The Minotaur, of course, is a cow-human hybrid, which nearly everyone dismisses as a myth. But there are also many reports alleging that actual hybrids of this sort have been birthed, both by cows and by women. Beyond the recent alleged birth of three separate cow-human hybrids in Asia, and the widespread belief in Japan that such creatures, known in Japanese as “kudans,” actually exist, there are dozens of reports about cow-human hybrids being birthed both in Europe and here in America, many of which are quoted on this webpage. Some of these cases seem fairly well attested, in particular the following, which appeared in a medical journal.
Wagendrüssel. In 1827, an article describing a cow-human hybrid, born alive, appeared in the May-June issue of Magazin der ausländischen Literatur der gesammten Heilkunde (Schreter 1827, pp. 487-489). The Magazin, published by two Hamburg physicians, Nikolaus Heinrich Julius (1783-1862) and Georg Hartog Gerson (1788-1844), was a German medical periodical anthologizing foreign literature of interest to doctors. The following is the complete article, quoted in translation, originally written in German by Dr. David Schreter, an Austro-Hungarian general practitioner who claimed to have examined the specimen himself. The translated title of the article is “A Description of a Monstrous Creature Birthed by a Cow in the Town of Wagendrüssel in the Hungarian County of Zipser.”
On the 14th of March, 1825, Benjamin Münich, a resident of the mountain town of Wagendrüssel† bought — at least so he claims — a pregnant cow from a certain Johann Krall of Stellbach. On the 25th of the following month, in the afternoon, the beast was having difficulty giving birth and both the owner and his wife were assisting. They were appalled when, instead of a normal calf, they were confronted with a monstrous birth, which they at once put to death. This strange animal was stuffed by a local businessman, and it was also painted by Johann Müller, an artist from the nearby town of Leutschau.‡ Eight or ten days passed before the authorities there in Zipser launched a legal inquiry into the matter.
This deformed creature has a crown-rump length of three feet [~90cm] and, when placed upon its feet, is about two feet tall. The head is large, and looks quite similar to a human being’s. From the superior portion of the frontal bone across the face to the chin, it measures ten inches [~25cm, that is, about the same measurement as in an adult human being]. The frontal and parietal bones define a fontanelle like that in the skull of an ordinary human infant. The sagittal suture is one inch long. On its head, from the fontanelle back, it has one-inch-long golden brown hair. On both sides the ears are rather small and human-like, but their lobes end in three-inch-long calf ears covered with sparse hair at their tips. The face is smooth and hairless, the eyes a beautiful blue, and the eyebrows a dark brown. The tip of the nose is flattened, with the nostrils distanced from each other by a septum thicker than that seen in human beings. The upper jaw, which lacks teeth [cows lack upper incisors], bears an upper lip like a human’s; the lower has ten thin, sharp teeth, and is more similar to a calf’s. On the chest are two rounded breasts with well-formed, prominent areolae 2.5 inches in circumference. These mammae are elevated somewhat (about half an inch) above the surrounding surface, as in a young woman. The torso and buttocks are like those of a human being, but the body is longer in proportion to the extremities. There is a naked eight-inch tail, about half an inch in diameter. The genitalia are female. Between the hind legs is an udder, and some of the umbilical cord remains attached. The upper portion of each of the four extremities is naked, as is the general surface of the torso, but the lower portions are covered with glossy brown hair. Each leg ends in a cloven hoof like that of a cow.
The fact that the birth of this creature actually took place is witnessed by the entire municipal authority of Wagendrüssel and nearly all of the inhabitants of the town, as well as by the members of the committee set up by the County of Zipser to investigate the matter.
David Schreter, M.D., general practitioner at Leutschau.
So this cow-human hybrid described by Schreter differs from the Minotaur of Greek myth, in having a human head and body, but the tail and legs of a cow. Most accounts of the Cretan Minotaur give him the head of a bull. With its human head and four hoofed feet, the hybrid just described is like the more ancient bull-man deities of Mesopotamian culture.
