What is it that everyone concerned with cryptids, no matter their opinions, is after? Proof! And not just any proof, but solid, physical evidence. Unlike with most cryptids, we have that holy grail in this case, but it hasn’t gotten us any further ahead in knowing more about this mysterious animal. Hesitation to conduct a DNA test on the mount has left us high and dry in the knowledge department, but DNA isn’t the only way to learn about a strange animal.

Death is often seen as something that sneaks up on us, or something that might be lurking just around a corner waiting to pounce. But in Appalachia, we rarely see death as something that arrives unannounced.

There are women who walk this world as if they have one foot in another. Women who carry a knowing, even when they can’t yet name it. Women whose intuition feels older than their bodies, whose dreams read like folklore, whose bones hum at the mention of myth, whose breath slows when the fog rolls in across a forest path. If you’re here, reading this, chances are you’re one of them. And so am I.

This obscure cryptid began as a black-and-white photo of a missing taxidermy mount found in a few cryptozoology books. The subject of this photo is a strange-looking canine resembling something of a cross between a wolf and a hyena that Montana rancher Israel Hutchins shot in the winter of 1886 – ’87, the hardest winter the Madison Valley had ever seen, preceded by a dry and fiery summer.

Frost sparkles on barbed wire fence; a lone whippoorwill’s chirps echo off snow covered hills around you. The first sharp November winds blow, rustling through the mass of skeleton trees ahead of you, when suddenly, everything stops.

By Lacey Williams Ask anyone in Appalachia about our weather lately and they’ll tell you that spring here takes its time showing up. It sleeps in. It climbs out of bed slowly and stubborn-like. But when it does finally arrive, it’s with a list of chores that need to be done right away. By the time you start to smell the mud that’s peeking out from under the leftover snow, the traditions are already well under way. It’s more than just spring cleaning, though. In Appalachia, w

Before silver bells and twinkling lights, there was a different kind of Christmas tradition. In the deep snow drifts and harsh winters in the mountains of Iceland, Gryla the Christmas Witch was born. As the personification of winter and darkness taking over the land, Gryla’s story began out of survival and was shaped by scarcity. Long before Santa came to reward good children, Gryla came to punish them. In the early weeks of winter, when daylight barely strangles the darkne

In the quiet hours just before midnight, when the world is in-between years, the residents of Appalachia listen to their elders and ancestors, and to the wisdom they passed down around coal camps and kitchen fires. Everyone in the mountains knows how you greet the new year is how the new year treats you. New Year’s isn’t just a celebration here; it’s a ritual where the unseen matters just as much as the seen. With a mixture of cultures intertwining such as Scotts-Irish, Germ

Mornings in Appalachia start slow. The steep hills and towering trees mean the sun takes its time waking up, stretching and yawning, breathing life into the forests at its own pace. Most mornings, the sun burns away the fog of the night. But other times, the fog fights back, refusing to reveal all the secrets it hides. People in the mountains will tell you that the forests have their own ways of communicating. The caw of ravens, the rustling of wind through the trees, with t

The White Things go by many names. You might also know them as White Devils, The Morgan Ridge Monster, The Kanawha County Creature, or their more modern moniker: the Sheepsquatch. They are an unusual and elusive creature, and only a few encounters with them have been officially documented. They are said to be the size of a large bear, and mostly quadrupedal but with the ability to stand and walk upright. They have shaggy, wooly-like, dirty white fur.

Many traditions and lore we associate with Halloween today such as werewolves, witches, spirits, jack-o-lanterns, and even trick or treating once belonged to the revelry of Christmas.