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10 children and 12,000 pieces of art: the remarkable life of Lady Charlotte Schreiber
She was a headstrong scholar who contributed hugely to the study of medieval literature and challenged the societal norms of the 19th century. So why isn’t she better known? Caroline McCaffrey-Howarth traces the adventures of an unsung heroine
While hunting for antiques in the Netherlands in the 1880s, the esteemed art dealer Joseph Joel Duveen received a tip-off that some “wonderful pieces of china” had come up for sale in a remote village. Getting there would involve a tediously long journey but, undeterred, Duveen set out. Several hours later, however, he spotted a carriage speeding past in the opposite direction, and was able to make out its passenger. Recognising the face of his great rival, Duveen promptly turned around, empty-handed, ruefully realising that she had beaten him to the village and “snatched the prize”. The victor on this occasion was Lady Charlotte Schreiber. Surprisingly, given her long life – she was 82 when she died, in 1895 – which included two marriages, 10 children, scandalous affairs and a celebrated translation of the medieval Welsh Mabinogion, Lady Charlotte remains relatively unknown today. Often erroneously dismissed as a mere magpie obsessed with trinkets, for decades her second husband and sons were credited for accumulating her great collection. Yet, shortly before her death, she donated a trove of some 5,000 pieces to the South Kensington Museum (now the V&A) and the British Museum. Defiance and scandal Charlotte endured a difficult childhood. Born Lady Charlotte Elizabeth Bertie in 1812, she lost her father, the 9th Earl of Lindsey, when she was only six years old. Her mother remarried, and her new stepfather, the Reverend Peter Pegus, turned out to be a violent alcoholic; he once drank a whole mug of lamp oil, mistaking it for beer. Read more | 5 things you (probably) didn't know about Victorian Britain At the age of 10, Charlotte started keeping a diary, in which she wrote almost every day until she lost her eyesight in her late seventies. A true polymath, she gave herself “a man’s education”, studying history and literature, and learning Arabic and Farsi (Persian) as well as Greek, Latin, French, German, Italian and even Hebrew. She dedicated hours to her “oriental studies”, devouring Barthélemy d’Herbelot de Molainville’s monumental 1697 compendium Bibliothèque Orientale, and later became a subscriber to the Oriental Translation Fund. To a young woman frustrated by her privileged yet undeniably restrained upbringing, the ‘Orient’ represented an imagined place of freedom where the stagnant and gendered traditions of elite British life did not exist. Throughout her years, Charlotte defied the strict protocols of Georgian and Victorian society, causing various scandals. As a teenager she fell in love with a local squire, Augustus O’Brien, but her mother “had sooner see me in my grave than married to Augustus”. She also had a dalliance with her brother’s tutor, a Mr Martin, and shortly after became “very good friends” with Benjamin Disraeli, whom she described as “wild, enthusiastic, and very poetical”. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/02/HYB33K-fcd5698-e1771492464411.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A historical-style painting of a large industrial complex with many smokestacks releasing thick smoke into the sky. Several furnaces glow with open flames. In the foreground, workers shovel coal and operate machinery, surrounded by carts and industrial equipment. The scene conveys the intensity, pollution, and harsh labor conditions of early industrialisation." title="A painting of the Dowlais Ironworks, where Charlotte and her husband Josiah oversaw the management of over 5,000 employees (Image by Alamy)" /> In 1833, Charlotte married Welsh ironmaster and Whig politician Josiah John Guest. Although he was 27 years her senior, the two fell madly in love and had 10 children. Together they oversaw the day-to-day management of the Dowlais ironworks and its 5,000-plus employees. Charlotte managed the financial accounts, translated engineering manuals, established evening schools for the workers and their families, and even conducted business meetings. By 1839, she observed that she had successfully “schooled myself into habits of business that it is more congenial to me to calculate the advantage of half percent commission on a cargo of iron than to go to the finest ball in the world”. Welsh legend Charlotte’s marriage to John – whom she called Merthyr, Welsh for ‘martyr’ – gave her the freedom she so desperately craved. She used her autonomy to embrace her passion for history, carrying out archaeological excavations at ruins such as Morlais Castle in Glamorgan, where she discovered medieval seals and coins. Inspired by her “violent affection for Welsh castles”, Charlotte became a founding member of the Cymdeithas Cymreigyddion y Fenni (Abergavenny Welsh Society), encouraging the use of the Welsh language among all social classes. Resolving to outwardly demonstrate a sense of Welsh patriotism befitting her new social position, she wore traditional Welsh dress, taught herself medieval Welsh and received the Bardic name ‘Olwen’ – a famous protagonist from Welsh folklore. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/02/AY4G19cmykwebready-8a87b35-e1771492225305.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A black and white photograph of two women dressed in long dresses with aprons over the top, tall black hats and shawls around their shoulders. One is standing in front of a spinning wheel, and the other is to the left behind it, standing in a doorway" title="This photograph shows women in traditional Welsh dress, which Charlotte adopted on marriage to Welshman John Guest (Image by Alamy)" /> While still in her twenties, Charlotte began the colossal task of writing an English translation of the Llyfr Coch Hugest (Red Book of Hergest), a compilation of medieval Welsh ballads and oral traditions including the tales known as the Mabinogion. It was not a straightforward undertaking. Contemporaries were concerned that the work would not be taken seriously if translated by a woman, never mind an English one, and she suspected that her Welsh teachers were passing her translations on to others. Read more | She held wealth, power and prestige: so why did this Georgian aristocrat fake her daughter’s death? Her fears were realised when the French writer Théodore Hersart de La Villemarqué tried to publish her translation of the Mabinogion story Peredur, passing it off as his own work. Determined to thwart his plans, Charlotte poured all her energy into completing her version. At one point she worked on it for 12 hours straight, taking a break only to give birth to her fifth child. Thanks to these monumental efforts, she published her Mabinogion in seven parts between 1838 and 1845 to great acclaim. In the 1840s Charlotte began to assemble an art collection, seeking out works from the great European schools of the Renaissance. Her purchases included a piece by a follower of the great 16th-century portraitist Hans Holbein the Younger, which she acquired in 1842 at the ‘Great Sale’ of the celebrated 18th-century gossip and socialite Horace Walpole’s estate of Strawberry Hill, near London. Her husband, John Guest, died in 1852, and the following year Charlotte hired Charles Schreiber (1826–1884), a young Cambridge academic, to tutor her eldest son. They initially attempted to hide their affair, but it wasn’t long before Charlotte appeared with her hair dyed brown – likely to diminish the couple’s 14-year age gap – and announced their engagement. Court cases ensued, and only three of her 10 children attended the wedding. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/02/Credit-Common-Crow-Bookss000104757cmykwebready-e198adb-e1771492058978.jpeg" width="1500" height="1001" alt="An open book showing a colour illustration of ornate Persian glassware on the left page and a title page on the right. The illustration depicts a tall decorative bottle with a stopper and two matching cups, all with intricate floral and bird designs. The title page lists bibliographic details for “Lady Charlotte Schreiber’s Journals,” including publication information and handwritten catalog markings." title="The opening page from a copy of Lady Charlotte Schreiber’s Journals, which was originally published in 1911, detailing all 12,000 objects that Charlotte had collected (Image by Common Crow Books)" /> Making a mark With newfound joie de vivre, Charlotte spent the next few decades travelling the world with Charles, dedicating herself to forming the greatest collection of ‘ceramic art’ ever seen. She acquired more than 12,000 objects, all of which she numbered and recorded in her journal. Armed with a red velvet bag, she often spent upwards of seven hours per day in search of objects, particularly European and Asian ceramics. Back at home in London she meticulously researched everything she’d bought, transcribed archives and documentary sources, and even got her hands dirty assisting with excavations at archaeological sites. Read more | "Museums are magical places": Kavita Puri on a new initiative encouraging close encounters with history Charlotte approached collecting just as she did everything else in her life – with an unyielding commitment to the pursuit of knowledge, and an ever-growing desire to succeed and make her mark on the world. As a committed cultural philanthropist, she believed in the educational power of museums and, after Charles’ death, declared her collection “the property of the nation”. From 1885 until her death 10 years later, she gave thousands of pieces to the South Kensington Museum (now the V&A) and the British Museum – unprecedented bequests for a woman collector. At a social gathering one evening in the 1840s, Charlotte was perusing the ‘finest London ladies’ featured in Heath’s Book of Beauty for 1839 – an annual of contemporary fashion and style. A fellow guest, seeing that Charlotte was not listed among the women, commented that “not all the fairies are present; the Welsh fairy Olwen is missing”. “She was not a fairy,” Charlotte replied, “she was a Goddess.” Here’s to that. This article was first published in the February 2026 issue of HistoryExtra magazine
From krakens to serpents: 5 fearsome sea monsters from history
Sea monsters have haunted human imaginations for millennia. From the kraken to killer serpents, Prema Arasu explores what five mythical creatures reveal about our deepest fears
1. Armed and dangerous The writhing tentacles of the kraken inspired horror and disgust Sea monsters have fired our imaginations – and chilled our blood – for as long as humanity has sailed the seas. The Babylonian epic Enūma Eliš, which dates back to at least 1200 BC, describes the creation of the world from two fearsome primordial beings: Apsû, the embodiment of subterranean fresh water, and Tiamat, the sea. Like the many mythical aquatic creatures that have occupied our dreams and our nightmares, Apsû and Tiamat reveal much about how the Babylonians saw the world, acting as projections through which their anxieties about nature could be expressed, examined and, perhaps, mastered. Fast forward more than a thousand years and, in Naturalis Historia (c77 AD), the earliest extant work of natural history, the Roman author Pliny the Elder argued that the largest animals found in the sea “exceed in size any of the terrestrial animals” because of the “superabundance of moisture with which they are supplied”. One such giant creature is the kraken, its origins lying in Nordic mythology and folklore. In his 1752–53 proto-scientific work The Natural History of Norway, Danish bishop Erik Pontoppidan described the “Kraken, Kraxen, or, as some world name it, Krabben” as an island-sized creature, “round, flat, and full of arms, or branches”. Alfred, Lord Tennyson was so energised by reports of this monster of the deep that, in 1830, he wrote a poem in its honour, describing an ancient, giant-armed creature slumbering “Below the thunders of the upper deep; Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea.” British naturalist Henry Lee offered a more rational perspective. In Sea Monsters Unmasked (1883), he stated that kraken sightings by sailors were most likely exaggerated reports of giant squid (Architeuthis dux), described a quarter of a century earlier by the Danish biologist Japetus Steenstrup. Even after that, though, kraken and other squid-like monsters proliferated in literature. Herman Melville dedicated a chapter of Moby-Dick (1851) to the giant squid. Ishmael, Moby-Dick’s narrator, references The Natural History of Norway in his description of the creature, offering up the possibility that the kraken might not be a mythological beast but a taxonomically recognised species. Myth and reality continued to amalgamate in the science-fiction genre. Jules Verne’s battle with a giant squid in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1869–70) was based on reports of an encounter between a French corvette, Alecton, and a squid in 1861. As Verne puts it: “Before my eyes was a horrible monster worthy to figure in the legends of the marvellous. It was an immense cuttlefish, being eight yards long… Its eight arms… were twice as long as its body, and were twisted like the furies’ hair.” The uncanny undulations of kraken continue to fascinate. Roger Luckhurst, a scholar of the field of horror, links this to our innate “response to things that overwhelm our senses, stick too close, ooze across borders, or refuse to keep a stable shape”. Read more | Water gods and sea goddesses: 17 water deities from world history 2. A feminine fantasy Aquatic half-humans enchanted men and attracted women seeking new freedoms Sirens, tritons, nereids, merfolk, nymphs… part-fish, part-human creatures have gone by many names over the millennia. These alluring beings have glided gracefully into cultural traditions across the world for thousands of years – particularly those with strong histories of seafaring. And, unlike many of the aquatic beings on these pages, they haven’t always done so with malign intentions. In Naturalis Historia, Pliny described “tritons and nereids” as creatures in which “the portion of the body that resembles the human figure is still rough all over with scales”. