Advertise on podcast: Tales of History and Imagination

This week we visit Sligo County, Ireland on a June day in 2009. Today we’re not the only tourists in town.. Who was the mysterious Peter Bergmann (or failing that) why did he go to Sligo, of all places to die?      Content Warnings: Suicide, terminal illness, spousal abuse, marriage breakups, wartime violence - including assassination, espionage and torture.    Sources Include: The Unsolved Mystery of Peter Bergmann by Rosita Boland Things Fall Apart: The Apocalyptic Appeal of W.B. Yeats The Second Coming by Dorian Lynskey The Man Who Deleted His Past Before He Was Found Dead by Francisco Garcia Our Man in Vienna by Panagiotis Dimitrakis Military Conscription in Austria by Anat Peled Rosses Point from Discover Ireland Rosses Point History and Folklore at Rosses point’s website           Support Tales on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial.  Please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen. The best way you can support us is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly, Wednesdays. Tales of History and Imagination can be found on… | Facebook |TikTok | Threads | YouTube | Bluesky |

This week we’re all over the map, from Burma in the midst of the Saya San Rebellion, to the Island of Brač in the former Yugoslavia, to Britain’s Severn river. We follow the mad, occasionally performative life of Mad Jack Churchill - quite possibly the last man to kill an enemy combatant in war with a longbow.    Content Warnings: Wartime violence, prisoner of war camps, colonial violence and forced migration. Sources Include: More of the Deadliest Men Who Ever Lived by Paul Kirchner Shattered Lands by Sam Dalrymple These interviews with Jack from the Imperial War Museum Mad Jack Churchill… at War History Online, by Christian Oord.   Support Tales on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial.  Please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen. The best way you can support us is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly, Wednesdays.   Tales of History and Imagination can be found on…   | Facebook |TikTok | Threads | YouTube | Bluesky |

This week, on Tales we return to Nuremberg, Bavaria: Last month I warned you the Tale of Kaspar Hauser is no fairytale.. This time we ask, what if it is more like a fairytale than we take for granted - just we often misunderstand those old kids’ stories? Part Two of a Two parter.   Content Warnings: Discussion of war, death, child neglect and imprisonment, violence, conspiratorial thinking and social deception.    Apologies all, this has been held up by me catching a nasty nasal infection that has taken weeks to clear… For a while, at least I think we should be back on a fortnightly schedule - or close to it.    Sources Include: Kaspar Hauser: The Foundling of Nuremberg by Paul Anselm von Feuerbach The Great Pretenders by Jan Bonderson Napoleon the Great by Andrew Roberts Support Tales on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial.  Please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen. The best way you can support us is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly, Wednesdays.   Tales of History and Imagination can be found on… | Facebook |TikTok | Threads | YouTube | Bluesky |

This week, on Tales - I’m still shaking off a cold, and was planning a Patreon pledge week episode in a month’s time... So, apologies all, I’ve moved things around a little. I’ll record part two of Kaspar Hauser, and the completed script for the episode following that as soon as my voice has returned.    So, this week we’re headed to Bulgaria, Medieval France, and New York’s Chinatown to meet a man and his wife, a smart horse and a mock duck.  Content Warnings: How I met your mother: slavery, inappropriate relationships, and brief talk of genocide. Marocco: Possible animal exploitation? Threats of execution, bodily functions. Mock Duck Meets His Match: Gang warfare, decapitation, domestic violence.   Sources Include: Fascinating Footnotes from History by Giles Milton Circus Life and Circus Celebrities by Thomas Frost The Gangs of New York by Herbert Asbury Support Tales on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial.  Please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen. The best way you can support us is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly, Wednesdays. Tales of History and Imagination can be found on… | Facebook |TikTok | Threads | YouTube | Bluesky |

This week, on Tales we’re in Nuremberg, Bavaria: The year is 1828. A young man has appeared as if from out of nowhere with a horrific tale of captivity. Some wonder if he is some deposed price - but be warned, the following is no fairytale. Part one of a Two parter.   Content Warnings: Discussion of war, death, child neglect and imprisonment, violence, conspiratorial thinking and social deception.    Sources Include: Kaspar Hauser: The Foundling of Nuremberg by Paul Anselm von Feuerbach The Great Pretenders by Jan Bonderson Napoleon the Great by Andrew Roberts And Historical Blindness’ excellent Two-Part podcast on Hauser, created by Nathaniel Lloyd.  Support Tales on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial.  Please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen. The best way you can support us is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly, Wednesdays.   Tales of History and Imagination can be found on… | Facebook |TikTok | Threads | YouTube | Bluesky |

