Rare Monsters

 The dingbat was a fearsome critter from the local folklore of the western Great Lakes region. It’s origin was a taxidermied mash up of different animals that was displayed in the Friendly Buck-horn Tavern in Rice Lake, Wisconsin. The dingbat had the head of some small predatory mammal, often some sort of mustelid, the body of a bird of prey, and the antlers of a young buck. The legend of the dingbat states that it revelled in making the life of hunters difficult. The dingbat would whinny like a horse just as a hunter was about to take a shot at a buck, breaking his concentration and making him miss. If that didn’t work, the dingbat was capable of flying at incredible speeds and capturing the bullet mid air. The dingbat fed on bullets and gasoline, which it would drink from the hunter’s truck, leaving him stranded. The dingbat was a humorous way for hunters to explain why they had bad luck on a hunt or came back empty handed. The Friendly Buck-horn Tavern had several taxi...

  The nian is a mythical beast from China. It is associated with the lunar new year. It’s full name nian shou means year beast, although the name is usually shortened to just nian. The nian looks like a giant lion with a single horn in the middle of its forehead. It has monstrous fangs or tusks. The niam is huge, the size of a house or larger. The legend says that each year on new years the people of a remote village would hide away in their homes in fear. The nian would come out of the ocean or the mountains, depending on where the village was said to be, and devour everything, animals, people, etc. So the people would lock their doors, hide away inside and not make a sound, for fear the nian would find them. One day an old beggar wandered into town on the evening of new years. He saw everyone running away, turning out their lights and locking their doors. He went around knocking on doors, asking for a place to stay, but no one would answer him. At one house and old ...

  Ogopogo is the most famous lake monster in Cananda. It’s found in Lake Okanagan in British Columbia It’s said to live in an underwater cave somewhere near Rattlesnake Island. The name Ogopogo comes from a 1920’s folk song The Ogo-pogo funny foxtrot , which was a satirical song making fun of local monster sightings. The name stuck. Ogopogo is described as being 30 to 50 feet long and serpentine in shape. It often travels with an undulating up and down motion, which creates humps on the surface of the water. Ogopogo has two small horns that are similar to a giraffe’s ossicones. Ogopogo is dark green to black in colour. Other details are less consistent. It’s described as having either a horse or sheep like head. Sometimes it has a hairy mane down its neck. Sometimes it has sturgeon like scales down its back and sometimes it had either a fish’s or whale’s tail. Long before settlers came to the area Ogopogo was known to the Syilx people as N’ha-a-ikt. They saw Ogopogo as ...