Sumerian representation of a man embracing two cow-human hybrids. Bull-men were protective spirits who warded off chaos (image on the soundboard of the Great Lyre from the Royal Cemetery of Ur, now in the Penn Museum; Early Dynastic III Period, 2550-2450 B.C.).
Sumerian bull-man (2500 B.C.).
Bull-men, cylinder seal impression (Neo-Assyrian, ca. mid-8th–7th century B.C., Northern Mesopotamia, Metropolitan Museum of Art).
Bull-man (Tel Brak, Akkadian Period, ca. 2350–2150 B.C.).
Mesopotamian lamassu Oriental Institute, Chicago.
In the 1930s Oriental Institute archaeologists excavated a monumental citadel gate—flanked by human-headed bulls—at the Assyrian capital of Dur-Sharrukin (modern Khorsabad) .
John Redman Coxe
Unadilla. But Schreter’s is not the only report published in a medical journal. Twenty years earlier, an article (Yates 1808, pp. 254-256) about a cow-human hybrid appeared in the journal Philadelphia Medical Museum, edited by the prominent Philadelphia physician John Redman Coxe (1773-1864), who was also a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School. The author of the report was Dr. Christopher C. Yates (1779-1848), a physician practicing in Albany, New York. Yates report was communicated to Coxe, by another University of Pennsylvania professor, James Woodhouse (1770-1809). Yates' report reads,
Account of a Monster by Dr. Yates, communicated in a Letter to
Professor Woodhouse.
Albany, June 15, 1807.
Dear Sir,
I HAVE it in my power to communicate something new and extraordinary to you.
A very extraordinary animal was produced by a three year old heifer, near the Unadilla river, in the western district of this state. On the 26, of last April, in the afternoon, the heifer exhibited symptoms of great distress, which increased, and urged an almost constant bellowing; this, together, with the great agony she appeared to be in from her conduct, induced the owner to shut her up in the stable under the impression that “she was getting mad.” Her bellowing continued till near day break; the owner supposing her dead, got out of bed and went with a light to the stable, when to his surprise he found her licking what he supposed was her calf; on a nearer approach he discovered its form different from what he expected, and attempted to take it up by the legs, when the heifer darted at him with violence, struck her hoof against the monster’s head and broke it; he however took it home, but is not positive whether it shewed signs of life, he thinks it did ; he says he did not suspect the heifer to be with calf.
The owner of the heifer sold it to two countrymen, who brought it to this city and immediately procured a five gallon jar, put it in and filled it with spirits. I prevailed on the man to take it out and permit me to examine it for a few moments; he gratified me, and I shall endeavour to give you an outline of this monster.
From the forehead over to the back of the neck, it very much resembles a child; indeed the head from a back view would be mistaken for that of a child. The nose resembles about as much that of a negro as of a calf, I think rather more.
The eyes (or rather sockets without eye-balls†) are situated about three inches from each side of the upper part of the nose, in the side of the head, on a line with the os nasi.
It has no distinct upper jaw; a few loose bones are felt immediately on the introduction of the finger into the mouth, under the nostrils.
The under jaw extends about one inch beyond a line with the tip of the nose, and measures in all about two and a-half or three inches, and is shaped like a harpoon (thus >). It has no tongue. The mouth inside apparently rough, but feels smooth. Ears much like those of a calf, though small in proportion and placed unnaturally back, near, or on the neck; they are about two inches long, and one and a half broad.
The arms or fore legs resemble the human; there is one joint more; it measures from the shoulder to the elbow about four inches; from the elbow to the next joint (which is half way between the elbow and hoofs) three inches; from thence three inches to the wrist ; in this division are two bones as in the human frame; from here the hoofs or webbed fingers begin to extend themselves, dividing into five parts, distinguishing thumb and fingers, having at the extremity small marks or spots where the nails should have been, the substance of the hand or hoof the same as of the calf. From below the under jaw or chin down to the pubes, human; breast broad, abdomen full.
Immediately below the pubes, are two appendages like the teats of a cow, (and about as far apart from each other) or, from their flaccidity I might more properly compare each to a separate infant scrotum; the one is as large again as the other.
