LOCH WATTEN'S MISSING MONSTER - WHATEVER HAPPENED TO WATTIE?

"It was a bright spring day, and steely sunshine glinted over the mountains of Caithness when Colonel Arthur Trimble first saw the monster of Loch Watten.

"The monster’s eyes were slits in a huge squat head, and its body, which loomed under the rippling water, appeared at least 20 feet wide. It observed him for several seconds. He even had time to take a photograph of it. "

John Macklin – ‘The Trap He Set Was For A Monster...’,
Leicester Mercury, 28 March 1966.

I first learnt about the existence of winged cats – which subsequently became an investigative passion of mine - when, as a teenager, I read a fascinating little book by prolific author Peter Haining entitled The Monster Trap and Other True Mysteries (1976). That same book introduced me to a couple of other subjects that I have since pursued in depth too – the Green Children, and the mysterious mini-mummy of Wyoming.

Ironically, however, the chapter that interested me most of all (and which gave its title to the entire book) was also the one that has mystified me most of all – because, over 35 years later, and in spite of the fact that it is potentially of immense cryptozoological significance, its subject has resisted every attempt made by me to uncover any additional details regarding it. Consequently, I feel that it is now time to give this whole perplexing matter a long-overdue public airing online.


THE (VERY) MYSTERIOUS CASE OF THE MONSTER TRAP

The setting for the truly extraordinary episode documented in this chapter is Loch Watten – a Scottish freshwater lake in Caithness’s River Wick drainage system. Its grim tale as given in Haining’s book (in which the chapters’ stories, although all allegedly true, are written up in a dramatised, novel-like style) can be summarised as follows.

According to Haining, the incident in question took place some 10 years before the flap of Nessie sightings in 1933, and featured local estate owner Colonel Arthur Trimble (who had retired in 1922 from the British army). It all began on the morning of 21 April 1923, when Trimble was walking his spaniel, Bruce, by the lochside, not far from his estate. He had a camera with him, as it was a pleasant morning and he hoped to take some photographs. After reaching his usual point for turning back, Trimble called to Bruce, who had run some distance further ahead, and after waiting for him to come back, Trimble looked out across the loch – where, in Haining’s words:

"Something dark and looming had suddenly appeared on the surface of the water.

"The Colonel squinted his eyes and raised his hand to half-shade his face. The form was clearer now. It looked like a kind of neck with a huge flat head.

"Keeping quite still, he looked harder and could see that it was indeed a head and neck, and that there were slit eyes staring directly at him. Below the surface of the water he could make out the shape of an immense body, at least twenty feet wide.

"Colonel Trimble could hardly believe the evidence of his senses. It seemed like some huge water monster."

Haining stated that although the monster was less than a hundred yards away, thanks to his years of army discipline Trimble did not panic, and lifted his camera. Just as he was about to take a photograph, however, his dog Bruce spied the monster and immediately ran towards it, barking loudly. Startled, the monster disappeared beneath the water almost at once, but at that same instant Trimble succeeded in snapping a single photo, although he had no idea whether he had actually captured the beast’s image. When he and Bruce arrived back home and he told his housekeeper, a local woman called Mrs Doris Dougal, what had happened, she confirmed that he had seen the loch’s legendary ‘serpent’, and suggested that he report his sighting.

With my copy of The Monster Trap (and an interested Velociraptor looking on...) (Dr Karl Shuker)

That same day, Trimble took his camera’s film to the local chemist shop for developing, and when he collected his photos two days later he was delighted to discover that although the picture snapped by him at the loch was slightly blurred, it did indeed depict the monster’s head and neck above the water surface. Consequently, that afternoon he penned an account of his sighting for London’s Times newspaper, enclosed with it a copy of his photograph, and posted it a few hours later. From then on, Trimble visited the loch daily, in the hope of seeing and photographing the monster again, but leaving Bruce at home to ensure that he didn’t cause any disturbance this time if the monster should reappear.

Unbeknownst to Trimble, however, on 1 May, while he was once again at the loch, Bruce managed to sneak out, and when Trimble returned home later that day he was met by Mrs Dougal with the disturbing news that Bruce was missing. The two of them spent some time searching for the dog locally, but to no avail – until Trimble saw a man approaching from the direction of the loch. The man was Trimble’s nearest neighbour, the local doctor Robert McArdish, who told Trimble that he had spied Bruce swimming in the loch – but just as the doctor had been about to call out to him, he had seen a flurry in the water, as if something else was also there, and then the dog disappeared, after which the waves settled again, but with no sign of Bruce.

Enraged by the apparent killing of his dog by the monster, the following day Trimble set about building an extraordinary ‘monster trap’, consisting of 50 fathoms of rope attached to an enormous sharpened spike of steel that had been shaped into a massive hook. Trimble baited this hook with a large piece of freshly-purchased horsemeat, and after rowing into the middle of the loch in his dinghy he lowered the hook into the water, attached a marker buoy to the end of the rope, and dropped it overboard. Then he rowed back to shore, and returned home.

The next morning Trimble went out to inspect the trap, but it had not been touched, so he repositioned it elsewhere in the loch, and came back home. This procedure was repeated up until the evening of 4 May, when he informed Mrs Dougal that he was going out to the loch again, even though it was almost dark. Just on 9.30 pm, after looking outside to see whether he was returning as he was late, Mrs Dougal suddenly heard a single loud, terrified scream, from the direction of the loch. Racing outside to the gardener’s cottage close by, she hammered on his door, explained what had happened, and the two of them ran fearfully to the loch. There, in some reeds at the lochside, was the half-submerged body of Trimble, and as they looked down at it, they saw to their horror that his chest had been pierced by the giant hook, which was still attached to the rope. And as they stood there, they heard something:

"…something that turned their blood to ice – and haunted them for the rest of their days.

"It was a sound which came from the loch. The sound of something large that splashed as it swam away from the shore... "

And with that dramatic little flourish, there endeth Haining’s tale of the Loch Watten monster (let’s call it Wattie, for short).


WHITHER WATTIE?

Needless to say, one would imagine that such an episode, far more sensational than anything that even Nessie can lay claim to, would have subsequently featured in every major (and minor!) cryptozoology publication as a matter of course, as famous – or infamous – as the story of the Surgeon’s Photograph and other endlessly rehashed and recycled cryptozoological histories. Yet nothing could be further from the truth.

Indeed, I have yet to discover a single mention of the Wattie history anywhere – I know of no book, periodical paper, magazine article, newspaper report, or website that contains even the briefest reference to it. Moreover, the only acknowledged claim to fame of Loch Watten, other than having been formally designated as an SAC (Special Area of Conservation), is that it is a good body of water for fly-fishing for brown trout. In stark contrast, any celebrity status as a monster-haunted lake is conspicuous only by its absence. So how can such anomalies be explained?

Let’s look at some background information, beginning with a few additional details supplied by Haining himself. In his book’s introduction, he stated that when selecting stories to be covered by him in it, he didn’t want to repeat ones that lots of other writers had already utilised. Instead, he decided:

"I would use stories that had particularly fascinated me in which I had done considerable research, if not actually visited the places in question. Consequently, I feel that it is now time to give this whole perplexing matter a long-overdue public airing."

