INTRO:

Hello and welcome to Myth Monsters, my name is Jakob and I’ll be your introductory host for these little snack bite size podcasts on folklore and mythical monsters from around the world. 

These podcasts focus on the actual cryptids, folklore and mythic monsters from global mythology, rather than focusing on full stories of heroes and their big adventures.

We’ll also be dropping in some references that they have to recent culture and where you can see these represented in modern day content so you can learn more, and get as obsessed as Erin is about these absolute legends of the mythological world.

Today we’re heading on down under, and looking at the cute little swamp monster, the Bunyip! -Personal opinion on Bunyip look here - sit tight and enjoy!

DESCRIPTION:

Thank you Jakob, Jakob is one of my lovely colleagues - I thought it would be fun to pop in some accents from the places some of these monsters are from this month. Jakob is from Australia, although he is also Danish so that’s fun!

Let’s get into today’s monster shall we?!

The Bunyip is a creature from Australian Aboriginal mythology - so something different for this week! It’s said to lurk in swamps, billabongs, creeks, riverbeds, and waterholes in the Australian outback.

Bunyips are usually described as either a seal or sea lion type body, with large sabertooth teeth, a black coat, whiskers and no tail. It’s about 4-6ft long, and also kind of resembles a bulldog? The other version of them is a really long neck like an emu or ostrich, small heads and between 5-15ft long, with black fur, big ears, tucks, and a horse tail. They are both amphibious and have fins instead of feet. There’s a HUGE difference between the two most common sightings, but I really like the idea of both of them. And although I’ve mentioned two of their variations here, there are actually nine registered across Aboriginal records!

I personally, from pictures I’ve seen of them - think they look like giant capybaras, which are like giant guinea pigs that you can see in zoos. My editor will be very happy to hear me talk about them as they’re his absolute favourite animal in the world and he’s probably getting teary with me even talking about them. They’re incredibly cute, docile creatures who just seem to be friends with all other animals they encounter, even crocodiles - although they are from South America, not Australia. One thing I do know is that I’m pretty sure Reg, the editor, would sell his soul for a chance to pet a Capybara.

They’re nocturnal creatures, who can swim as fast as fishes, roar as loud as lions and mostly feed on sea creatures such as crayfish and shrimp. Now I know I’ve described them as a combo of sea lions and emus, but apparently they lay eggs like platypuses - or platypi? I don’t know. 

As fun as this all sounds, they do have a pretty fearsome reputation for eating people though, specifically women and children. Although, this seems to be few and far between.

Bunyips are said to hang around in swamps and rivers, but have mostly been attributed to the Murray and Darling Rivers in Victoria - some accounts have mistaken them for water spirits, although they have no magical powers that could even make them look this way. A tribe called the Ngarrindjeri had one of these water spirits called the Mulyawonk, and this would kill anyone who would take too many fish from the River Murray, which they protected or if children got too close to the water. 

From a sighting in 1847 George French Angus described them as ‘much dreaded by the people’ and it’s most unusual form is that of an enormous starfish.

ORIGIN:

Now onto etymology, the word Bunyip is translated as "devil" or "evil spirit". There’s another word in Aborigine word that is sometimes linked to the Bunyip, which is Bunjil, which means "a mythic 'Great Man' who made the mountains, rivers, man, and all the animals” which is a fun fact. The origin of the word Bunyip is linked back to the Wemba-Wemba language, which is spoken by some of the Aboriginal people in Victoria, in South-Eastern Australia. The word didn’t get over to Europe until the mid 1800’s, where it wasn’t really used widely as an adjective.

The word Bahnyip was first used in the Sydney Gazette back in 1812. It was used to describe "a large black animal like a seal, with a terrible voice which creates terror among the locals” I will say that I had to edit this quote, because there was a very insensitive wording for people of colour in there. In the 1850s, the meaning had changed again and Bunyip meant impostor, pretender or in Aussie terms - a humbug. Then Bunyip was used in 1853 to describe someone who was trying to be royalty, which kind of fits into the pretender meaning earlier. 

In the 1990s, Paul Keating, who was the Prime Minister of Australia of the time, called the Liberal Party bunyips - which I can imagine was really funny at the time, yes I did try YouTubing it. And I ended up watching a whole load of videos about the Australian government fighting against British rule in the 80’s and 90’s - which was not only very interesting to me as I thought Australia and Britain had a pretty good relationship, but it was also very entertaining. 

The word Bunyip can still be found around Australia today, especially in place names such as the Bunyip River, and there’s a town called Bunyip too, just outside of Victoria.

The first ever record of an actual creature was the Challicum Bunyip, which was a basic image of a Bunyip carved by Aboriginal people into a river bank in Victoria in 1851. It showed a Bunyip being jabbed by a spear after killing someone. People did try and keep this drawing intact during the 1850’s but unfortunately, it’s now worn away.