No organs of generation‡—has an anus situated properly ; and a small tail about three or four inches above the anus up the back, about the thickness of a crow’s quill, and an inch and a-half or two inches long.
From the haunches down to the knees apparently human, no knee pan, in other respects, down to the hoofs or toes, similar to the arms and hands.
Its form evinces that its natural posture in walking would have been erect!§ The skin appears exactly like the human, and the colour a darkish yellow. No hairs, excepting a little on the arms and legs, of a reddish cast and hardly perceptible. At the first glance every one is impressed with its resemblance to a negro child, and many suppose it the issue of a man with the heifer. I hope it will go to your city.
Yours &c,
CHRIS. C. YATES.
Dr. John Redman Coxe [Editor of the journal]
† The incidence of anophthalmia and cyclopia seem to be greatly elevated in distant hybrids.
‡ The development of the sexual organs is often, but not always disrupted in hybrids.
§ This specimen, with its cowlike face and allegedly erect posture, seems to fit better with the various cases in which such hybrids have reportedly been birthed by women. So it may be that the mother is here incorrectly reported as a cow.
These are page images of Yates (1808, pp. 254-256), an eyewitness account of an ostensible cow-human hybrid, which appeared in the journal Philadelphia Medical Museum:
The following, published in the journal Medical Brief (1893, vol. 21, p. 1455, col. b), is a reply by physician, Dr. J. B. Ramsey, to a question asked by another physician in a previous issue of the Brief, who wished to know whether there were any well-authenticated cases of a human being impregnating an animal or vice versa.
In reply to Dr. S. J. Smith’s inquiry in the June Brief, page 704, I desire to say that I have full notes of a most remarkable hybrid I dissected. The whole body and limbs were covered with hair, cow hair; round smooth head; tongue of man and some teeth; round neck; no dewlap; genitals resembling those of woman; no legs below knees.* If desired I can give full notes and circumstances.
* The incidence of stump limbs is elevated in distant hybrids.
Argentina, September 2019:
Cow-human hybrids: News reports
There have not only been medical reports about ostensible cow-human hybrids, such as those just quoted, but innumerable news reports as well, many of which are quoted below.
Würzburg, Germany. The next case, which was supposedly witnessed by members of the faculty of the medical faculty of the School of Medicine of the University of Würzburg, appeared in the May 13, 1858, issue of Courrier Franco-italien, a newspaper published in Paris:
From Munich: I have just received from Würzburg a curious piece of information that I thought I should communicate. An extraordinary freak has been presented to the faculty of medicine there: a peasant from the countryside has donated a calf born alive with a human head to the school’s anatomical collection. The scholars of our city are holding a large meeting to discuss this freak and are expected to offer their explanation soon. [Translated by E. M. McCarthy. Original French.]
Würzburg is in northwestern Bavaria. Although the material quoted above comes from a Paris newspaper, the fact that this event occurred is also attested by various Bavarian newspapers (for example, here and here).
Auburn, Maine. In a story in the Lewiston Evening Journal (May 12, 1915, p. 12), an account is given of various freak animals preserved by a local taxidermist, E. J. Boucher of Auburn, Maine. Six different monstrous calves are described, and “One of the six was a calf with a human head. The eyes were close together, eyebrows were present, the nose was ape-like and the jaw perfectly human.”
Lunenburg, Vermont. Another, relatively recent case is reported in the St. Johnsbury Caledonian (Sep. 3, 1913), a newspaper published in St. Johnsbury, Vermont:
Calf with Human Head
Frank T. Harris of Lunenburg† has in his possession the body of a calf that has a perfect human face, the only thing of its kind ever known to scientists. He will exhibit this freak at the Caledonia County Fair. The calf is Holstein and has a black and white body, but the head and face are in human form, except the ears. The calf weighed about 30 pounds and had no hair, except a slight beard on the face. It is a wonder that everyone will want to see.
An affidavit signed by many well-known people of Lunenburg, states they saw the freak just after it was born and that it is unquestionably genuine. It has been called to the attention of the medical authorities of Harvard and they state that such a thing was never known before and will revolutionize medicine. The animal has no marks of sex‡ and is one of the wonders of the 20th century.
