’re surely hurt?” I looked, and there stuck the knife, but no harm had been done. And just as I was saying to my wife, that I clearly saw in this the Divine protection, a stone of a pound’s weight flew past my head, and smashed the window.

When I got into bed, I often lay down on pins, so that they bent, but they did not injure me. My pupils lodging in my house frequently found dirt and stones in their bags. The chairs were thrown about the room. I could see nothing, but one might mark something corporeal was at work, for once when I was going to church, my wig could not be found, and I could not have preached if, after sending to different persons, a certain Cammer-Rath had not lent me his. Now when I came into the pulpit with somebody else’s wig on, everybody at once supposed that some new misfortune had happened, and so, just after sermon, I was summoned to the Count, to dine with him. So I wanted to put on my new coat, but one of the sleeves was gone; I sent for my old one, but that too had only one sleeve. Meanwhile there was an uproar in the house, made by the cats and dogs, and the turtle doves that I kept in the sitting-room; it was as if they were all mad.

On the Monday, I said to my wife that I must have a coat in any case, and wanted to take the sleeve from the old coat and have it put into the new one; but when I took the coat, the sleeve was gone too, and there was I with two coats, which had only one sleeve between them. So I sent to the shop, for stuff to have a new suit made. Meanwhile, my wife went to the store-room, to see whether she had any cloth for lining left, and knelt down before a drawer. Then there fell something on her head, as heavily as if it had been a hundredweight, so that she began to cry out in a lamentable way; I rushed in, and there was my wife on her knees, with my stolen wig on her head. At this I fell into a state of excitement, and conjured the spirit, in a solemn manner, to bring me back the things it had taken—for all the hymn books were gone too. Just then I was called away to exhort a criminal, and told my wife that she should not stay in the house all alone, for the evil spirit would have to bring back the things, and it would not be well to let him do any more mischief. I had not been gone long—my wife was in the garden—when a terrible din began in my sitting-room, all the cats and dogs, the doves too, crying aloud, and tearing about. My wife rushed in, and saw a black bird, like a daw, fluttering about among our animals; she took heart, and resolved to kill it, but, as all the knives had had to be locked up, she had nothing to do it with; but she seized the spit, and thrust at the black bird. In that moment he vanished, my wife could not see whither; but blood lay in the spot where he had been, as I myself saw when I came home. The whole affair came into the courts, and my things were replaced, except the glasses, etc., that had been broken.

Once when I was summoned to court, I wanted first to eat a little sausage and salad. I ate only a small portion, and my wife took some also. In all my life I have never been so sick as this salad made me. My wife was also ill. The cat died, and the dog suffered after eating of it. Whether the devil had put in poison, and wanted to make away with me, I cannot now say, for some negligence or other circumstance may have been the cause; at any rate, this is what happened to me. 

Whenever I had a sword, I was safe from front attacks, for then It only threw things from behind me; but if I laid the sword aside, I received blows again.  When I was asleep, I was safe so long as two of the watchers held their swords over my face, but if they took them away, or ceased to brandish them, my torment began again. I used the Magic Balsam from the Prince’s Apothecary in Stuttgart, but it did no good.

Once when my wife's cheeks were all swollen, a surgeon sent me a book against magic. In this book I found a recipe, and had it made up at the apothecary’s. It was a fumigating powder. I laid it on the coals, and held my wife’s head over it by force, for she said she could not endure the pain the smoke caused her. I fetched a vessel, and drew from her mouth first a long black horsehair, and then much thread and other stuff, the full of half the vessel; the pains were then somewhat better, but as my wife still felt something, I held her head over the smoke again, and drew out such another horsehair; there was nothing more.

Once I was sitting and writing, when It took a bottle of brandy, and smashed it over me and my paper, so that I was quite "anointed” with the liquor. All this time I stayed in my house, and would not go for all the devil could do, though the authorities offered me another lodging. One day wanted to smoke, but my pipe and tobacco were gone. I managed to find them; the pipe had been filled. I was going to smoke, but noticing that the pipe was heavy, I cleaned it out, and found it full of dirt, with a little tobacco on the top. Curiously enough, It harmed no one in my house but my wife and myself, except a man who said, as he was keeping watch, and an uproar was going on upstairs, "If this wasn't a clergyman’s house, I should swear," and then, as in the heat of the moment he emitted a curse, a key hit him on the nose with a distinct sound.