Furthermore, in the opening to the ‘Monster Trap’ chapter itself, he stated that although Nessie was certainly the most famous Scottish monster, she was not the only one, noting that there were stories of water horses and serpents from many other Highland lochs, and then commenting:

"One particular monster story has always fascinated me, but amid all the fuss about ‘Nessie’ it rarely gets mentioned."

For ‘rarely’, substitute ‘never’!

Yet according to Haining’s book, local people claim that there have been stories of a monster, which they term ‘the serpent’, in Loch Watten for many years, but no documentary records of actual sightings prior to Trimble’s ultimately fatal incident. Is this true? Never having visited the loch myself, which is only 14 miles from John O’Groats in the far northeast of Scotland, I have no idea whether there is any verbal tradition of a monster here (though I have yet to communicate with anyone versed in Scottish mythology or cryptozoology who has ever heard of such tales). However, I would have expected at least some documentation of it, were such a tradition to exist. After all, as Haining correctly pointed out, there are accounts of monsters for a number of other lochs – including Ness, Morar, Oich, Lochy, Shiel, Arkaig, Lomond, Quoich, and Treig (click here to check out my ShukerNature blog article chronicling these lesser Nessies).

Loch Watten (Wikipedia)

Another anomaly concerns Loch Watten itself. Despite being the second largest of Caithness’s lochs, it is under three miles (4.65 km) long, less than a mile (1.6 km) across at its widest point, and boasts an average depth of only 10-12 ft (2.5-3.0 m) – a very far cry from the immeasurably greater size of Loch Ness, Loch Morar, and other notable bodies of Scottish freshwater associated with monster traditions. If the kind of huge reptilian monster (at least 20 ft wide – so how long was it?!) allegedly encountered by Trimble were truly real, it would surely require a much more substantial aquatic domain than Watten.

Nor do these inconsistencies constitute the full extent of my concern for the validity of Wattie as a bona fide cryptid. When I first attempted to research this subject, back in the early 1990s, I wrote on two separate occasions to Haining, having obtained his correct address, but I never received a reply to my requests for information, and as he died in 2007 this most direct line of investigation is no longer an option. In addition, I met with a succession of dead-ends when attempting to uncover any Trimble-related leads (not even trawling through death registers and army records online elicited any evidence for his supposed former existence). I also searched meticulously through the relevant period of back issues for The Times, but did not find any published letter or photo by Trimble.

Peter Haining (picture source unknown to me)

In short, the only known source of information (to me, at least) concerning Wattie is Haining’s book, and, therefore, Haining himself – which to my mind is the most disturbing aspect of all concerning this mystifying tale. The reason why I say this is that some of Haining’s other publications have already attracted considerable controversy in relation to the validity – or otherwise – of their claims.


SPRING-HEELED JACK, SWEENEY TODD, AND WOOLPIT’S GREEN CHILDREN – THREE REASONS FOR WATTIE WORRIES

For example: in a detailed paper on Spring Heeled Jack (Fortean Studies, vol. 3, 1996), Mike Dash revealed that he was unable to obtain independent corroboration of various accounts and details that had been published by Haining in his book on this subject (The Legend and Bizarre Crimes of Spring Heeled Jack, 1977). And even an engraving claimed by Haining to show the recovery from a marsh of one of Jack’s victims – a victim, incidentally, undocumented by anyone else – in reality showed no such thing.



Moreover, when Mike Dash wrote to him asking for sources, Haining replied that he was unable to supply any because all of his research material had been loaned to a film scriptwriter who had subsequently vanished. Not surprisingly, perhaps, in his paper’s annotated bibliography, Mike made the following comments regarding Haining’s book:

"The only full-length work on the subject is a curious hodge-podge of the accurate, the overtly-dramatised and the invented...it repeats many existing errors, creates new ones, and is so single-mindedly determined to fit evidence to the theory that Jack was the Marquis of Waterford that it does not flinch from introducing made-up evidence to support this case."

Equally controversial are Haining’s books on Sweeney Todd, Fleet Street’s homicidal hair-snipper. Although Todd is widely assumed to be an entirely fictitious character spawned by the Penny Dreadfuls of Victorian times, Haining published two book-length treatments, respectively entitled The Mystery and Horrible Murders of Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1979) and Sweeney Todd: The Real Story of the Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1993), in which he alleged that such a person had actually existed.



However, this claim has attracted much criticism, for a variety of reasons, including those summarised succinctly in Wikipedia’s entry for Haining [as most recently accessed by me today, 11 June 2012]:

"In two controversial books, Haining argued that Sweeney Todd was a real historical figure who committed his crimes around 1800, was tried in December 1801, and was hanged in January 1802. However, other researchers who have tried to verify his citations find nothing in these sources to back Haining's claims. A check of the website ‘Old Bailey’ for "Associated Records 1674-1834" for an alleged trial in December 1801 and hanging of Sweeney Todd for January 1802 show no reference; in fact the only murder trial for this period is that of a Governor/Lt Col. Joseph Wall who was hanged 28 January 1802 for killing a Benjamin Armstrong 10 July 1782 in "Goree" Africa and the discharge of a Humphrey White in January 1802."

In short, there are notable precedents when faced with questioning the reliability of claims made by Haining in the absence of any independent sources of evidence to examine. Even in another chapter of The Monster Trap, documenting the Green Children, it is curious to note that the famous, historically-recorded incident of the Woolpit Green Children receives no mention whatsoever. Instead, Haining devotes the entire chapter to an exceptionally similar version allegedly occurring several centuries later in Spain – a version subsequently revealed by other researchers to be a complete fabrication, by person(s) unknown, directly inspired by the Woolpit episode.

And I hardly need point out that Haining’s description of Trimble’s supposed photo – slightly blurred but showing a head and neck – is more than a little reminiscent of the Surgeon’s Photograph of Nessie. Also worth remembering is that aside from his non-fiction books, Haining was a well-respected, extremely knowledgeable anthologist of horror and mystery short stories of fiction.


WAS THERE EVER A WATTIE? OVER TO YOU!

It gives me no pleasure whatsoever in questioning the legitimacy of the Wattie affair as documented by Haining, especially as the book in which it appears is one that has been instrumental in introducing to me various other subjects that have since become significant in my own researches – and I would therefore be delighted if my concerns regarding this case could be convincingly dismissed. Yet it is clear that the omens for Wattie’s validity are not good.

Nevertheless, it would be rash to deny this tantalising tale out of hand without having first given an opportunity for it to be investigated publicly. So here, gentle readers, is where you come in. If there is indeed anyone out there with direct or indirect, integral or background information relating in any way to monsters reported from Loch Watten, and to the Trimble incident in particular, I’d love to hear from you.

Similarly, if Haining’s research files have been preserved, any details of where and whether they can be accessed would be very welcome. After all, if we are to believe his claim that all of the subjects in his book were ones in relation to which he had conducted considerable research, these archives undoubtedly offer the most likely source of primary and additional data concerning this most monstrous of Scottish crypto-mysteries.


