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Dog-Headed Men (Cynocephali)

There was a man called Richard van der Voort who was co-owner of at the Sign of the Dragon on Sheen Lane (He and Marion may still be there?) I recall he once told a group at the Tun how some friends had been messing with a Ouija board in his flat. there appear a DHM which frightened the Bejasus out of this band. I beleive it was when Richard was in Manchester
 
Wow, I'm amazed, my little brother saw dogheaded men in a backstreet in Northern England, and now it seems they have a long Fortean history!
 
Dog-headed saints? Reminds me of this movie called The Boondock Saints. I always think it sounds like The Bulldog Saints. Maybe I should watch it, to see what it is about.
 
Thanks, that's a great link!
 
Xanatic said:
Dog-headed saints? Reminds me of this movie called The Boondock Saints. I always think it sounds like The Bulldog Saints. Maybe I should watch it, to see what it is about.

You should definitely watch it.
 
I know this may be a little pointless, but wasn't Anubis jackal-headed? I'm reasonably sure it was unflattering Roman descriptions that gave him the head of a dog, or the mannerisms of one, ie. barking...
 
I think most ten year olds in the North of England would see something canine, and be far more inclined to think "dog" than "jackal".
Although it does beg the question, exactly what was an Egyptian God doing so far from his native stamping ground? Package holiday? This thread is fascinating stuff.
 
Yeah, I agree, this is a great thread, thanks for all the info. :) I just had a thought, though- some mentioned apes, and I was thinking about baboons- they have very long muzzles, and sometimes they walk upright briefly, especially while angry, and they can make a sort of barking noise. Could this maybe be another source of the legend?

On a side note, this is also reminding me of a bok I read a few years ago called "Lives of the Monster Dogs" (forget the author) about a race of genetically modified dogs with human hands that could speak and walk upright. Weird book. Perhaps a cynocephali-inspired tale?
 
The 'beast' of Bray Road was considered very much dog-headed and certainly not ursine in its features. Many considered this Wisconsin creature to be a werewolf which was often seen feasting on roadkills as motorists drove by. It would then run at the cars before growling and disappearing into the darkness. The creature described was almost like a coyote-wolf-dog hybrid but was able to run on two legs, omit fierce howls and certainly wasn't just another Bigfoot due to its long snout, pointed ears and dog-like legs. The beast was connected to some Indian legend and said to represent an idol of some sort, and was even seen scratching around burial sites.
 
All About Anubis

Ahh....Anubis. my favorite.






He was the Greek version of Egyptian Anpu.

Anubis was the son of Nephthys. By some traditions, the father was Set(Set was often depicted with a jackal's head too) by others, Osiris. (And by still other traditions
his mother was Isis.) Anubis was depicted as a jackal, or as a jackal-headed man; in primitive times he was probably
simply the jackal god.

Probably because of the jackal's tendency to prowl around tombs, he became associated with the dead, and by the
Old Kingdom, Anubis was worshipped as the inventor of embalming, who had embalmed the dead Osiris, thus helping
preserve him in order to live again. His task became to glorify and preserve all the dead.

Anubis was also worshipped under the form Upuaut ("Opener of the Ways"), sometimes with a rabbit's head, who
conducted the souls of the dead to their judgement, and who monitored the Scales of Truth to protect the dead from
the second death in the underworld.



I can't seem to find a decent picture of him.
http://www.philae.nu/perankh/perankhA.html#Anubis
I will try to find more info of him for ya'll.
 
Hey Milo, you read "Lives Of The Monster Dogs" (the author's name is Kirsten Bakis)?! Cool! I love that book, I don't know anyone else who's read it - never read anything else quite like it!
 
RE Lives of the Monster Dogs

Yes i did, but i seem to remember it had a sad ending, one of the main characters was called Klaus wasn't he?
 
Back on thread a bit..

