Hidebehind? Fearsome Critters? What?
Being a lumberjack/logger can be a lonely job. Their logging camps lie right in the middle of the wilderness, isolated miles away from any kind of hospital should things go wrong—and oftentimes, they do go very wrong. Logging is one of the most dangerous jobs in the country, oftentimes even more so than fishing. Falling trees and limbs, machinery mishaps and malfunctions, dangerous terrain, inclement weather, and even wildlife are significant threats to the lives of loggers. With the sheer number of ways to be injured or die on the job, paired with the loneliness (apart from working with their fellow loggers), perhaps it makes sense that stories of fantastical creatures began popping up in camp conversations.
These "fearsome critters", as they came to be known in the twentieth century, were part of an oral tradition among loggers told in camp to new arrivals and other groups of loggers passing through. While a lot of the stories and creatures therein come from around the Great Lakes area in the United States, tales of fearsome creatures found themselves spreading all across the country. States as far as Texas are home to tall tales involving these creatures! There's an absolutely huge number of fearsome critters in the "canon" of the tradition due to how widespread stories about them were, and the critters themselves run the gamut of what they are and how dangerous they can be; from the pathetic squonk, a miserable little thing so ugly that it constantly cries, to the Jersey Devil, itself a famous monstrous and deadly cryptid who is supposedly the child of a witch and the Devil.
Among the massive list of little weirdos talked about in logging camps, the hidebehind stood out to me the most; its name alone interested me, and the more I looked into this fearsome critter the more I knew I had to write about it. I'm really happy to bring the "main" content that I'd originally planned this blog for, so let's get into it!
What does it look like?
A lot of descriptions of the hidebehind like to tell us how difficult it is to satisfactorily describe it, a cliche in talking about monsters that—trust me—gets old really quickly. Some of the most prominent descriptions describe it as a slender creature on hind legs completely covered in long black hair. It usually is said to be impossible to tell whether it is "coming or going", and many people doubt whether the thing even truly has a face, as no one has ever been able to confirm and lived to tell the tale. Its limbs are incredibly powerful and tipped with long, sharp claws, similar to a bear's. Really the most interesting thing going for the hidebehind visually is that it has an upwards-curled tail, almost like some dog tails. This little detail doesn't just give a little bit of personality to the design of the fearsome critter that it desperately needed; it also gives a more tangible and relatable piece of the creature to help visualize this otherwise nondescript being.
What does it do?
With a name like "hidebehind", you can probably imagine what this funky furry friend does; it hides! What a joyous and goofy little thing! Slender and supposedly supernatural enough to hide behind virtually any tree, the hidebehind will follow its target and, using those powerful limbs it has, can move fast enough to hide from its target no matter how fast one turns around. This stalker-ish game will continue until the hidebehind finally decides to spring into action, belting out a "demoniacal" laugh before disemboweling its victim and feasting on their entrails. I'd never even heard of the word "demoniacal" before I researched this creature; coming from the Middle English word demoniak, it means "relating to or characteristic of a demon or evil spirit", I kind of love it and you're definitely going to see me use it on this blog now that I know it exists.
So yeah, the hidebehind certainly falls under the dangerous category of fearsome critters. Even with it being capable of waiting for 7 years between meals, it remains a horrific danger to not just loggers but everyone who finds themselves alone in the woods with the sneaking suspicion that they're being followed. Fret not, though! You can, and I'm at least 50% confident about this, avoid being brutally killed by this creature by getting absolutely drunk off your ass. Apparently, the hidebehind is revolted by alcohol and even the smell of beer heavy on a human's breath will repel it. Again, though, I'm only 50% sure you'll be safe—the hidebehind might gut you and only back off after smelling alcohol in your intestines. So, you know. Maybe just don't go camping.
Why does it scare us?
There's something about the woods that inherently terrifies us. It's thick, dark, hostile, and you're all alone out there... except for when you're not. I feel like I'm always hearing stories of people going missing only to either stumble out of the woods days/weeks later with the help of a rescue team, their remains being found, or perhaps scariest of all: never being heard from again. Witches, murderers, cults, monsters, hungry animals, and even the trees themselves are lying in wait. I think that it's the fear of the unknown, the fact that whatever is rustling the leaves behind that thicket over there is so obscured that our minds make up something infinitely more horrific than anything that really exists. The hidebehind with its long, dark fur obscuring its (debatably existent) face and ability to hide behind trees no matter how thin plays on this fear perfectly; what your mind had made up is real, hungry, and you won't see or hear it until it's far too late.
