It’s a new year and a new chapter of the Bestiary, and that chapter is a corker. (I rather hope the year won’t be, except in the most positive sense, but we won’t go into that.)
Let’s talk about cryptids. These creatures live on the border between myth and reality. Maybe they’re legends; maybe they’re memories of species long extinct. Maybe they don’t exist at all, except in the popular imagination. And maybe they’re real, but science hasn’t confirmed their existence, or at least their persistence into the modern era.
Science out of the mainstream is a different proposition. That’s the realm of individuals who claim to study cryptids. Cryptozoologists, in a word. Like ufologists and parapsychologists, they inhabit the fringes of science, tipping over (and sometimes well over) into pseudoscience. That’s Fox Mulder territory: The Truth Is Out There. And I Want to Believe.
I’m sure everyone here is familiar with the big-ticket cryptids. The Loch Ness Monster. Bigfoot (and Sasquatch and the Yeti and their amazing number of relatives). Fans of The X-Files may recall the chupacabra and the Jersey Devil. And let’s not forget one of my favorites, the Mothman. I’m rather partial to the Thunderbird, too, and the Mongolian Death Worm.
There is a lot of folklore out there about monsters and strange creatures unknown or little known to science. Just about every place on the planet has stories of mysterious beings, often monstrous, sometimes benign, that may live among us, or more often inhabit the lands outside of human settlements. They live in lakes or in the mountains; in the forest or the jungle. They fly over us; they hide themselves in the deeps of the sea or far underground.
They never quite present themselves to scientific proof. Occasionally a bit of fur or hide or scales may (supposedly) defy DNA analysis. Hunters may find a lair in the woods or high on a mountain, that doesn’t quite fit the habits of more usual species. And of course there are the plaster casts of giant primate-like feet that have been made everywhere from North America to the Himalayas.
Since we’re genre fans here, we don’t have to prove anything scientifically—unless we want to. We can explore the wide range of cryptids on land, in the sea, and in the air. They are everywhere. Some of them, with enough time and persistence, might even yield solid, incontrovertible proof that they do, in fact, exist.
What is your favorite cryptid? Have you come across one that’s not on the usual radar? Any favorite books (nonfiction included) or films or television programs that might lead us in interesting directions? I have a list of course, but it’s just the beginning. There’s so much out there, and so many possibilities.
Judith Tarr is a lifelong horse person. She supports her habit by writing works of fantasy and science fiction as well as historical novels, many of which have been published as ebooks. She’s written a primer for writers who want to write about horses: Writing Horses: The Fine Art of Getting It Right. She lives near Tucson, Arizona with a herd of Lipizzans, a clowder of cats, and a blue-eyed dog.
