The Beast of Dean is animal from English folklore said to live, or to have once lived, in the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire, England. Despite several attempts to encounter, capture, or kill the beast in the early 19th century, no scientific evidence has been found to support the existence of the Beast of Dean or any similar creature in the Forest of Dean. The Beast is also occasionally mentioned literature related to cryptozoology.
History
Folktales alleging the beast existed in the forest appear to have their origins in the 18th or early 19th century. Farmers from the village of Parkend undertook an expedition to capture and kill the creature in 1802 but did not find anything resembling the creature. The animal they were hunting was reported to be a boar large enough to fell trees and hedges. Large numbers of boars in the forest are reported from other 19th century accounts, and "vast droves" of them were apparently allowed into the forest in autumn to forage around this time. Wild boar can still be found in the Forest of Dean to this day, but many 20th and early 21st Century references to the creature are made by "cryptozoologists", who presume the beast to be (or have been) a real animal that was unknown (or new) to science. In 2007, the science-fiction television series Primeval, re-imagined the Beast of Dean as a living gorgonopsid that arrived in the present day through a wormhole leading to the Permian Period.
References
- ^ Nanson, A. (2011). Gloucestershire Folk Tales. United Kingdom: History Press.
- Nicholls, H. G. (1858). The Forest of Dean: an historical and descriptive account. J. Murray.
- Government supports local communities to manage wild boar. Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. 19 February 2008
- Flett, Kathryn (11 February 2007). "Saturday night feast of big, big beasts". The Observer. Archived from the original on 19 February 2007.
External links
- "Myths & Legends of the Forest of Dean". Visit Dean Wye.
- "If Netflix's The Witcher was set in Gloucestershire these are the monsters he would confront". GloucestershireLive. 22 February 2020.
 | This England-related article is a stub. You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it. |
 | This folklore-related article is a stub. You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it. |