The Predation of a Legendary Chimera: Western Maryland’s Snallygaster, from Hex to Harry

[page 141] Abstract: Tracing the Snallygaster’s roots in Western Maryland reveals a chimera formed by predation: a creature born from historical racism, political and media influence, and pop culture origins. From its early sightings in folk etymology, including the possible corruption of “schneller geist” from early eighteenth-century German immigrants to its connection to other twentieth-century cryptids, such as the Jersey Devil and the Dwayyo, the Snallygaster has left its mark on language and American folklore for close to 300 years. Looking closer into the predatorial components of this shape-shifting chimera, one discovers the racist underbelly of an early established Mid-Atlantic population and landscape; the tentacles of those in power, politics, and press leadership throughout the twentieth-century; and the wings of a gaming, entertainment, and popular culture which continues to rapidly expand on global and technological fronts into the twenty-first century. Yet, the Snallygaster, a supernatural beast created from human fears, remains elusive to this day in sightings and in scholarship. The weight of its shadow still scares and intrigues—the imprint of a society struggling to identify itself as predator versus prey, to admit it might be its own “monster compounded of incongruous parts” (“Chimera”). 

Keywords: Snallygaster, chimera, cryptid, Maryland, predator, legend 

Snallygaster: a compound creature (and word) that, when pronounced, typically produces raised eyebrows, curiosity, and intrigue from its listeners, along with the reply, “What is that?” 

It is a word which describes a supernatural creature not typically found in academic scholarship, history books, or traditional folklore maps—a word both silly and scary, familiar and unfamiliar, old and new. Fittingly, the Snallygaster’s history is also complex, convoluted, blurry, and flawed. The traces that do exist of its sightings are overly skewed with bias and unreliable narrators, exposing the historical racism, political and media influences, and pop culture filters which have created and continued to depict the legendary cryptid. How do we define and categorize the Snallygaster, a creature which was born from human fears, yet nurtured by mortal powers? How do we capture the monster on the page, when we cannot even confirm its supernatural parts, true origins, scholarly foundation, or intentions? Like the scattered and coarse folklore which surrounds the Snallygaster, we must step back and see the creature’s purpose beyond the human lifespan, across the centuries, and through the scales of not only its own hybrid body, but also through the societal scales of its times. Both fearing and craving a sighting of this enigma, we must look toward the sky while securing our feet on the ground, while we ready ourselves for a glimpse of this supernatural force, a chimera composed of and by its own predation. 

Folklore and Folk Etymology: Old World Tales with New World Tails 

Chimera, 1a: a fire-breathing she-monster in Greek mythology having a lion's head, a goat's body, and a serpent's tail (“Chimera”) 

According to the American Snallygaster Museum, a small traveling exhibit based in the mountains of Western Maryland, while folklore and verbal tales of the Snallygaster, “[b]elieved to be a dragon/bird chimera . . . [with] one eye, a beak, a dragon like body, and strangely, tentacles coming from [page 143] its mouth,” date back to the early eighteenth century, published newspaper accounts of the creature do not begin to surface until the first decade of the twentieth century (“The North American Dragon”). While very little scholarly or peer-reviewed work is available about the Snallygaster, there are a handful of popular sources devoted to the mysterious creature. 

Timothy L. Cannon’s and Nancy F. Whitmore’s Ghosts and Legends of Frederick County notes that “[t]he first person to see [the Snallygaster] . . . described it as having enormous wings, a long sharp beak, claws like steel, and one eye in the middle of its forehead . . . [and] it made shrill screeching noises and looked like a cross between a tiger and a vampire” (54). Trevor J. Blank and David J. Puglia note the monster’s “ability to change color and size” in “From Fakelore to Folklore: The Snallygaster of North Central Maryland,” a chapter in Maryland Legends: Folklore From the Old Line State, which states that “[o]riginally, the word [Snallygaster] referred to an invisible and bothersome spirit, as well as a high-flying, dragon-like beast. Over time, the term has been used to explain away almost anything in mountainous Maryland that goes bump in the night and casts a giant shadow” (26); if something is amiss, the Snallygaster is surely responsible! In The United States of Cryptids, J. W. Ocker describes the Snallygaster as “a chicken crossed with a dragon choking on an octopus” (47). Ed Okonowicz’s chapter on the Snallygaster in Monsters of Maryland: Mysterious Creatures in the Old Line State relays that “[s]ome report this creature also possesses an acute sense of smell, which is very helpful in locating and identifying its prey” (11). While the descriptions vary from source to source, and between decades, the Snallygaster is systematically identified as a frighteningly strange and somewhat confusing creature that is strategically able to utilize its form to instill fear in those who might happen to cross its path. 

Paralleling the puzzling and ambiguous nature of its species and biological construction, the Snallygaster’s name and history is also steeped in murky and locally-curated origins. The Middletown Heritage Festival includes agricul-[page 144]tural and national road history and German and Civil War heritage, as well as the “Legend of the Snallygaster” in the “History of Middletown.” The legend states that the Snallygaster was brought over with German immigrants who settled in the Middletown area of Maryland in the early eighteenth century after migrating from the Southeastern Pennsylvania Dutch community (“History”), which was originally settled by former Rhine Valley immigrants (Fritz 39). Dave Tabler suggests that “[t]he name ‘Snallygaster’ is actually a mispronunciation of the term ‘Schnellegeister’—which is, itself, a corruption of the German term ‘schneller geist,’ or ‘quick spirit,’” perhaps a close relative of the “poltergeist,” descended from the German “poltern” and “geist”: a “knocking and noisy ghost” (“Poltergeist”). Other local Maryland writers have highlighted the Snallygaster’s unusual early American history and influences, such as Mary Reisinger in “The Dreaded Snallygaster,” which provides a historical summary that notes “[s]ome scholars point out the similarities to the Native American ‘thunderbird’ figure and to European mythological creatures” (24). Patrick Boyton, author of Snallygaster: The Lost Legend of Frederick County, Beware the Snallygaster, and Dwayyo, furthers this theory, explaining that “the Snallygaster actually could have started out as a ghost story. The Snallygaster might be an amalgam of a traditional ghost story and dragon lore” (“Interview”)—a mixture of Appalachian and European folklore, forming a new creature for a new country built from the fears and scars of migrating communities. 