This week, on Tales we’re in England, the date November 26th 1703 - as a giant storm settles over the country that would haunt the nation for many years - and give birth to at least one new profession.  Content Warnings: Descriptions of animal cruelty, traumatic deaths, and period-appropriate superstitions which may now seem utterly ridiculous.    Sources Include: Daniel Defoe’s The Storm.  Support Tales on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial.    Please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen. The best way you can support us is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly, Wednesdays. Tales of History and Imagination can be found on…   | Facebook |TikTok | Threads | YouTube | Bluesky |

This week, on Tales we return to Thebes one last time to discuss what happens when others even the field, the life and death or our two heroes, a young man named Philip - and a giant lion..   This is part three of a three parter.  Content Warnings: Battlefield injury and death, some depictions towards the end are quite graphic. Political violence, slavery and hostage taking. Assassination. Suicide-adjacent fatalism. Mass burial. Discussion of LGBTQI+ history not that THAT one should ever need to be a trigger warning - but there you go…Yes I got hate mail a few weeks back, so let’s throw it in there…  and back to the actual nasty stuff, discussion of Authoritarianism, tyranny and mass killing.    Sources Include: James Romm’s ‘The Sacred Band’ Plutarch’s ‘Lives…’     Support Tales on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial.    Please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen. The best way you can support us is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly, Wednesdays.   Tales of History and Imagination can be found on… | Facebook |TikTok | Threads | YouTube | Bluesky |

This week, on Tales we return to Thebes, to see how their Sacred Band is working out for them. We learn a little bit about Spartan King Agesilaus’ lost love, and we meet a warlord named Jason.   This is part two of a three parter.  Content warnings: historical ableism, homophobic attitudes, warfare, assassination, battlefield death, executions and forced displacement.      Sources Include: James Romm’s ‘The Sacred Band’ Plutarch’s ‘Lives…’     Support Tales on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial.  Please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen. The best way you can support us is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly.   Tales of History and Imagination can be found on… | Facebook |TikTok | Threads | YouTube | Bluesky |

This week, on Tales we journey to ancient Thebes, a Greek City state suddenly - unexpectedly - under the control of their foes, Sparta. When you have lost your freedom to a despot, and are fighting for your very survival, what can you turn to? First you have your foundational myths, and second - if you are Thebes - you have some of the toughest gay men ever to exist.  This week, in part one of a three parter, we discuss the formation of The Sacred Band of Thebes.  Content warnings: brief discussion of sexual violence, incest, anti-LGBTQI+ attitudes, political violence, assassinations and executions.      Sources Include: James Romm’s ‘The Sacred Band’ Plutarch’s ‘Lives…’   Support Tales on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial.    Please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen. The best way you can support us is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly, Wednesdays.   Tales of History and Imagination can be found on…   | Facebook |TikTok | Threads | YouTube | Bluesky |

This week, on a much waylaid episode of Tales we return to the Tichbornes,’ as Tom Castro makes his play for the land, money and titles. Does it turn out he was, in fact Roger Charles Tichborne - long thought lost at sea - or was he some larrikin on the lookout for an easy life?  This is part two of a two parter. Apologies all, I lost a good month and a half to a bout of pneumonia just after Christmas.   Content warnings: I said nothing on the tape: but on reflection: childhood bullying, and more talk of a character’s weight than I am comfortable with.      Sources Include: Robyn Annear’s The Man Who Lost Himself Rohan McWilliam’s The Tichborne Claimant Support Tales on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial.      Please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen. The best way you can support us is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly, Wednesdays.   Tales of History and Imagination can be found on… | Facebook |TikTok | Threads | YouTube | Bluesky |

This week on Tales I am still, technically, on holiday - and was hoping to re-release one of five old episodes still left from the first season. This plan has been derailed somewhat. My voice is still recovering from my bout of pneumonia; and I’ve written at least a million words since I did those episodes. I opened those old scripts and realised to be content with them I’d need to completely re-do those episodes…  Not so much out of inaccuracies as out of having refined this thing I do a lot since 2020.  I’ll get back to those episodes sometime.  In the meantime, please let me present this episode, compiled from three Patreon bonus episodes. Thank you to the patrons, whose generosity helps me keep the lights on.  The episodes are: Stranded on ‘Ata 400 Word Tales: Countess Zangari Bandi  Walter Powell’s Final Flight   Sources this week include:  The Stolen Island by Scott Hamilton Humankind by Rutger Bregman Borderlands by Mike Dash Support the show on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial.  Please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen. The best way you can support us is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly. Tales of History and Imagination can be found on… | Facebook |TikTok | Threads | YouTube | Bluesky |

Hi all, apologies for the delay. I posted up on the blog site I was unwell with pneumonia, then it occurred to me a lot of folk never visit the blog site and I better put something up here as well.  Anyway, please hit play it explains it all. I am on the mend but need some downtime… sorry all.

