LEGENDS AND LORE OF THE MANX CAT - MYTHIC TALES OF MISSING TAILS

Vintage picture postcard depicting a female Manx cat with her kittens (public domain)

Long ago, at the time of Noah and the Great Flood, the Manx cat sported a magnificent bushy tail, of which he was inordinately proud - so much so that, once aboard the ark, he took great delight in flaunting it in front of all of the other animals, especially the dogs, which he teased unmercifully. Inevitably, Noah spent quite a hectic time restraining them from inflicting grievous bodily harm upon their feline tormentor during the ark's 40 days afloat. When at last the ark came to rest on Mount Ararat, however, it did so with such a lurch that Noah was momentarily distracted, which provided one of the dogs with the perfect opportunity to take its revenge - by lunging forward and biting off the Manx cat's flamboyant tail with savage glee. And from that day forth, the Manx cat has been tailless.

TALES OF TAILLESSNESS

The above is just one of many memorable legends and myths that have sprung up over the years concerning the Isle of Man's famous feline inhabitant, and why it has no tail.

Incidentally, for my overseas readers, the Isle of Man is a smallish island situated in the Irish Sea between northern England and Ireland, and although part of the British Isles it is not a part of the United Kingdom; it has its own parliament, language, coinage, and postage stamps - plus its tailless cats.

Another Noah-inspired example of Manx cat myth tells of how, at the onset of the Flood, Noah was anxiously calling out to all of the animals to come aboard the ark as quickly as possible. Within a short time, most of the diverse multitude of species, breeds, and varieties were safely aboard, but with typical feline independence the Manx cat dawdled languidly until the very last moment. Only then did he leap onto the ark - but he did not leap quickly enough. For as soon as the cat landed aboard, Noah slammed the ark's heavy door shut - and inadvertently trapped the desultory cat's tail in it, which snapped off like a brittle twig and was soon washed away by the Flood.

Manx cat on an old Isle of Man picture postcard for tourists - Douglas is the Isle of Man's capital (public domain)

A very different but equally imaginative legend tells of how, in early days long past, Irish soldiers on the Isle of Man would slaughter great numbers of newborn cats here in order to cut off their tails, which they used as magical talismans for decorating their helmets and shields. As a result, the mother cats became so distraught by this wanton massacre of their offspring that as soon as they had given birth, they would immediately bite off their kittens' tails themselves, thus preventing them from being killed by the soldiers. Consequently, after many generations of such activity, this island's cats began to be born tailless.

This curious account owes rather more to Lamarck than logic - because it reiterates a long-discredited theory of heredity formulated in 1809 by French naturalist Jean Baptiste de Lamarck, and known as the inheritance of acquired characteristics. Lamarck postulated that physical characteristics acquired by an individual via external (i.e. non-genetic) means (such as taillessness caused by physical severing of the tail) could be transmitted to that individual's offspring. Needless to say, Darwin's evolutionary studies and Mendel's genetic researches ultimately exposed this theory as being wholly fallacious.

Isle of Man one crown coin depicting a Manx cat, issued in 1970 (© Raimond Spekking/Wikipedia - CC BY-SA 4.0 licence)

Among the more recent fables and folk legends regarding the Manx cat are ones that variously attribute its tail's absence to inattentive butchers, the sharp wheels of horse trams, and even exceedingly close encounters on the racing track with over-enthusiastic TT bikers!

FROM WHENCE CAME THE MANX CAT?

Other myths have sought to explain where the Manx cat originated. According to one such story, the Spanish Armada was carrying tailless cats aboard its vessels when one of the galleons was wrecked near the Isle of Man. Happily, its cats survived, and swam ashore, where they ultimately gave rise to the modern-day tailless Manx cats. An interesting account, if true; in reality, however, there does not appear to be any firm evidence to suggest that cats lacking tails were native to Spain at that time.

Another legend claims that the Manx cat's origin lies even further to the east - allegedly, the first such cats were tailless temple cats in Tibet, which were brought to the western world by travellers. Alternatively, according to yet another story, tailless cats reached Europe from Japan, transported on grain boats by the seafaring Phoenicians in order to keep in check the boats' rapidly multiplying populations of illegal rodent stowaways.