WATTIE UPDATES

The original publication by Fortean Times in issue #253 (September 2009) of my Wattie article (forming the basis of the above account of mine), and its republication in my book Karl Shuker's Alien Zoo: From the Pages of Fortean Times (CFZ Press: Bideford, 2010), followed by my posting of this ShukerNature version on 11 June 2012, have so far triggered six notable responses, as revealed in the following series of updates.

UPDATE #1

The first of these responses was an email of 28 August 2009 that I received from Rod Williams of Talgarth, Wales:

"I am a regular reader of Fortean Times and your item on Wattie was interesting but feel that it was a concocted tale by Peter Haining.

"I have read Hugh Miller's Scenes and Legends of the North of Scotland and also Samuel Smiles’s biography of Robert Dick [Robert Dick, Baker of Thurso, Geologist and Botanist, 1878], baker, biologist (botanist mostly) and geologist. A man who walked many miles at night over large parts of Caithness.

"I cannot recollect in either book mention of Loch Watten or a/its monster. Both men were not above mentioning curious tales, particularly Miller who was well into hauntings and weird happenings; apart from being a quarryman turned geologist he seemed to thrive on such tales.

"I may have missed any reference of course but the book of Miller's can be read on line for free should you wish to check it out.

"Not sure of Dick's biography being on line but probably is.

"George Borrow's Wild Wales (circa 1854) mentions 'crocodiles' in Welsh lakes or rather stories of these mythical beasts and enquires of people on his journey whether they knew of any local legends relating to these little lakes and crocs.

"Again I don't remember any specific stories as it has been many years since reading the book. I think I need to re-read it sometime.

"Our local lake Llangorse Lake has large pike in it and one chap told me that when he was wind surfing and was stood in the lake (shallow in many places) something large brushed his leg."

Quite apart from confirming the absence of Wattie information from some literary sources new to me, Rod’s email is also of value for the interesting snippets of information concerning Wales’s mystifying water ‘crocodiles’, which I’ve read about in a number of publications and which deserve a detailed examination in their own right.

UPDATE #2

The second response was a letter penned by German cryptozoologist Ulrich Magin, which was published by FT in November 2009. In his letter, Ulrich revealed that Haining’s account of Wattie was almost identical to a tale included by French fiction writer George Langelaan in Les Faits Maudits (not Maufits – as erroneously titled in Ulrich’s letter) or ‘Cursed Facts’ - a book of forteana published in 1967, containing an eclectic mixture of retold press clippings and fictional stories. Langelaan claimed that his source for that particular tale was a Times news report from May 1932, but a search for it undertaken by Ulrich failed to unearth any such report.



UPDATE #3

The third, very significant response was a letter that I received from FT on 31 March 2010, which had been written to me on 23 March by Lance Shirley of Cornwall and was accompanied by a remarkable enclosure – a photocopy of an article that had been published in the Leicester Mercury newspaper on 28 March 1966 in what appears to have been a regular, long-running series of articles published under a ‘Stranger Than Fiction’ banner. Written by a John Macklin, the article was entitled ‘The trap he set was for a monster...but it was the colonel who died’. Reading it through, I discovered that its content and wording were so similar to Peter Haining’s chapter The Monster Trap that it seemed highly likely either that Haining had directly copied Macklin’s account or that he and Macklin were one and the same person.

Portion of the Leicester Mercury story by John Macklin (Leicester Mercury)

As I learnt from Mike Dash, Haining is known to have written under various pen-names as well as his own, so could John Macklin be yet another one? After receiving Lance’s letter and enclosure, I googled John Macklin on the internet, and discovered that just like Haining, he is/was a prolific author, and, again just like Haining, has authored many popular-format compilation books of supposedly true mysteries. Just another coincidence?

In his letter to me, Lance mentioned that he and his family had lived in Caithness, near to Loch Watten, from 1966 to 1976, during his childhood. While still living there in the early 1970s, he had read the Leicester Mercury article, which had belonged to his mother (it had been forwarded to her for its interest value from her father, who lived in Loughborough and always bought this newspaper), and was excited to think that such a creature may live so close to them. Whenever they passed the loch in the car, they always scanned the surface, just in case they could catch sight of the monster. Upon reading my FT Wattie article in September 2009, Lance realised that Haining’s account matched what he could still recall from that newspaper cutting from long ago. Moreover, while subsequently clearing out the loft in the family home, he was delighted to discover it, yellowed with age but still intact, stored inside a biscuit tin crammed with other cuttings (including another John Macklin ‘Stranger Than Fiction’ article from the Leicester Mercury, this time dating from 1969 and documenting a ghostly occurrence in Hoy Harbour).

As Lance points out, what is so interesting is that the Leicester Mercury article predates not only Haining’s book (by 10 years) but also that of George Langelaan (by a year). Consequently, it now seems that Langelaan did not originate this tale after all. Regardless of who did do so, however, no independent, substantiating evidence for its veracity or the existence in Loch Watten of a mysterious creature has ever come forward. Consequently, in my opinion the most reasonable conclusion remains that Wattie is a complete invention.

Irrespective of this, after receiving Lance’s letter I lost no time in pursuing the Macklin line of investigation further. My ultimate goal was the procurement of some current contact details if he is still alive (in which case, of course, he and Haining could not be the same person!); or, if he is dead, uncovering as much biographical information concerning him as possible, in the hope of determining conclusively whether or not John Macklin was indeed merely another pen-name of Peter Haining.

In April 2010, I emailed an enquiry to Macklin regarding Wattie via Sterling, the American publisher of the most recent Macklin book that I have yet been able to trace (a children’s book of true ghost stories, published by Sterling in 2006). So far, however, I have yet to receive any response from him.

Moreover, to me it seemed undeniably thought-provoking that whereas Macklin and Haining are/were both extremely prolific authors who wrote on extremely similar subjects, none of Macklin’s works are cited in the bibliographies of any of Haining’s books accessed by me (or vice-versa). Equally, I have been unable to trace any indication that Macklin has published any books or articles in the years following Haining’s death. And whereas photos of Haining are readily obtainable by googling his name, Google is currently (as of May 2010) unable to locate a single photograph of Macklin. Also, whereas Haining has a detailed entry in Wikipedia, Macklin (despite being a comparably prolific – and hence successful - author) has no entry whatsoever.

So were Haining and Macklin the same person, with Wattie merely the figment of an inordinately prolific writer’s fertile imagination? I was soon to discover the answer, which provided yet another unexpected surprise.

Jonathan Burton's wonderfully atmospheric painting from my Fortean Times Wattie article of September 2009 (Fortean Times/Jonathan Burton)

UPDATE #4

On 8 May 2010, I received a fourth response to my enquiry for Wattie information. This time it was a highly illuminating email from none other than FT’s own Paul Sieveking, who informed me that John Macklin was indeed a pseudonym – but not of Peter Haining! Instead, it was one of many pen-names used by another author of popular-format writings on mysteries – Tony James. The plot thickens! So did Tony James originate the storyline for the Wattie tale, or is there an even earlier version out there somewhere that he had read? If anyone has current contact information for James, I’d like to hear from you!

UPDATE #5

On 12 June 2012, I received an extremely interesting email from fellow FT columnist Theo Paijmans, author of the regular 'Blast from The Past' column, who provided me with the following additional information concerning the Macklin article on Wattie:

"I enjoyed your writing on the monster of Lake Watten.

