The Book of the Bizarre: Freaky Facts and Strange Stories (24 page)

Princess Maria del Pozzo della Cisterno's 1867 wedding day was a bad one, but not because of fiancé Amadeo, the future king of Italy. It was everyone else that caused the trouble: her wardrobe mistress hanged herself, the gatekeeper cut his throat, someone got caught under the wheels of the honeymoon train and died, an associate of the king fell from his horse to his death, and the best man shot himself.

POOR RICH CHILD

Isabella, daughter of Charles VI of France, was a true child bride. She was wed in 1396 at age seven to twenty-nine-year-old
King Richard II of England to cement a political alliance. Just three years later, in 1399, Richard was usurped by King Henry IV and died in 1400, leaving Isabella a widow at the tender age of ten.

SECRETS OF THE VOYNICH MANUSCRIPT

The Voynich manuscript is a mystery that has puzzled scholars for hundreds of years. Wilfrid Voynich, a collector of rare books and manuscripts, acquired the 246-page, intricately illustrated manuscript at a Jesuit college in Frascati, Italy, in 1912. The earliest confirmed owner was Georg Baresch, an obscure alchemist who lived in Prague in the early seventeenth century.

Believed to date from the late Middle Ages or the Renaissance period, the Voynich manuscript is written in a language and script that has yet to be deciphered by the scores of linguists, cryptographers, and historians who have attempted to crack it. The text contains about 35,000 “words,” derived from what seems to be an alphabet of twenty to thirty distinct glyphs, although some of the glyphs appear only once or twice. The words and glyphs are unlike any others known in linguistic history. Equally curious are the images—the manuscript is densely illustrated with drawings of unknown botanical
and pharmaceutical specimens and curious astronomical diagrams. Although nobody knows who wrote the manuscript, it has been attributed to sixteenth-century English mathematician and astrologer John Dee, Dee's companion Edward Kelley, and even to Voynich himself.

In the sixteenth century, Lady Glamis was accused of witchcraft and trying to murder the king of Scotland. She was burned at the stake. Her ghost now haunts Glamis Castle in Angus, Scotland. Many visitors have seen her floating above the clock tower.

NOT JUST A TRAIN STATION

King's Cross station, located in the heart of London, is not just a train station—it's also the rumored burial place of the ancient warrior queen Boudicca, leader of the Iceni people of Norfolk in eastern Britain. In A.D. 60 or 61, she led a rebellion against the occupying forces of the Roman Empire, marching from Colchester and St. Albans to London, where she was defeated at Battle Bridge, the site that is now known as King's Cross station.

OTTO WAS BLOTTO

Despite being king of Bavaria for nearly thirty years, Otto of Bavaria never really reigned over his kingdom. Crowned after the strange and unexpected death of his brother in 1886, Otto had been declared insane years earlier, and by some accounts wasn't even aware that he was king. Otto's uncle and cousin served as prince regents and made most of the kingly decisions for him.

BYE BYE BIRDIE

General Richard Ewell served the Confederacy well, but he was a touch eccentric in his personal life. His men reported that the general, well known for his delusions, fancied himself a bird, eating seeds and grains for meals and spending long hours inside his tent, chirping.

Andrew Jackson, seventh president of the United States, suffered from habitual slobbering during his childhood and teens.

MAGIC MUMMY POWDER