A Blue Man of the Minch (I found this
image online some time ago, unsourced and uncredited, but it looks like it may
be a modified version – by person(s) unknown – of a picture from
highly-acclaimed London-based photographer Chris Parkes's spectacular 'All that
Glitter is Green' series; if so, © Chris Parkes, and thus used here on a strictly
non-commercial, Fair Use basis only; also, please click here to visit
Chris Parkes's website and see some of his wonderful photographs)
The British Isles are said to
contain more ghosts than anywhere else in the world. Less well-known is that a
remarkable diversity of monsters, mythological creatures, and mystery beasts
have also been reported from these ancient lands, as will be seen here in this
exclusive ShukerNature selection of some notably esoteric entities from my homeland. The
trick, however, is trying to decide which category each of them belongs to -
fact or fable, legend or reality, the natural world or the supernatural realm -
a perilous choice that I will leave, gentle reader, to you!
It is not widely known that
Britain can lay claim to its very own indigenous species of unicorn. Yet
according to Hebridean folklore, the lochs on the Inner Hebrides island of Skye
are home to just such a creature, called the baiste-na-Scoghaigh (aka biasd na
Srogaig). Despite its long legs, however, its bulky, lumbering form renders it
more akin to a rhinoceros than to the elegant unicorn of classical legend; and
as it can assume human form, this deceptive creature is technically a were-unicorn. See also here for more details.
BARGUEST
One of England's most dreadful
bogey-beasts, the barguest is able to assume several different guises, but its
most common form is as a huge, shaggy-furred black dog with enormous fiery
eyes, and sometimes even a pair of horns. According to tradition, this spectral
hound haunts lonely areas of wasteland in Yorkshire, but especially between
Wreghorn and Headingley Hill, near Leeds. Its appearance is widely believed to
foretell an impending death, usually of some important figure living locally,
and is often accompanied by fearful howling, baying, and sometimes the sound of
rattling chains.
The Minch is a strait separating the
largest Outer Hebridean island, Lewis-and-Harris, from the Scottish mainland.
According to local maritime tradition, it is also home to a fierce race of mermen,
distinguished from other fish-tailed folk by their vivid blue skin. Happily,
however, their fondness for attacking sailors can be readily countered, simply
by berating them exclusively in rhyme!
BOOBRIE
Scottish Highland lore describes
the boobrie as a black lake-dwelling bird with white marks upon its neck and
breast, resembling the great northern diver Gavia immer but very much
bigger, and deadlier. For whereas divers (or loons, as these birds are referred
to in North America) are content to feed upon fishes, the boobrie will
allegedly seize any sheep or cow that dares venture near this monstrous bird's
aquatic abode, and haul it beneath the water, thereafter to feed upon its
drowned carcase.
HAIRLESS BLUE HORSE
During 1868, a very unusual horse
was exhibited at London's famous Crystal Palace. Not only was it completely
hairless, but its skin was blue, so that it looked as if it had been sculpted
from some rare form of oriental blue marble. This singular steed had been
captured on the plains of South Africa by a merchant called Lashmar in 1860,
and had been associating with a herd of those now-extinct, incompletely-striped
zebras known as quaggas. The fate of the hairless blue horse after its Crystal
Palace days is unknown - as is its identity. Could it have been a freak quagga,
rather than merely a freak domestic horse run wild? See also here for more details.
Photoshopped image
of a horse resembling the Crystal Palace-exhibited curiosity described here (© Daisiem
worth1000 – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis only)
LOUGH DUBH MONSTER
One day in March 1962,
schoolteacher Alphonsus Mullaney and his son went fishing to Lough Dubh ('Black
Lake') in County Galway, Ireland...and caught a monster instead. Suddenly,
their line became taut, and when they attempted to reel in their catch, they
saw to their horror that they were hauling up an incredible water beast like
nothing ever reported before - or since. The size of a cow, it had short thick
legs, small ears, dark grey skin covered in short bristles, and a large
hippopotamus-like face - with a sharp rhinoceros-like horn on the end of its
snout! Not surprisingly, the two anglers fled away, but when they returned with
a posse of local men, the lake's mysterious monster had vanished again. See also here for further details.
