The Snawfus

Pearl or snow-white cervine of the pineries. Some tellers give it quiet leaps into the treetops; some give soft spray-like wings; some give flowering dogwood or plum instead of points. It breathes the sapphire haze that squarefolk call weather. Speaks in feeling, not words. Left Dolly the one dodecahedron. Not hunted. Not bottled.

On this hill: Who Lives Here · Dolly and the Gift of the Snawfus

The Jimplicute

Randolph’s tellers called it a ghostly dinosaur or night-lizard that walked the roads and grabbed throats. Squarefolk used it as a scare. On this hill it is bark-colored and bipedal among the pines — girl-height in 2026, larger in 2027, a colt of bark by 2028 — or a running black silhouette with a white pin-prick eye. Kin to highbehind, hidebehind, and gowrow. Comes out when the mist is honest. Goes home the same door. Not a hippo. Not a creek horse.

Blue Mist in the Valley, page 7 · shadow dual below

The other version the camera caught. Dolly did not choose between them. Duals are allowed on this farm.

The Gowrow

Told at twenty feet all told — body, neck, and a long thin sickle-tail, not a tail as long as the rest of the animal. Green scales, short webbed claws, a row of short horns down the spine, two tusks. Soft keg-sized eggs; the mother may pouch the young like a possum. Named for the sound of the roar. Randolph’s sources put it in remote caverns. On this hill it is a separate face from the Jimplicute. Watched from the path. Never baited with dried apples for a quarter.

The Kingdoodle

Also called whangdoodle in some hollers — not Julie Andrews’ king, not Dahl’s forest scare. Randolph’s version is an oversized collared lizard: longer than a well-rope, fourteen hands high, strong enough to loosen a rail fence or pull a sapling. Not told as bloodthirsty. A long wailing cry, then a roar like a steamboat in the older lies. A face that has not opened on Dolly’s camera yet.

The Gollywog

In Ozark speech a waterdog is a salamander. Randolph’s gollywog is that animal grown to eight or ten feet, alligator-sized, night-water, wrecker of trotlines and small boats. External gills like wet feathers. This is not the old doll of the same name. A creek face. Leave the line alone after dark.

The Hinge-Tailed Bing Buffer

Hippo-shaped, short-legged, larger than a farm bull. A pouch under the jaw holds a bushel of creek stones. The tail is long, flat, and hinged in joints — a living catapult. Randolph: you just ought to see one throw a stone. On this farm the same defender walks a rescue when a robot dog will not take a hint. Comic until it is not.

The Story of the Rescue