[Knockturn]

The Squonk (Lacrimacorpus dissolvens) is a legendary creature from the Hemlock forests of north-central and north-western Pennsylvania. The earliest stories about the squonk are lost to history, but the legend probably dates back at least to the late 19th Century, when Pennsylvania's importance in the lumber industry was at its peak, relying heavily on hemlock trees1.

Edit; very informative article, Knock, but because of copyright issues we'd prefer you
include a link to the website you've copied from. I'll add one below.

CLICK HERE FOR THE STORY



http://67.18.37.14/4...ad/p1011011.gif pic (possibly of a squonk) from "The village".

This post has been edited by Magikman: 14 May 2004 - 02:39 AM

[man_in_mudboots]

Yayyyyyy! i had read about that critter in a book, but i forgot its name, so i couldnt look up anything else, but now i know! the book i read about it from had stories also about splinter cats, seven-toes-hide-behinds, and such. more sort of 'silly' myth critters, like from paul bunyan and the like. there was another i wanted to look up, it ahd the front paws of a moose and the back paws of soemthing else, and it would switch aroudn to fool hunters that were tracking it. you wouldnt happne to know its name, would you? or have info, even better?

[Pendekar Timur]

hey..very interestin..
dont you have any picture/photo/drawing or somethin..??

[Wild-Eyes]

It's terribly cute.

The Squonk - Borges



Sad though too... I imagine the creature was fairly real, though the legends were made up, probably to explain why it had such a sorrowful cry or somesuch.

[man_in_mudboots]

thats a squonk? i was under the impression that they were flabbily fat, with wrinkly faces, duck-like feet, hair patches in miss-matched places, fat, dangling tounges, and........um.......yeah, well, anyway.

[chico del nacho]

[man_in_mudboots]

well, the artist didnt know, he just heard they were warty, cried alot, and animals, and so drew one with out looking up more......

[cowman]

I like there name squonks.....

[Apocalyptic Cryptid]

well....seeing that they WEEP all the time i would think they would probobly be....Small humanoid creatures....considering most animal dont cry when they feel sad.....i have NEVER heard of an animal crying like when its mother died....maybe make sad noises but not tears controlled by feelings.........

Like a little warty ugly bigfoot child hehehe


So........... sorry to do this but meybe like this size but "uglier"

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[man_in_mudboots]

[chico del nacho]

Apocalyptic Cryptid, you win at everything for making this about ewoks. you deserve money now. not mine though, i have little and i'm greedy and selfish

[Apocalyptic Cryptid]

Haha Thanx

[man_in_mudboots]

The saddest beast we have heard about so far is the squonk. As it lives only in the hemlock forests of Pennsylvania very few people know about him. His grief seems mainly to be caused by the ugliness of his skin, which is said to be ill-fitting and covered with warts and moles. The only way to trap a squonk is by following its tear-stained trail. This is particularly successful on very frosty nights when the tears freeze and sparkle in the moonlight and the squonk can't move around too quickly. In fact you can actually hear it weeping under the hemlock trees.
One man thought he had captured the squonk after he lured it into a sack by mimicking its cry. On his way back home he felt his burden get gradually lighter and the sobbing ceased. When he opened the sack all he could find were tears and bubbles.
from "A Dictionary of Monsters and Mysterious Beasts" by Carey Miller.


another picture of a squonk, that looks nothing like the description, and the hunter that caught it. i just thought id post it......

The Squonk (Lacrimacorpus dissolvens) is a legendary creature from the Hemlock forests of north-central and north-western Pennsylvania. The earliest stories about the squonk are lost to history, but the legend probably dates back at least to the late Nineteenth Century, when Pennsylvania's importance in the lumber industry was at its peak, relying heavily on hemlock trees.
Squonks are very shy, very ugly animals. Their skin is ill-fitting, and covered with warts and moles. Because they know they are so ugly, they weep almost constantly, and try to avoid being seen.
The one well-known story about squonks has to do with how they are hunted. Apparently, squonk skin is valued by some, but they are very difficult to catch, because of their extremely retiring nature. They can be most easily tracked on nights with a full moon, when their tears form glistening trails on the ground.
Sometime around the year 1900, a man named JP Wentling2 was able to successfully catch a squonk. Mr Wentling followed a trail of tears, and when he heard a nearby squonk weeping under a hemlock tree, he lured it by imitating the creature, presumably by weeping. He caught the squonk in a bag, and carried it home, while it sobbed pitifully in his sack. As he carried his prize home, he suddenly noticed that the bag was lighter, and on opening it, found that there was nothing inside but tears and bubbles.
Squonks will apparently dissolve completely into tears anytime they are cornered or threatened; this is the source of their scientific name, Lacrimacorpus dissolvens, from the Latin words for 'tear', 'body', and 'dissolve'.
from --this funky site--.

The Squonk is a legendary creature reputed to live in the Hemlock forests of northern Pennsylvania. Legends of squonks probably originated in the late 19th century, at the height of Pennsylvania's importance in the timber industry.
The earliest known written account of squonks comes from a book by William T Cox called Fearsome Creatures of the Lumberwoods, With a Few Desert and Mountain Beasts (1910). Mr. Cox's account is reprinted in Jorge Luis Borges' Book of Imaginary Beings (1969).
To summarize the legend of the squonk: It is a very ugly creature, and it knows this. Its skin is ill-fitting, and covered with warts and other blemishes, therefore the squonk hides from being seen, and spends much of its time weeping sorrowfully over its own ugliness. Hunters who have attempted to catch squonks have found that the creature is capable of evading capture by dissolving completely into a pool of tears and bubbles when cornered. A certain J.P. Wentling is supposed to have coaxed one into a bag, which while he was carrying it home, suddenly lightened. On inspection, he found that the bag contained only the liquid remains of the sad animal.
The latin name of the squonk, Lacrimacorpus dissolvens, comes from latin words meaning "tear", "body", and "dissolve".
from --wikipedia--

Edit:
Removed underlined text before I went into a epileptical fit...

This post has been edited by Phantom: 11 July 2004 - 07:47 PM

[man_in_mudboots]

maybe yall can help me with this too, does anybody know the name of the bird that supposedly lays square eggs that lumberjacks use for dice?

[Phantom]