Japanese bobtail (© ようてい/Wikipedia - CC BY-SA 3.0 licence)

Interestingly, there is indeed a near-tailless breed of Japanese cat, the Japanese bobtail, whose tail resembles that of a rabbit, and is little more than a fluffy pompom. However, whereas the mutant allele responsible for this latter cat's reduced tail is non-lethal homozygously (thereby enabling a pure-bred strain to be developed), the mutant allele creating the Manx cat's taillessness is usually lethal homozygously (i.e. only tailless cats heterozygous for the Manx allele survive – see below). As these two cats are thus genetically dissimilar for truncated tails, they clearly evolved independently of each other.

Ancient Malaysian and Chinese paintings portray tailless cats, further indicating that Manx-like specimens existed far beyond the Isle of Man in earlier ages. Moreover, there is a peninsula and village in present-day Denmark known as Reersø where tailless cats are quite common. No-one knows for certain where these cats originated, but according to local legend they are the descendants of cats that swam ashore following the shipwreck off Reersø’s coast a couple of centuries ago of a ship that had journeyed here from the Isle of Man!

RUMPY, RUMPY RISER, STUMPY, STUBBY, AND LONGY

Genetically, the absence or near-absence of a tail in the Manx cat is due to a highly penetrant, dominant mutant gene allele. If present homozygously (i.e. represented by two copies), this allele is generally lethal, inducing a number of severe skeletal and organ defects, and such individuals are usually spontaneously aborted before birth. Consequently, surviving Manx cats generally possess only one copy of the tailless allele (i.e. they are heterozygous for it).

A beautiful Manx cat called Luna (© Lori Adams Nash)

Based upon the tail's length in proportion to the cat’s overall size, Manx cats can be divided into no less than five categories. Most extreme is the rumpy or dimple rumpy, in which the tail is entirely absent. Slightly less extreme is the rumpy riser (or, simply, riser), in which there is just the merest hint of a tail, represented by a cartilaginous bump or one or more vestigial immobile vertebrae hidden in the fur. The third category is the stumpy, in which a short but recognisable and usually mobile tail is present. These are the only categories of Manx cat that are permitted in Manx cat shows. However, there are also two further categories. The stubby has a tail that is roughly half the total length of an average, non-Manx domestic cat’s tail. And the longy or tailed Manx cat has a near-complete tail.

CYMRIC

Not so well known as the familiar short-haired Manx cat is a long-haired version known as the cymric. This handsome breed was developed from long-haired individuals present in litters of normal short-haired Manx cats bred in Canada during the 1960s, but apart from the length of its hair it is identical to the latter cat form.

A cymric or long-haired Manx cat (© Robertlucien/Wikipedia – CC BY 3.0 licence)

RABBITING ON ABOUT CABBITS

It surely need not be said that the Manx cat's family tree does not contain any rabbits in it. Nevertheless, this has not prevented a breathtakingly bizarre example of contemporary folklore arising from this most ridiculous of premises.

Every so often, the media carries reports of curious beasts, often nicknamed 'cabbits', which are soberly claimed to be hybrids between cats and rabbits! Descriptions of these incredible crossbreeds state that they hop like rabbits, and photographs invariably depict recognisably feline creatures but with noticeably long hind legs and little if any tail at all.

Early photograph of a supposed cabbit (public domain)

Remarkably, such animals really do exist, but they are not descended from illicit liaisons between cats and rabbits. Instead, they are nothing more than Manx cats - because in addition to its famous tailless condition, this cat breed is also characterised by its disproportionately lengthy hind legs, which are longer than its front legs (and are rendered even more conspicuous by the lack or near-absence of a tail). This means that its back slopes upwards, rising conspicuously from its shoulders to its rump, and some individuals consequently move with an unexpectedly rabbit-like hopping gait.