While the handful of local and popular accounts of the Snallygaster validate the creature as an influential part of Mid-Atlantic and Appalachian history, the lack of contemporary and scholarly sources signifies a neglected realm of study when it comes to this unsubstantiated, yet rather worldly monster. Leo Spitzer’s entry on the Snallygaster in the October 1952 issue of American Speech is an exception, as it supplies a scholarly response to a September 7, 1951, Baltimore Evening Sun “Letter to the Editor” by Charles F. Stein which provides a short history of the Snallygaster, [page 145] including a reference to Oxford University Press’s American Guide Series of the 1930s-1940s, Maryland: A Guide to the Old Line State. Stein utilizes the Oxford University Press reference as “authority for the fact that a Snallygaster was known to inhabit the vicinity of Barleywood in the Middletown Valley district” (qtd. in Spitzer 237). However, Spitzer charges Stein with etymological inaccuracy regarding plural versus singular translation (“fast flying ghosts”) (238) and also links elements from the history of the Snallygaster to that of European folklore, including the use of the number seven to ward off predators and flying creatures which patrol the earth, looking for potential prey (238). Colin Dickey confirms that “aside from Spitzer, very few scholars have attempted to unravel the meaning of the Snallygaster—it is perhaps too obscure, too regionally focused, or just too bizarre.” Dickey highlights Spitzer’s interest in the Snallygaster as a logical extension from his personal history as a Jewish-Austrian escapee who landed at John Hopkins University in Maryland in the 1930s with an interest in European folklore and Christian-Judeo history, including Nordic tales of “The Wild Hunt,” in which “a troop of damned souls ride the sky between Christmas and the Epiphany, chased by the Wild Hunter (the Norse god of wind and the dead, Odin), snatching unwary travelers (especially children) along the way.” 

The Snallygaster, itself, has also had its fair share of etymological adaptations and appropriations. An early twentieth century example in William T. Cox's book Fearsome Creatures of the Lumberwoods, released in 1910, includes a monster called a “snoligoster;” though it “is aquatic rather than airborne,” and it “shares both the Snallygaster's taste for human blood and its half-serpentine nature” (Sharpe). However, there are just as many misleading etymological connections when it comes to the evolution of the Snallygaster’s name. For example, the term “snollygoster,” often used to describe “an unscrupulous politician” (“Interview”), was published in print earlier than the term “Snallygaster” (Goddard), and there is not significant proof of an etymological [page 146] relationship between the two words, even if one might easily connect the images of unethical politicians and a supernatural creature that flies through the air, preying on helpless individuals. Bottom line, the folk etymology of the Snallygaster is just as conflicting and obscure as its folklore history. 

Dave Tabler’s Appalachian History contribution, “It’s the Snallygaster,” explains how “[i]n [German-based] Pennsylvania Dutch traditions, a ‘quick spirit’ is responsible mostly for things like sudden drafts knocking over lightweight household objects or scattering papers.” The Snallygaster which was described in print in the early 1900s, in contrast, was capable of “swoop[ing] from the sky and carry[ing] off its victims like small game, farm animals, inattentive pets, and even young children” (Jauquet). Okonowicz adds that the Snallygaster “also entered homes and displaced or stole objects from owners. Frequently, it was believed that the Snallygaster would return and replace the snatched item, usually depositing it in another site within the home. This final act was intended to confuse and scare mortals living within the Snallygaster’s roving territory” (14). Stephen T. Asma’s section on “The Hydra” in “Natural History, Freaks, and Nondescripts” in On Monsters discusses the folk history of hybrid creatures, such as the Snallygaster and the Hydra, “[t]he monster of the burgomaster’s cabinet, with seven heads, sharp teeth, frightening claws, and a giant snake-like body,” which was eventually discovered to be “debunked as a taxidermy hoax” (123). Asma describes how the Hydra “represented the frightening unknown dimension of a nature that was permeated with the supernatural” (123-124), and the means that humans would go to in order to manipulate the public for economic or powerful influence in navigating those realms. 

Regardless of the Snallygaster’s foundation as a legend or hoax, the creature’s perceived existence has remained one of potential danger and threat, fueled by the fear of an unknown [page 147] force capable of human destruction with the “quick” speed and strength only found in the actions and intentions of a calculated predator. While the first decade of the twentieth century might have enhanced the presence of the Snallygaster through the sensationalized use of tabloid stories, it was surely not the only birth of the flying cryptid. 

Other influences for the publicity of the Snallygaster in the early 1900s include its close resemblance to another American cryptid which was popular at this time: the New Jersey Devil. Boyton uncovered many similarities between the two creatures while writing his two books on the Snallygaster, including mere weeks between the Jersey Devil and Snallygaster sightings, as well as physical traits which included wings and talons. He presents the possibility that “the Jersey Devil traveled south and is the same creature as the Snallygaster.” Or, as he suggests, there is the more literal version of that theory, which is that “[t]he Valley Register publishers ripped off the story from the New Jersey papers” (“Interview”). In either case, the neighboring state of Maryland and its inhabitants become the prey in a race for public consumption and attention, a legendary product composed of fear and fascination. Okonowicz argues that “[i]n the hierarchy of monsterdom, the Jersey Devil has developed a national reputation[, while] the Snallygaster, on the other hand, has been misinterpreted, misunderstood, mistreated, misspelled, and mispronounced—and in one written work, even killed off” (13). 

