STELLER’S SEA-BEAR – A POLAR BEAR IN JAPAN?

Polar bear

Georg Wilhem Steller (1709-1746) was a German naturalist and explorer who took part in Vitus Bering’s Second Kamchatka Expedition to Russia’s Far East during the early 1740s, and whose greatest contribution to science was the discovery and description of several major new species of animal while the expedition was shipwrecked on Bering Island. These included a new jay, eider duck, sea eagle, sea-lion, and, most famously, a gigantic sirenian, Steller’s sea-cow Hydrodamalis gigas, which, tragically, was hunted into extinction within the next three decades, though there have been some intriguing modern-day reports of unidentified sea beasts resembling this extraordinary species (click here).

Steller also documented three very puzzling creatures whose identities remain unknown to this day. One was an extraordinary sea mammal variously likened to a seal or even a merman, which has been dubbed Steller’s sea-monkey or sea-ape and was documented by me in my book Mysteries of Planet Earth (1999), excerpted here on ShukerNature. The second was a bird, Steller’s sea-raven, which I have chronicled in various articles and also here on ShukerNature. As far as I am aware, however, the third member of this mystifying trio is scarcely even remembered nowadays, has not previously been reported by me, and is known as Steller’s sea-bear.

Steller recorded it as follows in his book De Bestiis Marinis [Beasts of the Sea] (1751):

"Report, as I gather from the account of the people, has declared that the sea-bear, as it is called by the Rutheni and other people is different. They say it is an amphibious sea beast very like a bear, but very fierce, both on land and in the water. They told likewise, that in the year 1736 it had overturned a boat and torn two men to pieces; that they were very much alarmed when they heard the sound of its voice, which was like the growl of a bear, and that they fled from their chase of the otter and seals on the sea and hastened back to land. They say that it is covered with white fur; that it lives near the Kuril Islands, and is more numerous toward Japan; that here it is seldom seen. I myself do not know how far to believe this report, for no one has ever seen one, either slain or cast up dead upon the shore."

Needless to say, this description readily calls to mind the polar bear Ursus maritimus – but there is one major problem when attempting to reconcile Steller’s sea-bear with the latter species. There is no confirmed record of the polar bear ever having been found anywhere near as far south as the Kuril Islands, let alone towards those of Japan.

Could it be, as suggested back in 2002 by Steller scholar Chris Orrick, that reports of polar bears seen further north (this species was already well known in Steller’s time) had somehow become confused with those of fur seals, which are not white but are often loosely if inaccurately dubbed ‘sea-bears’ and are indeed found around the Kurils and Japan? As for his treating the very existence of the sea-bear with suspicion, perhaps Steller was not aware of the polar bear’s marine behaviour, mistakenly assuming that it was exclusively terrestrial

AZ in WMN!

The above review of my Alien Zoo book was penned by acclaimed West Country naturalist Trevor Beer, and appeared on 20 December 2010 in the Western Morning News. Thanks, Trevor!

IN QUEST OF THE KUIL KAAX

A kuil kaax (Tim Morris)

Continuing yesterday's Little People theme, several different versions have been reported from Mexico. Two of these - namely, those mysterious dwarf-sized humanoids known as the alux, long reported from the Yucatan Peninsula; and the thumb-lacking, sombrero-wearing, gnome-like duende or dwendi - are well documented in the cryptozoological and mythological literature. In stark contrast, a third Mexican mini-human entity, known as the kuil kaax, rates scarcely a mention.

I first learnt of the kuil kaax many years ago, when reading a traditional Mexican folktale concerning the basilisk lizard. According to the tale, the kuil kaaxs existed when the world was still young, were nature spirits of the forests that resembled little old gnome-like or dwarfish men, and – recalling duende descriptions - wore huge sombreros made out of leaves from the banana palm. Kind and gentle, the kuil kaaxs were revered almost as demi-gods by the animals of the forest.

This description (sombreros excepted!) closely corresponds with reports of diminutive humanoids reported widely across the Americas in modern times. Yet, bizarrely, the kuil kaax has received so little formal attention that even a Google search by me failed to elicit more than a brief note within the following Russian website:

http://www.mesoamerica.ru/indians/maya/dwarfs.html

dealing with Mesoamerican dwarf deities.

