Beware Of America's Creepiest Roads

They've been called urban legends, ghost stories, creepy encounters. But they all have one thing in common—unexplained happenings on dark roads in the dead of night. If you'll pardon the use of the word dead.

Or maybe it's more appropriate than you realize. :)

Since October is the month of things that go bump in the night as well as Halloween, it's the perfect time of year to explore these creepy lanes and the unexplained happenings that have been reported to occur there. Here's a sampling of some of these haunted roads.

Shades of Death Road in Warren Co., NJ:  Yes, Shades of Death Road is the real name of the street, but no one is sure exactly how the name came about. Over the decades, many murders have happened along this stretch of road, each its own ghastly tale, which certainly explains why so many different ghosts haunt the area.

The San Antonio Ghost Track:  If you put your car in neutral on the railroad tracks, the car will move off the tracks by itself. And if you cover the bumper in baby power, you'll find child-sized palm prints. However, be careful if you decide to try it out. There have been reports of bandits waiting in hiding for people trying to test this phenomenon.

The Georgia Ghost Roads:  Travelers late at night along Railroad Bed Road and Old Ghost Road (Robertson Road) see a faint orange light flashing in the distance. As they drive closer to it, a man will appear who is digging a ditch…or perhaps a grave. He turns and walks toward the car, but disappears before he gets there.

 Buckhout Road in Harrison, NY:  The shocking murders committed by Issac Buckhout are believed responsible for the area's many reports of notorious activities such as farms burning, vandalism in a local historic cemetery, and people who claimed to have been attacked by flesh-eating monsters because they parked in front of a specific red house and honked their car horn three times.

Meshack Road in Tompinsville, KY:  This is supposedly the original location of the often repeated story of the young woman in the prom dress who is walking along the road and given a ride by a young man. He gives her his coat to keep warm. The next day he returns to the house where he took her in order to retrieve his coat. The woman living there told him her daughter had died several years ago…on prom night.

Milford Road in Oxford, Ohio:  The story of star-crossed lovers. The boy and girl were in love, but the girl's father hated the boy. The boy would flash his motorcycle headlight three times and if he saw her porch light flash three times in return he knew it was safe to go there. One night he's killed on the road, but the flashing lights continue to haunt the area.

Mona Lisa Drive in New Orleans:  A philanthropist donated a collection of statuary to the city with one stipulation—the statue commissioned to commemorate the death of his only daughter, Mona, be placed in a special location in the park by itself. One night a car chase ended with a car crashing into the statue and shattering it. After that, rumors began to circulate that Mona lurked in the park where the statue had been, haunting innocent and unsuspecting visitors.

Archer Road in Justice, IL:  Resurrection Cemetery is the site of a story similar to the Meshack Road haunting. A young man met a pretty blond at a dance. At the end of the evening, he drove her home. When they reached the cemetery, she asked him to stop. She got out of the car, walked toward the gate, and disappeared. He went to the house where she said she lived, and the woman told him her daughter had died five years ago.

Spook Hill in Burkittsville, MD:  In addition to its ghostly reputation courtesy of the 1990s horror movie, The Blair Witch Project, an unexplained recurring event here is similar to the Railroad Crossing in San Antonio. When driving up Spook Hill, if you stop and put the car in neutral it won't roll back downhill. It will continue uphill as if being pushed. The local ghostly tale claims it's Civil War soldiers who think they're pushing one of their cannons up the hill.

Clinton Road in New Jersey:  If you find yourself on this haunted road, be sure to toss a coin into the river at the Old Boy Bridge. The ghost of a boy who drowned will throw it back. There have also been reported sightings of UFOs, mutated circus animals, and mysterious glowing eyes.

Highway 666:  This highway was originally named because it was the 6^th spur off of US Highway 66 (now mostly replaced by Interstate 40) through Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and Colorado. Travelers on this haunted highway, known as the Devil's Highway, have reported speeding ghost cars, packs of devil dogs, and a flaming demonic semi-truck that drives directly at the spooked travelers. Many people attribute these sightings to a biblical association between the numbers 666 and Satan. In 2003, the highway number was changed to Highway 491. There are still a few places where you can see the Highway 666 sign labeled as old next to the Highway 491 sign labeled as new.