As noted by Gerald L. Wood in his Guinness Book of Pet Records (1984), one such specimen was owned by Val Chapman from New Mexico, USA, and was exhibited as a bona fide cabbit in July 1977 at Los Angeles. Another specimen, reported in the 1950s from Ermelo in the Transvaal, South Africa, attracted the attention of British zoologist Dr Maurice Burton. He learnt via Prof. J.W. Groenewald of Pretoria University's Veterinary Dietetics Department that it was in reality a crossbreed between a Manx cat and a Siamese cat. It had been born in Arcadia, Pretoria, at the home of H.E. le Tendresse of the American Legation, but had later been sent to a Mr D. Patterson at Ermelo. Like the 'rumpy riser' variety of Manx cat, this cabbit sported only a very short stump for a tail.

Some 'cabbits' result from Manx cat x Siamese cat matings – painting by W. Luker, 1903 (public domain)

Unfortunately for science (and common sense), back in the mid-1800s the Manx cat's exceedingly superficial external similarity to a rabbit was nonetheless more than sufficient to inspire a writer called Joseph Train, from Castle Douglas in Galloway, Scotland, to claim in his book An Historical and Statistical Account of the Isle of Man (1845) that Manx cats were truly the products of matings between female cats and buck rabbits. He even included in his book a somewhat grotesque engraving of a Manx cat suitably distorted to correspond to the likely appearance of an offspring from this most unlikely of cross-pairings. And so it was that from an erroneous, misleading illustration and Train's accompanying account, the incongruous myth of the cabbit bounded into existence.

Yet even on an island distinguished by its emblematic three-legged men, its true-life four-horned goats (the brown-woolled Manx Loghtan), and its world-famous tailless cats, the reality of cabbits is most definitely beyond conception - in every sense!

Total trivia time: Way back in 1993, the very first pub quiz team that I was a member of was called the Manx Cats, because we were all bikers and one of the most famous motorbike races, the TT (Tourist Trophy), takes place annually on the Isle of Man. As a memento of our quiz team, I purchased the following Manx cat ornaments, which I still own today:

My two Manx cats ornaments commemorating my years as a Manx Cat quizzer (© Dr Karl Shuker)

My sincere thanks to Lori Adams Nash for very kindly permitting me to include her photograph of her beautiful Manx cat Luna in the chapter of my book Cats of Magic, Mythology, and Mystery from which this present ShukerNature blog article of mine is adapted.

Early photograph of a Manx cat (public domain)

PARROTING HENDRIX AND HEPBURN NOT WARRANTED

Male ring-necked parakeet in Syon Park, London (Gossipguy/Wikipedia - CC BY-SA 3.0 licence)

One of the most successful 'alien animals' in the UK, i.e. a non-native species introduced here that has since established itself as a thriving naturalised addition to the resident fauna, is the Indian ring-necked parakeet Psittacula krameri manillensis. Over 30,000 specimens are currently believed to exist in Great Britain, centred in and around London but with smaller populations widely dispersed across England and southern Scotland.

Distribution map of the ring-necked parakeet in Great Britain (green = resident; yellow = summer; blue = winter; Cnbrb/Wikipedia, copyright-free)

Although it is generally accepted that they first appeared in Great Britain during the mid-1900s, there has been much speculation as to who was responsible for their original introduction. Interestingly, in amongst the many suggestions that have been put forward at one time or another can be found the names of two celebrities – namely, the rock star Jimi Hendrix and the actress Katharine Hepburn.

Legendary rock star Jimi Hendrix, of 'Purple Haze' fame (public domain)

The oft-repeated urban legend implicating Hendrix is that he released a pair in London's fashionable Carnaby Street in 1968. And the equally popular Hepburn hypothesis posits that they are descendants of escapees from an animal collection brought to England in 1951 when Katherine Hepburn was filming the movie 'The African Queen' in London alongside co-star Humphrey Bogart.

Multi-Oscar-winning actress Katharine Hepburn (public domain)

However, a recent research project based at London's Queen Mary University and led by the late Dr Steven Le Comber uncovered a very different explanation. Published in December 2019 by the Journal of Zoology, the results of their study were obtained by using geographic profiling methods traditionally used to track down criminals.

