The Real Dr. Faustus: Johann Georg Faust
From tavern tricks to chapbooks and Goethe, how a wandering physician-magician became Europe’s most famous cautionary tale, and where you can still follow in his footsteps.
Dark History
Uncover the mysterious and often unsettling aspects of history. From alchemists and occult figures to unexplained events and dark legends.
16 articles found
The Lady of Secrets: How Isabella Cortese Made Science Go Viral in 1561
In Venice, 1561, a woman’s voice put practical alchemy, medicine, metallurgy, and beauty arts into the vernacular and into the hands of everyday readers. I secreti della signora Isabella Cortese spread a try-this ethos that feels surprisingly modern.
The Medveđa Vampire Panic: Uncovering the Truth of the Arnold Paole Haunting
The 1731–1732 Medveđa inquiry turned local fear into continental lore. Austrian military doctors opened graves, recorded vampiric signs, and inadvertently fixed the vampire in Europe’s imagination.
The Many Masks of Cagliostro: Alchemist, Trickster, Prophet of Light
A fast, fair tour through Cagliostro’s reinventions, Palermo to Paris, Bastille to San Leo, and why his ‘Egyptian’ rites, celebrity cures, and courtroom dramas still magnetize the imagination.
The Strange Experiments of Count Kuefstein: The Man Who Made Ten Homunculi
A deep dive into the curious legend of Count Kuefstein and Abbé Geloni, ten bottled spirits, Masonic whispers, and the castle that still hosts ghost tours.
The Alchemist Who Pre-Invented Plastics: Bartholomäus Schobinger of St. Gallen (1530)
Five centuries before Bakelite, St. Gallen's Bartholomäus Schobinger spread a recipe that hardened milk protein into a translucent, horn-like material, 'Kunsthorn', sketching the prehistory of plastics from monastery benches to modern buttons.
Nicolas Flamel: The Enigmatic Alchemist of Paris
Nicolas Flamel (c.1330–1418) was a real Parisian scribe and benefactor whose legend as a gold-making alchemist only exploded two centuries after his death. Here's what the records say, and what later storytellers added.
Vroucolaca of Mykonos
The 1701 Mykonos vrykolakas panic, recorded by Tournefort, shows how Greek folklore, Orthodox custom, and early science collided over an alleged revenant. Here's what locals believed, what happened, and why it mattered.
The Vampire of Zarožje: The Legend of Sava Savanović
From a jealous crime to midnight hauntings in a riverside mill, the legend of Sava Savanović shaped Serbian vampire lore, and still lures visitors to the forests above the Rogačica.
The Enigma of Louis Gaufredi and Magdalen de la Palud: A Tale of Self-Proclaimed Sorcery
In 1611 Provence, a Marseille parish priest and a young noblewoman became the center of a sensational ‘sorcery’ case—part demonology, part abuse scandal—revealing how fear, power, and coercion shaped early-modern witchcraft trials.
Hildegard of Bingen: Visionary of the Medieval Era
A concise, modern portrait of Hildegard of Bingen, her visions, music, medical writings, and the green life-force she called viriditas.
The Enigmatic Count of St. Germain
A tour through the life, legends, and afterlives of the Count of St. Germain, musician, raconteur, jewel expert, diplomatic whisperer, and enduring occult icon.
The Blood Thirst of the Departed: Vampires in Hungary
From a soldier's lodging to midnight exhumations, this Hungarian vampire tale, preserved by the Benedictine scholar Augustin Calmet, captures how communities fought the 'blood thirst' of the departed.
The Haunting Echoes of Humbert Birck
A 1620 Black Forest revenant tale: Humbert Birck's posthumous knocks and hoarse pleas demand masses, alms, and minor restitution, ritual as repair until the house falls quiet.
The Golem: A Tale of Clay, Creation, and Caution
The classic Jewish legend of the Golem—its roots in Kabbalah, the Prague tale, Polish variants, and why this clay guardian still matters in an age of algorithms.
Elizabeth Báthory: The Blood Countess
Europe's most infamous noblewoman stands at the crossroads of law, rumor, and gothic imagination. We sift the testimonies, the politics, and the later inventions, like the famous blood-bath, to see what holds and what doesn't.