Boyton also notes that the Jersey Devil and the Snallygaster “were both referred to as Jabberwocks, which, of course, comes from the Lewis Carroll poem about a fierce creature (“Interview”). Fittingly, Carroll’s Jabberwock creature is also a chimera, with parts both dangerous and fascinating to the human condition: “jaws that bite,” “claws that catch,” “eyes of flame.” The narrator of the poem opens with a stern warning to his son to “Beware the Jabberwock,” as well as other unknown creatures with nonsense names created in compound word construction: the “Jubjub bird” and the “Bandersnatch” [page 148] (Carroll). Like the Snallygaster, artists have depicted the Jabberwock in a variety of ways, but the majority include wings or flying features—nods to a species which lives in the unfamiliar territory of the sky, as opposed to the familiar human dwelling known as the ground. Boyton’s 2011 children’s book title, Beware the Snallygaster, is becoming for a creature discussed more than it is seen, a force so dangerous that children must be warned and citizens prepared, in keeping with the compliance and attention necessary for safety within the acceptable societal boundaries of human behavior and inquiry. 

Unreliable Sightings of a Racist Underbelly 

Chimera, 1b: an imaginary monster compounded of incongruous parts (“Chimera”) 

While the Snallygaster was part of Appalachian folklore since the early eighteenth century, its written documentation doesn’t appear until the year 1909, when it was first referenced in print. Competitive Western Maryland newspapers were packed for weeks with features about the frightening beast, providing a flurry of stories regarding Snallygaster sightings, history, appearance, and predatory activities. The Snallygaster “was [initially] reported to have created quite a stir in New Jersey, where its footprints were first discovered in the snow” (Cannon and Whitmore 54): the traces of a malevolent force too “quick” to be caught by mere mortals. Maryland’s role as a central target in the supernatural creature’s plans for geographical domination grounded the publications, which argued that “the flying beast seemed to be everywhere at once: New Jersey, West Virginia, Ohio, and headed this way” (Cannon and Whitmore 54, italics in original). Readers had every reason to believe that they were next on the Snallygaster’s list, a creature so removed from their civilized ways that it did not discern boundaries or space in its mission for live prey. 

Cannon and Whitmore highlight many of the newspaper reports published during 1909, including accounts that “the [page 149] Snallygaster was first sighted in Maryland by a colored man, who fired a brick-burning kiln near Cumberland. The strange beast was seen cooling its wings over the outlet of the kiln. When the beast’s sleep was disturbed by the man, it emitted a blood-curdling scream and angrily flew away” (55). As the tales of the Snallygaster grew more and more fantastical with subsequent reports and newspaper issues, Maryland readers learned “[i]t was also seen in West Virginia, where it almost caught a woman near Scrabble, roosted in Alex Crow’s barn, and laid an egg near Sharpsburg, where it was reported some men had rigged up an incubator to try to hatch it” (54). The creature’s ability to reproduce enhanced its power as an oviparous predator and confirmed its lineage within the Western Maryland landscape. Susan Fair describes the roles of editor George C. Rhoderick, reporter Ralph S. Wolfe, and local writer T.C. Harbaugh in the newspaper descriptions of the dangerous creature (Mysteries 20-21), eagerly documenting that the Snallygaster “was also shot at near Hagerstown, sighted south of Middletown at Lover’s Leap, and seen flying over the mountains between Gapland and Burkittsville, where it was reported to have laid another egg – big enough to hatch an elephant” (Cannon and Whitmore 55). Important to note, as Jake Seboe highlights, is that Burkittsville had “a substantial Black population at the time.” 

While the details of the Snallygaster sightings in the early decades of the twentieth century continue to stoke comedic fires, “sounding more like absurd tall tales than either journalism or traditional folklore” (Dickey), what isn’t humorous is the racism which grounds the majority of the articles and tales from the first half of the twentieth century. “What Is a Snallygaster?!” gathers excerpts of the racist history of the Snallygaster and references an entry from the 1940 edition of Maryland: A Guide to the Old Line State: 

In the Middletown Valley section of western Maryland the fabulous ‘snallygaster’ files into a little settlement of log cabins that served as slave quarters prior to the Civil War. The great bird preys upon Negro children [page 150] out after dark, and on occasion has even been known to carry off a full-grown man to its lair in the near-by mountains. The name, those who have investigated the legend believe, may well have been a corruption of the German schnellegeister, meaning ‘quick spirit,’ since that section of the State has been heavily infiltrated with German families who migrated from Pennsylvania. (Maryland) 

Lenwood S. Sharpe emphasizes that “[i]t is worth noting that these previous lines, specifically the phrases ‘preys upon,’ ‘after dark’ and ‘carry off,’ are highly suggestive of the practice of lynching.” Okonowicz claims that the “Snallygaster developed into repression legends . . . a term to categorize stories that were created and used to scare freed slaves by threatening them with unpleasant visitations by the deadly border-state beast” (14). 

Seboe documents several racist examples from early twentieth century newspaper articles about the Snallygaster, including The Valley Register’s first account of the monster on February 12, 1909, which stated that it “only attacks colored people [since it was a] native of Senegambia, where only colored people live, and so it has never acquired the taste for white persons” (“The Colored People”). Additionally, Colin Dickey’s “What is the Snallygaster?” notes the relevance that “[o]n February 12, 1909, the same day that the NAACP was founded, The Valley Register ran a story titled “The Colored People Are in Great Danger,” which described the creature and how “this vampire-devil only attacks colored people . . . and the strange part is that it seems to prefer colored men to colored women, though it attacks the latter at times.” 

In the following weeks, additional articles were published about the Snallygaster in The Valley Register, including “The Great Go-Devil Was Seen in Ohio. T.C. Harbaugh Saw It Sailing Toward Maryland,” which stated the creature had been sighted while flying off with “the only Black man of Casstown.” Additional details include descriptions of the Snallygaster “terrorizing” a “black man working a kiln” (“The Great”), who [page 151] witnessed the monster “sucking down the entire contents of a large tub of water intended for a boiler” before it “announced to the astounded worker, ‘My, I’m dry! I haven’t had a good drink since I was killed in the Battle of Chickamauga!’” (Fair, Mysteries 17). 

