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Danny & Titch: cheers for the comments.

Amarok: Very interesting! Not seen that before. I know that Malclom Lees (RAF) did allude to other worm reports from Wilts, but that was all very much fragmentary. I have been doing a lot of research recently into sighting of what sound like a couple of large eels seen in the canals around Birmingham in the late 70s and early to mid 80s. I sometimes wonder if these old worm stories (not the Avebury one - but ones near large bodies of water) might actually be distorted tales of very large eels...?
 
B73: That's intriguing re the other slime reports. The only other weird creature report I have from that area was told to me years ago (probably 96/97) of a "big reptile" supposedly seen in woods near to RAF Rudloe Manor in the 90s.

This was at least a 3rd-hand story, so could have been as simple as an exotic pet escapee, and of course it depends how you define "big"!

I hope to publish somehting on the "Birmingham eels" story in the near future.
 
amarok2005 said:
...Any idea as to the original source for the Maggot of Death?...

The writer E F Benson was fond of large maggoty things: the stories Negotium Perambulams and "And No Bird Sings" both contain examples.

In Mystery Animals of Britain and Ireland, Graham J McEwan mentions a creature 'often referred to as Boneless' in English Folklore and relates two encounters: one from early twentieth century Somerset - the other, Shetland in 1932.

And David Clarke, in Supernatural Peak District, mentions an encounter with something similar at the Devil's Elbow in the 1950's.

None of those sources are as detailed as the Hurwood story, but...

...I’ve been inclined to say he made that one up...

Yes. I suspect a minor massacre, graverobbing and open-air cremation might leave even more of a trackable spoor in the press than an overgrown slug.
 
A caterpillar-y thing was reported from Edinburgh, at least according to Creatures from the Outer Edge by Jerome Clark and Loren Coleman:

Godfrey H. Anderson claimed that while strolling down an Edinburgh, Scotland, street on November 23, 1904, he saw a "vague black shape about four feet long and two and a half feet high" rise out of the gutter. It was shaped, he said, "like an hour-glass and moved like a huge caterpillar," and it sprang at the throat of a horse, which abruptly reared up in terror. While it was doing so, the thing vanished.

As for slimy worms, the Megascolides australis or giant Gippsland earthworm can supposedly squirt jets of slime a foot (31 cm) in all directions, which not only make it too slick to hold, the substabce protects it from certain bacteria and parasites.

In a proper fortean fashion, worms and maggots can slide off towards eels and even reptiles: Certain legless lizards resembled large worms, such as the Slowworm:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slowworm
 
Bigfoot73
Tht was the classic 1973 Jon Pertwee story 'The Green Death'. A swarm of pollution induced toxic maggots the size of basset dogs come writhing out of an old mine and slag heap. Their bite turns you green and kills you. Great stuff!
 
Lordmongrove, cheers for the tip, might even look for the DVD now. :)
 
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-35050026
Rare treasure found in Suffolk depicts medieval 'Wild Man'


A 500-year-old artefact is one of the earliest depictions of a mythical figure from medieval Europe, an expert has claimed.

Metal detectorists found the spoon handle with an engraving of "Wild Man" near Woodbridge in Suffolk.

A leading historian has hailed the discovery as a "rare find".

Some of the earliest writings about The Wild Man come from Spain in the 9th Century and he was described as "barbaric, chaotic and unrestrained".

The 15th Century handle, found two years ago, was declared as treasure at an inquest in Ipswich this week.

Covered in leaves and brandishing a club, the hairy Wild Man was a popular medieval mythical figure mostly found in pictures and literature rather than on objects.

Professor of history Ronald Hutton, from the University of Bristol, said: "It's certainly one of the earliest depictions of the Wild Man.