So if anyone out there has any additional information concerning the kuil kaax, I’d love to hear from you.

PONY...OR POOKA?

Image from Andy Paciorek’s Strange Lands project's website at: http://www.batcow.co.uk/strangelands

I regret to say that punctuality has never been one of my virtues (numerous though these may be!) - which is why now, at the very end of December, I am presenting here a Halloween-related zoomythological folktale, noting, as my only (feeble) excuse, that the telling of spooky stories is a tradition associated with Christmas too.

As a child, I was lucky enough to receive as gifts from my family a series of large-format hardback books of world myths, legends, and folktales vividly retold by eminent folklorist Roger Lancelyn Green, beautifully illustrated by Janet and Anne Grahame Johnstone, and published by Purnell. One of these volumes, Myths From Many Lands (1965), included Green’s retelling of a traditional French folktale, which he entitled ‘The Goblin Pony’. Years later, I discovered that in both appearance and behaviour this story’s eponymous supernatural entity was identical to the Irish pooka, and so fascinated me that a few years ago I penned my own, greatly-expanded version of it, which I reset in Ireland. Since writing it, I have variously thought of including it in some future book of mine retelling legends of mythical beasts or in my planned book collaboration with graphic artist Andy Paciorek re supernatural night creatures. If it is used in the latter, however, it may well need to be trimmed in length, so here, perhaps for the one and only time, and hence another ShukerNature exclusive, is the full-length, unedited version of my pooka tale of terror! Happy New Year!

Commonly associated with lonely pools and other stretches of water, the pooka is one of the most feared of Ireland's solitary Faerie folk, because although it has occasionally been known to assist humans, more often than not the pooka delights in bringing ill-fortune, and sometimes far worse, to those unfortunate mortals who encounter it. In its real but rarely-seen form, this sinister entity resembles a withered old man dressed in rags, but is much more frequently met with in the guise of any one of a number of different animal forms - often a large black-plumaged bird, or a goat, or a huge black dog, or, most innocuous yet deadliest of all, a dark shaggy-coated colt or pony of deceptively playful, harmless demeanour. On first sight, it is easy to mistake a pooka for a genuine animal - until you see its eyes, which betray its true identity by blazing with a scorching, unholy fire. Consequently, it is always best to avoid anything that might be a pooka; otherwise, as I reveal in the following age-old Irish folktale, you may not live to regret your mistake:

It was Halloween, so although she was a weaver of cloth by trade, tonight Molly was spinning tales of wonder and magic instead, regaling her three grandchildren with stories of the pooka, the master otter, the horse-eel, and many other mythical Irish entities - but their attention was beginning to waver. Sean, aged 15, was the eldest of the trio, and had thoughts only for Maire - the fair-haired daughter of their village's new school teacher. Sean's sister, Eileen, just a year younger, was mentally designing the new dress that she planned to wear at the forthcoming autumn fete. Only Patrick, their six-year-old brother, was still listening to Molly's words, although the log fire was gently lulling him to sleep.

Molly smiled, pausing in her story-telling; and, as she did so, Sean stood up. The night outside was warm, and he had decided to take a walk, secretly hoping that Maire might be doing so too, and that they may then happen to meet. His plans were swiftly dashed, however, because Eileen and Patrick wanted to accompany him - so instead of walking into the village, they wandered through the outlying meadows and forests.

Encouraged by the evening's pleasant ambience, the three youngsters strolled further than originally intended, eventually approaching an extremely large, deep pool, which they had never visited before - and with good reason. Traditionally, the villagers kept away from this area, because they believed it to be an accursed place - haunted by sinister shadowy forms.

The pool lay still and dark, a mirror of liquid obsidian beneath a cloudy sky - but when the three youngsters stared into its sable depths a flurry of ripples raced across its surface, and a cold wind began to harry the clouds above. Eileen shuddered, and they were about to turn back for home when, to their great surprise, a frisky pony-like colt suddenly appeared, as if from nowhere, and began frolicking in front of them, at the pool's edge.

It was an uncommonly hairy colt, and as black as the waters of the pool. For a few moments, it refused to let the children draw near, playfully gambolling out of reach as soon as they stretched out their hands to pat it, but it soon quietened, allowing them to stand beside it and stroke its rough, unkempt coat.

