Vila Wolf's Dyslexic Folklorist Ranting

Self Spanking Machine

“Fraternal Supply Catalog” of Messrs DeMoulin Bros & Co. of Illinois, 1930

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A flintlock pistol knife and fork set, 18th century.

A tanuki beating a catfish to death with its testicles, by Utagawa Kuniyoshi, mid 19th century.

I don’t even want to hazard a guess as to what's going on here, but it’s an antique Japanese woodblock print by Utigawa Kuniyoshi, circa 1840’s.

Cleveland Balloonfest of 1986- A staggering 1.5 million balloons were released from the Terminal Tower for charity. The event was intended to be a harmless fundraising publicity stunt, however, due to strong winds, the balloons drifted over to the city and caused a number of problems and accidents near Lake Erie. Flights were cancelled due to the balloons, and tragedy struck when two boaters drowned when Coast Guard helicopters were unable to reach their overturned boat. They simply couldn’t fly in the skies filled with 1.5 million balloons. The event organizers were sued and owed millions of dollars in damages through lawsuits.

Fending off a Kappa attack with farts

By Tsukioka Yoshitoshi, 19th century.

Chester E. Macduffee next to his newly patented, 250 kilo diving suit, 1911.

A rather curious design for a diving suit. It seems apparent that Chester did not take into account the weight of his invention. This suit would drop to the bottom of the ocean like a lead zeppelin leaving its occupant completely trapped. Even Houdini wouldn’t be able to escape this device.

Monstrosities of Evolution

These bizarre illustrations are from Ulisse Aldrovandi’s 1642 book, History of Monsters (Monstrorum Historia). Although the illustrations are extremely bizarre, they depict Aldrovandi’s vivid imagination and vast education in natural history, science and the diversity of life, including monsters.

Ulisse Aldrovandi (1522-1605) is considered the founder of modern Natural History. The Ulisse Aldrovandi Museum is housed in the Museo di Palazzo Poggi di Scienza e Arte and is located in his hometown of Bologna, Italy. His Storia Naturale, a 13 volume printed work, was conceived as the most complete description of the three kingdoms of nature - mineral, vegetable and animal - available at that time.

Aldrovandi was an extremely educated man. Born to a noble family, he obtained degrees in medicine and philosophy, with further interests in botany, zoology and geology. He became the first professor of natural sciences at the University of Bologna. Of the hundred of books and essays he wrote, only a handful were published during his lifetime.

Nearing the time of his death, he proudly stated that his home held a collection of 18,000 “different natural things,” and 7,000 dried plants displayed in fifteen volumes. The seventeen volumes with drawings of animals, plants, minerals and monstrosities are an integral part of the museum. 

source 1, 2, 3

The Famous Case of Emilie Sagée and her Doppelgänger

Before teaching at the Pensionat von Neuwelcke School for girls in France (pictured above), Emilie Sagee had taught at eighteen different schools. Eighteen schools from which she had been fired because of the phenomena that accompanied her. This 32-year old school teacher and her ability of bilocation has become one of the most witnessed and documented cases of a Doppelgänger in recorded history.

As Sagée was writing on the chalkboard while teaching her class, her double appeared, standing along side her mimicking her motions. It was her exact image except that it wasn’t holding a piece of chalk.

On another occasion, all of the school’s 42 girls were in the school hall for sewing and embroidery class. As they worked, they could clearly see Sagée in the school’s garden gathering flowers. However, when the girl’s teacher left the room for a moment, Sagée’s Doppelgänger appeared, sitting motionless in the teacher’s chair. Two girls tried to touch the apparition but were met with an odd resistance and were unable to penetrate the air surrounding the entity. Yet, one girl, stepping between the teacher’s chair and the table, passed through the apparition, which then slowly vanished.

Sagée was absolutely unconscious of what was happening and she only knew about the phenomenon because of the expression on the faces of the people who were there. It was by seeing their frightened faces, their eyes staring at something invisible which seemed to be moving near her, that she understood.  But she had never, herself, seen her double; neither had she noticed the stiffness and slowing down of her movements when her double appeared.

odditiesoflife:

Victorian Headless Portraits

The Victorian era had many photographs, most of which showed the subject sitting or standing with a stern expression. Since photography was still in its infancy, photographers were experimenting with novel ways to create fun photos that differed from the norm. Animals acting human was one popular concept, and then came the headless portrait. Funny, strange and entertaining, a new genre of photography was born.

Walter Potter (1835-1918) was a taxidermist who specialized in the unique. His pieces usually involved animals in human-like situations, often wearing clothing.  His specimens mainly died of natural causes, like in this piece, "Monkey Riding a Goat, c. 1870s."  The monkey was acquired after he robbed a fruit stand in Shoreham, and was doused with a bucket of cold water.  The shock killed him.  The goat, on the other hand, was extremely aggressive, and was “put to an end". (via A Case of Curiosities)

Giant Legless Amphibians

Although they look like enormous earthworms, they aren’t. They are a newly discovered species of legless amphibian, complete with backbone, making them similar to salamanders or frogs. These creatures are part of a group of animals called caecilians. They live out their lives in underground burrows, tending to their slimy pink young, which emerge from their eggs as miniature adults.

The discovery of new vertebrates is rare, especially outside of tropical rain forests, but the new caecilians come mostly from human-inhabited areas in northeastern India. They’ve escaped notice for so long because these burrowers spend their lives underground, out of sight of human eyes.

This is the Blackgang Chine Bazaar at the Isle of Wight’s Blackgang Chine Amusement Park.  Alexander Dabell established the amusement park in 1843, making it one of the oldest (or perhaps the oldest) amusement park in the United Kingdom.  In 1842 a huge fin whale had been stranded off the Needles.  Dabell bought it at auction, sold off the blubber, had the bones bleached, and transported across the island to a specially built hut. (via Vintage Photo LJ)

Pee a Rainbow: Scientist Snaps Shot of Colorful Urine

Separated and Reunited in Death

These grave markers — pressed up against either side of an imposing wall, with a pair of clasped hands reaching over the wall’s top — date to a time in Dutch history when Catholic and Protestant graves were strictly segregated. A Catholic and a Protestant married couple, separated in death, arranged for this unique workaround in order to rejoin one another.

In 1842, a colonel in the Dutch cavalry, JWC van Gorkum, married a woman known as JCPH van Aefferden. The union was controversial — van Gorkum was Protestant and van Aefferden was Catholic. Despite the prevailing culture at the time, the two remained married for decades, only separating when van Gorkum died in 1880.

But when van Aefferden passed away eight years later, she couldn’t be buried with her late husband; even in death, Catholics needed to stay with their own. While alive, she made her wishes clear — she did not want to be buried in her family tomb and, instead, wished to be as close to her husband as possible. The solution, seen above, is their connected tombstones.