Artistic
representation of the Lough Dubh monster (© Orbis Publishing - reproduced
here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis only)
LYMINSTER KNUCKER
An unexpectedly loquacious English
dragon, the knucker lived in a deep pool near the church at Lyminster, close to
Arundel, in Sussex. Unfortunately, however, it developed a great liking (in the
gastronomic sense!) for sheep, pigs, and even the odd farmer or two...until a
local youth called Jim Puttock came along. After deliberately over-feeding the
knucker with a heavy pudding that gave it severe indigestion, Puttock promised
to provide a remedy for curing its stomach ache. The remedy in question, albeit
decidedly unorthodox, was also undeniably effective - after engaging it in
seemingly innocent conversation, Puttock abruptly wielded his trusty sword and
chopped off the knucker's head!
MINIATURE WOLVES OF ACHILL ISLAND
According to Irish tradition,
County Mayo's Achill Island was home to a type of small wolf-like beast long
after true wolves had died out elsewhere in the British Isles. They were said
to resemble normal wolves in overall appearance except for their relatively
small stature. No such creatures have been reported here in recent times,
however, so even if they really did once exist they have now presumably died
out.
ORKNEY BOAR-WHALE
According to Swedish archbishop Olaus
Magnus (1490-1557), an extraordinary sea monster resembling a hybrid of whale and wild boar
was sighted in the sea north of Scotland's Orkney Islands in 1537. In bestiary
compiler Conrad Gesner's tome, Nomenclator Aquatilium Animantium...
(1560), this Orcadian boar-whale was depicted with the head and body of a boar
but with scales instead of fur, flippers instead of feet, and a fish-like tail.
Not surprisingly, it has never been identified.
RENWICK COCKATRICE
During the demolition of an old
church at Renwick in Cumbria, northern England, during 1733, workmen were
terrified when a huge winged apparition rose up out of the foundations, for in
appearance it closely resembled a cockatrice. According to legend, this was a
lethal dragonesque monster combining reptilian scales, leathery bat-like wings, and a snake-like
tail with the feathered body and also the wattled, coxcomb-surmounted head of a
farmyard rooster, and which was hatched by a toad from a shell-less egg laid by
a cockerel! As this hideous creature sallied forth, the Renwick villagers fled
in all directions - except for one brave man named John Tallantine. Armed with
a lance hewn from the rowan tree, which is famed for its reputed power in
warding off evil, Tallantine pursued the cockatrice into the churchyard, and
after a fierce battle he succeeded in slaying it. As a reward, the grateful
people of Renwick decreed that for ever afterwards Tallantine's descendants
would be exempt from paying tithes. A copy of an account describing this
alleged occurrence is preserved in Renwick's current church.
ST SEONAN'S MONSTER
Like an amphibious cyclops, this
maned water monster had a single eye gleaming brightly in the centre of its
forehead. It also had a whale's fluked tail, and a mighty chest that sounded
like a pair of huge bellows when it exhaled its scorching breath. It frequented
the island of Iniscathy (aka Inis Cathaigh), located in Ireland's Shannon
Estuary, and whenever it sharpened its razor-sharp iron talons, sparks of fire
would dance upon the island's rocky surface. Eventually, however, it was allegedly
banished by St Seonan.
SCREAMING WHITE RABBIT
Reputedly, an eerie spectral
rabbit, pure white in colour and emitting a hideous screaming cry, has been
encountered spasmodically in an area of Cobridge in northern Staffordshire, England,
that is known locally as The Grove. It is claimed that this white rabbit is the
restless ghost of teenager John Holdcroft, who was strangled to death by fellow
teenager Charles Shaw one day in August 1833 after Shaw had accused him of
cheating at a game of pitch and toss. Terrified by what he had done, Shaw hung
a noose around his friend's neck and tried to pretend that he had committed
suicide, but he later confessed to the murder and was sentenced to
transportation. As for the rabbit, its eldritch shrieks are supposedly John
Holdcroft's death screams.
