In this paper I want to present an open-minded over-view of the subject, which not only examines evidence for and against the physical existence on this planet of various creatures of ancient and modern mythical tradition, but which also considers why there appears to be such an enduring human fascination with such matters.
I would first like to attempt a personal classification.
 |
At the corners of the triangular diagram are three general domains of classification. The domain of 'Objective Reality' pertains to creatures that incontrovertibly exist - they can be seen in conventional zoos and on television wildlife programmes, or physical remains of deceased specimens are available for analysis by academic zoologists. The domain of palaeontology is that of the fossil record - such creature's remains are found preserved in geological sediments of varying ages. The evolution of life on our planet can be traced back more than 1000 million years by examination of fossilised remains, although many of the species are now extinct.
In the domain of 'Fantasy' are classified creatures which appear to have no existence other than in works of fiction, or, alternatively, in the mythological traditions of various cultures. Quasi-objective observations of such creatures are occasionally reported, and the controversial nature of Crypto-zoology is a consequence of differing interpretations placed on such evidence.
EXOTIC PRIMATES
In the centre of the diagram I have placed those creatures which might be classed as 'Primates'. To this category I would assign the Yeti (or Abominable Snowman) of the Himalayas, the Big-Foot which has been reported to inhabit the forests of the Pacific Northwestern States of the USA, and the Irish fairy-folk or Leprechauns.
While trekking in the Khumbu region of Nepal (in the vicinity of Mount Everest).during spring 1988, I had the opportunity of discussing the Yeti with local Sherpa people. There is little doubt among these folk that the Yeti exists. It is described as a large intelligent animal that walks on two legs like a human, with a high domed head, and covered in reddish brown hair or fur. The hair is said to grow so that the creature has a 'parting' around its waist.
Physical remains are said to be displayed in the Gompa (monastery) at Pangboche, though at the time when I was there these had been loaned to a University in New Zealand for scientific examination as a result of an arrangement negotiated, I understand, by Sir Edmund Hilary, who has some reputation in the locale.
To place the Yeti in context it should be pointed out that the terrain in the high Himalayas is inhospitable and rugged in the extreme. There are no roads, and human population is sparse. In my judgement, it would come as no surprise to anyone who has visited the area if some announcement were made that a previously unknown species of plant or animal had been discovered there - albeit that any such species might already be well known to the local population. One of the principal arguments against the existence of the Yeti would seem to be that no western academic has succeeded in shooting or capturing one!
Yetis are said to be few in number and extremely shy of human beings. The locals say that they occasionally plunder kitchen garden plots and food stores in villages. Footprints are often spotted in the snow and it is insisted that they are quite distinct from those left by bears. The implication is often given by sceptical commentators (such as Hines referred to above) that the eyewitness descriptions of Yeti relate to bears standing on their hind legs. In my view it is facile, not to say patronising, for such authorities to imply that they are better placed than the local Sherpas and Tibetans to comment on the fauna of the Khumbu region and to make judgements about tracks left by such animals.
The evolutionary record shows that there have existed a multiplicity of hominid primates, and, if members of one of these species had survived into our own time, then the most likely habitat would be somewhere inaccessible where the indigenous human population are by nature peaceable and tolerant of their fellow creatures right to exist.
There are similarities, at least superficially, between descriptions of the Yeti and those reported of the 'Bigfoot' or Sasquatch. The purported footprints of this creature have been recorded since the 1930s, and although there is little doubt that some instances have been the work of hoaxers, there does appear to be some tradition of the existence of such a hominid among the native Amerindians.
The objective existence of 'little people', 'faeries' or Leprechauns seems to me to be more dubious. There are rich traditions of such creatures in Celtic, and particularly Irish, mythology, and it is not difficult to find individuals who are quite happy to relate their contact experiences. In many cases it is beyond dispute that the individuals in question believe what they are saying, but equally, it should be said that the few examples of photographic evidence, such as those of 'faeries' at the bottom of a garden in Cottingly dating from 1920, have been shown to be hoaxes. I will try to place such phenomena in context in a discussion of fantastic and mythical entities later in this paper.
