The Real Story Of The Hound Of The Baskervilles

Cromer Hall (Doyle's inspiration for Baskerville Hall)

A few days ago I was watching Castle Secrets And Legends on the Travel Channel.  One of the segments was about Cromer Hall in England (located just outside Cromer, about 140 miles or so northeast of London).  The Cabell family have been owner and residents of Cromer Hall for the last 150 years.

A local legend told to a visiting Conan Doyle, along with the physical description of the actual Cromer Hall built in 1829, are said to have been Doyle's inspiration for The Hound Of The Baskervilles published in 1902.  Being a Sherlock Holmes fan, I caught the episode again on a rerun and this time gave it my full attention while taking some notes.  I augmented that information with a little research, starting with locating Cromer on a map.

According to a legend told to Doyle, on August 5, 1577, a large black Hound of Hell materialized in a local church and brutally mauled two people to death.  The hound glared at the other people in the church with red blazing eyes, then disappeared leaving only a scorched claw mark on the stone wall to confirm its presence—a mark that remains to this day.  The beast was called Black Shuk and blamed for all unexplained gruesome happenings that took place after that.

Another legend tells of Richard Cabell, a 17th century country squire. After seriously mistreating a village girl, he was hunted by wild hounds until he died of a heart attack.  Considered to have been an evil man and feared by the local villagers, they entombed his body in a small building by the church and placed a heavy stone slab on top of his grave so he couldn't escape.

The Cabell family has their own version of this legend.  Richard Cabell believed his wife had been unfaithful.  He chased her out into the night and viciously stabbed her to death.  Her loyal dog retaliated by tearing him to pieces.

Doyle took the basics of the the three legends along with a detailed description of Cromer Hall, and transported it all to Dartmoor.  And the name Baskerville?  The coachman who drove him to Cromer Hall for his visit was named…Henry Baskerville.

The popularity of the story continues today.  Devotees of The Hound Of The Baskervilles often dress in period clothes, including the infamous deerstalker cap, and search Dartmoor for the origins of the story.  They do need to keep in mind that it's a fictional story, not a documentary.

Chocolate—The Food Of Love

We just celebrated Valentine's Day, the day the chocolate industry happily counts its profits along with florists and jewelers.  Certainly other items also come to mind such as cards, but chocolate reigns supreme for many Valentine gift givers and recipients.

The history of chocolate goes back over two thousand years.  Cocoa has long been associated with passion, romance, and love.  It's a concept that goes back to the Aztecs with archaeological records indicating that the Mayans were consuming cocoa as long ago as 600 B.C., possibly even earlier than that.

The Aztecs believed it was a source of spiritual wisdom, energy, and sexual power.  It was widely served at wedding ceremonies.  The ancient civilizations of Central and South America did not know chocolate as we do today.  They consumed cocoa as a drink, its naturally bitter taste possibly altered by adding chili peppers to the water and cocoa.

When the Spanish explorers first brought cocoa home with them in 1585, they experimented by mixing it with sugar and vanilla to make a sweeter tasting drink.  The result was a type of hot chocolate popular among the upper classes who were the only ones who could afford it.  Cocoa was also added to baked goods to give them added flavor.  By the first half of the eighteenth century cocoa production had increased and the price fallen so that it became affordable to the general population of Europe and also the European colonies in the New World.

By the nineteenth century things were moving along nicely for those involved in the manufacture of chocolate.  In 1828, Conrad van Houton of Holland invented a process to make a refined cocoa powder which increased the output of the usable powder from a given crop of cocoa beans which further lowered the price.

The first chocolate candies as we know them today were invented in the 1860s by Cadbury, a British candy maker, who was also the first to sell them in a heart-shaped box for Valentine's Day.

Another big advance came in 1878 when a Swiss chocolate seller, Daniel Peter, invented a process for making candy out of milk chocolate—a process picked up by Nestle.  In 1913 Jules Sechaud, a Swiss chocolate maker, created the first chocolate candy with cream and other fillings and the modern soft centered chocolate candies were born.

