Snallygaster- Maryland

In the early 1700s, German settlers moved into Maryland from Pennsylvania, bringing with them many of their myths and legends. Among these were tales of the schnelle geister or “quick spirits”, supernatural beings that could sometimes be merely annoying-- knocking things over and creating bad smells-- and sometimes malevolent-- stealing children or forming huge battalions of writhing specters to rain down on helpless and unsuspecting humans.

As the Germanic legends merged with the larger melting pot of beliefs in Maryland, schnelle geister became snollygoster, then finally snallygaster, a general term for any sort of boogieman or mysterious creature.

In 1909, the term Snallygaster took on a distinct, terrifying form when the Middletown Valley Register of Frederick County reported that a huge, dragon-like creature had flown out of a cave in South Mountain and snatched up a local man, Bill Gifferson. The monster carried Grifeerson to the top of a hill where it pierced his throat with its needle-sharp beak and drank his blood.

Sightings of the Snallygaster exploded after this incident. Suddenly newspapers all over Frederick County, and even into nearby West Virginia, were overflowing with reports of terrifying run-ins with this blood-drinking dragon. Drawing on local folklore, the beast was quickly dubbed Snallygaster, though a few papers briefly gave it alternative, equally colorful names such as “Go-devil”, “Bovulopus”, “Octollopus” and “Gigantiloeutus”.

Descriptions of the creature varied, but most claimed that it resembled a winged reptile with iron claws and a pointed beak for draining its victims of blood. It was also said to have a single, enormous eye in the center of its forehead. A few stories claimed that it even had tentacles like an octopus-- though where these were located on its body or what it used them for was never specified.

Some tales claimed that seven pointed stars would drive off the beast, which allegedly led many in Frederick County and surrounding areas to place these symbols on the outside walls of their barns and houses. It is worth noting, though, that stars with four, five or six points were already common folk motifs on the houses of many German settlers (seven-pointed stars were rarer, but not unheard of), so this detail may have just been an embellishment playing off an already prominent decoration in the South Mountain area.

Snallygaster reports continued throughout 1909, gradually fading away by the end of the year.  The frenzy was finally capped off by a tongue-in-cheek letter to Middletown Valley Register written by an “expert” who claimed that the beast was of a species of monsters that lived deep within the Earth. The beast terrorizing Frederick County, so the writer claimed, had come to the surface after an earthquake opened a chasm in the South Mountains leading to its subterranean home. The article concluded with a report of a fictitious scientific expedition that had seen the creature fly back into its cave, at which point another earthquake sealed it up.

The Snallygaster resurfaced again in 1932 in a new flurry of newspaper reports. This time, though, the beast appeared to meet its demise when the Register reported that local prohibition agents had busted into a bootlegger’s hideout only to find the place abandoned and the partially-dissolved corpse of the Snallygaster floating in the moonshine mash where it had apparently fallen after being overcome by the alcoholic fumes.

Despite its apparent death, the Snallygaster would continue to make sporadic appearances in local papers over the years, even inspiring a 1976 article about a fictitious Hemmingway-style safari to track it down once and for all.

Snallygaster at rest, standing on its mantle-foot and modified tentacles.

The bizarre appearance of the Snallygaster, along with its colorful, often outlandish history, bears more than a passing resemblance to many other tall tales of mysterious and deadly flying monsters heard throughout America- and indeed, throughout the world. This is no coincidence, for the Snallygaster began as a hoax created by the editors of the Middletown Valley Register to drum up sales for their paper. The story proved so popular that other papers picked it up, often embellishing the tale with their own details. Newspapers have a long history of punching up and sensationalizing stories-- or even creating stories whole cloth in the age before journalistic integrity- to attract and entertain readers.  Indeed, many old papers were more like the Weekly World News (or most internet message boards, to use a contemporary example) than a reputable source for information.

In more recent reports-particularly internet articles- the Snallygaster has developed an “archenemy” in the form of the Dwayyo, a black-furred biped sometimes described as being ape-like, sometimes said to be more like a werewolf or a dog walking on its hind legs. According to folklore, the Dwayyo will attack the Snallygaster on sight, though no explanation is given for this animosity. Nor is the mammalian beast itself given much of a backstory. The first reported sightings of the Dwayyo came in a series of 1965 articles in the Frederick News written by George May, which described a black, bigfoot-like monster terrorizing the county. 

