Mini Coffins of Edinburgh

 Have you ever wondered if you discover coffins on a quest to find rabbits?

And that also not of humans but of small dolls?

Well, this is what happened in Edinburg in 1836,

While playing in Arthur's seat, a group of boys stumbled upon a small cave in the rocks. They found seventeen mini coffins inside the cave, each containing a mini-doll.

Yes, dolls, and if you don't believe me check out the National Museum Of Scotland.

Eight of the seventeen coffins that survived are displayed there.

Unique collection to be kept safely in a museum right!

Now coming, to the question why are these coffins are so famous? Could they be a foul joke? or something a child did while playing?

Nah!

Things are never so simple!

Let's start with the dolls, each of the dolls is dressed differently and could be differentiated from one another. They are assumed to be originally small wooden soldier toys. The coffins are so tiny that some of the toys have their limbs removed to fit in. 

Coming to the coffin, each one is approximately 95mm in length and has carvings on their surface that also seem to be different from one another. They were arranged in three tiers, two tiers of eight and one solitary coffin on top.

Though most researchers think that all the coffins are made by the same person the question still remains!

 Why? why would someone make coffins of dolls and why hide them in Arthur's seat of all places?

Let's dive into the different theories behind these Lilliputian coffins.

Since these were discovered in the 1800s of course one of the first theories published in newspapers would be witchcraft and demonology!

How intuitive!

They must have thought something like "These look similar to voodoo dolls so blame the satanic cults!"

This was one of the theories published in The Scotsman on 16th July 1836.

Almost a month later, the Edinburgh Evening Post suggested a new theory. It mentioned an ancient custom of Saxony, where friends who were lost in distant lands were buried in effigy.

Caledonian Mercury, Talked about the existence of a superstition, where sailors lost in the sea were buried in effigies by their wives to give them a Christian Burial.

But these two theories still raise questions why seventeen coffins? or why bury them at a Volcanic hill?

Obviously, no answer was found.

The coffins disappeared for some time after being auctioned off. They reappeared in 1901 when they were donated to the Museum of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. Society somehow concluded that the coffins could be honorific burials.

But the case didn't stop there!

Of course, if it stopped there with such a simple theory, we Mystery seekers wouldn't have anything to discuss.

Besides, if they were honorific burials why make these dolls so creepy, that the children almost destroyed them.

Five years later in 1906, The Scotsman published another interesting but absurd story. 

The story was relayed by a woman who lived in Edinburgh, her father, was visited by a daft man. who had once drawn on a piece of paper three coffins with dates 1837, 1838, and 1840. following that incident in the autumn of 1837 a relative of her father died, in 1838 his cousin demised, and in 1840 his own brother. After the funeral, the daft man again appeared glaring at him, and then disappeared forever. Even if the article hinted that the daft man could be the original creator of these Arthur seat coffins. But they could also be a mere series of coincidences.

In 1976 Walter Havernick, director of the Museum of Hamburg History, came up with a new theory. according to a German superstition of keeping mandrake roots or dolls in tiny coffins as talismans, he postulated that these coffins could be lucky charms for sailors. Even though charms were still used in 19th-century Scotland, no evidence of such seafaring tradition was found.

I guess you are tired after reading so many theories,

So, now let's discuss the most interesting theory!

The Mystery of Murder Dolls.

Edinburgh became renowned for medical science by the early 1800s. The field of medical science is based on understanding the body's mechanisms, so of course, anatomy plays a vital role in this honorable study. We all know anatomy requires a human body to be dissected. With a rise in medical schools and students, fewer criminals punished with the death penalty, and diseases being treated better, there soon became a shortage of cadavers for anatomical studies.

The news of this soon spread like wildfire among criminals, who saw it as an opportunity, and body snatching from churchyards became a common thing. Thus, most of the criminals shifted to suppliers of dead bodies for medical schools. Among these suppliers, two soon attracted the attention of people, as the bodies they supplied seemed not to come from the graveyards.