PALAEONTOLOGICAL SURVIVORS
The number of species known from the fossil record which have become extinct greatly outnumbers the number of species known to be in functional existence today. There is no doubt that some species have managed to exhibit a remarkable talent for survival. There is a small shellfish of the Phylum Brachiopoda called Lingula which is represented throughout the Geological record from the Cambrian epoch, almost 1000 million years ago, until the present day. Lingula was more widely distributed in the Cambrian seas, and indeed the multiplicity of their fossil remains in rocks exposed on the Pembrokeshire coast has resulted in those strata being generally known as Lingula Flags. Nowadays Lingula is a localised species in the seas around Japan, where its habitat has become increasingly restricted in recent decades. It seems to have developed a taste for sewage outfalls, which may or may not be beneficial for its future survival. It would be a pity, after a billion years, if this inoffensive shellfish were finally to be wiped out by toxins that the average Tokyo housewife flushes into the surrounding biosphere.
It is not unusual for both zoologists and botanists to be surprised by the discovery of living examples of some species long thought to be extinct. Perhaps the best known example is that of the Coelacanth. Fishermen had occasionally been landing specimens of this fish - always dead - from the Indian Ocean in the vicinity of the Comoro Islands to the north of Madagascar. In 1938 one of these was spotted by a palaeontologist who recognised it as a fossil from the Devonian period, some 350 million years ago, and one of the evolutionary ancestors of the first amphibians ever to make the journey from the sea to the land. It is a big fish - up to six feet long, with armour plates round its head, and with the fleshy fins, which were later to become the legs of the first amphibians. A ferocious looking creature, with plenty of 'ocean credibility', the Coelacanth was generally assumed to have become extinct, along with the dinosaurs, at the end of the Cretaceous period some 60 million years ago. Subsequent investigations revealed that it had adapted to life on the deep ocean floor (hence the inevitable demise of specimens brought to the surface by fishermen), and recent footage has been shown on television of live Coelacanths going about their daily business. It seems that they like to bask the ocean floor head down. The fearsome teeth and armour are doubtless useful in the event of an encounter with any of the other 'gotcha' fishes which inhabit those depths.
So there is evidence of animals surviving from the age of the dinosaurs to the present. Another example is the Komodo Dragon - a huge lizard indigenous to the Celebes (Sulawesi) island of Indonesia; the eggs of these creatures are believed to have magical properties and can occasionally be found offered for sale in the weekend market in Bangkok.
Fictional accounts of surviving dinosaurs abound, the most celebrated perhaps being Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Lost World", in which explorers discover a rich Jurassic fauna on a plateau in South America. This tale may have been inspired by the extraordinary rock formations on the Roraima massif close to the Equator in southern Venezuela. Stories of this character seem to appeal to the public imagination, as evidenced by the stream of fatuous nonsense in the "Humans versus Tyrannosaurus" vein churned out by the Hollywood studios over the years. The worst example being perhaps the classic "One Million Years BC", featuring Racquel Welch in a tastefully cut animal skin bikini, a dialogue consisting of guttural grunts, and many sequences of stone age heroes battling huge carnivorous special effects.
One purported Palaeontological Survivor in the Crypto Zoo with a durability all its own is the Loch Ness Monster. It does appear to be stretching credulity to the limit to suggest that a Plesiosaur (or a family of them) could have survived in a Scottish Loch throughout the 60 million years since the Cretaceous period, but since that hypothesis represents probably the world's best example of a regional economy based on Crypto-Zoology, some detailed consideration is appropriate in a serious paper on that subject.
Loch Ness is one of the deepest freshwater lakes in Europe, plumbing more than 700 feet along much of its 24 mile length. It is more than a mile wide and has come into existence as a result of the flooding of a glacial valley gouged out along the fracture zone of the Great Glen Fault during the Ice Age (or Pleistocene Glaciation (for those who like the technical jargon)). The surface of the Loch is some 50 feet above sea level, and it drains into the Moray Firth, some 6 miles distant from the Northeast extremity via the River Ness. On that basis it seems quite improbable that any of the water in the Loch could have been there for more than about a million years, and that is my main objection to the 'continuous survival' notion. Nonetheless, reports of something strange in the Loch go back to the 6th century, and are supported today by reasonably convincing photographs and sonar evidence.
While researching the feasibility of a marine salvage operation to recover the Sarcophagus of Mycerinus (see my article in Skoob Occult Review *2), I had the opportunity of carrying out some sonar studies on Loch Ness in August 1989. It must be borne in mind that a Plesiosaur-like creature is not a submarine. It is a lot smaller, and its soft body tissue does not give such a clear image as can be obtained, for example from a solid object in a fixed position on the bed of the Loch.