Where had this colt come from? It had neither bridle nor saddle, and even its hooves were unshod. Whatever its origin, however, it must certainly have been splashing in the pool, because its coat was very wet - but the evening was warm, so who could be surprised?

Nevertheless, for some indefinable reason Sean felt strangely ill at ease concerning their new-found friend. It was obviously just a trick of the light, but sometimes the colt's long mane appeared to him to be almost alive, dancing even when the breeze had stilled. And occasionally, when its eyes met his own unexpectedly, just for an instant it seemed to Sean as if they were infused with fire - as if bolts of lightning flickered in their fathomless depths.

I've been listening to too many of Granny Molly's fairy stories, he thought to himself, smiling wryly as the colt rubbed itself against his legs, whinnying with pleasure as his fingers rubbed its ears. Suddenly, hardly knowing what he was doing, Sean leapt onto its back, his strong legs gripping its damp flanks, and his hands securing a firm hold around its powerful neck.

Without further ado, Eileen mounted behind him, and there was just enough room for Patrick to sit behind her. When all three were seated, Sean gently tapped the colt's flanks with his heels, and it began to walk slowly across the meadow.

Laughing, they urged it to go faster, and, obligingly, the colt quickened its pace, from a canter into a trot - and then from a trot into a gallop. Alarmed, Sean tried to slow the animal down, pulling at its mane, and calling out, but to no avail. On and on it ran, too fast for them to risk jumping from its back. All they could do was hold on and hope that it would eventually tire. Instead of tiring, however, it seemed to grow ever stronger.

Suddenly, the colt changed direction - to their horror, it was now heading directly for the pool! Frantically, they tried to stop it, but it was too late. Even as they opened their mouths to scream, the creature had reached the water's edge - and as it plunged into its depths, the great pool seemed to rise up on all sides, welcoming the return of its demonic denizen, and engulfing the hapless victims that it had abducted.

The hours had seemed like a lifetime to Molly, as she searched the village and surrounding countryside for her missing grandchildren. No-one had seen them, and no-one knew where they may be. Now, much to her apprehension, she was nearing the dismal pool that everybody had shunned for as long as anyone could remember. Old legends die hard, thought Molly, and some are more than just legends - especially on the night of Halloween.

At that same moment, a shadow moved just ahead, but as she turned to look at it Molly realised that it was not a shadow. It was an old, shrivelled-up man, whose clothes were no more than rags hanging from his wizened body. He gazed briefly at Molly, an evil toothless grin stretching almost from ear to ear, but far worse were his eyes, for as they stared into hers they seemed to glow red, like cauldrons of scarlet flame. Molly shied away in terror, but when she looked back again the apparition was gone, as if it had never been.

Only the cold silver moonlight remained, lighting up the desolate landscape ahead, where now, at the pool's edge, Molly could see three long boulders - or so she thought, until she walked closer. Her heart seemed to explode as she looked down at them - the 'boulders' were her grandchildren, lying cold and grey and still. They had drowned - all three of her grandchildren were dead.

Numb with shock, for a time she was unable to tear her gaze away from this terrible scene, but when she finally looked up she realised that something was moving close by. Out of the night's shadowy darkness, something even darker was emerging. It looked like a pony, a black shaggy-coated colt, throwing its head upwards and neighing as it ran towards her.

Such a merry creature was an incongruous contrast to the tragedy that she had just witnessed, but then, with flaring nostrils and dancing mane, the colt stared up at her - and Molly gasped in horror. Its exultant eyes were suffused with evil, and blazed like glowing coals, aflame with the very fires of Hell! This was no harmless colt - it was a pooka!

Molly staggered back, almost stumbling to the ground, and the pooka reared up triumphantly, its forelegs lashing out at her with razor-sharp hooves. As she fell, however, she dropped her bag, whose contents tumbled out onto the grass. Among them was her Bible, which she instantly grasped, thrusting it up towards the malign beast's face. As she did so, the moon's rays illuminated the bright golden Cross emblazoned upon its cover - and the pooka disappeared.


Please note: Andy Paciorek's spectacular, long-awaited book Strange Lands will be available via mail-order in early 2011, and includes a foreword by yours truly!

