NEIL ON THE SUBJECT OF HIS NEW BOOK

MYSTERY ANIMALS OF THE BRITISH ISLES: LONDON
A Book By Neil Arnold

PRESS RELEASE

Roll up, roll up! For the monster mystery tour, step right this way. Read all about it, read all about it, panic on the streets of London!

For many centuries the streets, sewer systems, skies, waters, and darkest corners of the capital have been inhabited by strange creatures. Some folklore, some fact.

MYSTERY ANIMALS OF…LONDON, a new, richly illustrated, fully indexed 385-page volume written by full-time monster hunter Neil Arnold, published by CFZ Press, is a unique surreal safari through the concrete jungle of London, which explores a menagerie of the strange, creatures cast from the Ark, half-hinted and yet persistent in their presence.

Recoil in horror at tales concerning elusive ‘big cats’ on the prowl through London’s leafy suburbs, with yarns pertaining to the ‘beast of Sydenham’, the lioness of Winchmore Hill, the Edgware tiger, and the classic Surrey puma - a long-lasting mystery which Neil proves may well have its origins centuries previous to the 1960s flap which made national headlines.

And then there are the abominable animals said to lurk in the depths of the River Thames and other London rivers, ponds and lakes, from tales of alligators, crocodiles, piranha, snapping turtles and even sharks, to grim legends of monster rats, slithering snakes and serpents.

And don’t forget the aerial oddities, with weird tales of giant birds in the skies over London – eagles, parakeets and monstrous griffins and dragons.

MYSTERY ANIMALS OF…LONDON looks at creaky old tales of animals escaping from private menageries, zoo parks and circuses. And then there are the monsters of the mind, for instance, the case of Hampstead’s phantom ape, the spectral bears of Chelsea, frothing hellhounds at Newgate, a ghostly chicken…yes, you read it correct! And who could forget the ripping yarns pertaining to mermaids, Spring-Heeled Jack, glowing lions, flying jellyfish, birds of death, the London Underground man-beast, the Stratford Goatman, fairies, hellish horses and the case of the Highgate ‘vampire’.

An essential read on a foggy night for any monster-hunter, historian, paranormal enthusiast or general fan of the macabre and the mysterious.

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Priced £15.00 from Amazon and all good book shops, MYSTERY ANIMALS OF THE BRITISH ISLES: LONDON, where the wild things are…dare you venture forth on this expedition of the extraordinary and lift the lid on London’s ludicrous and most devilish denizens ?

ISBN 978-1-905723-71-3

LINDSAY SELBY: Mysterious Lewis

The Isle of Lewis is a place of several reports of lake and sea monsters.

The first was in 1856 and there was report in the newspapers.

1856 The Times March 6th (attached)

Norman Morrison, a zoologist, told Cyril Dieckhoff in 1941 about Searrach Uisge, a monster that was said to inhabit Loch Suainbhal. Supposedly resembling a capsized boat, this creature has been reported since 1856 (and was probably the one reported in The Times). Locals say lambs were once offered annually to the creature. Another description described it as forty feet (13 metres) long and eel-like.

A sighting was reported in 1882 by a German ship off the Butt of Lewis. The ship, just off the coast, reported sighting a sea serpent around 120 feet (40 metres) long. It was described as having several bumps protruding from the water, along its back. In 1895 a similar creature was seen off Bernera. This creature was supposedly 120' long (40 metres) as well.

Loch Urabhal is a body of water 2 miles north of Achmore where on 27 July 1961 a lake monster was claimed to have been seen. Ian McArthur and Roderick Maciver, two local teachers, were fishing in the shallow end of the loch. The story goes that Maciver jumped to his feet and shouted there was something in the loch. There was a creature about 135 feet (42 metres) away. It surfaced 3 times. They described it as having a hump with a small head or possibly a fin about 6 feet (2 metres) from the hump. It swam like a dolphin but was much bigger and undulated. It was a bright day and the loch was calm. McArthur grabbed a camera but was too late as it disappeared. The lake is freshwater so it is unlikely to be a sea animal. They said it did not swim like an otter so they knew that it wasn’t a misidentification.