"Like yourself I researched the origins of this story. The exact same article, illustration included, of the Leicester Mercury, 28 March 1966, was published elsewhere - and six months earlier. I found it in The Gleaner, a newspaper of Kingston, Jamaica, dated 5 September 1965.

"The earliest inception of the tale in print is now September, 1965, but an even earlier date of publication may yet be found. It is quite possible that Macklin's account was published in even more newspapers, abroad and in England.

"The Gleaner published columns not only by John Macklin, but also by Frank Edwards. I have another column by Macklin in The Gleaner, dated 13 February 1966 (The Boy Who Walked Through Walls!).

"I remember that Haining also received criticism for his inaccuracies in the field of horror and supernatural fiction."

So, just as Theo says, this story may go back even further in time. If anyone has seen an earlier version of it in print, I'd be delighted to hear from you!

UPDATE #6

On 3 August 2012, Sheldon Inkol kindly emailed me a pdf of an article that appeared in the September 1969 issue of Beyond, a monthly American magazine also sold in Britain packed with articles on all aspects of unsolved mysteries, the paranormal, UFOs, cryptozoology, and other controversial phenomena. One of the articles in this particular issue was entitled 'Scottish Monster Slays His Pursuer', documented the now-familiar Wattie story (but was illustrated with photographs of Loch Ness!), and was written by someone named Neil McTavish. Reading it through, however, I soon discovered that its wording was identical throughout to the article by John Macklin (aka Tony James) in the Leicester Mercury! Consequently, there seems little doubt that Neil McTavish is yet another pseudonym of Tony James, so the Beyond article - though its existence is interesting - provides no reason that I can see for believing that the Wattie case had any basis in fact.

Front cover of the issue of Beyond containing Neil McTavish's article re Wattie (Sheldon Inkol)

Incidentally, one of the two Loch Ness photos included in this Beyond article is of a mysterious blob in the loch that was allegedly seen and photographed by British explorer Sir Edward Mountain "as it cruised at great speed through the calm waters of the lake", according to the photo's caption. I am not familiar with this photo, as it looks different from the 1934 LNM photo snapped by him, so if anyone has information regarding it, again I'd welcome details.

Alleged photograph of the Loch Ness monster as included and captioned within Neil McTavish's Wattie article in Beyond, September 1969 (Sir Edward Mountain)

Meanwhile, my sincere thanks go to Sheldon Inkol, Ulrich Magin, Theo Paijmans, Lance Shirley, Paul Sieveking, and Paul Williams for shining some important light upon this increasingly complicated mystery, and I am intrigued to see if any new developments will occur in the future. After all, as a certain cult television series used to proclaim, the truth is out there – it’s finding it that’s the problem!


REFERENCES
DASH, Mike (2010). Pers. comms, 1 & 2 April.
HAINING, Peter (1976). The Monster Trap and Other True Mysteries. Armada (London).
INKOL, Sheldon (2012). Pers. comm., 3 August.
LANGELAAN, George (1967). Les Faits Maudits. Encyclopédie Planète (Paris).
MACKLIN, John (1966). The trap he set was for a monster...but it was the colonel who died. Leicester Mercury, 28 March, p. 7.
MAGIN, Ulrich (2009). Wattie. Fortean Times, no. 255 (November): 69.
McTAVISH, Neil (1969). Scottish monster slays his pursuer. Beyond, vol. 2, no. 13 (September): 47-49.
PAIJMANS, Theo (2012). Pers. comm., 12 June.
SHIRLEY, Lance (2010). Pers. comms, 23 March & 2 April.
SHUKER, Karl P.N. (2009). In search of the missing monster. Fortean Times, no. 253 (September): 52-55.
SIEVEKING, Paul (2010). Pers. comm., 8 May.
WILLIAMS, Rod (2009). Pers. comm., 28 August.


This ShukerNature blog post is extracted and updated from my book Karl Shuker's Alien Zoo: From the Pages of Fortean Times (CFZ Press: Bideford, 2010)

ENCANTADO - SINISTER WERE-DOLPHINS OF THE AMAZON

Encantado in mid-transformation (Tim Morris)

It may be the 21st Century – an ultra-technological age of cyberspace, DNA analyses, and subatomic particle physics - but the old traditions have far from vanished. In countless cultures worldwide, there still exists a tenacious, deep-rooted belief in therianthropy – the supposed ability of certain humans to transform themselves into animals. Werewolves are perhaps the most famous example, but many others are on record, including were-leopards, were-crocodiles, were-pigs, were-tigers, and were-hyaenas, to name but a few. One of the most extraordinary, however, are the encantado – the ‘enchanted ones’ – whose reality is still fervently asserted in many parts of South America, including Peru, Venezuela, and, especially, Brazil.

Indeed, so potent is the fear of these supernatural shape-shifters in certain Brazilian regions that riverside inhabitants refuse to walk anywhere near the Amazon or its tributaries at certain times of the evening for fear of encountering them. But even this does not guarantee safety, because the encantado are very attracted to human festivals, carnivals, outdoor parties, and other sources of music and dance. They are also very attracted to pretty young human women, and it is said that encantado in human guise will often attempt to infiltrate such gatherings to dance and then steal away into the night with the prettiest women, often never to be seen again – or at least never seen again in a sane state, or even alive...

But what, precisely, are the encantado? Drawing together the many diverse strands of traditional Brazilian encantado legend and lore, here is my recreation of a typical encounter with these sinister beings, in which you will discover their astonishing secret.



The evening was warm and heady with the scent of night-blooming jungle flowers, the sounds of laughter and music drifted far upon the sultry breeze, and in every direction was a dazzling riot of colour, from the vivid costumes of the dancers to the rainbow-hued extravaganza of the gaudy decorations festooning the tree-lined streets and town square. It was Carnival in this little Brazilian town that looked out upon the banks of the mighty Amazon River, but in spite of the all-encompassing gaiety and fervour, Angel saw only Maria, the beautiful young woman to whom he was betrothed, and who would soon become his bride.

Whereas the others were garbed in shades of every conceivable hue, like a veritable flock of parakeets as they whirled and dipped and twirled to the lively rhythms of the dance, Maria, dressed entirely in white, resembled a divine bloom of Heaven. Or at least she did in Angel’s eyes – but then again, he was very much in love with her, and had been ever since they had first met a few months earlier, when she had arrived in his town.

Maria had been part of a fact-finding mission, sent here from the American university where she had recently graduated, but what she had found was Angel – and in no time at all had realised that she had no wish to return to America. All that she wanted now was here, because all that she wanted now was Angel. Within just a couple of weeks they had become engaged, and, tonight, only two more weeks separated them from their wedding.

All of this and more was filling Angel’s mind, so much so that he was momentarily distracted, and when he looked back at Maria he was startled to see that she was no longer with the other young women but was dancing to one side with a stranger – a man who looked of similar age to Angel and, like Maria, was dressed entirely in white. However, he was also wearing an extremely large wide-brimmed hat, which not only covered the whole of his head but even curved over his brow, right down to the level of his eyes. Where had this stranger come from?