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/01/AKG342658webready-934ba2a-e1767351773509.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A stone relief showing a ship full of men sailing towards three women lined up on the left" title="A fourth-century BC urn shows Odysseus sailing towards the sirens, who, he reported, “sit and sing most beautifully in a field of flowers” (Image by AKG)" /> Sirens had appeared in Homer’s poem the Odyssey nine centuries earlier. But in the case of this ancient Greek epic, they were never physically described. Rather, we’re told that they “sit and sing most beautifully in a field of flowers”. Interestingly, they tempt sailors with knowledge, rather than – as other, later, depictions would have it – luring them to their doom. “When we had got within earshot of the land, and the ship was going at a good rate,” the fictional Odysseus recalls, “the sirens saw that we were getting in shore and began with their singing: ‘No one ever sailed past us without staying to hear the enchanting sweetness of our song – and he who listens will go on his way not only charmed, but wiser’.” In medieval art, Homer’s sirens are interpreted as both aquatic and non-aquatic creatures. In contrast, the nereids of Greek myth were explicitly spirits or embodiments of the sea, albeit often visually depicted as human women. In the Romantic and Victorian imagination, they became synonymous with mermaids, frequently depicted with tails. Gothic writer Ann Radcliffe conjured a fish-tailed ingénue in her 1794 poem The Sea-Nymph, as did Hans Christian Andersen in The Little Mermaid four decades later. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/01/gr0031911Hwebready-444c4de-e1767352384901.jpg" width="1500" height="1001" alt="A drawing showing a mermaid with a black, orange and yellow tail and long blonde hair, laying on her front on a rock, with a sea plant in the background" title="A 1930s depiction of Hans Christian Andersen’s Little Mermaid, which did so much to popularise the fish-tailed ingénue (Image by TopFoto)" /> Radcliffe’s poem marked a turn to the mermaid as a feminine fantasy: an aspirational symbol for young women who might otherwise feel confined by the gendered expectations of public life. This manifests today in the enduring visibility of the mermaid in popular culture and in the burgeoning pastime of mermaiding – cosplaying by swimming with a decorative monofin. 3. Terror in the deep For millennia, giant, ravenous sea serpents have played on humanity’s primal terrors It didn’t pay to get on the wrong side of the gods in ancient mythology. Just ask Laocoön, a Trojan priest who offended the deity Minerva – and didn’t live to tell the tale. As the Roman poet Virgil relates it in the Aeneid – his epic first-century BC poem telling the story of the foundation of Rome – Laocoön committed the cardinal sin of throwing a spear into the Greeks’ wooden horse to show that it was hollow. It was an act that so enraged Minerva that she unleashed two giant sea serpents to eat him. “Taking swift course; their necks were lifted high,” Virgil writes of the ravenous creatures. “Their gory dragon-crests o’ertopped the waves; all else, half seen, trailed low along the sea; while with loud cleavage of the foaming brine, their monstrous backs wound forward fold on fold.” Poor Laocoön didn’t stand a chance. As the priest’s grisly fate proves, the sea serpent had established itself as a terror of the deep by the time the Greeks and Romans dominated the Mediterranean. But they weren’t the first to live in fear of this creature. In fact, the ancient Greeks’ diverse bestiary of monsters likely derived from earlier prototypes. Sea serpents recur in the folklore traditions of a range of coastal and lake cultures, from the black, hairy Nile-dwelling monster Aman Doger of ancient Nubia to the rainbow snake of Australian Aboriginal Dreamtime myth. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/01/GettyImages-1288491221webready-92f8e54-e1767351878133.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="An engraving showing a naked man with curly hair and a beard, with a large snake wrapped around his body, holding him down, alongside his two sons" title="Laocoön and his two sons are attacked by serpents, as shown in a 16th‑century engraving. Could megalophobia – the fear of large objects – be a factor in humanity’s obsession with sea monsters? (Image by Getty Images)" /> For the Victorian naturalist Henry Lee, tales of colossal sea serpents were a case of mistaken identity, likely originating in sightings of other marine phenomena – perhaps large pods of porpoises or whales. “I believe that… the supposed coils or protuberances of the serpent’s body, were only so many porpoises swimming in line in accordance with their habit before mentioned,” he wrote. Read more | Liquor, loot and death on the high seas: 5 things you (probably) didn't know about the history of pirates The anthropologist David D Gilmore has offered an alternative interpretation of our sea serpent obsession. He has suggested that the recurrence of such creatures in literature down the ages points to three primal human fears: of the sea; of what might lurk in the unknown; and of large objects, otherwise known as megalophobia. 4. The theory of de-evolution Early Christians feared that the Leviathan would propel the human race back to its watery past To some, it has been a benign presence. To others, a terror-inducing harbinger of doom. Ever since the Leviathan emerged from the depths of the oceans and floated into the human consciousness, it has meant different things to different people. Jews and early Christians were certainly fearful. In the Hebrew Bible – where it appears in the Old Testament books of Psalms, Job and Isaiah – the Leviathan is a female sea serpent who will bring about the apocalypse together with her male counterpart, the desert monster Behemoth. Such ancient beasts played on the enduring fear of regression, reminding us of our uncomfortable origins in the oceans. David D Gilmore suggests that the water that so often drips from primal monsters as they emerge from the deep “symbolises not only the amniotic fluids of the womb, but also the primal element from which all life emerged”. These creatures threaten us with the possibilities of de-evolution – a stripping of what modern science has decided makes us human. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/01/GettyImages-534969411webready-723169d-e1767352029623.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A drawing depicting a large black whale being held under a boat, while several people and other sea creatures surround it in the water" title="An illustration from a 14th-century manuscript shows Alexander the Great being lowered into the sea to explore the ocean bed – a place populated by aquatic humans, dogs and a huge whale (Image by Getty Images)" /> For Renaissance cartographers, the Leviathan meant something different. Medieval maps of the world abound with monstrous-looking whales, depicted in ornate detail. According to historian Chet van Duzer, these illustrations served two purposes: to warn sailors of dangers that awaited them at sea, and as decorative elements designed to show off the artist’s talents. By the time the American writer Celia Thaxter penned her poem Leviathan in 1876, the creature had shape-shifted again. For Thaxter, it was a largely peaceful presence, who triumphed against the rage of nature: “For her worst fury he nor stayed nor turned. ‘Twas joy to think in such tremendous play, Through the sea’s cruelty, all unconcerned. Leviathan pursued his placid way!” <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/01/CPA0030665webready-7c5c3eb-e1767352254831.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="An illustration showing a large grey and orange fish with a man laying next to it, covered in flowers" title="A 14th-century depiction of Jonah with the giant fish that spat him out. Huge sea creatures make numerous appearances in biblical texts (Image by TopFoto)" /> 5. Visions of Atlantis Tales of an aquatic city populated by hyper-intelligent Atlanteans enchanted authors from Plato to HG Wells “A strange vertebrated animal.” That’s how Elstead, the narrator of HG Wells’s 1897 short story In the Abyss, describes the lifeform he encounters on a journey into a deep ocean trench. “Two large and protruding eyes projected from sockets in chameleon fashion, and it had a broad reptilian mouth with horny lips beneath its little nostrils,” reported the intrepid submariner. “The vertical pitch of its face gave it a most extraordinary resemblance to a human being.” In introducing Elstead to this strange creature, HG Wells was joining a long list of writers to conjure the inhabitants of a mysterious underwater civilisation into fictional life. In fact, the possibility of an intelligent, almost godlike race of aquatic beings living on the ocean bed has captured the imagination for centuries. Mentions of the submerged island Atlantis date back to Plato’s fourth-century BC dialogues Timaeus and Critias, in which the Greek philosopher described a land sunken by a devastating earthquake. Renaissance scholars such as Francis Bacon linked Atlantis to the Americas, a notion he further explored in his utopian novel The New Atlantis (1624). In 1931, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution scientists Henry Bryant and Columbus Iselin embarked upon a research cruise in search of the lost continent around the Azores. It was unsuccessful. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/01/the-shape-of-water9lp0tuwebready-2ed216e-e1767352125833.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A photo of a woman with her hands pressed up against a glass tank, looking into the eyes of a large green sea creature behind the glass" title="2017 dark fantasy film The Shape of Water, which traces the relationship between a mute woman and a captured humanoid amphibian (Image by MovieStills)" /> Tales of Atlantis made a resurgence in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s 1929 novel The Maracot Deep features a team of scientists who descend into the ocean, become trapped in a deep-sea trench and are saved from disaster by descendants of Atlantis. Other underseas peoples in popular fiction aren’t quite so benign. American horror writer HP Lovecraft described an undersea race of creatures called Deep Ones who worship the deities Dagon and Cthulhu. In The Shadow Over Innsmouth Lovecraft projects his own prejudices about racial purity and miscegenation (sexual relationships between people of different ethnic groups) onto a fictional coastal town. Here the residents interbreed with marine beings and become corrupted in form and character. Read more | Tails from the deep: separating the real folklore of mermaids from Disney stories The denizens of cities under the sea continue to capture our imaginations today. Guillermo del Toro’s Oscar-winning 2017 film The Shape of Water tells how a mute cleaner working in a high-security government laboratory falls in a love with a green-skinned humanoid amphibian. This enduring interest in aquatic beings speaks to a wider fascination with how great civilisations might fall. This is an intriguing and alarming prospect. After all, if a creature is to knock us off our self-appointed perch at the top of the evolutionary ladder, then surely that creature could come from the same primordial soup as we once did? Prema Arasu is an adjunct research fellow at the University of Western Australia, and author of The Book of Sea Monsters: Leviathans of Literature (Adlard Coles, 2025) This article was first published in the Christmas 2025 issue of BBC History Magazine
Father Christmas v Santa Claus: the centuries-long battle for Britain's chimneys
The true identity of the white-bearded, red-robed figure who fills children’s stockings at Christmas has long been debated. Thomas Ruys Smith sizes up the merry contenders
