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Boneless

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Anonymous

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Gosh, second new thread of the night...

Some years ago, I read a fantastic book on cryptozoology, the name of which completely escapes me. However, it described a number of 'no-category', high strangeness cases, such as the Horseman and every child's favourite 'the thing from over the hill'.

It went on to discuss a creature from British folklore called Boneless, but never went into much detail. I came across another reference the other day (in 'The House of Doctor Dee' by Peter Ayckroyd, damn good read) and wondered if you lot knew anything.

I'd look it up on the net, but frankly, the thought of what a search for 'boneless' might bring up turns my stomach.
 
Utterly useless post, I'm afraid, but that book you refer to wasn't Mystery Animals of Britain and Ireland by Graham J. McEwan, was it? Great book. Think it's the only one he wrote...
 
Aye, that's the very one. Fantastic, wasn't it?

He just sort of mentions Boneless, then ties it in with a story about a guy meeting a sort of big amorphous cloudy blob. Hang on, I think there's one or two of them in here already.
 
Very good book, I got it from the library a few years ago. Been waiting for it to be put in the book sale ever since!

A (very) quick Google for 'boneless' didn't come up with anything related (surprisingly?). Mostly meat-related recipes!
 
Boneless:

Katherine Briggs, that chronicler of British Folklore par excellence, lists a beastie known as Boneless. It is in the category of ‘Frittners’ – formless things whose chief function seems to be to frighten travellers. She recounts a story of a Policeman who encountered Boneless on the Minehead-Bridgwater road.
“..It was darksome over above Putsham Rise, and the tide was far in below – he could hear it plain down two hill fields, and then his lamp lit up a white summat across the road. It weren’t fog. It were alive – kind of woolly like a cloud or wet sheep – and it slid up and all over him on his bike, and was gone rolling and bowling and stretching out and in up the Perry farm road. It was so sudden he didn’t fall off – but he said it was like a wet blanket and so terrible cold and smelled stale.”
Another story relates how a peddler going to Oxford market in 1916 encountered Boneless, described as;
“ a shapeless summat as slides behind and alongside in the dark night. Many’s have died of fright through his following on. They can’t never tell about him except he’s a big shadow and shapeless”
:eek!!!!:
 
Sounds like the Brollochan from Alan Garner's "The Moon of Gomrath" - google finds it in a couple of references to fairy encyclopedias, all of which seem to be the same one on different sites:
Brollochan is Gaelic for a shapeless thing. and it probably something like Reginald Scot's Boneless. There is a story of one, the child of a Fuath, told by Campbell. It is something the same plot as Ainsel.
Click to expand...
 
HP Lovecraft makes passing mention to a similar creature in (IIRC) at least one of his stories. 'The Lurking Fear' might be one of them - but I'm not completely sure.
 
You know, thinking about it, this sounds a bit like the Peak District Slug of which we of the board are so fond. Thanks for the info folks.
Is there no scary data we can't find? Come on, which one of you's got the real Thunderbird photo?
 
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