May’s articles may actually be responsible for the rivalry between the Dwayyo and the Snallygaster. One of his last articles suggested that increased sightings of the furred beast signalled the eclipsing of interest in Maryland’s other, draconic monster. His prediction, though, did not bear out since the Snallygaster has proven to be the far more popular creature.

Mythical monsters often serve as a metaphor for aspects of humanity. Sea serpents and krakens can represent our awe and fear of the ocean. Wendigo personify the terror and loneliness of the boreal woods and the desperation that leads to cannibalism. Elves, trolls, huldra and other fey beings symbolize the mystery and danger of the deep forest. The Snallygaster, too, once held a dark and potent symbolism-- specifically the evils of racism. Many of the early reports claimed that the beast specifically targeted African-American victims.

Furthermore,  the Lumberwoods.com website points out:

"In Maryland: A Guide to the Old Line State, the author directly alludes to such attitudes by stating: 

“In the Middletown Valley section of western Maryland the fabulous ‘snallygaster’ flies into a little settlement of log cabins that served as slave quarters prior to the Civil War. The great bird preys upon Negro children out after dark, and on occasion has even been known to carry off a full-grown man to its lair in the near-by mountains.”

It is worth noting that these previous lines, specifically the phrases "preys upon," "after dark" and "carry off," are highly suggestive of the practice of lynching. In the contemporary period so-called "sunset towns" were declared wherein African Americans would be barred from entering after nightfall. Any "violators" would be sought out by lynch mobs, dragged to a secluded location and "dealt" with."

The symbolism behind a monster may change over time, of course. Vampires were once personifications of our fears of death, illness and, in the case of Stoker's Dracula, rape and sexually-transmitted diseases. Today they often symbolize a longing for immortality and the simultaneous fear of watching everyone and everything one loves crumble to dust around them.

The Snallygaster likewise has undergone an evolution in what it represents. Its association with racism and the evils of lynching has all but disappeared. Now the beast, like the Mothman, Thnuderbirds, Bigfoot and other cryptids, symbolizes the unexplored, a longing for mysteries and a fear and simultaneous desire for the unknown. 

For my interpretation of the Snallygaster, I drew inspiration from descriptions of it as a one-eyed, tentacled dragon. However, rather than make it a reptile with cephalopod arms, I made it a flying squid with wings formed from the fin around its mantle. The hind legs are also extensions of the body fin with fringe-like papillae serving as “toes”. The front limbs of my version are actually highly modified tentacles with hooks sprouting from the tips of the suckers forming the “claws”.

The majority of information for this post came from an excellent book by Patrick Boyton called Snallygaster: The Lost Legend of Frederick County. It’s short, but thorough and definitely worth checking out.

SOURCES

Snallygaster: The Lost Legend of Frederick County by Patrick Boyton

Mountain Monster: The Snallygaster

Lumberwoods: The Snallygaster

Freshwater Octopus-- Oklahoma

The idea of a freshwater octopus isn’t too outlandish, especially compared to some of the cryptids on this blog. Other marine animals have made the jump to lakes and rivers, including mussels, clams, snails, bryozoans and jellyfish (though the biologist in me is compelled to note that the freshwater jellyfish, Craspedacusta sowerbii, is of the class Hydrozoa rather than Scyphozoa, which are the “true jellyfish” like moon jellies, lion’s mane, upside-down Cassiopeia jellies and others). The bull shark, Charcharhinus leucas, is infamous for its habit of swimming up estuaries into freshwater. There is even a rare group of poorly-understood, exclusively freshwater sharks in the genus Glyphis that inhabit the Ganges and Irrawaddy rivers. Taking all these into account, it isn’t a huge stretch to imagine an animal as intelligent and curious as the octopus  evolving to live in freshwater.

Perhaps this has, in fact, happened, if urban legends about gigantic octopi inhabiting lakes in Oklahoma are to be believed. According to rumor, Lake Thunderbird, Lake Oolagah and Lake Tenkiller are all home to red, truck-sized cephalopods that may be responsible for the upswing in drownings in recent decades.