Only once was I hurt by a knife, in the lower part of my leg; and I had an old sword lying in a press; this It took and threw at my wife, slightly injuring her foot; when she took the blade and wanted to shut it up again, It tore it out of her hand, and threw it maxima cum vehementia into the press, so that it stuck there. Then I took it into my hand, Saying, “Herr Teufel, if you have power, take it out of my hand," but nothing happened, so I shut the sword up again. It often took my jug of wine away, and brought it back; I drank it and suffered no harm. The rest I cannot now remember. But some time I will put it all down, and have a discussion upon it. I would not have missed the experience for three thousand reichsthaler, for it taught me the power of prayer; but I would not go through it again for that sum, either. You must not think that this went on continually for six years, for it would have been impossible to bear it; but from time to time it ceased, for eight days to a fortnight, now and then for four weeks, and once for a quarter of a year; after that it would be more violent. After my wife had hurt the bird with the spit, we had peace for a long time.

This is all. I call God the Almighty and Omniscient to witness that these things occurred as stated. How or in what manner it was done I do not know. In all my days I saw nothing, but heard and felt enough; and so I leave the matter to every man’s mature consideration.

Weekend Link Dump

 

Welcome to this Friday's Link Dump!  Our host for this week is the glamorous Princess Mickey, one of history's best-dressed felines.

What the hell were Roman dodecahedrons?

The turbulent life of Lady Margaret Logie.

The King of Denmark visits Milan, 1474.

Some really tough pioneer women.

Secret messages on an obelisk.

The parliamentary career of an 18th century Earl.

Headline of the week?

America's city of poets.

A stolen cat goes to court.

Physical evidence that Roman gladiators really did fight animals.

Yet another sign that ancient humans were more sophisticated than we thought.

Related: ancient humans sketched dinosaurs.

Veterans reflect about VE Day.

The ghost who testified against her murderer.

Recently discovered frescoes at Pompeii.

Strange markings in a Tunisian desert.

A medieval cemetery in Wales is confusing the hell out of archaeologists.

AI in ancient Greece?

The Banshee of Blissville.

Papal funeral rites, 1878-1922.

A brief history of guacamole.

First-hand accounts of the California Gold Rush.

A really weird Martian rock.

An undeservedly obscure Indian archaeologist.

The pub which boasts of owning a fossilized pie.  Yum.

A 19th century Bengal Army officer.

Some impressive ancient jewelry.

Free love and murder.

Why do we call it "painting the town red?"  It turns out, we dunno.

The Jersey Shore shark attacks of 1916.

That's all for this week!  See you on Monday, when a pastor is visited by the Devil.  In the meantime, here comes trouble!

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Bring on the flying laundry!  The “London Times,” July 5, 1842 (via Newspapers.com):

Wednesday forenoon a phenomenon of most rare and extraordinary character was observed in the immediate neighbourhood of Cupar. About half-past 12 o'clock, whilst the sky was clear, and the air, as it had been throughout the morning, perfectly calm, a girl employed in tramping clothes in a tub in the piece of ground above the town, called the common, heard a loud and sharp report over her head, succeeded by a gust of wind of most extraordinary vehemence, and of only a few moments’ duration. On looking round she observed the whole of the clothing, sheets, etc., lying within a line of a certain breadth, stretching across the green, driven almost perpendicularly into the air.

Some heavy wet sheets, blankets, and other of like nature, after being carried to a great height, fell, some in the adjoining gardens, and some on the high road, at several hundred yards' distance; another portion of the articles, however, consisting of a quantity of curtains, and a number of smaller articles, were carried upwards to an immense height, so as to be almost lost to the eye, and gradually disappeared altogether from sight in a south-eastern direction, and have not yet been heard of.  At the moment of the report which preceded the wind, the cattle in the neighbouring meadow were observed roaming about in an affrighted state, and for some time after they continued cowering together in evident terror. The violence of the wind was such that a woman, who at the time was holding a blanket, found herself unable to keep hold, and relinquished it in the fear of being carried along with it! 

It is remarkable that, while even the heaviest articles were stripped off a belt, as it were, running across the green, and while the loops of several sheets which were pinned down were snapped, light articles lying loose on both sides of the belt were never moved from their position.

"A Friendly, Sportive Hobgoblin"

Everard Feilding

The following tale comes to us courtesy of barrister/psychic researcher (not a combo one sees every day) Everard Feilding, in the form of two letters he sent his friend Hereward Carrington, who published them in the 1951 book “Haunted People.”  It is a rather delightful poltergeist account, complete with a supernatural snipe hunt!

Transylvania,

Jan. 26, 1914

Dear Carrington,

Your letter has just reached me in the middle of the most extraordinary adventure I have ever had. Last year, Crookes received a fantastic letter from a Hungarian lawyer, telling him of certain amazing things that had been happening to him and begging to be investigated. I was then ill and couldn’t come, but this time, finding myself within measureable reach, from Warsaw, I decided to come.

