Whopperknocker - [Fearsome Critter]

Whopperknocker - [Fearsome Critter] - aka "Whapperknocker"

• About this critter: a small woodland critter similar to a weasel, with lightning fast reflexes, and possibly the best eyesight of any creature in the forest, it cannot be shot; as soon as the shotgun sparks, it dodges, scrams and makes a clean getaway! - it has beautiful plush brown-red fur that could catch a high price if caught & made into womens garments, its diet consists of both worms and birds. 

• History: The Earliest descriptions of the critter i can get my hands on are from 1939; The critter appeared in the introduction for "Fearsome Critters" by Henry H Tyron who describes it in the same paragraph as the "Will-Am-Alone", "Timmerdoodle" and a couple others which he did not bother to illustrate but only describe briefly, Tyrons brief description of the creature goes as follows:

"...The Whopperknocker. Can't shoot this last-named fellow, his vision is so keen that he can see the sparks in the chamber of your rifle be fore the bullet leaves the muzzle."

a critter being 'so fast that it cannot be shot' is of course a folkloric parallel to a few such as the dingbat and others.

...That same year in December of 1939, Connecticut papers also ran an article about an old history book titled 'The Spite History of Connecticut' [1781 their copy was republished 1829] the old book describes whopperknockers as 'odd animals' with 'brown-red fur' the creature was '...so wild that no man could tame him, they where only taken by trap at night. Their skins are covered in an exceedingly fine fur and are make into muffs at the price of 20 or 40 guineas a piece." Funnily, its also described among 'bumble bees the size of humming birds' and then ordinary skunks which smell "like garlic but are far more exquisite and piercing than any volatile spirit known to chemists." (skunks of course are certainly real and bumble bees can get pretty big, but not quite THAT big!) Given the books age, its probable that this whopperknocker was describing a real creature and unless i'm sourly mistaken: the names origin may lay among mispronunciations & misspelling of the "Whaupaunaucau" state forest in new york, - 'Whaupaunaucau' seems to be an old native word meaning 'land of the "marten"' (weasels!) which explains the above description quite nicely! (also in hindsight, the name "whapperknocker" comes up a lot more in papers and such, could have saved myself a lot of research if i had just made that typo earlier lol.)

...Anyway about 30 years later The creature was finally illustrated in 'Ennis rees' 'Gilly Galoos and Gollywhoppers' [1969] Ennis, who wrote the poems, seems to have taken the initiative to have the creature illustrated in 1969 by the fantastic 'Sir Quinten Blake.' so i took my inspiration from his sketch.

The Whopperknocker was also described among other critters in 2010's "Uncle John's Facts to Go: Modern Mythology" an amusing bathroom book:

of course, today, the most popular thought about it is probably a short bit of prose which was stolen from lenwood's lexicon [2019] this has been clipped and shared, usually without credit across various cryptid & creature wiki's, Len's short prose goes as follows:

"WHOPPERKNOCKER: An irascible entity that easily spies the sparks in a shotgun before the bullet begins to bound. "

Art Sticker & Bio by SamKalensky Part of my "Fearsome Critters" collection of stickers! check my shop and consider supporting for more