A Short History of Snake-Dogs

Arthur wiped beads of cold sweat from his forehead as he woke from a tumultuous nightmare. The moss was damp beneath his sleep-marred body - and before he even had time to get his bearings he was shocked to see something truly monstrous in front of him. There was a bizarre hybrid creature stood in his line of sight, and it seemed to be drinking from a small pool. Staring at the odd apparition while trying to push his recent distressing nocturnal vision from his head, Arthur was able to discern the long neck of a serpent and the hairy body of a leopard among its chimerical mess of animalistic features. This was the Questing Beast. The Beast Glatisant. An ancient creature of legend, and a monster perfect to fight a king...

What you just read was a stylised retelling of an ancient Arthurian legend involving a monster called the Questing Beast. You will soon come to see why the specific hybrid features incorporated into this mythical (or not so mythical, perhaps) beast are very relevant for today's article. Anyway - onto the story.

## Molunkusaurus!

Although it doesn't seem to exist now, there was once apparently a fairly well-known hotel in Enfield, Maine called the Exchange Hotel. It was run by a pretty popular man named Mr. A. J. Darling. This man seemingly put his popularity on the line, however, when he wrote to the local paper the '*Bangor Daily Whig and Courier*' about an experience had by one of his friends with what can only be described as a chimerical monster, and the evidence that Darling had apparently later collected to back up his friend's claims. The story would be published in the January 19, 1887 issue of the aforementioned newspaper.

According to said story, the main witness of the harrowing event was a lumberjack named Fowler. It was quite literally the bleak midwinter at the time of the encounter - December 19th of the previous year, to be exact - and Fowler was on his way from South Molunkus to his camp, which was about five miles away. He had made it part of the way there when a strange creature appeared on the road in front of him - humorously stated by Darling to have '*disputed the right of way with him*'. This animal oddity was described as being brownish in colour, and as being between 6-7ft long. It had a long tail which was '*somewhat turned up*' at the end, and a '*rather long*' neck to match. Although Loren Coleman seems to imply that he thinks this might've been a phantom big cat, I am instead imagining something looking much closer to a mammalian sauropod dinosaur.

Fowler had no weapon with which to defend himself against any possible attack by the weird critter, and so he decided that the best course of action would be to return to South Molunkus and to spend the night at a local hotel managed by one F. B. Coburn. The next morning, Fowler seemingly recruited Mr. Darling and a hunter only identified as 'West' - and decided to return to the scene of the crime, so to speak. At this location, this plucky group were able to identify a track which had seemingly been made by the anomalous animal. It was described as resembling that of a wolf, but was said to be much larger '*in every respect*'. As it trailed off, it seemed to be stepping in bounds as wide as those made by a Newfoundland dog, according to Darling. Darling finished his note to the paper by saying that he had spent many a year out in the Maine wilderness, and had never seen anything like this before.

## Monster on the Motorway

Trusted cryptozoologist Dr. Karl Shuker was able to find another report detailing a similar creature. This report first appeared in the 1996 edition of *UFO News World Report*, and contained a description of a rather extreme car accident seemingly caused by the sudden appearance of an interesting beast in Magalia, California. Sheila Charles was taking her son, Shane, to school on the 24 May 1996 when a hybrid horror darted out onto the road in front of her. She was able to describe it as being between 4-5ft in total length, and as having a sleek serpentine-looking head atop a neck - which was somewhere between 24 and 30 inches long. Its reptilian eyes were an alarming shade of red, and its body was covered in thick black fur. Its front limbs were somewhat shorter than its hind legs, and it lacked a tail.

The creature thus described ran out into the road in front of the mother and her son, and in a panic Sheila swerved in an attempt to avoid the critter - and while she might've done this, she ended up careening haphazardly into a canyon. Luckily nobody was badly hurt, and it can be presumed that the serpentine hound escaped from the potential motor disaster as well. It may have escaped from danger, but it hadn't escaped the sights of another motorist who had been driving behind Sheila at the time. This is an important detail because it means that it is more difficult to dismiss the tale as just a false memory caused by the stress of an accident, or even a falsification to justify the accident. The corroboration on behalf of this unnamed motorist adds much more legitimacy to the event. Shuker connected the case of the 'Snake-Headed Dog' to the Beast Glatisant (or Questing Beast) of Arthurian legend. This creature was said to be a mammalian quadruped with the head and neck of a serpent, and was even described as making noises like a pack of hunting hounds.

## An Aquatic Aberration?

If we choose to briefly suppose that these long-necked mammalian organisms are undiscovered biological organisms as opposed to anything supernatural or folkloric, then where (and how) would such creatures live? Interestingly, the Molunkus region from the first report is well known for its namesake lake - and there are plenty of bodies of water present across Magalia. They're not deep by any means - Molunkus Lake is only 38ft deep at its deepest point - but they're still potential habitat.

I will admit that the aquatic argument doesn't hold much water (pun intended) until you factor in two very similar reports from the mist-shrouded area around the legendary Loch Ness, coming from 1932 and some time during the 1910s respectively. These are what are referred to as the Fordyce and MacGruer-Cameron cases, and describe the Loch Ness Monster as resembling a hair-covered creature with a long neck, four prominent legs and - at least in the Fordyce incident - a long tail. This description seems to map onto the monster seen at Molunkus pretty well, and is at least a loose fit for Shuker's serpentine hound. If the camel-like monsters seen around Loch Ness live in the legendary lake, then who's to say that these long-necked menaces aren't swimming (and running) around similar areas across North America as well?

## Sources

'Molunkus Monster' on *Cryptozoonews.com*

'California's Snake-Headed Dog: A Modern-Day Questing Beast?' on *ShukerNature*