Gef the talking mongoose
Encyclopedia
Gef referred to as the Talking Mongoose or the Dalby Spook, was a talking
mongoose
reported to inhabit a farmhouse
known as Cashen's Gap near the hamlet of Dalby
on the Isle of Man
. Gef has been variously interpreted as a poltergeist
, a normal animal, a cryptid
or a hoax
.
, growled like a dog
or gurgled like a baby.
The entity soon revealed an ability to speak and introduced itself as Gef, a mongoose. It claimed to have been born in New Delhi
, India, in 1852. According to Voirrey, the only person to see him properly, Gef was the size of a small rat with yellowish fur and a large bushy tail. (The Indian mongoose is in reality much larger than a rat and does not have a bushy tail).
Gef claimed at times to be "an extra extra clever mongoose", an "Earthbound spirit" and "a ghost in the form of a weasel". He once said: "I am a freak. I have hands and I have feet, and if you saw me you'd faint, you'd be petrified, mummified, turned into stone or a pillar of salt!"
He had many characteristics traditionally ascribed to poltergeists, in that he had an uneven temper, threw objects at people, and made exaggerated claims about his powers.
Gef remained friendly towards the Irvings, and joked around with them, though he supposedly went too far the time that he pretended to be poison
ed. Gef also supposedly bothered the Irvings' neighbours, spied on them and reported back to the Irvings. James Irving kept diaries about Gef between 1932 and 1935. These diaries, along with reports about the case, are in Harry Price's archives in the Senate House Library, University of London
.
The story of Gef became popular in the tabloid
press, and many journalists flocked to the Isle to catch a glimpse of the creature.
(known as "Rex"), and his friend, paranormal investigator Harry Price
, went to the Isle of Man to investigate the case and produced the book The Haunting of Cashen's Gap (1936) which was described in its introduction as "an essay in the Veracious but Unaccountable" and was more light-hearted journalism than serious research. In the book they avoided saying that they believed the story but were careful to report it as though with an open mind, even when they recounted how a hair from the supposed mongoose was sent to Julian Huxley
who then sent it to naturalist
F. Martin Duncan
who identified it as a dog hair.
Price asked Reginald Pocock of the Natural History Museum
to evaluate pawprints made by Gef in plasticene together with an impression of his tooth marks. Pocock could not match them to any known animal, though he conceded that one of them might have been "conceivably made by a dog". He did state that none of the markings had been made by a mongoose.
Records of Price's investigation are available in his archives, which are also held by Senate House Library, University of London.
In 1937 Lambert brought an action for slander against Sir Cecil Levita
, after Levita suggested to a friend that Lambert was unfit to be on the board of the British Film Institute
. Levita said that Lambert was "off his head" because he had believed in the talking mongoose and the evil eye
. Lambert was pressured to abandon his action by Sir Stephen Tallents
but persisted with it and won, receiving £7,600 in damages, then an exceptional figure for a slander case, awarded because Lambert's counsel managed to introduce a BBC
memo which showed Lambert's career had been threatened if he persisted with the case. The case became known as "the Mongoose Case".
Price was not the only psychic researcher to have investigated Gef. Another was Nandor Fodor
, Research Officer for the International Institute for Psychical Research. Fodor was influenced by Freudian theory and later became a psychoanalyst. He pioneered the theory that poltergeists are external manifestations of conflicts within the subconscious mind rather than autonomous entities with minds of their own.
Fodor stayed at the Irvings' house for a week without seeing or hearing Gef. However, he interviewed both the family and the locals and left believing that the tales he had heard were true. He said of the Irvings that he found them "sincere, frank and simple" and that "deliberate deception on the part of the whole family cannot be entertained as a solution of the mystery". Fodor did not believe that Gef was a poltergeist as none of the family members were psychic, Gef showed no paranormal powers and he had been seen, photographed and touched and consistently appeared as a small animal.
