The Little Bigfoot Phenomenon

The Little Bigfoot Phenomenon

Bwbach

June 12, 2012            Nick Redfern
http://mysteriousuniverse.org/2012/06/the-little-bigfoot-phenomenon/

 

We’ve all heard about the antics of Bigfoot, but what about Littlefoot? Certainly, it’s an undeniable fact that many reports emanating from Britain tell of encounters with not just large and lumbering, hairy entities, but with distinctly smaller critters, too. Centuries-old Welsh folklore, for example, tells of the Bwbach, an approximately three foot tall, hair-covered humanoid perceived by the folk of that era as a brownie or nymph [sprite].

Supposedly, like so many of similar ilk, they would undertake chores and little jobs around the homes of humans, providing they were the recipients of two things: respect and nourishment, the latter usually in the form of oats, milk and cream. And they had a deep hatred of those who avoided alcohol and who led teetotal lives

Wirt Sikes was U.S. Consul to Wales, a noted expert on Welsh folklore, and the author of an acclaimed 1880 book, British Goblins. In its pages, Sikes wrote of the hairy little Bwbach that it: “…is the good-natured goblin which does good turns for the tidy Welsh maid who wins its favour by a certain course of behaviour recommended by long tradition. The maid having swept the kitchen, makes a good fire the last thing at night, and having put the churn, filled with cream, on the whitened hearth, with a basin of fresh cream for the Bwbach on the hob, goes to bed to await the event.”
Sikes continued: ”In the morning she finds (if she is in luck) that the Bwbach has emptied the basin of cream, and plied the churn-dasher so well that the maid has but to give a thump or two to bring the butter in a great lump. Like the Ellyll which it so much resembles, the Bwbach does not approve of dissenters and their ways, and especially strong is its aversion to total abstainers.”
The Bwbach is largely forgotten today, but encounters with small, hairy, man-like figures in Britain are certainly not. Jon Downes – director of the Center for Fortean Zoology – says of such matters: “I have many similar reports of such creatures being seen in Devonshire woodland. And the following one is a real cracker because it has so much separate and credible corroboration to it…”
The location, Jon reveals, was Churston Woods, which is situated close to the English holiday resort of Torbay: “Over a six week period, in the summer of 1996, fifteen separate witnesses reported seeing what they could only describe as a green faced monkey, running through the woods. Granted, some of the descriptions were quite vague, but most of the witnesses told of seeing a tailless animal, around four to five feet tall, with a flat, olive-green face that would run through the woods and occasionally would be seen swinging through the trees.”
Jon concludes: “Now, to me at least, this sounds like some form of primitive human, but, of course, such things simply cannot exist in this country – and yet they seem to. And this area – Devon, Somerset and Cornwall – is rich with such tales.” Matters don’t end there, however.
In November 2008, an extremely strange story surfaced from Wanstead – a suburban area of the borough of London. According to witness testimony, a small Bigfoot-type creature was supposedly seen wandering in Epping Forest, a 2,476 hectare area of forestland which, by name at least, was first referenced in the 17th Century, but that has existed since Neolithic times and which, in the 12th Century, was designated as a Royal Forest by King Henry III.

British cryptozoologist and author Neil Arnold describes how the distinctly odd story began: “The animal was first sighted during early November by eighteen-year-old angler Michael Kent who was fishing with his brother and father in the Hollow Ponds area of Epping Forest, on the border of Wanstead and Leytonstone. The teenager claimed that whilst walking towards his brothers, he heard a rustling in the bushes and saw the back of a dark, hairy animal around four feet in height, that scampered off into the woods.”
Another of those that caught sight of the diminutive beast was Irene Dainty, who claimed a face to face encounter with the thing on Love Lane, Woodford Bridge. She told the press:
“I had just come out of my flat and just as I had turned the corner I saw this hairy thing come out of nowhere. I really don’t want to see it again. It was about four feet tall and with really big feet and looked straight at me with animal eyes. Then it leaped straight over the wall with no trouble at all and went off into the garden of the Three Jolly Wheelers pub. I was so terrified that I went to my neighbour’s house and told her what had happened. She couldn’t believe it and asked me if I had been drinking, but I said of course I hadn’t – it was only about 3.00 p.m.”
Further reports subsequently surfaced, some of which were far more of a four-legged variety, maybe even bear-like, rather than actually being suggestive of Bigfoot. But, it was this issue of the “really big feet” that kept the media-driven controversy focused on matters of a mini Sasquatch-type nature. Ultimately, just like so many similar such affairs, sightings of the beast came to an abrupt end and the matter of the Epping Forest monster was never satisfactorily resolved.
Juvenile Bigfoot entities? Escaped monkeys? Unclassified animals? The cases are many, but in terms of definitive answers we have – forgive the pun! – very “little” to go on!