Do you have any ghostly tales or spooky happenings where you live? 

Vampires And Other Immortals Part 2 of 2

Meet Turritopsis nutriculaas (pictured above), a form of jellyfish that is the world's only known immortal creature.

Before we talk about fictional immortals, here's a bit of information about the above photograph. Scientists have recognized Turritopsis nutriculaas as the only known animal that is capable of rejuvenating itself, thus sustaining life over and over again—being immortal.

Jellyfish usually die after propagating, but according to the London Times, Turritopsis reverts to a sexually immature stage after reaching adulthood and is capable of rejuvenating itself. It is the only known animal capable of reverting to its juvenile polyp state. In theory, this cycle can repeat indefinitely, making it potentially immortal.

The creature is only 4-5mm in diameter. It is found in warm tropical waters but is believed to be spreading across the world as ships discharge their ballast water in ports.

And now on to the other type of immortal—the characters in our myths, literature, and movies/television.  I recently came across a list of the top ten immortal characters as compiled by LiveScience. This is a cross-section sampling from various forms of storytelling.

10.  Peter Pan:  The famous boy who never grows up (or grows old) and prefers to live on the magical isle of Never Land.

9.  Dracula:  If you're desperate to live forever, you could try getting bitten by Dracula or any of the other well-known vampires. Of course, you'd have to give up Italian food which is loaded with garlic and getting a nice suntan would be out of the question.

8.  Lazarus Long:  A character in many of Robert Heinlein's science fiction novels. Lazarus lives to be over 2,000 years old, travels to distant planets, and travels through time.

7.  Nicolas Flamel:  J.K. Rowling based Flamel's character (good friend to Hogwart's headmaster) on a real-life French 15^th Century alchemist who legend claims successfully created the Philosopher's Stone, a mythical elixir that turns lead into gold and grants eternal life.

6.  Tithonus:  When Greek goddess Eos asks Zeus to grant her mortal lover, Tithonus, eternal life, she forgets to also ask for eternal youth. Tithonus lives forever, but he grows old and frail, and begs for death.

5.  Dorian Gray:  Oscar Wilde created this character who remains young and handsome while his portrait ages. He becomes corrupt, but his crimes and true age show only in the face of the painting which grows progressively more monstrous and withered.

4.  Highlander:  In the 1986 movie, Connor MacLeod is a member of the immortals, a mysterious race who die only when they are beheaded. The immortals must battle each other until only one is left to claim The Prize: the gift of immortality.

3.  Grail Knight:  A knight of the First Crusade. In Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade he is given the task of guarding the Holy Grail, a crucible that grants eternal life to any who drink from it.

2.  Methuselah:  He's the oldest person whose age is mentioned in the Old Testament of the Bible, becoming a father at the age of 187 and living to be 969 years old.

1.  Arwen:  A half-elven maiden in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings who renounces eternal life to marry her mortal sweetheart. She lives to be 2,901 years old.

Do you have a favorite immortal character among the many? 

Vampires And Other Immortals—Part 1 of 2

Vampires are big business these days, thanks in part to such popular book and movie series as Twilight in addition to various television series. Of course, vampires have never really been out of style. They were popularized in literature by Bram Stoker's 1897 novel, Dracula. But stories of vampires go back many centuries before that.

Where did the concept of vampires come from? The answer to that question exists somewhere in the space separating science and superstition. Some sources claim the stories of vampires began with the Romanian prince Vlad Tepes who lived 1431-1476 and fought for independence against the Ottoman Empire. His methods of dealing with his enemies included slowly impaling them on stakes, drawing and quartering, and burning them alive. It all seems very brutal and sadistic by today's standards, but not all that uncommon for those times. The same methods were used by the Catholic Church during the Spanish Inquisition and by other rulers and powerful leaders during the Middle Ages to torture and kill their enemies.

