But here, slightly expanded on, is the chapter from STS&S.
**************************************************************
Don’t
get me wrong, I find the books of John Keel [1-4] to be very good reads; they
snatch you up and string you along and are very
difficult to put down. Just look at the
chapter headings in one of my favourites, Strange Creatures From Time &
Space – “A World Filled with Ambling Nightmares”, “The Uglies and the Nasties”,
“Demon Dogs and Phantom Cats,” “Creatures from the Black Lagoon,” “Winged
Weirdos,” “The Great Sea Serpent of Silver Lake, New York” –and they go on.
I love them!
Whereas dear old Charles Fort either muddled
his reference notes and dates by accident or deliberately [I think the former],
Keel goes one better –he quotes incidents from magazine sources he has read but
seems never to have followed-up to check on.
In some cases he gives no
original source.
I suppose that’s fine if all you want to read
is a good tale that leaves you wondering “was that really true –surely he’d
never put it in a book if it wasn’t?”
Oh, the innocent days! However, if
you are one of those people who has
to find the truth whether good or bad and you are willing to work hard to get
to the real source, then this is fun but very frustrating. This latter type of person is known to
Ufologists, Forteans and their kind as a “kill-joy pain-in-the-ass” or
“kijopitas”. My name is kijopitas!
One paragraph in Strange Creatures From Time
& Space that intrigued me for years related to an incident from the (possibly,
Keel wasn’t even definite on this!) 8th Century:-
“In Germany
during this same period,some huge black
animal was prowling the dark forests near Darmstadt,killing
people off like flies. Finally,a
local baron fought the beast.
He managed to kill it but during the fight
he suffered a wound
which led to his death. A statue
was erected to him in the
tomb
of his castle,both of which are still standing.”
There are two things of interest here. Firstly, if
–if—Keel was referring to the
incidents I think he was, and the previous paragraph had the details almost
right, then we are talking about the 8th century. Keel was, like many after him, basing his
account on one of the biggest offenders in the “I don’t need to quote sources”
brigade –Harold T. Wilkins [5] but it is worth mentioning the Mesopotamian
incident.
A 9th century document from Mesopotamia reports that, some time “before” AD 774, the
Abdin Rock region was the scene of between “twenty to 100” people being killed
by mysterious beasts. The animals were
“similar to wolves but with ears like a horse and a ridge of bristly hair along
their spines” and they apparently entered houses in villages from which they
carried off children, probably adults also, though children would have been the
easier prey. These creatures
demonstrated no fear of men and would even turn and attack anyone who was
chasing them.
I have yet to see one writer on mysteries
positively identify these “mystery beasts” –of course, doing so would negate
the “mystery” aspect. So, let me tell
you now that, as a naturalist, the description is clear enough –hyaena. It sounds like the beasts had obviously been
kept by humans, as demonstrated by their lack of fear of Man [a very bad sign] and entering native huts
in Africa to run off with children or adults is not unknown. The behaviour, which is unusual,seems to indicate these animals must have been starving
and humans were easy prey [6 & 7].
Now, if the Black
Beast was seen around this period we must be talking early-to-mid 8th
century. This brings me to the second
interesting point, for me.
Along with
Professor Alayne Street-Perrott, of the Exotic Cat Project, University of Wales Swansea,
I have been looking at the history of menageries from ancient times up until
the 1970s. We are both aware of reports
of “black beasts” attacking and killing livestock and people.
For example;
around AD 940, in the area around Flixton, Yorkshire,
a large black animal with a long tail, “glowing eyes” [reflecting light] and
nasty smell was killing livestock, dogs and people. The details that exist seem to very strongly point to a black
leopard –odd though this sounds, such
animals were regularly given as gifts between royalty or powerful chiefs. Having been kept by humans there would be no
real fear of these. Sheep make easy
meals with hardly any effort required to chase or kill. Dogs are, unfortunately, something the
leopard has a keen taste for [8].
Georg von Frankenstein 1531, Nieder-Beerbach
So, when someone
mentions a “black beast” on a killing spree around the mid-8th
century I need to chase down the source and see whether a big cat was involved
or not. Well, for about 15 years I was
searching any records or source possible for references to a “black beast” and
came up with none. Then it occurred to
me that, perhaps, the expression “black beast” was not referring to the animals colour but to a creature being evil
–as in “he was a black-hearted swine”?
Obviously a search
for statues built inside tombs was
difficult and I gave up on trying to find any such thing. So, in desperation I did what I should have done at the very outset:
looked at castles in Darmstadt. This came up with a surprise or two.