Tis the night before Christmas, when all through the house, not a creature is stirring… but someone is. While the household sleeps, a jolly visitor carefully places presents in stockings hung by the fireplace. After taking a sip of whatever tipple has been thoughtfully left out for him, he pockets a carrot and disappears up the chimney. With a tinkle of sleigh bells he disappears into the night with his faithful reindeer, a merry laugh echoing across the rooftops. It’s a familiar ritual – with one fundamental point of contention. Who do you think it was that brought you these presents? Are you a Father Christmas fundamentalist or are you a Santa Claus supporter? Each figure has his passionate partisans, and each is wrapped up with issues of national and regional identity. A recent YouGov poll of around 4,000 British residents suggested that the UK is split right down the middle on the topic – though Santa enjoyed a narrow lead by a couple of percentage points. What you may find surprising is that this isn’t a modern conundrum. In fact, the ongoing battle for seasonal supremacy has created a schism in British culture since the Victorian era. Despite what some Father Christmas traditionalists might think, Santa Claus is not some recent American arriviste. The forgotten history of the friendly rivalry between this pair of festive icons goes much further back, taking us on a transatlantic journey through popular culture to a time even before our modern celebration of Christmas was taking shape. Nick of time Let’s start at the beginning – or as close as we can get to it. The figure of Father Christmas is undoubtedly more venerable than Santa Claus – in English culture, at least. References to characters who served to personify the period of yuletide feasting and merrymaking can be traced back to at least the 15th century. But Father Christmas really emerged as a champion of the season when Christmas came under threat in Britain. He joined the fray in the midst of religious and cultural arguments during the Civil War, when Puritans tried to suppress traditional Christmas celebrations. One anti-Puritan pamphlet written in 1652 lamented that Father Christmas, who could once “knock down Hercules”, was lately suffering from “a deep consumption”, his might sadly diminished. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/12/GettyImages-526608136webready-8247d2a-e1765964190971.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A black and white photograph of a family gathered around a large Christmas tree. On the wall behind them is a banner that reads Merry Christmas" title="A c1895 photograph of a family at Christmas. The Victorians revived historic festive traditions as well as creating new ones (Image by Getty Images)" /> Christmas celebrations and Father Christmas both returned with the Restoration. But it wasn’t until the Victorian revival of historic traditions, and its creation of new ones, that Father Christmas was truly reinvigorated as the presiding spirit of the season. Certainly, Charles Dickens’ portrait of the jovial Ghost of Christmas Present in A Christmas Carol (1843) owes a lot to the established idea of Father Christmas as the personification of yuletide celebrations – crowned with winter greenery, and accompanied by bountiful piles of food and a brimming wassail bowl. This iteration had no truck with reindeer, though, and he certainly never stuffed a stocking – at least, not until his American rival started to descend British chimneys. Read more | The history of Christmas, plus 10 festive facts you might not know Enter Santa Claus. Tracing his origins takes us across the Atlantic to 18th-century New England. Puritan colonists, in common with their English counterparts, had been positively averse to Christmas celebrations, but plenty of European immigrants imported their Christmas celebrations to America, where they took root and found new forms. A wealth of winter gift-bringers set up shop in their respective immigrant communities, from the Dutch Saint Nicholas (and his secularised counterpart Sinterklaas) to wilder figures such as Knecht-Ruprecht and Belsnickel from Germany. Undoubtedly, Father Christmas made the trip across the Atlantic, too; despite the Puritans’ best efforts, he found a warmer reception in the Southern colonies. The figure of Santa Claus emerged from this characteristically diverse American melting pot. Tantalising references to a distinctive new seasonal gift-bringer started to emerge in the late 18th century. As his name suggests, Santa Claus took inspiration from Saint Nicholas, a fourth-century bishop of Myra (in what’s now Turkey), about whom tales were told of secret gift-giving. But elements of other European traditions are evident, too. In appearance, Santa was more rough and ready than might be imagined. And, rather than appearing on 5 or 6 December (the feast day of Saint Nicholas), when he came to homes in many parts of central Europe, Santa Claus visited American families on Christmas Eve. The age of Santa Though the exact origins of Santa Claus remain murky, 1821 certainly marked a key moment in his emergence onto the seasonal stage. That Christmas, an ephemeral publication for young readers called The Children’s Friend was published in New York. From its richly illustrated pages leapt the now-recognisable figure of ‘Old Santeclaus’. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/12/J4X8XGwebready-62d3a57-e1765963962733.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="“Old Santeclaus” depicted in an illustration from The Children’s Friend (1821), which marked his emergence onto the seasonal stage in the US (Image by Alamy)" title="“Old Santeclaus” depicted in an illustration from The Children’s Friend (1821), which marked his emergence onto the seasonal stage in the US (Image by Alamy)" /> This character visited children on Christmas Eve, left presents in their hanging stockings, and travelled in a sleigh pulled by reindeer. Whether this reflected folk traditions that were already in evidence or newly invented them for its young readers – it was probably a bit of both – the age of Santa had arrived. Almost immediately, his public profile was boosted by the 1823 publication – initially anonymous – of a poem that is still very familiar to us today: Clement Clarke Moore’s A Visit from St Nicholas. Though that title called him by his older name, the newspaper in which it appeared introduced the verses as a “description of that unwearied patron of children… Sante Claus”. Moore’s timing was perfect: soon the poem became an emblem of a new kind of domestic Christmas centred on the family, the home and the excitement of children waiting for their stockings to be filled by a magical visitor. In the US, it did much to spread the legend of Santa Claus to eager young ears. “Just think of it!” exclaimed an American commentator in 1875. “Until we had heard or read this, we didn’t know much about him.” Read more | The child-eating Christmas Yule Cat: what are the origins of this Icelandic folklore? Over the decades that followed, American writers and artists continued to develop Santa’s backstory, locating his base in the north pole, revealing his workshop of elves, and even giving him a wife. By the middle of the 19th century, Santa Claus’s reach had expanded from his regional base in and around New York to become a ubiquitous figure in American Christmases. “Nobody ever saw him,” as one American described in 1853, “though everybody has heard of him.” Emboldened by such success, Santa looked to expand his empire further still. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/12/GettyImages-1283479122webready-e55e347-e1765964523934.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A picture showing a young bearded man dressed in red and green robes and a red hat, holding a book and plate of fruit in one hand with his other hand held up in the air" title="A c1890 lithograph of Nicholas of Bari, also known as Saint Nicholas of Myra. The US version of Santa Claus can trace his roots to this fourth-century bishop (Image by Getty Images)" /> American influence Then as now, the potent slices of American popular culture that crossed the Atlantic had a profound effect on the seasonal behaviour of the young – not to mention their demands on parents – in Britain. Slowly but surely, Santa Claus gained a foothold in the Old World, his legend disseminated in popular literature. Reprints of Moore’s poem were certainly circulating in Britain by the 1850s, and probably earlier. Published in the Illustrated London News in 1855, it was accompanied by some useful advice for British children looking to emulate their American counterparts: “Before going to bed, the children hang their newest stockings near the chimney, or pin them to the curtains of the bed. Midnight finds a world of hosiery waiting for favours; and the only wonder is that a single Santa Klaus can get around among them all.” One American book, now largely forgotten, seems to have had a particular impact on the profile of Santa Claus in Britain. Sisters Susan and Anna Warner shot to fame in 1850 when the former published The Wide, Wide World, one of the bestselling books of the 19th century. Hundreds of thousands of British readers read of its heroine, Ellen Montgomery, hanging up her stocking for Santa at Christmas-time – and perhaps emulated her hopeful act. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/12/PC600Mwebready-f75c38f-e1765965239337.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="An illustration showing three small children in white gowns, hanging a stocking from a fireplace" title="A c1870 illustration for Clement Clarke Moore’s 1823 poem A Visit from St. Nicholas, which disseminated the idea of hanging up stockings in the US. The poem had made its way to Britain by the 1850s (Image by Alamy)" /> Even more significant was the sisters’ 1853 story Carl Krinken; or, a Christmas Stocking. The tale of a poor young American boy visited by Santa Claus one Christmas Eve, it seems to have captivated a generation of young Victorians. Looking back to her mid-century childhood, British writer Sarah Tooley recalled that the Warners’ book did more than anything “to popularise the visits of Santa Claus in our own country”; when British children read the story of Carl’s adventures, it “caught their imagination, and ‘St Nick’ is now almost as popular in London as in New York”. New British editions of the book were still being produced in the closing years of the 19th century. As early as 1856, reviewing the transformations of Christmas celebrations over the previous decade or so, one Birmingham newspaper marvelled that Christmas stockings were already an established part of the season, “for Santa-Claus has had the temerity to scale the wooden walls of old England, of late years”. Having scaled those walls, Santa became a familiar presence in British Christmases for the remaining years of the 19th century. As the London Evening Standard judged in 1861, “the children of England may be pleased with the advent of Santa Claus”. Even as late as 1896, a writer for the Manchester Courier declared: “I do think that Santa Claus is the most beautiful myth which ever comes into our lives.” So, when Victorian children hung up their stockings, it was Santa Claus that they expected to fill them. Not that Father Christmas retreated entirely in the face of Santa’s celebrity. He increasingly appeared on cards and in magazine illustrations as an embodiment of the festive season. In the late 19th century, at least, there was clearly room for both figures in the landscape of British Christmas celebrations. In 1876, for example, the Darlington & Richmond Herald found space in its account of the coming “Christmastide” for a tribute to both “Old Father Christmas” as the incarnation of the “merry season” and the American newcomer who had become a central part of domestic celebrations: “We envy not the home where the Christmas stocking… is not an established institution and Santa Claus one of the patron saints of the children’s calendar.” Read more | How to host a medieval Christmas Blurred figures It wasn’t long, though, before the outlines of these defined figures, with their distinctive roles, began to blur and merge. Even in the 1880s, Father Christmas was sometimes named as the figure who filled festive stockings. The shadow of war and a growing jingoism seems to have sped up that process, and national tensions found their way into Christmas debates. In 1912, one rather confused memoirist, looking back to his childhood in the mid-19th century, declared: “I am glad to say that in those days people knew nothing (at any rate, they knew nothing in our part of England) about such German things as ‘Christmas Trees’, or such German saints as ‘Santa Claus’. Our Christmas presents were found in stockings, and put there by Father Christmas.” He was taken to task for this assertion by a correspondent to Notes & Queries magazine, who attempted to set the record straight. “I am as John Bullish as may be but I do not remember finding any gifts in my youthful socks or stockings,” they wrote, “and have an impression that my first introduction to the contemplation of such cornucopias was in the pages of an American story-book.” <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/12/GettyImages-90018255webready-9d925e7-e1765964970850.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="An American Christmas card printed at the turn of the 20th century depicts Santa Claus as we still know him today – sporting a red outfit with fluffy white trimming, driving a sleigh loaded with presents and drawn by flying reindeer (Image by Getty Images)" title="An American Christmas card printed at the turn of the 20th century depicts Santa Claus as we still know him today – sporting a red outfit with fluffy white trimming, driving a sleigh loaded with presents and drawn by flying reindeer (Image by Getty Images)" /> Such memories soon faded, though, and by 1933 one newspaper laid out a deceptively simple answer to the question of who exactly stuffed British stockings: “Here we call him Father Christmas, in America he is Santa Claus.” The patriotic preference for a home-grown gift-bringer was, at least temporarily, in the ascendancy. Since then, the pair have been locked in a struggle for Britain’s stockings. If Father Christmas’s status rose in the 20th century, Santa Claus has clearly made inroads into the psyche of Britain’s children in recent decades; apparently, he has even gained a narrow lead this century. However, even the most ardent Father Christmas fanatic shouldn’t panic about this apparent Americanisation of British culture. Arriving from across the Atlantic at the precise moment that our modern Christmas was taking shape in the Victorian era, Santa Claus should be considered as much a part of our traditional celebrations as Christmas trees, Christmas crackers, Christmas cards – and good old Father Christmas himself. In the spirit of the season, let’s call a truce between these jovial icons. This yuletide, if you really want to honour festive tradition, raise a glass to Father Christmas in thanks for your family’s feast and the blessings of the season – but make sure to hang out your stocking for Santa Claus. Thomas Ruys Smith is professor of American literature and culture at the University of East Anglia. His new book is Searching for Santa Claus (Boiler House Press, November 2025)