The Devil's Lake Monster

This is actually not the only time freshwater cephalopods have appeared in legend. Devil’s Lake in Wisconsin is said to be haunted by two distinct types of monsters. One is a classic Nessie-style plesiosaur. The other is a tentacled beast that was said to have attacked a canoe of Native American men paddling across the lake to more fertile hunting grounds. The origin of this particular story is hard to trace. It’s unclear if it genuinely originated with the Nakota Sioux who call the land around Devil’s Lake home, if it was an invention of European settlers, or if perhaps it was even a modern invention given a precolonial setting to try to create more legitimacy.

The Berkeley Square Horror

Another, more ambiguously cephalopodic cryptid comes from London. The house at 50 Berkeley Square in the West End was infamous in the 18th and 19th centuries for being haunted by a shapeless gray Thing. Though the bottom floor of the house has been consistently occupied, the second floor rooms have long been left empty because anyone who sleeps in them will, according to the legend, will literally be frightened to death by a visit from the Thing in the middle of the night. Calling the Berkeley Square Horror an octopus is, admittedly, a bit of a stretch. Descriptions of the entity are vague and contradictory. Some witnesses said it looked like a collection of shadows or an amorphous blob.  Others claimed it was  a twisted, man-like specter. At least one witness, though, did describe the Horror as a bizarre, tentacled creature like a deformed octopus. Assuming the Horror was not something supernatural, perhaps it was indeed a species of freshwater octopus that found its way up the Thames and into London’s vast sewer system, where it eventually emerged in the Berkely Square house.

While the marine ancestors of the Berkely octopus may have migrated into the Thames via it’s link to the North Sea, it is more difficult to imagine how cephalopods could have moved deep into the land-locked interior of North America. This is further compounded by the fact that none of the lakes inhabited by America’s supposed freshwater octopi have outlets to the sea. Devil’s Lake lies at the bottom of a closed drainage basin-- a glacially-created valley that does not link to any rivers with links tot he sea.  Lakes Thunderbird, Oolagah and Tenkiller, furthermore, are reservoirs created in the 1940s and 50s. How then could octopi even get into any of these bodies of water?

Octosquatch

Well, maybe they just walked. Terrestrial, octopus-like cryptids have been occasionally sighted around the world.  In 1961, two Spanish truck drivers reported encountering an odd creature covered in rust-colored fur that stood upon four tentacle-like limbs.  Octopi are actually known to venture out of the water for short periods of time, usually when they are moving between tide pools in search of prey. Perhaps some evolved an even more amphibious existence and took to venturing farther and farther inland in search of food. 

Hairy Octopus from www.nad-lembeh.com

Even the unusual “fur” on this Octosquatch is not unprecedented. A small species of taxonomically undescribed  hairy octopus is known to inhabit the waters around Indonesia. The filaments covering this creature’s body-- which are extensions of its skin rather than the genuine fur of mammals-- are believed to provide camouflage in the furry red algae common to the creature’s habitat. Perhaps the land-walking cephalopod also developed a similar covering, though in its case the filaments may have been used to provide insulation and possibly to hold water against its body during terrestrial excursions.

Perhaps an Octosquatch-like species gradually made its way into North America, using freshwater lakes as stepping stones. Over time, this creature may have lost its terrestrial abilities and become fully aquatic again, eventually becoming the enigmatic monsters terrorizing swimmers and Native exploration parties in the Midwest.

SOURCES

Mysterious Universe article on the Oklahoma Octopus

Octosquatch

Devil's Lake Monster

Berkeley Square Horror

Geology of Devil's Lake

Hairy Octopus

Smetty-- Wyoming

Just after the end of the Cretaceous, the area that would become Wyoming was a great basin filled with subtropical swamps and lakes. Over millions of years, the vegetation of the region built up into peat bogs which were periodically buried and compressed under sediment washed down from the nearby mountains, eventually solidifying into coal. As a result, this former swampland-- known today as the Powder River Basin-- is thick with the fossil fuel. 

Of course, all that coal just lying around under the earth would seem to be a huge fire hazard. And it very much is. Coal seam fires- whether natural or manmade-- are a frequent problem in this region.  Natural fires occur due to grass or tree fires, and once they get going they can burn for decades.  After all the coal is burned away, a hollow space is left which can collapse. Such a cave-in formed Lake DeSmet, near Buffalo Wyoming.