The Irvings left their home in 1937. They reportedly had to sell the farm at a loss because it had the reputation of being haunted. In 1946, Leslie Graham, the farmer who had bought their farm, claimed that he had shot and killed Gef. The body displayed by Graham was, however, black and white and much larger than the famous mongoose and Voirrey Irving was certain that it was not Gef. Irving died in 2005. In an interview published late in life, she maintained that Gef was not her creation.
The only physical evidence cited in support of Gef's existence would appear to be a series of footprints, none of which were identified as those of a mongoose, while a single photo said to show Gef exists.
Talking animal
A talking animal or speaking animal refers to any form of non-human animal which can produce sounds resembling those of a human language. Many species or groups of animals have developed forms of Animal Communication Systems which to some appear to be a non-verbal language...
mongoose
Mongoose
Mongoose are a family of 33 living species of small carnivorans from southern Eurasia and mainland Africa. Four additional species from Madagascar in the subfamily Galidiinae, which were previously classified in this family, are also referred to as "mongooses" or "mongoose-like"...
reported to inhabit a farmhouse
Farmhouse
Farmhouse is a general term for the main house of a farm. It is a type of building or house which serves a residential purpose in a rural or agricultural setting. Most often, the surrounding environment will be a farm. Many farm houses are shaped like a T...
known as Cashen's Gap near the hamlet of Dalby
Dalby, Isle of Man
thumb|right|250px|The Dalby area is popular for its view of [[Niarbyl, Isle of Man|Niarbyl Bay]]Dalby is a small hamlet on the Isle of Man, located near the western coast. It lies on the A27 Port Erin to Peel road, five miles south of Peel....
on the Isle of Man
Isle of Man
The Isle of Man , otherwise known simply as Mann , is a self-governing British Crown Dependency, located in the Irish Sea between the islands of Great Britain and Ireland, within the British Isles. The head of state is Queen Elizabeth II, who holds the title of Lord of Mann. The Lord of Mann is...
. Gef has been variously interpreted as a poltergeist
Poltergeist
A poltergeist is a paranormal phenomenon which consists of events alluding to the manifestation of an imperceptible entity. Such manifestation typically includes inanimate objects moving or being thrown about, sentient noises and, on some occasions, physical attacks on those witnessing the...
, a normal animal, a cryptid
Cryptid
In cryptozoology and sometimes in cryptobotany, a cryptid is a creature or plant whose existence has been suggested but is unrecognized by scientific consensus and often regarded as highly unlikely. Famous examples include the Yeti in the Himalayas and the Loch Ness Monster in...
or a hoax
Hoax
A hoax is a deliberately fabricated falsehood made to masquerade as truth. It is distinguishable from errors in observation or judgment, or rumors, urban legends, pseudosciences or April Fools' Day events that are passed along in good faith by believers or as jokes.-Definition:The British...
.
History
By their own account on September 1931, the Irving family, consisting of James, Margaret and 13 year old daughter Voirrey, heard persistent scratching and rustling noises behind their farmhouse's wooden wall panels. Initially they thought it was a rat, but then the unseen creature began making different sounds. At times it spat like a ferretFerret
The ferret is a domesticated mammal of the type Mustela putorius furo. Ferrets are sexually dimorphic predators with males being substantially larger than females. They typically have brown, black, white, or mixed fur...
, growled like a dog
Dog
The domestic dog is a domesticated form of the gray wolf, a member of the Canidae family of the order Carnivora. The term is used for both feral and pet varieties. The dog may have been the first animal to be domesticated, and has been the most widely kept working, hunting, and companion animal in...
or gurgled like a baby.
The entity soon revealed an ability to speak and introduced itself as Gef, a mongoose. It claimed to have been born in New Delhi
New Delhi
New Delhi is the capital city of India. It serves as the centre of the Government of India and the Government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi. New Delhi is situated within the metropolis of Delhi. It is one of the nine districts of Delhi Union Territory. The total area of the city is...