Female ring-necked parakeet, Kensington Gardens, London (Tony Austin/Wikipedia - CC BY 2.0 licence)

These revealed that during the 1930s onwards, parakeets had been released widely throughout the country, rather than just in a single London location, and that the reason for this had been lurid newspaper reports of parrot owners succumbing to a potentially deadly lungs-affecting infection known as psittacosis, but popularly nicknamed the parrot disease, as it can be transmitted to humans by parrots. So after more than 50 years for Hendrix and almost 70 years for Hepburn, the respective putative charges raised against them as illegal parakeet liberators by media gossips can finally, and confidently, be thrown out. Case(s) dismissed!

Katharine Hepburn in 'The African Queen' (public domain)

MADAGASCAN MYSTERY CATS - WITH FELINE FELICITATIONS FROM THE FITOATY AND THE FOSSA

Depiction of the fitoaty (© Tim Morris)

South-east of the African mainland lies the island of Madagascar - a zoological time-capsule. For it is the home of a vast variety of creatures extinct elsewhere or totally unique - a wonderland of lemurs and tenrecs, falanoucs and vanga-shrikes. It has no native canids or felids, instead the euplerids, i.e. Malagasy civets and mongooses, reign supreme here.

Among this heterogeneous assemblage, the largest species - and the creature that assumes on Madagascar the ecological roles occupied elsewhere by sizeable felid species - is the fossa Cryptoprocta ferox (not to be confused with the Madagascan civet or fanaloka, whose scientific name is Fossa fossa). Despite its euplerid affinities, the puma-sized fossa is strikingly cat-like in appearance (indeed, in earlier ages several zoologists classified it as an aberrant felid), and is especially comparable to the Neotropical jaguarundi.

Ultra-realistic fossa illustration produced some time between 1700 and 1880 (public domain)

However, Madagascar may also possess some uncategorised true felids. In a report published by the Chasseur Français in October 1939, Paul Cazard recalled that whilst in Madagascar he had been informed by civil engineer Mr Belime that native tales originating from areas of the island still unexplored by Westerners told of giant lions that lived in caves, and which ravaged the island's other fauna as well as the inhabitants of these regions' native villages.

Cazard contemplated whether these lions of the rocks could possibly be living sabre-tooths, and wondered if it would be feasible for an expedition to be mounted to seek out these mighty beasts. Feasible or not, no such expedition has set out on their trail to date, so their identity remains unknown. Needless to say, zoogeographically-speaking it would be a great jolt to scientific conceptions if a bona fide cat form were to be discovered here. Yet it would certainly not be without precedent, as the discovery of so many hitherto unknown and highly unexpected animals within the 20^th and 21^st Centuries can readily verify.

Could Madagascar's mystifying 'lions of the rocks' be living sabre-tooths? (© Dr Karl Shuker)

Domestic cats Felis catus had been introduced into Madagascar by the 17^th Century, and many have since run wild, yielding widely-distributed feral populations across this extremely large island. However, in a cz@yahoogroups.com posting of 19 May 2003, I recalled that back in 1967, within his book The Life, History, and Magic of the Cat, Fernand Mery had included the following tantalising snippet concerning a felid specimen procured in Madagascar that may constitute something much more significant than a mere feral domestic:

The Malagasy Academy possesses a specimen of a magnificent tabby cat, larger than a domestic cat. Details of its capture on Madagascar are uncertain, but of interest is that in the local Malagasy language, pisu = domestic cat, with kary used to denote 'wild cats', even though wildcats do not officially exist on the island.

Mery considered that this lent support for the probable existence of wildcats on Madagascar.  Interestingly, in a Fortean Times letter (November 2003), Dr Geoff Hosey from the Bolton Institute in Manchester, England, noted that Mery's above-quoted information from his book appeared to have been lifted almost verbatim from an earlier work, Raymond Decary's book La Faune Malgache (1950). Decary had also alluded to wildcats appearing in various Malagasy folktales, thereby providing further evidence that such cats do indeed exist in Madagascar. Moreover, Dr Hosey included in his published FT letter a very intriguing colour photograph snapped by him in August 1998 of a cat curled up asleep that may have been merely a feral domestic cat but which in his opinion looked very like an African wildcat Felis lybica. The cat was in an unlabelled cage at Parc Tsimbazaza, the zoo that occupies the grounds of the old Academie Malgache. Unfortunately, however, due to its curled-up position, the cat presented insufficient morphological details for a precise identification of it to be made from the photo alone.

