Dobhar-Chú

Straddling the fence between folklore and cryptozoology is the King Otter, native to Ireland. The animal has several names, some variations being dobhar-chú, dobarcu, doyarchu, or dhuragoo, and it is beyond the ability of the author to determine how to correctly pronounce any of them.

Most of the information available on the creature seems to be primarily in its status as a cryptid, but this lies beyond the interests of the Society, who are concerned with the animal's more explicitly folkloric and fantastical characteristics.

There is some disagreement as to the actual physical appearance of the animal, for though it is described as having the appearance of a very large otter, the varying accounts suggest that the word is only used because that is, or was, the closest analogue known to the Irish people at the time of the documented encoungers. The King Otter is reportedly doglike in the face but having a slimy body, some stories describe it as being hairless, but others maintain that it has a fine white pelt, with only a few black markings on the ears and tail and a trademark black cross on its back. The white body / black cross is universal across descriptions of the animal's appearance.

Folkloric sources maintain that the animal's fur has protective properties, and can serve as a defense against being shot, keep a boat from sinking, and protect a horse against injury. It is also reported to be the seventh cub of an ordinary otter, and true to its royal title, some legends say that it is often accompanied by an entourage of normal otters.

By far the most thorough documentation of the creature is a story about a woman who went to a nearby lake to wash, or bathe, and when she failed to return her husband went looking for her to find a Dobhar-Chú resting on her mangled corpse. It attacked him, and he killed it, only to have the creature's enraged mate spring from the water and attack him as well.

A second story of a giant otter attack reads as follows:

There is one rarity more, which we may term the Irish crocodile, whereof one, as yet living, about ten years ago (1674) had sad experience. The man was passing the shore just by the waterside, and spyed far off the head of a beast swimming, which he took to be an otter, and took no more notice of it; but the beast it seems lifted up his head, to discern whereabouts the man was; then diving swam under the water till he struck ground: whereupon he run out of the water suddenly and took the man by the elbow whereby the man stooped down, and the beast fastened his teeth in his pate, and dragged him into the water; where the man took hold of a stone by chance in his way, and calling to mind he had a knife in his jacket, took it out and gave a thrust of it to the beast, which thereupon got away from him into the lake. The water about him was all bloody, whether from the beast's blood, or his own, or from both he knows not. It was the pitch of an ordinary greyhound, of a black slimey skin, without hair as he imagines. Old men acquainted with the lake do tell there is such a beast in it, and that a stout fellow with a wolf dog along with him met the like there once; which after a long struggling went away in spite of the man and his dog, and was a long time after found rotten in a rocky cave of the lake when the waters decreased. The like they say is seen in other lakes in Ireland, they call it Doyarchu, i.e. water-dog, or anchu which is the same.

At the time of writing, no public-domain images of the Dobhar-Chú were readily available, though several photographs of what is considered to be the primary representation of the creature, the Kinlough Stone (which is believed to be the woman from the first story's headstone), are available at the various sites listed as sources.

Sources:
McGowan, Joe. The Legend of the Dobharchu. Legends of Sligo County.
Gable, Andrew D. Dobhar-Chú, The Crypto Web, 1996.
Walsh, Dave. Lethal Lutra, Blather.net, 21 Aug 1998.
Dobhar-Chu, King of Otters. UnsolvedMysteries.com, 19 May 2003.

Posted by Rootdown