Bear Lake creature

Was recently sent this documentary on the search for the Bear Lake Creature.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwMlEcP6n_A&feature=youtu.be

My original post from 2009 is below for background.

There has been a lot of discussion online about the Bear lake monster so I thought I would look it up.

The first reported story of the monster came from articles written by Joseph C. Rich, a Mormon living in the area in 1868.

Here is a copy of the original article in the Deseret News Newspaper July 31, 1868 :

"The Indians have a tradition concerning a strange, serpent-like creature inhabiting the waters of Bear Lake, which they say carried off some of their braves many moons ago. Since then, they will not sleep close to the lake. Neither will they swim in it, nor let their squaws and papooses bathe in it. Now, it seems this water devil, as the Indians called it, has again made an appearance. A number of our white settlers declare they have seen it with their own eyes. This Bear Lake Monster, they now call it, is causing a great deal of excitement up here. S. M. Johnson at South Eden was riding along near the Lake the other day when he saw something a number of yards out in the lake which he thought was the body of a man. He waited for the waves to wash it in, but to his surprise, found the water washed over it without causing it to move. Then he saw it had a head and neck like some strange animal. On each side of the head were ears, or bunches the size of a pint cup. He concluded the body must be touching the bottom of the lake. By this time, however, Johnson seems to have been leaving the place so rapidly he failed to observe other details. The next day three women and a man saw a monstrous animal in the lake near the same place, but this time it was swimming at an incredible speed. According to their statement, it was moving faster than a horse could run. On Sunday last, N. C. Davis and Allen Davis of St. Charles; Thomas Sleight and James Collings of Paris, with six women were returning from Fish Haven when about midway from the latter place to St. Charles, their attention was suddenly attracted to a peculiar motion of waves on the water about three miles distant. The lake was not rough, only a little disturbed by the wind. Mr. Sleight ways he distinctly saw the sides of a very large animal that he would suppose to be not less than 90 feet in length. Mr. Davis doesn't think he was any part of the body, but is positive it must not have been less than forty feet in length, judging by the waves it rolled up on both sides of it as it swam, and the wave it left in the rear. It was going south, and all agreed it swam with a speed almost incredible to their senses. Mr. Davis says he never saw a locomotive travel faster, and thinks it made a mile a minute. In a few minutes after the discovery of the first, a second followed in its wake, but seemed much smaller, appearing to Mr. Sleight about the size of a horse. A larger one followed this, and so on until before disappearing, made a sudden turn to the west a short distance, then back to its former track. At this turn Mr. Sleight says he could distinctly see it was of a brown color. They could judge somewhat of the speed by observing known distances on the opposite side of the lake; and all agree that the velocity with which these monsters propelled themselves, was astounding. They represent the waves rolling up on each side as about three feet high. This is substantially their statement as they told me. Messengers Davis and Sleight are prominent men, well known in the country, and all of them are reliable persons, whose veracity is undoubted. I have no doubt they would be willing to make affidavits to their statements. Was it fish, flesh. or serpent? Amphibious, of just a big fib, or what is it? I give up, but live in hopes of some day seeing it.

More recently a Captain Hirschi reported in 2002 (see article below)that he saw a sixty-five foot long monster from about two-hundred yards:

Bear Lake serpent sighting

GARDEN CITY -- Brian Hirschi may have doubted the existence of the legendary Bear Lake Monster when he purchased a pontoon-boat replica of the creature three years ago.