† Lunenburg, Vermont is about ten miles from St. Johnsbury.
‡ Hybrids, especially hybrids from distant crosses, are often of indeterminate sex.
Milton, Oregon. A second report that same year, originally published in the Milton, Oregon, Eagle, appeared in the Nyssa, Oregon, Gate City Journal (Oct. 2, 1913, p. 5):
Half Human, Half Calf
A freak of nature was prematurely born near here last Friday morning. The monstrosity was a cross between a baby and a calf. Its mother was a cow and Dr. C. W. Thomas, who has had the specimen put in a chemical preservative, says its father was without doubt a human. The creature died soon after birth. In many respects it resembled a baby although it weighed about 60 pounds. Its lower limbs and shoulders, with the head, were much like a human, while its feet resembled those of a calf. The head was as round as a marble and its mouth was small. It had small ears, also.—Milton Eagle§
Buckeye, Arizona. The Phoenix, Arizona, Republican (Mar. 28, 1913, p. 6) reported a third case that year:
PECULIAR FREAK COMES FROM BUCKEYE
Bovine Monstrosity Found By Prominent Resident On His Ranch Is Now In Phoenix.
A bovine freak of nature with distinct human characteristics was brought into Phoenix yesterday by J. H. Harbinson and shown to the editorial staff of this paper.
The freak of nature was born near the town of Buckeye thirty miles from Phoenix on the ranch belonging to John Dykes and J. D. Harbinson and died at birth. It has since been mounted by a local taxidermist, for the purpose of being placed on exhibition.
When “Scoop,” the cub reporter, first saw this animal he thought that it was a specimen of the Hodag but after examination it was seen that while the freak resembled that peculiar animal there were too many human resemblances to allow for. One half of the head of the freak has a strong resemblance to that of a demented human and the owner avers that two complete brains were found in the skull. There was found on the right side after dissection, bones that were exactly the same in looks and articulations as that of a mammal of the human family, two complete sets of intestines, one set suitable for cud chewing animals and the other set were said to be identical with those found in humans, were also found in the abdomen, separated by a thin membrane, the legs are furnished with claws attached to five excresences and the tail is very rudimentary and covered with a peculiar textured hair.
The color of the animal is that of a red-headed human and is entirely unlike that of its mother which is a two year old heifer of the Holstein breed.
Note that this last case, the creature born at Buckeye, may have been a hybrid conjoined twin, an exceedingly rare phenomenon.
Oklahoma. An animal somewhat similar to the one pictured in the animated gif above, was living in a sanctuary in Oklahoma, in 2008. A photograph can be viewed here. Internet hype claims it was produced by aliens.
Malang, Dutch East Indies. The next report is from the Dutch-language newspaper De Indische Courant (Mar. 31, 1933, p. 2, col. 5), published in the city of Malang on the island of Java (given here in English translation):
Freak of Nature
It was reported to us that yesterday afternoon, when a cow† was slaughtered in the municipal slaughterhouse, a calf was found with a human head. It had a hare lip and the eyes were far apart.
As one might imagine, this case has created a lot of excitement among the natives!
† In general, Javan farmers do not keep European domestic cattle (Bos taurus), so the mother cow in this case would likely have been a banteng (Bos javanicus).
Ashland, Kentucky. And a report about a similar case, originally published in the Cincinnati, Ohio, Times-Star, appeared in the Maysville, Kentucky, Daily Public Ledger (Jul. 11, 1912, p. 4, col. 3):
CALF’S BODY, HUMAN FACE
Freak of Nature is Brought From Ashland to Cincinnati
What is considered one of the greatest freaks of nature ever seen in Cincinnati was brought from Ashland Ky., Wednesday, by Dr. Edward Fanning. The freak has the body of a calf but the face of a human being.
The creature was born several days ago and lived but a few hours. “This is one of the rarest specimens ever born,” said Dr. Fanning, “and it will be presented to some museum as a curiosity.”