(right place?, if not can you move it)


 
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Woodwoose? Irishman Spots Unknown Two-Legged Creature in Mountain Range
Posted on Feb 4 2016 - 4:52pm by Cryptozoology News

he man, an avid hiker in his 50s who chose to remain anonymous, said he was exploring an isolated area of the Sperrin Mountains in December 2015 when he came upon the unidentified creature.
“I had walked to three hill tops surrounded by dense forest and was heading back up a hill towards a tree line to my car,” he told Debbie Crossley Hatswell, who has been investigating the Bigfoot phenomenon in the United Kingdom for a few years.

http://cryptozoologynews.com/irish-bigfoot-irishman-spots-unknown-two-legged-creature/
 
Sussex Folklore: The Leaf Man hiding in Sussex woods
Posted on May 14, 2015

I’ve always been intrigued by creepy stories and their power to embed themselves into a local community. Growing up in the ‘80s I was obsessed with tales concerning local bogeymen and one such yarn which often spooked me was known as the Leaf Man. Such a monster was said to haunt an undisclosed section of woodland not far from Hailsham although reports of the creature seem mostly vague. However, one eye-witness told me a few years ago the following story:

http://www.thedistrictpost.co.uk/news/2015/05/sussex-folklore-the-leaf-man-hiding-in-sussex-woods/
 
Perhaps a manifestation of the Green Man?
Or a tramp covered in leaves?
Or a poacher in a ghillie suit?
 
Does anyone remember an IHTM from the mag, back in the mists of time, about someone seeing a green man-type face peering out from some foliage? The image has really stuck with me - the details less so. Was the person who saw it on a train or something perhaps?

It would be good to know where that was exactly. I can't recall anything more specific than somewhere in the south of England.
 
Does anyone remember an IHTM from the mag, back in the mists of time, about someone seeing a green man-type face peering out from some foliage? The image has really stuck with me - the details less so. Was the person who saw it on a train or something perhaps?

It would be good to know where that was exactly. I can't recall anything more specific than somewhere in the south of England.
I recall it or something very similar, I think it was also an old thread on the forum over in IHTM. I'll have a hunt too.
 
Does anyone remember an IHTM from the mag, back in the mists of time, about someone seeing a green man-type face peering out from some foliage? The image has really stuck with me - the details less so. Was the person who saw it on a train or something perhaps?

It would be good to know where that was exactly. I can't recall anything more specific than somewhere in the south of England.
I remember it and yes it was on a train that had pulled into a station. I thought it was posted on here somewhere?
I took it to be a larger version of a phenomenon I have witnessed on a couple of occasions. Like a live-action version of
Pareidolia, it happens if you stare into thick foliage that is moving in the wind. I saw a human face which seemed to be changing it's expression and looked as if it were talking.

But I know it was just foliage I saw, not a Wodewose - Green Man type thing.
 
Like a live-action version of
Pareidolia, it happens if you stare into thick foliage that is moving in the wind. I saw a human face which seemed to be changing it's expression and looked as if it were talking.

In Kenneth Grant's 1991 book Rembering Aleister Crowley, Grant writes about the time he was with AC in the garden of his boarding house in Netherwood, Hastings when they both witnessed the same phenomenon of a Pan like figure emerging from the foliage of the garden hedges.

Edit*

I've just found the full story.

''The Great God Pan: one morning at ‘Netherwood’, when Crowley accompanied me from the guest-house to the cottage, we experienced a joint ‘vision’ of a satyr-like form in the early spring sunshine. This could have been the result of an invocation Crowley & I performed in the grounds of the cottage where I was staying. I had left the front door ajar whilst going to fetch Crowley from the guest house. He would often come over to the cottage – weather permitting – and dictate a few letters or chat about magick.
On that particular morning I could see that he had other intentions. In a tremulous falsetto voice he began intoning the chorus to his “Hymn to Pan”, and I joined in. By the time we reached the cottage, the chant had acquired an hypnotic intensity. Inside, I opened a window which flashed a shaft of sunlight onto a dense bed of ivy leaves. A thin haze hung over the ground. The brilliant, glancing light revealed an almost human countenance wreathed in foliage. It was not entirely a figment of my imagination, for Crowley also saw it. The incident loses in the telling –such experiences are virtually incommunicable – but the impression remains today as vivid as it was forty-five years ago. (1 June 1945)''
 