WINGED FEATHERED SNAKES
Remarkably, until as recently as
the early 1800s some local inhabitants believed that creatures apparently
resembling winged feathered snakes congregated in large numbers within the
wooded vales of Penllyne and Penmark in Glamorgan. Extraordinarily beautiful,
they had shimmering bodies whose scales sparkled like multicoloured jewels,
rainbow-hued crests, and outspread plumed wings. Despite their flamboyant
finery, however, Glamorgan's feathered flying snakes were reputedly slaughtered
like common vermin by farmers, on account of their taste for the farmers'
poultry, until at last they were completely exterminated. See also here for more details.
Depiction of one of
the winged feathered snakes that appeared on the front cover of the original
1997 American edition of my book From Flying Toads To Snakes With Wings (© Dr Karl
Shuker/Llewellyn Publications)
YELPING BEAST OF MANY COLOURS
Finally, but staying with extraordinarily beautiful
creatures: Loosely connected to the Arthurian corpus of legends and originally
composed anonymously in French during the 1300s, Perceforest is a
6-volume prose romance presenting a fictionalised origin of Great Britain. One
memorable scene from it features Maronex the Gilded Knight, magnificently
bedecked in brilliant golden armour, encountering a huge and equally dazzling,
rainbow-hued creature that gave voice to ear-splitting yelping cries when it
was pursued by him after it seized a stag in its jaws. Hence it is generally
referred to as the Yelping Beast or the Beast of Many Colours. After dropping
the deer as it fled headlong through the forest, the Yelping Beast finally
reached its lair, a dense thicket in the midst of a deep marsh, and
successfully eluded Maronex when his horse became enmired up to its belly in the
marsh's black mud. Although Maronex was eventually able to free his horse, he
conceded that it would be perilous in the extreme to attempt any further
pursuit of the Yelping Beast through such treacherous, potentially lethal
terrain, so he reluctantly turned back, his multicoloured quarry far beyond his
reach by now. The creature's penchant for exceedingly loud yelping cries,
incidentally, readily calls to mind comparable behaviour described for the
snake-headed, leopard-bodied, hart-footed Questing Beast in traditional
Arthurian legend.
The Yelping Beast of Many Colours and
Maronex the Gilded Knight, from Royal 19 E II mss, Perceforest, Anciennes
croniques Dangleterre, faictz et gestes du roy Perceforest, et des chevaliers
du Franc Palais, version transcribed by David Aubert in late 1400s,
Holland (public domain)
There's an intriguing similarity between the Arthurian questing beast and the yelping beast (as you noted), but also with the horse/camel hybrid description of Nessie that I believe I read in one of your earlier posts on that topic.
ReplyDeleteInteresting to note that the Boar Whale sounds somewhat like the supposed sea serpent witnessed by the crew of the steamer, Tresco, off the coast of my home state, North Carolina. That one too was supposed to have tusks and scales. Heuvelmans felt it was a hoax though.
ReplyDeleteI have a possible theory on the boar-whale though it may seem a bit of a stretch. Looking at the picture, the first thing that came to mind was a beaked whale, several of which have tusk-like teeth in their lower jaw. As well, beaked whales are often pockmarked by cookiecutter shark bites which could perhaps appear, at a distance, like scales?
ReplyDeleteAs I said, it's quite a stretch but a I could envision some coastal fishermen in a small boat happening to catch just a glimpse of such a whale as it surfaced and not having ever seen one prior as they are typically an offshore deepwater family, have their imagination run rampant. Even today the beaked whale family is still quite mysterious when compared to what we know of other cetaceans and I'm sure could startle someone who has never seen or heard of one.
Anyhow, was fun to speculate and I really enjoy reading your blog; I stumbled across it very recently and it is a enjoyable read.
Lewis Islander Abducted by the Blue Men
ReplyDeleteKenneth MacLeod captured during sea cult ceremony, off the shore of Lewis Island, Scotland, and gets physical evidence before release.
Video link:
https://youtu.be/N-M_Vhcb83E