(Water-Bull)
(© Orbis Publications Unlimited.)
The Lough Dubh incident is something of a defiant black-sheep amongst the otherwise relative uniformity of reports. The witnesses where credible; the boy had been badly frightened and the proximity between observer and creature was almost too close. Yet the description is so very unfitting against all others.
A hoax is always a possibility but as Peter Costello noted the father was a teacher, employed by the state, and therefore not one to risk his job by fabricating a doubtful story. Explanations otherwise have been few. One solution proposed involves an out of place walrus (known to occur time to time along the Irish coast) but this wouldn't explain the rhino-like horn nor the "stumpy feet"; though one could rightly argue in the confusion of the moment the mind can skew simple things.
So are the Mullaneys alone in their sighting? Has anyone else ever described such a bizarre entity amongst Irish monster reports? Even with the Achill Island 'dinosaur' there were a few reports at least that described the same strange beast. But Alphonus's attacker seems as though it stepped right out of the F. W. Holiday's "Goblin Universe", the hypothetical source of all troubling unexplainable things.A possible clue resides in Scotland...
"The ancient people were so smart they knew of two different animals."
Back in Fall of 1998 I was visiting Loch Shiel hoping to learn about the lakes tradition of 'long-neck' (i.e. "Nessie" type) sightings. In the course of my visit I was introduced to a well known local family in Glefinnen whose knowledge of the loch and local lore went back several generations. It was during a conversation regarding Shiel's lake monster history that I first came to hear of the water-bull. The Celts, I was told, apparently knew of two separate lake creatures: the more familiar Each'Usiage (water-horse) and the lesser mentioned Tarbh'Usiage (water-bull). Initially the so-called "water-bull" would seem to have actually been the name given to the long-necked animals reported in lakes like Ness, Morar and Shiel. That would then vouch for Each'Usiage likewise being a possibly real animal otherwise known from "mythology" as the Kelpie. So it seemed simple enough. Yet a wrinkle with this reasoning is how odd it seemed that the Celts would name a creature that looked horse-like, the "water-horse", yet when has Nessie ever been likened to a bull? And if the Loch Ness animals weren't the original "water-bulls" what was Tarbh'Usiage?
Reoccurring often in Celtic mythology is a belief that the terrestrial world is to some extent duplicated on an aquatic plane. The counter-parts of cows, pigs, dogs, horses and even people were said to dwell in the sea or within lakes and could even be captured to perform their expected duties: water-horses could be broke and employed as a normal horse and water-cows could be milked. The only abiding rule being that they must be restrained from returning to the water. Though the theme of parallel worlds can be found in various ancient cultures, this curious concept may have had partial inspiration from observing amphibious mammals whose appearance was superficially similar to everyday animals the rural population depended on. Whatever the case, as with the water-horse, the water-bull was an accepted part of the Celts' magical quasi-zoology.
According to Encyclopedia of the Celts, the water-bull (going by the alternate name: Elf Bull) is described as being smaller than "earthly bulls," with cropped ears, short corky horns (horn?), short legs and a long, round supple body "like a wild animal", with short, sleek, glittering hair like an otter. It was widely believed to be a nocturnal shore grazer. Some tales even told of water-bulls impregnating cows producing a specialized hybrid (rather reminiscent to the fanciful means of producing a master-otter through the crossing of an otter and a wolf hound).
In his book The Story of the Loch Ness Monster, Tim Dinsdale brings to light a pamphlet dating back to 1823 which describes both the Kelpie and the Water Bull as distinctly separate entities. The water-horse's sinister reputation is maintained while the Water Bull is said to be a harmless creature residing in smaller lochans and only coming out at night. There are modern accounts of amphibious horse-like creatures being sighted parts of in Ireland and northern Scotland as well as Iceland, if taken for face value they would seem to justify references to the Kelpie as a living creature as opposed to pure myth. So if there may have been a factual basis for the water-horse, might there too have been some biological origin to the water-bull?
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Highland Hippopotamus |
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Within In Search of Lake Monsters Peter Costello includes a curious excerpt from a letter written by Sir Walter Scott to a friend in 1810.
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Despite his extensive collection of Highland folklore, Scott wasn't one to champion belief in mythical figures. (He once scorned an educated man for believing in fairies). It's certainly interesting then, that he's speaking of a water beast whose appearance complies with that of a hippopotamus. A "Highland hippopotamus" certainly would seem to agree with Mullaney's "hippo-faced" beast. Following the letter is a recording of an attempt by villagers to capture a 'water-cow' by baiting it with a dead dog. Not surprisingly, they were unsuccessful. Perhaps the animal is, as the name would suggest, a herbivore after all.