Burning waves of jealousy rolled through Angel’s soul as he stood up, but so too did a disconcerting chill of fear that he couldn’t explain, yet which clutched his heart in a grip of icy dread. He moved towards the dancing couple, and as he neared them, the stranger abruptly turned, as if he had sensed Angel’s approach even without seeing him. With fury in his eyes, Angel met those of the stranger, and was shocked to see that they glowed with a vivid emerald hue, as green as the jungle-reflecting waters of the Amazon that flowed beside the town’s outskirts.

Suddenly, Angel’s mind started to swim, drifting and spinning like a shed leaf caught in the current of a fast-flowing stream. Colours and sounds danced before him, dazzling his eyes and reverberating in his ears until he had to lean against one of the carnival stalls to steady himself. After a while, his senses cleared again, and he looked around for Maria, but she was nowhere to be seen – and nor was the stranger...though this did not worry Angel, because he no longer had any recollection of him.

The Amazon River (Wikipedia)

The path leading down to the river, fringed with trees and bushes, was cool and still, very different indeed from the heat and the noise of Carnival that they had left behind. Maria walked beside the stranger, and although no words passed between them it felt to her as if she were in intimate communication with him, and she felt no alarm nor even any surprise that she had willingly left behind the festival, and her fiancé, to remain in the company of a man she had only met a short time before.

Soon they reached the Amazon’s edge, and although it was fairly early in the evening, the sun was beginning to set, casting fiery rays down upon the water until it gleamed like a river of burnished, liquid gold instead. Standing together at the waterside, the stranger told Maria that he came from a city further along the river, and would very much like to show it to her. Would she come with him and visit it? His glowing green eyes stared earnestly into hers as he asked her, and, without a moment’s hesitation, Maria nodded her agreement. But how were they to reach his city?

The stranger turned away, and, to Maria’s surprise, uttered a very rapid, high-pitched series of clicking sounds. Seeing Maria’s puzzled expression, the stranger smiled, and told her that he was calling for his brother, who would transport her with him to his city. Moments later, a very large pink shadow appeared beneath the river’s water surface and moved swiftly towards them. When it reached the bank where they were standing, the shadow ascended until a long slender head with smiling tooth-brimming jaws broke through the surface. It was a boto, one of the famous pink river dolphins that inhabit the Amazon river, but this particular individual seemed much larger than any that she had previously seen, and its pink colouration was much more intense, glowing with an eerie luminescence.

Perplexed, Maria turned to the stranger to ask him how a boto could possibly be his brother, but before she was able to do so, the stranger asked her if she had ever ridden a dolphin. Then, as if no longer in control of her own body, Maria found herself stepping down onto the boto’s back and sitting astride it, leaning forward with her arms wrapped around its neck. But how was the stranger going to accompany her, she wondered – there was certainly no room for two people astride the boto, and there didn’t seem to be any others close by.

A boto (José Hilton)

Maria looked back, about to ask him, and was shocked to see that although he was still standing at the river’s edge, the stranger was now almost completely naked. His white suit and shoes lay on the ground; all that he was still wearing was his large hat. And as she watched, he raised his hand and slowly lifted it off his head – causing Maria to cry out. The top of his head was completely bare, with a large hole visible at its centre, and instead of being flat, his brow curved forward. Unable to comprehend what she was seeing, Maria turned away, and her gaze fell upon the head of the boto, whereupon she realised with astonishment that the respiratory blow-hole on top of its head and its forward-curving brow perfectly mirrored what she had just seen with the stranger!

She looked back again at once, and this time she was too terrified even to breathe, let alone cry out. There, before her, the stranger was transforming, his shape shifting and distorting as his face lengthened and his mouth became a pair of slender jaws filled with small sharp teeth, his arms shortened and widened until they became flippers, and his legs united into a single form and grew a pair of large horizontal flukes where his feet had once been. In just a few moments, the handsome stranger who had danced with her at the carnival had metamorphosed into a boto!



As soon as the transformation was complete, the boto who had once been a man, and again seemed much bigger and brighter than normal botos, dived into the water and swam off down the river, pursued closely by the boto carrying Maria. Both dolphins stayed below the river’s surface, but, astonishingly, Maria found that she could breathe underwater as easily as she could above it, and realised that the boto’s strange glow was now enveloping her too. Still very frightened and yet oddly exhilarated as well, she closed her eyes, and held on tightly to the neck of her boto steed.

In what seemed just a few moments, the journey was over. Realising that the boto was no longer swimming, Maria cautiously opened her eyes, and discovered that she was being carried on the back of a tall, muscular man who closely resembled the stranger. And there too was the stranger himself, standing beside them in human form once more and smiling broadly.

The man carrying Maria kneeled for her to step down, and as she did so the stranger introduced him as his brother and told her that this was their homeland – the Encante. Looking around, Maria discovered that she was in a land – indeed, a world – totally unknown to her, and completely unlike anything she had ever even imagined before, let alone seen.



It was astoundingly beautiful – paradisiacal, in fact. They appeared to be standing on the edge of a beach, but every grain of sand was a fleck of pure gold and was liberally sprinkled with minuscule pearls that gleamed in opalescent splendour like a cascade of milky teardrops wept by the stars. Except that there were no stars. Even though it had been evening when they had left Angel’s town, and the journey from there to here had taken but moments (or so it had seemed to Maria), it was now mid-day, and the glorious sun filled the sky.

Directly before them, the turquoise waters of some great sea gently lapped and rippled. And all around, the very air itself, which was denser than normal air but wholly breathable, sparkled and shifted in polychromatic glory, like an ever-changing kaleidoscope, as if this entire world were encased within a stained glass window. Even the breeze had its own specific hue – a delicate cerulean that wafted around Maria like a soft blue mist, embracing and caressing her with what seemed like almost passionate, manifest love.

Painting by Suresh

They walked across the beach, Maria flanked by the two brothers, until they reached a beautiful garden. Flowers of every conceivable form and colour, yet entirely without fragrance, blossomed and flourished all around, some individually, others on profuse florescent bushes – or at least they seemed to be flowers, until Maria looked closer. Only then did she discover to her surprise that those on the bushes were actually tiny polypi, and that the bushes were massive outgrowths of coral, whereas the single many-petalled flowers were multi-tentacled sea anemones.

Much taller, extensively-branched colonies of arborescent coral also existed here, recalling the forest trees in Maria’s own world but far more flamboyant than any there. And flitting among their branches were flocks of small, brightly-plumaged birds, or so Maria assumed, until one hovered just inches away from her face – whereupon she realised that it was not a bird but a fish, with large diaphanous wing-like fins, and exquisite jewel-encrusted scales in place of plumes and feathers.

Looking beyond this subaqueous Eden, Maria spied a spectacular city of magnificent buildings – sumptuous palaces with lustrous cupolae of translucent amber and minarets of glittering chalcedony, ornate temples with endless colonnades of violet porphyry and silent altars of cool obsidian, vast amphitheatres that spread outward without limit into the far distance, and slender towers whose tall spiralled turrets of sparkling sea-crystal effortlessly ensnared the warm golden sunlight as they stretched skyward like radiant fingers of fire.