There have been a couple of attempts to justify where the Bunyip myth came from and here are my favourites.

In 1933, Charles Fenner, an Australian geologist, explained that he thought it was due to seals occasionally swimming up through the Murray and Darling Rivers, which could be mistaken as Bunyips due to their size and shape. He said that "the smooth fur, prominent 'apricot' eyes, and the bellowing cry are characteristic of the seal", especially elephant seals and leopard seals, which are known to roam about the Aussie waters.

Another cool suggestion is that the Bunyip might be a sighting of extinct Australian animals such as the Diprotodon, Zygomaturus, Nototherium, or Palorchestes, which if you have a look at these - they’re all marsupials, the same kind of animal group as Kangaroos, Koalas and Wallabies that only really thrived historically in Australian. When the Aborigines were shown skeletal remains of these ancient creatures, they actually identified them as Bunyips! How wild is that! 

Or if you go down the weird long neck version of the Bunyip - a couple of accounts in 1845 linked it to the horrifying Cassowaries! If you don’t know what a Cassowary is, it's a dinosaur looking big blue bird from Australasia, which has massive talons and can kill you with a kick. Fun fact is that zookeepers who care for them aren’t allowed in their pens, but can go and chill with lions. Anyway, the rumour has it that Bunyips lay massive blue eggs which are born to have claws, powerful legs, brightly coloured chests, and an emu-like head, which all conveniently line up to the description of a Cassowary. However, the one thing that does let this theory down is that Cassowary’s are only found in Queensland, which is much further north Australia than Victoria.

Lastly, when the Europeans came over to Aus and tried to conquer it, the Bunyip was revered as this cryptid-like being, which has never been found - truly sparking the folklore that we have of it today! Also the Europeans could link similar folklore characters such as the Puca from Celtic Irish mythology, the Hydra from Greek mythology or the Grootslang from African mythology - which we’ll cover in two weeks time! 

Now let’s cover a few sightings and encounters; most of the sightings of Bunyips were between the 1840’s and 50’s in Victoria and New South Wales. The earliest one was in 1818, when some huge bones were found in Lake Bathurst in New South Wales. They thought though that the animal was either a manatee or a hippo skeleton - and then actually the Philosophical Society of Australasia offered to buy the skeleton from the finder, and never said why - how mysterious!

In 1846, "a bunyip or an immense Platibus" (or platypus) was seen "sunning himself on the placid bosom of the Yarra, just opposite the Custom House" in Melbourne. However, a crowd gathered and three men set after it, so it ran off - but quite a funny story of a Bunyip trying to catch some rays being interrupted by nosey humans, gah.

In William Buckley’s 1852 biography, where he spent thirty years living with the Wathaurong people in hiding from the law, he said the following about Bunyips, which he apparently saw either several of, or several times; "in Lake Moodewarri as well as in most of the others inland, is a very extraordinary amphibious animal, which the natives call Bunyip." He said that he could only ever see the back, which was covered in grey feathers, and was the size of a large calf. Apparently he was convinced that the Bunyip had supernatural powers. 

Lastly, there was a newspaper article published called 'The Bunyip', which talked about the adventures of Edwin Stocqueler, as he ventured down the Murray and Goulburn rivers. He drew numerous pictures of what looked like a Bunyip, however, he described it as a large seal with fins on its shoulders, black shiny hair like a platypus, a long swan-like neck and a pelican-like pouch under its chin. He saw these creatures about six times, varying from 5-15ft in length, and actually ended up shooting at one of them! It got away but he did talk to endless newspapers about his discovery. However, a lot of the publications thought it was a water vole or sea serpent, which is just wild. 

He proper stood by that he saw what he saw and prove that the newspapers were making it up, so he went out again to see if he could find it to no avail - however, he did end up making a mile long diorama made of 70 pictures of the Bunyip (pictures being drawings here). Sadly this seems to have disappeared to history and might not even exist anymore, which is terribly sad.

CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE: 

Okay over to cultural significance! 

First to art - there’s a coin-operated bunyip statue that was built in 1972 was built by Dennis Newell which is under the Murray Bridge, it’s literally what nightmares are made of, if you’re in any way scared of water emerging animatronics, do not look this up. 

There’s also the Mulgildie Bunyip Statue, which was built in 2011 in Queensland, Australia to commemorate the Mulgildie Branch of the Queensland Country Women’s Associations’ 80 years of service and Queensland’s 150 years as a State of Australia. It was designed by Brett Benecke and Paul Irvine as apparently there was a famous ‘Bunyip hole’ nearby. 

There’s a lovely statue of Alexander Bunyip that was installed in front of the Gungahlin Library in 2011 by Anne Ros. It’s called A is for Alexander, B is for Bunyip, C is for Canberra. 

The character Alexander Bunyip was created by children's author Michael Salmon, and was famous for his book The Monster That Ate Canberra. Alexander was featured in loads of his books, and even got his own live action tv show called Alexander Bunyip's Billabong. 