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Glad I'm not imagining it! I tried a couple of searches but nothing came up yet. I'll keep looking.

davidplankton that sounds amazing. Could pareidolia be linked to places? Like an image-based genuis loci, which spurs people to 'see' wodewoses (wodewise? wodewoos?) in particular spots?
 
davidplankton that sounds amazing. Could pareidolia be linked to places? Like an image-based genuis loci, which spurs people to 'see' wodewoses (wodewise? wodewoos?) in particular spots?
I truly couldn't say for sure. It was a windy day in late summer when I witnessed it and it was actually in next doors garden, seen from my bedroom window.
I think it was a conifer type tree but I can't be sure, I had a look out there earlier and as you can imagine most of the foliage has yet emerge. Maybe something that is in full leaf late summer?
It looked to me like a jolly old rotund kind of chap with a beard who was very animated (the wind). I was entranced by it for about fifteen minutes or so, but I knew it was only a plant moving about. If I took my eyes off it for a moment it was difficult to focus on it again.
 
The image has really stuck with me - the details less so.

There was one of a garden fence with a face in the leaves beyond. We discussed it on here about ten years ago; it may be the one you remember. It was an old-fashioned border with Michaelmas Daisies and such . . .

There were also some fanciful things seen by Beckjord, who gave them names . . . :eek:
 
There was one of a garden fence with a face in the leaves beyond. We discussed it on here about ten years ago; it may be the one you remember. It was an old-fashioned border with Michaelmas Daisies and such . . .

There were also some fanciful things seen by Beckjord, who gave them names . . . :eek:

I'm pretty sure it was the one mentioned earlier, seen as a train pulled into / out of a station. Slightly worrying that our long term memories are filled with decades of half remembered IHTMs! I think in my case they have squeezed out everything else.

Still nothing from searching the MB. It may be lost in the mists of time.
 
Didn't a lot of IHTMs get detached from the board some years back?
 
Didn't a lot of IHTMs get detached from the board some years back?
Unfortunately yes :fckpc: That's not to say we won't yet find the story somewhere, I'm trying different combinations of keyword too. I remember another one where a Hobbit like troll with a long nose was seen rambling through a field from the window of a train o_O Wayback Machine is very useful when it comes to archival IHTM research, https://archive.org/web/
 
I found it!!! Ok, no-one apart from me is excited...

I couldn't get it on our own message board, but found it instead on 'Green Man Curious'. Here is the post, dated from 07/12/10 https://thecompanyofthegreenman.wordpress.com/2010/12/07/green-man-encounter/#comments

I found the comment from Nick Duffy (07/03/11) interesting too:
While only a very vague reference, I attended a lecture on the paranormal many years ago and a peculiar Green-Man-like experience was mentioned. It was said that an unnamed person had been a visitor to a site known as Wychbury Ring or Hill – an ancient hill fort, on the Worcestershire / West Midlands border – and, on looking around, their attention had been drawn by a movement or sound in the tree canopy. Apparently, when they looked up, they had allegedly seen something which they described as a Green Man face staring back down at them!! Laugh!!!

Unfortunately, the experience was only mentioned in passing and that was – as far as I can recall – all that was said on the subject.

I’ve been a visitor to Wychbury Hill many times over the years – but I’m yet to have any encounters of the Green Man kind!! Laugh!!

Interesting!
 
I'm pasting the text of the sighting here, as experience shows that links can disappear!