How about Wulvers? These were Norse entities, again men with the heads of dogs.
If anyone read "The Unexplained" there was a feature in that about the "Hexham Heads". synopsis:-
Bloke digs in garden in Hexham, Northumberland (for non-UK readers, in North Eastern England, and for a long time under Norse rule, as opposed to Anglo Saxon) and finds two (or poss more) small, carved stone heads.
Bloke gives them to kids to play with.
Polt type things happen in house, including corner of eye sightings of black shape in house.
Heads find their way to Dr Anne Ross, expert on Olde Thingges, who takes them to her house.
Dr Ross wakes up one night to see very big wolf like thing, walking on hind legs, leaving her bedroom.
Follows thing (brave woman) which then vaults over bannister rail and lands in ground floor with soft plop - goes towards back of house, and vanishes.
From what she's seen, Dr Ross identifies thing as a Wulver, still part of the mystical landscape in Scandinavia, and seen occasionally in the Shetlands (off northern coast of Scotland)
What became of the heads I don't know.
Remeber story vividly cos I read it when I was fourteen and slept with the light on for about a month afterwards..
 
Wulvern? Can't remember ever having heard of those. Tell me more.
 
That's as much as I can remember, I'm afraid - it was in that massive part-work "The Unexplained", which I collected rigorously, but mysteriously vanished when I got married...
It was definitely Wulver though.
I'll try googling on it: watch this space..
Stu.
 
Yep, try Google with Wulver as keyword: most mention it as being more of a Shetland Islands thing than Norse, though: might explain why Dr Ross was familiar with it as she was a Celtic scholar first and foremost.

Try this particular link here which goes into a bit of detail..

Also, if you Google search on Hexham Heads it brings up the full story that I mangled above, including this
 
Was directed here because I posted about this on another thread but hadn't read this one . My son and his father both saw a man with a dog's head driving a van down the highstreet , they said it was so realistic it must have been some fancy animatronic mask . It was somewhere between a dobermann and a labrador in type and was brown . It was looking forward calmly , not trying to draw attention to himself . This was more than ten years ago .
 
Dog-headed men

Hi!
This is my first post here, so I hope I do it correctly!
I recently read a book on werewolfism (can't spell 'lycanthropy':D )
and I believe I remember quite a few references to 'dog-headed men'. The title is 'The Beast Within', can't remember the author (& I've just lent the darn thing out:( , but I'll see if I can get the name)--it might be of interest.
 
Dogheaded Men

'S gone all quiet...
Where is everybody?

Mothfox (was it something I said?):confused:
 
Re: Dogheaded Men

Mothfox said:
'S gone all quiet...
Where is everybody?

Mothfox (was it something I said?):confused:

At that time of night (11.30 ish pm GMT) they're all at the Cocktail Bar (or the Love Shack) over on Chat..

You'll get used to threads suddenly going into a coma. Don't take it personally!:)
 
Dodheaded men

Thank you, Stu
I thought maybe my engaging personality had cleared the place:p

Mothfox, orbiting candles
 
If you'll all kindly go to the news story "Ice Age faces!" listed today on the Fortean Times home page, you'll be forwarded to a BBC News article pertaining to some striking images that can be dated back millenia. There, you'll see that one of the images featured on the article can be clicked to reveal an "enlarged" version (although actually it isn't an enlarged version but a different, much larger image, but that's beside the point). Clicking this reveals a seeming gallery of some of the borderlines for human morphology. A few of these faces, especially the one shown at the screen's top left, look very much like the "dog-headed men" reported sporadically in old and modern times.
Signifcantly, there is a condition that causes the limitless growth of every hair on the body. Some of you are likely aware of this. Taking individuals who have faces like those depicted in those cave illustrations and giving them that hair condition results in dog-headed men.
 
But the dog-headed men in the stories here had Doberman-like heads, which have slick, short hair, not heavy, curly hair like disorders can cause.

Foiled again! ^_^
 
I think the idea that babboons could have given the idea of werewolfs sounds interesting.

BTW welcome back Joshua
 
Baboons? Hrmmm cant see that one workign personally.

A much better "explanation" would be men in olden days wearing nice warm wolf-pelts with the head skin still attached, to maybe scare off their enemies or just as a convenient hood/mask!
 
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