Spectral beasts and hounds of hell: a spooky history of Britain's ghost dogs
From infernal black dogs attacking churches to ravening, red-eyed brutes on remote roads, Britain has long been haunted by fearsome canine phantoms. Karen R Jones explores what these stories can tell us about societies past
On the morning of 4 August 1577, the good Christian folk of Bungay assembled in St Mary’s Church for their regular Sunday service. But more sinister forces were also gathering in the Suffolk town. Dark clouds massed above, then “there fell from heaven an exceeding great and terrible tempest… not simply of raine but also of lightening and thunder”. This storm was only the prelude to a “straunge and terrible Wunder” described by Abraham Fleming in a pamphlet published soon after the event. For the church was plunged into darkness and a “black dog, or the divel in such a likenesse” burst in. It wrung the necks of two worshippers then “passing by an other man of the congregation… gave him such a gripe on the back, that therewith all he was presently drawen togither and shrunk up, as it were a peece of lether scorched in a hot fire”. The story of the Black Dog of Bungay is extraordinary, but far from unique in the region – East Anglia is the primary hunting ground of the spectral beast named Black Shuck – and, indeed, across the country. Britain is, famously, a nation of animal lovers, with 36 per cent of households having at least one dog. The UK canine consumer market is worth around £10bn a year, while millions of us tune in to watch dog-centric television programmes. These animals have become our trusted aides and loyal companions since domesticated dogs arrived on this island with the first human migrants during the Stone Age. It’s not surprising, then, that Britain’s population of paranormal pups is more diverse and widespread than anywhere else in the world, according to Mark Norman, a folklorist specialising in black dog apparitions. Such creatures reputedly stalk villages and lonely roads from Aberdeen to Penzance, and the British landscape echoes with their chilling howls. Hellhound is round the corner Dogs and humans have lived and travelled together in Britain since the Mesolithic age. Archaeological surveys place dogs at the UK’s oldest excavated house – at Star Carr, Yorkshire, dating from around 9000 BC – and at the oldest site of journeying, a camp at Blick Mead near Stonehenge. Dogs accompanied pastoralists rounding up sheep in grasslands and joined hunters tracking deer in forests, before settling down to snooze in front of the communal fire. No wonder they also populated ghostly tales. In story and song, from whispered yarn to local gazetteer, ghost dogs bound across the folkloric and literary record, with perhaps the most famous fictional example being the Hound of the Baskervilles investigated by Sherlock Holmes. In many reported cases, a factual explanation remains deliciously elusive. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/11/GettyImages-1137155402-CMYKWeb-Ready-56e37c4.jpg" width="2501" height="1667" alt="A black poster showing a large wolf with his mouth open. In front of his face, the words "The Hound of the Baskervilles" are written in red" title="A poster for the 1959 Sherlock Holmes film The Hound of the Baskervilles. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was inspired by tales of ghostly dogs on Dartmoor (Image by Getty Images)" /> All manner of spirit dogs have been reported. Some are devoted pets pining for lost masters and mistresses, padding eternally along the walks they took in life, carrying with them the textured reportage of hearsay, tradition and family fortunes. Some are seen as portents of doom, some relate particular cultural coordinates of injustice, wrongdoing or violent ends, and others just are. Some people who are convinced by such tales claim that these are beasts appearing to us from ancient days – messengers demonstrating the existence of a time-slip or a ‘thin place’. The unconvinced retort airily that we like to tell tales – Booker Prize-winning author Graham Swift called humans “storytelling animals” – and that of course those yarns frequently invoke our long-standing companions of homestead and hearthside. Most of Britain’s ghost dogs are connected to specific sites of historical significance where long-standing relationships between humans and canines have been written repeatedly into the material and imagined environment. They haunt village streets, ancient camps, burial mounds and graveyards, historic houses and castles. Read more | From the headless 'Blemmae' to a flesh-eating wolf: a 500-year history of monsters Road ragers Ancient trackways, roads and paths seem to attract a special breed of spectral beast – black dogs that leap out at unsuspecting travellers on dark, lonely nights. These are the most prolific canine apparitions, accounting for about a third of British sightings. Most of them are large and sport flaming eyes; some clank chains, while others can talk. All are fearsome. One of the most striking highway hauntings was reported on the road between Tavistock and Okehampton on Dartmoor. Here, on dark nights, the ghost of Lady Howard rode out from her home at Fitzford House in a grisly coach made from the bones of her dead husbands, heading to Okehampton Castle. Running ahead was a hellhound with blazing eyes and a demonic disposition. Sometimes she offered a lift to lost travellers: accept at your peril. Also on Dartmoor, you might encounter the Wisht Hounds kennelled by the devil in Wistman’s Wood. And at the East Dart Hotel, a former coaching inn near Postbridge, a ghostly bloodhound appears each night at 3am to snuffle eagerly at the road outside, hoping to lap up the remnants of discarded booze poured into the gutter by the guilt-ridden landlord, John Webb, over a century ago. The dipsomaniac dog follows the road down the hill to a clapper bridge, eternally searching for the long-discarded grog in the early hours. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/11/GettyImages-1911350831-CMYKWeb-Ready-23adf67.jpg" width="2967" height="1978" alt="A black and white illustration of a large, naked man, standing and holding onto a chain that is around the neck of a three headed dogs" title="A 16th-century engraving shows Hercules dragging the three-headed dog Cerberus from the gates of Hades (Image by Getty Images)" /> Dartmoor epitomises the kind of place where ghost dogs congregate: bleak, lonesome spots where the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end. Dark copses. Craggy peaks. Desolate moors. These are environments that inspire awe and even fear. No wonder they host such beastly apparitions as the Gytrash – a massive dog-spirit frequenting the remote highways of the West Riding of Yorkshire – and the Barghest, a demonic hound with huge teeth and claws roving the darker stretches of the Yorkshire Dales. One Barghest near Whitby sometimes dragged chains behind it, and could vanish into thin air by walking backwards. All were best avoided, auguring bad fortune or death – though they reputedly could not cross rivers. In Wales, the Cŵn Annwn, or ‘hounds of the underworld’, were often seen or heard before a funeral, baying mournfully. Typically, they sported glowing red eyes but their appearance otherwise varied depending on where they were seen: they might be huge and white, small and liver-coloured, or even red-coated, dripping with blood. They might rove lonely roads in a pack but sometimes travelled singly, often accompanied by Arawn, Lord of the Underworld and leader of the ‘wild hunt’. They were particularly associated with crossroads, enjoyed haunting graves, and often frequented mountains. Read more | The child-eating Christmas Yule Cat: what are the origins of this Icelandic folklore? These examples reveal much about our complex relationship with wild spaces. Sure, today we seek out these places for forest bathing, wild camping and an escape from modernity. And yet the vestigial unease they inspire in some people is a psychological throwback to our ancient past, when wolves and bears dwelt in uncharted spaces, and when wilderness connoted chaos, a descent into feral madness and devilry. They are places where Canis familiaris might revert to its lupine ancestor, Canis lupus, transforming from strong and trusty aide into a savage, malevolent assailant. Not all ghost hounds are out for blood, though. Though most tales about Black Shuck portray his appearance as an omen auguring imminent death or ill fortune, on occasion he struck fenland folk as friendly, and even had a penchant for helping women travellers. And the Gurt Dog of Somerset’s Quantock Hills was an entirely affable apparition: a shaggy Samaritan that appeared from the fog to guide lost children safely to their homes. Good or bad omens? Inhabited places, too, harbour their share of spectral hounds. Not one but two black dogs are said to wander the grounds of Leeds Castle, Kent (coincidentally home to the world’s largest collection of dog collars). One, a portent of doom, first appeared in the 1440s, after Eleanor Cobham, Henry VI’s aunt, was tried for witchcraft and incarcerated in the castle. The second, a more benign spectre, is said to bring good luck, and once reputedly saved a visitor from falling out of a window, having attracted their attention by barking. Both are curly coated retriever types, so anyone encountering such a spectre here might struggle to determine whether it is a good or bad omen. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/11/J4X3AR-CMYKWeb-Ready-826fb01.jpg" width="2952" height="1968" alt="An illustration showing a large black dog standing on its hind legs, with snakes on its head. To the right, there is a man in jacket and tall hat is holding the dog's muzzle" title="A woodcut of the phantom Black Dog of Newgate. The canine apparition reportedly haunted the precincts of the notorious London prison, attacking inmates who’d killed and eaten a new arrival (Image by Alamy)" /> The story of the Black Dog of Newgate was popularised in a sensational 1596 pamphlet describing a canine phantom that stalked the notorious prison. During the reign of Henry III, the yarn goes, inmates of the prison were so hungry that they killed a new arrival, a scholar, and devoured his body. His ghost then wandered the confines of the prison – as did the spectre of a huge black dog. Some prisoners died of fright upon seeing the beast. Others were ripped to pieces by its fearsome jaws in retribution. Even those who escaped the prison were pursued by the avenging animal. Friend or foe? Why are dogs the creatures most commonly cited in accounts of animal apparitions? Partly, it’s because of their long relationship with and proximity to humans. The dog’s alter ego, the wolf, also adds that sense of the fearsome wild into the psychological scare-scape. There is also a biological factor at play: an awareness that dogs are gifted with extraordinary sensory powers. A dog’s nose is equipped with about 300 million olfactory receptors – far more than a human’s paltry 5–6 million. Their hearing, too, is vastly superior to our own. These endow them with almost ‘supernatural’ abilities, reflected in their roles in the beliefs and legends of various cultures worldwide. The Aztecs believed that their Xoloitzcuintli dogs could ‘smell’ ghosts, and thus protect their owners from spirits. In Norse mythology, Freya, a god linked with death, rode a chariot pulled by huge cats – thus a household dog might alert the residents to her approach by howling and barking, potentially averting a fatal incident. And in ancient Greek legend, the three-headed hound Cerberus guarded the entrance to Hades, suggesting that dogs were