Walking along a pellucid pavement composed entirely of iridescent nacre, Maria and the brothers entered a huge hall, lined on either side by human statues carved from scarlet coral, ivory whale tusks, or rose-tinged quartz; but as they walked by, each statue turned and bowed before them. And the air was suffused with ethereal music played by invisible musicians upon unseen instruments.

Here they encountered other inhabitants of this wondrous city, most of whom were men, whose eyes all exhibited the same emerald glow as the stranger’s and his brother’s. They all smiled and some of them conversed with the brothers, in a language alien to Maria’s ears, but none attempted to speak to Maria. Occasionally, they saw women too, but these were always at a distance, and whereas the men strode proudly and assertively, speaking in confident tones, the women all seemed cowed and huddled, silently watching Maria as she and the brothers passed by but never approaching them.

Suddenly, for the first time since she had arrived in this entrancing land, Maria felt frightened. Inside her head, her analytical Western mind began to reject all that she was seeing and hearing. This cannot be real, none of this can be real. Was she hallucinating, or was everything just a mirage? And why were the women here so passive, so fearful?

As if he had sensed her misgivings, the stranger turned to face her, and before she was even aware of his intent, he grasped her shoulders and leaned forward to kiss her. Startled by his presumptuous action, and also by the uncharacteristically rough way in which he had taken hold of her, Maria pulled away from him, her eyes registering alarm. No longer smiling, the stranger was clearly angered by her rebuttal, and curtly informed her that she would not refuse him when next they met. Before she had chance to reply, however, the stranger’s eyes gazed unblinkingly into hers, their intense green glow rendering her speechless and unable to turn away, or even think cogently.

Maria’s mind began to loosen and spin until she felt faint, and just before everything grew dark she fell to the ground, her mind sinking into a welcoming oblivion. When she opened her eyes again, she was alone, and was shocked to find herself lying on the bank of the Amazon at the very same place where she had been before climbing onto the back of the stranger’s boto-guised brother. The Encante, with all of its incredible wonders, was gone, and it was still evening.

Painting by John Mason

Maria ran back into the town, and was even more shocked to discover that only a few minutes had passed since she had left Carnival in the stranger’s company! There was Angel, who looked relieved to see her, and she ran over to him at once, anxious to feel his strong arms embracing her. Then, almost simultaneously, her eyes and those of Angel glanced down onto her left wrist, and widened in surprise. There, coiled tightly around it, was a glistening black bracelet, intricately fashioned in a series of spiral tapering loops. At the bracelet’s widest end, however, was a silver circle, broad and flat, which pressed directly against her wrist, and was affixed so tightly to it that it was almost as if this circle had become one with her skin.

Despite his surprise at seeing it there, Angel felt oddly reluctant to enquire where it had come from, and for her part Maria felt reluctant even to refer to it, let alone explain it. Instead, they made their way to the large house that was home to Angel and his family, and where Maria was also living as their guest until her marriage to Angel in a fortnight’s time. At her bedroom door, Angel kissed Maria goodnight before departing to his own room, but strange dreams disturbed his sleep that night, until he was glad when morning came to chase them away.

As for Maria, she slept not at all. Instead, whenever she closed her eyes they were instantly filled with shimmering visions of the Encante, and, most of all, with spellbinding images of the stranger, which pervaded her very soul with dread but also delight until she felt chilled and feverish in equal measure. Nor did the daytime bring any respite. She found herself unable to concentrate upon anything other than thoughts of the stranger and of returning to him. Every day, her passion for him grew stronger, inflaming her heart and mind, and yet, inexplicably, she grew ever paler and weaker outwardly, as if her very life-force were being steadily drained from her.

Angel was only too aware of this disturbing, progressive change in his beloved Maria, but seemed powerless to do anything about it. Yet soon it would be their wedding day, and as it drew nearer, so did his concern for his fiancée’s state grow ever stronger.

Encantado (André Luis)

One night, as if in a dream, Maria rose from her bed, left the house, and walked down the tree-lined path leading out of the town towards the river. When she reached the bank, there, waiting, was a boto, larger than others, and glowing like a luminescent cerise shadow upon the water surface. Without a word, she sat astride its broad back, and moments later they were gone, travelling swiftly through the night to the enchanted underwater city of the stranger. And once there, amid the myriad of blossoming polypi, animate statues, invisible musicians, and rainbow-drenched temples, with the stranger beside her, Maria felt renewed and reborn. Surely, this is where she belonged, here with him, not with Angel in that dreary little town far away?

And yet, somehow, even the Encante’s magic now seemed wanting. Was it just her imagination, or did this extraordinary land’s multicoloured flowers now sting her fingers when she stroked them, and did its statues now mock her movements as she passed by them, and did its sourceless music now sound discordant and disquieting? Even the stranger now appeared distant, scarcely looking at her as they walked together. And yet she needed his smile so much – his smile, and more too. So this time, when he sought to kiss her, she did not resist, but then, when he sought more than a kiss, she found herself, in spite of her desire, pulling away once more. For again, deep inside her head was the warning voice of her Western, scientific mind. This cannot be, it is Angel whom you love, not this dolphin man!

This time, the stranger was angrier than before at her rejection of his advance. She would not deny him a third time, he told her - when they next met, he would be waiting with her wedding dress, because she would become his bride!

Hearing those words, spoken by the stranger with cold authority and absolute certainty in his voice, Maria fainted away, but when she awoke, she was back on the river’s edge, and it was still night-time. Quickly, she made her way back home, and crept stealthily inside, but Angel heard her enter her room and softly close the door behind her, because he had not been asleep. Instead, he had silently followed her down to the river, had seen her step astride the glowing boto, and had watched them depart. Waiting, concealed amid the riverside foliage and praying that they would return, when they did so he had then witnessed with astonished, horrified eyes how the boto had transformed into a man who placed an unconscious Maria onto the riverbank before changing back into a boto and swimming away. Almost at once, Maria had stood up and, again as if still asleep, had walked back into the town, with Angel entering their home just ahead of her.

Boto (Kevin Schafer)

Now, at last, he knew what was wrong with Maria. His mind had cleared, he remembered everything – how Maria on Carnival night had danced with a stranger and had disappeared with him. And the man who had transformed from and back into a boto tonight was that same stranger. He was an encantado – a were-dolphin!

According to the ancient lore of Angel’s people, these dark entities lived in a magical city beneath the river surface and used their considerable powers of hypnosis to lure human women there to become their brides. Once they had done so, however, the women were subjected to every humiliation - subverted into slaves and whores for the cruel use and perverted delight of the evil merciless encantado. And all the alluring riches that they had bestowed upon their hapless brides were soon revealed to be nothing more than trash and river filth. Occasionally, if a woman were brave enough, she would try to escape the encantado’s clutches, but few ever succeeded – in most cases, these pitiful wretches were found dead in the river, or, if still alive, had been sent irrevocably insane.

It was now the day before her marriage to Angel, but Maria had no thought or interest for anything, and had become so emaciated that Angel was beside himself with worry. How could he counter the encantado’s malevolent enchantment that had totally bewitched her? In desperation, Angel sought the advice of an old wild-eyed woman who lived in a shack at the jungle’s perimeter. She was feared by many as a witch, but as a child Angel had sometimes visited her, and she had always been kind to him. He knew that she was extremely knowledgeable in the arcane arts, so perhaps she would be able to help him.

