A nocturnal animal that allegedly dwells in the hemlock forests of Pennsylvania, the squonk is kin to other legendary “fearsome critters,” though it is not particularly frightening. Instead, the squonk is described by storytellers as having repugnant looks and bearing a melancholy disposition. It is further described as a small quadruped with baggy skin that looks as though it belongs on a much larger animal. Its wrinkled hide is covered with all kinds of blemishes, from warts to moles, freckles to pimples. As a consequence, the squonk is extremely shy and self-conscious. It typically surfaces only during twilight or after darkness falls, hoping to avoid the gaze of any who might condemn it for its ugliness. The squonk’s reputation as a bashful loner ironically has earned it a number of fans, particularly among those who view themselves as outsiders.
According to legend, the squonk is heard before it is seen, like its far more menacing relation, the hidebehind. The squonk does not make noise running through the woods, but it continuously cries to express its feelings of anguish and self-pity. This weeping is at once a vulnerability and a defense mechanism. Many have sought to capture the squonk, though nobody is exactly sure why, given its lack of appeal as a trophy. Indeed, some writers have speculated that hunting a squonk is like pursuing a snipe: an imaginary beast that does not really exist. This circumstance makes the activity of squonk hunting synonymous with a fool’s errand. Still, “serious” squonk hunters have persisted over the years, albeit without any results.
Squonk hunters believe they can easily follow its sighs and sniffles, or track the tears left in its wake. But so impassioned is the squonk’s wailing, according to the prevailing myth, that hunters who report having cornered the creature say that it melted away before they could lay hands upon it. A well-known squonk tale claims that a woodland expedition managed to trap a squonk in a sack by imitating its cries and luring it out of hiding with false promises of companionship. However, the perpetrators later found that the imprisoned squonk had dissolved inside the sack, reducing itself to a puddle before they could make their way back to civilization. Not surprisingly, books of mythical creatures give the squonk the Latin name lacrimacorpus dissolvens ( “tear-body” and “dissolve”), which points to its weepiness and its fluid form.
The squonk first appeared in folktales of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century trappers, hunters, and lumberjacks. The earliest written mention of the beast is in a book that assembled the most memorable legends of such woodsmen: Fearsome Creatures of the Lumberwoods (1910) by William T. Cox. The squonk is later mentioned in Henry H. Tryon’s Fearsome Critters (1939), another volume dedicated to preserving traditions of the previous century, focusing on notable “varmints.” In these contexts, the squonk clearly performs an etiological function; that is, it serves to explain the cause of common occurrences: strange cries heard in the woodlands. The squonk also might have provided a warning to any at campsites prone to melancholy (or perpetual sadness), suggesting that they were not appreciated by their fellows.
Unlike other fearsome critters, the squonk has a relatively narrow territory. Tryon maintains that the animal was once common across the United States, yet documented sightings are limited to Pennsylvania. But even though the squonk has strong regional ties, it has over the years appealed to the imaginations of people from a variety of places. The Argentinian author Jorge Luis Borges includes the squonk in his compendium The Book of Imaginary Beings (1967). The squonk also surfaces in twentieth- and twenty-first-century popular culture as an icon of the awkward, isolated, and alone. The American rock band Steely Dan references the squonk in its song “Any Dude Will Tell You” (1974). The English group Genesis devotes an entire track to the creature on its 1976 album A Trick of the Trail: “Squonk.” (The number has become a favorite among Genesis fans.) More recently, the animal has shown up in a broad range of places, including lyrics by American rapper McFrontalot (2008). The squonk’s formal name is shared by a Mexican death metal band: Lacrimacorpus Dissolvens. Canadian television has featured the squonk as a character in the science fiction series Lost Girl (2013). There, the squonk is transformed into a harmless young woman, though she is weepy as ever, and her tears have magical properties. An American fantasy novel by Kevin Paul Saleeba, The Squonk and the Horned Beast (2014), offers another sympathetic representation of the squonk. Saleeba follows earlier lore by casting the creature as four-legged and unseemly. Yet he dwells on the squonk’s beautiful blue eyes and its generous soul, attributes that more than compensate for its appearance.
Noel Sloboda
See also Hidebehind; Sidehill Gouger; Teakettler
Further Reading
Borges, Jorge Luis. 2005. The Book of Imaginary Beings. Reprint of 1967 edition. New York: Penguin.
Cox, William T. 1967. Fearsome Creatures of the Lumberwoods. Reprint of 1910 edition. River Falls, WI: River Falls State University Press.
O’Neil, Gerard. 2014. “The Squonk: A Small Tale from Franklin County.” In Supernatural Lore of Pennsylvania: Ghosts, Monsters, and Miracles, edited by Thomas White. Charleston, SC: History Press.
Saleeba, Kevin Paul. 2014. The Squonk and the Horned Beast. San Bernardino, CA: CreateSpace.
Tryon, Henry H. 1939. Fearsome Critters. Cornwall, NY: Idlewild Press.