The mysterious Isle of Lewis has many such legends and even the mysterious disappearance of 3 lighthouse keepers. The folklore of the island is well worth reading about if you get the chance.

EDITOR'S NOTE: For more information on the area and its monsters check out The Mystery Animals of the Western Isles by our very own Glen Vaudrey....

REDFERN REVIEWS VAUDREY

A couple of years ago Britain’s Centre for Fortean Zoology – currently the world’s only full-time organisation that investigates and searches for such mysterious animals as the Abominable Snowman, the Loch Ness Monster, Ogopogo and the Chupacabras – embarked on the initial stages of what has now become a highly-ambitious project.

As well as undertaking expeditions around the world in search of unknown beasts, the CFZ also has an in-house publishing company - CFZ Press - that regularly publishes books on all manner of cryptozoological mysteries.

Around two years ago the CFZ’s Director, Jonathan Downes, came up with a very unique plan: namely, to publish an extensive series of books that would chronicle the reports of weird creatures seen in each and every one of the counties of the British Isles. Not an easy task by anyone’s standards but Downes has firmly stuck to his guns, and the third-volume in the series is now available.

Titled Mystery Animals of the British Isles: The Western Isles and written by Glen Vaudrey, the book is an excellent, in-depth and essential piece of work that focuses its attention upon a couple of island-chains that can be found off the northwest coast of Scotland – and from where sightings of strange creatures absolutely abound, as Glen skillfully makes clear in the pages of his new title.

So, you may ask, what does this latest release from CFZ Press tell us? Well, the answer is: a great deal indeed. Read On...

GLEN VAUDREY: The phantom rabbit of Crank

Glen is one of the newer additions to the bloggo family. He wrote to me out of the blue last year to ask wherther we wanted a Western Isles volume in our Mystery Animals of Britain series. We argeed that we did indeed want one, and commissioned him. What we were not expecting was such a bloody good writer and all round nice guy, who - by the way - is writing several other volumes for us...

While searching around for reports for the Mystery Animals of Lancashire book I came across a tale of a most terrible apparition that is said to haunt the lanes of the delightfully named hamlet of Crank. While some areas are subject to the prowling of mystery big cats and others suffer the paw prints of phantom hounds Crank on the other hand gets a white rabbit. Not a giant talking rabbit but a vengeful doom-foretelling bunny.

Like many a phantom dog this zooform has its own legendary foundation. The story goes that way back in the 17th century there was a nameless old woman who occupied a hovel within the hamlet of Crank which she shared with her daughter Jenny and Jenny’s pet rabbit. Fitting for the time the old woman was soon branded a witch by a neighbouring farmer by the name of Pullen who was convinced that he had been bewitched by her. Local belief had it that by drawing blood from the witch the spell would be broken and it was to this end that Pullen and his accomplice Dick Piers broke into the old woman’s cottage. Rather clumsily they awoke Jenny with the racket as they attempted to cut the old woman’s arm, not wanting to hang around Jenny ran off into the night taking her rabbit with her. She was pursued by Piers and while she managed to evade capture she succumbed to exhaustion and was found dead in the chapel. Her white rabbit didn’t fare much better as it was beaten to death. Of course just because you’ve beaten the bunny to pulp it doesn’t mean that it won’t come after you.

It was only a month later when the white rabbit appeared and started to follow Piers around the hamlet eventually being held responsible for driving him to commit suicide in Billinge Hill quarry. But the vengeful bunny wasn’t finished there as it now set about hounding Pullen who was to be seen being pursued across the fields until he died frightened and exhausted by the chase.

While the white rabbit may not be a headless hell hound it is still rumoured to haunt the area foretelling doom upon its sighting, but I wonder if this particular zooform has really anything to do with the little old lady or if she was just an invention to explain the presence of the ghostly white rabbit.