, India, in 1852. According to Voirrey, the only person to see him properly, Gef was the size of a small rat with yellowish fur and a large bushy tail. (The Indian mongoose is in reality much larger than a rat and does not have a bushy tail).
Gef claimed at times to be "an extra extra clever mongoose", an "Earthbound spirit" and "a ghost in the form of a weasel". He once said: "I am a freak. I have hands and I have feet, and if you saw me you'd faint, you'd be petrified, mummified, turned into stone or a pillar of salt!"
He had many characteristics traditionally ascribed to poltergeists, in that he had an uneven temper, threw objects at people, and made exaggerated claims about his powers.
Gef remained friendly towards the Irvings, and joked around with them, though he supposedly went too far the time that he pretended to be poison
Poison
In the context of biology, poisons are substances that can cause disturbances to organisms, usually by chemical reaction or other activity on the molecular scale, when a sufficient quantity is absorbed by an organism....
ed. Gef also supposedly bothered the Irvings' neighbours, spied on them and reported back to the Irvings. James Irving kept diaries about Gef between 1932 and 1935. These diaries, along with reports about the case, are in Harry Price's archives in the Senate House Library, University of London
University of London
-20th century:Shortly after 6 Burlington Gardens was vacated, the University went through a period of rapid expansion. Bedford College, Royal Holloway and the London School of Economics all joined in 1900, Regent's Park College, which had affiliated in 1841 became an official divinity school of the...
.
The story of Gef became popular in the tabloid
Tabloid journalism
Tabloid journalism tends to emphasize topics such as sensational crime stories, astrology, gossip columns about the personal lives of celebrities and sports stars, and junk food news...
press, and many journalists flocked to the Isle to catch a glimpse of the creature.
Price and Lambert
In July 1935 the editor of The Listener, Richard S. LambertRichard S. Lambert
Richard Stanton Lambert was a biographer, popular historian and broadcaster. He was also the founding editor of The Listener and an employee of the BBC and the CBC. His books mainly concern history and biography but he also wrote about crime, travel, art, radio, film and propaganda...
(known as "Rex"), and his friend, paranormal investigator Harry Price
Harry Price
Harry Price was a British psychic researcher and author.-Early life:Although Price claimed his birth was in Shropshire, he was actually born in London in Red Lion Square on the site of the South Place Ethical Society's Conway Hall. He was educated in New Cross, first at Waller Road Infants School...
, went to the Isle of Man to investigate the case and produced the book The Haunting of Cashen's Gap (1936) which was described in its introduction as "an essay in the Veracious but Unaccountable" and was more light-hearted journalism than serious research. In the book they avoided saying that they believed the story but were careful to report it as though with an open mind, even when they recounted how a hair from the supposed mongoose was sent to Julian Huxley
Julian Huxley
Sir Julian Sorell Huxley FRS was an English evolutionary biologist, humanist and internationalist. He was a proponent of natural selection, and a leading figure in the mid-twentieth century evolutionary synthesis...
who then sent it to naturalist
Naturalist
Naturalist may refer to:* Practitioner of natural history* Conservationist* Advocate of naturalism * Naturalist , autobiography-See also:* The American Naturalist, periodical* Naturalism...
F. Martin Duncan
Charles Urban Trading Company
The Charles Urban Trading Company was formed in 1903 by the Anglo-American film producer Charles Urban. It specialised in travel, educational and scientific film. It made its name with coverage of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5 from Joseph Rosenthal and George Rogers...
who identified it as a dog hair.
Price asked Reginald Pocock of the Natural History Museum
Natural History Museum
The Natural History Museum is one of three large museums on Exhibition Road, South Kensington, London, England . Its main frontage is on Cromwell Road...
to evaluate pawprints made by Gef in plasticene together with an impression of his tooth marks. Pocock could not match them to any known animal, though he conceded that one of them might have been "conceivably made by a dog". He did state that none of the markings had been made by a mongoose.
Records of Price's investigation are available in his archives, which are also held by Senate House Library, University of London.