Bram Stoker is said to have patterned some of his Dracula character after Vlad Tepes as the birth of the modern fictional vampire. However, the roots of real vampires have very different origins.  Stories of vampires are a worldwide phenomenon with localized versions of vampires coming from almost all cultures. Before science progressed to the point where it could explain such things as weather patterns and germ theory, any bad event that did not have an obvious cause could be blamed on a vampire. The mythical creature was an easy answer to the age old question of why bad things happened to good people.

Superstitious villagers took their belief that something had cursed them and put it together with their fear of the dead and came to the conclusion that recently buried people who had risen from the dead to do evil deeds were responsible. They dug up graves and were surprised by the way the corpses looked. Not understanding the process of decomposition, they assumed bodies immediately turned to skeletons.

Even with the original vampires being long gone, the cultural phenomenon of vampires continues to fascinate the world. And it isn't just the macabre and horror stories that draw on the vampire character. We have several examples of vampires being used as objects of humor such as Al Lewis' Grandpa character on the old Munsters television series.  We have comedy vampire movies such as Love At First Bite and Mel Brooks' 1995 film Dracula, Dead and Loving It.

And more recently, we are just as likely to see the vampire on television and in movies as the drop dead (pun intended) gorgeous sexy hero as we are in the role of villain.

Even children have been caught up in the commercialism of the vampire world. There's General Mills' Count Chocula breakfast cereal, marketed to children. And not even the long running award-winning children's television series Sesame Street was able to ignore the vampire allure. One of their popular Muppet characters is Count von Count, complete with black Dracula style cape and fangs. His function on Sesame Street is to teach children numbers and how to count.

Vampire movies have been around since the days of silent films with the 1922 classic, Nosferatu, featuring a grotesque frightening looking monster type vampire. In 1931, Bela Lugosi showed us a new and different type of vampire—the charming, suave, and urbane Count Dracula who dressed in formal attire consisting of tuxedo and cape.

Do you have a favorite vampire movie or television series?

Next week, I'm going to post the second part of my 2-part blog about Vampires And Other Immortals, including a top ten list of immortals from myths, literature, and movies. 

CULPER SPY RING/Revolutionary War

George Washington—Commanding General of the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War, first President of the United States of America—the guy on the one dollar bill. The man who, as a child, history has credited with saying, "I cannot tell a lie. I chopped down the cherry tree." Thus establishing him as someone of integrity and honesty.

But did you know this same man of integrity and honesty was responsible for the establishment of the Continental Army's first intelligence spy network—spies as in deception and subterfuge—while we were still fighting for our freedom from Great Britain? Before we were even our own independent country?

In August 1776, British forces occupied New York and the city would remain a British stronghold for the duration of the Revolutionary War. Getting information about British troop movements and other plans from New York was critical to George Washington. But there was simply no reliable intelligence network that existed on the Patriot side at that time. However, in 1778 that changed when General Washington appointed a young cavalry officer, Benjamin Tallmadge, head of the Continental Army's secret service. He was charged with establishing a permanent spy network that would operate behind enemy lines on Long Island.

Tallmadge assembled a small group of trustworthy men and women from his hometown of Setauket, Long Island. Known as the Culper Spy Ring, Tallmadge's homegrown network would become the most effective of any intelligence-gathering operation on either side during the Revolutionary War.

Instead of following the procedure of the day and dispatching scouts into British territory on single-trip missions, Tallmadge organized his network of agents to operate behind and just beyond enemy lines. They operated from their homes in New York City, on Long Island, and in Connecticut, from which they reported on British activity. Prior to the creation of the Culper Spy Ring, a single-trip mission had resulted in the capture and execution of Tallmadge's Yale classmate, Nathan Hale. By avoiding the single-trip missions, none of the Culper Ring intelligence agents were ever discovered by the British.

Tallmadge recruited only those he knew he could absolutely trust, beginning with his childhood friend Abraham Woodhull, a farmer, and Caleb Brewster whose main task during the Revolution was commanding a fleet of whaleboats against British and Tory shipping on Long Island Sound. Woodhull, who began running the group's day-to-day operations on Long Island, also personally traveled back and forth to New York collecting information and observing naval maneuvers there. He would evaluate reports and determine what information would be taken to George Washington. Dispatches would then be given to Brewster who would carry them across the Sound to Fairfield, Connecticut. Tallmadge would pass them on to General Washington. Woodhull recruited another man, the well-connected New York merchant Robert Townsend, to serve as the ring's primary information source in New York City.