STOP PRESS: 1 February 2011 - Strange Lands is now in print! It is available for purchase at:

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1957828?ce=blurb_ew

BETWEEN A ROC AND A HARD PLACE

One of my roc feathers (Dr Karl Shuker)

The main shopping centre of Birmingham, the United Kingdom’s second largest city, is replete with unique shops and market stalls selling all manner of interesting and often quite esoteric items. Even so, the last thing that I expected to find there when casually browsing in a certain large fancy goods shop a couple of years ago was a sheaf of roc feathers! But that is precisely what I did find, much to my astonishment and delight. Allow me to explain.

Two rocs attacking Sinbad's ship

According to Eastern legend and lore, the mighty roc or rukh - featuring as one of Sinbad the Sailor’s most formidable protagonists in the ‘Arabian Nights’ - was said to be a monstrous bird of such prodigious size and strength that it could haul elephants aloft, and carry them away to its gargantuan nest where its brood of hungry super-sized offspring would feed upon these hapless pachyderms. For decades, zoologists and cryptozoologists alike attempted to explain the mythical roc as having been based upon sightings of a gigantic ostrich-like ratite known scientifically as Aepyornis maximus, the great elephant bird, standing 10 ft tall and weighing up to half a ton.

The roc carrying off an elephant

Formerly native to Madagascar, this avian goliath inhabited the extensive marshes and swamps once present on this large island mini-continent, and was known locally as the vouronpatra or vorompatra. It is believed to have survived until at least as recently as the late 1700s, before a lethal combination of over-hunting, introduced avian diseases, and deforestation leading to the drying out of its swampland habitat brought about its demise, but fragments from its enormous eggs can still be commonly found on beaches here.

With an Aepyornis egg and a life-size Aepyornis silhouette (Dr Karl Shuker)

Unfortunately, reconciling the roc with the great elephant bird faced one major problem. Aepyornis was flightless, and therefore wholly incapable of abducting unwary elephants and swooping off into the air with them, gripped tightly in merciless talons of steel as those dusty Arabian legends would have us believe. Nevertheless, on account of its huge size, the great elephant bird remained the closest match – indeed, the only remotely plausible match – for the fabled roc...until 1994, that is.

This was when palaeontologist Dr Stephen M. Goodman published a paper documenting the subfossil remains of a hitherto-unknown species of huge eagle, which he formally christened Stephanoaetus mahery, the Madagascan crowned eagle, and which is believed to have survived on the island until around 1500 AD (both it and its prey were probably hunted into extinction by humans). This spectacular raptor is thought to have preyed not only upon various now-extinct species of giant lemur (subfossil remains show that some weighed up to 26.5 lb) but also quite possibly upon the great elephant bird itself. Clearly, sightings of this mega-eagle made by early European explorers visiting Madagascar and subsequent exaggeration of these sightings during retellings when back home provide a much more likely explanation for the origin of the roc legends than does the flightless elephant bird.

Yet not even Madagascar’s colossal crowned eagle can explain the truly immense plumes that crusaders sometimes purchased in the Middle East to delight and bewilder their families and friends back home in Europe. Claimed by their Arabian vendors to be genuine roc feathers, they sometimes measured 3 ft or more in length, and their vanes’ blades were razor-sharp to the touch.

In reality, of course, these spectacular objects were not feathers at all. They were actually the extremely long leaves of the raffia palm tree Raphia regalis (and related species), but they were certainly convincing enough in their superficial resemblance to gigantic feather to fool the unsuspecting crusaders into spending their hard-earned money on them as exotic souvenirs.

Moreover, when I first came upon the tall vase containing sheafs of these wonderful objects in that Birmingham shop, for just a few moments I too shared the shock and wonder that those crusaders must have experienced when first they saw them. A few of these pseudo-plumes stood nearly half as tall as I am (5’10”), and whereas some were brown, others were an exotic jungle green. Once I’d recovered from my shock, I knew at once what they were, but I still marvelled at finding such cryptozoological curios in such a relatively mundane locality as a high street shop in Birmingham, rather than some mysterious, shadowy souk in the depths of an Arabian kasbah.

Picking a few up – and soon discovering how painful it was when their sharp vanes stabbed into my hands! – I could definitely understand how their wily vendors in those far-distant Middle Eastern lands and times had talked the naïve crusaders into believing that these fantastic objects were roc feathers. Indeed, part of me even wanted to believe it myself!

