BEASTLY SUMMER BREAKS Where to find the country’s creepiest monsters!

Staycation-ing this year? Luckily Britain is packed full of mythical creatures you can try tracking down for a truly magical break – if you only know where to look...

Dragons, sea monsters and ghostly hounds have long been the stuff of folklore. But could there be any truth behind the legends?

The answer is a firm ‘yes’, according to Richard Freeman, author of Adventures in Cryptozoology and zoological director of the Centre for Fortean Zoology.

In his research Richard has travelled the world, tracking

Yeti in Russia, seeking the Death Worm in Mongolia and the giant anaconda in South America. He even had a close encounter with the man-beast hybrid Almasty in the Ukraine. ‘One night something sevenfoot tall walked past our rural camp hut, so big he blocked the moonlight. He made guttural sounds, then vanished,’ recalls Richard. But, you don’t have to travel the globe to have adventures like these. ‘The

British Isles are packed with stories of beasts, sea serpents and ghostly beings,’ says Richard, who tells us where to look…

LAKE MONSTERS

Habitat: The lakes of Scotland, Ireland and the Lake District

The most famous lake monster must be that of Loch Ness. But, according to Richard, ‘There are dozens of lake monsters mostly in Scotland, Ireland and one in Lake Windermere,’ he says.

Richard believes these lake monsters are giant eels.

‘Giant eels live in fresh water. When they’re ready to breed, they leave their lake and head to the Sargasso Sea. There, they lay their eggs and die and their young migrate back to the ancestral lake – either by memory or magnetic fields.’

We sometimes see these lake monsters, Richard explains, when a young giant eel stays in the lake and doesn’t migrate to mate. ‘They get bigger and bigger – up to 25ft long. These are our genuine lake monsters.’

DRAGONS

Habitat: All over Britain

(in another dimension) Dragons are written and spoken about in every culture on Earth, explains Richard. From Celtic mythology to the Greeks and the Far East you find dragons.

‘In 2012, a group of teenagers in America even reported seeing a dragon fly right overhead,’ he says. ‘And cattle herders in Namibia reported seeing a “flying snake monster”.’

Unlike lake monsters, Richard believes dragons may be interdimensional beings, which is why they’re harder to spot.

‘There are theories that there are around 18 different dimensions,’ Richard says. ‘It is thought that dragons might exist in one of these dimensions and sometimes they slip through and inhabit our world.’

SEA SERPENTS

Habitat: Salt water around the British Isles

‘Unlike lake monsters, sea serpents require salt water,’ says Richard. ‘There are reports of sea serpents all over Britain but with different names.

‘In Marsden Bay, South Tyneside, there have been sightings of the Shoney – a terrifying sea monster to whom Vikings would offer human sacrifices. Bodies were washing up right up until the 20th Century,’ Richard says, ‘The cult of sacrificing humans to the Shoney went on until then.’

There are similar sightings of sea serpents in Cornwall – here they call it the Morgawr.

‘It is described as a ‘sea giant’ in Cornish and has a humped back,’ says Richard.

EARTH HOUNDS

Habitat: Underground – especially in graveyards

One of the most terrifying beasts Richard has studied are Earth Hounds. ‘Gravediggers reported finding them in coffins, feasting on corpses,’ Richard says.

The Earth Hound has a dog’s face, but is small, and has a rat-like body and a bushy tail. ‘They are subterranean and carnivorous,’ he says.

In 1919, someone caught an Earth Hound and sent its body to the Natural History Museum in London. ‘It mysteriously vanished,’ adds Richard.

A vicar recorded his experience of Earth Hounds in 1881, saying it was: ‘a mysterious dreaded sort of animal, called the yird swine, believed to live in graveyards, burrowing among the dead bodies and devouring them…’

SPECTRAL DOGS

Habitat: All over Britain Unlike wild dogs, the spectral black dog is a demonic entity.

‘It is a nocturnal apparition and shapeshifter,’ says Richard.

The spectral black dog has various names. In Lancashire it’s called Padfoot, in East Anglia it’s called Black Shuck.

‘It doesn’t kill its victims. It terrorises them. It has a sardonic expression on its face and burning red eyes. Some say it is a portent of death,’ says Richard.

One man reported seeing a spectral dog, climbed into a tree to escape it but ‘it just looked up at him with a mocking expression, its eyes burning like coal and with an evil grin.’

Spectral black dogs have been sighted all over the UK – always at night.