Austin Roe, a tavernkeeper in Setauket who acted as a courier for the Culper ring, traveled to Manhattan with the excuse of buying supplies for his business. A local Setauket woman and Woodhull's neighbor, Anna Smith Strong, reportedly used the laundry on her clothesline to leave signals regarding Brewster's location for meetings with Woodhull.

The Culper Spy Ring accomplished more than any other American or British intelligence network during the war. Perhaps the group's greatest achievement came in 1780 when they uncovered British plans to ambush the newly arrived French troops in Rhode Island—8,000 battle-hardened British soldiers against 5,800 French troops just off the boat after a long ocean voyage, tired and sick. Without the spy ring's warnings to Washington, the French troops wouldn't have the time they needed to recover from the long voyage. The Franco-American alliance may well have been damaged or even destroyed by this surprise British attack.

The Culper Spy Ring has also been credited with uncovering information involving the treasonous correspondence between Benedict Arnold and John Andre, chief intelligence officer under General Henry Clinton, commander of the British forces in New York, who were conspiring to give the British control over the army fort at West Point. Major Andre was captured and hanged as a spy in October 1780.

This is only a brief summary of the Culper Spy Ring and their invaluable contribution to George Washington and the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War.

And, in case you were wondering where the name Culper came from—pre-Revolutionary War George Washington worked as a surveyor in Culpeper County, Virginia. 

Middle Ages-Medieval Times part 3of3

This week is part 3 of my 3-part blog series about the Middle Ages/Medieval times. This period in history has many documented tales of truly barbaric treatment. But, unlike the message we get from Hollywood's entertainment industry and many novels, Medieval times overall weren't as barbaric as we've been led to believe. And with that thought in mind, here's a list of the ten biggest myths about justice in Medieval times.

10)  Go Directly To Jail?

Most Medieval communities actually had a judge and jury type of system, although it was much quicker than today's long drawn out sessions. Court generally lasted less than half an hour. At the judge's discretion, he could ask a few simple questions and deliver a verdict without consulting the jury.

9)  The Lawless Middle Age Villages?

Earlier Medieval communities had much more social responsibility than today.  If one member claimed to be wronged, every resident had to join in the hunt and persecution of the criminal, otherwise they would all be held responsible.

8)  Those Strict Church Types?

The pious Middle Ages were serious about religious offenses. Each town's church usually ran its own kind of court to investigate everything from bad attendance to heresy. However, the concept of sanctuary was also well known with the church as a place where criminals could avoid sentencing or punishment.

7)  Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind?

Criminals who committed lesser offenses were often subject to a policy of three strikes and you're out—literally. Repeat offenders were often simply banished from a city and not allowed back rather than killing them or having them clutter up the prisons. Humane and cost effective.

6)  Executions: Left, Right, and Center?

According to Hollywood, Medieval evil-doers were killed on whim and often in public squares for even the slightest of offenses. In reality, capital punishment was used only in the most serious cases which included murder, treason, and arson with the guilty usually hanged.

5)  Royal Highnesses High Above the Law?

Medieval nobles did enjoy certain privileges when it came to bending laws or making new ones to serve their purposes. However, most European countries had legislation preventing their kings and queens from running wild, such as England's Magna Carta signed by King John in 1215.

4)  Public Beheadings as Weekly Spectacle?

Beheading was swift and painless—as long as the axe was sharp. It was considered a privileged way to die and reserved primarily for the nobility. Treason was the crime of choice with the beheadings usually taking place inside castle walls rather than in public. Henry VIII had two of his wives beheaded—Catherine Howard and Anne Boleyn.

3)  The Burning Times?