In 1987 a systematic sonar investigation, 'Operation Deepscan', was conducted using more than 20 boats equipped with Lowrance and Simrad sensing equipment to scan the entire length of the Loch. A number of contacts were made with submerged objects that defied any rational explanation - although that in itself does not prove that any of them was the Monster. Attempts to investigate some of these contacts with underwater video equipment were inconclusive. The water in the Loch is notoriously brackish due to the amount of suspended particles washed down from the surrounding mountains which are swathed by a blanket of peat bog, and, of course, Monsters can move faster than video gear can be lowered down into hundreds of feet of water. The world's press assembled in hope of seeing the unfortunate creature snared and dragged to the surface -never a stated aim of Operation Deepscan - but it didn't happen, and, in their disappointment, the media declared the event a failure.
In 1989, together with my family, I chartered one of the boats used in 'Operation Deepscan', The New Atlantis, and, besides gaining some useful input pertaining to the Sarcophagus project, we paid some attention to the crypto-zoological opportunities available. Needless to say, nothing conclusive was spotted.
The most interesting hypothesis was one put forward by my young daughter. One day near the Fort Augustus end of the Loch, in some 400 feet of water, she noticed on the sonar screen a distinctive formation on the bottom beneath the boat. The appearance was of a number of humps diminishing in amplitude towards one end - a little like a damped sine wave. Moreover, in the enhanced false colour of the sonar image the object had a distinctive green and yellow hue, with an overall length of approximately 20 feet. Victoria pointed out this image on the screen - it was certainly the most Monster-like picture we had seen during the entire sweep along the Loch. Her inspired deduction was that Nessie was frightened by the noise of the boat's engine and had wisely decided to rest quietly on the bottom until the danger had passed. We set a new bearing to re-scan the same stretch of water, but it was too late. The Monster had used the time it took us to bring the boat about to make good its escape and the image had vanished. Only the photographic evidence from the first pass remains!
SEAFARER'S TALES
From ancient times until the advent of systematic classification of plants and animals by the pioneers of modern biological science, the most accessible sources of information about creatures which existed in other parts of the world were in stories brought home by seafarers. They told tales of such wonders as Flying Fish, Giant Octopus, Mermaids and so forth. Remarkable stuff, and much of it quite fantastic.
It can be imagined that an old salt, telling how he had been cast adrift in a long-boat and sustained only by Flying Fish which landed on the floor of boat, would be accorded about as much credibility by the sceptics of his day as would somebody today who told a tale of being kidnapped and sexually molested by the occupants of a Flying Saucer. Of course, sufficient sorties have now been launched into longboats, and elsewhere, by Flying Fish, that they are no longer the stuff of Crypto-zoology; rather they are classified into some 40 species of the family Exocoetidae - perhaps providing inspiration for whoever coined the name for the Exocet missile!
The Giant Octopus and Giant Squid are also the subject of serious study by marine biologists, and specimens of the Squid Architeuthis with tentacles up to 50 feet long have been brought to shore. Encyclopaedia Britannica puts forward the view that these animals are at the source of all the legends of Sea Serpents.
Mermaids, while clearly appropriate for discussion as a component of 'Seafarers Tales', might also, in crypto-zoological terms be classified with the other 'Composite Creatures'. That they are predominantly female perhaps reflects the preponderance of males among seafarers. Mer-persons feature in the mythological tradition of many seafaring nations, being attributed not only with magical and prophetic powers, but also with the ability to lure unsuspecting sailors to their doom (as did the Sirens of Greek myth). Their gifts were said to bring misfortune, and it was accounted an omen of shipwreck to see one on a voyage. According to the International Society of Cryptozoology the natives of New Guinea refer to mermaids as 'ri'. I have no information about the success of the Society's expedition to study the creatures - out of concern for their safety on the return voyage, to wish them well might be to hope that they were unsuccessful in their quest. There is a large aquatic mammal called a Manatee inhabiting the Everglades of Florida that is posited by some authorities to be the origin of the mermaid myths. This hardly seems credible to me - the Manatee is a docile but ugly brute resembling a Walrus. The leap of perception to the golden tresses and ripe breasts of the mermaid would be unaccountable, even allowing for the most exotic of deliriums which might be induced by ingestion of mouldy ship's biscuits.
METAMORPHIC PHENOMENA
One of the less frequently cited properties of Mermaids is their purported ability to transform themselves to a wholly human form. This metamorphosis is typical of certain other creatures with human associations - notably Werewolves and Vampires.
Both of these phenomena have been accorded an importance in modern popular culture through the efforts of the British and American film industries.
