Snallygaster

In American folklore, the snallygaster is a dragon-like beast said to inhabit Central Maryland, the Washington, DC, metro area, and particularly the Middletown area of Frederick County, Maryland.[1][2][3][4]

Sketch of a snallygaster based on folkloric accounts.

History

18th century

The area was settled by German immigrants beginning in the 1730s.[5] Early accounts describe the community being terrorized by a monster called a Schneller Geist, meaning "quick ghost" in German. The earliest incarnations mixed the half-bird features of a siren with the nightmarish features of demons and ghouls. The snallygaster was described as half-reptile, half-bird with a metallic beak lined with razor-sharp teeth, occasionally with octopus-like tentacles. It swoops silently from the sky to pick up and carry off its victims. The earliest stories claim that this monster sucked the blood of its victims. Seven-pointed stars, which reputedly kept the snallygaster at bay, can still be seen painted on local barns.[2]

19th century

It has been suggested the legend was resurrected in the 19th century to frighten freed slaves.[2][4]

20th century

Theodore Roosevelt (here, as Badlands hunter in 1885) proposed to hunt the snallygaster

Newspaper accounts throughout February and March 1909 describe encounters between local residents and a beast with "enormous wings, a long pointed bill, claws like steel hooks, and an eye in the center of its forehead." It was described as making screeches "like a locomotive whistle."[6] A great deal of publicity surrounded this string of appearances, with the Smithsonian Institution offering a reward for the hide. U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt reportedly considered postponing an African safari to personally hunt the beast.[7] It was later revealed that these reports were part of a hoax perpetrated by Middletown Valley Register editor George C. Rhoderick and reporter Ralph S. Wolfe in an attempt to increase readership. The descriptions they invented borrowed themes from existing German folklore, including dragon-like creatures who snatched children and livestock, and also appeared to invoke descriptions of the Jersey Devil, which had been spotted mere weeks earlier.[8]

Maryland-based writer Whittaker Chambers used the snallygaster to examine U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy (1953) (pictured)

On June 22, 1953, Whittaker Chambers (whose home lies in Carroll County, Maryland) used the snallygaster to examine U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy in his essay "Is Academic Freedom in Danger?" (Life ):

It was a trick of fate in a low comedy mood that Senator McCarthy should first have bounded into public view dragging the unlikely and protesting person of Mr. Lattimore to share with him a historic spotlight so grateful to the one and so acutely unwanted by the other. It was a trick of fate that, in the case of each, has led to some serious confusions. For it led to the translation of Senator McCarthy into the symbol of a national snallygaster (a winged hobgoblin used to frighten naughty children in parts of rural Maryland), instead of one of the two things that he obviously is: an instinctive politician of a kind fairly common in our history, in which case the uproar he inspires is a phenomenon much more arresting than the senator; or a politician of a kind wholly new in our history, in which case he merits the most cautious and coldblooded appraisal.[9]

21st century

Snallygaster on jersey barrier in Udairi, Kuwait

In 2008, author Patrick Boytoionnbout published a history of the snallygaster, entitled Snallygaster: the Lost Legend of Frederick County.[10]

The Snallygaster appears in the 2018 Bethesda game Fallout 76.[11]

The Snallygaster is a Blended Whiskey produced by Dragon Distillery of Frederick, MD and released in 2018.[12]

Legacy

In 2011, an annual beer festival (a "beastly beer jamboree") called "Snallygaster" started in Washington, DC.[13]

In 2012, a hard/punk rock music group called "The Snallygasters" formed in the Baltimore, Maryland, area.[14]

The 2017 edition of J. K. Rowling's Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them incorporated the Snallygaster into her Harry Potter universe. It is described as a part-bird, part-reptile relative of the Occamy, with serrated steel fangs and a bulletproof hide, and has gained some Muggle attention due to its natural curiosity.

See also

• Fearsome critters

References

1. Cannon, Timothy L.; Whitmore, Nancy F. (1979). Ghosts and Legends of Frederick County. Cannon. Retrieved 2 February 2018.
2. Okonowicz, Ed (2012). Monsters of Maryland: Mysterious Creatures in the Old Line State. Stackpole Books. pp. 7–30 (snallygaster chapter, slaves), 11 (descriptions), 12 (Schneller Geist), 17 (seven-pointed star), 26 (Schneller Geist). Retrieved 2 February 2018.
3. Okonowicz, Ed; Wilson, Patty A. (2007). Haunted Maryland: Ghosts and Strange Phenomena of the Old Line State. Stackpole Books. pp. 119–123 (snallygaster chapter). Retrieved 2 February 2018.
4. Boyton, Patrick (2011). Snallygaster: The Lost Legend of Frederick County. Lulu.com Publishing. p. 63 (wrongly cites "Haunted"; should cite "Monsters"). Retrieved 2 February 2018.
5. Williams, Thomas John Chew (1910). History of Frederick County, Maryland: From the Earliest Settlements to the Beginning of the War Between the States, Volume 1. Higginson Book Company. pp. 1, 8, 111, 406–408, 420, 477, 500. Retrieved 2 February 2018.
6. The Valley Register, February 12—March 5, 1909.
7. Hooper, Anne B. (1974). Braddock Heights: A Glance Backward. Great Southern Printing Co. pp. 71–72. Retrieved 2 February 2018..
8. Blank, Trevor J.; Puglia, David J. (2014). Maryland Legends: Folklore from the Old Line State (Illustrated ed.). Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 1625849516. Retrieved 15 March 2018.
9. Chambers, Whittaker (22 June 1953). "Is Academic Freedom in Danger?". Life. Time, Inc.: 91. Retrieved 2 February 2018.
10. "Frederick author resurrects legend of local monster". Frederick News Post. 20 October 2011. Retrieved 2 February 2018.
11. "'Fallout 76': Exploring the wild and wonderful WV wastelands". Charleston Gazette-Mail. 8 October 2018. Retrieved 21 November 2018.
12. "Snallygaster". Dragon Distillery. Dragon Distillery. Retrieved 27 December 2018.
13. "Snallygaster 2017 FAQs" (PDF). ReverbNation. Retrieved 2 February 2018.
14. "The Snallygasters". ReverbNation. Retrieved 2 February 2018.