But all that changed one evening in the summer of 2002. After a long day of giving tours aboard the vessel, Hirschi was anchoring for the night a few hundred yards offshore when he had a haunting rendezvous with the slimy serpent. Now, he's convinced that the scores of other eyewitness accounts of the monster, which date back to American Indian times, are true. And he shrugs off naysayers who suggest that the legendary creature is just a tall tale or marketing ploy. "When you join the elite group of people who've seen it, you don't care what everybody else thinks," the 29-year-old Hirschi said Thursday. That elite group reportedly includes LDS Church presidents Wilford Woodruff, Lorenzo Snow and Joseph F. Smith. Even Brigham Young is said to have once supplied a rope to a local resident who wanted to snare the creature. Hirschi's encounter, one of the more recent sightings, occurred at about sunset as he was drifting backward to make the boat's anchor lines tight. About a hundred feet off the stern of the vessel, he noticed two small humps three feet apart in the water. His first thought was that somebody had left behind a water ski, but suddenly the humps disappeared beneath the surface. "I thought this was strange, but I had seen stranger things on the lake," Hirschi said in a written account of the encounter he posted on the Internet last year. About 30 seconds later, he felt something scrape the bottom of the boat and then lift it out of the water about six inches. "This grabbed my attention because I knew there were no underwater rocks or obstacles that could have caused this, plus the 80,000-pound boat doesn't just get lifted out of the water easily." A few moments later, less than 50 feet from the side of the boat, the monster shot out of the lake. When it landed, it made enormous waves that rocked the boat violently. Hirschi clung to the rail to keep his balance, all the while trying to keep his eyes on "whatever had just come out of the water." The monster resurfaced about 200 yards away as it swam toward the middle of the lake at a high rate of speed. Hirschi stood on the boat for 20 minutes in shock before deciding he'd better get to shore before dark. He hopped on his Sea Doo and drove back to his business, Performance Rental, as fast as he could, almost beaching the watercraft with the engine still running. "I wondered if I should tell anybody," Hirschi said. "After some thought, I finally decided I wouldn't tell anybody because they might think I had gone crazy from spending too much time on the monster boat. Plus, there were no other witnesses to verify the sighting. ... It is not until now (a year later) that I have finally decided to tell my story and let people know to be on the lookout for the Bear Lake Monster because it is still alive and lurking." Hirschi said he believes the monster approached his boat to determine whether it was a similar species. Conrad Nebeker, the Indian Creek resident who constructed the boat in 1996 to entertain his grandkids, modeled it as closely as possible after eyewitness accounts of the monster, which is said to be a green, slimy, serpent-like creature with red eyes, fangs and bunchy ears. Hirschi said the creature he saw was also about the same length as the boat. However, based on his encounter, he's decided to add red lights to replicate the monster's glowing eyes, a smoke machine to emanate mist from the replicas nostrils and an audio device to play a roaring sound. Hirschi, a Cache Valley native who graduated from Logan High School and Utah State University, said his father and grandfather were both from the Bear Lake Valley, and he spent summers there during his childhood. He has maintained that living arrangement as an adult, offering 45-minute tours of the lake aboard the monster boat seven days a week beginning in mid-June. During the tours, Hirschi recounts some of the folklore about the monster. He said he always carries a camera, just in case his passengers are lucky enough to catch a glimpse. "We tell them there's always a chance," he said. "The Indians have a tradition concerning a strange, serpent-like creature inhabiting the waters of Bear Lake, which they say carried off some of their braves many moons ago. Since then, they will not sleep close to the lake. Neither will they swim in it, nor let their squaws and papooses bathe in it."

Story published by The Herald Journal / UT | John Wright - May 22.04

So a myth or is there something in Bear Lake? The descriptions of the creature vary between a walrus like animal and a sort of prehistoric crocodile and a large brown snake. Surely all three cannot be living in the lake? I think it may be an alligator gar again but anyone reading this has any suggestions or knows more about this, please post a comment. It could of course be simply a myth that has grown over time as these things do and mistaken identity of natural phenomena in the lake, fuelled by the myth. Anyone out there know different?.

The folktale:

http://www.americanfolklore.net/folktales/ut2.html

The article that caused the discussion:

http://www.pamil-visions.net/bear-lake-monster-story/28144/

For those who may not know about it, you can read some iconic cryptozoology books for free at  sacred texts (link below).Two I picked up on are :

Abominable Snowmen: Legend Come to Life
by Ivan T. Sanderson [1961]

Mythical Monsters
by Charles Gould [1886]
Dragons, Sea-serpents, Unicorns: fact or fiction?

Link to site where you find many texts on mythology etc.:

https://www.sacred-texts.com/index.htm

New information on the Lake Clinch Monster.

New information on the Lake Clinch Monster.

I asked for further sightings of the Lake Clinch Creature and this popped up in comments on the 18^th October 2019.( the story of the lake Clinch creature is below it)

Unknown said...

I live on lake clinch.I fish the southern shore ....on some mornings, there is something laying on the docks, something VERY LARGE it always just seems to "plop" into the water before Im able to see. Then at Certain times in the early hours.....what looks to be a turtle's head....but about a foot in diameter. But only the southern shore that I'm aware of. 2-4 mornings per week, between 3-5 am.