equipped to patrol the boundary between the living and the dead. Such beliefs in the extrasensory abilities of animals persist: in a 2019 survey for the Blue Cross animal charity, 63 per cent of owners said they believed that their pet had seen (or had the capacity to see) a ghost or other supernatural presence. Indeed, perhaps the most intriguing part of spectral dog stories is the fact that in many places they are still thriving today. Ghost dogs are seen through the windscreens of cars, stalking major roads just as happily as they did ancient trackways. Take that infernal assailant in Bungay in 1577. Black Shuck became – and still is – a widespread legend across East Anglia, written into regional folklore by Reverend ES Taylor in a 1850 issue of Notes and Queries, describing “Shuck the Dog-fiend… this phantom I have heard many persons in east Norfolk, and even Cambridgeshire, describe as having seen as a black shaggy dog, with fiery eyes and of immense size, and who visits churchyards at midnight”. Read more | When a Victorian ghost hunter investigated Britain’s most haunted house, this is what he found Paranormal investigators documenting reports of Shuck sightings found that the majority of alleged encounters occurred after 1900 – so, in fact, his presence in the regional psyche appears to have burgeoned rather than receded in the modern age. Reflecting the continuing salience of this legend, and a broader revival of interest in all matters folkloric, in 2022 a Black Shuck Festival was launched in Bungay to celebrate the town’s famous fiendish beast. Perhaps these tales of Shuck and his phantom canine kin have even more relevance in our polarised and fractured society today. They speak of the importance of roots, of the storied pasts that bind humans to other species. And in a time when anthropogenic change threatens us in far-reaching and fundamental ways, they speak of the importance of acknowledging the limits of what we, as humans, can know and control in the natural (or supernatural) world. Karen R Jones is professor of environmental and cultural history at the University of Kent. Her latest book, Beastly Britain: An Animal History, was published in May by Yale University Press This article was first published in the November 2025 issue of BBC History Magazine
From tragic Tudor queens to restless Roman soldiers: Britain's 8 most haunted houses
From tragic Tudor queens to restless Roman soldiers, Caitlin Blackwell Baines introduces us to the terrifying cast of phantoms said to dwell within the nation’s spookiest homes
1. Stirling Castle, Scotland From elusive sea monsters to shrieking banshees, Scotland is home to a host of supernatural beings – including, of course, ghosts. One of their best-known spectral celebrities is the ill-fated Mary, Queen of Scots, who is said to haunt a staggering 10 properties, making her, perhaps, the best-travelled ghost in the nation. Among her main haunts is Stirling Castle, her childhood home in central Scotland. Perched atop a volcanic crag, surrounded by cliffs overlooking the River Forth, Stirling Castle was constructed in the early 12th century, originally as a military stronghold, acting as a strategic line of defence during the Wars of Scottish Independence (1296–1357). However, almost from the very beginning, Stirling was also a favourite royal residence. By the time a young Mary Stuart lived there in the 1540s, it was as much a palace as it was a fortress: her father, James V, had transformed it into one of the most opulent homes in Renaissance Britain. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/10/Stirling-Castle-Bannockburn-1-8d83973.jpg" width="1200" height="960" alt="A large brown castle stands on a tree-covered hill, against a dark grey cloudy sky" title="Stirling Castle is one of several historic buildings said to be haunted by the ghost of Mary, Queen of Scots – the ill-fated monarch who was imprisoned – and executed – upon the orders of her cousin, Elizabeth I (Image by SpookyScotland.net)" /> Whatever happy childhood memories Mary may have had of Stirling would be tainted by the events of 21 April 1567. It was here on this day that the embattled queen would see her infant son (the future King James VI & I) for the last time. Soon after, she was forced to abdicate, flee the country, and eventually, in 1587, she was executed for treason under the orders of her cousin, Elizabeth I. Perhaps it is for this reason that the melancholy monarch returns to the castle, perpetually searching for her long-lost child, even in the afterlife. She is said to be kept company by a dutiful servant – a young woman in green, who purportedly died in a fire while attempting to save her mistress. They are also joined by Stirling’s notorious ‘Highland Ghost’ – a mysterious man adorned in full Highland regalia, who is often mistaken for a costumed tour guide. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/10/Raynham-Hall-ghostWHB5WT-f2f1e5a.jpg" width="4218" height="5059" alt="A black and white photograph of a staircase with a white ghostly figure in the middle" title="This photograph of Raynham Hall’s ‘Brown Lady’ – purportedly the ghost of former resident Lady Dorothy Townshend – caused a stir when it was first published in 1936 (Image by Alamy)" /> 2. Raynham Hall, Norfolk At its height in the Georgian period, Raynham Hall was nationally renowned for its innovative architecture, priceless art collection and powerful owner. Though originally constructed in the early 1600s, the stately red-brick manor we see today was largely the work of eminent early 18th-century architect William Kent, acting under the direction of Charles, 2nd Viscount Townshend, a leader in the House of Lords. Like the house he lived in, Townshend was an imposing figure, known for his fiery temper and blustering delivery in parliament. And rumour had it, his aggressiveness was not solely reserved for political opponents. His long-suffering wife, Dorothy, may have also been a target of his ire. The story goes that Lady Dorothy Townshend (née Walpole, sister of prime minister Robert) endured an unhappy marriage. Some say she was unfaithful, while others claim it was her extravagant spending that incurred her husband’s wrath. In any case, she purportedly died under mysterious circumstances and continues to roam Raynham’s halls to this day. Read more | Five shocking tales from Britain’s royal palaces Over the years, there have been numerous reported sightings of Lady Townshend – or ‘The Brown Lady’ as she has come to be known, on account of the colour of her silk brocade dress – but perhaps none so dramatic as the encounter of photographers Hubert Provand and Indre Shira. In the autumn of 1936, while on assignment for Country Life magazine, Provand and Shira prepared to take a photo of Raynham’s main staircase. Just as they were setting up the shot, they suddenly caught sight of an ethereal, veiled form floating down the stairs. Acting fast, they snapped their photo and captured what is widely considered to be one of the most famous examples of ‘spirit photography’ in history. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/10/50-Berkeley-SquareK07JMM-ffef8a3.jpg" width="743" height="1153" alt="A black and white photograph of a dark front door. Either side of it are iron railings, and there is an arch over the two steps leading up to it" title="Dare you open the door? Visitors to 50 Berkeley Square have been reporting strange goings-on since the mid-19th century (Image by Alamy)" /> 3. 50 Berkeley Square, Mayfair, Greater London With its elegant Georgian townhouses, luxury boutiques and Michelin star restaurants, the upscale district of Mayfair in central London may not seem like the natural setting for a ghost story. And yet, it is home to a property once christened the ‘Most Haunted House in London’. The offending structure can be found on Berkeley Square, a residential block first laid out in the mid-1700s by architect William Kent (the man behind Raynham Hall). From the outside, there’s nothing much to distinguish the townhouse at No 50 from its neighbours – but don’t let its staid, neoclassical façade fool you. The first reports of unusual activity at No 50 occurred in the mid-1800s. Nearby residents noticed strange sounds and smells, lights flickering in the windows at all hours of the night, and the noticeable signs of decay and abandon. Sceptics chalked this up to the eccentric habits of its owner, Thomas Myers, a recluse left heartbroken by the rejection of his fiancée. Nevertheless, rumours soon swirled that the house was haunted. View Green Video on the source website Some believed the ghost was a young woman who had jumped from an upper-storey window. Others claimed it was Myers himself, who had locked himself in the attic and driven himself mad. Still others maintained it was a preexisting entity that had possessed both Myers and the suicidal woman. Whatever the case, most Londoners came to fear and avoid No 50 – all save for a brave and foolhardy few. One such daredevil was Lord George Lyttleton, a Conservative statesman, who, in 1872, accepted a bet to stay a night alone at the house. Though incredulous of the stories, Lyttleton packed a pistol and was probably quite pleased he had done so, for when a dark, tendrilled apparition advanced towards him, he was able to defend himself. Firing a few rounds, he was certain he’d hit his mark. Yet, when the smoke settled, it revealed only spent shell casings and an empty attic. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/10/Chillingham-Castle2BYB32Y-e4a1674.jpg" width="5081" height="3381" alt="A black and white photograph of a large castle with crenellated towers" title="This photograph of Chillingham Castle may be in black and white, but the building’s paranormal history is certainly colourful: its most famous ghoul is a boy in blue who appears to visitors inside a pink bedroom (Image by Alamy)" /> 4. Chillingham Castle, Northumberland Touted as Britain’s ‘Most Haunted Castle,’ Chillingham has a long and violent history. Once one of nearly 100 fortifications that dotted the bleak borderlands of England and Scotland, this 13th-century fortress served a pivotal role in the centuries-long rift between the two warring kingdoms. It was here, in 1298, that King Edward I launched his attack on William Wallace during the First War of Scottish Independence. Over the years, hundreds of England’s enemies were killed at Chillingham, many of them by torture in the castle’s dungeon and torture chamber – a cramped windowless pit located in a cellar beneath what is today a public tearoom. Strangely, however, these prisoners are not among the castle’s best-known ghostly residents. Instead, the most familiar phantom faces are those of women and children. There is the mysterious ‘Radiant Boy’ – an unknown child in blue who materialises before guests in the castle’s ‘Pink Bedroom’. And the legendary ‘Grey Lady’ – believed to be the ghost of Lady Mary Berkeley, whose husband, Ford Grey, 1st Earl of Tankerville, reportedly jilted her for her younger sister, leaving her alone and heartbroken in the castle. Modern visitors report the sounds of sobbing, the rustling of a heavy gown dragging along the castle’s corridors, and the faint aroma of rosewater. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/10/Blickling-HallBPB4N5-54b2853.jpg" width="5637" height="3775" alt="A large red brick palace lit up from below by floodlights. Behind it, there are many trees in shadow and the sky is deep blue" title="Anne Boleyn is said to haunt several palaces and stately homes, including Blickling Hall near Norwich. The Tudor queen is thought to have been born at the manor that previously stood on the site (Image by Alamy)" /> 5. Blickling Hall, Norfolk Blickling Hall might be considered the English counterpart to Scotland’s Stirling Castle – though, on the face of it, they would seem to have little in common. Where Stirling is a medieval citadel looming over the gateway to the Scottish Highlands, Blickling is a Jacobean manor nestled in the heart of the Norfolk Broads. Just 20 miles east of Raynham Hall, one would think it would have more in common with its ‘haunted’ East Anglian neighbour. But as the presumed birthplace of Anne Boleyn, Blickling has a far stronger symbolic link to the childhood home of Scotland’s own tragic queen. Read more | Your history guide to Frogmore Cottage: who has lived there before? The existing structure, built for Sir Henry Hobart in 1616, was erected atop the ruins of a Tudor manor house once belonging to Thomas Boleyn, 1st Earl of Wiltshire – whose youngest daughter had the unfortunate honour of becoming Henry VIII’s second wife. On 19 May 1536, after just three years of marriage, Anne Boleyn was beheaded for adultery and treason. Like her Scottish counterpart, Anne is thought to haunt a number of historic properties, including Hever Castle (another childhood home), Windsor Castle (a brief residence), the Tower of London (the site of her death), and, of course, Blickling. Here, she is said to appear every year on the anniversary of her death, in a carriage driven by headless horses. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/10/Heol-FanogGettyImages-1281060558-a4fffad.jpg" width="6000" height="4000" alt="A black farmhouse stands on a hill, with a single light shining in the middle. The farmhouse has a chimney at either end of the roof and behind it, the sky is dark grey" title="A spooky farmhouse. One such building, Heol Fanog (Welsh for ‘Road to the Peaks’), gained notoriety in 2022 when it became the subject of hit podcast The Witch Farm (Image by Getty Images)" /> 6. Heol Fanog, Brecon Beacons, Wales A relatively recent entry into the annals of haunted historic Britain, Heol Fanog farmhouse in South Wales has gained contemporary notoriety thanks to the exposure of the hit BBC Sounds podcast, The Witch Farm (2022). The series focuses on the occupancy of the Rich family, who lived on the farm for a seven-year period from 1989, during which time they claim to have experienced a litany of terrifying events. From cold spots to disembodied footsteps, inexplicable power surges to noxious odours, and even full-blown apparitions and demonic possessions, the experiences of the Rich family have been likened to that of the Lutz family of Amityville Horror fame. While these stories are relatively new – and, indeed, the farmhouse itself is less than a hundred years old – legends about the isolated rural property have circulated for well over a century. The area’s strong association with witchcraft, occultism and Celtic mysticism, combined with the dark legacy of a gruesome local murder in the 19th century, have earned the property its nickname: ‘The Witch Farm’ or ‘Hellfire Farm’. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/10/Hampton-CourtG37YX0-eab2b03.jpg" width="4458" height="2903" alt="Henry VIII’s third wife, Jane Seymour, is supposedly one of Hampton Court’s many resident phantoms. Early 20th-century postcards depicted the queen’s ‘ghost’ using a crude double-exposure effect (Image by Alamy)" title="Henry VIII’s third wife, Jane Seymour, is supposedly one of Hampton Court’s many resident phantoms. Early 20th-century postcards depicted the queen’s ‘ghost’ using a crude double-exposure effect (Image by Alamy)" /> 7. Hampton Court Palace, Greater London Historic Royal Palaces certainly have their hands full. In addition to managing some of the nation’s highest profile heritage landmarks, catering to some 4 million visitors each year, they also have ghosts to contend with. Several properties in their portfolio – including the Tower of London, Kensington Palace and Kew Palace – are allegedly haunted. And while it’s hard to say which one of them is the most haunted, Hampton Court is definitely a strong contender. Construction on the iconic Tudor palace began in 1515 under the direction of Thomas Wolsey, Archbishop of York – Henry VIII’s chief advisor. At the time, Wolsey was one of the kingdom’s richest and most influential figures and he intended to build a home to reflect his position. In this he succeeded; however, within just a few years of his home’s completion, Wolsey had fallen from favour. Shortly before he died in 1530, he was ordered to surrender the palace to the king. Just 15 miles from London, the palace quickly became a favourite royal retreat. Read more | Seven of history's most disturbing ghost ship stories that will haunt your dreams While many monarchs have resided in Hampton Court over the centuries, the palace is indelibly linked with the reign of Henry VIII. As such, it should come as no surprise that the most familiar phantoms are members of the Henrician court. There’s Jane Seymour, Henry’s third wife, who died from complications of childbirth, and allegedly still holds a solemn vigil on the palace’s Silverstick staircase; Catherine Howard, Henry’s fifth wife, whose ghost is said to run screaming down the aptly-named ‘Haunted Gallery’, endlessly replaying a failed attempt to reach her husband to beg him to spare her from execution; and maybe even Old King Hal himself. Some believe it was the ghost of the king who was captured on the viral CCTV footage that made headlines around the world in the winter of 2003. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/10/Treasurers-HouseTopfoto0780551-5b87db0.jpg" width="3442" height="2284" alt="A cellar with dirty brick walls. To the left, there is an empty fireplace with a dark tunnel, and on the right, there are two boxes stacked on one another" title="The infamous cellar at the Treasurer’s House, York. In 1953, a young plumber’s apprentice claimed to have witnessed Roman soldiers marching through a wall (Image by Topfoto)" /> 8. Treasurer's House, York, North Yorkshire Beneath the soaring spires of York Minster, scores of visitors amble along pedestrian thoroughfares lined with gastropubs, gift shops and historic buildings. The din of casual conversation is occasionally interrupted by the booming oratory of tour guides who lead groups of tourists down winding cobble-stoned lanes and narrow alleyways (idiosyncratically referred to as ‘snickleways’ by the locals). These merry little bands are on the hunt for haunted houses, and in York – reputedly the ‘Most Haunted City in Britain’ – they will not be disappointed. Dozens of properties compete for the title of ‘Most Haunted House’ in York, and while there is no clear victor, there is one property that can lay claim to what is, perhaps, the best authenticated ghost story in British history. That is the Treasurer’s House – a Grade I listed National Trust property with foundations dating all the way back to the early 12th century. Its best-known ghost story, however, has nothing to do with its medieval history. In 1953, an 18-year-old apprentice plumber called Harry Martindale was hired to install a boiler in the property’s ancient cellar. Working alone and in silence, Martindale was startled by the distant sound of a trumpet. The sound grew closer, and suddenly, what appeared to be a Roman soldier with a plumed helmet emerged from a wall, followed by a cart horse and a band of other soldiers, all dressed in green and carrying round shields. If this weren’t strange enough, the soldiers appeared to be cut off at the knees. Though Martindale’s claims were initially dismissed as hallucinations, the subsequent discovery of the Via Decumana, a Roman road lying about 15 inches below the cellar floor, gave credence to his story. What’s more, his description of the soldiers’ attire – originally deemed inaccurate based on existing historical knowledge – was later confirmed to be consistent with the regiment stationed at the Roman outpost of Eboracum (i.e. modern-day York). Caitlin Blackwell Baines is an art historian and author who specialises in Georgian art and architecture. She is the author of How to Build a Haunted House: The History of a Cultural Obsession (Profile Books, 2025) This article was first published in the Apple News October 2025 bonus issue
This ancient goddess commanded a Wonder of the World – but why did she have thirty breasts?
The strange and powerful symbol at the heart of one of history’s greatest temples reveals the importance of the goddess Artemis in ruling fertility, childbirth and nature
When we think of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, the Great Pyramid of Giza or the Hanging Gardens of Babylon may be the first examples that come to mind. However, the oldest-known versions of the list start with a landmark that is often forgotten: the Temple of Artemis. Located in the ancient city of Ephesus (near modern-day Selçuk, Turkey), this remarkable place of worship was renowned for its size and scale, standing at least 20 metres tall and boasting an enormous tile-covered roof supported by 127 marble columns. With a floor plan of some 6,000 square metres, the temple was also nearly three times as large as the famous Parthenon in Athens. But some of the most startling archaeological evidence from Ephesus isn’t concerned with the dimensions of the temple, nor its complicated history of destruction and rebuilding. Instead, much attention has been directed towards a collection of statues depicting the temple’s patron deity, Artemis. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/10/BAL957668-36357fc.jpg" width="7715" height="4533" alt="A large temple with a triangular roof and many columns holding it up. It sits on top of a large flight of stairs. The roof has a mural of the goddess sitting in the middle and surrounded by crowds of people and two golden horses" title="A 20th-century depiction of the Temple of Artemis, dedicated to the goddess Artemis (Image by Bridgeman Images)" /> Rather than portraying the goddess as a conventional Greek beauty, the sculptures display Artemis in an altogether different guise. And, according to classicist and broadcaster Bettany Hughes, these statues bear a particularly striking physical characteristic. Read more | On the steps of a sacred temple, Cleopatra's feud with her sister came to a blood-soaked end “[This] is not the Artemis that you probably have in your heads… this image of a beautiful young woman in a tiny Greek chiton, artfully pulling a bow and arrow,” reveals Hughes on an episode of the HistoryExtra podcast. “She is a huge, towering figure, covered in birds and bees, goats and curious figures. But what none of you will miss… is that she looks as though she has 30 or so breasts.” Thirty breasts… or testicles? What need did Artemis have for 30 breasts? As well as being the goddess of hunting and the moon, Artemis was also revered as a deity of fertility and childbirth. Having a multitude of breasts would therefore be a fitting attribute for a goddess so intrinsically connected with fecundity and womanhood. In fact, even alternative theories – which suggest that the ‘breasts’ are actually bulls’ testicles or sacks of honey – bolster Artemis’s association with abundance. Both motifs have also been used as symbols of procreation in Greek art, so the ambiguity was likely deliberate. “These ancient craftsmen are likely playing a game with us,” says Hughes. Ultimately, the ancient Greeks believed that Artemis was so potent in her fertility that “she didn’t need anything as mundane as sex to procreate”. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/10/M42ADD-2-4bc4f79.jpg" width="5560" height="3707" alt="A large statue of a woman with black hands and face, and covered in light brown bulbous growths. On her head, there is a well-shaped crown" title="A second-century AD interpretation of Artemis, with the head and hands cast in bronze added in the 19th century. Artemis is an enduring symbol of fertility (Image by Alamy)" /> A goddess of power and procreation It’s not just the features on the statue[s] itself that suggest Artemis’s importance – the location where they were discovered is notable too. Ephesus was situated on the eastern edge of the ancient Greek world, where Artemis’s association with fertility and childbirth was perhaps stronger than elsewhere. Read more | Wanderlust: Bettany Hughes on the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World “The Artemis who was worshipped in Ephesus was an ‘eastern Artemis’ – a direct descendant of the great nature goddesses of the eastern world,” says Hughes. “Any ancient traveller who went to visit the temple would have been left in no doubts of how extremely strong and potent she was.” While Artemis was regarded as a powerful goddess for all, she was particularly important to women. Care of the temple was entrusted to high priestesses, a system that Hughes likens to a “hive buzzing around, serving the queen bee”. Overall, maleness was not well tolerated at the site; it was intended to be devoted to female presence and power. An offer of sanctuary But it wasn’t just the high priestesses who devoted themselves to Artemis. Countless ordinary women also dedicated themselves to this bastion of fertility, travelling from far and wide to give offerings. “Poor female pilgrims would beat a path to Artemis’s door, and some of them would leave extraordinary gifts [and] beautiful gold offerings,” says Hughes. “They were left as temple dedications and then buried as hoards.” In some cases, the poorest pilgrims would simply leave a seashell for Artemis instead. They merely offered whatever they could, in the hope that the goddess would provide protection and preparation for marriage and childbirth. Crucially, the Temple of Artemis wasn’t solely a place for worship – it also functioned as a place of refuge for the oppressed. Hughes adds, “If you were being persecuted politically, and even if you were a woman escaping domestic abuse, you could go to sanctuary at the temple.” Read more | The gods and their whims: your guide to ancient Greek religion <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/10/WHA0108722-2-0d5f3b2.jpg" width="5000" height="3542" alt="A brown terracotta jug with a circular spout and no handle lays on its side on the left of the image. On the right, there is a pile of small gold-coloured coins" title="A round-mouthed jug and an assortment of Electrum coins, discovered in the foundations of the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus (Image by TopFoto)" /> A forgotten legacy The Temple of Artemis was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World for good reason. Its sheer scale and beauty were matched only by the power of the goddess it honoured. To the modern eye, her many breasts might seem slightly mystifying. But – whether seen as symbols of fertility, abundance or simply a playful riddle set by ancient craftsmen – they remind us of the complexity and depth of her worship. Bettany Hughes was speaking to Rachel Dinning on the HistoryExtra podcast. Listen to the full conversation.