Fair’s analysis that “[t]his bizarre disclosure implied that the Snallygaster was somehow the reincarnation of a soldier killed during the Civil War, a circumstance that just might be without precedent in all of monsterdom” (Mysteries 17), stresses the unique and imaginative lineage of the Snallygaster, a ghostly entity determined to continue its predatory fight for racial domination, regardless of the time period or its external casing. Seboe’s argument, that the Snallygaster’s “intended purpose from the start was to exploit Frederick County’s Black communities for profit,” wrestles with the unusual history of the legend, especially with so “few Black perspectives on the monster’s sudden appearances and what they meant to these communities were reported.” 

Colin Dickey’s “The Unsettling Legend of Maryland’s Native Cryptid, the Snallygaster,” notes the similarity between the Snallygaster’s verbal connection to the Civil War and the fact that “[i]t was not uncommon, particularly during the first era of Ku Klux Klan activity during Reconstruction, for a group of white men to show up on the porch of a Black sharecropper after midnight, claiming to be the ghosts of Confederate soldiers.” Dickey’s discussion presents the Snallygaster as a construction much larger than a predatorial legend; rather, it is a creature created by predatory people to make others fear and comply with racist cultural practices. He notes how “[r]eports, for example, that the ‘great bird preys upon Negro children out after dark,’ are in keeping with the kind of weaponized superstition tactics that were common in the South, before and after the Civil War.” Maryland’s landscape as the most southern northern state echoes the Snallygaster’s incongruent parts with its own incongruent history as a conflicting lair of “fraught racial legacy,” spanning from the seventeenth-century practice of slavery to modern [page 152] racist medical exploitation. Dickey’s argument, that “[t]he Snallygaster was born of an unholy union of Germanic legends and racist scare tactics, the Wild Hunt and Night Doctors, Odin [the chief god of Norse lore] and the Klan” provides a lens for understanding why this supernatural monster has continued to haunt the skies of Western Maryland in different predatory garbs. Its ancestral DNA still holds the cloak of the hunter and the hunted, embedding fear in those powerless to combat a creature capable of overpowering, capturing, and killing without mercy or trace. 

Apparently, at least according to the Western Maryland newspapers, “[t]he last sighting [of the Snallygaster] in Frederick County in 1909 occurred near Emmitsburg in early March. Three men fought the terrible creature outside a railroad station for nearly an hour and a half before chasing it into the woods of Carroll County” (Cannon and Whitmore 55). After the Snallygaster faded into the Carroll County woods, it disappeared from the public eye for a couple of decades, at least in terms of newspaper coverage, and “the monster was relegated to local-legend and good-way-to-scare-the-kids status” (Fair, Mysteries 18). Fair emphasizes the widely accepted theory of the Snallygaster’s sudden emergence into the Western Maryland public landscape in the early twentieth century: “[M]any details of the legend were fabrications of wily newspaper editors looking to sell more papers. Dwight Hutchinson of the Middletown Valley Historical Society believes it was the community’s close proximity to the Old National Pike that gave birth to the beast: ‘It might have been a scare tactic for undesirables traveling through’” (Fair, “Mountain”). 

The racism driving the newspaper articles about Snallygaster sighting continued through the early decades of the twentieth century and eventually spread into the columns of other local newspapers, such as the Montgomery County Sentinel, which included the following in its March 7, 1935, issue: “The colored people around Dickinson are not taking any chances. They are buying up old iron and making suits of armor to protect them-selves against the terrible claws of this [page 153] powerful monster who takes a strange delight in catching and devouring negroes” (“Long”). As Seboe reinforces, there is no evidence for any of the Snallygaster sightings, yet “rumor has a way of spreading quickly.” The use of fear in discouraging inclusion among Western Maryland outsiders simultaneously permeated the minds, bodies, and souls of its insiders, who “quickly” fell prey to their own fears regarding the safety and validation of the unknown. Fair explains how, “[f]rom the roiling mish-mash of old-country horrors, real and perceived threats by outsiders and the startling changes of a new century, perhaps the emergence of the Snallygaster was inevitable” (“Mountain”). The rural, European-based settlements in Western sections of the Mid-Atlantic regions were navigating the unknowns involved with an expanding population landscape during the turn of the century; advancing technology, a growing communication network, and widening travel accessibility; and the evolution of a nation that was just beginning to recognize its own role in “old [and new] country horrors” (Fair, “Mountain”). The Western Maryland community, like many early twentieth century American societies, viewed its role as an independent and emerging entity—influenced by, but not fully dependent on its neighboring states and central government. Actions which reinforced anything otherwise were surely predatory and required the retribution of an equally powerful response. 

Tentacles of Power, Politics, and Press 

Chimera, 2: an illusion or fabrication of the mind especially: an unrealizable dream 

a fancy, a chimera in my brain, troubles me in my prayer 

—John Donne 

His utopia was a chimera. (“Chimera”) 

T. S. Mart and Mel Cabre’s Guide to Sky Monsters explains how cryptid “fliers emerged, in widely varying circumstances, to satisfy one (or more) of three distinct needs within their local communities: 1.) The need for answers to life’s mysteries 2.) The need to cast blame or maintain control 3.) The need to [page 154] justify or be right” (2). These human needs, as Mart and Cabre reinforce, are “universal” and “timeless.” It is through “examining how each [sky cryptid] came into existence—through unanswered questions, the pain associated with loss or lies or egos that colored the times—we can better understand ourselves, our belief systems, and our worldviews” (2). The Snallygaster’s pre-American origin roots follow this pattern, as “the dragonlore of the early settlers . . . [and their] legends from Europe were also born from the societal need for answers, control, and justification” (Musinsky), created to answer the mysteries of a new land and population which were also merging into one community. Coming to terms with the challenges of multiple migrations—across countries, oceans, states, and landscapes—begs for answers which provide the justification of such drastic resettlement measures, as well as the perspective and control necessary to stay the course in a new geographical home and developing culture so far from one’s origins. 

Linking the racist Snallygaster sightings and articles to the politics and press of the first half of the twentieth century immediately magnifies the use of the Snallygaster for predatorial power. Dickey notes “[a]nother article from that period quotes an eyewitness who claimed that the Snallygaster ‘was an omen of ill for colored voters who deserted the Republican party in the Presidential election.’ For all its apparent silliness, there was a not-at-all-hidden threat baked into the legend.” In order to maintain control of existing racist practices, the media—as well as the political influences backing the media—utilized the Snallygaster to cast blame on marginalized people in the community, reinforcing the danger that might be lurking in the cover of the night if residents did not follow the intended rules and expectations of their community leaders and movers and shakers. 