I'm right on the water, so I'm always viewing the lake. I wouldn't live any place else in Florida. The highest point in Florida is also right down the road.

Did the Lake Clinch Serpent kill a man?

Does Lake Clinch in Polk County have a lake serpent? The lake contains quite a large fish stock of Largemouth Bass, Bluegill and Black Crappie. There is a food source to sustain some thing in the lake. However there is some controversy over whether there is a tradition of a creature in the lake.

“There is a tradition that a sea serpent, or lake serpent, used to haunt Lake Clinch,” M.F. Hetherington wrote in his 1928 “A History of Polk County.” “The Indians many years ago insisted there was an immense serpent in this lake. In 1907 residents of Frostproof declared they had seen the monster, and that it must be 30 feet long - this, too, before post-prohibition liquor was known.”

And the opposite opinion:“My own inquiries to local libraries and newspapers failed to produce any leads or archival reports,” Newton wrote. “It is entirely possible that Lake Clinch has produced some cryptid sightings in the past, or that it may figure in aboriginal mythology, but as of press time for the work in hand, no further information was available.”

However I found this, an interesting story from 1926 about a man thought to have been killed by a large serpent in the lake:

“but talk about a lake creature persisted. Settlers spoke of something in the lake and early pioneers, including citizens, claimed to have seen a 30 foot [9.1 m] long “sea serpent” while boating or from the shore. On the night of August 30,1926, 49-year-old Charles M.Mallet stepped out of his simple Florida Cracker style home wearing a bathing suit and carrying a tackle box and bait. Mallett was a businessman, founder of the town’s first bank, and a partner in a prosperous fertilizer and supply company that served the local growers .He was a practical man and tales about a giant serpent inhabiting the lake adjacent to his home did not worry him as he prepared to venture onto the legendary monster’s domain. Before going fishing, Mallett had told several associates that he would be leaving for Sarasota the next day and absent from his usual haunts in the coming week. He stopped long enough to wave to a neighbor then made his way down to the dock. Like other men in Frostproof, he kept a small boat at the pier and frequently fished for the Largemouth Bass that were, and are, abundant in the lake. It was Florida’s “monsoon season” and there had been heavy rain that afternoon, but now it was clear skies as Mallett boarded his boat and headed out onto smooth dark water.

Three days later, on Thursday morning, G. D. Moree cast a fishing line into Lake Clinch from the eastern shore. While reeling it in, he snagged something big - a human body. The features were so mangled, that given the condition, it might have remained unidentified but for a ring on the corpse’s finger; the name faintly engraved on the inside of the band was “Charles M.Mallet”. To confirm the identity, a person was dis-patched to see if Mallet had returned from his trip. One of Mallett’s employees, C.C. Matthews, dis-covered the door to the Cracker house unlocked and Mallett’s personal effects and suitcase awaiting his return from the lake. There was no doubt that the body was that of Charles Mercer Mallett, but what happened out on Lake Clinch?It is likely that a physician or district coroner examined Mallett’s body (Polk County did not have a medical examiner until the 1970s). A record of the death has been found  in the state’s official Death Index" 

Source: http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache%3AcYrFR-bA5iUJ%3Amysteriesmagazine.com%2Fpreviews%2F24%2F24_lake_clinch.pdf+lake+clinch+monster&hl=en&gl=uk&sig=AHIEtbRvNfjkI4mIBiZVR-PeG6stqpF8Bw

So is something still living in Lake Clinch? Be careful if you go out on the lake.

The Kraken Lives

Why giant squid, the once mythical kraken of the deep, are still mystifying scientists 150 years after they were discovered

Giant squid live in the dark depths of the ocean, and very little is known about them to this day.

Most of what the world has learned about the gargantuan creature, which can grow up to 40 feet long and live in a world devoid of sunlight, is taken from their floating carcasses, or from the belly of sperm whales.Genetics show they've been around for about 730,000 years. They've been in human legends for hundreds of years. Giant squid are the inspiration for the "Kraken" in Norse mythology, and the beasts in Jules Verne's book "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

One particularly good story was written in "The Natural History of Norway" in 1755, which described the giant squid as being as large as "a number of small islands," and when the giant squid began to sink, it caused whirlpools that sucked everyone down with it.