The two Irish immigrants William Burke and William Hare ran a boarding house in Edinburgh. One day one of their elderly lodgers accidentally died still owing them money. To make up for their losses they sold the body to Dr. Robert Knox. This is how their murderous business started. 

Why murderous?

Because the rest of the bodies they sold none of them were accidental death anymore.

At first, Burke and Hare started abducting travelers then they became sloppy and started murdering townspeople who were easily recognized by others. The small mistake became their doom and William Burke was hanged after Hare confessed to his crimes. In the 10 months of their murder journey, they killed 16 people. After Burke died his body was also dissected and used for anatomical studies. 

How ironic!

Interestingly, a lot of people were admitted to the hospital that day just to observe his body.

So 16 victims and one of their murderers: could this be the answer we are looking for?

Could someone have felt pity and buried the people, murdered in cold blood who never got a proper funeral in this way?

The only logic against this theory is that their victims were predominantly women but toys were male.  Then again premade soldier toys.

Or is there some other story behind the miniature coffins? feel free to comment below.

If you don't know Arthur's seat is associated with the legendary King Arthur, not only that it was the home to the Celtic Voltadini Tribe in 400AD. 

Obivously, a story like this will attract a lot of creative attention. Ian Ranking, wrote  in his thriller book 'Fall', "Plenty of people over the years have come up to me with their excited notions of plots for my next book. I’ve found precious few of them to be helpful, or viable, but I was intrigued by these ‘little dolls’… which is how I made the acquaintance of the Arthur’s Seat coffins… As soon as I saw them, I knew they would make a great story, especially as no one had come up with an incontrovertible interpretation of their meaning. In other words, there was a story to tell about them…"

In 2006 the novel was adapted for television, and replicas of the coffins were produced. These replicas often replaces the originals when they were required to be presented somewhere else.

The mystery continues...

In December 2014, the museum received a beautiful replica of the coffin cryptically named XVIII, attached to it was a note which quoted the climax from a chilling short story 'The Body Snatcher' by Robert Louis Stevenson.

These tiny coffins will continue to attract more attention in the future. We can just hope for this mystery to be solved one day.

Blue rose belles

( Archie) 

Criminal world EP- 1 "Youngest serial killer?!!"

           Kids are known to be the purest beings on earth. A child is known to be incapable of doing anything inhumane, cruel, or anything that might remotely hurt anybody ever. They are known to have the innocence of a rose, not tainted. 

But in this case, this information was bunked by a thousand miles, since the hands of this child were tainted with blood. 

Amardeep Sada was born in the year 1988 in the begusarai district in bihar, India. He was the older child of his parents. The family later moved to the Mushahari district in Bihar, India, where other members of the Sada family resided. The family was extremely poor and spent most there days in extreme poverty.  Sometime in late 2005 or early 2006, the family welcomed their second child, Amardeep's younger sister. Her name Or birthday is kept a secret. 

Amardeep was known to an odd duck in his village. People found his behavior to be icy. 

On May 30, 2007, a call was made to the Bhagavanpur police station in Bihar by the villagers of the Mushahari district. The villagers told the police that they have captured a deadly killer and that the police must immediately arrest that killer. 

The police went down to the village to find that the villagers captured an eight-year-old kid. 

When the villagers questioned, they said that eight years old killed a six-month-old girl named khushboo, who was Amardeep's neighbor's daughter. 

Allegedly, the mother of khusboo, Chun Chun Devi, left her sleeping six months old girl, in the front yard of a primary school. She then went home to do some chores and when she came back her daughter was missing. Some reports said, that some villagers saw Amardeep with Khushboo. Although this can't be confirmed. 

Later when the villagers asked Amardeep about Khusboo, he confessed to the crime of murdering the baby without showing any remorse. He said, that he saw khubsoo lying in the front yard of the school and he picked her up and took her to an empty field. There he strangled her and later beat her face with a brick multiple times. Then he buried her fragile dead body in the field and covered the area with leaves. 

The villagers then called the police to hand him over. 

When the police questioned him, he confessed to the police again without showing any remorse. The police arrested the eight-year boy after he confessed and took him to the police station. 