The 1930s produced a new series of articles about the Snallygaster, including racist satire and far-fetched narrative “eyewitness” accounts. The December 2, 1932, issue of the Montgomery County Sentinel includes many instances of racist [page 155] and demeaning “comedy,” including the following excerpt: “Why the Snallygaster prefers, even insists upon the negro as food, is not clearly known. Some say that he appears after every election when the result shows that the colored voter cast his ballot for a Democrat. Others say that is just a G.O.P. fairytale and that the creature was originally an inhabitant of Liberia and the West Indes [sic] and therefore has always been accustomed to the same sustenance.” The same article legitimizes the publicized resurfacing of the Snallygaster, 23 years later, with the convenient “fact” that Snallygaster eggs take 20 years to hatch, so the currently sighted Snallygaster was likely the offspring of the Snallygaster first documented in 1909 (“Sleeping Snallygaster”). 

In an interview, Boyton highlights the parallel timeline between the sporadic reports of the Snallygaster and the political landscape and policies influencing the United States at the time. Furthermore, Boyton admits his theory that “the local newspaper, The Middletown Valley Register, which was very pro-prohibition [during the 1930s] was using these stories of the Snallygaster being attracted to moonshine stills as a way to scare off moonshiners. It was also a way to get in their political shots as being pro-temperance anti-alcohol. Just as Jim Crow suppression was a big issue in 1909, the important issue in 1932 was prohibition” (“Interview”). The Snallygaster provided the cover and camouflage needed to play the role of subversive political predator, yet it was also culturally elusive enough to shapeshift into the press’s prey. 

Tabler references “[m]oonshiners in the forests and mountains of northern Maryland [who] co-opted the old story in an effort to scare revenue agents away and to explain the sounds (like explosions and bending metal) that came from their stills at night.” It was during this same year that differing accounts of the death of the Snallygaster were published by Hagerstown, Maryland’s Morning Herald. The December 2, 1932, edition includes specific details about one particular account which states that “the snallygaster was attracted to the Frog Hollow section of Washington County, [page 156] not far over the South Mountain from Middletown Valley, by fumes arising from a 3,500 gallon moonshine liquor vat, and this proved its undoing, for just as the monster flew over the large receptacle it was overcome and fell directly into the mash” (“Death of Snallygaster”). Alcohol eventually proved too much for the Snallygaster, who became prey to the illegal substance’s grip, as well as the local newspaper editors’ creative, yet often predatory, license. 

The Morning Herald article proclaims the Snallygaster’s death beneficial to the community’s pro-prohibition stance, as the means to the end proved that the “right thing” prevailed: “It was perhaps well for the moonshiners that the monster appeared on the scene when it did, or they may have been enjoying a sojourn in the Washington County jail today . . . [as the prohibition agents] arrived in Frog Hollow early Thursday morning, and much to their surprise they found the plant entirely abandoned.” In its usual pattern throughout Western Maryland history, the Snallygaster escaped direct physical capture, as the article noted that the lye in the vat destroyed the flesh of the Snallygaster and the dynamite that the prohibition agents placed under the vat took care of the rest of him (“Death of Snallygaster”): the culprit would remain bodyless, unaccountable, a creature of legend. Dickey asserts that “what emerges in all these old reports is that the Snallygaster—an invisible thing, perpetually hidden—was most often invoked in connection to other invisible, unseeable things.” One does not need to dive deep into today’s internet to find contemporary examples of similar secretive monsters, entities, and societies which are often linked in rhetorical and conspiratorial fashion, such as The Illuminati, Global Elites, and Freemasons. Dickey parallels that in the early decades of the twentieth century it was “[b]ootleggers, flying saucers, communists—anything out of the public eye (intentionally or due to nonexistence), anything feared or wondered about— Marylanders connected these things in particular to the Snallygaster.” It was the predatorial nature of fear of the unknown which kept accounts rolling in the local papers and [page 157] kept residents on the lookout, trying to predict the Snallygaster’s next victim. 

As with all predators, the Snallygaster is viewed as prey by other predators farther up the food and societal chain. Kathy Alexander’s “Snallygaster” entry in Legends of America explains that the “Snallygaster has one widely known enemy called Dwayyo . . . a mammalian biped with features similar to a wolf but the stance and stature of a human. The Dwayyo and the Snallygaster have reportedly had vicious encounters dating back to the early settlement of the Middletown Valley.” Curiously, the Dwayyo, also known as the Maryland Wolfman, does not appear in record until 1944, after which there are several sightings which come and go throughout the decades from different media accounts (Alexander, “Dwayyo”). Like the Snallygaster, theories abound which link the Dwayyo to the early German folklore of Pennsylvania Dutch immigrants in Western Maryland and a wolf-like creature called the “hexenwolf” (Alexander, “Dwayyo”). Why the rivalry? “The Snallygaster: Maryland’s Mythical Monster from the Skies” summarizes: “[i]n Maryland folklore, the Snallygaster is often pitted against its terrestrial foe, the Dwayyo. While the Dwayyo roams the forests and the land, the Snallygaster owns the sky, making their legendary rivalry a battle between the earth and the heavens”—between natural and supernatural worlds. The tension between such segregated societies is a recipe for the creation of rivalries and enemies, as well as for the defensive weapons needed to keep harm and destruction of those communities’ cultures and values at bay. 