The village of Frankenstein sits on the
northern edge of the Magnetberg mountain range near Darmstadt and would have
been a forested, wild region at one time with deer, boar, bears, lynx and much
more. A friend sent me the following
information that is handed out to those interested in attending the yearly
“Halloween Bash”:-
“Originally the residence of Lord Konrad Dippel von Frankenstein
during
the 1500s,Frankenstein
Castle’s myths and
legends overshadow
its
actual history. Legend has it that von
Frankenstein exchanged his
soul for
the secrets to eternal life. He was
allegedly found dead in his
laboratory,foaming at the mouth and surrounded by various body parts
he had
stolen from area cemeteries….many people believe that writer
Mary
Shelley heard this tale during a trip to Germany in 1814 and used
it [and
the castle] as the inspiration for her famous novel.”
Tourist
information. Wonderful stuff. Actually, the castle is mentioned in
documents dating back to 1252, though recent document discoveries in Leipzig mention “burg
Frankenstein” in the year AD 948.
The name
“Frankenstein” probably refers to the Franks while “stein” means stone
–probably indicating and ancient site had probably existed there long before
the 10th century. When
someone has the word “von” in their names it simply indicates their
origins Ludwig von Dresden simply means
Ludwig from Dresden. Just as English names indicate ancestral
employment –“Cutter” probably being from the cloth trade, ”Stockman” someone
who had been involved in livestock trade and, of course, ”Hooper” being someone
who put the hoops around wooden beer barrels.
Every source
indicates that Johann Konrad Dippel von Frankenstein [1673-1734], an educated
physician was a mad scientist, using the isolated castle to carry out
experiments in alchemy and sought the answer to the ultimate challenge to
science of the day –immortality. It is said that Johann gathered parts of
butchered animals and human corpses but not to sew together and charge with
electricity but to boil down in large vats; muscle, skin,bone, hair, blood,
organs –more strange and sinister than
anything you’ll encounter in the dark.
And human to boot. The
villagers (there had to be angry villagers,right?) got wind of things, probably
quite literally, and exiled him from the town.
It seems to be
documented that Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, according to some but I’ve found
nothing. We know that she and her
husband Percy Bysshe Shelley visited France
and Switzerland in 1816 and
that while staying near Geneva,
their friend Lord Byron issued a challenge to write a ghost story. While at Eton college Mary had been fascinated by the electrical
experiments of Luigi Calvani –creating electric shocks to make a dead frogs legs
jerk. That, we know from her own words, is where she got the inspiration
for Frankenstein, though the name may have been one she had heard while on her
European tour.
So, all
of that is pure bunkum. However, a well
known traveller and collector of stories, John Keel may have visited the castle
and gotten the details mixed up. A von Frankenstein did fight a beast and die from his wounds.
George von Frankenstein was the son of
Phillip von Frankenstein and Margarethe Boeckle. George died in 1531 –the 16th not 8th
century. The legend has it that, in a
river called Katzenborn, near to Nieder-Beerbach, lived a dragon that spent
each day terrorizing the locality. As in
all such stories, the only way the villagers could pacify the dragon and make
it return to the river was to sacrifice the most beautiful young woman in the
valley. On this particular occasion the
sacrifice was to be the “rose of the valley,” Anne Marie.
Now, it turned out that George secretly loved
Anne Marie and when he returned from a military expedition, heard what was to
take place. George, still clad in his
armour, arrived in time and fought the dragon in a mighty and long battle. As the opportunity presented itself, George
dealt the dragon a death-blow, sending the dragon twisting in agony. Knight George had saved Anne Marie but, as it
writhed in its death-throes, the dragon curled its tail around George’s leg and
jabbed his knee with a venom from a spur on its tail-tip.
George was returned to the castle where he
died. What happened to Anne Marie –who
knows. Here is the interesting part; George
was buried in Nieder-Beerbach and his tomb is located in the town churchyard
–the tomb is carved and features a knight stepping on the head of a dragon, with
the creature’s tail wrapped around the hero’s leg! Superstitious people confused Knight George
with Saint George.
Whether the “dragon” symbolized a real beast
or a pagan enemy we cannot say. It may
even be that George died after being bitten by some animal [ with rabies] – a bear or any
one of half a dozen I could come up with. Even an exotic is not out of the
question since crocodiles are recorded living in the wild in Britain.
But at least I now know that there was a
knight who died and that the beast said to be involved was a dragon –dragons
looking like serpents which represented the Biblical evil in Adam and Eve and
thusly “black-hearted”. Short story, long
explanation!
References.
[1] Keel, John
A., UFOs: Operation Trojan Horse, Putnam,NY,1970
[2] The Cosmic
Question,Panther,London,1978
[3] Our Haunted
Planet,Futura,London,1975
[4] Strange Creatures From Time
& Space,Sphere,London,1979:
p.26 for the
“Black Beast” story. Republished in 1994
as The
Complete
Guide To Mysterious Beings.
[5] Wilkins, Harold T., Mysteries Solved and
Unsolved, Odhams,London,
1959:p.197
[6] Ibid
4:p.26
[7] Bord,Janet
& Colin, Alien Animals, Book Club associates,London,1980
pp.68
& 69
[8]
Harris, John, The Ghost Hunters Roadbook” [no longer available refers to
this
particularly nasty beasty.
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