Tuesday, March 18, 2014

A Backwards Beast



As bizarre as it sounds, there are numerous folkloric tales (from all around the world) of fantastic beasts that displayed one particularly oddity: their feet faced backwards!

Here's a link to a good article on the subject.

As to why I'm bringing up this matter, my new Mysterious Universe article focuses on a 2014 case that falls into this very category...

2 comments:

  1. G'day Nick,
    Thanks for linking to my article on Australia's monster reptiles.

    In relation to the backwards facing feet, this is a characteristic sometimes attributed to Australia's Yowie.

    For example, an article dating from 1927 mentions the Douligah (Yowie) as "a hairy monster with feet turned the wrong way about". My (somewhat tongue-in-cheek) speculation is that backwards facing feet was used as a clever excuse by Aboriginal trackers so that they could head in the opposite direction when tasked with tracking the elusive (and much feared) hairy men of the Australian bush.
    Cheers
    Andrew

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  2. Cheers Andrew, very interesting re the Yowie!

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