And thus chocolate candies joined the ranks of flowers and jewelry in the courtship ritual.

Chocolate, including chocolate candy, is liked by most people, but women tend to have a somewhat greater affinity for it than men.  Chocolate is more than food.  It not only fills your stomach, it also makes you feel good.  Many people believe that chocolate is an aphrodisiac.  While it is true that chocolate does contain organic substances which have a physical feel good affect on the body, the amounts are not that great.

Critics claim the benefits of eating chocolate are small compared to the sugar and fat contained in a chocolate bar.  However, the best chocolate—dark chocolate with high cocoa butter content rather than milk chocolate—has no added fat with a high percentage of cocoa solids and correspondingly less sugar.  Chocolate will never be considered a health food based on its nutritional value, but it is still good for you.  It's good for your heart, relieves stress, and makes you feel good.  What more could you want?

Chocolate has long been associated with passion, romance, and love.  This association goes all the way back to the Aztecs.  Valentine's Day is a celebration of romance.  Chocolate is both an everyday pleasure and a token of love.  Valentine's Day and chocolate make a perfect match.  Chocolate is given as a token of love and is equally viable as a peace offering when a man has done something to anger his love.

Chocolate—the all purpose taste treat that's good any time of the year.

Valentine's Day—The Good And The Bad

The Good:

Valentine's Day is that time of the year when cards, flowers, candy, jewelry, and other tokens of affection are given to loved ones in the name of St. Valentine.  But who is St. Valentine and why do we celebrate his holiday every year?

One legend says Valentine was a priest in the third century in Rome.  Emperor Claudius II decided single men made better soldiers so he outlawed marriage for young men.  Valentine defied Claudius and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret.  Claudius ordered him put to death.

Another story has Valentine killed for attempting to help Christians escape harsh Roman prisons where they were beaten and tortured.

And yet another story says Valentine was the one who sent the first Valentine greeting while he was in prison.  He fell in love with a young girl, possibly the jailor's daughter, who visited him while he was imprisoned.  Before his death, he wrote her a letter and signed it From your Valentine, an expression that has transcended time to continue as a common expression for the holiday.

St. Valentine's Day, as we know it today, is a combination of both Christian and ancient Roman tradition.  One theory says we celebrate Valentine's Day in the middle of February to commemorate the anniversary of Valentine's death or burial which probably occurred around 270A.D., while others believe that the Christian church may have decided to celebrate Valentine's feast day in the middle of February in an effort to Christianize celebrations of the pagan Lupercalia festival.

According to the Greeting Card Association, an estimated one billion valentine cards are sent each year, making Valentine's Day the second largest card sending holiday, surpassed only by the exchange of Christmas cards.  Valentine's Day is celebrated in Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, France, and Australia in addition to the United States.

The Bad:

The St. Valentine's Day massacre—the most spectacular gangland slaying in mob history.

Al Capone (known to be the mastermind, but never charged for the crime) had arranged for his chief rival, Chicago mobster George 'Bugs' Moran and most of his North Side Gang, to be eliminated on February 14, 1929.  The plan was simple and deviously clever, yet Capone's primary target escaped any injury.  Capone distanced himself from the execution of the plan (and the execution of his rivals) by spending the time at his home in Florida.

A bootlegger loyal to Capone was to draw Moran and his gang to a warehouse to receive a shipment of smuggled whiskey, the delivery set for 10:30AM on Valentine's Day.

The morning of February 14 was cold and snowy.  A group of Moran's men waited for Bugs at the red brick warehouse at 2122 North Clark Street.  Moran was running late.  When his car turned the corner onto Clark Street, he spotted a police wagon pulling up to the warehouse.  Assuming it was a raid, he watched as five men, three of them dressed in police uniforms, entered the building.  Moran and the two men with him, immediately left the area.