After grimly listening to his story, the old woman swiftly concocted a special powder prepared from manioc flour and dried, crushed chilli peppers. She then instructed Angel that when Maria was next drawn to the river by the encantado’s mesmeric power, he must secretly follow her as before, but when the encantado appeared, he must throw the powder over it. This would break the spell that it had cast upon Maria, freeing her from its control, and it would then be driven away for good.

That night, Angel lay awake, waiting for Maria to rise and leave the house, and when she did he followed silently behind her, careful not to alert her to his presence. When they reached the river’s edge, the boto was already there, but this time, instead of remaining at the surface for her to step astride its back, it rose up, and transformed into the human stranger that Angel had seen with Maria on that fateful Carnival night. And in his hands, he held a marvellously beautiful gown, woven from the finest silk, decorated extravagantly with varicoloured feathers, and liberally spangled with countless glittering jewels. The stranger - the encantado - called out to Maria, then held the gown before her, and, to Angel’s horror, proclaimed triumphantly that this was to be her wedding dress!

Maria moved forward, totally mesmerised by the encantado and the glorious gown, but so too did Angel – leaping out from his hiding place amid the foliage. And as he did so, he hurled two handfuls of fine powder directly at the encantado – one into its face, the other over its body. Taken completely by surprise, the encantado let forth a hideous shriek and staggered backwards, dropping the gown onto the ground as it clawed frantically at its eyes, which were burning like fire from the powder within them. So too was its skin, as if a thousand flames were flickering upon it. Abruptly it began to transform, back from a man into a boto, then dived into the water, where it swiftly submerged and swam away, leaving behind only a faint trail of phosphorescence upon the river surface.

Encantado Boto (AmbrMerlinus)

Angel raced over to Maria, and was about to scoop her off the ground when his eyes spotted the mysterious black bracelet around her wrist – except that it was no longer a bracelet. With the encantado’s magic dispelled, its true form was visible – that of a thick, slimy, black leech! And the broad, flat circle of silver pressed tightly against Maria’s wrist was its sucker. Day after day, it had been draining her of blood and of life, which is why she had become ever paler and weaker, thereby facilitating the encantado’s enchantment. Looking around, Angel saw a sharp twig on a nearby tree, snapped it off, and speared the vile creature with it, causing the leech to release its sucker from Maria’s wrist.

As he hurled the twig-impaled leech into the river, Angel looked down where Maria was still lying, and there beside her was a mass of stinking leaves, rotting feathers, and a pile of tiny pebbles covered in black slime. For a second or two, Angel was puzzled as to the origin of this revolting aggregation, then suddenly he realised – the encantado’s illusions were no more, so this was the wedding dress that it had brought for Maria, which was now shown to be as odious and deceptive as the encantado itself!

Stepping around it, Angel gently picked up Maria, who opened her eyes and smiled warmly at him before they kissed. Then he carried her away from the river, and back to the little town where, later that same morning, she would become his bride.

The standard work on the boto and encantado mythology

GOOSEBERRY WIFE - OR CATERPILLAR COLLECTIVE?

A beautiful colour plate from 1884 depicting a varied selection of caterpillars - hairy and otherwise!

The quaintly-named gooseberry wife is a giant hairy caterpillar said to lurk amid gooseberry bushes on the Isle of Wight (situated off Hampshire, southern England), lying in wait to devour unruly children hoping to steal the berries. Having said that, you will no doubt be relieved to learn that this daunting creature is no more real than any other imaginary bugbear invented by exasperated parents to deter their errant offspring from doing what they shouldn’t.

Gooseberries

Nevertheless, I confess to being intrigued as to how such a distinctive bugbear, seemingly confined entirely to the folklore of the Isle of Wight, originated. So if there are any IOW inhabitants who could shed any light on this mystery for me, please let me know – especially as what seems to have been a smaller but real-life version was actually spied elsewhere in southeastern England as recently as the mid-1970s.

If it were real, could the gooseberry wife look something like this?

In a Fortean Times letter (FT #225, 2007), Neil Powney recalled that his girlfriend Lyn, when aged 7-8 and living in the Corringham area of Essex three decades ago, was once startled to see a huge furry caterpillar crawling up a lavender tree less than 5 ft away from her in her parents’ back garden. She estimates that it was about 1 ft long, as thick as a rolling pin, and covered in 4-in-long hairs, dark brown-green in colour. As she watched, this extraordinary creature made its way up the tree’s trunk, and then across onto a panel of the adjacent fence, which it crawled along until it came to a gap that it squeezed through into the neighbouring garden. When Lyn looked over the fence, she could see the caterpillar making its way across the neighbour’s lawn. Lyn then ran inside her own house and fetched her mother, but when they came outside it had vanished. I wonder whether Lyn, as a child, may have mistaken for a single giant entity a colony of caterpillars moving together in formation, yielding a column or procession (which those of the processionary moths and certain other species do). Yet her view of it was at such close range that this does not seem a very satisfactory explanation. Thoughts, anyone?

Pine processionary caterpillars Thaumetopea pityocampa photographed in their typical single-file procession (Elveoflight/Wikipedia)

No less intriguing, or perplexing, is the following report, which appeared in London's Observer newspaper during January 1852:

"In the Algerian paper we read that a hairy viper was seen a few days ago near Drariah, coiled round a tree. It resembled an enormous caterpillar, and was of a brownish-red colour; its length was about twenty-two inches. The moment it saw that it was observed, it glided into the brushwood, and all attempts to discover it were unavailing. The authorities of the Museum of Natural History of Paris have sent off orders to their agents in Algiers to get a specimen of this viper."

Orders or no orders, their agents clearly failed in their appointed task, because no-one seems to have heard anything more about Algeria's uniquely hirsute vipers. Interestingly, Central Africa is home to an unusual species known as the hairy bush viper Atheris hispida on account of its extremely keeled scales, whose long spiny projections give it a bristly, almost hairy appearance, but no such snake is known from North Africa.

Hairy bush viper (Soulsurvivor08/Flickr)

Perhaps, therefore - always assuming that it did truly exist in the first place -  it was actually either an enormous caterpillar or a caterpillar procession, the latter identity clearly being much more likely. After all, if it were indeed a single caterpillar, estimates of its size had obviously been greatly exaggerated.

At least I hope so - because any butterfly or moth metamorphosing from a 22-in-long caterpillar would be a fearsome sight to behold! Something more akin, in fact, to a Wonderland caterpillar of Lewis Carrollian creation than anything expected from Algeria, or even, for that matter, from the Isle of Wight.

SAT-KALAUK - A BURMESE BLOODSUCKER

I have been collecting animal-themed stamps ever since my mother and grandmother introduced me to this fascinating hobby when I was still a small child in the mid-1960s. One of the first sets that they bought for me was one from North Vietnam, issued in 1965, which featured a selection of six unusual Asian mammals, and included the very striking species featured above. I had never previously heard of it, but its exotic image on that stamp has remained in my mind ever since I first saw it all those years ago. Little did I know, however, that one day I'd be writing about this selfsame species, and that it would prove to be the identity of a very sinister-sounding beast of the East.