When it comes to defenses against the destructive Snallygaster, one tool is the Snallygaster’s aversion to seven-pointed stars (Jauquet), and the Pennsylvania Dutch community’s use of seven-pointed stars on their barns, known as hexes, is theorized to be visual proof of past attempts to ward off the Snallygaster. However, there is no solid evidence for this theory, though it must also be noted that a lack of evidence has never stopped the majority of the Snallygaster’s folklore from developing. It is easy to see why contemporaries might link the [page 158] hex, a decorative mark to ward off superstitious demons, to the Snallygaster, but research points more to Judeo-Christian influences, such as “the seven-pointed star representing the six days of creation plus the Sabbath day of rest” (Donmoyer). Koji A. Dae’s “On Hex Signs and the Snallygaster” reinforces the assumptive connection to the Snallygaster, pointing out that “[s]ome locals say these stars are Christian in nature, recognizing celestial beauty. Others insist they are folk art and just for decoration, without a deeper spiritual meaning.” What is documented, as Patrick J. Donmoyer, Director of the Pennsylvania German Cultural Heritage Center at Kutztown University, indicates, is that the term “hex” was adapted from a clumsy misspelling, “hexafoos,” of the German dialect term “hexefuss” (translated to “witch’s foot”), which gained noto riety after its usage in a book written by Wallace Nutting in 1924. In the book, Nutting mentions that the decorations found on barns in the Pennsylvania Dutch area “were potent to protect the barn, or more particularly the cattle, from the influence of witches. It is understood by those who are acquainted with witches that those ladies are particularly likely to harm cattle. As the wealth of the farmer was in his stock, contained in his remarkably substantial barn, the hexafoos was added to its decoration as a kind of spiritual or demoniac lightning-rod!” (28). Since Nutting’s publication, the interest in barn hexes has only continued to expand, with tourists coming to the Pennsylvania Dutch country from around the world wanting to purchase their own hexes for decorative and appropriated popular culture appeal, regardless of the original and/or intended uses. It is not a far stretch to see how the tentacles of the press and politics have influenced the power or lack of power within small communities and cultures within the early American landscape, of which the Snallygaster is a wiggling part. [page 159] 

Wings of Pop Culture and Legend: Spanning across Time and Space 

Chimera, 3: an individual, organ, or part consisting of tissues of diverse genetic constitution 

A hybrid created through fusion of a sperm and an egg from different species is a chimera. (“Chimera”) 

The Snallygaster quickly clawed its way into the zeitgeist throughout the twentieth century, balancing its historical impact on both insidious and humorous fronts. Rumors began to surface that the Smithsonian was offering a massive reward for the monster’s capture, and that President Teddy Roosevelt was considering postponing an African trip to hunt down the beast (Pearse). James Rada Jr. notes that “[t]he Middletown Valley Register reported that the military was sending in soldiers armed with Gatling guns” (45) to battle the supernatural culprit. The National Geographic magazine, too, wanted in on the action and was preparing an expedition to document proof of the terrorizing beast (Pearse). Boyton argues that Roosevelt’s Snallygaster hunting plans likely never happened, but that the idea of two mythic figures battling it out at the end of Roosevelt’s Presidency is still an exciting event to imagine. Boyton also suggests a more economical and political reason for the “proposed hunt,” which was that Roosevelt’s upcoming African hunting trip for big game was already dominating the newspapers, “so it was big news [and m]uch more interesting than the incoming president-elect Taft, which nobody seemed real excited about” (“Interview”). The tough guy/monster match-up proved popular for the media—the alluring tension of two predatory professionals ready to take each other out in a showdown. 

Boyton describes how, in the 1930s “when reports the Snallygaster came to the city of Frederick,” Maryland, began, “it took on a much more like an urban legend flair. Instead of flying over farmland and swooping down to eat chickens, the Snallygaster was seen scaling fences and peering through bedroom windows” (“Interview”). The Snallygaster’s tales shifted to be more in step with our modern-day campy horror [page 160] stories. The Snallygaster’s notoriety soon could not be contained within the small community of Western Maryland, as it was recorded in an August 17, 1933, edition of the Montgomery County Sentinel that “[b]leeding and exhausted the Snallygaster gave a shriek of defeat” after a devasting fight with a blue eagle—apparently the only type of eagle able to turn the predatorial tables on the Snallygaster—“and, after [f]eathers fell like rain in Paris,” the creature “set sail for the general direction of Brazil. It was last seen passing over Havana making more time than the late President Machado” (“Snallygaster Routed”). Two years later, however, the cryptid expat made a change of plans, as noted in a March 7, 1935, article in the Montgomery County Sentinel, in which “[s]cientists report that this half-bird half animal, simply cannot stand overdue excitement. The Chaco warfare between Bolivia and Paraguay has grated on the nerves of the snallygaster to such an extent that he welcomes the comparative quiet of Montgomery County” (“Chaco Fight”). 

The Snallygaster sightings continued to correspond with specific political or cultural events throughout the 1940s. For example, Dickey notes that “[i]n 1949, after Maryland passed the Subversive Persons Act (spearheaded by lawyer Frank Ober), which required candidates for public office to take a loyalty oath, the Baltimore Sun reported that the Snallygaster had been seen in Massachusetts, where it was ‘quoted as saying it was trying to escape the Ober bill.’” The 1940s also saw a surge of interest in UFO sightings, which prompted the mention of the Snallygaster in a local Western Maryland paper which tied the community’s bravado to the newest threat against society: “We’re not afraid of you at Bose. We’ve dealt with Snallygasters” (“Interview”). Boyton identifies the news article as “an example of a local paper capitalizing on the UFO craze and folding in their own legend to make it relevant.” 

Seboe states that “the legend of the Snallygaster continued to be retold sporadically in the 1940s-1970s, with several other strange animals in the area identified as kin to the Snallygaster, coinciding with the national Bigfoot craze of the [page 161] late 1960s-1970s.” As well, relevant political topics and pop culture trends of the 1970s ushered in articles about the Snallygaster, such as Gordon Chaplin’s “The Grand Bicentennial Post Potomac Expedition to Darkest Maryland in Search of the Mysterious Snallygaster,” which Boyton states “reads like a cross between Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and a Wes Anderson movie. It’s very absurd, in the vein of Hunter Thompson’s Gonzo journalism” (“Interview”). As expected from the historical events of the 1970s, the dominating effects of “the Watergate scandal and new age religion” (“Interview”) also influenced the elements of Chaplin’s article. If there was a political controversy or cultural trend, the Snallygaster never seemed to be too far in the distance, waiting to determine the outcome of its public relations predation. 