My cz@yahoogroups.com posting had been in response to a previous one that same day by British palaeontologist Dr Darren Naish, who, a little earlier in May 2003, had unexpectedly obtained some most interesting information while watching a television programme - information that bestowed added significance upon Mery's statement.

Do African wildcats exist in Madagascar? (copyright-free/Wikipedia)

The programme was a documentary in National Geographic's 'Out There' series, during which, while conducting some studies in northwestern Madagascar's Ankarafantsika National Park, Tennessee University fossa researcher Luke Dollar trapped what looked like a wildcat - the second such creature that he had caught there. Moreover, instead of resembling a feral domestic cat, it seemed exactly like the African wildcat Felis lybica. In the programme, Dollar hinted that it may be either a valid new record for Madagascar, or even a bona fide new species. A blood sample from this intriguing specimen, a pregnant juvenile, was taken for examination - how remarkable it would be if Mery's belief in Madagascan wildcats had finally been justified. Sadly, however, although I emailed Dollar concerning it in February 2012, I never received any response from him, so I have no idea whether any information of significance was obtained from this sample (but as I have not uncovered online or elsewhere any follow-up details regarding it, I am assuming that nothing of note was obtained).

Meanwhile, just one day ago (10 March 2020) an article by Joshua Sokol appeared in the journal Science that finally revealed  the precise nature and origin of Madagascar's tabby-striped feral domestic cats. It announced that a team of researchers including Missouri University cat genomics expert Dr Leslie Lyons had been conducting comparative DNA analyses using blood samples from specimens of these cats and from other domestics around the globe, which revealed the closest match with the Madagascan ferals to be domestics from Arabian Sea locales. Consequently, the team proposes that perhaps as far back in time as 1000 years ago, some such Arabian domestics had made their way to Madagascar by stowing away on Arab trade ships, then disembarking onto the island and over time establishing thriving populations here. My thanks to Robert Lohman for kindly bringing this significant article to my attention.

Nor does the fascinating saga of mystery felids on Madagascar end there, as my continuing researches have duly discovered. In November 2013, a remarkable paper authored by Massachusetts University anthropologist Dr Cortni Borgerson was published in the journal Madagascar Conservation and Development, concerning a Madagascan mystery beast hitherto unknown to me. It was referred to locally as the fitoaty, and native descriptions of it given to Borgerson and her assistants suggested a gracile, entirely black-furred felid (as opposed to any form of euplerid), but larger and leaner than feral domestics and confined to the rainforests of northeastern Madagascar's little-studied Masoala peninsula.

Moreover, during 2011 Borgerson was fortunate enough to observe a fitoaty personally, when she saw what she described in her paper as "a medium-sized melanistic car­nivoran crossing a village trail just outside the Masoala National Park boundary. The sighting occurred at approximately 15:00h, in a transitional area of primary and secondary forest". She tentatively classified the fitoaty as Felis sp., and stated that trapping and genetic testing of this unidentified felid was needed in order to assess adequately its taxonomic identity, distribution range, and potential impact upon local ecosystems.

Tim Morris's fitoaty illustration again (© Tim Morris)

In December 2015, a second paper concerning the fitoaty appeared, authored by a seven-strong team of researchers (including two from Madagascar's Wildlife Conservation Society), and published in the Journal of Mammalogy. It presented not only the first population assessment of the fitoaty, or black forest cat as it was now being referred to colloquially, but also a series of excellent full-colour and black-and-white photographs of fitoaty specimens obtained via camera-trapping methods (click here to view a selection of these photos).

Interestingly, the team discovered that there was minimal interaction between the fitosty and feral domestics in the wild. Nevertheless, based upon their field research they suggested that this mystifying melanistic was "a phenotypically-different form of the feral cat [rather than constituting either an African wildcat or any other felid species, known or unknown], but additional research is needed". In view of the successful new findings concerning the genetic identity and origin of Madagascar's typical feral domestics, I now look forward to equivalent fitoaty studies, to determine conclusively the precise taxonomic and genetic nature of this unexpected 'new' member of Madagascar's mammalian fauna.

