Tag: Chance test
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Captain Swing: did the riots follow the machines?
In 1830 English farm labourers smashed threshing machines. Using Caprettini and Voth’s open data I mapped 3,117 Swing incidents: parishes with a recorded machine were twice as likely to riot, but 90% of riotous parishes had no machine at all.
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Ley lines, tested: are Britain’s ancient sites lined up more than chance allows?
Alfred Watkins saw straight lines of old sites across Herefordshire in 1921. I mapped 50,822 churches, barrows, stones, hillforts and holy wells and compared every alignment with random points: crowding, not planning, explains the leys.
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Where the Devil lives: Britain’s Devil place names, mapped
I mapped 107 Devil place names in Britain. 31% lie within 1 km of a prehistoric monument, against 19% of comparable places; saint-named places sit by churches and holy wells instead.
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Giants in the landscape: did people explain big things with big people?
I gathered 331 giant places in Britain and Ireland, from Giant’s Graves to Gog Magog. Giants own graves, not mountains, and Ireland’s 212 Giant’s Graves are no bigger or more prominent than the tombs around them.
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Here be dragons: do Britain’s dragons live by the church?
I put 26 named dragon legends and 135 Dragon, Drake, Worm and Serpent place names on the map. The legends cling to the parish church (77% within 1 km, against 55% of comparable places); barrows, hillforts and rivers barely matter.