The Snallygaster gained momentum and shifted toward pop culture and mass entertainment in the last decades of the twentieth century. It appeared in the children’s book Fred Flintstone and the Snallygaster Show in 1972 and as an album name and cover art, Legend of the Snallygaster, for the band The Skeptics in 1986 (Warner). However, the Snallygaster could not have asked for a more accessible global entry into pop culture than that which was provided through J. K. Rowling’s Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, a guide to the magical beasts inhabiting the Harry Potter universe. In the guide, “magical zoologist Newt Scamander provides a detailed account of the Snallygaster’s characteristics” (“The Snallygaster: A Closer Look”). Fan sites, such as Potter Talk, highlight the observation that in the Harry Potter world, “[s]nallygasters, although dangerous, are not inherently evil. Their behavior aligns with many creatures of the animal kingdom—acting primarily out of instinct and the need for survival” (“The Snallygaster: A Closer Look”). Like many animals, including humans, the Snallygaster has the ability to shift and change in the context of its environments and/or when transformation is needed for self-preservation, and “[i]t is said to be a distant relative of the Occamy, a serpentine creature known for its choranaptyxic abilities (the capacity to [page 162] grow or shrink to fit available space)” (“The Snallygaster: A Closer Look”). Rowling devotes a two-page spread to the Snallygaster, along with a charcoal sketch and categorization. Its Ministry of Magic Classification is XXXX, which means that the Snallygaster is the second to highest level of danger: “Dangerous/requires specialist knowledge/skilled wizard may/ handle” (xviii). Rowling’s Snallygaster description follows: 

Native to North America, the part-bird, part-reptile Snallygaster was once believed to be a kind of dragon, but is now known to be a distant relative of the Occamy. It cannot breathe fire, but possesses fangs of serrated steel with which it slices through its prey. The Snallygaster has frequently endangered the International Statute of Secrecy. Its natural curiosity, coupled with a bulletproof hide, renders it difficult to scare away and the Snallygaster has found its way into Muggle newspapers with such frequency that it sometimes ties with the Loch Ness Monster for ‘Most Publicity-Hungry Beast’. Since 1949, a dedicated Snallygaster Protection League has been stationed permanently in Maryland to Obliviate Muggles who see it. (111) 

The Snallygaster’s predatory role is clearly flipped when placed in the wider scope of the larger world of supernatural beasts covered by the contemporary “Muggle” press, as “[d]espite its intimidating demeanor, the Snallygaster has fallen prey to one of the magical world’s most dangerous predators – the Sasquatch, or Bigfoot. In the late nineteenth century, a Snallygaster was reported to have been killed by a Sasquatch in the course of an infamous duel, showcasing the potential perils even these mighty creatures face” (“The Snallygaster: A Closer Look”). Sasquatch, a fellow land-dwelling legend from the North American mountain and forest areas, is eerily similar to the other earth-bound enemies, such as the Dwayyo, which are often listed as rivals of sky-flying cryptids. And, similar to the folk etymology of the Snallygaster, the word “Sasquatch” was the “Anglicization of the [page 163] Salish word Sasq’ets, meaning ‘wild man’ or ‘hairy man’” (“Sasquatch”). In fact, it was a questionable newspaper article published in the Humboldt Times in 1958 which triggered the new name for the hairy creature, as author Andrew Genzoli “highlighted a fun, if dubious, letter from a reader about loggers in northern California who’d discovered mysteriously large footprints” (Little). As was the case with the fellow Snallygaster legend, the local newspaper’s declaration and “documentation” of the footprints of an unknown and potentially dangerous creature left readers and residents anxious and fearfully fascinated with what might occur in the upcoming days, as well as what might be revealed in future issues of the media outlets of their times. 

Today’s popular culture and media have moved away from traditional newspaper articles as main sources for news and entertainment, especially for younger generations. Fittingly, the most recent sightings of the Snallygaster can be found in “an ice cream flavor at South Mountain Creamery in Middletown, a miniature traveling museum[,] a massive beer and music festival” in Washington, DC (Scharper), and video games. The Snallygaster is a striking and appropriate creature for the video game realm, a world customized for the battle needs of single-player adventure: a player fights against an unknown future and selection of forces containing non-human traits and abilities. The quintessential example of an entity which is both predator and prey, the human player of the most popular video games must hunt and be hunted in order to achieve success and power in virtual worlds and to beat fellow players in game strategy and accolades. The video game Fallout 76 includes an Appalachian landscape where “players will be attacked by aggressive creatures that must be defeated. One of these mutant creatures is the Snallygaster” (Johnson). In “How to Find (& Kill) the Snallygaster in Fallout 76,” players are directed to hunt Snallygasters “found at several irradiated locations throughout the West Virginian wastes” (Johnson). The creature and its children are the mutant products of a scientific research center in Appalachia which [page 164] performed experiments with recombinant strains that “resembled a number of different species” (“Snallygaster,” Fallout Wiki). The Snallygaster’s escape from the research center and subsequent procreation will surely prompt empathy in any player willing to understand the aggression and violence fostered by captives when restrained by authority figures with God complexes. 