Inside the warehouse, Moran's men were confronted by the hit men disguised as police.  Assuming it was a routine bust, they followed instructions when ordered to line up against the wall.  The hit men opened fire with Thompson submachine guns, killing six of the seven men immediately.  The seventh man, with twenty-two bullet wounds, survived the attack but died after arriving at the hospital.

The newspapers instantly picked up on the crime, dubbing it the St. Valentine's Day Massacre.  The story appeared on front pages around the country, making Capone a national celebrity.  But to his dismay, this new found celebrity also brought a new level of attention from federal law enforcement culminating in his conviction for tax evasion and incarceration at Alcatraz.

Groundhog Day…And I Don't Mean The Movie

NEWS FLASH—7:30AM E.S.T. SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 2, PUNXSUTAWNEY, PENNSYLVANIA:  PHIL HAS EMERGED FROM HIS BURROW AND SAW HIS SHADOW.  SIX MORE WEEKS OF WINTER!

Unfortunately for Punxsutawney Phil, the official prognosticator of weather, there's a disturbance in the cosmos perched on the horizon waiting to swoop in a take over.  At least three challengers set to usurp his throne.

Every year on February 2 a furry rodent of the groundhog variety named Punxsutawney Phil sticks his head out of his burrow in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, to do his annual weather forecast.  In the United States and Canada, this is celebrated as Groundhog Day.  If Phil sees his shadow, it will frighten him and he'll return to his burrow signaling six more weeks of winter.  If he doesn't see his shadow, he'll emerge and winter will soon be over.

At least, that's what the tradition claims.

The earliest American written reference to a groundhog day was 1841 in Pennsylvania's Berks County (Pennsylvania Dutch) referring to it as the German celebration called Candlemas day where a groundhog seeing its shadow was a weather indication.  Since the first official celebration of Groundhog Day in Pennsylvania in 1886, crowds as large as 40,000 people have gathered in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, for the annual celebration.  And in recent years it's been covered live on television.  Quite an accolade for the little ol' groundhog.

The groundhog, also known as a woodchuck, is a member of the squirrel family.  The current Punxsutawney Phil weighs fifteen pounds and lives in a climate controlled home in the Punxsutawney library.  On Gobbler's Knob, Phil is placed in a heated burrow underneath a simulated tree stump on a stage before being pulled out at 7:25AM to make his annual prediction.

Quite removed from the concept of the groundhog waking from hibernation and emerging from his burrow in the wild.  :)

Phil's forecasting accuracy isn't all that great.  He's only been correct 39% of the time.  Between 1887 and 2009 he's seen his shadow ninety-eight times (hmm…I wonder how many of those time was due to the television lights), has not seen his shadow fifteen times, and on nine occasions there was no record of what happened.

Punxsutawney Phil, the "Official" groundhog of Groundhog Day, has more than one challenger for chief weather prognosticator.  And just who are these brash interlopers?

There's a bullfrog named Snohomish Slew.  Punxsutawney Phil might have over a hundred years of experience on Snohomish Slew, but the bullfrog is a full three days earlier with his forecast.  Thanks to the Snohomish, Washington, Chamber of Commerce, Slew is guest of honor at a GroundFrog Day Celebration.

Unlike Phil, when Slew sees his shadow it calls for eight more weeks of "foggy, soggy weather" in the Pacific Northwest rather than Phil's six more weeks of winter.  However, Snohomish folklore dictates that whoever rubs the tummy of a frog on GroundFrog Day will be rewarded with eight weeks of good luck.

Another challenger to Phil's throne is a groundhog named Staten Island Chuck, a resident of the Staten Island Zoo in New York.  According to the Zoo, Chuck's accuracy rate since 1981 is better than 80 percent.  The Zoo's gates opened at 6:30 this morning, Eastern time, in preparation for Chuck's 7:30am appearance.

And in the Detroit area, we have Woody the Woodshuck who resides at the Howell Nature Center.  If Woody comes out to eat her food within a minute, that means spring will soon be here.  According to the Center, Woody has been right 11 times out of 14, a more accurate record than Phil's.

It appears that the field of Prognosticators of Spring is getting crowded.  :)