--What the descriptions are describing is something like the Pukwudgies as they are sighted here, about 3 feet tall (2 1/2 to 4 feet usually) with a large topknot of hair and a sort of a ruff of hair around the head or neck, short even fur all over the body, and it can be green from the algae. About like a very large monkey on its hind legs, especially hopping or leaping great distances, with its disproportionate,  outsized webbed froglike feet (traditionally said to be like duck feet or to have no toes). The ears can be described as large and fanning out, one imagines much like a chimpanzee's ears. The face is drawn out into a sort of snout or muzzle and has sharp front teeth sometimes sticking out, and the nose is long but low to the face, and the eyes are large and can be glassy. The feet are perhaps half again as large as human feet for their size, as going from some given estimates. Calling them "Littlefoots" is a misnomer, but I have heard of "Little Bigfoots" before.

Standard Goblin Illustration used in several recent sources

In folklore they are called Brownies or Water-Brownies, Boggarts, Water Sprites, Water Goblins or just Gobins : and they seem to be a very close match for Tyler Stone's theoretical Freshwater monkeys. They are apparently usually naked and hairy but they mimic humans and they can wear  old discarded clothing in imitation of humans. These Goblins seem to have their hair slicked down.

 

Some goblin depictions have froglike features while others are quite definitely froggy in appearance,  which goes along with the category being the same as more modern sightings of Swamp Monsters, Frogmen, Thetis Lake Monsters, Loveland frogs and so on.      

 

 

young_goblin_paintscheme01_large

Young Monkey for comparison

Pukas, Pukwudges, and Tyler's FW Monkeys

Pukwudge

The following posting was added at the end of Karl Shuker's blog on "The Genetics of Fairies"
http://karlshuker.blogspot.com/2011/03/genetics-of-fairies.html

Some may have been attributed to Williams syndrome, but... if research is done they are a species that do/did exist, at least thru the mid 1980's, water pollution and disease may have finished them off, I have trhu triangulation located only two pockets of where they used to be till then. More commonly known with linguist root forms of puk, pukas, pooka. An example, the puk-a-wadji, translation, 'little wildmen of the forest' native american Delaware. Pookas, same thing,Fox, Sauk, Ioway and mid-western tribes. Pooka river in Germany, called and meant as 'little people river', they allegedly lived along it's banks. Shakespears 'Puk", a possible rudimentary rememberance? Last seen in the Ohio Valley in the white river area in the early mid 70's both by people with phd's. I have a friend here in east central Iowa, native american older woman who remembers them when she was young, will not talk about to Anglos tho. In the early days interacted with native tribes and pointed out hunting in trade for items, clothing was of woven inner bark material, in recent times with modern cloth..not surprising as till the early 60's most farms had a ravine and dumped their trash there. The stood approx 18-22 inches tall,moved silently and lived in caves, early native stories say they were moon worshippers and it does not surprise me that is why in the British isles and elsewhere, they were seen at night in a ring and dancing. There really is alot out there one merely has to know where to look! You don't have to believe me but I have given you all enough hints... it should be easy to verify what I say. I know these and other things as it is rather a hobby for me and I think differently and know when and where to look!! Best to you all.
Emmett