Instead, however, I satisfied myself with the knowledge that here were some wonderful additions to my collection of zoological esoterica, but I received a final shock when I took half a dozen of the green versions (which looked much more feather-like than the plainer brown ones) to the till to pay for them. Incredibly, all six together totalled less than £2, making them without a doubt the best cryptozoological bargains that I had ever purchased!

A month or so ago, I found myself back inside that very same Birmingham shop, but its remaining roc feathers were long gone - which, I suppose, is no more than one should ever expect when dealing with imaginary monsters!

THE SMILE ON THE FACE OF THE CHESHIRE CAT

Adopting my best Blofeld pose with Disney’s wonderful animated version of Lewis Carroll’s enigmatic Cheshire Cat (Dr Karl Shuker)

This is a section from my forthcoming, second book on mysterious and mythical cats, which is entitled Cats of Magic, Mythology, and Mystery, and covers not just cryptozoological cats (as did my Mystery Cats of the World book back in 1989) but also legendary, literary, and supernatural cats, as well as anomalous feline behaviour, feline symbolism and worship, and lots more! It will be published in autumn 2012.

As she said this, she looked up, and there was the Cat again, sitting on a branch of a tree...
"...I wish you wouldn't keep appearing and vanishing so suddenly: you make one quite giddy."
"All right," said the Cat; and this time it vanished quite slowly, beginning with the end of the tail, and ending with the grin, which remained some time after the rest of it had gone.
"Well! I've often seen a cat without a grin," thought Alice; "but a grin without a cat! It's the most curious thing I ever saw in my life!"

Lewis Carroll - Alice's Adventures In Wonderland

Ever since Lewis Carroll's classic children's book was first published in 1865, literary scholars, Carrollian biographers, and cat-lovers alike have debated the source of one of its most enigmatic characters - the famously evanescent Cheshire Cat, with its maniacal, detachable grin! What was Carroll's inspiration for such a surreal creation?

To begin with: as there is no such breed as a Cheshire cat, where did its name originate? Unlike most of its history, however, this seems to be quite straightforward.

Born in 1832 at Daresbury in rural Cheshire, Lewis Carroll (whose real name was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) spent much of his childhood there and later at Croft, a little further north. Consequently, he would have frequently encountered various of the local farm, pet, and stray cats - in other words, cats of Cheshire.

Moreover, as pointed out by Martin Gardner in The Annotated Alice (1960), there was a popular saying, current during Carroll's time - "Grin like a Cheshire cat" - which must also, surely, have influenced his choice of a name for his fictitious feline.

Hardly surprisingly, that phrase has been mooted by several scholars as the origin of the Cheshire Cat's synonymous smile too - but there are a number of other, equally compelling claimants for that particular honour. For example, it is well known that during the period when Carroll and his family lived in Cheshire, there were several inns whose signboards portrayed broadly-grinning lions; their incongruous visages would undoubtedly have attracted the attention of anyone so captivated by the allure of the ludicrous as Carroll.

Notwithstanding this, he needed to look no further than his home county's celebrated cheeses for immediate inspiration. In her book Lewis Carroll: A Biography (1979), Anne Clark noted that a renowned medieval inhabitant of Chester, John Catheral, whose coat-of-arms from 1304 included a cat, always bared his teeth in a grin when angry - and died with a smile on his face, quite literally, while defending his beloved town. In honour of his valour, a longstanding tradition arose whereby Cheshire cheese-makers would mould their cheeses into the shape of a cat, and carve a wide grin upon its face. Once again, Carroll would certainly have seen such cheeses, and would have known the origin of their unusual form.

Another potential influence can still be found in the Wirral village of Brimstage, just north of the current Merseyside-Cheshire border. Dating back again to medieval times, there is a stone effigy of a cat, whose red-hued lips were shaped by its long-demised sculptor into a very definite grin. As pointed out by Roger Lancelyn Green in his monograph Lewis Carroll (1960), Carroll may never have visited Brimstage, but as an avid reader throughout his youth he is very likely to have encountered some details concerning it.

In a fascinating account entitled 'The Most Curious Thing I Ever Saw in All My Life', published in Cheshire Life in June 1960, the Reverend Kenneth Lee, Rector of Heswall, documented his own personal search for the answer to the longstanding literary mystery of the Cheshire Cat's origin, and revealed several important additional clues.

