MUIRHEAD'S MYSTERIES: UNUSUAL STORIES FROM THE ENGLISH COUNTRYSIDE 1750-1850

Richard Muirhead is an old friend of the CFZ. I have been friends with him for 40 years now, since we were kids together in Hong Kong. He is undoubtedly one of the two best researchers I have ever met; he and Nigel Wright both have what Charlie Fort would have no doubt called a wild talent; a talent for going into a library, unearthing a stack of old newspapers, and coming back with some hitherto overlooked gem of arcane knowledge. Twice a week he wanders into the Macclesfield Public Library and comes out with enough material for a blog post....

Dear folks,

these are stories from an uncorrected proof of News from the English Countryside 1750-1850 by Clifford Morsley (1979), which I found in a bookshop somewhere; I can`t recollect where.

Boy eats cat

Cambridge. On Tuesday evening a country lad, about 16, for a trifling wager, ate, at a public house in this town, a leg of mutton which weighed near eight pounds, besides a large quantity of bread, carrots, &c. The next night the cormorant devoured a whole cat smothered with onions.

Cambridge Chronicle quoted in The British Chronicle 13 September 1770

Strangest Phaenomenon within Living Memory

Birbeck Feell, September 23. The following circumstance, however improbable, may be depended upon as a matter of fact. A farmer`s wife, in this neighbourhood, who attended duly to the milking of her cows morning and evening, observed for two or three mornings successively that her best cow was deficient in her usual quantities of milk; this made her suspect that some of her neighbours were not over honest, and communicating her suspicions to her husband, they resolved to watch all the succeeding night, which they did without making any discovery….

Following her thither they observed a most enormous over-grown adder,or hag worm, crawl out of the root of the bush, and winding up one of the cow`s hind legs, apply its mouth to one of the paps, and begin to suck, which she suffered it patiently to do, till the farmer attacked it with a cudgel, and ere it could recover its den, kill it. It measured upwards of four feet in length and its skin, stuffed, may be seen at the farmer`s house.

The whole is looked upon as the strangest phaenomenon that has been known within the memory of the oldest man living. The British Chronicle 15 October 1770

Gigantic Goosebury

A goosebury was gathered in the garden of Thomas Tebbit, a gardener of Soham, at the beginning of August, which measured 4 ½ inches in circumference. The Cambridge Chronicle and Journal. 27 August 1813

Rider in the Sky

The following story has appeared in several papers:

Some months ago a very singular appearance apresented itself in the sky to several persons at Hartfordbridge, near Basingstoke. About noon was distinctly seen by many persons, without any difference among them as to the form of the figures in the clouds, a man on horseback riding at full speed, pursued by an eagle, which soon darted upon his head, when he lost hold of the reins, fell backward, and eagle,horse and man were seen no more. The figures were apparently of natural size. The County Chronicle 10 February 1818.

Curious Fact

Mr Charles Parker, of Arundel, brought home three very young rabbits, which for the sake of warmth were placed before the fire. The house cat had kittened the same day, and on discovering the young rabbits showed great affection for them; on the following morning all the kittens but one were destroyed, and the rabbits placed under the care of the cat, who has ever since showed the greatest solicitude for their welfare, and they are now thriving under the kind offices of their feline foster-mother.

The Sussex Advertiser 4 April 1831