Othello on Othello. Although characters described as "moors" appear in two other Shakespeare plays ("Titus Andronicus" and "The Merchant of Venice"), such characters were a rarity in contemporary theatre, and it was unknown for them to take centre stage. There is no consensus over Othello's ethnic origin. E. A. J. Honigmann, the editor of the Arden Shakespeare edition, concluded that Othello's race is ambiguous. "Renaissance representations of the Moor were vague, varied, inconsistent, and contradictory. As critics have established, the term 'Moor' referred to dark-skinned people in general, used interchangeably with terms such as 'African', 'Somali', 'Ethiopian', 'Negro', 'Arab', 'Berber', and
Beast of Bodmin Moor Beast of Bodmin Moor The Beast of Bodmin Moor, also known as the Beast of Bodmin () is a phantom wild cat purported to live in Cornwall, England. Bodmin Moor became a centre of purported sightings after 1978, with occasional reports of mutilated slain livestock; the alleged panther-like cats of the same region came to be popularly known as the Beast of Bodmin Moor. In general, scientists reject such claims because of the improbably large numbers necessary to maintain a breeding population and because climate and food supply issues would make such purported creatures' survival in reported habitats unlikely. A