yarn away for hours about all these, and more, impossible creatures. Mothers would tell these tales to wide-eyed children to make them fear the forest, so they would not wander away and get lost. They grew up half believing that the strange animals were an ever present hazard. Today, these weird creatures have all passed away, and so have the talented story-tellers who kept their memory alive. Except for a few recorded accounts, we would never know the entertainment provided by the folklore tales of our ancestors.”
GIANT BEAVER
John Warms, who has extensively studied reports of monstrous beasts in Manitoba, Canada, has uncovered tales of giant, marauding beavers in not just Manitoba but also in areas stretching from Alaska to Florida. The term “giant” is not an exaggeration, as we’re talking about beavers the size of people and even larger! As incredible as it may sound, such beasts really did once exist. Warms says:
“Today we know from recovered bones that the giant beaver is in a separate classification from the one we know so well as Castor canadensis. It has been named Castoroides ohioensis after the state where its remains were first documented.”
Warms also notes that he has a number of reports on file of “bear-sized beavers,” as well as sightings of huge beaver lodges, ones that come close to the size of an average house. It’s hardly surprising that their lodges would be so huge. After all, not much else would be suitable for creatures that reached heights of seven feet and weights of in excess of 250 pounds. Although the giant beaver is believed to have become extinct around 10,000 years ago—the same timeframe in which the Mammoth and the Mastodon became no more.
Giant beavers actually once roamed the earth in what is now North America. This is a fossilized skeleton of one such animal, the Castoroides ohioensis.
It’s important to note that reports like those obtained by Warms are nothing new. One can find reports of huge, violent beavers that cover both the United States and Canada and which date back centuries. As a perfect example, in 1808, Alexander Henry the Younger was exploring the Red River in Manitoba, when he encountered a Native man near the forks of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers—today, the site of the city of Winnipeg. Henry’s journal for that time contains a notable entry that confirms the giant beaver story having been told to him by his Native friend:
“A Salteaux, who I found here tented with the Courtes Oreilles, came to me this evening in a very ceremonious manner, and after having lighted and smoked his pipe informed me of his having been up a small river, a few days ago, upon a hunting excursion, when one evening while upon the water in his Canoe, watching the Beaver to shoot them, he was suddenly surprised by the appearance of a very large animal in the water. At first he took it for a Moose Deer, and was preparing to fire at it accordingly. But on its approach towards him he perceived it to be one of the Kitche Amicks or Large Beavers. He dare not fire but allowed it to pass on quite near his canoe without molesting it. I had already heard many stories concerning this large Beaver among the Saulteaux, but I cannot put any faith in them. Fear, I presume, magnifies an ordinary size Beaver into one of those monsters, or probably a Moose Deer or a Bear in the dark may be taken for one of them as they are seen only at night, and I am told they are very scarce.”
While Henry’s words clearly demonstrate his skepticism, they are important in the sense that they confirm that accounts of giant beavers existed centuries ago. As for John Warms’s extensive research, it suggests that the giant beaver is still with us, albeit in deep stealth.
GIANT SPIDERS
For vast numbers of the human population spiders provoke a sense of creepiness and dread. And for people with arachnophobia, outright terror. And that’s often as a result of an encounter with a small spider. Imagine, then, encountering a spider the size of a dog! You think it couldn’t happen? It’s time to think again. For decades, accounts have surfaced of giant-sized spiders, ones that easily rival anything conjured up by the world of Hollywood.
The largest known spider is the South American bird-eating spider, which goes by the name of Theraphosa blondi. One particular specimen, a twelve-year-old named Rosi, has an impressive leg-span of just under twelve inches, making her the largest, living spider on record—ever. That does not mean nothing larger than Rosi exists. It simply means we haven’t formally classified it or them. But, more than a few people claim to have seen such things.
In 2001, English cryptozoologist Dr. Karl Shuker heard a fascinating story from explorer Bill Gibbons, who spent a great deal of time investigating reports of the Congo’s most famous monster, the long-necked Mokele M’Bembe. The story dates back to 1938 and the experiences of a pair of explorers, Reginald and Margurite Lloyd. While negotiating a jungle pathway in the heart of the Belgian Congo, they saw something very strange step out in front of them. Their first thoughts were: was it a small crouching person, or a similarly crouched monkey? To their eternal horror, it quickly became clear it was neither. What it actually was, was a gigantic spider, one that had legs that spanned four feet! Reginald Lloyd, realizing the enormity of the situation—never mind the enormity of the creature—quickly reached for his camera. Unfortunately, the beast raced across the track and vanished into the undergrowth before he could capture what would, most assuredly, have been a priceless picture. The pair had no doubt about what they had encountered, however: a truly giant, eight-limbed monstrosity.
It doesn’t take a huge spider to scare many people. Arachnophobia is that creepy, eerie, terrifying feeling many get just seeing a tiny, eight-legged creature crawling toward them.
The amazing account of the Lloyds does not stand alone: the local Baka pygmy people have longstanding stories of these goliath spiders, which are said to be far rarer today than they once were; although, reportedly, one of their tribespeople saw such a terrifying thing in 2003. As for the lairs of the beasts, the Baka maintain they create something akin to huts, which are fashioned out of leaves and vegetation. They are also skilled weavers of massive, thick webs, which they build to ensnare their prey, which can include anything up to about the size of a small antelope.
Moving on to the United States, there is the 1948 report of William Slaydon, his wife, and grandchildren—which eerily echoes the report coming out of the Congo a decade earlier. The location was Leesville, Louisiana, and the family was walking to a nearby church for an evening of worship and prayer when their journey was suddenly interrupted—and in horrific fashion. As the Slaydons strolled along the road, to their horror, a giant spider—described as being “the size of a washtub”—surfaced out of a nearby ditch and raced across the road. Never again did the family walk that particular stretch of Louisiana road.
Now, it’s time for a trip to Papua New Guinea. From there, we have a story told by Debbie and Peter Hynes—noted Australian cryptozoologists—and which came from the father of one of Debbie’s friends. He was a man who had a bone-chilling encounter with a massive spider while serving in Papua New Guinea with the Australian military, during the Second World War. As the Hyneses note:
“One day he had to take himself off into the scrub in answer to a call of nature. While thus engaged he noticed he was crouched down next to a very large cobweb—not the classic ‘fishing-net’ sort