The body of the monstrosity was taken to Max Wocher’s Son’s establishment on West Sixth Avenue, where it was prepared for preservation.
Goncelin, France. Another twentieth-century report describing a cow-human hybrid appeared in the March 9, 1909, issue (p. 2, col. 1) of the French newspaper L’Ouest-Éclair:
A Freak Calf
GRENOBLE, March 8. — A very odd freak has just been born at Goncelin [a commune in the Isère department in southeastern France about 32 kilometers northeast of Grenoble].
A cow belonging to M. Henri Tissot, a merchant, just gave birth to a monstrous animal with the body of an ordinary calf, but with a head that greatly resembles that of a human being, except that it is about one-third larger than that of a human adult.
M. Ruillier, a veterinarian at Pontcharra, when contacted, said he had never before seen anything like it and, given that the monster had been born dead, that he had asked M. Tissot, who agreed, to allow him to dissect the animal’s head in order to report on the case to the [French] national school [of veterinary medicine] at Lyon.
The head of this monster weighed 5 kilograms [about 11 pounds]. [Translated by E. M. McCarthy. Original French.]
Tepljuh, Croatia. Another case was reported that same year from a village in what is now Croatia. An account of the event appeared in the June 10, 1909, issue of the Austro-Hungarian newspaper Neue Schlesische Zeitung:
A remarkable monstrosity. In the village of Tepljuh, in the municipality of Drnis, not far from Split the cow of a brewer named Colovic has birthed a monstrous calf. The calf, born dead but fully developed, had the head and torso of a human being. Both forefeet, however, were exactly like a pig’s [having four digits?]. The monster had only the hind feet and tail of a calf. As the news of the birth spread through the village and several farmers had seen the monster, they demanded that the cow be slaughtered, because these superstitious peasants took it for a being that would bring hail and flood down upon the village. When that same day the news reached the coal mines at Siverić [a village adjacent to Tepljuh], no one could believe it. So out of curiosity a number of men went to the neighboring village to see the monster for themselves. Among these was Postmaster Colic, who confirmed the news and who is regarded as a reliable witness. And yet, this story still seems a bit fantastic. [Translated by E. M. McCarthy. Original German.]
Artificial cow-human hybrids. This article cites reports of cow-human hybrids of natural, that is, sexual, origin. But in recent years, scientists have also artificially produced cow-human hybrids by mixing human and cow DNA. For example, technicians have succeeded in inserting human chromosomes into the cow genome, and the resulting animals are viable. But cow-human hybrids of this sort, for example those used in the production of vaccines, are usually taken only to the embryonic stage. More information >>
In addition, Terada et al (2004) produced early-stage cow-human hybrids by microinjecting human spermatozoa into cattle eggs (83% of the injected eggs became activated). The genomes produced by this method are the same as those that would be produced by sexual hybridization.
Orange, Texas. A brief mention of another supposed cow-human hybrid appeared in the September 3, 1910, issue of the Palestine Daily Herald, published in Palestine, Texas (source). It simply states that “Sheriff Davis of Orange [Texas] has in his possession a calf with a human head.” A somewhat longer notice, which originally appeared in the Orange, Texas, Leader, was published in the Brownsville, Texas, Herald (Oct 17, 1910, p. 2):
Orange, Tex., Oct. 9.—Among the freaks of nature to be exhibited here during the fair next week will be a calf with a human head. The calf is owned by E. M. Davis, deputy sheriff and jailer, and was born only a few days ago. It has the human head almost perfect, with the natural expression. It is pronounced a wonder by those who have seen it.
Sedalia, Missouri. The next case is especially remarkable in that it involves a fully viable specimen that supposedly survived for more than a year. The report appeared in the Butler, Missouri, Weekly Times (Jan. 9, 1908, p. 10, col. 2):
Calf with Human Head
John Griessen, a farmer living near Sedalia, is the owner of a young calf whose head greatly resembles that of a human. The calf was born August 28, 1906, and was Lilliputian in size, its head and face bearing likeness to a human. Its mother was a half blood Jersey and his sire a registered shorthorn. When strong enough to stand on its feet the calf only weighed 9 pounds and 10 oz. [4.36 kg (The average birth weight of calves is 63.6 pounds (~29 kg)] It is now over a year old, healthy and active, but has never grown any taller and will never be any larger than an Angora goat. Its little body is covered with a fine silky hair similar to that of a Persian goat, and its legs are as short as a shoat’s and as spindling as a deer’s. In height the freak is less than 28 inches [71 cm] and weighs 60 pounds [27.2 kg].