At the police station, he kept giving icy glares to the police officers. Some officers said that the glares gave them chills and it definitely didn't feel like an eight years old child's gaze. 

At the station, Amardeep confessed that Khusboo wasn't his first victim. 

His first victim was his six-month-old maternal cousin. He said that he took the baby from the house and took her to a field, killed her strangulation, and buried her body. He similarly killed his cousin as Khusboo. 

Amardeep's second victim was his eight-month-old sister. She was sleeping on her mother's lap when Amardeep came and cradled her, picked her, and went outside. Amardeep took her to the same field and bashed her face repeatedly with a brick until she stopped breathing. Then he buried her body among dirt and leaves. Later, when he returned home without his sister, the parents questioned him and confessed to killing his sister and his cousin. He even took his family to the place where he buried the body.

Amardeep's family knew about his killing spree and they didn't say this to anybody in a lousy effort to protect him and told everybody that the disappearance of Amardeep's sister and cousin was a "private family matter".

He showed the places he buried the bodies. 

By the time, the police arrested Amardeep, his parents fled the village. 

During the questioning, Amardeep showed no remorse for the killings and said that he was hungry and wanted to eat biscuits. 

The police asked a criminal psychiatrist to check on Amardeep because they suspected that he was mentally unwell. 

The psychiatrist said he was a "sadist". It basically means that Amardeep felt joy in his killings. Some other experts said that he suffered from what is known as a " Conduct disorder ", a mental state where the patients feel gratification from inflicting on others. Even though this condition could be treated with proper treatment. 

Since Amardeep was just 8 years old at that time, he was placed in a juvenile home where he was kept isolated from everybody else there. 

Amardeep Sada is known as the youngest serial killer in the world. He was only seven years old when he committed his first murder. 

Now some people said that he was released at the age of 18 from the home and he lives among us with a different name so that his new life will not be out shadowed by his past. But no information about his whereabouts is to found after his arrest. 

I hope you guys liked this story. If you guys are interested in stories like this and are a seeker of mystery and dark stories, I highly suggest you subscribe to this blog. Don't forget to leave your thoughts in the comments. 

Stay safe and I will see you guys the next time. 

With love, Anisha ❤

The secret society of witches

 Witches- half of us imagine them as teens while the other half imagine them as old hags with a crooked nose.

But all of these types of witches originated from Europe around the middle ages. So what prompted these witches to sprang into existence as evil beings?

Apparently, the male-dominated society was behind spreading the concepts of witches. if you look closely, then witches were thought to be associated with evil doings like making poisonous potions, cursing people, luring souls, practicing dark magic e.t.c.but what actually the witches did?

The old hags or pretty women, all types of witches are pictured as outcasts living alone with their magical ingredients in some desolate and deserted part of the village, practicing dark magic throughout the day and roaming around on broom at night. most of the time witches didn't have any male companion with them though they were accused of salacity. What is more interesting is that while witches are considered as wicked women breaking havoc in people's life, their male counterparts i.e. wizards or warlocks were actually respected around the world. As we already know anyone suspected of witchcraft was burned on a stake, hanged to death, or drowned in water. According to the scholars, there were approximately 40,000 to 100,000 witch executions in Europe during the middle ages. What did the witches do to deserve the horrible deaths?

To answer all these questions we need to go back to the ancient times when witches didn't create such a turmoil, superstitions ruled the hearts of people at that age and many believed that bad spirits cause havoc in the night to frighten newborn babies and make them cry. nightmares were also considered as a part of their mischief. So to protect their families from the hands of these evil beings the women of the house started using protection symbols and some items that can distract these spirits enough to not cause any ill to their family. Some used to mirror and foods to distract them, while others used herbs to keep them away. during that time protection spells, enchantments and magic were not considered as something evil and malicious rather the anyone who could do magic was considered to be gifted by Hecate; the goddess of magic. Even though Hecate was one of the minor goddesses, she was respected by everyone due to her powers. Necromancy or the calling of spirits was very much practiced around the world at that time and even practiced now. I am not only talking about the plan-chit s that but also about large festivities like Halloween and the day of death ( Día de Muertos ). Both the festivals are held to remember dead people and it is even said that the souls visit the land of living during this time, good souls can bless you while bad ones can curse you, so these bad spirits are kept away with the help of jack-o-lanterns.