Incidentally, just in case you are wondering, the fitoaty's name is Malagasy for 'seven livers', which stems from a somewhat strange native belief concerning this animal's internal anatomy. Moreover, its flesh is claimed by locals to be poisonous, and therefore is never eaten by them.

Finally: please click here to read about another feline mystery beast from Madagascar – the antamba, believed by some to be a surviving representative of the officially-extinct giant fossa Cryptoprocta spelea, estimated from subfossil remains to have been twice the size of the modern-day fossa. Also of interest is that Madagascan native people across the island speak not only of the normal, reddish-brown fossa, which they refer to as the fosa mena ('red fossa'), but also of a larger, all-black version known to them as the fosa mainty ('black fossa'), which has yet to be seen by scientists (initially it was wondered whether the fitoaty was this mysterious melanistic fossa, until photographic evidence confirmed that the fitoaty was a felid, not a fossa).  There is even native talk of a white fossa version, but whether reports of black fossas and white fossas are based upon genuine creatures (respectively melanistic and leucistic specimens, perhaps?) or are merely folkloric creatures remains unclear.

What fossa-formed mysteries still lurk amid the shadows of Madagascar's jungles? (public domain)

THE CURIOUS CASE OF JACQUES COUSTEAU'S MISSING SEA MONSTER

Is the sheytan based upon sightings of manta rays? (public domain)

On 29 November 2018, fellow UK cryptozoologist Richard Freeman brought to my attention a most intriguing article (click here to access it), written by Zineb Boujrada and posted earlier that year on Culture Trip's website, concerning a hitherto-obscure East African aquatic cryptid. Djibouti's so-called Island of the Devil (Goubbet Al-Kharab) earns its name from a terrifying sea monster called the sheytan (translated as 'devil') that locals vehemently believe exists in the bay (the Goubbet) surrounding the island.

Making this account especially interesting was its inclusion of what seemed to be a truly extraordinary and very noteworthy claim if true. Namely, that no less eminent a maritime expert than France's internationally famous undersea explorer and diver Jacques Cousteau had not only obtained proof of the sheytan's reality but also "insisted it never be revealed to humanity".

Quoting from Boujrada's Culture Trip article:

According to local newspapers at the time, Cousteau and his team conducted an experiment to explore the depths of the Goubbet by submerging a camel carcass in a cage. To their surprise, as they took it out of the water, they discovered that the cage had been entirely smashed and deformed, resulting in the disappearance of the carcass.

All of this was entirely new to me, so I lost no time in posting links to Boujrada's article on my various Facebook cryptozoology-related groups in the hope of eliciting further information or clarification. Happily, assistance soon came, courtesy of veteran French cryptozoologist Michel Raynal, who duly informed me on 30 November that the local Djibouti newspapers' claims were unfounded rumour, and that in 1971 Cousteau had publicly denied it in one of his own books, Life and Death in a Coral Sea (with Michel kindly sending me a copy of the relevant section from it).

Jacques Cousteau (copyright-free)

As this incident appears never to have attracted specific cryptozoological attention prior to my subsequent documentation of it in my Alien Zoo column for Fortean Times, however, I am presenting herewith Cousteau's own statement as contained in his book:

...we decided to visit the Goubet, a famous gulf of the Red Sea. Before leaving Djibouti that morning, one of our crew had by chance asked a local Arab diver about the Goubet. "Ah, sir," the man had replied, "it is a most extraordinary place. It is bottomless, and it is inhabited by monsters so large that they can drag down lines attached to 200-liter cans. Moreover, in 1963, Commandant Cousteau went there with Fredéric Dumas and his best divers, and they were so terrified by what they saw that they ran away."

Naturally, we were eager to see the place in which, according to local gossip, we had earned so ignominious a reputation. I must report, however, that the Goubet was a disappointment. It is an inland sea or gulf that connects with the Red Sea by a narrow pass in which there is a very strong current, running up to seven knots. The surrounding area is very beautiful, and very wild, being dominated by volcanic mountains bare of foliage and marked in shades of red, yellow, and black.

