The Orford Wild Man...

My latest Mysterious Universe article...on the "Wild Man" of Orford, England - a proto-Bigfoot if ever there was one!

The Orford Wild Man in Pictures

In my 2012 book, Wildman! The Monstrous and Mysterious Saga of the British Bigfoot, I tell the strange story of the bizarre beast of Orford, Suffolk.

In telling the tale, I include the weird text of a monk and an abbot at Coggeshall, Essex (first name Ralph, last name long lost to the fog of time). Recorded in the year 1200 in Chronicon Anglicanum, Ralph's words describe the capture in the area of a wild man of the woods-style creature.

According to Ralph:

"In the time of King Henry II, when Bartholomew de Glanville was in charge of the castle at Orford, it happened that some fishermen fishing in the sea there caught in their nets a Wildman. He was naked and was like a man in all his members, covered with hair and with a long shaggy beard. He eagerly ate whatever was brought to him, but if it was raw he pressed it between his hands until all the juice was expelled. He would not talk, even when tortured and hung up by his feet, Brought into church, he showed no sign of reverence or belief. He sought his bed at sunset and always remained there until sunrise. He was allowed to go into the sea, strongly guarded with three lines of nets, but he dived under the nets and came up again and again. Eventually he came back of his own free will. But later on he escaped and was never seen again."

And there ends the 800-year-old-plus extract.

But there's a reason why I am mentioning this now:. Some time ago, Charlotte Perez Smith visited the old castle at Orford where the wild man was said to have been held all those centuries ago.

Charlotte also took a number of pictures while she was there, which she has sent to me, and kindly let me reproduce for you here.

And here they are...

 

Wildman! A Study of the British Bigfoot

I'm pleased to announce that the Center for Fortean Zoology's CFZ Press have just published from me a new book titled Wildman! The Monstrous and Mysterious Saga of the British Bigfoot.

Ironically, for a subject that many - even within the field of Cryptozoology - view as marginal and minimal, it's my longest book ever. It runs at approximately 130,000 words and 300-plus pages.

Here's (below) the blurb for the book, which will give you an idea of what it's all about.

As you'll note, and as is the case with all my crypto-themed books, Wildman! doesn't shy away from the more alternative, Fortean theories for the nature of the beast that I'm known, hated and loathed for persistently promoting:

In Search of a British Man-Beast
The huge forests of the United States are home to Sasquatch. The Abominable Snowman roams the Himalayas. Australia has a similar beast, the Yowie. In China there lurks a giant, bipedal creature called the Yeren. From the Caucasus Mountains in Eurasia stories of the Almas circulate. And then there’s the highly controversial matter of Bigfoot in Britain.

A Menagerie of Monsters
For years, Nick Redfern has been on the trail of this mystifying monster of the British kind – one that provokes fear, amazement and controversy whenever it rears its horrific, hairy head. The Shug-Monkey, the Beast of Bolam, the Big Grey Man, the Man-Monkey, and the Wild Man of Orford are just a few of its many names.

The Strangest Sasquatch of All
But, the wild men and Bigfoot-style beasts of Britain are not what many might assume them to be. They’re not just strange. They’re beyond strange. In Wildman!, Nick Redfern presents controversial data that places the British man-beast in a definitively paranormal category.

A Supernatural Monster
Lycanthrope-style shape-shifting, occult rituals, the human dead returned in beastly form, animal sacrifice, thought-forms and monsters of the mind given a semblance of life, UFO activity, and amazing encounters at sacred, historic and ancient sites all across the British Isles, are just some of the many issues covered in Wildman!, the first, full-length study of a bizarre and nightmarish phenomenon of appropriately monstrous proportions.

And here are a couple of new articles I've done on the book:

1. This one is my latest Lair of the Beasts column at Mania.com;

2. And this one is from Mysterious Universe.