In that sense, it's not hard to figure out why the hidebehind was such a prominent monster in the minds of loggers. As I said in the beginning, it's a dangerous job. One wrong move while operating machinery can result in injury or death, and you are miles away from any kind of medical help. Trees themselves are possibly the biggest threat to a logger, so when you take the caution involved in working with them and combine it with that fear of the unknown, the hidebehind starts to become a symbol of the dangers faced in the job. I don't want to imagine what it's like to see a coworker maimed by machinery or struck by a falling tree, but it can't be too dissimilar to finding the aftermath of a hidebehind attack.
The hidebehind even invokes Scopophobia, the morbid fear of being stared at. We all know that sensation we get when we're feeling stared at by someone or something. To feel like you're being stared at, watched, in the middle of the woods with no one around that you can see is definitely the last sensation I think most of us want to experience. The horror short I posted above by Alter captures this feeling very well, and actually adheres to the general lore surrounding the hidebehind, so I wanted to share it. I was pleasantly surprised!
The hidebehind is an insidious critter. Its prowess in stealth combined with its sheer maliciousness stood out to me as I went through the fearsome critters bestiary; it's actually one of the most frightening among them. On top of my own interest, a little bit of research showed me that it's having a bit of a pop culture surge, even being in a short of the recent cartoon, Gravity Falls! I'm glad to see this vicious fella haunting the public's minds once again, waiting in the depths of our local woods, waiting for an unfortunate meal to get themselves lost in its home.
Sources
Brown, Charles E. "Paul Bunyan natural history: describing the wild animals, birds, reptiles and fish of the big woods about Paul Bunyan's old time logging camps." (Madison, Wis.: C.E. Brown, 1935); online facsimile at http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/turningpoints/search.asp?id=1126
BURNSIDE, JOHN. “L’INFINITO.” The Music of Time: Poetry in the Twentieth Century, Princeton University Press, 2020, pp. 53–68. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvp2n52z.7. Accessed 12 July 2023.
Abookofcreatures. (2017, February 6). Hidebehind. A Book of Creatures. https://abookofcreatures.com/2017/02/06/hidebehind/
Borges, J. L., Guerrero, M., Hurley, A., & Sís, P. (2006). Fauna of the United States. In The book of imaginary beings (pp. 106–106). essay, Penguin Books.
Brown, C. E. (1935). Hidebehind. In Paul Bunyan natural history, describing the wild animals, birds, reptiles and fish of the big woods about Paul Bunyan’s old time logging camps. story.
Fearsome critters of texas tall tales. Fearsome Critters of Texas Lore. (n.d.). http://dlib.openlib.org/home/dnmroman/index.html
Kearney, L. S. (1928). The Hide Behind. In The hodag: And other tales of the logging camps (pp. 51–57). essay, Democrat Printing Company.
Tryon, H. H. (1939). The Hidebehind. In Fearsome critters (pp. 21–21). essay, The Idlewild Press.
“Logging Workers : Occupational Outlook Handbook.” U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 8 Sept. 2022, www.bls.gov/ooh/farming-fishing-and-forestry/logging-workers.htm#tab-3.
“Logging.” DEOHS, deohs.washington.edu/pnash/logging#:~:text=Logging%20involves%20exposures%20to%20a,noise%2C%20and%3B%20environmental%20factors. Accessed 20 July 2023.
Myers, John R., and David E. Fosbroke. “Logging Fatalities in the United States by Region, Cause of Death, and Other Factors — 1980 through 1988.” Journal of Safety Research, vol. 25, no. 2, 1994, pp. 97–105, https://doi.org/10.1016/0022-4375(94)90021-3.
Sygnatur, Eric F. “Logging Is Perilous Work.” Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1998.
Stanborough, R. J. (2020, April 16). Scopophobia: The fear of being stared at. Healthline. https://www.healthline.com/health/scopophobia#eye-contact
"Horror Short Film “The Hidebehind” | ALTER." Youtube, uploaded by ALTER, 30 Dec. 2019, www.youtube.com/watch?v=tP7imEcclVk.
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