The description given for the Sedalia animal seems atypical with regard to its diminutive size and the presence of hair covering the body. Such births are usually described as being mostly hairless, like a human being.
Dr. Frank Goodson, the well known veterinary, showed us a decided curiosity last week in the shape of a calf’s head which was indeed a monstrosity. The mother was a Short Horn heifer owned by Samuel Overholtzer, of Franklin township, and the calf was like other calves except its head, the front part of which instead of being straight resembled very much a human skull. The calf was born dead and Dr. Goodson secured the skull as a trophy.
Another Iowa report appeared in the Pocahontas County Sun (Feb. 24, 1898, p. 8, cols. 1-2; access: newspaperarchive.com):
Fred Post is now the proud possessor of a freak in the shape of a calf with a human head. The head, neck, and ears are shaped exactly like a human head and the nose bears some resemblence to that of a human nose. The calf is dead and was the property of Carl Skogstrom. Post will embalm it, and the freak will be worth some money. Already it has drawn large crowds.
Uttar Pradesh, India. Two cow-human hybrids have been reported from the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, one at the end of the nineteeth century, the other in 2017. The first report appeared in newspapers across the globe in the summer of 1899. The following is from an Australian paper, the Northern Star (Lismore, New South Wales, Aug. 9, 1899, p. 6, col. 2). However, the same story ran in many other British Empire newspapers. The event supposedly took place in Sultanpur, Uttar Pradesh. Given that the birth occurred in India, the type of cow involved in this case would be a zebu, not Bos taurus.
A Calf with a Human Face. An Agra correspondent of the ‘Madras Mail,’ writing recently, remarks : “An extraordinary freak of nature was brought to light at Sultanpur, one of the suburban villages of Agra Cantonment, situated not quite a mile from the Cantonment Church, and on the outskirts of what is known as Pensioners’ Lines. A cow, it was said, had given birth on the previous day to a wonderful calf, which survived only a few hours, the head of which resembled that of a human being, while the rest of the body was that of any ordinary calf.” A correspondent of the paper immediately proceeded to the spot, and says: “When I got there I found an immense concourse of people gathered inside, outside, and round about a Gwala’s hut. With some difficulty I managed to make headway through the crowd, and at length got to the ‘sacred’ spot. There I found what at first appeared to me to be an ordinary dead calf, but on closer inspection I found that it was one of the most extraordinary calves I had ever seen. The lower portion of the body from the neck downwards was perfectly symmetrical and natural, but the head in every respect was that of an overgrown babe, say about 8 months old. There was the short round face in the place of the long-pointed snout, the ears small, and fixed flatly in the head, instead of protruding out—in fact, a perfect human face. Hindus of all castes, from the sacerdotal Brahmin to the low caste Chamar, were all there to do reverence, as they told me, to this more than sacred cow [probably as an incarnation of Kamadhenu (see image below)]. Some of the better class of men among the crowd told me that they attach a great deal of importance to this extraordinary phenomenon of nature, as being prophetic of some marvelous development of an abnormal event that will occur in the history of this country at no distant date. So much for idle superstition of uncultured minds. What they mean to do with the carcass I do not know, my offer to purchase it being positively declined.”
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A video showing the 2017 Uttar Pradesh birth
2017 Uttar Pradesh birth. The second Uttar Pradesh birth was reported online in early June of 2017 as having taken place in the city of Muzaffarnagar (see video above). This creature, too, had a humanlike head. Its eyes, nose and ears resembled those of a human, and it had a naked body like that reported for most such births (ordinary calves are not born naked). According to the reports, it survived about half an hour. Locals worshiped it as a god. Thus, Mahesh Kathuria, visiting the shelter where this creature was born, expressed his opinion that: “God has taken birth from the body of a local cow. We came here to seek his blessings. Religiously, it is an avatar of Vishnu. We believe it’s a similar character to that mentioned in the Bhagavata Puran, a Hindu religious text.”
