Collection: Fearsome Critters & North American Tall Tales.

Long forgotten folklore, Creatures of the Lumberwoods, Mythological underdogs & other tidbits of North American folklore.

‘Fearsome critters’ are by definition: "Creatures of Folklore, tall tales, yarns & other oral traditions, typically from the United States and Canada" - They are the legends of Woodsmen & workers usually told ‘round the campfire by guides of the North, lumberjacks, hunters & fishermen around the turn of the last century, often for entertainment or to haze newcomers & naive tender-footed city folk, as such, many consider these creatures as "jokes",  "hoaxes”, "pranks" or even sneered at by some as "fakelore." - But: if you consider them only as bold-faced lies, well... you'd better start believing!! - as a matter of fact: Many of these critters have real-world locations named after them, are used in part as long-lasting figures of speech, are akin to porqoui tales, or were based on or inspired by real people, places or events, many were exploited in advertisements for big companies, a few of them are still proudly flaunted as local mascots today, a couple of them even have museums and festivals dedicated to them, attracting needed tourism & bringing attention to the areas that they hail from! - Their 'sightings & stories' were quite often published in historical documents, magazines, newspapers & books, and few of them even have toys, games, poems, landmark destinations & even dedicated songs. A couple notable early Critter Bestiary's include those as those by Minnesota state forester, William T Cox's "fearsome creatures" [1910] and Henry H Tyron's "Fearsome critters" [1936] (you can even find even more & a timeline under my bibliography tab up top.) Today, you also can also browse through a list of even more obscure and unkown critters by articles & name at the Canadian Fearsome critters service & Lumberwoods.com. a few notes of history include: President Teddy Rosevelt [1858 – 1919] who hunted both 'the Arizona hodag' and also expressed interest in hunting 'The Maryland Snallygaster', Teddy even personally wrote to cox to thank him for his work. - Another notable fun fact is that Japanese folklorist 'Shigeru Mizuki'  [1922–2015] classified the critter known as the "Pennyselvania Squonk" as an example of an "American Yokai" in one of his many yokai encyclopedias.  - So, all of that said: There is indeed some overlap between mythology, folklore, culture, cryptids & critters, and if these creatures were ever actually believed in at one point, then one could very well consider them to be 'Cryptids of Yesteryear.' for those reasons I'd say however ridiculous they may seem or odd they may appear, these critters are every bit a part of our collective cultures 'folklore' as the 'more established' monsters & mythologies of old are.

[on that note & for the sake of cryptozoological reference, I'd also like to note that my inclusion of critters next to the 'Cryptids', is not necessarily intended to 'prove' (or disprove) these critters 'existences', but to at least bring some awareness to long forgotten folklore, tidbits of culture, and shed some light onto these 'mythological underdogs' which have frequently, nearly been lost to the annals of time! - Several of these have fallen to the wayside and out of the general public's consciousness...]