THE WOODS AND THE SQUONK?
Willard S writes in to Bloody Disgusting about the mythos behind the creature in M. Night Shyamalan’s The Woods. The beast is called “The Squonk,” read on for a little mythology lesson about the beast from the east….
Willard S. writes, “I have been trying to figure out what the race mythical creatures might be in M. Nights upcoming film entitled, The Woods. I came across this interesting piece on the net about a race of creatures that lived in Hemlock forests of north-central and north-western PA during the 19th century. They were called, ‘Squonks.’ Here is what this site had to say about them:”
“The Squonk (Lacrimacorpus dissolvens) is a legendary creature from the Hemlock forests of north-central and north-western Pennsylvania. The earliest stories about the squonk are lost to history, but the legend probably dates back at least to the late 19th Century, when Pennsylvania’s importance in the lumber industry was at its peak, relying heavily on hemlock trees.”
Legends
“Squonks are very shy, very ugly animals. Their skin is ill-fitting, and covered with warts and moles. Because they know they are so ugly, they weep almost constantly, and try to avoid being seen.”
“The one well-known story about squonks has to do with how they are hunted. Apparently, squonk skin is valued by some, but they are very difficult to catch, because of their extremely retiring nature. They can be most easily tracked on nights with a full moon, when their tears form glistening trails on the ground.”
“Sometime around the year 1900, a man named JP Wentling2 was able to successfully catch a squonk. Mr Wentling followed a trail of tears, and when he heard a nearby squonk weeping under a hemlock tree, he lured it by imitating the creature, presumably by weeping. He caught the squonk in a bag, and carried it home, while it sobbed pitifully in his sack. As he carried his prize home, he suddenly noticed that the bag was lighter, and on opening it, found that there was nothing inside but tears and bubbles.”
“Squonks will apparently dissolve completely into tears anytime they are cornered or threatened; this is the source of their scientific name, Lacrimacorpus dissolvens, from the Latin words for ‘tear’, ‘body’, and ‘dissolve’.”
— I have searched the internet high and low to figure this out and this is the only thing I could really find. I don’t think M.Night would have used the Bigfoot myth, I believe he is almost to good for that. —
Courtesy of Bloody Disgusting
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