#the squonk of pennsylvania

[rubyyogurt]

guilty gear -squonk-

[catfindr]

[grodzenskyivan]

Squonk of Pennsylvania, hand made sculpture from our team

[gaykarstaagforever]

It's not all bad in 2024. Wendigoon did a 2 hour video highlighting the olde-timey fun of public domain American folklore "critters," and it has almost 800k views in 4 days.

Plus he provides links to the online databases based on the old "reference" books.

Check it out and remember: lying about scary joke animals to terrify young relatives on camping trips is the original, and still best, streaming service of all.

Repost your local one. Mine is the suicidally-depressed shar pei known as the Squonk.

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

discussion question: are there are folkloric or supernatural figures not included (or done poorly) in canon that you think would have made for an amazing monster of the week episode of the x files?

bonus points if it's from your culture or area of the world!❤️👻🛸

[3ofpents]

100 Palettes Challenge // Palette #24 // Overlooking Johnstown

Today's palette comes from a French department store magazine ad published in 1923:

This is it! My final poster for Shapeshifters' Cryptid Collection!

Not my last cryptid poster, mind you, just the last one that's officially part of the fashion collection.

I didn't know much about the Squonk before we started working on the collection. But when I started researching it, I found out that was because ... there's actually not that much to know! The Squonk, it turns out, is a tall tale that turn-of-the-century lumberjacks in Pennsylvania used to tell new recruits to spook them around the campfire. The most popular version of the legend describing how the Squonk is constantly in tears over its appearance and, if cornered, may cry so hard it dissolves itself in its own tears, appeared in the book Fearsome Creatures of the Lumberwoods With a Few Desert and Mountain Beasts by William T. Cox, published in 1910. Cox and his two collaborators were part of the US's burgeoning environmental infrastructure so worked with the lumberjacks of the time. According to Cox's introduction, Fearsome Creatures was an effort to preserve some of the tall tales they heard the lumberjacks telling each other across the country.

I've come across other accounts of the Squonk as well that slightly alter and add onto the original description in Fearsome Creatures, but, personally? I find that original description so charming that everything else just feels like someone trying to add their own signature to what was already a perfect work. And since Fearsome Creatures is in the public domain and the entry is fairly short, here's the description of the Squonk in full:

The Squonk. (Lacrimacorpus dissolvens.) The range of the squonk is very limited. Few people outside of Pennsylvania have ever heard of the quaint beast, which is said to be fairly common in the hemlock forests of that State. The squonk is of a very retiring disposition, generally traveling about at twilight and dusk. Because of its misfitting skin, which is covered with warts and moles, it is always unhappy; in fact it is said, by people who are best able to judge, to be the most morbid of beasts. Hunters who are good at tracking are able to follow a squonk by its tear-stained trail, for the animal weeps constantly. When cornered and escape seems impossible, or when surprised and frightened, it may even dissolve itself in tears. Squonk hunters are most successful on frosty moonlight nights, when tears are shed slowly and the animal dislikes moving about; it may then be heard weeping under the boughs of dark hemlock trees. Mr. J. P. Wentling, formerly of Pennsylvania, but now at St. Anthony Park, Minnesota, had a disappointing experience with a squonk near Mont Alto. He made a clever capture by mimicking the squonk and inducing it to hop into a sack, in which he was carrying it home, when suddenly the burden lightened and the weeping ceased. Wentling unslung the sack and looked in. There was nothing but tears and bubbles.

Why Johnstown specifically when the Squonk is said only to live in Pennsylvania in general? A very simple but I think extremely valid reason: Johnstown, PA is home to Squonkapalooza! A festival dedicated to the Squonk, "and other creatures of Appalachian and Americana folklore and cryptozoology" in the hopes that "spreading the love of the Squonk might cheer them up".

I love this so much, I wish I could go. If you go, or went last year, please tell me what it was like. In the meantime, Johnstown was pretty much my first and only thought about what location to feature in the Squonk's travel poster.

This one actually came together pretty quickly! Which is, of course, hilarious considering how long I spent putting it off. I'll be honest, I was intimidated by that color palette, not sure if I could make it work and, if not, facing down the possibility of either skipping over a few palettes, or just making my own entirely. But I'm really pleased with how it turned out. I would've preferred a bit more variation in color between the trees and hillside, but I think I made it work with the gradients, and I really like how it helps the Squonk really pop so it's not too hard to spot.

I was also worried about how to actually do the Squonk, but I hit on a technique that I could definitely stand to spend more time perfecting, but I really like the effect. In fact, I was so pleased with it, here's the blown-up Squonk from the full size version of the poster.

You can definitely tell I was kind of figuring it out as I went, but, like I said, I still really like the end result. And yes I apparently just have a lot of fun drawing tiny rivulets of water, which you might remember from my Trunko poster.

I still need to design the fabric to go along with this poster, but once that's done, my part of the Cryptid Collection will be done! And I think at that point I'll start posting the fabric designs and talking about my design/illustration process with them.

Click the link to the Cryptid Collection to buy prints of this and my other cryptid posters, a binder or sports bra in my cryptid fabric designs, and to find the link to our Spoonflower shop to buy my fabric designs on the fabric your choice for your own projects!

The next palette is going to mark me at a quarter of the way through the 100 Palette Challenge!

