Creature Feature: Gef
(Image from http://thinkingsidewayspodcast.com/gef-the-talking-mongoose/)
This is not a mythological creature, per se, but a story interesting enough to be told. It negotiates the space between haunting and manifestation, and begins on a small farm on the Isle of Man. The buildings were owned by the Irving family - mother Margaret, father James and their daughter Voirrey, who was thirteen at the time of the creatures manifestation.
It began in September 1931, when the family began to notice strange rustling noises behind the wall panels in the farmhouse. After some prompting, the noise introduced itself as a mongoose called Gef, and claimed it was born in India, in New Delhi. It gave it’s birthdate as 1852 - which would have made it 99 years old on discovery. I’m sure you don’t need to be told that the standard mongoose doesn’t live that long!
Gef informed the family that he was no ordinary creature, but an ‘extra, extra clever mongoose’ - however it was unclear whether Gef was limited to mongoose form. Though sometimes seen, he was more of an invisible presence around the house and he once claimed that he hands, ‘hands and feet, and if you saw me you’d faint, you’d be petrified, mummified, turned into stone or a pillar of salt!’
(Image from http://blogs.forteana.org/node/96)
After his introduction Gef proved handy to have around the home - he guarded the house during the day, would scare mice off the property, put out the fire when everyone had gone to bed and took great pleasure in waking up members of the family when they had overslept. The creature would often come with them to the market, but would remain unseen - hiding on the other side of the hedge.
He ate only the best foods; chocolate, biscuits and bananas - and although he was often a joy to have around the home, he could also be rather disturbing and ego-centric. When James Irving died in 1945, Margaret and Voirrey left the home and sold the property for a very small sum of money due to claims of it being haunted. Gef, sadly, did not travel with them, and remained on the farm.
The mongoose became very popular in the press when discovered by the Irvine family, and it became such a phenomenon that investigators were seen to the home to prove the animal's existence. However, the animal was never spotted - the investigators took special note of how the space between the wall and the wooden panels allowed sounds to move clearly through the house, and one of the more popular theories proposes that Gef was an invention of the young Voirrey - who exploited the gaps in the boards to propel a silly voice around the house.
Another theory builds on James Irving and potential mental instability. That the creature was not heard from after his death leaves space for this interpretation. Nandor Fodor, Research Officer for the International Institute for Psychical Research stayed at the family home for a week and heard nothing from the mongoose. She came to the conclusion that the mongoose was an aspect of James’ personality.