A few witches, as proclaimed by their accusers, were burned at the stake during Medieval times. But it was during the following Reformation period (beginning approximately in 1550) that burning witches at the stake really took off. However, in England witches were rarely burned. They were hanged instead. At the Salem witch trials in the U.S., most of the accused who were actually put to death were hanged.

2)  Off With Your Ear?

Mutilation—severing of an ear or hand—was occasionally used as a punishment for serious crimes, especially in larger jurisdictions such as London. But more often, Medieval law enforcement used it as an empty threat rather than actually doing it.

1)  Rack 'Em Up?

Immortalized in the film Braveheart, the most famous torture device of all time was the rack. It probably wasn't used in England until the very end of the Medieval period. It was used extensively along with other devices beginning in the torturous days of the 1500s when Queen Elizabeth I, and other European monarchs, began purging religious opponents.

So, next time you're watching a high budget film set during Medieval times filled with bloody and torturous actions, remember—there's a good chance it didn't really happen that way.

Middle Ages-Medieval Times part 2of3

This is part 2 of my 3-part blog about the Middle Ages/Medieval times. Last week I presented 11 Bizarre Medieval Trends. This week it's 9 Surprising Facts.

1)  They weren't all knights or serfs or clergy

Although some medieval writers described their society as divided into three parts—those who prayed, those who fought, and those who labored. That became an increasingly inaccurate description after the beginning of the 12^th century. The population of Europe increased considerably during the 12^th and 13^th centuries, with cities and towns becoming much bigger. In the cities, people had all kinds of jobs—merchants, salesmen, carpenters, butchers, weavers, food sellers, architects, painters, jugglers…

In the countryside, everyone was not an impoverished serf (someone not free who was tied to the land). Many peasants were free men and women who owned their own land, while others who were to some degree not free bought and sold land and goods, much like other free men. There certainly were poor, oppressed serfs, but it wasn't a universal condition.

2)  People had the vote

Well, some people had the vote—not a vote for national, representative government. That was not a medieval thing. But they did have a vote in local politics. In France, in the 12^th and 13^th centuries and beyond, many towns and villages were run at a local level as a commune, and there were often annual elections where most of the male inhabitants could vote. Women could not usually stand as officials and could not vote, but some of them were noted in the agreed charters of liberties that French towns proudly possessed.

3)  The church didn't conduct witch hunts

The large-scale witch hunts and collective paranoid response to the stereotype of the evil witch is not a medieval creation. It was an early modern phenomenon found mostly in the 16^th and 17^th centuries. There were some witch trials in the Middle Ages, and these became more widespread in German-speaking lands in the 15^th century. But those doing the prosecuting were almost always civic authorities rather than the church.

For much of the Middle Ages, the main message that churchmen gave in regard to magic was that it was foolish nonsense that didn't work. The infamous Malleus Maleficarum in the late 15^th century was written to persuade people of the reality of witches. In fact, the book was initially condemned by the church, and even in the early 16^th century, inquisitors were warned not to believe everything that it said.

4)  They had a Renaissance and invented experimental science

When people talk about the Renaissance, they usually mean literature, art, architecture, and learning found at the end of the Middle Ages. This is usually taken to be one of the ways in which we moved from medieval to early modern thinking. But medieval intellectuals also had a renaissance of classical learning and rhetoric. This was in the 12^th century and depended particularly on the works by Aristotle and other classical authors. One of the outcomes was an inquiring approach to the physical world, and it led Roger Bacon and others to think about observing and experimenting with the physical world to learn more about it.

5)  They traveled and traded over very long distances

The majority of medieval people, particularly those who lived in the countryside, rarely traveled very far from where they were born. That would be the case with lots of people in much later ages as well. It is not the case, however, that medieval people never traveled. Many went on pilgrimage, sometimes journeying thousands of miles to do so. And those involved in trade certainly traveled, linking parts of the world together with merchandise.

6)  They had some great 'folk' customs

Much of the public culture of the Middle Ages was molded by Christianity. There were also some curious customs, usually tolerated by the church, but which may have had older roots. One was the practice of rolling burning barrels down a hill on Midsummer's Eve. Another was to throw wheat over the heads of a newly married couple. It was also common to raise money for charity by holding a 'help ale'—brewing up a batch of ale, having a big party to drink it, and collecting donations.