Like most sizable bodies of water, DeSmet hosts its own aquatic monster, Smetty. Descriptions of the creature vary. Some say it looks like a giant eel with a horse-like head. Others say it resembles an enormous alligator. Still other reports claim it's a classic Loch Ness-style plesiosaur. Knowing the prehistory of the lake, it's not hard to imagine Smetty being some relic population of Mesozoic monsters hiding or lying dormant in deep, water-filled caves under the prairie until they escaped into the collapsed coal seam that became Lake DeSmet.

Rather than depict Smetty as the usual snakey-necked plesiosaur, I wanted to go with a more unusual lake monster interpretation.  English journalist and wildlife specialist Frederick William Holiday speculated in his book The Great Orm of Loch Ness that Nessie, and by extension, other lake monsters, might actually be a giant invertebrate, possibly a worm or mollusk. He compares the shape of Nessie-- a long neck, boat-shaped body and paddled limbs-- to the strange fossil worm Tullimonstrum gregarium found in the Mazon Creek fossil beds of Illinois. He explains that Nessie, or rather, Nessies, since there would obviously have to be a whole population of the creatures, being invertebrates would explain several anomalies about the monsters, such as why no bodies have ever been found (the creatures have no bones to wash ashore, and their gelatinous corpses rot quickly), why sonar scans of the loch sometimes pick up a creature and sometimes don’t (if the animal is lying on the bottom like a slug, it wouldn’t show up on the radar), why they aren’t seen more (being gilled invertebrates means they don’t have to come to the surface for air) and why many people who have seen the beasts up close often seem more horrified and revolted than one would expect from merely sighting a giant aquatic reptile. In Holiday's explanation, the “neck” of Nessie is actually the trunk of this invertebrate while the paddled limbs are related to the odd extensions on the side of Tullimonstrum*.

But then if Nessie is a giant Tullimonstrum, or at least a distant relative, what then is Tullimonstrum itself? Although a definitive taxonomic placement hasn’t been made, it does bear similarity to a mollusk.  Specifically Pterotrachea, a group of pelagic sea snails. 

Pterotrachea coronata, from the Tree of Life Web Project. Below is the living animal in action!

If you’re confused at what you’re looking at, the dunce-cap like  structure at the front is a trunk of sorts with a hard “beak” called a buccal mass.  The flappy thing on top is the snail’s foot modified into a fin. The animal is, thus, swimming on its back with the trunk flopping back over its up-turned stomach.  Although Tullimonstrum’s resemblance to Pterotrachea is probably just convergent evolution, the former creature does possess a hardened, pincer-like buccal mass at the end of its trunk, along with a pair of prominent eyes like a predatory mollusk. At the very least, it’s quite possible that Tullimonstrum was another species of marine snail that developed a similar body plan.

Anyway, this mini-lecture was mostly just a roundabout way of saying that I based my Smetty design on Pterotrachea. Like Holiday’s invertebrate Nessie, the DeSmet monsters have long, flexible trunks which frightened onlookers often mistake for plesiosaur-like necks. This trunk actually does parallel the plesioaur’s elongated neck since it creates a smaller profile, allowing the animal to get in close to prey without causing disturbances in the water from its larger body.

As to how these creatures even got into Lake DeSmet in the first place, I still like the idea of them living in aquatic caves beneath the prairie and migrating into the gap created after the pre-lake coal seam burned away and filled with water.

By the way, go here for an awesome blog post about Pterotrachea by Joseph Jameson-Gould of Real Monstrosities 

*The paleontology/biology nerd in me is compelled to point out that while Holiday compares Nessie’s flippers to the projections on the side of Tullimonstrum, said projections are, in fact, eyes on the fossil animal, not locomotory appendages.

SOURCES 

The Great Orm of Loch Ness by Frederick William Holiday

http://www.ultimatewyoming.com/sectionpages/sec3/extras/desmetmonster.html

http://www.gillettenewsrecord.com/news/article_6c9c4598-de32-5d4d-a3c4-749e750a7fd1.html