Spring-Heeled Jack: the fire-breathing phantom that terrorised Victorian England
A supernaturally athletic ghost is alleged to have menaced the towns and cities of 19th-century England. Able to spew fire from its mouth and jump extraordinary distances, this phantom confounded the police and press alike for decades
Tall and thin, with glowing red eyes, a monstrous face, sharp metallic claws and the power to breathe fire – this was, for several decades, the most common description of a supernatural entity that terrorised Victorian England. Who was Spring-Heeled Jack? Spring-Heeled Jack was the name given to a ‘phantom’ of urban legend that plagued fretful Victorians and delighted readers of penny dreadfuls. He was so named by the press for his seemingly supernatural ability to leap nine feet – or more – into the air to evade capture. Newspapers struggled to keep up with an influx of alleged sightings, which saw this phantom appear miles apart in quick succession. Police forces across the country were likewise bombarded with reports of the ghost, which could not be captured on account of its ability to leap away at extraordinary speeds and distances. And this earned it a moniker which was to become synonymous with the paranormal for nearly a century: Spring-Heeled Jack. When was Spring-Heeled Jack first seen? The earliest rumours of this ghostly entity emerged from rural villages south of London. In late 1837, villagers in Barnes reported that a white bull had attacked several people (mostly women) at night. Reaching East Sheen, it assumed the form of a white bear and was referred to by locals as the ‘Evil One’. Spring-Heeled Jack first took human form in January 1838, when he appeared wearing brass armour, claw gloves, and the spring-loaded shoes that were to become his hallmark. He was occasionally accompanied by other apparitions, and evaded capture by scaling walls and jumping away – to heights of up to nine feet. Gossip, rumour and occasional newspaper reporting quickly spread these alleged sightings of a fearsome, dangerous devil-man. Victorian Londoners were fascinated and horrified by this supernatural attacker that appeared to be closing in on the capital. In January 1838, the Lord Mayor of the City of London announced that he had received a letter from a ‘Peckham resident’, who alleged a group of people had been donning different disguises – including those of a ghost, the devil, and a bear – and frightening women as part of a dare. But this could hardly explain the apparition’s supernatural athleticism or its occasional targeting of male victims. If this was an attempt to assure the public that there was nothing supernatural to fear, it backfired. A report in The Times the next day marked the phantom’s entrance into the mainstream press. Referred to as “the suburban ghost”, “Steel Jack” and “Spring Jack”, among other names, the press had until now struggled to agree on nomenclature. By the end of the following week, however, the Penny Satirist had put in print the moniker which was finally going to stick: Spring-Heeled Jack. Soon, a “committee of gentlemen” had assembled to raise funds for a jackpot that would be rewarded to anyone able to capture Spring-Heeled Jack. But the question on everyone’s lips was the same: who, or what, was responsible for the hauntings? Read more | Living in fear: the dangers of Victorian London Was Spring-Heeled Jack real? Many Victorians genuinely believed that Spring-Heeled Jack was a demonic entity endowed with supernatural abilities. His reputation as a devious and violent ghost was sustained by word-of-mouth rumours, which spread within and between communities. While newspapers often approached sightings sceptically, witnesses and many of their neighbours were gripped by a genuine fear of the supernatural. But for many, there were less otherworldly explanations. One prevailing theory was that there was no singular demonic entity called Spring-Heeled Jack, but rather a conspiracy of eccentric aristocrats who had placed a wager on the number of victims they could frighten while wearing costumes. The Sun reported, apparently without any evidence, that a stake of £5,000 had been agreed on by “this gang of ghosts and hobgoblins”. This would explain how Spring-Heeled Jack appeared to be in multiple places at once. The Marquess of Waterford, a nobleman known for his rowdy and unruly behaviour, was also a popular suspect, despite there being no solid evidence to back up this claim. Even the fact that Spring-Heeled Jack’s escapades continued long after the Irish peer’s death in 1859 did little to dampen the rumour. Who were Spring Heeled Jack’s most famous victims? On the evening of 20 February 1838, Spring-Heeled Jack ventured into the capital for the first time. At about 8.45pm, 18-year-old Jane Alsop heard “violent ringing” at the gate in front of her family’s home in East London. Standing outside was an agitated man who claimed he was a policeman and implored the teenager to “bring me a light, for we have caught Spring-Heeled Jack here in the lane”. But when Jane fetched a candle and handed it to him, the visitor suddenly threw off his coat, “presented a most hideous and frightful appearance, and vomited forth a quantity of blue and white flame from his mouth”. Glaring at her with fiery red eyes, he then began tearing at her skin and clothing with metallic claws. Although she was ultimately rescued by her older sister, who grappled with the assailant and forced him to flee, the assault left Jane injured and in shock. Her subsequent testimony to the police garnered significant press coverage, catapulting Spring-Heeled Jack even further into public consciousness. Read more | 5 Georgian ghost hoaxes The supernatural fiend was apparently undeterred by an increasingly fervent public appeal for his capture. Only five days later, he reportedly terrified – but did not harm – a servant boy who had opened the door to his knocking. A few days later, one Lucy Scales was walking home with her sister when the pair spotted a tall, thin man standing in the alley ahead of them. As Lucy approached the cloaked figure, he spewed blue flames in her face, temporarily blinding her and sending her into violent fits. He then fled. Police investigators were by now exploring the possibility that the attacker’s fire-breathing abilities were in fact the product of a scientific contraption which used alcohol and sulphur, connected to a breathing tube, to produce flames when ignited. How the media reacted to Spring-Heeled Jack The newspapers of Victorian England were eager to capitalise on the attention being paid to Spring-Heeled Jack, though they rarely indulged the idea that he really was a ghost. After the attacks on Jane Alsop and Lucy Scales, reported sightings of Spring-Heeled Jack appeared in press coverage across the country. Many of these were based on unsubstantiated local rumours which the media might not have entertained had Spring-Heeled Jack not already gained such notoriety. Typically he appeared in the form that the two young women had witnessed – a tall man in a cloak who could transform suddenly into a monstrous figure. The Bristol Mercury somewhat sceptically reported an appearance of the “mischievous personage” in June 1838. When the phantom was sighted in Surrey, the Morning Post shrugged him off as an impersonator. Regional newspapers reported sightings of Spring-Heeled Jack throughout the next four decades, though his popularity was slowly waning. Even so, the more sensationalist newspapers continued to exploit reports of the phantom’s apparitions. The Illustrated Police News reported in 1877 that Spring-Heeled Jack had climbed a Roman ruin in Newport, Lincolnshire, and been shot at by angry locals – but escaped unharmed. It provided a dramatic illustration of the encounter for readers to gawk at. Was Spring-Heeled Jack caught? There was no arrest which put a stop to the supernatural phantom’s exploits, but a number of very human copycats were caught red-handed. These included a Londoner who, in March 1838 chased after women and children while wearing a mask with blue glazed paper attached to his mouth to imitate fire. In 1842, a man believed to be Spring-Heeled Jack, or one of his associates, was captured in the town of Eye, Surrey, but he soon disappeared from the police station in which he was being held. “Some suppose that by some chemical process Jack was converted into a spirit and so managed to make his escape,” the Ipswich Journal reported. Though sightings of Spring-Heeled Jack dwindled towards the end of the 19th century, he had become a fixture of Victorian popular culture – the subject of street ballads, at least four plays, and a bogeyman used to scare unruly children into obedience. In penny dreadful booklets, Spring-Heeled Jack was transformed from an evil spirit who terrorised women into a masked vigilante figure who used his supernatural powers to punish wrongdoers – an early kind of superhero. One of these serials, titled Spring-heel’d Jack: The Terror of London, was published weekly in 1863 and saw 40 instalments. Anticipating that readers would be suspicious of its titular character’s new-found heroism, the writer had Spring-Heeled Jack describe himself as “one who is not so black as he is painted”. But its title suggests the apparition still had a less-than-stellar reputation. The last widely reported sighting of Spring-Heeled Jack was in Liverpool in 1904, where he jumped between rooftops to the amazement of crowds of people. By this time, most alleged appearances were dismissed as attention-seeking imitators, and Jack the Ripper had dethroned him as England’s most terrifying character. But Spring-Heeled Jack nonetheless continued to lurk in the shadowy margins of English society – as one of the country’s first urban legends which had caused generations of people to glance nervously behind them as they travelled the dimly-lit alleyways of Victorian Britain. Spring-Heeled Jack is discussed further on this episode of the HistoryExtra podcast. Piers Mucklejohn is a freelance journalist
In his mother’s womb, he was fated to avenge his father – how was pregnancy understood in the Viking age?