During his peregrinations around Cheshire, he visited the village of Grappenhall, not far from Carroll's home village of Daresbury. Here, in its church, high on the wall immediately above the large west window, he spotted a carving in black stone of a cat with a grinning expression on its face. A previous writer had already commented that this might have been the original of the proverbial Cheshire Cat, and Lee speculated that Carroll may well have visited Grappenhall when he was a boy.

In Pott Shrigley, another Cheshire village, Lee noted that the crest of the Pott family was a wild cat, as carved under the chancel arch here. He also recalled that certain other characters from Alice in Wonderland, including the King and Queen of Hearts, could have been inspired by figures carved in the old stone work outside this village's church - as suggested by members of the Archaeological Society following a visit here in 1922.

In addition, Lee visited Brimstage to observe the stone cat noted above, which is a corbel carved in red sand-stone, supporting a pier in one of the ancient chapel's side walls. It also gave its name to the village inn that was eventually taken down in 1931. According to Lee, this feline statue is believed to be linked with the Domville family who lived in Brimstage Hall during the early 1300s, and whose coat-of-arms was a red lion rampant. Some say that the statue is the work of a stone mason who had never seen a lion but was asked by the Domville family to carve one; the result was a large cat wearing what proved to be more of a grin than the fierce snarl that he had intended.

A second, equally interesting article dealing with the possible origin of the Cheshire Cat and entitled 'All This Grinning Cat Stuff', was published in Cheshire Life in November 1973. Its author was Jennifer R. Simpson, who delved much further back in time for solutions than previous writers - proposing that the Cheshire Cat tradition "...may represent the dim glimmer of ancient folk memories connected with the remote origins of our race".

According to Simpson's hypothesis, the Cheshire Cat-related themes already itemised here could comprise the last remnants, or memories, of the former existence in this English region of an ancient cat-venerating tribe called the Khatti, who migrated to Britain from Spain, having previously entered Spain from Mesopotamia.

However, it is a locality from Carroll's own time, one visited by him when he was still young, which has more recently disclosed an extraordinary secret that some Carrollian scholars believe to be the cryptic, much-disputed source not only of the Cheshire Cat's lingering leer but also of its own vanishing ability.

As revealed in London's Daily Telegraph and many other newspapers worldwide during July 1992, Joel Birenbaum from Chicago was one of a party of 35 members from the international Lewis Carroll Society who had lately visited St Peter's Church at Croft - the village to which the Dodgson family moved when Carroll was 11 years old. In the 10th Century church, where his father (the Rev. Charles Dodgson) became rector, Carroll would have knelt in prayer; and it was there, at the altar, while also kneeling, that Birenbaum noticed a small grinning cat.

Carved on a wall panel, in stone relief, it seemed very mundane, until Birenbaum knelt down further and then looked up - whereupon the cat began to vanish right before his eyes! Due to an optical illusion, whenever Birenbaum raised his eyes up towards it from a kneeling position, the image of the cat was rendered invisible - except, that is, for its carved smile, stretching virtually from ear to ear, which lingered in precisely the manner described by Carroll for the Cheshire Cat!

As soon as Birenbaum informed them of his remarkable discovery, each of the other 34 society members eagerly knelt down in turn in order to witness this extraordinary sight - and sure enough, the cat dutifully disappeared time after time, leaving behind only its grin to gratify its incredulous congregation of observers.

It seems evident that this fascinating carving did indeed play its part in Carroll's creation of the Cheshire Cat as a virtuoso of the vanishing act and the disembodied smile - but so too, surely, did most if not all of the other feline factors given here.

Rather than this complex story-book character and its idiosyncratic traits being spawned instantly, directly, and exclusively from the inspirational spark ignited by just a single factor, a more reasonable scenario is one in which they developed within Carroll's fertile imagination in a much more gradual manner - with each of the factors discussed here, every one in close proximity to Carroll during his youth, making its own contribution to their evolution.

But enough of the past, for the present is no less exciting. Today, thanks to its defiantly enigmatic grin (second in fame only to the rather more demure version gracing the lips of Leonardo da Vinci's 'Mona Lisa'!), the Cheshire Cat can bask in the secure knowledge that it remains one of the most popular literary felines of all time. Not bad for a character that didn't even appear in Carroll's original manuscript, entitled Alice's Adventures Under Ground - and reason enough, surely, to make any cat smile!