Once in the Goubet itself, we lowered the diving saucer to a depth of over six hundred feet without catching sight of even a small monster. The divers then suited up and went down also, but they saw nothing more remarkable than some very large sea urchins. There seemed to be very few fish of any kind. It is my guess that the "Goubet monster" of Arab legend was originally a manta ray, seen by some shepherd from a hill top. Manta rays are plentiful in this area, and it must happen occasionally that they wander into the Goubet and – because the inlet is so narrow and because mantas are not the most intelligent of beasts – have trouble finding their way out again.

Consequently, it would seem that either the sheytan is real but remained remarkably well hidden when Cousteau conducted his actual, genuine search for it, or it is indeed just a monstrous local legend. Worth noting, incidentally, is that a commonly-used colloquial name for the giant manta ray Manta birostris is the devil-fish (click here for more details). Alternatively, as this term has also been used in relation to giant squids and octopuses, perhaps if it truly exists the sheytan might be a gargantuan cephalopod, especially as mantas are pelagic creatures, not deepsea ones, whereas giant squids do inhabit deep waters. My thanks to Richard and Michel for alerting and assisting me in my investigation of this curious case.

In view of how the sheytan allegedly inhabits great depths and drags down lines to these depths, if it truly exists might it be some form of giant deepsea octopus? (public domain)

'BORDER' – A MINI-REVIEW OF A MAJOR MOVIE INSPIRED BY SCANDINAVIAN MYTHOLOGY AND CRYPTOZOOLOGY

Publicity poster for Border, featuring Eva Melander as Tina (© Ali Abbasi/John Ajvide Lindqvist/META Film/Black Spark Film & TV/Karnfilm/TriArt Film – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational and review purposes only)

Last night, I watched a very strange Scandinavian fantasy movie, made in Sweden, but it was strange for all the right reasons. Entitled 'Border', it was directed by Ali Abbasi, produced by META Film/Black Spark Film & TV/Karnfilm, and released by TriArt Film in 2018. I'd wanted to see it for ages, but it only received limited cinema release here in the UK despite being an Academy Award nominee. Happily, however, I recently managed to purchase it on DVD.

Based upon an original short story entitled 'Gräns', written by John Ajvide Lindqvist, who also wrote this movie version's screenplay, 'Border' tells the story of a shy Swedish customs/border guard named Tina, whose decidedly homely physical appearance belies her remarkable gift for quite literally sniffing out human emotions, enabling her to detect by olfactory means if a person is feeling guilt, shame, anxiety, or other normally concealed traits. Needless to say, this unusual talent proves very useful in identifying incoming visitors to Sweden who are smuggling contraband or worse.

Always ill at ease with other people, Tina is only truly at peace when alone in the forest, among Nature - until an equally strange and homely-looking man named Vore appears on the scene, and to whom she is instantly attracted, especially when she discovers that just like her, he bears a mysterious scar at the base of his spine, as if something has been surgically removed, something like a tail...? Those readers of this mini-review who are au fait with Scandinavian mythology and/or manbeast-related cryptozoology will no doubt have already guessed where this plot is going. Suffice it to say that Tina finally learns the shocking truth that although they are humanoid, she and Vore are not human. But more shocks are to come, especially in relation both to a very disturbing investigation that she is involved in as part of her work, and also to her origin.

See the present ShukerNature article's Postscript to read the story of this delightful 'Border'-relevant entity (© Dr Karl Shuker)

This movie at times makes for very dark, bleak, desolate, and quite merciless but also very compelling viewing, its otherworldliness holding my interest and attention at all times, although the penultimate scene, when Tina finally visits the past that had been hidden from her throughout her life, is truly heart-rending. Having read a great deal on the subject of the entities that Tina and Vore are, I have to say that I strongly suspect that this movie's makers took great liberties when it came to depicting certain aspects relating to their, shall we say, procreative anatomy and behaviour, but perhaps I am simply ill-informed here (if I am, I hope that my Scandinavian friends and colleagues will educate me accordingly!).

