Join Kelli as she goes over the story of a feral boy found in the woods outside of Hamelin, Germany. He was brought to King George I's court in England and named Peter, and he entertained curious onlookers for months. He had strange mannerisms and was an oddity, until he fell out of favor and "retired" to a farm, where he lived peacefully until his 70s.

But what was really going on with Peter? Was he really feral as people thought? Did he clamber around on all fours like a beast? Or was he just tragically misunderstood in a time before medical science could diagnosis him with an intellectual disability?

Sources:

• Daniel Dafoe, “Mere Nature Delineated: or, A body without a soul. Being observations upon the young forester lately brought to town from Germany. With suitable applications. Also, a brief dissertation upon the usefulness and necessity of fools, whether political or natural.” 1726. https://archive.org/details/merenaturedeline00defo/page/n12/mode/1up
• Jonathan Swift, “It Cannot Rain But It Pours, Or, London Strewed With Rarities.” 1726. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Works_of_the_Rev._Jonathan_Swift/Volume_17/It_Cannot_Rain_But_It_Pours
• Michael Newton, Savage Girls and Wild Boys: A History of Feral Children. 2002. https://www.amazon.com/Savage-Girls-Wild-Boys-Children/dp/0312423357
• “Peter 'the Wild Boy' from Hanover: The Boy on the Staircase” Historic Royal Palaces. https://www.hrp.org.uk/blog/peter-the-wild-boy-from-hanover/
• “Peter the Wild Boy” History Today. https://www.historytoday.com/archive/peter-wild-boy
• “The Tragic Origins of Peter the Wild Boy” Ripley’s. https://www.ripleys.com/stories/peter-the-wild-boy
• Lucy Worsley, “Peter The Wild Boy” Public Domain Review, 2011. https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/peter-the-wild-boy/

Support the show

Intro and Outro music credit: Nedric | Yello Kake

Follow me on Instagram! @beardhistory

If you want to support the show, donate to the cause at Buy Me a Coffee

Join Kelli as she goes over a strange event from the 17th century Dutch Republic - the time a political leader was killed, strung up, dismembered, and then cannibalized.

As always, we set up the history surrounding this event to get a good understanding of the Rampjaar - the disaster year - and why the Dutch people took out their frustrations on Johan de Witt. And we also look into the alleged cannibalism that took place. What does it all mean? What is the bigger picture? What in the world was happening in 1672?!

Support the show

Intro and Outro music credit: Nedric | Yello Kake

Follow me on Instagram! @beardhistory

If you want to support the show, donate to the cause at Buy Me a Coffee

Join Kelli as she goes over the popular legend of Boudica, the short-lived queen of the Iceni peoples in Iron Age Britain.

Much of what we know about Boudica comes from heavily-biased Roman sources, written decades or over a century after the events they describe. So how much of her story is fact, and how much is fiction?

And was Boudica even a real person?

Let's dive into the available written and archaeological sources and analyze why the Romans might have written about her the way they did to try to understand Boudica's role in history.

Sources

• Andrew Roberts, “Cartimandua, Queen of the Brigantes” English Heritage. https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/learn/histories/women-in-history/cartimandua/
• Dr. David Musgrove, “The Romans Were Blamed For Massacring These Iron Age Warriors. But Did They Actually Murder Themselves?” History Extra, 2025. https://www.historyextra.com/period/iron-age/the-romans-were-blamed-for-massacring-these-iron-age-warriors-but-did-they-actually-murder-themselves/
• Julius Caesar, The Gallic Wars. Book 5. Translated by W. A. McDevitte and W. S. Bohn. https://classics.mit.edu/Caesar/gallic.5.5.html
• Martin Smith, Miles Russell, and Paul Cheetham, “Fraught With High Tragedy: A Contextual And Chronological Reconsideration Of The Maidencastle Iron Age ‘War Cemetery’ (England)”, Oxford Journal of Archaeology, 2025. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/ojoa.12324?domain=p2p_domain&token=UJWNRVZC4WDFI35RBKYM
• Natasha Sheldon, “The Evidence for the Historical Boudica” 2022. https://historyandarchaeologyonline.com/the-evidence-for-the-historical-boudica%EF%BF%BC%EF%BF%BC/
• Richard Hingley and Christina Unwin, Boudica: Iron Age Warrior Queen. 2006. https://www.amazon.com/Boudica-Iron-Age-Warrior-Queen/dp/1852855169
• “The Revolt of Boudica according to Cassius Dio” University of Warwick. https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/classics/warwickclassicsnetwork/romancoventry/resources/boudica/sources/cassiusdio/
• “The Revolt of Boudica according to Tacitus” University of Warwick. https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/classics/warwickclassicsnetwork/romancoventry/resources/boudica/sources/tacitus/
• Vanessa Collingridge, Boudica: The Life of Britain’s Legendary Warrior Queen. Kindle Edition, 2019. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07RQX45PR/ref=kinw_myk_ro_title

Support the show

Intro and Outro music credit: Nedric | Yello Kake

Follow me on Instagram! @beardhistory

If you want to support the show, donate to the cause at Buy Me a Coffee