Beowulf, Ghosts and Ogopogo

Beowulf on the web

The earliest surviving epic poem written in English, Beowulf was most likely "composed in the seventh or eighth century, but being more precise depends on where one believes the poem was composed. ...[A] contender, which has come seriously into the reckoning as a result of the Sutton Hoo discovery, is seventh century East Anglia. Not only was the ship burial (which dates to 625AD) uncannily like the burials of Scyld and Beowulf, but the grave goods revealed the East Anglian court of the Wuffingas to be unexpectedly sophisticated and closely linked to the Swedish royal house at Uppsala. It is now thought possible that both these royal lines shared a common ancestry. As the scholar Howell Chickering asked: 'Was it through the early East Anglian court that detailed knowledge of Scandinavian tribal history in Beowulf became available in England?' And one might add, was the poem composed as a way of telling East Anglians something of their semi-historical, semi-legendary Scandinavian ancestors? There is, perhaps, a good case for believing that Beowulf was composed in Suffolk, at the palace of Rendlesham, within living memory of the great ship-burial in 625AD."

(from Angelcynn's Historical Background to Beowulf which has unfortunately vanished from the web)

If only these resources were available when I was at school, it would have been easier if we had computers back then too

Syd Allan's excellent starter site

David Breedon's wonderful modern translation

Beowulf in Hypertext: text in Old English and modern translation

Ghosts of Tombstone
Like so many other places in the Old West with violent histories, Tombstone is said to be one of the most haunted in Arizona. At its most famous place - the OK Corral, several witnesses have reported ghosts of the Earps as well as the Clanton brothers. At the nearby Boothill Graveyard, reports of apparitions and strange lights have frequently been given in this place that harbors several old outlaws beneath its wooden tombstones.

At the historic Buford House, an 1880’s adobe home, which now serves as a Bed & Breakfast, the ghost of a man named George Buford apparently refuses to leave. In the late nineteenth century, George, a gold prospector, lived in the house with his father when he fell in love with the girl across the street, Cleopatra, more familiarly called Petra. After returning from a long prospecting trip, George accompanied Petra and some other friends on an outing. For some reason, the girl decided to accompany another man on the walk home. George, sure that he had lost his promised girl, became angry, despondent and reclusive. Soon, when Petra visited him, he shot her twice, then turned the gun on himself. Despite her wounds, Petra recovered, but George died of his self-inflicted gunshot.

Like others who died tragic deaths, George continues to walk the earth, apparently lost in space and time. Both the owners and guests have seen him walking inside the home, as well as along the street in front of the old adobe structure. Often, the doorbell rings in the middle of the night, seemingly, of its own accord. Others have reported hearing knocking on walls, faucets turning themselves on and off, and strange lights appearing. Once in a while, women report that that they have felt someone touch their hair or stroke the back of their necks when no one is around.

Legends of America


Ogopogo on the list of endangered species

British Columbia's Lake Okanagan. The lake is a remnant of the last Ice Age, more than 10,000 years ago, and lies on the Pacific slopes of the Rocky Mountains. It is seventy-nine miles long, two-and-a-half miles wide, and in places, more than 800 feet deep, providing more than ample room for any large water beast, which the eyewitnesses claim resembles a huge snake.

As early as the 1700s, the Okanagan Indians knew of a water beast living in the lake. They called the creature N'ha-a-itk, meaning "snake of the water," and their Native superstitions demanded certain traditions before entering N'ha-a-ith's domain. One of the traditions was the ritual sacrifice of a small animal as a peace offering before crossing the lake. Tying their horses behind their canoes, they would paddle out to where they believed the serpent lived in a cave beneath the water---known as Squally Point---and make their offering, thus insuring that their horses would not be dragged under and drowned by the monster.

In 1890, Captain Thomas Shorts was steaming on the lake when he saw a finned creature about sixteen feet long with a head like that of a ram. The creature promptly disappeared when he turned his ship in its direction, and virtually no one believed him when he reported it. But other reports soon followed at two or three a year, and people began to examine the lake in more careful detail. Today, the local population fervently believes in the creature's existence. They call it Ogopogo, and have named the island where its traditional home is Squally Point, Ogopogo Island.

Lake Okanagan's relative position with respect to that of Loch Ness has some scientists believing that the presence of an unidentified sea creature living in the depths of the lake is not as outlandish as it seems. Nessie, the famous Loch Ness monster, also thrives in a deep glacial lake, and some zoologists actually theorize that Loch Ness may be connected by underwater channels to the sea---that the Loch Ness monster is, in fact, a sea serpent of some kind traveling back and forth between the lake and the ocean. They also claim that hundreds of other lakes located in the same approximate latitude bands as Loch Ness could have similar connections to the sea and could be the home of mysterious sea creatures.

There have been reported sightings of creatures like the Loch Ness monster in approximately sixty other lakes around the world...places like Lake Storsjon in Sweden, Lake Rybinskoye in the Soviet Union and Lake Tsuchiura in Japan. All these lakes fall into the same latitude band as Loch Ness in Scotland, as does Lake Okanagan. But finding the creature, or the carcass, has proved elusive. Most monster lakes are far too large to be systematically searched, and many, like those in Scandanavia, are far too remote and rarely visited.

It is clear that a lot of people have seen something in Lake Okanagan that they suspect is a water monster, but what is it exactly that they are really seeing? Scientists know there are several species of fish which, when left undisturbed, grow to enormous size. The best example is the sturgeon, which averages ten feet in length, but has been known to grow much larger. In 1956, two Indians fishing in a canoe in Lake Seton, British Columbia, saw a sturgeon twenty-two feet long. Ten years later, another couple on the lake in a twenty-five foot boat sailed alongside a sturgeon that was ten feet longer than the boat. In Russia, a sturgeon was caught in the Volga River that was twenty-four feet long and weighted 3,241 pounds. And scientists also point out that there are eels of enormous size, too.

But the Canadian government is taking no chances. It has declared Ogopogo an endangered species, and hunting it is against the law. Most of the people who live on the shores of Lake Okanagan need no further proof. They've constructed a life-sized model of the creature, although it looks more like a dragon than a sea serpent, and have made it the star of an annual festival called, appropriately enough, "Ogopogo Days." For them, Ogopogo is very real indeed.

Unexplained