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Kamadhenu, also known as Surabhi, a major deity of the Hindu pantheon, revered as the mother of all cows and of the 11 Rudras. She is usually depicted as a cow-human hybrid, a white cow with the head and breasts of a woman. All cows are venerated in Hinduism as the earthly embodiment of the Kamadhenu, who is regarded as the source of all prosperity. She is regarded as a form of the Hindu Divine Mother, Devi, and is associated, as well, with the fertile Mother Earth, Prithvi, who is frequently depicted as a cow in Hindu tradition. Image: Christian Haugen, Wikimedia
Kamadhenu (as shown in Zakariya al-Qazwini's Book of Wonders, 13th cen.).
Gadsden, Tennessee. Another cow-human hybrid, which was supposedly born the previous year, was reported from Gadsden, a small town in western Tennessee. The following is a screenshot of a brief article appearing on page 2 (col. 3) of the Savannah Courier, Savannah, Tennessee, on Mar. 25, 1898 (source). The source of the story was the Alamo Signal, a newspaper published in Alamo, Tennessee, a town near Gadsden.
Yet another cow-human hybrid was reported in the Los Angeles Herald (Jan. 6, 1898, p. 10, col. 6). An article entitled “Collector of Freaks” gives an account of the specimens in a collection of abnormal animals owned by a certain Fred A. Robinson. Most of the animals described were of a fairly run-of-the-mill variety, but the following excerpt records something exceptional.
The freaks that have been alcoholically preserved are kept in glass jars of various sizes in the back parlor of the dwelling. In one of the largest of these vessels is a calf with a face with features so distinctively human as to almost suggest that it is a human head upon a calf’s body. It is an ugly face and at the same time a startling one. The neck, exceedingly narrow, is set upon the body of an ordinary new-born calf, somewhat bloated by nineteen years’ soaking in alcohol. Seventeen or eighteen years ago, when “Bill” long was the proprietor of the museum at Fourth and German streets, this was one of his chief attractions, and it is said that when it came into his possession he paid $700 for it.
Langenrohr. The following appeared on page 7, column 1 of the July 4, 1894, issue of the newspaper Znaimer Wochenblatt, which was published in Znojmo (Znaim), a town in what is now the Czech Republic:
Last Monday on the farm of Josef Ruppberger in Langenrohr (a place between Tulln and Sieghartskirchen) a cow produced a calf with a human head. It was attached to a long neck and atop the skull was a patch of upright-standing hair. The lower part of the face, in its form, was reminiscent of a bulldog. [Translated by E. M. McCarthy. Original German.]
Tulln and Sieghartskirchen are small towns in what is now northeastern Austria.
Shallotte Township, North Carolina. Another cow-human hybrid was reported in the Goldsboro, North Carolina, Headlight (Jun. 20, 1895, p. 3):
Half Haman, Half Calf
The Wilmington Messenger tells of a very remarkable Brunswick County monstrosity which it learns of through Rev. S. L. Swain, of that county, who was visiting a Wilmington clergyman.
The monstrosity in the shape of a half calf half human of which a cow in Shallotte Township became the mother on Friday, May 31st. The cow belonged to Mr. William Frink and the monstrosity was born on the plantation of Mr. Frink’s father-in-law, Mr. Cornelius Thomas. It had no tail and half of its face and body were human, including a perfectly shaped shoulder, arm, hand, leg and foot. The other half was that of a calf, and the thing walked erect.
On Saturday June 8th, Mr. Frink went to his father-in-law’s, and when they went to a grove to see the curiosity, they found that somebody had killed it. They don’t know who killed it, but they say it was getting along well the last time it was seen alive.