Psychiatric literature recognises a mental disorder under which a patient imagines himself (they ire predominantly male) to be a wolf or other animal. This condition is termed Lycanthropy from the Greek - literally Wolf-Man. Transformations of this sort were recognised by the ancient Greeks and the Romans, and it was widely believed that the condition could be induced by sorcery.
Throughout mediaeval Europe being a Werewolf was a serious offence - you could be burnt at the stake for it, and the burden of proof was no more onerous than for many other 'crimes' with a super-natural veneer. Such a fate befell one Jacques Roulet at Angiers, France in 1592. More recently, a policeman at Uttenheim, Germany shot a suspected Werewolf in 1925.
In a psychiatric context, the term Lycanthropy is not confined to Werewolves, it also includes patients who tare able to transform themselves into a bat. The Hammer House of Horror classification, however, would distinguish an individual in the latter category as a Vampire. On the authority of Encyclopaedia Britannica, a Vampire is "a blood-sucking creature, supposedly the restless soul of a heretic, criminal or suicide, that leaves its burial place at night, often in the form of a bat, to drink the blood of humans". The same source advises that Vampires can be distinguished from the rest of us by their inability to cast a shadow, and their lack of reflection in a mirror; that they can be warded off with a crucifix or by wearing garlic round the neck; and that they can be disposed of by driving a stake through the heart or destruction of the daytime resting place. There is no information as to whether these treatments for the condition are available through the NHS or under BUPA insurance schemes.
BESTIARY EXOTICA
In the days before the formal establishment of zoological science, the standard reference works on the multiplicity of creatures in God's creation were volumes known as 'Bestiaries'. Most of these ultimately derived from a series of Greek manuscripts dating from the 2nd Century of the Christian era known as the 'Physiologus'. In the pages of these volumes, besides passable descriptions of lions, elephants, giraffes and pelicans, are to be found equally graphic renditions of the characteristics of the Dragon, the Basilisk, the Phoenix and, of course, the Unicorn.
The latter creatures listed now find themselves firmly in the domain of crypto-zoology.
The Dragon of the Bestiaries is quite a different animal from the Komodo Dragon of the Celebes, mentioned above as a Palaeontological Survivor. For a start, as a class of animals, they were much more widely distributed, being featured in the literature of most all traditional cultures. Regrettably, all species of Bestiary Dragon may now be extinct, due in large part to the excesses of doubtless well-intentioned Christian Saints.
In our own islands numerous specimens have been described. The following examples are taken from notes of folk tales that I compiled during the early 1970s. The town of Denbigh in North Wales owes its name to one species of dragon - a fire-breathing winged serpent to be precise. This beast haunted the Castell Caledfryn-yr-Rhos and scared away the whole populus, until it was slain by the polydactyl 'Sir John of the Thumbs' of the Salusbury family who "hewed off its head". All the people thereupon cried "Dim Bych" - no more dragon - which is the derivation of the name of the town. One of the attractions of killing a dragon was that it subsequently became possible to take possession of a jewel of Draconite which was embedded in the creatures head, and which was imbued with magical qualities. It is said that it was possible to drug the creatures with poppy seeds and thereby capture the jewel without having to kill it -the humane approach!
Saint George was one of the fabled dragon slayers. He was an orphan at birth and is said to have been stolen away by the 'Weird Lady of the Woods'. Although he dealt with the dragon at Ogbourne St George in exemplary fashion, it was not always thus - he is said to have fled from one at Kingston (whether -upon-Thames, -upon-Hull, or Jamaica is uncertain).
Slaughter of dragons was not an exclusively male preoccupation either. One at Lyme Regis is said to have been slain by St Margaret. Nor were the Christian Saints always hostile in their intentions - St Simeon Stylites thoughtfully cured a dragon that was blind in one eye.
Mock dragon effigies were often prominent by tradition in civic processions through mediaeval London and at similar events in Norwich. As recently as 1614 it is recorded that a real one was hunted with mastiffs in St Leonard’s Forest near Horsham in Sussex; it may be of concern to people living in that vicinity now to know that it was apparently never properly disposed of!
Another creature from the Bestiaries with anti-social capabilities is the Basilisk or Cockatrice. This small serpent is credited with the ability to wither all plant and animal life with its gaze and its breath - it is said that all the world's deserts owe their existence to the presence of one or more Basilisks. These creatures are attributably the end product of an egg laid by a cock and hatched by a serpent. Only the weasel is reputed to be safe, since it can apparently secrete venom deadly to the Basilisk. They are also purportedly vulnerable to the sound of a cock crowing, and for that reason travellers in Basilisk infested regions were wont to carry cockerels with them in ancient times.
