Wild men of the woods
Were the Woodwoses of medieval legend a British equivalent of Bigfoot?
by RICHARD HOLLAND
In medieval art and literature there are many references to savage, hairy creatures, part man and part beast. They are known as ‘Woodwoses’, from the Anglo-Saxon meaning ‘man-of-the-wood’.
Sometimes the Woodwose is portrayed as more beast than man: crawling on all fours and attacking dogs, for example. Equally often he is portrayed as more man than beast: hirsute but decidedly human. Woodwoses seem to represent primal, uncivilised man, perhaps the spirit of the woods and wild places. They may be cultural descendants of the ancient Greek satyrs and the god Pan. Like the ‘Green Man’ with foliage sprouting from his mouth, they appear as carvings in many churches. They also feature in several old families’ coats of arms.
It has been suggested that the Woodwose is a folk memory of some species of early hominid, a pre-Homo sapiens ape man. The same suggestion has been made of the legendary Bigfoot/Sasquatch of North America, the Yowie of Australia, the Yeti of Tibet and variant ‘manimals’ worldwide. Perhaps a few remnants of these ‘wild men’ still lingered in inaccessible places when prehistoric man first hacked their way through Europe’s primeval forest. They might have been glimpsed by Neolithic settlers in the hearts of what remained of their woodland habitat, just as Bigfoot is said to be glimpsed today.
Some researchers claim that Bigfoot is an apparition, an insubstantial phantom rather than a living creature. It is a concept often raised in cryptozoological circles that all such mysterious beasts are, to quote Janet Bord, ‘non-physical … needing a suitable energy source to help them materialize and to sustain them’. Perhaps the Woodwose was just such an apparition to medieval man: a manifestation of his fear of untamed nature that began just a few feet from his cottage door.
In Sproughton in Suffolk, according to John Michell and Bob Rickard, the Wild Man Inn was so named after a terrifying entity that attacked its builders in the 16th century. They also cite a police report of a ‘horrible uncouth creature’ which had been living in woods near Salisbury in Wiltshire and attempted to carry off a farmer’s wife: this was recorded as late as 1877. I have also spoken to witnesses who may have encountered a similar man-beast in North-East Wales.
These reports may recall deranged or degraded individuals living in a near feral state. Or they may be less substantial than that, like the weird ghost recorded by Charlotte Burne in the 19th century as haunting a bridge over the Birmingham and Liverpool Canal, near Woodseaves in Staffordshire. Described as ‘a strange black creature with great white eyes’, it sprang out of a wood and landed on the back of a carter’s horse. He tried to push it off with his whip, but the whip went right through it.
A policeman later told the terrified man: ‘Oh I know what that was. That was the Man-Monkey, sir, as does come out come again at that bridge ever since a man was drowned in the Cut!’
[Sources: ‘Wildmen' by Myra Shackley (1983); ‘Alien Animals' by Janet & Colin Bord (1980); ‘Phenomena' by John Michell and Robert J M Rickard (1977); ‘Shropshire Folk-Lore' by Charlotte S Burne (1883; rep 1973)]
© Richard Holland 2008 / The accompanying stunning image is a 1930s illustration to a story by John Buchan of half-humans inhabiting a remote part of the Scottish Highlands. The copyright does not belong to the editor; should the copyright holder wish to have it removed, they should please let the editor know via the ‘Contact us’ page.
Tags: British cryptozoology, British wild men, Cryptozoology Britain, cryptozoology England, cryptozoology Scotland, cryptozoology Wales, Man-Monkey, Staffordshire, Woodwoses
