Connemara has become famous in cryptozoological
circles for being home to so called horse-eels.
These mysterious amphibious beasts appear to have been viewed locally and
historically as very large eels differing from the common variety by virtue of
having a horse-like head with a mane
on their neck.
The term horse-eel became universally
popular in the 1960s and 1970s following several investigations and expeditions
by leading cryptozoologists and Fortean researchers of the day into the exact
nature of the phenomena. Expeditions by The Loch Ness Investigation Bureau
including researcher F.W. Holiday, cryptozoologist Roy Mackal and Irish
naturalist and adventurer Captain Lionel Leslie are well documented. It is
difficult to ascertain exactly when the term horse-eel became used colloquially to refer to such beasts but when
Holiday interviewed some of the most prominent witnesses in Connemara it
appeared to be a well-known description. However as Gary Cunningham has
documented in Mystery Animals of Ireland, in fishing speak, the prefix
horse can also be used to describe an unusual or abnormal catch simply denoting
something out of the ordinary. In fact the term horse-eel
itself appears to be a modern one found only in Connemara. There are reports
from historical literature describing eels with manes like horses,
but despite an extensive background search into Irish literature, folklore and
non-fiction works there is little if no evidence to suppose that it was one
that has been used to describe a common phenomenon known in Connemara life for
hundreds of years.
The only reference to such an animal documented
prior to the 1960s, can be found in Gaelic
names of beasts (Mammalia), birds, fishes, insects, reptiles, etc. in two parts,
by Robert Forbes (1905), and refers to a horse-eel or eel-horse
which only appears to have inhabited Loch Awe in Scotland, and which had twelve
legs and eyes and was a type of lamprey.
The
horse-eel again is said to be found only in Loch Awe, and to have twelve legs!
The appearance of this fish is so fierce-looking as to give it the name
"Ulla or uile-bheisd," or monster; another name given it is
“Biasd-an- da-shuil-deug," the beast of the twelve eyes; it is also said
to have a hole right through its head. The "niney" is vulgarly
supposed to be the one originating from a horse-hair.
The only reason it seems this entity was termed a horse-eel,
was simply the fact that it was an eel as big as a horse.
To possibly confuse matters even more, fisherman in
the north of Ireland (and presumably the south), had different names for
different species of eel. Writing in the Natural
History of Ireland vol. 4, 1849, William Thompson relates the following
names which were applied by fisherman at Lough Neagh, one of the principle eel
fisheries, in Belfast.3
The
fishermen distinguish three species; this they call the Weed-eel ; the A.
acutirostris they call Eel, Skull-eel, or Bann-eel, par excellence ; the A.
latirostris they distinguish by the name of Gorb-eel, and Collach or
Hunter-eel, on account of its comparative voracity.
In addition other names for eels in the British
Isles are given as frog-mouthed eel
and bulldog- headed eel (The Freshwater Fish of the British Isles,
Tate, 1878). All these names appear to be applied to eels at various stages
in their life cycle however, rather than completely separate species.4
When investigator Ted Holiday interviewed local
witness Tom Joyce, a local farmer, about the phenomena, Joyce described to him
possibly the first instance of the term horse-eel
being used by a local woman, a Mrs Whalen, who encountered the unusual creature
in Lough Auna where Joyce lived.5
There
is a well-known story known by the older people, imagine seventy years ago
because the woman died a couple of years back. She was attending her turf as it
grew sort of late in the evening and her bog, you must remember ran down to the
lake shore and she happened to be working the end near the lake. Suddenly there
was a commotion in the water and this thing which she told everyone was a Horse
eel came out of the lake and right up on the turf bank beside her. And she got
so scared she ran for her life. It had come up to within a few yards of where
she was working. She described it its front appearance was something similar to
a horse and it tailed off something like an eel. She called it a Horse eel. She
was very scared. Although the animal was not on the attack she didn’t stay any
longer.
But these large eels, (perhaps the size of a horse,
giving them their name), all seem to have legs and therefore cannot really be
eels at all. As the authors have also suggested in their previous work, The
Seal Serpent, the grey seal, indigenous to Ireland is also known as the horse-headed seal due to its sometimes
equine looking head. Although this term is of Canadian origin it is interesting
to note that if you remove the word head
you end up with horse-seal, so
perhaps the real identity of these creatures (which subsequently spawned the name)
has become confused by dialect. In fact writing in an
issue of Ireland of the Welcomes, July/August 1970, Ted Holiday wrote a short
article about his expeditions to Connemara which included a picture of a 400
year old wooden carving, part of a decorative chair, which reputedly showed a horse-eel
(below). However this isn’t an eel as it appears to depict a bulky, squat
bodied animal with an extended fore-limb, an impression on the head of what
might be ears and a whale-like tail.
Text
adapted from: Irish
Aquatic Monsters a Survey and Definitive Guide.