No visit to the Crypto Zoo would be complete without taking in the Phoenix, or Bennu Bird. This magnificent gold and scarlet plumed creature exhibits a means of self-perpetuation that sets it apart from other endangered species. There is reputed to be only a single Phoenix, and it has a very long lifespan - the shortest estimate is 500 years. When it feels its end approaching the mature Phoenix fashions a nest from aromatic twigs and herbs, it then sets fire to this structure which acts as its funeral pyre. From the ashes a new Phoenix miraculously appears, and, as its first task, the infant bird collects together the ashes of its parent and embalms them, fashioning them into an egg of Myrrh. The young bird then carries this object to Heliopolis - the City of the Sun in Egypt - where it is placed upon the altar of Ra. It is uncertain when these events last occurred. The incumbent Phoenix is believed to have migrated across the Western Ocean when the Caliphs demolished ancient Heliopolis to provide building stone for modern Cairo, and to have taken up residence in the deserts of Arizona and Mexico, where the locals called it Quetzalcoatl. All that now remains of pharaonic temple of Heliopolis is a single red granite obelisk. Any restoration project to recreate the Altar of the Sun might be rewarded by a manifestation of the immolation and rebirth of the Phoenix -wherever it is!
One Bestiary creature that has attracted the affection of the ‘New Age’ in recent years is the Unicorn. Like dragons these crypto-zoological specimens have a long and widespread pedigree. There are representations in the very earliest Mesopotamian pictorial images, and references in ancient Indian writings and in Chinese literature dating from the 27th century BC, where the animal is referred to as 'ch'i-lin' and vested with qualities of benevolence and gentleness. In Greek literature the Unicorn (or Monokeros) was described by Ctesias (circa 400 BC) as a wild ass the size of a horse, white with a purple head and having a single horn a cubit in length, tipped red at the end, black in the middle and white at the base. Drinking from the horn was said to be an antidote to poison, and effective against stomach trouble and epilepsy. Unicorns are notoriously fleet footed and difficult to capture. In biblical literature the animal is termed "re'em" -. this is sometimes translated as 'wild ox' or Aurochs, and in that sense there may be some association of the Unicorn with the Nordic Rune 'Uruz'. Unicorns are scarce these days; the aural tradition of the 'Tribe of the Sacred Mushroom' taught that they could be tamed by means of a lasso of hemp rope being cast over the horn by a female virgin. The Tribe devoted much energy to cultivating hemp for this expressed purpose, but, when last heard of, they had not been able to acquire any domesticated unicorns because, like police-persons sought in a crisis, there was never a virgin around when one was needed.
ENDANGERED SPECIES AND RECENT EXTINCTIONS
There is a serious message behind this light-hearted visit to the Crypto Zoo. Whether the creatures described in the foregoing paragraphs exist or not, there is little doubt that any and all of them would be classified today as endangered species. Since humankind has become the dominant species on this planet, a lengthening list could be compiled of animals that have definitely become extinct. Large and important creatures on such a list would include Gigantopithecus (a primitive hominid larger than a gorilla), the Sabre-tooth Tiger, the Mammoth, the Quagga, the Giant Moa, and most recently the Dodo - a harmless flightless bird of which three species were exterminated by humans as recently as the end of the 18th Century.
Some of the creatures of the Crypto Zoo may well exist as mythical memories of these or other creatures on any such list of extinctions. Others may of course have no more relation to objective reality than the phantasms of our dreams or the theurgic entities and egregors of transcendent perception.
It would be sad indeed if a visit to the Crypto Zoo in one hundred years time, or even less, was impelled to describe what could be culled from folk memory about the Whale, the Tiger, the Panda, the Rhino, the Elephant and the Wolf.
REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING
AUTOMOBILE ASSOCIATION Baedecker's Egypt 1988
BETHANCOURT, W J The Killings of "Witches" (ORCRO #8) Jan 1991
CHORONZON, Fra Sarcophagus of Mycerinus (Skoob Occ Rev #2) 1990
ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA (ed 1988): Basilisk; Coelacanth; Dodo; Giant Squid; Lycanthropy; Phoenix; Unicorn; Vampire
GIGNOUX, M Stratigraphic Geology (Freeman) 1955
HINES, T Pseudoscience & the Paranormal (Prometheus) 1988
VITRIOL, Fra Of the Provenance of Dragons in our Islands 1974 (unpublished personal notes)
WITCHELL, N The Loch Ness Story (Corgi) 1989