A powerful prophecy was made in the Laxdaela Saga, a tragic 13th-century Icelandic tale filled with gory twists and turns. It concerned the unborn child of the beautiful Guðrún, a woman caught in a violent sequence of love, betrayal and revenge…
Guðrún was pregnant by her husband Bolli, though their marriage was not happy. After a series of taunts and insults played out between Guðrún, Bolli and Kjartan, Bolli had participated in the murder of Kjartan, who Guðrún had once loved the most. Seeking revenge for that death, a man named Helgi murdered Bolli, in front of Guðrún. Helgi then wiped the blood from his deadly spear on the shawl covering Guðrún’s belly, saying, “I think that under of the corner of that shawl dwells my own death”. Helgi’s words became reality. The child she was carrying would one day grow up and kill him. This striking story is one of only a few references found in Old Norse texts to pregnant women and their unborn children. But how typical is it? And what does it tell us about how Vikings understood pregnancy, unborn life and the women who carried it? New research into Viking understandings of pregnancy Those are the questions that new research, published in May 2025, has sought to answer, aiming to unpick the ambiguity and uncover what pregnancy was really like for Viking women, and examine its place within Old Norse culture and society. In ‘Womb Politics: The Pregnant Body and the Archaeologies of Absence’ (Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 2025), Marianne Hem Eriksen, Katherine Marie Olley, Brad Marshall and Emma Tollefsen examined 300 years of Viking texts, images, and burial evidence – and what they found was a culture that had surprisingly mixed views on pregnancy. In some places, the unborn were seen as people with destinies of their own. In others, pregnancy was treated more like a health condition, with no suggestion that the fetus had a separate identity at all. What’s most striking, though, is how often pregnancy is simply left out of the record – not missing by accident, the authors say, but likely made deliberately invisible. Women in the Viking Age Hem Eriksen notes that there was no one way of experiencing life as a woman in the Viking Age. Most people lived on rural farmsteads where everyone had to do their part, and agricultural tools have been found in both male and female burials. Based on grave goods, some women seem to have been associated with long-distance trade or metalworking. One task that seems particularly female-gendered, however, is textile production, yet this task would probably look quite different whether you were a subaltern woman doing large-scale textile production in a pit-house, or a high-status woman weaving by the hearth in the feasting hall. What women across social groups and standing may have had in common, was the experience of pregnancy. As the research explains, women who lived before effective forms of contraception likely spent much of their adult lives being pregnant, recovering from pregnancy, and nursing. Yet despite this centrality, pregnancy is rarely talked about in the written sources. So the researchers dug deeper. Looking across sagas, poems, law codes and Christian writings, they searched for hints about how Vikings understood pregnancy. Read more | Viking women: raiders, traders and settlers Legends and language While most Old Norse descriptions of pregnancy were inferred rather than described, literature and language do provide some useful insight into how Vikings thought of pregnancy. Guðrún’s story in the Laxdaela Saga is a potent example of when the Vikings gave “more existential weight to the fetus,” say the study’s authors. The story of Guðrún and her unborn son shows how the Vikings could sometimes imagine the fetus as a separate person, with its own fate. When Helgi wiped the blood on her shawl, he was already seeing Guðrún’s fetus as a boy with a destiny, independent from his mother. Other Old Norse phrases for being pregnant – such as “to go not a woman alone” and “to walk with child” – support this interpretation too. So, then, did Vikings see unborn children as integrated social persons? It might not be that straightforward. Researchers also found words that emphasise the mother’s physical, or embodied, experience of being pregnant. When describing pregnant women, Old Norse societies used adjectives like ‘bellyish’ and ‘unlight’. Meanwhile, ‘health-lack’, ‘unstrong’ and ‘sickness’, highlighted the physical impact of pregnancy and labour, essentially viewing pregnancy as a female health condition. It's a view that contradicts the story in the Laxdaela Saga – pointing to the idea that Vikings could also see the unborn as not yet having their own individual identity or personhood. A pregnant warrior? Away from textual sources, the researchers also sought out information from physical evidence: burials and artefacts. Across the Viking Age, only one convincing visual representation of Viking pregnancy survives: a silver figurine, discovered in the 1920s in a burial mound in Aska, Sweden. The object is just 3.8cm tall and it depicts a circle with a human in its centre, cradling a round belly with her arms. It’s widely understood to represent pregnancy. Intriguingly, this woman may also be wearing a helmet with a cloverleaf-shaped nose guard. When seen against the mounting evidence that some women were buried with full weapons' gear: could pregnant Viking women, alongside their unborn children, also be seen as warriors? According to the authors, the artefact provides firm evidence that the notion of “a pregnant woman in arms was not an unthinkable concept”. The burial record Meanwhile, one of the most puzzling parts of the study comes from the burial evidence. Across the thousands of Viking Age burials that have been recorded by archaeologists, the authors of the new research found only 14 examples of a mother being buried with her infant: a number that’s misaligned with the fact that death during or around pregnancy was extremely common in medieval Scandinavia. What could have caused this “extremely low” number of burials of mothers and infants together? The authors don’t believe this low number could be down only to poor preservation of the remains, nor that Viking women and infants who died in pregnancy and childbirth were exclusively cremated rather than buried. Instead, they suggest a third possibility: that mothers and their newborn children were separated, rather than being buried together. Read more | Gods, myths and rituals: what we know about Viking religious beliefs This is one explanation as to why burials with Viking women and newborns are so rare – despite the evidence that death rates were so high – and the study suggests this was intentional by the Vikings. The authors suggests a couple of theories for why this might have happened. The newborns might have been used as ‘grave-goods’ in the burial of other bodies, in the same way the Vikings buried adults with animal bodies – or used in other ritual practices. Alternatively, perhaps the newborns weren’t formally buried at all – which gives rise to the as yet unanswered, unsettling question of whether Vikings saw dead babies as worthy of grieving over at all. A culture of contradictions? In the end, the Viking view of pregnancy appears full of contradictions. The unborn could be seen as future warriors – or not as people at all. Pregnancy could be seen as powerful, or as a health burden to endure. It’s an ambiguity that seems paradoxical given how preoccupied the Vikings were with kinship and family. Were the unborn their own beings with their own lives ahead of them, or not? Was pregnancy simply a state of health? Could the pregnant women even be warriors, in some form or another? And what happened to the mothers and infants who didn’t survive the experience? Without clear evidence one way or another, the Viking Age understanding of pregnancy remains a complex puzzle: one in which birth, life and death were ever-present and deeply intertwined.
Might Jesus and his 12 apostles have something to do with it? Discover the medieval history behind triskaidekaphobia – the fear of the number 13 – and why it is considered an unlucky number
Forget the Ides of March and Halloween – for some, a Friday that also happens to be the 13th of the month is scariest and unluckiest day of the year. The fear of Friday 13th is very real. It's even been given a scientific name, paraskevidekatriaphobia, from the Greek words Paraskeví, meaning Friday, and dekatreís, meaning 13. But what is it about this day and date combo that has given millions the heebie jeebies. Here's what we know of we know about Friday 13th's hazy history. When did people start believing Friday 13th was unlucky? It's believed that this superstition began in the Middle Ages. Some think it's related to the Last Supper, when 13 people were present at the meal before Jesus's crucifixion on Good Friday. Others think it's related to the Knights Templar, who were arrested for heresy on Friday 13 October 1307. But fear of 13 predates Christianity. The number 13 has been considered unlucky for millenia, and by many different cultures around the world. Why is the 13th unlucky? The ancient Romans believed that the number 13 was a bad omen, foretelling ill-fortune and death. The Vikings also hated 13, because in Norse mythology a banquet was held for 12 of the Norse gods during which the trickster god, Loki, appeared uninvited, like the wicked fairy in Sleeping Beauty, and as a result the beloved god Balder died. The Mayans thought that the 13th 'baktun' (a period equivalent to almost 400 years) would spell the end of the world – however, this came and went in 2012. For centuries, hosts avoided having 13 people seated around a dining table, convinced that the first person to leave would die within the year. Indeed, 16th-century witch-hunters often tried to claim there had been 13 people at a gathering – proof that the accused were witches in league with the devil. Why is Friday the 13th unlucky? Why Friday the 13th is considered especially unlucky isn't entirely clear. The first written record we have of the number 13 and Friday being unlucky in conjunction only dates to the 19th century, in a biography of Italian composer Gioachino Rossini: "He was surrounded to the last by admiring friends; and if it be true that, like so many Italians, he regarded Fridays as an unlucky day and thirteen as an unlucky number, it is remarkable that on Friday 13th of November he passed away." Friday the 13th remains one of the most prevalent historical superstitions that we carry on today (alongside that of kissing under the mistletoe). Many people still choose to stay in bed to reduce the likelihood of accidents, and it's estimated that in the US, as much as $900 million is lost in business each time as a result.
The Fountain of Youth is most associated with the Spanish conquistador Juan Ponce de León, but people have believed in magical waters that bring everlasting life since antiquity
Some stories in myth and legend have a habit of resurfacing time and again, carrying symbolism and ideas that endure across cultures and centuries. One such recurring motif is that of miraculous elixirs of life or sacred places that promise rejuvenation — from the philosopher’s stone and the Holy Grail to various enchanted springs. Archetypal among these is the Fountain of Youth, a mythical source said to restore vitality to all who drink from it. What is the Fountain of Youth? Legend says that anyone who located the mythical spring known as the Fountain of Youth would be bestowed with long life or renewed youth by drinking or bathing in its waters. Is the Fountain of Youth real? There is no single Fountain of Youth in legend. The notion is a very human one: to believe in something beyond our understanding that preserves life, and then to regard water – something on which every civilisation has been utterly dependent – as the vessel of that power. As such, there has never been a definitive Fountain of Youth. Water – whether in the form of springs, rivers or lakes – have been considered sacred by numerous cultures around the world, and imbued with divine powers. To this day, people flock to the pilgrimage site of Lourdes in France, where the waters flowing from a grotto are revered for their miraculous abilities to heal the sick and infirm. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/05/GettyImages-919818740-e357f71-e1748426030593.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="Painting of people bathing in a square fountain, with elderly people to the left entering and young people emering from the right" title="Those who drank the waters of the Fountain of Youth were said to have their looks and vigour restored (Photo via Getty)" /> Could the Fountain of Youth be under the Great Pyramid of Giza? There is no legend that links the Fountain of Youth to the Great Pyramid of Giza, as is suggested in Apple TV+’s Indiana Jones-esque movie Fountain of Youth. Likewise the legend has no link to the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, any of the world’s most famous paintings, or the ‘Wicked Bible’ misprint of the King James bible (so named after James VI and I, who commissioned it). Where is the Fountain of Youth? The Fountain of Youth is most closely associated with the New World today, but it has also been spoken of in Africa and Asia Minor. In the fifth century BC, the Greek historian Herodotus wrote of the Macrobians, an African people with unnaturally long lifespans, supposedly thanks to the water they drank. A century later, Alexander the Great is said to have gone looking for a youth-restoring and healing river. Millenia later, in medieval times, there was widespread belief in Europe of a Christian king in a land somewhere in Asia, sometimes Africa, named Prester John, who was said to have a Fountain of Youth of his own. Then in the 14th-century fantastical travelogue, The Travels of Sir John Mandeville, the author claimed to have drunk from a magical spring in India. What does Juan Ponce de León have to do with the Fountain of Youth? In the 16th century, the Fountain of Youth legend became inextricably linked with the exploration of the New World and the Spanish conquistador Juan Ponce de León. After founding the first European settlement on Puerto Rico, Ponce de León led an expedition in 1513 that reached modern-day Florida, US. It has long been claimed that he was driven by an obsession to discover magical waters believed to be on the island of Bimini (in the Bahamas). Except, there is no evidence to suggest that this was Ponce de León’s aim at all, even from his own letters. Like many other Spanish explorers, he was there for riches and glory, and he certainly did not find anything that brought everlasting life: he would be dead less than a decade later, having been wounded during an attack by native Americans during his attempt to colonise the land in Florida. Read next | Who was the real Kaʻiana in Apple TV+ drama Chief of War? Meet the warrior noble who defied a king Is the Fountain of Youth in Florida? The connection between the Fountain of Youth and Ponce de León was made after his death by another Spaniard, Gonzalo Fernàndez de Oviedo y Valdés. A friend of one of Ponce de León’s rivals, he had reason to undermine the 1513 voyage and make its leader look a fool. In his Historia general y natural de las Indias, he wrote witheringly of Ponce de León, having been duped by the native peoples, plunging deeper into the unknown on a deranged quest for a magical fountain. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/05/GettyImages-1134297534-13181de-e1748426562575.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="A tourist postcard for St Augustine, Florida, show an elderly woman drinking in a wheelchair drinking from the Fountain of Youth and, right, the same woman restored to your in a bikini with arms outstretched" title="The Florida town of St Augustine went as far as to market itself as the 'home' of the Fountain of Youth (Photo via Getty)" /> The story stuck, and the Fountain of Youth has forevermore been associated with Florida – not that the people there have minded perpetuating the myth. In the town of St Augustine, the Fountain of Youth Archaeological Park is advertised as featuring the very waters ‘found’ by Ponce de León – despite the fact that he may not have ever been there. History's Greatest Conspiracy Theories Member exclusive | Was the moon landing faked? Did Shakespeare actually write his plays? Were the pyramids built by aliens? Expert historians offer their perspectives on history's biggest conspiracy theories. Listen to all episodes now For more content like this, check out the best historical movies of all time as chosen by historians and ranked by you, history TV shows and films to stream tonight, and our picks of the new history TV and radio released in the UK this week