Mysterious Britain & Ireland

Monthly Archive: November 2012

Hauntings

South Stack Lighthouse

It was the 9th February 1809 when the oil lamps in the newly built South Stack Lighthouse were first lit to provide a beacon to the east bound shipping on the dangerous sea passage between Dublin, Holyhead and Liverpool. The building stands 28 metres (ninety-one feet) tall, and can be seen for about twenty-eight miles, depending on the height of the observer above sea level on the vessel.

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Demons / Goetia / Grimoire / Lemegeton or Lesser Key of Solomon / Occult

Bael

The First Principal Spirit is a King ruling in the East, called Bael. He maketh thee to go Invisible. He ruleth over 66 Legions of Infernal Spirits. He appeareth in divers shapes, sometimes like a Cat, sometimes like a Toad, and sometimes like a Man, and sometimes all these forms at once. He speaketh hoarsely.

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Demons / Goetia / Grimoire / Lemegeton or Lesser Key of Solomon / Occult

Vassago

The Third Spirit is a Mighty Prince, being of the same nature as Agares. He is called Vassago. This Spirit is of a Good Nature, and his office is to declare things Past and to Come, and to discover all things Hid or Lost. And he governeth 26 Legions of Spirits, and this is his Seal.

Apparitions / Hauntings

St Mary’s Naval Barracks, Chatham

The fortification of Chatham started in 1756 and was further improved between 1805 and 1812 in the face of French aggression and the Napoleonic War. Demolished in the 1960’s, St. Mary’s Barracks dated from between 1779 and 1782 and was built to house the prisoners who were used to build fort. This of course included French prisoners.

English Fairies / English Folktales / Fairies / Folklore / Folktales

Fairy Ointment

Once upon a time there was, in this celebrated town [Tavistock], a Dame Somebody, I do not know her name, and as she is a real character, I have no right to give her a fictitious one. All I with truth can say, is, that she was old, and nothing the worse for that; for age is, or ought to be, held in honor as the source of wisdom and experience.

Fairies / Folklore / Folktales / Irish Fairies / Irish Folktales

Fairy Nurse

There lived a woman in Innish Shark — one of the group of islands on the eastern coast — named Biddy Mannion, as handsome and likely a fisherman’s wife as you would meet in a day’s walk. She was tall, and fair in the face, with skin like an egg, and hair that might vie with the gloss of the raven’s wing.

Fairies / Folklore / Folktales

Troll Labor

Thomas Keightley in his The Fairy Mythology, Illustrative of the Romance and Superstition of Various Countries (1850) gives the following account which was narrated in the form of a legal declaration.