Read rest see photos here :
https://www.businessinsider.com/giant-squid-discovery-photos-history-2019-10?r=US&IR=T

St John's River Monster

It appears our plagiarist has been at it again and this article from 2010 has appeared elsewhere,word for word in some parts on another site.I suggest you look it up and be aware that the person concerned claims the work as his own but has frequently stolen from this blog.It has been pointed out by a friend of mine to the owner of the other site that this person is stealing the work of others but the site continues to publish his stuff.This was after the friend put two articles up on facebook to show that this person had copied  it from my blog. Be aware he also copies people's comments without their permission. Karma will get him in the end.

A Florida River Monster

Florida is often said to be a place of high strangeness with sightings of the Skunk Ape etc. There is also a story about a River monster.

Between 1955 and 1961, there were reports in Florida newspapers, of a creature in the St. Johns River. The reports came from a variety of people from fishermen who made their living there and from visitors and new residents. They all reported seeing a large creature but some said it was like a dinosaur, some like a giant manatee. Most sightings occurred between Astor Park and Lake Monroe, the majority at Blue Spring. (this is important to note you will see why at the end of the posting)

One Lake County man claimed to have seen the monster on land grazing on plants. He reported that the monster left a beaten down path through the bushes. The animal's skin was described as elephant-like and grey coloured. Two bass fisherman claimed that the monster had almost tipped over their boat.

In 1975, Five people in a fishing boat were frightened on the morning of May 10 on St. Johns River near Jacksonville. They claimed to have seen a dragon-like creature, that reared its head from the river, then disappeared into the deep water. It was described as having a head like a giant snail, with two horns. This is the testimony of two of them:

“We saw it had a neck about 3 feet long,”Mrs. Dorothy Abram reported . “It had two little horns on top of the head like a snail.” She described the head as about the size of a human head. Mrs. Brenda Langley had a better view of the creature than Mrs. Abram had. “It was about three or four feet out of the water and about the color - a pinkish color - like boiled shrimp,” she said . “It had a real ugly looking face on it. It had snail like horns, and it had this little jagged thing going down its back. ...The head turned on it. It just turned and looked around at us.”

It is not the first story about strange marine creatures in that area. In 1885, A ship's anchor brought up the carcass of a creature with a long neck which resembled an extinct plesiosaur, from the New River Inlet. It may have been the corpse of a basking shark or it may have been an unknown creature. There was no DNA testing in those days. There is apparently an 1891 newspaper report of a sea-serpent chasing bathers from the ocean on Jacksonville beach.( I couldn’t trace it unfortunately) The creature was reported to have had a dog-like head and a long thin neck. There is also another story, but it may be an urban myth, said to be reported by some scuba divers in 1962, off the Gulf coast near Pensacola. A monster apparently attacked the divers and over turned their boat, and supposedly killed all but one of the men. The surviving victim claimed that the creature had a long, ten foot neck (3.3 metres) , like a telephone pole. The head had small eyes, but a very wide mouth and whipped about like a large snake.

Before we get overexcited I should point out that the largest spring on the St. Johns River, Blue Spring is a Manatee Refuge and the winter home to a population of West Indian Manatees. So some sightings could be manatees as often people don’t realise how big they can be or what they really look like. What is interesting is that the 1975 description said it had horns. There have been lots of other sightings, including in Loch Ness, where people mention horns or eyes on stalks. The colour is also intriguing, bright red/pink, and I am sure someone can come up with a list of marine creatures that colour that could be responsible for a mis-identification. Some thing to spend your Sunday afternoon researching if you are bored!

Could these be pictures of water horses or even Nessie?

Pictish carved beasts 'unlike anything found before'

A 1,200-year-old standing stone discovered in the Highlands has carvings never before seen on a Pictish stone, archaeologists have said.The stone was found lying in the ground and covered by vegetation at an early Christian church site near Dingwall.

Archaeologists have now revealed the side of the stone that was down in the earth and hidden from view was decorated with "two massive beasts".Just over a metre of the original two metre-tall (6ft) stone survives.The beasts were carved down the side of a cross.

John Borland, of Historic Environment Scotland and president of the Pictish Arts Society, said: "The two massive beasts that flank and surmount the cross are quite unlike anything found on any other Pictish stone."These two unique creatures serve to remind us that Pictish sculptors had a remarkable capacity for creativity and individuality.”

