Hodag

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The hodag is a fictional animal of Wisconsin in the United States. There are at least three somewhat different incarnations of this creature. see Fearsome Critters

1 Black hodag
2 Sidehill dodge hodag
3 Cave hodag
4 Shovel-nose hodag (Cox's hodag)
5 Hodag Sightings
6 External links

[edit] Black hodag

Hodag captured by Shepard, 1896

This variety of hodag, Bovinus spiritualis, was the earliest "discovered", found in the woods of Northern Wisconsin in 1893 near Rhinelander, by Eugene Simeon Shepard (or Sheppard, according to some sources) (1854-1923). It is also the largest and most ferocious of the three kinds known, around 2.5 m (7 ft) or more long and 1 m (3 ft) high at the shoulder, and weighing approximately 80 kg (185 lb). It is covered with black fur, and has spikes along its back and two horns on its head.

Legends of the black hodag were told earlier in the 19th century among the lumberjacks of the area. According to these, the hodag had risen from the ashes of an ox, in some legends it was Paul Bunyan's ox, Babe, which was burned for seven years to cleanse its soul of the profanity hurled at it by lumberjacks and its master. The soul of the ox emerged from the ashes exuding a foul odor.

News reports from the time of its discovery claimed the hodag had "the head of a bull, the grinning face of a giant man, thick short legs set off by huge claws, the back of a dinosaur, and a long tail with a spear at the end".

The hodag is a sort of unofficial symbol for the region surrounding Rhinelander. The city's official web site calls Rhinelander "The Home of the Hodag." The hodag is the Rhinelander High School mascot, and lends its name and image to the Hodag Country Festival, an annual country music festival that is one of Rhinelander's largest community events.

The beast has also been adopted as the mascot of the University of Wisconsin-Madison men's ultimate frisbee team, which won its first and only national championship in 2003. The team's hodag logo adorns players' uniforms as well as hats, visors and headbands. More than a dozen alumni have hodag tattoos. The team finished second in the nation in 2006 and is regularly one of the top teams in the country.

The Hodag sighting in Rhinelander was a cleverly created hoax by Eugene Simeon Shepard, serving both to bring tourists to the area as well as settlers.

[edit] Sidehill dodge hodag

The sidehill dodge hodag, perhaps also known as the cyascutus, dwells in the hills and bluffs of Southwestern Wisconsin. It has evolved to have longer legs on one side than the other, so that it can more easily walk across the hills, with the shorter legs on the uphill side. (Of course, this only helps in going one direction across the hill.) It is around the size of a White-tailed Deer. It lives on a diet of hillside rocks, and has a spiked tail similar to the black hodag.

The sidehill dodge hodag may be a relative of the Sidehill Gouger, or possibly the European Wild Haggis and Dahu.

[edit] Cave hodag

The smallest hodag of all, the cave hodag seems to be a slight modification or evolutionary successor of the sidehill dodge hodag, with at least three glowing eyes to enable it to see in the caves of Southwestern Wisconsin. It has also been spotted across a considerable range of the United States, with sightings in Virginia, eastern West Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana, and the Ozark Mountains in Missouri and Arkansas. In these states, it is limited to areas with caves present, typically those with limestone karst formations. There are also rumours of possible sightings in the Pyrenee Mountains in Europe. It has been suggested that the sidehill dodge hodag may have retreated to the caves to escape encroaching civilization or logging, perhaps also explaining its migration to these other areas.

[edit] Shovel-nose hodag (Cox's hodag)

Probably the largest of all the hodags. This hodag (Nasobatilus hystrivoratus) described in William T. Cox's Fearsome Creatures of the Lumberwoods, With a Few Desert and Mountain Beasts (1910) just referred to as hodag in the original text, is (as quoted from Cox's book) in "Size, about that of a rhinoceros, very intelligent. Its hairless body gestive of the origin of the patterns upon Mackinaw clothing, now used in the lumber woods. On the hodag's nose, instead of a horn there is a large spade-shaped bony growth, with peculiar phalanges, extending up in front of the eye, so that he can only see straight up." Cox goes on to mention that this spade-shape growth is use as a lever for knocking over trees containing its favorite food, porcupine, which it then devours head first. Also notable is its peculiar habit of during fall covering itself with a thick mantle of colorful leaves which it uses to keep itself warm during the harsh winter. Its range only covers the states (as far as mentioned) of Wisconsin and Minnesota.