I have heard other information similar to Emmett's from other sources, and indeed much of the same theory before when I was corresponding with some of the other CFZ guys. There is this root for Little People that sounds like Puk, Pook, Bwca and so on, and it has been treated Linguistically as equivalent to Bunyip (And sometimes translated as either "God or Devil" but more reasonably related to the term  Spook) And commentators at the CFZ have managed to relate these stories of water-Brownies or aquatic dwarfs to Leprechauns and Welsh Afnacs. Here is an alternative internet posting on Boggarts (Another derivation for Buggerts from Bwcas)

added12:01 by aldaria02

The boggarts (or bwcas, bogan, bogle, boggle) are from the British mythology. They are described as hideous dwarf, hairy and malicious. We often tell them to haunt the moors and devastate the cottages without good reason, for the sole purpose of causing harm. There is a more refined version, presented by Jacques I of England in his treatise on demonology, published in London in 1597. He speaks of the "hairy man who haunts various house without doing any harm, but has sometimes as if it were necessary to put the house upside down". To get rid of it, they said he had to either call an exorcist, or surmise that he kept his name secret. Brasey Edward argues that the boggart would be in the imaginary English cousin of degenerated brownie, a serving British spirit. Indeed, there are legends or boggart is described as a spirit attached to a family home, but unlike its "cousins", it does no service and plays tricks on people, even to steal them . He can follow his family or her to go in order to harass. We sometimes hung a horseshoe before the doors of houses to ward off boggarts. In the folklore of north-west England, the boggarts live under bridges, and it is bad luck not to greet them if you come across them.

And so the "Trolls" that live under bridges are also probably Bog-Boggles: and once again the Water-Brownie "Gollum" is counted as a degenerate form of Hobbit (=Brownie)  and sometimes crawls into cellars or cottages for shelter-at times of flooding, the story sometimes goes. Pukwudgies grow to a yard tall, BTW, and the legend is also local to central Indiana where I live, oddly enough

:http://perieci.meneyung.com/.cache/pukwudgies.html

Pukwudges=Trolls of the lesser kind

In all of this it is quite easy to recognise Tyler Stone's aquatic freshwater macaque monkeys with a lionlike ruff around the head, clawlike nails on webbed feet, perhaps even with a short tail, and being observed at the edges of wetlands, around bridges, or when being driven out of their homes by rising flood waters. They also act like macaques, pulling pranks but more prone to stealing from people and being destructive. And we see them on both sides of the Atlantic so presumably the stories went along with the Megalithic culture as well as the particular name of Puks that was used for them.

Best Wishes, Dale D.

Footnote: I thought there might also be a connection to the Shropshire Man_monkey especially since the encounter happened near to a canal:

 http://www.amazon.co.uk/Man-monkey-British-Bigfoot-Nick-Redfern/dp/1905723164

Product Description

In her 1883 book, Shropshire Folklore, Charlotte S. Burne wrote: 'A very weird story of an encounter with an animal ghost arose of late years within my knowledge. On the 21st of January 1879, a labouring man was employed to take a cart of luggage from Ranton in Staffordshire to Woodcock, beyond Newport in Shropshire, for the ease of a party of visitors who were going from one house to another. He was late in coming back; his horse was tired, and could only crawl along at a foot's pace, so that it was ten o'clock at night when he arrived at the place where the highroad crosses the Birmingham and Liverpool canal. 'Just before he reached the canal bridge, a strange black creature with great white eyes sprang out of the plantation by the roadside and alighted on his horse's back. He tried to push it off with his whip, but to his horror the whip went through the thing, and he dropped it on the ground in fright.' The creature duly became known to superstitious and frightened locals as the Man-Monkey. Between 1986 and early 2001, Nick Redfern delved deeply into the mystery of the strange creature of that dark stretch of canal. Now,published for the very first time, are Nick's original interview notes, his files and discoveries; as well as his theories pertaining to what lies at the heart of this diabolical legend. Is Britain really home to a Bigfoot-style entity? Does the creature have supernatural origins? Or is it something else entirely? Nick Redfern addresses all of these questions in Man-Monkey and reveals a story that is as bizarre as it is macabre.

 

Evidently there were a total of two dozen or so encounters with the "Man-Monkey" subsequently, all around this bridge area. And it occurs to me that the man could easily have let the whip drop from his hand and added "me whip went right tru it" later on as an excuse.

 

 

Shropshire Union Canal man-monkey, Richard Svensson [The artist may have made the creature more manlike since the original description seems to have meant something skinnier and more monkeylike, alythough it became commonplace to refer to it as a "Gorilla" in later literature]

 

http://karlshuker.blogspot.com/2010/09/devil-of-mystery-from-smethwick.html

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