Ideally, 'Border' could benefit from being dubbed into English, but its English subtitles more than adequately suffice, especially as the acting prowess of its two leading stars (Eva Melander as Tina, Eero Milonoff as Vore) is of such quiet (and occasionally not so quiet) intensity that very often words are not required, their visual strength is more than sufficient to tell the audience all that it needs to know. All in all, 'Border' is quite simply unlike any movie that I have ever seen before, truly bewitching, often disturbing, and ineffably sad, a very unexpected example of humanity's inhumanity to those who are different, for whatever reason. As for anyone who hasn't seen this movie but would like to know the true nature of Tina and Vore, let's just say that those who enjoy insulting, demeaning, and arguing with others on social media provide a major clue, albeit in name only - think about it...

Finally, please click here to view a trailer for 'Border' that is currently accessible on YouTube.

Another publicity poster for Border, featuring Eva Melander as Tina and Eero Milonoff as Vore (© Ali Abbasi/John Ajvide Lindqvist/META Film/Black Spark Film & TV/Karnfilm/TriArt Film – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational and review purposes only)

POSTSCRIPT – CONTAINS 'BORDER' SPOILERS!!

If you don't want to discover what Tina and Vore were in 'Border', read no further!

About 13 years ago, I was walking round a local car boot sale at the end, while all of the sellers were packing away their unsold wares, ready to go home, when, lying amidst a forlorn pile of unsold items discarded by various sellers, and staring up at me disconsolately, was the delightful plush-furred, tufted-tailed, Scandinavian troll pictured in the two photographs included above and below by me in this present ShukerNature blog article.

I knew full well that, just like all discarded items there, his fate was to be loaded onto a lorry by one of the car boot sale's litter pickers and then tipped onto a fire and burnt. Needless to say, therefore, without further ado I picked him up, and found that he was perfectly clean and intact, but unwanted by his owner and unchosen by any of the buyers at the sale. So I duly took him back home with me. Ever since my rescuing him from his destined fiery fate, he has sat very happily upon a pile of postcards and CDs in my study, surveying his surroundings and clearly very content to be here, just as I am to have been able to save him and add him to my eclectic menagerie.

Don't you just love a happy ending!!

Rescued from a fiery fate! (© Dr Karl Shuker)

MORE PHOTOGRAPHS OF MOTTY - THE ELEPHANT OF SURPRISE AS NEVER BEFORE SEEN

Motty with his mother Sheba at Chester Zoo in 1978 (© Dave Haynes)

On 1 March 2011, I uploaded here on ShukerNature an expanded version of an article of mine that had previously been published by the British monthly magazine Fortean Times. It's not very often that an animal can truly be described as unique, but the subject of that article really was. Named Motty and born at Chester Zoo, England, on 11 July 1978, he was the world's one and only confirmed hybrid of an African elephant and an Asian elephant. And as these species are housed in separate genera, Motty was not only an interspecific hybrid, he was also an intergeneric one. In fact, prior to his highly unexpected birth, it was not thought possible that an offspring resulting from a mating between an African and an Asian elephant could even occur – but Motty's arrival proved everyone wrong.

Tragically, however, this very surprising little newcomer died only 11 days after being born, and in spite of his extraordinary identity Motty was all but forgotten for many years thereafter – until, that is, my article (the most detailed account of Motty ever published) restored him very deservedly to public attention and piqued the interest of entirely new generations of readers. Moreover, as a result of my article's level of popularity, various readers sent to me extra information concerning Motty and also several additional photographs of him, none of which had previously been made public, as well as some remarkable visual reconstructions of what he may have looked like had he survived into maturity, all of which I duly posted in a couple of follow-up ShukerNature articles (click here and here to view them).

Now, I am delighted to say that after perusing those articles of mine, a further reader contacted me on 16 and 17 January 2020 to share with me (and also, very kindly, to permit me to share here with you) some more Motty photographs, again previously unseen and therefore making their public debut here. The reader in question is Dave Haynes, who was a keeper at Chester Zoo during Motty's all-too-brief life, and who not only recalled seeing him but also snapped some photos of him with his Asian elephant mother, Sheba. So here, by kind permission of Dave, are his photographs, offering new and very precious visual insights into the little miracle that was Motty.

Motty and Sheba with keepers Ray Packwood (left) and Paul (© Dave Haynes)

All five photographs here are reproduced courtesy of their owner and copyright holder, Dave Haynes – thank you so much, Dave!