[shapeshiftersvt]

Cryptid Collection Spotlight: The Squonk

We're going to be spending this week infodumping about the six cryptids we chose to feature in our Cryptid Collection! We'll be posting about the lore and origins, our thoughts, experiences, and relationships with all of these cryptids, and we encourage folks to share their own!

Today we're talking about the most #relatable cryptid, the Squonk.

👣The Cryptid Collection 🗺️Cryptid Travel Posters 👥Cryptid Binders & Sportsbras 🧵Cryptid fabric designs

Much like the Jackalope that we spotlighted yesterday, the Squonk is a creature from tall tales of the previous centuries.

Descriptions of the Squonk nearly all originate from the same source. Fearsome Creatures of the Lumberwoods was a 1910 collaboration between William Thomas Cox, Minnesota's first State Forester and Commissioner of conservation, who wrote the text; Coert du Bois, US Consul and forester, who drew the illustrations; and George Bishop Sudworth, Chief Dendrologist of the Forest Service, who created the Latin classifications. In the introduction, Cox claims that the fantastical field guide was born out of a desire to preserve some of the tall tales invented by lumberjacks and the stories they told about them around campfires "to regale newcomers and frighten people unfamiliar with the woods". The guide details twenty creatures from heavily wooded regions all over the US. There on page 31, between the Hodag of Wisconsin and Minnesota, and the Whirling Whimpus of Tennessee, lies our friend, the Squonk.

Later texts inspired by Fearsome Creatures expanded on the lore, describing, among other things, a mass migration from its original widespread territory that resulted in the evolution of webbed toes, but only on its left feet; wax and hair-covered ears; crooked yellow tusks; and asexual reproduction through cell division. But Cox's original, much more straightforward description, seems to have truly stood the test of time.

The Squonk, like many regional cryptids, has a fairly small territory, being limited to the hemlock forests of northern Pennsylvania. Cox claims that those familiar with the Squonk describe it as being "the most morbid of beasts". These days, we might interpret that to mean a fearsome creature that lurks in the darkest, thickest part of the woods, hunting unsuspecting lumberjacks who unknowingly wander into its territory and toying with them the way a cat toys with a mouse. Quite the contrary, though, the Squonk is described as morbid because of its constant weeping, the source of which is the skin which hangs off of it in wrinkles as if it were a piece of much too large clothing, and its many warts and moles.

While the Squonk is most active during the twilight and dusk hours, it can also be found traveling at night. In fact, Cox relates that "frosty moonlight nights" are the best conditions for Squonk hunters, as it doesn't like to move much at all on those nights, and its tears flow more slowly. Why might slowly flowing tears be an advantage, especially when the trail those tears leave behind in the Squonk's wake are an easy way for hunters to track it? Why, because the more scared the Squonk is, the more tears it cries, and likely it is to be completely dissolved by those tears.

In fact, this curious characteristic is described in the only encounter related by Cox:

Mr. J. P. Wentling, formerly of Pennsylvania, but now at St. Anthony Park, Minnesota, had a disappointing experience with a Squonk near Mont Alto. He made a clever capture by mimicking the Squonk and inducing it to hop into a sack, in which he was carrying it home, when suddenly the burden lightened and the weeping ceased. Wentling unslung the sack and looked in. There was nothing by tears and bubbles.

It's probably fairly obvious why an inherently queer company selling garments intended to relieve body dysphoria would relate to a creature like the Squonk, which is so uncomfortable in its own skin that it simply can't stop crying. But we're certainly not the first to feel empathy and kinship with the Squonk. In fact 2024 marks the second annual Squonkapalooza in Johnstown, PA, hoping to "turn those frowns upside down. Spreading the love of the Squonk might cheer them up."

Which is fair! I think that if most of us discovered a festival organized and attended out of pure love and empathy for us we'd probably feel a little bit better about ourselves.

[thingsmk1120sayz]

[liminallylost]

Credits:

I will never get enough Squonk content

[starryneitz]

Once a-fucking-gain Penndot proves to do absolute dogshit. But, this time instead of standing around not fixing the shitty roads they make, this happened.

Don't worry, they did post a public apology though.

[i-am-a-stupid-robot]

X

[sceilig]

you know what, of course pennsylvania would have squonks, why not? it wouldn't make sense otherwise.

[leifs-little-luxury-hell]

Gonna hop on this thread to ramble autistically about my favorite cryptid/folklore creature of all time:

The Squonk

This ceyptid is from my home state of PA and its so fucking stupid and I love it.

This thing is allegedly ashamed of its body so much that if caught it can dissolve itself into a puddle of its own tears.

This place called johnstown even hosts fucking SQUONKAPALOOZA (link attached)

This thing, I love it so much

I love folklore so much because depending on the location and era it comes from it's either the most terrifying concept or the dumbest thing you've ever heard

[gaykarstaagforever]

So Pennsylvania gets a unique cryptid, and it is hideously ugly and its power is super-depression.

...What else can I say, you know?

[emobanana22]

Taking a trip alone is something so out of my comfort zone, but I’m planning a trip to PA, hopefully before the end of the year, and I’m so excited by the thought alone. If I have any mutuals in PA who’d maybe like to start talking more and meet up on my trip, I’d love that so much.

Anastasia takes over NEPA 2024

Tell the Squonk he’s my new best friend and I’m gonna get him