Sean Breadin drew my attention to a letter in the July 2010 edition of Fortean Times written by Nick Skerten from London:
One summer afternoon in 2007, I was returning from central London and my train had spent a few too many minutes idling at the platform in New Malden station. Lost in thought, I had been looking out of the window at nothing in particular when I suddenly saw something that made me gasp out loud. At the far end of the London-bound platform is a thick bank of trees and shrubs behind a fence. I was astonished to see what appeared to be an enormous face made up of the surrounding foliage looming out at the opposite platform and looking very similar to the typical appearance of the ‘Green Man’, as seen in church carvings. The face was about 5ft (1.5m) in diameter and about 7ft (2m) or so from the ground.
I was amazed how perfect the face seemed to be-though at the same time I knew it was just my brain demonstrating its knack for face recognition in random patterns. I probably gazed in wonder for 20-odd seconds before the most shocking thing happened.
Suddenly, and with tremendous velocity, the entire face withdrew backwards into the vegetation, which caused the surrounding bushes and trees to sway violently. Most strikingly of all, a branch that must have been under the ‘face’ swung upwards with immense force-as if a huge weight had been lifted from it-before smacking into the surrounding greenery and, I suppose, reassuming its original position. This whole motion took about a second and the face had completely disappeared! I could accept that a fox or even a human might have been sitting on the branches and had jumped off, causing them to bounce back into position, but this would not easily account for the very distinct retraction of the face, as if it was wrenched backwards into a tunnel.
The face in no way looked constructed or man-made and seemed to consist of a natural, though utterly remarkable, arrangement. The features of the thing were clear to see and I was particularly struck by the grinning mouth and staring eyes. Quite how the verdant visage was sucked backwards I have no idea. I have often wondered how, or indeed why, anyone would have achieved this bizarre effect for bored South West Trains passengers. The train drew away and I sat back in my chair feeling strangely unnerved. On all my subsequent journeys through the station I have never seen anything like this again.


I managed to get in contact with Nick to ask his permission to reproduce the letter and to see if there was anything else he would add. Nick commented that: “There was no-one near me when I saw this weird thing, which is slightly frustrating! I was travelling back from town after doing some shopping. It was a very sunny day and I suppose the train had been waiting for a good two minutes before I noticed the face in the leaves. I hadn’t been staring out of the window all of that time and it was, as I recall, the moment I looked at the bushes that I saw the face. I’ve always had a good look at that bank of trees whenever I pass through New Malden station on the train, but it’s always looked like a rather standard bush and nothing else. It was, though, the terrific suction that seemed to be exerted on the face as it was wrenched back into the shrubbery that I found so inexplicable. The violence of the exit and the massive swaying of branches and foliage was quite spectacular and just left me feeling really surprised and shocked. I only wish now that I had got out of the train and gone to investigate the opposite platform, but, alas, I didn’t, so I’m left with the mystery.”
Nick was also kind enough to sketch the drawing which is included on this post. Nick’s description is fascinating and I must admit that I can offer no rational explanation for his experience. This is the only record that I can find of a sighting of this kind, ghostly figures dressed in green and the children of woolpit don’t even come close, and the only image that I have seen that partially resembles this is of a brilliant piece of topiary in a garden in Wiltshire. If anyone else has heard of a sighting of this kind either present day or historical we would love to hear from you.
 
Now I'm getting flashbacks to a letter in the FT ten years ago (or more) from someone who had looked inside a bush in the countryside one afternoon and seen a spider a few feet wide in there. Does the act of looking into foliage prompt these visions, or are there really such creatures that take advantage of the camouflage leaves and branches can give?
 
Now I'm getting flashbacks to a letter in the FT ten years ago (or more) from someone who had looked inside a bush in the countryside one afternoon and seen a spider a few feet wide in there. Does the act of looking into foliage prompt these visions, or are there really such creatures that take advantage of the camouflage leaves and branches can give?
That's in IHTM Volume 6. I saw it when I was doing some, er research yesterday into fairies and Green Men.
 
Here's a recent episode of the brilliant podcast, The Gralien Report which takes a look at mythical wild men and the woodwose,

TGR 02.12.18. The Outsiders: Woodwoses and Wild Men

Then in Hour Two, we turn our attention to one of the strangest disappearances on record, which involved a mountain climber who vanished while scaling a mountain with a group of friends. This brings us to the popular discussion of “cluster” areas where such disappearances are said to occur, and as reported by researcher David Paulides in his Missing 411 books. Finally, we take a look at mythic representations of “wild men” throughout the ages

https://www.gralienreport.com/podcasts/tgr-02-12-18-the-outsiders-of-woodwoses-and-wild-men/
 
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