Pennsylvania Cryptids

This episode is all about Pennsylvania cryptids – that includes the noble squonk, a hideous and tragically ugly creature, the Giwoogle, a specific witch’s familiar, and the Waterford Sheepman, a tall and terrifying creature with the face of a sheep.

Listen now.

Pennsylvania Cryptids And Creatures: The Sheepman, Giwoogle, and the Squonk

Have you ever looked into a mirror and cried?

Would you summon a demon to do your bidding?

Do monsters still live under bridges?

What is up, Bizarros? This week we dive into Pennsylvania’s cryptids, creatures, and urban legends. Join us as we learn about the Sheepman, Giwoogle, and the Squonk.

We’ll learn about these mystifying creatures that live in the Keystone State.

What Is The Squonk?

The squonk is a creature that is from the Hemlock forest of Pennsylvania. It’s a unique creature in that it doesn’t pose any threat to people. No

They have a Latin name given to them by the man who found them. William T Cox.

Lacrimacorpus dissolves, which roughly translates to tear its body and dissolve.

And this refers to their ability to dissolve into salt water when captured.

The squonk is a particularly sad cryptid as well. It is blessed with its own perception and has some intelligence.

It’s smart enough to know that what it looks like is disgusting.

It’s about 3 feet long. Mostly hairless, with too much skin. So much skin it has folds and folds. It’s covered in grease and warts.

It generally looks like a pig in the face and body except for its un proportional legs, either described as being too small to hold it or too long and gangly.

With its intelligence, the squonk knows to avoid the day to avoid seeing anyone. They only go out at night, but if it sees themselves in the reflection of the full moon in water, they can be heard crying to themselves. The squonk is so sad at the sheer monstrosity of its features.

Squonk Encounter 

The only real encounter with a squonk is the first person who wrote about it, William T Cox. (From Pennlive.com)

Quote from Cox

“Probably the homeliest animal in the world, and knows it. The distribution was once fairly wide, the usual habitat being high plains where desert vegetation was abundant.”

“History shows beyond dispute that, as these areas gradually changed to the swampy, lake-dotted country, the squonk was forced to take to the water. Of distinctly low mentality, it constantly traveled around the unaccustomed marshes in search of fodder.

With time, it developed webbing between its toes, but only on the submerged left feet. Hence, on entering the water, it could swim only in circles and never get back to shore. Fossil bones dredged from these lake bottoms reveal that thousands perished of starvation in this manner.

“Today, the squonk is met solely in the hemlock forests of Pennsylvania.

“It is a most retiring, bashful, crepuscular animal, garbed in a loose, warty, singularly ill-fitting skin. The squonk is always unhappy – even morbid. He is given to constant weeping over his upsetting appearance and can sometimes be tracked by his tear-stained trail.

“Moonlight nights are best for squonk hunts, for then the animal prefers to lie quiet in its hemlock home, fearing, should it venture forth, that it may catch a glimpse of itself in some moonlit pool.

“Sometimes, you can hear one weeping softly to himself. The sound is a low note of pleading somewhat resembling the call of the cross-feathered snee.”

What Is A Witch’s Familiar?

They are demons in the form of animals that are connected to the witch.

They are imps in the shape of animals. They are companions, and they usually act as guides for the witch. They also guard their witch. They are usually sent by some other power or conjoined by the witch.

Teen Vogue quotes The Hoodwitch Owner and Creative Director, Bri Luna, who said

“Familiars are not just pets; they are our truest friends and confidants. They hear and see it all; they understand and know us better than we may even know ourselves.”

Familiars are also physically bonded with the witch. They telepathically or empathically commune with their witch.

In the Salam witch trials, one sign that they used to determine a witch was to look for a “witch’s tit.”

Either an extra nipple in a person somewhere or even a skin tag that the witch familiar was said to suck blood from the witch.

There are many kinds of familiars besides the trope of a cat:

There are dogs

Wild birds

Toads

Insects like spiders, bees, and grasshoppers

Rats and mice

They can be farm animals like cows and goats

But also things like ferrets, bears, and even snails.

What Is The Giwoogle?

Why did we talk about witches familiar if this is about Pennsylvania cryptids?

The Giwoogle is a monster from Pennsylvania but specifically Clinton County.

The story is that the creature is a witch’s familiar and aids her and does her bidding.

It’s said to be a large hairy creature and different than any familiar we have described. It is an amalgamation of several animals. It’s large, 6 feet tall.

It’s said to have the torso and head of a wolf. At the same time, he was standing straight up and walking bipedally.

Its legs are set like a donkey, and its feet are hoofed.

Its hands are curled, and its talons are like a bird’s.

Its sightings go back to the 1800s in Clinton County

And according to a story in Pennsylvaniawilds. By Lou Bernard

“The legends all involved local women, believed to be witches, casting spells to conjure up one of these things when a nearby farmer offended them. They would send the Giwoggle to harass the farmer, which often took the form of annoying stunts and petty vandalism. The Giwoggles didn’t seem to be violent for the most part. Farmers would wake up and find their crops trampled, tools damaged, and Giwoggle tracks around the barn.”

What Is The Waterford Sheepman?

In Waterford in, Pennsylvania, the town was harassed by something that lived on the outskirts.

Near the abandoned, covered bridges littered throughout Erie County, you may still hear the cry of the Sheepman.

A monster that is taller than a man. The head and eyes of a simple barnyard animal but the ferocious teeth, long arms, and claws of a predator.

Another creature that walked on two feet roamed throughout Erie County.

A quote from the Pennsylvania Rambler about the history of the sheepman

“By the mid-1970s, everybody was seeing the strange creature roaming the forests and fields around Waterford. Despite the name, the Sheepman was not a friendly beast.

Farmers, during the height of the sightings, reported their livestock being savagely torn apart and eaten by this strange creature.

The Sheepman supposedly lived in a cave northwest of town but was often spotted lurking around the covered bridge on the southeast side of town.

After a massive wave of sightings by residents in the mid-1970s, the creature seemed to have vanished from the local landscape though every now and then, it seems to make an appearance before disappearing again.”

The question is, does this mythical creature still live in Erie?

What Cryptid Creatures Are Wandering The Dark Forests Of Pennsylvania?

What do you think, Bizarros? 

Are these legendary creatures real?

Or are these creatures the figments of the imagination?

Could the squonk be a malformed pig? Could Giwoogles be bipedal wolves? Could the Sheepman be another sighting of a mistaken animal?

Let us know what you think of the Pennsylvania Cryptids in the comments.