Animals

Kennel Special

The surprising history of Victorian dog shows

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