Mysterious Creatures : A Guide to Cryptozoology

Variant names: Black dog of Hergest, Cwˆn
annwfn (“dog of the otherworld”), Cwˆn annwn,
Cwˆn bendith y mamau (“fairy dog”), Cwˆn cyrff
(“corpse dog”), Cwˆn toili, Cwˆn wybr (“sky
dog”).
Physical description: As large as a calf. Color
said to be black, red-gray, or snow-white. Glowing
red eyes.
Behavior: Often runs in a pack. Screams and
howls. Walks behind people, snarling. Dogs are
terrified of it.
Tracks: Doglike.
Distribution: Powys, South Wales.
Significant sightings: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
heard of the Black dog of Hergest while staying
near Clyro, Powys, and was inspired to write his
Sherlock Holmes story “The Hound of the
Baskervilles.” He agreed with the Welsh
Baskerville family to set the scene in Dartmoor
rather than Wales.
Dozens of sheep near Clyro were found with
their throats ripped out in August 1989. At least
two people saw the predator, which they
thought was a large, dark-colored dog.
Sources: Edmund Jones, A Relation of
Apparitions of Spirits, in the County of
Monmouth and the Principality of Wales
(Newport, Wales: E. Lewis, 1813); Marie
Trevelyan, Folklore and Folk-Stories of Wales
(London: Elliot Stock, 1909), p. 52; The
Independent, September 2, 1989; James
MacKillop, Oxford Dictionary of Celtic
Mythology (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1998), pp. 122, 263.
Gyedarra
Mystery Marsup ialof Australia.
Etymology: Australian word.
Physical description: Size of a horse.
Behavior: Semiaquatic. Eats grass.
Habitat: Creek beds, where it excavates large
holes in the banks.
222 GYEDARRA
Distribution: Near Gowrie Station, Queensland,
Australia.
Significant sighting: Aborigines claimed that
the fossil bones of extinct diprotodonts belonged
to large animals that were alive several
generations earlier.
Present status: Extinct but known as living animals
to the ancestors of the Aborigines.
Possible explanation: Surviving Diprotodon optatum,
a fossil wombatlike marsupial, the largest
known, that lived from 2.5 million to as recently
as 6,000 years ago. It was the size of a
modern rhinoceros, about 10 feet long, and had
a heavy skull nearly 3 feet long. It had massive
jaws and a large lower incisor.
Source: George Bennett, “A Trip to Queensland
in Search of Fossils,” Annals and Magazine
of Natural History, ser. 4, 9 (1872): 315.
Gyedm Gylilix
Cannib al G iantof western Canada.
Etymology: Nass-Gitksian (Penutian), “man
of the woods.”
Variant names: Gyedm gyilhawli (Tsimshian/
Penutian), Gyedm lakhs sgyinist (“man of the
jackpines”).
Distribution: West-central British Columbia.
Source: Bruce Rigsby, “Some Pacific
Northwest Native Language Names for the
Sasquatch Phenomenon,” Northwest
Anthropological Research Notes 5 (1971):
153–156.
Gyona Pel
Giant Hominidof northern Russia.
Etymology: Komi (Uralic), “hairy eared.”
Distribution: Komi Republic, European Russia.
Source: Dmitri Bayanov, In the Footsteps of the
Russian Snowman (Moscow: Crypto-Logos,
1996), p. 141.