Fearsome Creatures of the Lumberwoods, With a Few Desert and Mountain Beasts
A 1910 field guide to North American lumberjack folklore creatures.
Fearsome Creatures of the Lumberwoods, With a Few Desert and Mountain Beasts is a 1910 fantasy field guide by William Thomas Cox, Minnesota's first State Forester and Commissioner of Conservation, with illustrations by Coert du Bois and Latin classifications by George Bishop Sudworth. The book presents sketches of fearsome critters from North American folklore, originating chiefly in logging camps around the Great Lakes region. It remains a principal source on legendary creatures of the United States and Canada a century after its initial publication.
- full_title
- Fearsome Creatures of the Lumberwoods, With a Few Desert and Mountain Beasts
- author
- William Thomas Cox
- year_published
- 1910
- field
- Folklore, fantasy field guide
- notable_for
- First use of the term 'Fearsome Creatures' for North American lumberjack tall tales; principal source on legendary creatures of the US and Canada
Lore & Background
William Thomas Cox (1878–1961) served as Minnesota's first State Forester and Commissioner of Conservation. He compiled Fearsome Creatures from tales told in logging camps around the Great Lakes region. The book is arranged like a traditional field guide, with each creature given a Latin classification by George Bishop Sudworth, followed by habitat, physical features, behavior, and a brief anecdote. Illustrations by Coert du Bois accompany each entry.
Cox acknowledged in the introduction that the varmints were 'animals which he [the lumberjack] has originated.' The work is considered metafiction, blending field-guide format with ambiguous narration that sometimes presents creatures as real and other times as rumors. The book was first published in 1910 by the Press of Judd & Detweiler, Inc., and was not reprinted until half a century later.
Reader's Guide
Fearsome Creatures of the Lumberwoods is a noteworthy resource on folklore, as a century after its initial publication it remains one of the principal sources on legendary creatures of the United States and Canada. The book influenced later collections, including Henry Tryon's Fearsome Critters (1939), which acknowledged Cox's permission to use the information. Excerpts have appeared in works by B.A. Botkin, Jorge Luis Borges, Richard M. Dorson, and J.K. Rowling's Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.
The stories provide a snapshot of everyday life in Northern lumber camps, though they also reflect prejudices of the era, including a casually disparaging description of a person of color. Some narratives are not complete fabrications but highly embellished stories based on personal experiences, such as the Hyampom Hog Bear account involving a cub taken to the National Zoo. The original edition is held in 35 United States WorldCat libraries.
Did You Know?
- The book was first published in 1910 by the Press of Judd & Detweiler, Inc.
- William Thomas Cox was Minnesota's first State Forester and Commissioner of Conservation.
- The Latin classifications were provided by George Bishop Sudworth, Chief Dendrologist of the Forest Service.
- Excerpts from the book appear in J.K. Rowling's Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.
More in Fearsome critters 1-24
Spotted an error? Know more?
This is a living reference — every entry is fact-audited, and reader corrections feed straight into our audit queue. Suggest an edit · See this site's audit record