Lastly for statues, and my favourite is The Bunyip of Berkeley's Creek, which is the sweetest little statue outside of the Victoria State Library - he’s based on a character from a book of the same name from 1973, written by Jenny Wagner where he goes on an adventure to find other Bunyips.

With other art, the most famous depiction of a Bunyip is the painting from 1890 by J. Macfarlane, which makes them look a bit panther-like. Another weird one is titled Bunyip from 1935, by Gerald Markham Lewis - this is meant to be the long neck version but again, nightmare fuel. Otherwise, check out the independent artists, 

Bit of a wild few, but in 1916, there was even a ragtime musical comedy called Bunyip written by Ella Airlie, which toured around 10 venues around Australia! There was a song written about Bunyips for the show Dot and the Kangaroo, which was a dreamscape kind of song you can find on YouTube! There’s also a newspaper in Gawler, South Australia called the Bunyip, which I think is very cute.

Onto movies - these are mostly Australian films, so might not be as well known to a Western audience may I note. In 1986, the film Frog Dreaming was released, and is about trying to find a Bunyip. There were also three horror movies based around being hunted by the Bunyip - Red Billabong from 2016, The Long Weekend from 1978 and Bunyip from 2015. There’s also a weird fake documentary film called Bunyip the Movie that came out in 2013, but the synopsis was really serious and weird.

Also, the Bunyip awakens when Godzilla does in the new Godzilla: King of the Monsters movie, you can see it on the monitor that he’s arisen under Uluru in the Outback, otherwise known as Ayers Rock.

For TV - Bunyips featured in The Silver Brumby, Bertie the Bunyip, The Secret Saturdays and Bunyip and the Boomeroo.

Video games are an interesting one this week, in 1992 they were in Werewolf: The Apocalypse. In 2002 they were a main creature in Ty the Tasmanian Tiger 1, 2 and 3. They’re also in Scribblenauts and Final Fantasy 10.

Bunyips are featured heavily in Australian kids books - honestly have a look at Alexander Bunyip with The Monster That Ate Canberra, for some Dr Seuss style art, or Jenny Wagner’s The Bunyip of Berkeley’s Creek for something really cute. My big recommendation this week is Matt Clayton’s Australian Mythology: Captivating Dreamtime Stories of Indigenous Australians. It's a really good read if you want to learn some more about Aboriginal culture, and about the heritage of Australia and Australian stories. 

DO I THINK THEY EXISTED? 

Now it’s time for, do I think they existed?

Now, I’m gonna blow your minds again people because I’m going to say yes this week. I know - crazy. The reason I say this is because firstly, it makes sense that these marsupials that look like a strange mixture of platypuses, capybaras, and big cats come from the land of marsupials like Australia. Also, I don’t think it’s that big a jump to think that something like the Bunyip could have existed a few million years ago, I doubt it could have hunted people, but big fish is a big maybe. 

Also, no offence intended to any Aussie listeners as we do have a few on occasion - Australia is a wildlife hellscape, with possibly some of the scariest, and most deadly animals on the planet living not only in the Outback, but also in villages, towns and big cities! My uncle lives in Brisbane and once told me about a Cane toad (which are giant frogs, considered pests and were introduced into Australia, not native), which he impaled with a pitchfork in his garden and left there - two days later, he took the pitchfork out of the frog, and it hopped away like nothing had happened. Also, one of my former colleagues had a spider lay eggs up his butt - so anything can happen in Aus, Bunyips really are the least of their worries, you can literally be attacked by a saltwater crocodile whilst wandering around your local park.

I’ll tell you what I love most about the Bunyip though, and it’s that it’s so respected and upheld in Australian culture, even now. I love that they embrace them as a cultural icon, have so many statues of them and they’re seen on TV and in movies. It’s just so lovely, it really reminds me of how countries like Scotland embrace the unicorn or the Scandi’s the elves. 

OUTRO: 

Ahh, that was a really good one! I’m so glad we’ve been able to get over to Australia and Oceania - thanks for hanging in there Kiwi and Australian listeners, I got to ya eventually! The Bunyip is such a cool little creature and there’s so much content in this one, so I hope you enjoyed it!

Next week we’re staying in the East, but heading on up to the Philippines for the horrifying Penanggalan! Protect your necks next episode when we’ll learn about these blood-sucking monsters.

For now thank you so much for listening, it’s been an absolute pleasure. If you enjoyed this podcast, please give it a rating on the service you’re listening on - I’ve got the twitter for any questions, or suggestions on what monsters to cover next and I’d love to hear from you. The social media handles for Tiktok and Instagram are mythmonsterspodcast, and twitter is mythmonsterspod. But all of our content can be found at mythmonsters.co.uk - the shiny new website!

So come join the fun and share this with your pals, they might love me as much as you do.

But for now, stay spooky and I’ll see you later babes.