UK ficticious animal question

[karohemd]

The snouter (see previous post) made me think. Is there a ficticious animal in UK culture, similar to the German Wolpertinger or the American Jackalope?

Note: I'm not counting mythological beasts like unicorns, griffins, dragons etc. or faeries and related critters, but more modern made-up critters (mainly too fool and take the mickey out on tourists).

Comments

[faerierhona.livejournal.com]

Well, apart from the huge array of Beasts of and all the Celtic fae, I guess there's Nessy, the Haggis etc...

[suzerain.livejournal.com]

are you, my good lady, trying to say that Nessie is fictitious?

how dare you?

I'll have you know that there are many and regular trustworthy sightings of the monster by good, reliable members of the public - reputable people like bed and breakfast owners, and hotel managers, every single year. usually in april or may, just before the tourist season kicks off......

[caseytalk.livejournal.com]

When I was visiting Loch Ness, the lovely woman who ran the B&B where we stayed said,"There's no secret to seeing Nessie, as long as you see Mr. Jack Daniels first."

[suzerain.livejournal.com]

sounds about right.

(I grew up there, we had a cotage in lewiston, just by the lochside, and my mother runs a B&B in Inverness)

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

That would never happen after a decent dram of Single Malt. ;o)

[akcipitrokulo.livejournal.com]

Never mind Nessie - of course the haggis is a real animal!

[akcipitrokulo.livejournal.com]

Never mind Nessie - of course the Haggis is a real animal! Peak haggis-hunting season at the moment!

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

Nessie isn't quite in the category I was thinking as it's just one but yes, the Haggis is a good one.

[caseytalk.livejournal.com]

What about a griffin/gryphon?

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

I'm not really counting mythological beasts.

[pmoodie.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the Haggis and Nessie are the ones I was going to suggest.

[riksowden.livejournal.com]

How about the assorted dark dogs - Barghests - that lurk about places? Or the big cats of the moors?

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

No, that's not what I mean.

[ginasketch.livejournal.com]

Not that I know of, but Belize has the Cadejo.

[mr-malk.livejournal.com]

Not really. Not that I can think of. The Highland Haggis is probably as near as you will get, and of course there are various stories like the Beast of Bodmin, some or all of which may or may not have foundation in fact (black panthers or similar prowling the English countryside).

The thing is, the British Isles are so replete with faerie lore, inventing more of the stuff would seem to be akin to putting spikes on a nuclear warhead! Some of them, notably Leprachauns in Ireland and Pixies in Cornwall are well enough known to popular culture that they serve the regional tourist trade well enough, but they are not really the sort of thing you were asking about.

[whollyrandom.livejournal.com]

How about the Beast of Bodmin ..? Not sure if that's what you're looking for, either, but a big cat on an English moor certainly comes across as fairly fictional.

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

Not really. More like the one above and the Wolpertinger, things you could find fake taxidermies of.
The Beast of Bodmin is more like Nessie, many people claim to have seen it (or have been the victim of it) but there's no physical proof except a few blurry photographs while the above do have physical proof albeit fake.

[davegodfrey.livejournal.com]

There's a surprisingly large amount of evidence for big cats living wild in the UK- the photos and video are often blurry, but several are clearly of big cats rather than a large domestic moggie. And then you have the deer carcasses, and footprints.

Whether there is a viable breeding population, I don't know, but given how long the sightings have been going on for it wouldn't surprise me. A fair number would have been released when the various laws about keeping dangerous animals came in round about the 1970s.

[suzerain.livejournal.com]

actually there's - or was - a stuffed big cat, I think either a leopard or lynx, cant remember which, in inverness museum many years ago, which was found, possibly shot, up in the highlands.

[janiejynx.livejournal.com]

Can we count the jabberwock?

[echo-echo.livejournal.com]

Well, it's not like they discourage people from believing in the haggis!

http://www.camvista.com/blog/tag/hunting-haggis-season/

Iirc it was believed the duck billed platypus to be a hoax at first.

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

Heh, haven't seen the Haggis with a bill yet.

*nods* Apparently, the platypus' DNA looks like someone took various bits from different animals and stuck them together randomly.

[colonel-maxim.livejournal.com]

I was wondering if you would count the various phantom black dogs such as Black Shuckn and, in fiction, the Hound of the Baskervilles. I suspect that they fall more under the category of ghosts and spirits though as well as being, I suspect, common in many countries.

http://www.mysteriousbritain.co.uk/folklore/phantom-black-dogs.html

[theoldcatlady.livejournal.com]

When I was in Scotland, oh, way back in the mid-late 80s, we went to a cailidh and were told about the haggis. They told us it has 4 legs, but 2 on one side were longer (or shorter depending on how you look at it) so they could better run about on the hills. The trick to catching them was to get them to run in the other direction so they would fall over and roll down the hill into the waiting arms (or net, or what have you) of your hunting pal.

Inverness! Inverness is gorgeous!
I wanna go back, waaaahhhh!