7)  Most great medieval authors didn't write

We tend to think of literacy as one thing, but in fact it combines various different skills with the physical act of writing being only one. For much of the Middle Ages, working as a scribe was seen as a kind of labor and was not something that important people like theologians and intellectuals would bother doing themselves. Instead, a scribe would usually write down what the author dictated.

8)  Some people weren't very religious

The Middle Ages famously features great examples of extreme religious devotion—mystics, saints, the flagellants, mass pilgrimage, etc.  But it would be wrong to assume that people were always very focused on God and religion and definitely wrong to think that medieval people were incapable of skeptical reflection.

There is solid evidence of some ordinary people who looked suspiciously at particular beliefs—at the miracles performed by saints, or the nature of the Eucharist, or what was said to happen after death. There is also ample evidence of people just not bothering very much with religion, most of all not going to church on Sunday.

9)  They didn't believe the world was flat

Columbus was not battling a society who believed the world was flat when trying to finance his voyage across the Atlantic to what he believed would be a route to China and Japan. It was a generally accepted belief that the world was round. Most people probably know this already, along with the fact that Viking helmets did not have horns. Both are bits of Victorian myth about the period. What makes studying medieval history fascinating is that you have to grapple with both the puzzle of extracting information from difficult and often fragmented surviving records, and the challenge of constantly checking your own thinking for assumptions that you might be inadvertently inserting into the information as fact.

Next week is part 3 of my 3-part blog series about the Middle Ages/Medieval times. In part 3, I'll be unraveling some of the wide spread commonly held myths about Medieval torture.

Middle Ages-Medieval Times Part 1of3

This week is part 1 of a 3-part blog about the Middle Ages/Medieval times. It seems that every generation looks back at older generations and judges the customs, beliefs, and traditions of that time in history by comparing them to the present. Some comparisons are valid and some are not. However, I think it's fair to say that there are few periods in history that we regard as strangely as we do the Middle Ages—Medieval times.

The Middle Ages are generally considered an unlucky time to be born and today's popular belief is that people were poor, food was dull, everything was dirty, and for the vast majority of that historical period the people were dropping like flies. What we don't often hear about is that people created some of the most peculiar, bizarre, hilarious, and astounding trends in human history. Let's take a look at some of the peculiarities of the Middle Ages.

1. Animal court

Life in medieval times was just as tough for animals as it was for humans. Just like their human owners, all manner of animals from livestock to insects were put on trial if they were suspected of breaking the law. There are records of at least 85 animal trials that took place during the Middle Ages that range from tragic to absurd.

The most common offenders were pigs accused and convicted of chewing off body parts and even eating children. Most were found guilty and sentenced to death. And it wasn't just pigs that felt the wrath of the law. In 1474, a court found a rooster guilty of the unnatural crime of laying an egg, rats often found themselves on the receiving end of a strongly worded letter asking them to leave the premises, and in 1596 in Marseilles some dolphins were put on trial.

Surprisingly, not all of the trials ended in brutality. One donkey found herself the victim of unwanted sexual advances. She was proclaimed innocent after a strong recommendation from a convent's prior, declaring her to be a virtuous and well-behaved animal.

2. Fabulous men's fashion

Clothes were hugely important to the elite of medieval times. It was a way for them to display their wealth and overall superiority over the poor. Because of this, various unusual fashion trends swept through Europe, such as long, pointed shoes for men. The longer the shoes, the greater the wealth of the man and, therefore, his social rank. Some of the shoes were so long they had to be reinforced with whalebone. In the late 14^th century, men desired to show off their bodies by wearing revealing clothing such as very short tunics with tights.

3. Shotgun weddings

Much of what people assume about medieval upper-class marriage is true. It was rarely for love but merely for political and social gain. Women, as with almost all aspects of medieval life, had no say in the matter. Men and women were judged to be ready for marriage as soon as their bodies reached puberty, as young as 12 for girls and 14 for boys.