It felt like Dracula—a journey to a mysterious land, to stay in a country village with an unknown person round whom things equal to Home’s phenomena (if 1/10 of what he said was true) were happening. I didn’t know whether he was a lunatic or a liar, but I came.  And my journey has been repaid. I leave tomorrow, after about ten days in this country, with the mediums, ie., the lawyer and his wife, to hunt for buried treasure in Brittany! I shall spend a few days with Schrenck-Notzing, and also with la Tomezyk, with him, in Munich, and shall then take my mediums on, through Brittany, to London.

My lawyer has a Jinn. No less. A friendly, sportive hobgoblin, late a Roumanian, and now the most desirable imp that anyone could wish for. For most of the facts I have to depend on the lawyer, an excitable, very middleclass person, formerly much addicted to wine, gambling and women, good-hearted, hospitable, a spendthrift, hopelessly unbusiness-like, and absolutely staggered by the goings-on of his imp.

This creature first started operations at a time when, for lack of pence, the lawyer wanted to commit suicide. He suddenly found money in his pocket which he knew wasn’t there before. He thought he must have stolen it in a fit of aberration. Then money began to drop on to the table, and he thought he was mad. Then stones fell beside him as he walked out, and then gradually all sorts of things were chucked into his room at all hours of the day and night. Bromide tablets fell on his bed when he couldn’t sleep; bottles of Schnapps in his carriage of a cold night; cigarettes out of the air when he had run out of them, and cigars bearing the Emperor’s monogram!

As things materially eased then, the character of the phenomena changed, and now the things are mostly ancient and useless tagrags and bobtails, ranging from bottle-tops to an elderly pump, about 50 lbs. in weight and 4 feet long, slabs of marble, 5-foot poles, pieces of wood, heavy iron screws, pincers, knives, wire lampshades, toy animals--all hurtle into the room at unexpected moments…And they do: I have seen lots of them.  Two minutes after I first entered his room, a 5-foot pole fell at the other end of it--he and I being alone in it, and he at the opposite end (a room 30 ft. long.)  On another occasion, I being the first to enter the room, a 4 ft. pole jumped out at me from a corner which I was facing at a distance of 3 feet--the lawyer at the time just entering the door.  A glass fell very softly at my feet, the lawyer not being in the room at all, and the nearest person being not within 12 feet of me.  Cigarettes fall out of the air.  Objects which are put under the table change places, or disappear altogether within, once, one minute of having been put there, notwithstanding that we (he and his wife and I) are all sitting sideways with our feet well outside the legs of the table.  A rusty table-knife falls in the middle of the room while we are all sitting writing at the table.  The same 5 ft. pole before mentioned falls very gently at a distance of 6 ft. from the lawyer, sitting with me at the table.  If he had thrown it (as I tested) it would have made a devil of a noise.  Rappings all about the wall and quick rappings on the table, perhaps not evidential, but probably true, are heard.  And so on.  I am therefore tempted to believe the bigger things he tells me of, i.e., the pump which I have seen, and the marble slabs, which I have not.  The dinner table jumps up constantly at meals, again not strictly evidential, but I think true, as it could only be done by his wife, a frail little woman, with her feet under the chair, and I’m sure she doesn’t do it.

The Jinn communicates by Ouija, an alphabet on a card and a bottle-top into which he and his wife each put a finger, with enormous rapidity.  In addition to this is a romantic story, by writing, of a former incarnation, when he was a German Baron called Schindtreffer, who lived in Mindelheim, Bavaria--a place he says he never heard of--in 1700.  And further, of 9 cases of money and jewels and papers, said to have been sent with his son to Brittany in 1713, and buried in a particular place to avoid an attack by robbers.  A map is given of the exact whereabouts, with details of rivers and small villages, and the present aspect of the country.  An ordinance map having been sent for, these villages and rivers are found to exist.  And now nothing will satisfy him but to start forth and hunt, and another lawyer is putting up the journey money, partly because he is smitten with the romance of the thing, and partly to share in the possible treasure.  And I am to go too, to translate, as they can’t speak a word of French.  All kinds of family details are given of the Schindtreffer affair, including an “apport” of a photograph of a picture, said to be in the Munich gallery, of his then-wife, and brought by her!  This we shall investigate first.  We’ll see!

As ever,

E.F.

N.B. I don’t believe the Brittany story, but I do believe in the Jinn.

A short time later, Carrington received a follow-up report:

Just returned from Transylvania.  The lawyer and his wife, and I hope the Jinn too, are coming to stay with me here for a few days.  If he produces a pump in my dining room I shall be pleased.