Players are educated on the particular traits, powers, and weaknesses of the Snallygaster: “Snallygasters are four-legged creatures that have sharp claws and extremely long tongues. Snallygasters use their extra limbs and tongues to overwhelm players with different types of attacks. Although snallygasters can be defeated by a lone wastelander, it’s a smart idea to take on snallygasters in a party” (Johnson). Interestingly, there are multiple types of Snallygasters in Fallout 76: “the bloody snallygaster, the glowing snallygaster, the nascent snallygaster, the fetid snallygaster, and the scorched snallygaster. Each snallygaster has different stats, with the nascent snallygaster being the least powerful, and the glowing snallygaster being the most dangerous” (Johnson). However, all variants of the Snallygaster will cause harm “when provoked, [as] they will spit a ball of toxic slime from their mouth. . . . They will then run to the player character and use a melee attack, either scratching or hitting the player character with their tongue. When idle and having not spotted the player character yet, they can be heard making various grunting and snorting noises” (Johnson). In other words, the Snallygasters’ potential danger is fueled by human provocation, a mutant defense from a mutant species specifically created by humans for their own purposes. Tips are provided for players to hunt and kill Snallygasters, noting both their speed and their resources, which will then help players with future survival and entertainment: “Since snallygasters are quick, a good tactic against them is to headshot from a distance (preferably while hidden) followed by headshots with a close-range weapon like a shotgun when they approach the player” (Johnson). With this sniper strategy, the Snallygaster is no [page 165] match against the human character player; the roles quickly shift and the Snallygaster is the prey versus the predator. Players are also encouraged “to loot the snallygasters, since they have useful resources that can be crafted into other items” (Johnson). The Snallygaster’s resourcefulness, therefore, provides dual levels of power and adaptability, giving the human avatar not only its life but also its craft. The Snallygaster is, in fact, double prey on product and process fronts. 

“At first glance,” Sharpe asserts, “the snallygaster is a marriage of folklore and urban legend; rooted half in the early superstitions of German settlers and half in the twentieth-century hoaxes by the editors at the Middletown Valley Register.” Blank and Puglia argue that “[r]ising from the bowels of fakelore, the Snallygaster has been embraced as the region’s bogeyman of choice,” a chimera with “fundamental intangibility” and “romantic, unknowable qualities” (93). Yet, following the Snallygaster’s migration throughout the last 300 years, we can easily see that “[b]eneath the surface it is not the product of one or two stories but rather a puzzle fashioned together through time, with each new anecdote more sensational than the next” (Sharpe). In fact, as Dickey claims, “[t]he Snallygaster’s lack of any kind of definite form may be what has allowed it to persist, adapt, and teach.” The Snallygaster has never become outdated, primarily because it can reinvent itself—physically and metaphorically—through the lens of its societies’ needs, particularly those driven by a desire for dominance. As with most monsters, it is familiar enough to relate to our own understanding of life from a human perspective, yet unfamiliar enough to make us realize that we are far down on the predation survival chain. Legends like the Snallygaster allow us glimpses of those supernatural species which hold the power we would like to harness but likely should not, due its potnetial corruptions. 

Sharpe asks past, current, and future readers and researchers: “Was the snallygaster a manifestation of the subconscious mind, a ruse to frighten the superstitious or a [page 166] ploy to divert political retaliation? Then again maybe the answer is simply that—monsters of the imagination are easier to accept than real ones.” Navigating the map between the real and the imaginary feels necessary in the search for the Snallygaster as a supernatural folklore legend, a creature capable of dwelling in multiple worlds and in multiple centuries, a creature recognized for its predatory potential and for its appropriation as prey. How else might one locate a chimera like the Snallygaster? Boyton theorizes that “what makes the snallygaster so adaptable is you can see him through all kinds of different lenses. Through folklore, through a sociopolitical commentary, cryptozoology” (“Interview”). The mirrored predation lens exposes the Snallygaster to be powerful, yet powerless; seen, yet not seen; fake, yet real. Has the predatory Snallygaster actually become its own prey over time, a creature too malleable and shapeshifting to be animal, yet too animal and instinctual to be human? Is the idea of the Snallygaster too dependent on its current society’s evolving fears to ever stabilize its species or impact? The Snallygaster’s puzzle is, perhaps, the puzzle of assimilation, of difference, of the inevitable fear, uncertainty, and resistance that accompanies migration and the changes that coincide involving languages, biases, politics, and cultures. In all likelihood, the Snallygaster’s inevitable future adaptations and combinations will continue to include a range of features and traits we fear and cannot see: the biases of our own cryptid species, forming its constitution of so many different human selves. 

Locating the Snallygaster as a chimera with a racist underbelly, tentacles formed from the power of politics and the press, and the broad wings of pop culture, a legendary 300-year-old entity is glimpsed which was created to feed an American culture thirsty for power, entertainment, and longevity. The Snallygaster was and continues to be a hybrid horror of multiple creatures, societal biases, and the fears and fascinations of a state, country, or world which was and still [page 167] is “quick” to scare, and “quick” to fabricate, especially when facing its own human flaws and fragile mortality. The Snallygaster is not only a combination of different real-life animals and mythical creatures, but it is also a singular oicotype, “a specific folk tale pattern popular with a particular social group or in a limited geographic region” (Beck), a chimera of predation—complete with the conflicting tissues, tails, and tales found within a large migratory flock and their search for supernatural power in a natural world. Asma’s tribute to “bestiaries” like the Snallygaster, the “allegorical tradition” stemming from old world folklore, where “monsters often had their origin in the specific animal threats of a specific geographic region” provides critical fodder for the study of the Snallygaster, as “[i]n the imaginative construction of a frightening beast, a folk culture will frequently embellish the local predators rather than compose a completely novel monster” (126). How frightening, interesting, and sad to find the “local predators” are actually people in the curious case of the elusive Snallygaster. 

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Warner, Tom. “Beware the Snallygaster!” Baltimore or Less, 25 Oct. 2013, www.baltimoreorless.com/2013/10/beware-the snallygaster/. Accessed 24 Oct. 2025. 

Katherine Cottle is an Assistant Professor of Writing at Goucher College in Baltimore, Maryland. She is the author of The Hidden Heart of Charm City: Baltimore Letters and Lives (nonfiction), I Remain Yours (creative nonfiction), Halfway (memoir), and My Father’s Speech (poetry), all published by AH/Loyola University Maryland. Her recent scholarship also appears in the Critical Companions to Contemporary Directors Series (Lexington Books), Screen Bodies (Berghahn Journals), Configurations (JHU Press), and Social Justice and American Literature (Salem Press). 

MLA citation (print):

Cottle, Katherine. "'The Predation of a Legendary Chimera: Western Maryland’s Snallygaster, from Hex to Harry." Supernatural Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Art, Media, and Culture, vol. 11, no. 1, 2026, pp. 141-171.