Another ongoing project "M" undertook throughout college (when he could have been studying useful subjects like Accounting) he dubbed "Monster of the Week." His fantasy world would be filled with strange inhabitants, and frightening creatures were likely to show up in horror and science fiction stories too, so he tried to outline some new Thing once a week. The "monster" might be something familiar from mythology or folklore (tweaked to fit his universe), a weird report out of cryptozoology or Forteana, or something totally made up.
Hey, nice work if you can get it! As I, Chester Monday, re-discover "M"'s inspirations and old college notes, I might just re-start "Monster of the Week!" Things we all know, like Yeti, things "M" came up with years ago, and even brand-new critters. The entries will have a brief description (nothing as specific as D&D stats, though – we’ll keep our options open and leave our monsters with a slight aura of mystery). Since we’re documenting the whole Fantasy World, we’ll show our sources (unless we made it up completely), and I’ll end with a comment if it seems necessary.
Unfortunately, life has changed since our carefree college days. We can't really afford to devote a chunk of each and every week to our critters. Well, there's no deadline on the Fantasy World Project, so we'll examine the occasional wandering monster as we make time for it.
Wandering Monsters begins June 26, 2009, with:
This creature – if one can call it a creature – appears as a monstrous gray-green hand and arm that reaches out of the ocean to snatch people from piers, crush rowboats and drag ships to a halt. The Hand has cracked, blocky nails, barnacles pimpling its skin, and kelp and seaweed hanging from it in gloppy strings. The arm to which it is attached does not itself seem to be attached to anything. Glimpsed underwater, it stretches a mile into the depths. No one knows if it is a spirit, monster, or god, or part of one. The Hand might save drowning swimmers or pull a ship from the rocks, or it might kill and destroy. Its motives are as much a mystery as its origin and identity.
Comments: Well, I had to put it to “M”: Where did he come up with a Thing like that? His reply: “The Hand came from several directions, as most things do. Mainly I was looking for a new sort of sea monster, and I recalled that Cecil the Sea-Sick Sea Serpent started out as a hand puppet. Suppose someone had yanked the puppet off on live ‘50s TV? There’d be this huge hand and arm sticking out of the ocean near the Leakin’ Lena . . . I had various explanations for the Hand over the years, but I decided finally not to have it be a wizard’s creation or a manifestation of Poseidon or anything like that. It’s a total mystery in a mysterious world.”
This under-earth invertebrate resembles a monstrous sea urchin, ten feet in diameter, with numerous black tentacles instead of spines. The Cave Roller normally lives in subterranean lakes and rivers, but it can emerge into the open for short periods. It travels by rolling along in a sloppy, wobbly manner, and it senses the tiniest vibrations through its many tentacles. Spelunkers occasionally fall prey to Cave Rollers, and a catastrophe such as an earthquake or landslide can drive one into the upper world.
Comments: Wow! As soon as we say we're going to work on something, life gets busier than ever. Oh, well, two monsters for the price of one this time around.
My man "M" says: "We took trips through Marvel Caves whenever we visited Silver Dollar City near Branson, Missouri. The guides always pointed to the cave roofs and told us of the ancient, swirling currents that carved them, millions of years ago. Then they'd switch off the lights for a moment to let us experience the ultimate darkness. Something had to be living in those endless tunnels!"
The beast might have been a dinosaur or a Komodo dragon or – George couldn’t say. If an alligator had legs like a bear and a shorter, doglike head, it might resemble this reptilian beast.
-- “The Ambrose Collectors”
The Snallygaster is a descendant of the prehistoric Protosuchus, ancestor of crocodiles and alligators. Its head is recognizably croc-like, but its jaws are short and rounded almost into a muzzle. It has much longer legs than the typical crocodilian, being an energetic land-dweller that can chase prey animals as fast as a dog or coyote. There are two species of this creature, one about the size of a black bear, which seems interested only in eating, and a smaller, very intelligent strain that acts more mischievous than hungry, often jumping out of hiding places or rolling down hills simply to frighten people.
Comments: “M” says “I like transitional creatures like the Archaeopteryx, half-lizard and half-bird, the Coelacanth, a fish well on its way to being a land animal, and the Protosuchus, a land reptile headed for ‘croc-hood’. The name Snallygaster actually refers to a dragonlike critter supposedly found in Maryland. It just seemed like the perfect name for a long-legged, fast-running, mischievous land ‘gator.”
Oh – and don’t worry about the quotes that come from stories you can’t quite place. Most of them haven’t been published yet. It’s all part of the expanding Fantasy World Project!
Its head was long, ears turned forward, one pricked and one folded forward. It had a peculiar barreled pig-like snout . . . It looked straight at Mr. Knowles, and this disturbed him, because he could not see any eyes – only a thin black line where the eyes should be. The torch was shone full into the strange face, but there was none of the usual retinal reflection familiar from animal eyes at night.
Bob Rickard, “The Exmoor Beast and Others”
Fortean Times No. 40 (Summer, 1983)
The Blind Beasts resemble aardvarks with extra-long legs: Thick, kangaroo-like tails, huge pointed ears, piglike snouts and hooflike claws. Their most striking feature, however, is their utter lack of eyes, a result of life deep within the earth. They are the ultimate trackers, their senses of smell and hearing being greater than even a dog’s or bear’s. Creatures and peoples who dwell underground or otherwise dislike the light of day raise the Blind Beasts as hunting animals.