F.W. Holiday's The Dragon and the Disc includes yet another letter by Sir Walter Scott this time as a response to Thomas Croker (who defined the horse-eel). Croker was baffled if there might not have been something real behind all the water monster stories he had gathered. After sending a copy of his book Legends and Tales of Ireland along with a question on the validity of the matter, Scott provided a similar response as before.
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Sir Walter Scott doesn't appear to be speaking of the already familiar water-horse nor of anything vaguely serpentine or long-necked for that matter. The end statement is puzzling though. It most likely alludes to the discovery of Ice Age fossils found preserved within bogs.
Outside of the loose references embedded in folklore and tradition, are there actual recorded sightings of the hippo-like water-bull besides Lough Dubh? Yes. Unfortunately though, they both happen to be recorded in the most famous of Scottish lakes which creates a slight complication.
Early one morning in April of 1923, Alfred Cruickshank was drive along Loch Ness trying to meet a train when he claimed to have seen a peculiar animal crossing the road about 50 yards in front of him. As he drew nearer he could make out a "large humped body standing about six feet high with its belly trailing on the ground and 12 feet long," [emphasis mine] also having a tail of comparable length. It had large webbed feet attached to four thick legs. "I saw the outline of what appeared to be the head," which he described as "big and pug-nosed and was set right on the body-in other words it didn't seem to have much of a neck." Cruickshank thought the beast resembled an "enormous hippo" in many ways. Before retreating into the water the creature gave off a "sharp bark."
A decade later a Mrs. Reid was on her way to Inverness when she spotted a strange creature lying in a glade along a wooded slope, away from the loch shore. She thought it was 6-7 feet in length bearing the general shape of a hippopotamus with a large rounded head and thick short legs. It appeared to be hairy and bearing a sort of mane, otherwise generally dark in color.COSTELLO, Peter In Search Of Lake Monsters (p.20) [Berkley Medallion Books 1974]
That both reports came out of Loch Ness is no doubt confusing but Cruickshank's took place in 1923, prior to the Loch becoming a media sensation. Aside from being a very unconventional description of the Loch Ness Monster, this incident is also unique in that it is one of the only cases where "Nessie" was described making any sound. That being the "bark". Peter Costello writes that in the Lough Dubh encounter the monster was annoyed by the "barking" of a cocker spaniel. Though I wonder if this isn't a misunderstanding of Mullaney's testimony which perhaps intended to state the animal was "barking" like a cocker spaniel. (If the beast lunged out of the water to attack the boy, why would it need to be 'annoyed' by a dog's barking?)
These are not the only cases where seemingly bizarre animals quite alien from the traditional "Nessie" would have been sighted in Loch Ness. Take the horse-eel, for example. Just as the Natural Museum of Dublin speculated for Dubh, perhaps these two reports were "visitors" passing through the loch. (I 'm not suggesting they're actually the animals responsible for the Loch Ness Monster itself.) After the plesiosaur-shape was deemed the standard for Nessie, it's probable that other hippo-type sightings may have been disregarded as fraudulent or taken to be cases of mistaken identity.
If having only one (recorded) Irish sighting and two from Scotland seems a bit weak, something needs to be taken into consideration. The long-necks have the obvious long neck and in the few instances where a water-horse's neck is seen held above water it's compared to that of a horse or mare. But with these three hippo-beast sightings we have short necks and big heads. In the water such an animal would appear little more than vague floating objects. And in both Scotland and Ireland there's plenty of sightings of mere 'humps'. The three instances cited above were all land sightings with Mullaneys' perhaps being a one-in-a-million freak occurrence. Otherwise how would a water-bull looking any different from the other assortment of strange beasts once in the water? Hence, the only instances where hippo-like beasts were knowingly observed and cited is when they were ashore (or at least coming ashore) and fully exposed.
Piast or Pachyderm?
With such limited information at hand it would perhaps be a bit premature to try and purport that the water-bull is a species of its own. Yet at the same time how very strange that such distinct descriptions should reoccur as they have. Assuming these reports aren't the product of some sort of natural illusion or case of mistaken identity then maybe they are somehow a form of water-horse. It could be a matter of sexual dimorphism whereas one gender bears considerable morphological contrast to the other. Or they could be well aged water-horses or diseased ones or just distortedly fat from consuming a steady diet of unsuspecting travelers during tourist season.
There is another possibility at least worth entertaining even if it seems quite a bit remote. Sir Walter Scott seemed to speculate that the hippo-like "water-bull" may in fact be a relic species of hippopotamus once native to the region in prehistoric times. A population of prehistoric pachyderm peistes? If nothing else, it at least makes more sense than a Scottish plesiosaur!