So, if throughout the ages everyone tried to protect their family from evil then where did those women went wrong? 

Well, the answer is simple they practiced pagan beliefs rather than Christian beliefs.

Confused!

 You see even if Europe was succumbing to Christianity some people still practiced the age-old religions i.e worshipping of roman, greek, Norse gods, and goddesses. these minority was considered as a threat to the Church and so all necessary precaution was taken to subdue them and the very first victim of this cruel discrimination became the woman of the society. Why? because women were weak! No, it was because these women were always looked like a threat to the male dominating Christian society that was beginning to rise. Naturally, they started moving away to desolate places, hiding away to avoid being executed, sometimes they used to form groups and live in a safe place where the church can't find them forming a secret society and helping other women to escape the cruel hands of the church.

Now, some women had an extremely deep knowledge about different herbs, medicinal and poisonous both. They used their knowledge in curing different ailments, going from village to village to help people. They dedicated their lives to gaining knowledge and healing people, they didn't have family and usually lived alone making different concoctions for different ailments, sometimes they were right sometimes not. Their dedication led to villagers worship them like a god because they succeeded when in so called doctors also failed to cure the people.  Now, that became a huge problem for the church and so they started giving the story a little evil twist and that did the job effortlessly. The healers were blamed to practice withcraft to heal people from near death situation and since most of the villagers were illiterate about herbology so they believed the theory and burned these well wishers on stakes claiming them to be witches. Thus began the execution of the so called witches all over Europe.

The church added fuel to the little flame of witchcraft and it soon turned into a wildfire engulfing thousands of innocent souls throughout Europe. Maybe the church didn't want it to take such a massive turn but it did and the old hag picture of witches was actually created to bring out their evil nature through their ugly looks. The images were successful in awaking fear in the hearts of ordinary people.

Urban literature has opened the path of viewing witches in another light rather than evil practitioners of dark magic.

If you think that witches don't exist in the 21st century then you are wrong some people claim to practice witchcraft,  they claim it to be their religion. Though it is not known if they can actually perform magical spells or it is just a modified version of pagan beliefs. their religion is known as Wicca.

Wicca 

The pentacle

Interestingly the symbol of Wicca is quite similar to the pentacle, the very symbol used for the protection from evil spirits. Actually, it is the same symbol. thus giving fuel to the theory that witchcraft is actually the practice of pagan beliefs.

                                                                                                                  blue rose belles

                                                                                                                           (Archie)

Murder Mystery : "Who put Bella in the Witch Elm"

 Crimes.It reminds us of how dark the world really is.Some people find true crime stories to be disturbing(no hate). I, on the other hand like those stories. 

So, today I would like to share a true crime story that I know. It is popularly known as "Who put Bella in the Wych Elm"

This incident took place at the background of England during 1943, During World War II.

On one fateful evening, in the month of April, right when the sun was setting, Four teenage boys were roaming in the Hagley woods, near Wychbury hills.

They were looking for rabbits or something like that which would feed their families and also take their mind of the German bombing raids.

They spotted at weird looking tree named "The witch elm" due to it's weird shape. One of the boys named Bob Farmer, decided to climb that tree.

As he sat up on the tree and looked down in the hollow of the tree he noticed something being inside it. As he grew curiouser and curiouser, he plunged his arm inside the hollow. To his utter Disbelieve he found a skull. Like a real skull.

At first, he and his friends thought it was of an animal or something, but apparently they saw something stuck to the skull which resembled human hair. (I wonder how they knew it was human hair! I must be really dumb)

So, they dropped the skull, like any normal human would , and ran back home. At first they decided that they will not tell about this to anyone ever. 

But later they confessed it to it their parents.Keeping the skull a secret was getting hard for them, understandably.

