Animals

Cat got your tongue? It certainly seems to be the case with this surprised tabby

Why do we say ‘cat got your tongue’?

A lithographic Victorian trade card promoting the Forepaugh circus' new white elephant, Buffalo, New York, circa 1880. (Photo by Transcendental Graphics/Getty Images)

Q&A Why do we say ‘white elephant’?

Cynocephali – Dog-headed men (Photo by Getty)

Basilisks, manticores and more: medieval fantastic beasts (and where to find them)

Dark side of fashion: a 1910 portrait of a woman wearing a hat adorned with ostrich plumes and a stuffed bird. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, owning hats like this was a sign of status for many women. (Photo by ullstein bild/ullstein bild via Getty Images)

A hatful of horror: the Victorian headwear craze that led to mass slaughter

In the 19th century, devoted pet-owners established Britain’s first pet cemeteries. Dr Eric Tourigny explains what they tell us about Victorian attitudes to animals. (Image by Getty Images)

Victorian pet cemeteries: animals in the afterlife

Smokey the bear is presented with a firefighter's helmet

The paratrooper, the poet’s pet and the real Winnie: 10 famous bears in history

The Beagle sailed with a young Charles Darwin on board, his influential ideas yet to be formulated. (Image by Getty Images)

Charles Darwin and the Beagle: how the voyage transformed our understanding of the world

A miller and a donkey

9 things you could do with a medieval ass

This 15th-century painting from a manuscript shows men fishing in a river. In medieval England, eels were both meals and de facto currency. (Photo by Bridgeman)

Fishing for gold: how eels powered the medieval economy

Charles Darwin

Charles Darwin vs God: did the ‘Origin of Species’ cause a clash between church and science?

A late 16th century portrait of Anne Boleyn (c.1500-1536)

Anne Boleyn, Beefeaters, Guy Fawkes and the princes: a brief history of the Tower of London

A watermill, with fish nets and eel traps visible beneath the waters of the mill leat Luttrell Psalter. England, c 1325-1335. (Photo by Alamy)

Medieval eels and Englishness

A spider on its web, woodcut, 1547. (Image courtesy of Wellcome Collection)

A sign of the devil or a miracle cure? How people felt about spiders in the Middle Ages

A scene from the Smithfield Decretals depicting a rabbit beheading a man. Rabbits seem to have a strange place in medieval imagery – and are depicted as having strangely violent tendencies.

Blog Medieval(ish) matters #5: chivalry, medieval killer rabbits and prisoners of war in the 15th century

Medieval prisoners

What was it like to be a Prisoner of War during the Hundred Years’ War?