Read rest here see photo here:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-50040798?intlink_from_url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science_and_environment&link_location=live-reporting-story

These fantastic beasts could be a representation of a sea serpent or a giant eel ,perhaps Nessie herself. They appear to have fierce heads with teeth and a long serpentine body.The dragon like appearance of the heads reminded me of Jurassic era  type  creatures or possible a conger eel which has sharp teeth.Certainly something to ponder in view of the DNA results from Loch Ness and the legends  of wingless dragons or wyrms in Scotland.

Shurale, a type of Russian Yeti ,myth or reality?

Shurale,myth or reality ?

In November 2016 this appeared:

Dashcam footage of a night-time drive across a snowy Russian forest road reveals a strange creature lurking in the distance. The eerie clip recorded a group of friends travelling through the Republic of Bashkortostan near the Urals when the mysterious beast popped out. The friends in the car are left shocked by the creepy sighting of the beast which resembled an animal but moved upright like a human.In the video, the bizarre figure dashes across a snowed-in road prompting the car to pull immediately to a sudden stop. It is not the first time an alleged Yeti has been spotted in the area.There have been multiple sightings of a similar creature in recent years. Those that live in the mountainous region recall the local myth of Shurale, a devious tall hairy creature similar to the Yeti.

Read full thing and see video here :https://www.express.co.uk/news/weird/734171/Yeti-wilderness-Russia-Ural-Bigfoot

Shurala also spelled Shurale is a forest demon from Tatar mythology. According to legends, Shurale has long fingers, a horn on its forehead, and a woolly body.

Russia Today wrote that the KP daily reported multiple sightings of a Yeti in 2004 in the same part of Russia and that according to the locals , a tall hairy creature known as Shurale was responsible.It apparently tickled its victims to death. Mushroom pickers in the Southern Urals claim they often see Shurale or Yeti   in the forests. They say these Abominable Snowmen bend strong trees like twigs. It is believed Yetis possess hypnotic abilities and can instil in people a sense of uncontrolled panic and fear and compel them to immediately leave the  location.

Then I came across this: From the village of Ibragimova in the southern Urals from 1913. The locals captured and killed a wild man who was preying on the local domestic animals. When the police checked out the corpse they detailed a black haired body with no forehead, a pronounced brow and red eyes. The locals called him Shurale. (Studiengruppe Primates (www.sgr-primates.de/news.html)

There are many stories about Shurale that Tatar villagers tell their children .One such tale is that in one village the local residents noticed that one of their horses regularly disappeared every night and returned home  in the morning completely exhausted and lathered. They were bewildered by its mysterious disappearances. One day they decided to ask a local wise man  for help. The man recommended covering the saddle of the horse with tar and letting it go. The next morning the people of the village were awakened up by ear-splitting screams. They looked out of their windows and couldn’t believe their eyes: On top of the horse, glued to the saddle there was a scary-looking dark creature that appeared to be partly  human. The creature screamed at the top of its lungs. The village men caught the creature, a Shurale, and killed him.

It is so entrenched in folklore that there is a ballet performed about a Shurale who is outwitted by a local man.

There are also yeti reported in other areas in Russia:

Yeti in Siberia https://cryptozoo-oscity.blogspot.com/2010/05/chuchunaa-neanderthal-relics.html

So is there any truth in the folklore stories? Local people believe strongly and claim to have seen this type of Yeti creature .Until more evidence is found the jury remains out.

US Navy pilot says mystery ‘dark mass’ emerged from ocean and swallowed torpedo

US Navy pilot says mystery ‘dark mass’ emerged from ocean and swallowed torpedo

Commander David Fravor shot to fame for his account of the USS Nimitz UFO encounter – but he has now claimed something even spookier was spotted some 10 years earlier.

He explained the pilot was flying a CH-53 and was going to pick up a BQM (an unmanned drone used by the US Air Force).A diver was dropped into the water to hook it up and to then fly back, when something truly bizarre happened.

"They’re 50 feet (15 metres) above the water, he sees this kind of dark mass coming up from the depths,” he added.“As they hoist the BQM up, he’s looking at this thing going, ‘What the hell is that?’ And then it just goes back down underwater."Once they pull the kid and the BQM out of the water, this object descends back into the depths.”