Their parents informed the local police, like any normal parents would.

The police went to the tree and investigated the area and the tree properly.

The police found a woman's skeleton inside that hollow. A entire freaking skeleton!

A cheap gold imitation ring was found on her left hand, indicating that she was married. The police also found cheap clothes and a crepe soled shoe of size five and a half.

Disturbingly, the right hand of the dead women was completely sawed of and a few other bones of the skeleton were scattered.

The body or the whatever remained of the body of the poor woman was taken under for medical examination.

The medical examiner, Professor James Webster said that, the found woman was around 35 years old, with irregular teeth on the upper jaw, lightbrown hair and around 5 feet tall. She gave birth once in her life. She had been dead for about 18 months or more at the time of discovery.

He also said, it was impossible for the woman to have slipped in the hollow of the tree or to have crawled in the hollow of the tree. Someone put her there. Professor Webster also mentioned that the body was put there before rigor mortis set in.Rigor mortis is the phenomena when the body starts becoming stiff after death. He concluded that she must have been killed near the tree, for the killer set the body there "warm".

There was a piece of taffeta fabric found stuffed inside the mouth of the skull.

The police tried to identify the body. They tried to trace the shoe to it's manufacturer but the trail died cold with them tracing it to a small shop in Dudley.

There was practically no information to be found so the case was deemed a cold case.

Then in the year 1943, a weird message was seen chalked on a house near Old Mill. The message read "Who put Lubella in the Wych Elm?"

For the first time, the police had a name to work with. Lubella. Who was Lubella?

The police did not find huge leads on this but over the months more graffiti es started showing up.

Those read "WHO PUT BELLA IN THE WITCH ELM?" 

The change in name was something the police couldn't understand. 

The police came to the decision that the artist behind the graffitis knew something about "Bella".

They tried to trace down the artist but failed.

New messages started popping up around in the late 1940s again.

Each message reading the same "Who put Bella in witch elm?"

No one could figure out who "Bella" was.

The theories regarding the death of murder of "Bella" range from crazy to ballistic.

The 'fan' favorite theory is "Bella" as an victim of black magic.

According to anthropologist Professor Margaret Murray, the death of "Bella" might be an activity of Black Magic.

The severed hand suggested an occult practice called "Hand of Glory".

The scattered bones, the stuffed taffeta also suggested an involvement of occult practices.

The fact that she was "entombed" in a tree also suggested a type of "ritualistic" slaying. 

A herb commonly known as 'Witch's hazel" which is commonly used in the practice of witchcraft was found in Hagley woods.

The theory states that, "Bella" probably pissed over a coven of witches and the witches killed her in a "witchy" manner as a punishment. Ironically, the tree she was entombed in was also called "Witch elm". 

The next popular theory is that "Bella" was a spy.

I know. The jump between the two theories is a bit much......to say the least.

This theory starts with the discovery of an woman named "Anna". She allegedly wrote an letter to a few newspaper houses claiming that she had information about "Bella". 

She was later interviewed and she revealed that "Bella" was a part of a German spy circle and she was supposed to find the location of the local munition factories.

"Anna" later was identified by as Unna Mossop. Her husband was allegedly an RAF pilot and he witnessed the murder of "Bella". 

She stated that her husband and another spy named Van Rault went drinking to a pub and "Bella" got drunk and passed out. The two men then put her inside the tree, just to teach her lesson. When she woke up in the tree, she was unable to get out and died there. But this theory has a plot-holes according to me, I mean who cut her hand? who stuffed taffeta in her mouth? Who scattered her bones?

Then in later years, in some classified MI5 files, a spy named Josef Jacob, who was caught, had a picture of a German actress named Clara Baurele. She looked a lot like "Bella" and she was allegedly also a German spy.  It could be possible that Clara was actually "Bella".

But this theory was later debunked since Clara was taller than "Bella".

This case remains unsolved till date and many facts and information have been perished by time. 

This intriguing case might probably never get solved. Maybe the fact that this case is unsolved makes it more intriguing.

Thank you all for reading!