In 1937 Lambert brought an action for slander against Sir Cecil Levita
Cecil Levita
Lieutenant Colonel Sir Cecil Bingham Levita, KCVO, CBE was a British soldier and public service worker who eventually rose to be chairman of the London County Council in 1928.-British Army:...
, after Levita suggested to a friend that Lambert was unfit to be on the board of the British Film Institute
British Film Institute
The British Film Institute is a charitable organisation established by Royal Charter to:-Cinemas:The BFI runs the BFI Southbank and IMAX theatre, both located on the south bank of the River Thames in London...
. Levita said that Lambert was "off his head" because he had believed in the talking mongoose and the evil eye
Evil eye
The evil eye is a look that is believed by many cultures to be able to cause injury or bad luck for the person at whom it is directed for reasons of envy or dislike...
. Lambert was pressured to abandon his action by Sir Stephen Tallents
Stephen Tallents
Sir Stephen George Tallents was a British civil servant and public relations expert.Educated at Harrow and Balliol, he served as an officer in the Irish Guards in World War I until severely wounded at Festubert. He then worked at the Ministry of Munitions, transferring in 1916 to the Ministry of...
but persisted with it and won, receiving £7,600 in damages, then an exceptional figure for a slander case, awarded because Lambert's counsel managed to introduce a BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
memo which showed Lambert's career had been threatened if he persisted with the case. The case became known as "the Mongoose Case".
Price was not the only psychic researcher to have investigated Gef. Another was Nandor Fodor
Nandor Fodor
Nandor Fodor was a British and American parapsychologist, psychologist, author and journalist of Hungarian birth, one of the leading authorities on poltergeists, haunting and all kinds of paranormal phenomena usually associated with mediumship...
, Research Officer for the International Institute for Psychical Research. Fodor was influenced by Freudian theory and later became a psychoanalyst. He pioneered the theory that poltergeists are external manifestations of conflicts within the subconscious mind rather than autonomous entities with minds of their own.
Fodor stayed at the Irvings' house for a week without seeing or hearing Gef. However, he interviewed both the family and the locals and left believing that the tales he had heard were true. He said of the Irvings that he found them "sincere, frank and simple" and that "deliberate deception on the part of the whole family cannot be entertained as a solution of the mystery". Fodor did not believe that Gef was a poltergeist as none of the family members were psychic, Gef showed no paranormal powers and he had been seen, photographed and touched and consistently appeared as a small animal.
The Irvings left their home in 1937. They reportedly had to sell the farm at a loss because it had the reputation of being haunted. In 1946, Leslie Graham, the farmer who had bought their farm, claimed that he had shot and killed Gef. The body displayed by Graham was, however, black and white and much larger than the famous mongoose and Voirrey Irving was certain that it was not Gef. Irving died in 2005. In an interview published late in life, she maintained that Gef was not her creation.
Theories and scepticism
The story was widespread throughout Britain in the early 1930s due to extensive press coverage, but apparently no one other than the Irvings ever claimed to have heard Gef speak, or even saw him, though some neighbours claimed to have heard "strange noises" outside their homes.The only physical evidence cited in support of Gef's existence would appear to be a series of footprints, none of which were identified as those of a mongoose, while a single photo said to show Gef exists.
Media
- Lemon Demon, Neil CicieregaNeil CicieregaNeil Stephen Cicierega , is an American comedian, filmmaker and musician. He is the creator of a genre of Flash animation known as "Animutation". He has also released several albums as a musician under the stage name "Lemon Demon"....
's music group, wrote a song about Gef titled 'Eighth Wonder'. - Harry Price: The Psychic Detective, by Richard Morris, published by Sutton 2006
- Gef is a recurring character in the web comic 'Semi-Charmed'
- The Jarvey, a magical talking ferret species from the Harry PotterHarry PotterHarry Potter is a series of seven fantasy novels written by the British author J. K. Rowling. The books chronicle the adventures of the adolescent wizard Harry Potter and his best friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, all of whom are students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry...
series, may have been based on Gef.