To read my ShukerNature blog article concerning another of my favourite Alice's Adventures In Wonderland animal characters, the lugubrious calf-headed Mock Turtle, please click here.

Sir John Tenniel's classic illustration of Alice meeting the Cheshire Cat from Alice's Adventures In Wonderland (1865)

 

And here's a Cheshire Cat encounter of a rather more creepy kind! (created by me using MagicStudio)

THE NARMER PALETTE PALAVER

Exact replica of the Narmer Palette (Dr Karl Shuker)

Surrounded by spectacular sarcophagi, mummies, and other necrological relics of every conceivable size, age, and nature, the last thing that I expected to encounter during my January 2006 visit to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo was an artefact of cryptozoological controversy. However, while walking around Gallery 43 on the museum's ground floor, this is precisely what happened. Suddenly, I found myself in front of a large glass case containing a greyish-green, shield-shaped exhibit, and as I looked in surprise at the pair of bizarre beasts carved upon one side of it I realised that I was looking at the extraordinary Narmer Palette - one of Egypt's oldest, and most enigmatic, historical objects. (Sadly, visitors were not permitted to photograph the palette, but I was subsequently able to purchase an exact replica model of it, a photo of which is included at the beginning of this blog.)

Composed of dark schist, measuring 25 in high and 16.5 in wide, and richly adorned on both sides with elaborate, finely-wrought carvings, this remarkable artefact was discovered during 1898 by archaeologist James E. Quibell in the Upper Egyptian city of Nekhen (nowadays Hierakonpolis) while excavating the royal residences of various ancient Egyptian rulers. Despite dating back to c.3200 BC (the Old Kingdom), the palette has survived intact, and was a votive (gift) offered up by King Narmer to the sun god Amun-Ra. What makes this artefact so significant historically is that it not only bears some of the earliest-known examples of Egyptian hieroglyphics but also commemorates a major event in ancient Egyptian history - the unification of Lower Egypt and Upper Egypt into a single land, with King Narmer as the first ruler of both lands.

On one side of the palette, King Narmer is vividly portrayed as ruler of Upper Egypt smiting his Lower Egypt enemy, and facing his own incarnation as the falcon deity Horus, god of the sky. On the other side, there are various depictions celebrating Narmer's triumph after capturing the crown of Lower Egypt, thereby unifying Upper and Lower Egypt. The largest, most striking image on this side, however, does not feature Narmer at all. Instead, it portrays a pair of inordinately long-necked creatures whose flexible necks entwine around one another, forming a border round a central circular reservoir that some researchers believe may have been used to hold perfume, or to serve as a receptacle within which such cosmetics were manufactured in situ.

These extraordinary beasts are generally referred to as serpopards (though in at least one reference source they are termed mafedets), for good reason. For whereas their necks are decidedly serpentine in appearance, their heads are very leopard-like. As for their bodies: I have seen them likened variously to panthers, lions, and even baboons. After having finally witnessed the palette at first-hand (prior to then, I knew of its images only from various internet pictures of varying quality), I agree that their bodies, long limbs, and lengthy tails certainly possess a degree of simian similarity, more than I had previously realised when simply viewing pictures of them. But what were these serpopards meant to be - wholly symbolic, a purely legendary beast, perhaps a very distorted portrayal of some known animal, or something more than any of these options?

The reason why I was already familiar with the Narmer Palette is that in the past it has attracted a degree of cryptozoological speculation that the serpopards may conceivably represent a stylised or alternatively a distorted depiction of some mokele-mbembe-type species of surviving long-necked dinosaur that was alive at least at the time of King Narmer. Of course, this would not be the first time that ancient Middle Eastern records have inspired theories of historical dinosaur survival - the mushush or sirrush carved on King Nebuchadnezzar II’s resplendent Ishtar Gate of Babylon (which I was privileged to view at firsthand when visiting the Vorderasiatisches Museum in 1983 in what was then East Berlin), the huge monster Behemoth referred to in the Holy Bible, and a reptilian mystery beast in a short book of the Apocrypha entitled 'Bel and the Dragon' all readily come to mind. Could the serpopard be another putative neo-dinosaur?