One of mythology's most famous bloodsucking monsters is the evil vampire cat of Japan, a feline ghoul that drains the blood of its sleeping victims at night. Less well known is that there is a real-life equivalent of sorts. This is the sat-kalauk or nabashing of Myanmar (formerly Burma) - a strange cat-like creature that allegedly leaps onto the necks of sambur deer and sucks their blood.

According to the Annual Report on Game Preservation in Burma for the year ending 31 March 1938, one such beast, fixed firmly onto the throat of a sambur, was spied by a villager in the forests below the Maymyo Hills, but no-one appeared certain of its identity. Not long afterwards, however, the mystery was solved, following the capture of a sat-kalauk in the Indawgyi Forests of Myitkyina, northeastern Myanmar. In 1954, its species was formally identified in a Burmese Forester article by U Tun Yin as a yellow-throated marten Martes flavigula. This is a very large, strikingly coloured relative of the European pine marten M. martes and the American fisher M. pennanti, and is known to prey upon young deer. It also happens to be the species that appears in the Vietnamese stamp opening this ShukerNature post. Another cryptozoological creature was cryptic no more.

Yellow-throated marten (Altaileopard/Wikipedia)

EBONY ENCOUNTERS OF THE SERPENTINE KIND

Melanistic specimen of the Patagonian green snake Philodryas patagoniensis (Laurie J. Vitt)

Whereas some mysteries become less mystifying once investigated, others only become even more so – and the herpetological example under consideration here definitely belongs to the latter category.

As a child, I was bought a wonderful anthology entitled Animal Stories, published in 1967, whose contents had been chosen by Alan C. Jenkins. Within its covers, he had compiled a splendid collection of animal-themed fiction and non-fiction, including chapters extracted from a number of classic books, such as Gerald Durrell's The Bafut Beagles (1954), Jim Corbett's Man-Eaters of Kumaon (1944), Ernest Thompson Seton's Lives of the Hunted (1901), and W.H. Hudson's Far Away and Long Ago (1918).

My favourite story in the entire anthology was a chapter entitled 'A Serpent Mystery', from the above-mentioned book by W.H. Hudson (in which he recalled his early life in the Quilmes, a borough in Argentina's Buenos Aires Province). Reading it, the mystery in question, namely the identity of a very remarkable snake that he had encountered on three separate occasions, seemed to have been solved by him at the end of the chapter. However, after returning to this story recently and investigating his claims concerning the snake, I have realised that the mystery may still be far from solved.

Hudson's 'Serpent Mystery' chapter can be summarised as follows.

Even as a boy, Hudson was familiar with the various ophidian species native to his home region, none of which exceeded 4 ft long, and he spent many hours exploring a weed-infested piece of waste ground at the far end of his family's plantation. One hot December day, while standing amid this wilderness, he heard a soft rustling sound near his feet, and, looking down, was startled to see a very long, slender, coal-black snake moving very slowly past him. He estimated its total length to be at least 6 ft, probably more, and he stared at it intently, remaining motionless until it finally vanished from sight among some long grass. What could it have been? Neither its colour nor its size matched that of any species that he had ever known or heard of existing in this area.

Initially, Hudson vowed never to return to this dangerous site, but his fascination with its unexpected inhabitant ultimately won the day, compelling him to venture back – and after numerous days of failure, he finally caught sight of the mysterious ebony-scaled serpent again, gliding languorously through the weeds in the very same spot as before. This time, however, Hudson was able to spy its destination – a hole in the ground, into which it passed until it was totally hidden from view. On many subsequent visits to the waste ground, he deliberately stood quietly near to this hole in the hope that sooner or later he would once more see its enigmatic owner, but the long black mystery snake never made an appearance.

Did Hudson's ebony-scaled mystery snake look like this Eastern indigo snake?

Then one day, after having stood there yet again, and for some considerable time, but still without success, Hudson became bored, and chose instead to interest himself in observing a bat hanging from a twig just overhead. Concentrating upon the bat, he at first paid no heed to a sensation of pressure upon the instep of his right foot, but when the pressure increased, until it seemed as if a heavy metal bar were resting upon it, he casually glanced down to see what was responsible for this sensation – and was shocked to discover that it was none other than his long-sought-after black mystery snake, which was actually drawing its lengthy inky-black coils leisurely across his foot!

By standing in his present position, Hudson's foot was inadvertently blocking the snake's passage to its hole, and so rather than moving around the offending obstacle it had decided simply to take the shorter course, and pass directly over it! Thrilled, terrified, and tantalised in equal measures, Hudson remained immobile as coil after coil rippled like a sable stream across his foot, until at last their sinuous owner had re-entered its den undisturbed and unalarmed.

W.H. Hudson (1841-1922)

Although Hudson returned many times afterwards, he never saw the snake again, and no-one whom he questioned about it had ever seen or heard of anything like it in that area of Argentina either. Subsequent investigations, however, led him to believe that it was a melanistic (all-black) specimen of a species that he referred to as Philodryas scotti. He claimed that this was a not uncommon Argentinian species, though not in his home region, and that it did indeed grow to 6 ft or more.

In addition, Hudson noted that two years before his three meetings with the black snake, a normal-coloured P. scotti specimen – one that he described as "a pale greenish-grey, with numerous dull black mottlings and small spots" - had been encountered by his sister as a small child (and swiftly dispatched by their horrified father), but until now had not been identified.

As noted earlier, one might assume from the above account that Hudson had duly solved the mystery of his black snake – but in fact nothing could be further from the truth.

Patagonian green snake Philodryas patagoniensis (Kemi Ksas)

To begin with: when googling Philodryas scotti, I discovered that only a single publication referred to it – and that publication was none other than Hudson's own book, Far Away and Long Ago. Could it be, therefore, that the name given by Hudson had been incorrect? Pursuing this possibility, I soon discovered that there was indeed an Argentinian species mentioned in numerous sources whose name differed by only a single letter – namely, Philodryas schotti (sometimes given as schottii). A species of venomous, rear-fanged colubrid, its common name is the Patagonian green snake, and nowadays it is referred to by many authorities as Philodryas patagoniensis.

Was this the true identity of Hudson's 'Philodryas scotti'? Certainly, photographs of P. patagoniensis correspond closely with Hudson's description of the snake encountered by his baby sister. Moreover, there are also a number of photographs online of melanistic specimens that readily recall Hudson's black mystery snake. However, P. patagoniensis does not normally exceed 5 ft.

Melanistic specimen of Patagonian green snake Philodryas patagoniensis (Axel Kwet)

Consequently, if the two snakes reported by Hudson did indeed belong to this species, either they were unusually lengthy or their size had been over-estimated by him. Some mutant gene alleles responsible for melanism are known to increase body size too, so assuming that Hudson had not over-estimated its length, this could explain the black snake's extra-large size, but not the normally-coloured specimen's.

So were these two snakes truly P. patagoniensis, or did they belong to a different species – and, if they did, which one? Perhaps, more than 90 years after the publication of Far Away and Long Ago, the last word has still to be said on the subject of W.H. Hudson's intriguing serpent mystery.

Colour engraving from 1858 of Patagonian green snake Philodryas patagoniensis