My Transylvanians have gone, and I am left hopelessly puzzled by the whole business.  There were a considerable number of phenomena here, though nothing at all like they were in Hungary.  Nearly all could (though in some cases with great difficulty) be attributed to the wife.  They nearly all came at unexpected moments, and it was thus impossible to control them.  There was also fraud, e.g., when a snipe, which was found on the dinner-lamp (on indications of the spook at the end of dinner) was traced as having been bought by the wife in a neighboring shop.  At the same time, the circumstances of this “apport” are otherwise so curious--the lamp having previously been examined by the servant before dinner, and the snipe being so very obvious once it was seen--that it is almost unthinkable that it should have escaped observation.

If one accepts the possibility of a poltergeist, it is possible to suppose that part of the phenomenon, namely the purchase of the snipe, was carried through normally by the medium, and the remainder, namely the apport, by the spook.  She said she did not remember anything about the purchase, but in hypnosis I recovered the memory.  She said she was sitting in the park, and that her sister came to her and insisted upon her going with her, and bought the snipe, and then took it away after returning with her to the park.  Her husband, who was present, appeared amazed at this, and said he had no knowledge of any sister, and certainly none in London.  She then said that the sister was sitting in a chair in the room, and got up and went towards her, and then appeared to pursue a phantom round the room, upsetting everything as she went, ending up at the window, apparently very much frightened, and saying that her sister was outside, laughing at her.  Questioned after awakening, she said that she had an elder sister with whom she had not been on good terms, and who had died some ten years ago.  In hypnosis I also recovered the memory in similar conditions of another attempt to purchase something which she knew normally I had been unable to trace.

All this looks very much like double personality action, and therefore in the realm of subconscious and not conscious fraud, in a trance condition.  She does, as a matter-of-fact, fall very readily into trances, e.g., when I play the piano she falls spontaneously into a trance and dances, but her husband says that this is the first time he has any knowledge of a trance occurring outside the house.

As a result of five weeks’ intimate seeing of the people, I am more inclined to believe in their honesty than otherwise, but in view of the fraud it is impossible at present to put forward such a theory, excepting to anyone already familiar with these curious hypnoid conditions--and who has not seen, as I have, a certain number of phenomena under really good control.

The best controlled phenomena here were a rapid drumming on the table during dinner, exactly as though one were drumming with one’s fingers, although the hands were visible and the feet controlled--not concurrently, but immediately after--and seemed far away from any contact.  Besides, the noise was one which could not be made with the feet as far as I am aware.

I went with them last week to Brittany.  The man said he could not resume his ordinary work without having visited the place.  Excepting the names of small places, nothing was found correct, and he returned to Hungary much disappointed.  He appeared frightfully concerned about his wife’s “unconscious” fraud, and seemed terrified lest in this presumably trance condition she should do dishonest actions.  He begged me again to visit him in Hungary, and to carry-on the control in a still more rigorous manner, if the phenomena continue, and to bring someone with me to help.  I do wish you were here…

Unfortunately, the outbreak of WWI prevented any further investigation of the “Jinn,” which apparently ceased its operations after the lawyer and his wife returned to Transylvania.  Unsurprisingly, but disappointingly,  the Schindtreffer “buried treasure” was never located.

Weekend Link Dump

 

Welcome to the latest Link Dump!

Our host for this week stole a pig, and away did run!

Reptiles are smarter than you might think.

The many lives of Anne Frank.

Scientists may have found Noah's Ark.  Or maybe not.  We shall see.

Solving the mystery of a missing mountain climber.

The Easter Bunny's controversial history.

1891 sea combat in the Pacific.

Science has found a way for humans to talk to dolphins.  Poor dolphins.

What it was like to be a medieval court jester.

A shocking autopsy.

The global deluge of circa 4000 B.C.

A look at the Revolutionary War from the British perspective.

A too-realistic Santo Cristo.

A Derbyshire ghost riot.

A mysterious "portal" on Mars.

The color purple doesn't really exist, which just shows you can't trust anything anymore.

Three Ice Age fireplaces.

One of ancient history's greatest military commanders.

An ancient "mystery town" in Egypt.

The gruesome (and difficult) business of collecting the bodies of victims of the Titanic.

The wild life of photographer Peter Beard.

When people moved to Florida for the buried pirate treasure.

A police station's cat mascot.

A look at "phantom trains."

It's not all that easy to become a fossil.  Assuming that's your life's dream, of course.

You know, if my boyfriend was about to be executed for murdering his mother, I'd figure I had quite a lucky escape.  But I guess that's just me.

The complicated story behind a lawyer's disappearance.

The musician's resurrected brain.  This is one of the creepier stories I've read in quite some time.  Thanks, Science!

We may now know how King Tut died.

A warehouse laborer for the East India Company.

That's all for this week!  See you on Monday, when we'll go on a buried treasure hunt with a poltergeist.  In the meantime, here's an English dance tune.