Comments: M notes: “We’d better introduce these fairly early, as they appear in our new Fantasy Novel. The Blind Beasts are analogous to the eyeless fish and shrimp found in certain cave systems, but the real spark came from the quoted Fortean report above (though, actually, Mr. Knowles’ sketch of the creature looks more like a Great Dane than an aardvark).”
This rare vulpine beast grows to be larger than most wolves, usually possessing fur of a black or gray color. Due to its odd appearance and fox-type antics (like balancing and hopping on its hind legs) it is often taken for a werewolf. The Giant Hill Fox is clever at covering its tracks, making it so difficult to follow it can be mistaken for an apparition. It dislikes the elaborate hunts formed in some countries to chase its smaller cousins and harries them from the shadows and woods. It is not known if it has powers like the famous Kitsune of the East, but it demonstrates near-human intelligence and cunning.
Sources: In an article in the British publication The Countryman, a woman named Vida Herbison writes of a strange encounter in Sussex. One morning as she and a friend named Mike rode their horses along part of an ancient Roman road, heading, ironically, toward a foxhunting meet, “the horses shied as a gigantic grey wolf-like creature came loping across the field on our offside.” It ignored the humans and horses completely as it crossed the track and vanished over a hill. Vida’s friend cried, “What the devil was that? Looked like a wolf, didn’t it? A werewolf.” They found no tracks, and inquiries as to possible owners, or animals escaping from circuses or zoos, were all negative.
In a later issue of The Countryman, a Doris W. Metcalf had this to say: “I too have come across wolf-like creatures in this part of Sussex, before the 1939-45 war. I always understood they were the last of an ancient line of hill foxes, though I have found them on the marshes too.” One of Metcalf’s sightings took place on a summer day near Jevington. As in the Herbison story, Ms. Metcalf was horseback riding with a companion when a large gray animal crossed the trail ahead of them, “taking not the slightest notice of us.” It loped down into a hollow and vanished. A second sighting took place during a foxhunt near Glenleigh Manor. It appeared on a lane in front of Metcalf and some companions only “a yard or two away.” When the humans stopped walking, it did as well, yet it otherwise didn’t acknowledge the people so close to it. It “seemed to listen to the sounds of the hunt before turning and loping off across the marshes towards Pevensey. Probably it was these big foxes that gave rise to many of the werewolf legends.”
Herbison, Vida. “Ghosts I Have Known,” in Countryman Vol. LIV, No. 4 (Winter 1957), pp. 633-636.
Metcalf, Doris W. “Werewolves in Sussex,” in Countryman Vol. LV, No. 2 (Summer 1958), p. 357.
Comments: Foxes as big as or bigger than wolves? The mind boggles. I always wondered if you really could “expand” small animals to make them giants. There might be physiological reasons against it. But in Sussex they apparently have super-sized vulpines! “M” says, “Even though we’re given only three ‘sightings’, there are common details that make them interesting: the creatures seem unafraid of humans, to the point of ignoring them completely even if they’re only a few feet away. Two were seen near foxhunts. Perhaps they had hunts of their own in mind . . .”
The Nittaewo are gibbonlike creatures found in tropical rain forests. They are covered with dark or reddish hair and, unlike apes, their fingers end in wicked claws. Their language is a “burbling” or bird-like twitter. They use no tools or weapons but catch small game or steal meat from human villages. They rip open their prey with their claws and devour the entrails, and they will so kill a lone human if they can catch one asleep. They build sleeping platforms in trees, roofed over with leaves; beyond this they possess no trappings of civilization.
The Nittaewo stand only a meter or so high, but they travel in groups, so they can be quite dangerous to travelers. Different human tribes will often band together to wipe out populations of these hairy beings if they take to harassing villages.
Heuvelmans, Bernard (Trans. Richard Garnett). On the Track of Unknown Animals (London: Kegan Paul, 1995 [1955]).
Comments: On this earth the Nittaewo supposedly inhabited Ceylon, and they were continually at war with a tribe called the Veddahs. The Veddahs finally chased the last of the creatures into a cave and built a huge fire at the entrance, keeping it burning for three days, until all the Nittaewo smothered. Judging by the ages of the native informants, this extermination occurred around the year 1800. Most of our information comes from a British explorer named Hugh Nevill, but other hunters and explorers collected stories of the Nittaewo. If the accounts are true, it is a unique example of an inter-species war in relatively recent times.
“M” says: “Heuvelmans’ books were major influences on the Fantasy World. I’d heard about them since I was a kid in grade school, but I never came across them until I entered Oklahoma State University. Strangely, we have to read 100 pages into Heuvelmans before coming across our first “monster”, the Nittaewo. I’m acting almost as if I’ve never read anything about myth, legend, and folklore before, so I’m presenting creatures as I “discover” them. A haphazard way to do it, but we ought to have quite a variety before we’re done!
This creature resembles a large, flightless bird, like an ostrich. However, it has a scaly skin and a long, balancing tail. It can run as fast as or faster than a man, but it normally frequents ponds and watering holes. It can duck beneath the water for minutes at a time, attacking and drowning prey as large as or larger than itself.
Comments: The Australian Aborigines speak of the amphibious Gauarge. It dwells in watering holes and drags down anyone who bathes there. "It looks like an emu, but without feathers," writes Bernard Heuvelmans.
Heuvelmans points out that this description would fit the Struthiomimus, a slender, bidedal, Cretaceous dinosaur with a birdlike beak. (The Jurassic Park critter "Gallimimus" is a related animal.) Perhaps, trapped on the Australian island-continent, these Ornithomimosaurs ("bird-mimicking reptiles") took to a semi-aquatic life and survive to this day Down Under. (On the Track of Unknown Animals pp. 228-230.
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