The pilot thought the incident was “pretty weird” but, incredibly, the same thing happened a few months later.Fravor said: “He’s out picking up a torpedo, they hook the diver up on the winch, and as they’re lowering him down, he sees this big mass.“He goes, ‘It’s not a submarine’, he’s seen submarines before, once you’ve seen a submarine you can’t confuse it with something else."This big object, kind of circular, is coming up from the depths and he starts screaming through the intercom system to tell them to pull the diver up, and the diver’s only a few feet from the water.”"And all of a sudden he said the torpedo just got sucked down underwater, and the object just descended back down into the depths."They never recovered it.”Cdr Fravor said the helicopter pilot was adamant the torpedo “didn’t sink” as it “literally looked like it got sucked down”.

Read full story here :https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/weird-news/navy-pilot-says-mystery-dark-20529086

What was this strange object? Was it a whale thinking the torpedo was a tasty snack? Or a sea monster disturbed by the commotion? Certainly needs investigating if it is true. Who knows what lurks at the bottoms of our oceans.

The Dundee Dragon

The Wyrm of Dundee.

There is a legend of a dragon or wyrm in Dundee.It is celebrated by a dragon statue in the town centre.The story goes as follows:

A farmer and his nine daughters lived on a farm known as Pitempton, near Dundee.The farmer sent his eldest daughter to gather water from a nearby well. ( Some versions say he sent the youngest daughter first)When she failed to return, he sent his second oldest daughter, and so on and so on.When all of them had failed to return, he went to investigate, only to find the dead bodies of his nine daughters strewn across the ground by the well. Coiled around their bodies was a huge serpent-like dragon.The farmer ran to his neighbours for help.

The dragon attempted to make it’s escape when a crowd of villagers arrived with weapons.A young man, named Martin the blacksmith,who was betrothed to one of the farmers daughters, caught up with it. Using only a wooden club, he beat the dragon, eventually slaying it as the crowd yelled “Strike, Martin,Strike”.

.   The Dragons  dying words were:

                                                I was tempted at Pitempton,
                                                draiglet at Baldragon,
                                                stricken at Strike-Martin,
                                              

The place where the dragon was defeated was named “Strike-Martin” and was subsequently named Strathmartine – a name which lives on in the name of a school and a street in Dundee. Martin's Stone stands alone in a field one mile north of the village of Bridgefoot (previously known as Kirkton of Strathmartine), on the northern fringes of Dundee.

Over a dozen Pictish symbol stones were erected in this vicinity, marking it as a place of some importance in the Early Medieval period.  But none of the other stones can boast of a legend like the one attached to Martin's Stone.  The faded carvings on Martin's Stone include a cross, two horsemen, an unknown animal, and a symbol known as a z-rod, which some people see as a broken spear representing dead ancestors.  Entwined within this particular symbol is a serpent.

 Could the story be a cover up for a ritual sacrifice perhaps? In order to ensure plentiful harvests sometimes sacrifices were made.

However there have been many stories of wyrms or dragons

The Linton Worm is a mythical beast referred to in a Scottish borders legend dating back to the 12th century. "The monster lived in a hollow on the northeast side of Linton Hill, a spot still known as the "Worm’s Den", at Linton in Roxburghshire on the Scottish borders. Emerging from its lair at dusk and dawn to ravage the countryside, eating crops, livestock and people,

De Somerville, the Laird of Lariston  approached the worm's hideout with his servant at dawn. He knew that sitting on his horse he would prove too large for the creature to swallow.  He attacked it, plunging his burning lance into the monster's gaping mouth and down its throat, killing  it.

The writhing death throes of the Linton Worm supposedly created the curious topography of the hills of the region, an area that came to be known as "wormington". The animal retreated to its lair to die, its thrashing tail bringing down the mountain around it and burying it forever. The legend states that De Somerville  was memorialised by a carved stone. The crest of the Somervilles has  a dragon perched on a wheel.

There are lots  folktales from north-east England and Scotland that include the motif of a ‘wyrm’—a huge dragon-like, wingless serpent that terrorises the area , sometimes for many years, before being eventually slain.

Could it be that these were real creatures? With so many similar tales there must be an explanation. Wyrms were usually described as flightless dragons .Could a large breed of lizard ,snake or eel be responsible for the stories? Maybe fossil remains of dinosaurs caused the rumours ? Unless some remains are found we will never know if the wyrms of the old stories were real.