Hodag
The hodag is a fearsome critter from lumberjack folklore, a hoax perpetrated by a businessman trying to advertise his resort, and the beloved mascot of Rhinelander Wisconsin.
The hodag looks like a giant, green, hairy beast, with a short bulldog face and prominent tusks. The hodag has bull like horns on it's head and a row of spikes running down it's back. It has a long reptilian tail, tipped with a spike at the end.
The legend of the hodag starts in 1893 with resort owner Eugene Shepard. He created the hodag as a hoax to stir up interest in the area around Rhinelander so people would visit his resort. Mr. Sheperd reported that he and a group of hunters had a battle in the forest with the vicious hodag. They had fought off the beast with hunting rifles, hounds and 'poisoned water' in toy squirt guns. All their efforts were to no avail though, until one of the hunters finally killed the hodag by throwing a stick of dynamite at it.
At first people were intrigued and visited Rhinelander and his resort. However Mr. Shepard continued creating hoax material for the hodag even after he had accomplished his goal. It's unknown if he dug himself in too deep and needed to keep proving what he said, or if he just enjoyed making up the legend. Mr Sheperd continued to create hodag stories, made a model hodag which he would photograph as evidence of the beast. Eugene even organized hunts for the hodag.
Eventually Mr Sheperd claimed to have captured a live hodag, with the help of a bear wrestler and large amounts of chloroform. He began showing his hodag at the Oneida County fair where onlookers paid to enter a darkened tent where the hodag was being held. In reality the hodag was a cleverly constructed puppet being manipulated by someone behind the scenes.
Word of the hodag spread far from Rhinelander, to the point where even the Smithsonian wanted to investigate the hodag as well. At this point Mr Sheperd knew he couldn't keep the reuse up any longer and admitted the hodag was fake. Eugene expected to be lambasted by the public for this lie, and that was the reaction from the Smithsonian investigators. However the people of Rhinelander had so much fun living the legend of the hodag they didn't care and continued to embrace the monster even after the reveal.
Eugene Sheperd's story of battling the hodag is the official start of the monster, it's said he got the idea from already existing lumberjack stories about their own hodag monster. This hodag was supposedly the spirit of a mistreated cart ox that had come back from the grave to torment its previous handlers, and any other lumberjacks who had the misfortune of running into it. Even this is theorized as not being the absolute origin of the hodag, as some historians have suggested that the hodag was a way for lumberjacks and explorers of the time to interpret rock art of the water panther, Mishipechu, from Ojibwe legend.
While most people know of the original green hodag, some sources state that there are multiple kinds of hodag, those being the black and cave hodag, and possibly the hillside ghyser. The black hodag is the most like the original green, and may be intended to be the same creature, although their descriptions do differ. The black hodag is massive and bull like, possibly alluding to the old legend of the hodag being a ghost bull. It has downward saber like tusks, serrated horns and a double row spikes down its back. The cave hodag on the other hand, is small brown, and has a short nose with upward boar like tusks. It has only a single row of spikes on its back and its tail is missing the spike at the end. The oddest feature of the cave hodag is that it has three eyes, with its additional eye being in the middle of its forehead. It's thought the brown hodag was inspired by the circus puppet Mr. Shepard showed off at the fair.
The hillside ghyser is also believed to be a relative of the hodag, being the result of a get together between the hodag and the sidehill gouger.
Being an aggressive and territorial best the hodag has made many enemies among the other fearsome critters. One is the Rhinelapus, a reptilian living cannon that would shoot cannon balls at anyone who approached, even the feared hodag. The other being the dismal sauger, who is a sad and pathetic creature, much like the squonk, but has the added ability to transfer its misery to everyone around it as well. This sadness was even able to effect the hodag, but instead of succumbing to sadness the hodag fought against the dismal sauger. The resulting battle ended the lives of both creatures. At least that was only one individual hodag, as Eugene Sheperd said the hodag was a whole species and the hills and forest surrounding Rhinelander was crawling with them.
Today the Hodag is the beloved mascot of Rhinelander. There's a large statue of the hodag outside the Rhinelander Chamber of Commerce, and many locations around town are named after the hodag, such as the Hodag sports dome, Hodag snow trail and the local radio station 97.3 Hodag Country. There's even a Hodag Country Music Festival held each year.
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