Much as I would like to admit it to this select crypto-company, after viewing the palette's serpopards up close and personal I was left in no doubt whatsoever that these necking entities were unquestionably mammalian, not even remotely reptilian. The serpopard head, complete with ears, is indeed leopard-like, not leonine as some have suggested, but the toes of the feet, posture of the body and limbs, as well as the limbs' relative lengths, and the shape and carriage of the tail all struck me as rather more monkey-like than feline. As for the palette pair's disproportionately long, impossibly flexible necks, it seems likely that they were intertwined not only to symbolise the union of Upper and Lower Egypt (as well as the eastern and western heavens?), but also for practical purposes - to fit neatly around the palette's central reservoir. Interestingly, each of the two depicted serpopards is held on a leash by a handler, who may be a slave, or a tribute, indicating perhaps that the serpopards were a gift to King Narmer, or possibly even domesticated?

Significantly, depicted serpopards are not restricted to the Narmer Palette. Another early Hierakonpolis palette, known as the Oxford or Two Dogs Palette and retained at Oxford University's Ashmolean Museum, also bears a pair of these striking creatures on one side, plus a single one on the other side. The paired serpopards on this artefact have even longer necks than those on the Narmer Palette, but this time they are not entwined - instead, they are held in a painful-looking zig-zag pose above their bodies, one on each side of a central reservoir. On the Two Dogs Palette (named, incidentally, after the two superficially canine - but quite possibly hyaenid - beasts comprising the upper section and outer sides of the palette, though the head of one is missing), the necks of the serpopards are striped, and there are stripes on their foreparts too.

Another serpopard-depicting palette is the Four Dogs Palette held at the Louvre, Paris, and there is also a preserved cylinder seal from Susiana, the high country of the ancient Persian civilisation of Elam, that depicts a series of very long-tailed neck-entwined serpopards. Clearly, therefore, the serpopards of the Narmer Palette were clearly not just an invention of its sculptor, devised merely as a decorative motif for bordering and highlighting the palette's central reservoir and/or as a symbol of King Narmer's unified Egypt.

A more conservative identity than a mokele-mbembe but no less intriguing is that perhaps the serpopards were poor representations of a giraffe (a species that once existed in Egypt), possibly based upon indirect descriptions of what this exceptional creature looked like rather than personal observations. If this were so, however, surely the giraffe's long legs would have been mentioned and described to the sculptor, not just its long neck. Yet although the serpopards' legs are fairly long, they are far shorter than one would expect for a giraffe, whereas their necks are much too long. In any case, it just so happens that there is absolute iconographical proof readily to hand to confirm that the serpopard and giraffe are totally discrete animals.

On the reverse side of the Two Dogs Palette, a wide range of creatures is depicted, including readily-identifiable lions, antelopes, goats, a hartebeest- or gnu-like ungulate - and not only a serpopard but also a clearly-recognisable giraffe, the latter beast complete with long inflexible erect neck, small horns as well as ears on its head, long giraffe-like legs, hoofed feet, and downward-pointing tail. Just above it, offering a perfect opportunity for direct comparison, is a flexible-necked, hornless, leopard-headed, shorter-legged, toe-footed, upward-tailed serpopard - indisputably a wholly different animal.

Equally worthy of note is that alongside portrayals of real animals on the Two Dogs Palette is not just a serpopard but a winged griffin too, depicted in traditional composite form with leonine body, eagle's head, and feathered wings. This provides immediate proof that ancient Egyptian sculptors carved real and fabled animals together, so the presence elsewhere of serpopards depicted alongside people and real animals cannot be taken as firm evidence that the serpopards themselves must also be real.

Accordingly, the most reasonable solution to the mystery of its identity is that the serpopard is nothing more than another composite (albeit exotic-looking) mythical beast, just like the griffin, as well as certain other Egyptian monsters such as the hippo-bodied crocodile-headed ammut, and the venomous winged snakes that reputedly swarmed across ancient Egypt each year like locusts (indeed, perhaps they were directly inspired by actual locust swarms). After all, not all beasts of legend are creatures of cryptozoology in disguise - from centaurs and minotaurs to cactus cats and gooseberry wives, the inventive human imagination is more than sufficiently capable of summoning forth from its uncharted depths a veritable menagerie of wholly original monsters surpassing even the wildest excesses of Mother Nature.