Whether you love to travel or not, there’s something about the idea of flying that can still provoke a frisson of fear. Air travel is somewhat unnatural, as you race through the sky with a hundred (or more) strangers at 35,000 ft in a metal tube. Superman was right, it is statistically the safest way […]
Seagulls and Storms: Seafaring Superstitions and Legends
It’s hardly surprising that mariners would have a host of seafaring superstitions and folklore about sailing. In earlier centuries, bad weather, poor communications with land, and disease could bring havoc to any journey. Folklore both preserves ideas about what sailors feared and provides protections to keep dangers at bay. What sounds like superstition to us […]
Book Review of ‘Bar Kokhba: The Jew Who Defied Hadrian and Challenged the Might of Rome’
To someone in my part of the world, the Roman Emperor Hadrian is something of an ever-present figure. After all, he gave us the wall that snakes across northern England. Newcastle upon Tyne, my hometown, was once called Pons Aelius. That can be traced to Hadrian’s family name, Aelius. Yet I know very little about […]
London Underground: Corpses on the Tube & Other Lore
The London Underground is a much older system than we often give it credit for. As Peter Ackroyd points out, it’s old enough that it’s congruent with figures we consider ‘historical’ like Jack the Ripper (2012: 112). Given it’s such an old system, burrowing through the very clay on which London stands, it’s hardly surprising […]
All Aboard the Phantom Coaches of Folklore and Legend
Nowadays, we have a plethora of transportation types at our disposal. In earlier centuries, choices were far less plentiful, with your options limited by your class and income. Experts date the arrival of the coach in England to anywhere between 1555 and 1580 (Encyclopedia Britannica 2013). It certainly wasn’t available to everyone and it still […]
Meet the dreaded Mackenzie Poltergeist of Greyfriars Kirkyard
It’s a cold night in 1998, the type Edinburgh specialises in, when the frigid air seems to work its way into the very marrow of your bones. A homeless man seeks shelter for the night. He finds himself in Greyfriars Kirkyard. A-ha! Look! There’s a building up ahead! The man tries the door but it’s […]