This week on Tales we enter the vaults to revisit - and re-record - one of the five early episodes still on here that was recorded on my cheap, starter microphone. (We’ll knock the other four off next year in mid-season breaks.)  With Christmas just around the corner this seems as good a time as any to follow a young Charles Dickens around Canongate Graveyard in Edinburgh Scotland looking for ghosts… And we meet the man who - most likely - influenced one of his most famous characters - John Elwes, The Miser of Marcham Park. Apologies for the break between parts one and two of The Tichborne Claimant. I’m hoping to get that out in the last week of December.  Sources this week include:  Sorry all I never took down any of my sources for this at the time of the original. In revamping the piece though I referred to  This BBC Article. This Mercat Tours blog post This Edinburgh Enquirer article by David Forsyth This BBC piece on Robert Fergusson And this piece on Fergusson from Roderick Watson at Scottish Poetry Library This piece from the Royal College of Physicians on Dr Andrew Duncan Very rare for me, I referred to Wikipedia for more on Dr Andrew Duncan This piece on Giusto Fernando Tenducci And this piece on Tenducci by Aoife Barry in The Journal And John Elwes: The Miser Who Inspired Dickens by Kaushik Patowary   Support the show on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial.  Please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen. The best way you can support us is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly - (give or take… sorry all it’s been a rough year… Back to fortnightly Wednesdays in 2026?).   Tales of History and Imagination is on  | Facebook | TikTok | Threads | Instagram | YouTube |

Quick note all: This episode is approx 29 minutes long… I’ve accidentally left some background music or something muted at the end + will delete that and re-upload once home again… Sorry all, there is no secret Easter egg at the end of this episode, it’s ok to hit stop when the end credits roll…  This week On Tales we return to the Australian outback - this is the last time we visit my neighbours to the west of Aotearoa/New Zealand for a while, I promise. The year is 1866, the location Wagga Wagga.  Tom Castro, the town’s Chilean-born butcher has a good life, living in ‘Castro villa’ with his young wife and step-daughter. He enjoys his work, horse riding and his larrikin mates down at the local pub… But then one of those larrikins turns his life upside down with a newspaper article.  Was Tom secretly Baronet Roger Tichbourne, a British peer who disappeared in mysterious circumstances off the coast of Brazil a dozen years earlier? This is part one of a two parter. Apologies ahead of time, I’ll more likely than not have to pause part two till late December/early January to allow for a Christmas episode.   Content warnings: Not too much on this one. Some animal cruelty, and appearance being central to this tale, I have to comment on the protagonist’s appearance in ways not intended to offend… but I may slip up on this one        Sources Include: Robyn Annear’s The Man Who Lost Himself| Rohan McWilliam’s The Tichborne Claimant Support Tales on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial.  Please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen. The best way you can support us is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly. Tales of History and Imagination is on the following, so please follow me.    | Facebook |TikTok | Threads | YouTube | Bluesky |

This week On Tales we return to the Arctic, the year 1871. Charles Francis Hall has passed on, mysteriously, after drinking a suspiciously sweet, yet metallic coffee. What will happen to the expedition as power passes to the hard-drinking Sidney Buddington? Today we’ll find out.  This is part two of a two parter. Apologies for the delay in getting this one out there - it took some of my neighbours a week to run out of fireworks bought for Guy Fawkes Day.  Content warnings: Death. Gun violence. Brief mention of sexual abuse.      Sources Include: Fatal North by Bruce Henderson. Arctic Experiences… by Euphemia Blake The Arctic Grail by Pierre Berton This New York Times article on John Torrington (that, shockingly, was not behind a paywall) Support Tales on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial.      Please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen. The best way you can support us is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly, Wednesdays. Tales of History and Imagination can be found on…   | Facebook |TikTok | Threads | YouTube | Bluesky |