The marriage ceremony of the time was very different from today. There wasn't a formal ceremony. It took only a few moments to utter consent wherever they happened to be. This meant it became rather hard to prove people were actually married. In the 12^th century, it was declared a holy sacrament that must be observed by God. The consummation of the marriage, especially among upper-class newlyweds, was far from private. It was observed by witnesses.

4. Courtly love

Most upper-class medieval marriages were loveless unions designed for financial and social gains. Medieval nobles fulfilled their romantic desires in what was termed courtly love. This allowed lords and ladies to practice the elements of love regardless of their marital status. This involved the risqué actions of dancing, giggling, and even holding hands. Sex, however, was strictly forbidden—reserved for one's spouse only. Courtly love was so popular, a list of rules was written up including: "Marriage is no real excuse for not loving."

5. Divorce by combat

Couples in medieval Germany didn't waste time when it came to solving their disputes. Rather than just arguing like any normal couple, trial by single combat was a popular way to solve disagreements. When man and wife were fighting, there were bizarre restrictions such as the husband standing in a hole with a hand behind his back while his wife ran around with a sack filled with rocks.

6. Hairless faces

While today many women spend money to accentuate their eyelashes and eyebrows, it was completely different in the Middle Ages. Because the forehead was seen as the central point of their faces, women would remove their eyelashes and eyebrows in order to accentuate it. Some were so committed, they would pluck their hairlines to achieve a perfectly oval, bald face.

7. A beautiful death

People in the medieval times were very preoccupied with death, which is understandable if you consider how pious society was at the time, and also the fact that many people were falling victim to the Black Death. As a result, a trend known as ars moriendi or the art of dying, came into fashion. The idea revolved around dying a good Christian death. The death should be planned and peaceful. To add further stress, the dying person should accept their fate without despair, disbelief, impatience, pride, or avarice. Dying well was particularly popular with the priesthood, which led to many of the infamous medieval paintings of monks and holy men accepting their brutal murders with calm serenity.

8. Soccer without rules

If you thought professional sports hooligans were a modern phenomenon, you might want to reconsider that concept. Medieval England had sports-related mob violence before the sports were even named. What we regard today as soccer (or football outside the U.S.) was violent, chaotic, and occasionally deadly. It involved an infinite number of players, could take part across entire villages, and often it was the opposing team being kicked rather than the ball. In 1314, King Edward II decided enough was enough and forbid the game.

9. Unicorns and Jesus

Medieval people loved two things, mythology and religion. These often combined in a very peculiar way. Due to a mistranslation of what was likely intended to be an ox, people commonly believed that the Bible likened Jesus to a unicorn. People at the time went with this idea, and the unicorn repeatedly cropped up in religious medieval art.

10. Jesters

Being a jester in the Middle Ages may seem like a terrible fate. After all, their hats were modelled after the ears of an ass. But jesters were also granted unique privileges. As everything that came out of their mouths was by royal decree, words to be taken in jest, they could get away with slandering the lords and ladies of court. They could voice their political opinions in a time when doing so was strictly forbidden.

11. The Feast of Fools

Many people of medieval Europe joined together at the beginning of January to celebrate the Feast of Fools. Like most Christian festivals, this eclectic event was inspired by a pagan festival of Saturnalia. The highest respected officials swapped with the lowest, serving maids became masters and a king of misrule was crowned. Although originally intended to be confined only to the hallowed halls of churches, the common people took it upon themselves to celebrate. There were parades, comic performances, costumes, cross-dressing, bawdy songs, and drinking to excess.

Not entirely related but equally as difficult to comprehend, the Festival of the Ass presented a young girl carrying a child and riding a donkey into church. Throughout the service, the congregation replaced "amen" with a "hee-haw." Considering the celebration was held in super-strict Christian medieval Europe, it's impressive it survived for so long. However, over time the rules were tightened, certain acts forbidden, and the final nail in the coffin of fun came with the Protestant reformation.

And there you have it—a different look at the Middle Ages/Medieval Times. Check here next week for a look at part 2 of my 3-part series for a look at some surprising facts about that time.