So here we have another case of a viable cow-human hybrid being killed by, perhaps superstitious, people who objected to its very existence. This last case, incidentally, is an obvious example of a bilateral gynandromorph, in which, it is thought, the initial division of the zygote gives rise to two lines of cells that follow two separate developmental pathways for the right and left halves of the body, in this case that of a human being and that of a cow.
Indiana. Another report about a viable cow-human hybrid, born in Crawford County, Indiana, appeared in the Indianapolis newspaper Indiana State Sentinel (May 3, 1893, p. 8, col. 3). This case is of especial interest because the structure of the hybrid differs from that usually described in that it was supposedly like a human from the waist forward, but like a cow from that point back.
A CRAWFORD CALF
The Monstrosity That Is Attracting Some Attention at Eckerty
Eckerty, April 30.—[Special.]—Of the monstrosities which have recently been recorded, Crawford County must stand well into the foreground. One was born last Friday night of a three-year-old heifer—her first production.
The curious story had gone abroad, but unwilling to believe it,The Sentinel correspondent waited till Mr. Lesson, the owner, invited him to witness the monstrosity. The calf, or what the owner chooses to call it, is almost human from the loins forward, including tolerable shapely hands and fairly interesting countenance, but from the loins backward the creature is a perfect bovine. Though more than two days old now, it will weigh perhaps sixty pounds. Owing to its peculiar shape it has failed to stand, and its awkward attempts to sit are an utter failure.
Ideas have been given by physicians why monstrosities are born of the human family, but what explanation can be given for such a monstrosity as this among the lower animals?
Another report from Indiana appeared in the Bloomington Daily Leader (Mar. 15, 1884, p. 2, col. 1; source: newspaperarchive.com):
A Calf With a Human Head
Indianapolis, Indiana, March 14.—Quite a freak of nature was found here last evening. It is a horrible looking monstrosity, it having the body of a calf and the head of a human being., and is on exhibition at Bergman’s grocery store on West Morris Street. It comes from the slaughter-house of Gardner, and was dead when found. The features are well developed. It is a wonderful curiosity, and was viewed yesterday by hundreds of people.
An additional case from the Hoosier State appeared in the Hagerstown, Indiana Exponent (Sep. 8, 1880, p. 3, col. 2; source: newspaperarchive.com):
A Curiosity
Connersville, Ind., September 3.—There is on exhibition at Andres’ opera house, this city, the mounted skin of a calf with a human head. This interesting curiosity was born near Laurel [Indiana], two weeks ago, and belongs to a farmer named Carpenter. The body is about a foot long, perfectly formed, and is supported by four legs, each about ten inches long. The head, which very much resembles a well-formed human head, has two perfect eyes, ears, and chin, with distinct traces of nose and mouth. The entire body is covered with fine hair.
Remarkably, a second such case, also born at Laurel appeared in the Connersville Daily Examiner (Mar. 21, 1890, p. 2, col. 2; source: newspaperarchive.com):
A Freak of Nature
A Calf With a Human Head Born at Laurel
A small animal resembling a calf, but having a head like that of a child so that if the skull alone was seen it would be taken for that of an infant, made its advent at the little town of Laurel, a few days ago, but died a few minutes after birth. It is almost completely enveloped in a soft reddish hair, closesly akin to that of a calf. Its mother is a young heifer. It is about fourteen inches high and is now in the possession of Dr. Joshua Chitwood, of this city.
Another appeared in the Jeffersonville, Indiana, Evening News (Nov. 27, 1875, p. 1, col. 2; source: newspaperarchive.com):
A Calf with a Human Head and Hand
[Shelby Republican]
Captain J. S. Searcey’s cow dropped a calf recently that would have been a valuable acquisition to Barnum’s museum. The body was well developed, though supported by three legs only. The right fore leg is missing, and a well-developed hand, though boneless, hung pendant from the side. The head bore a striking resebance to a human head, excepting the mouth was located on the side of the face, from which a low, plaintive wail occasionally issued. A well-developed eye, and only one, was near the center of the head [i.e., it was a cyclops]. This monstrosity lived two days, constantly attended by Mr. S. or his family, and was visited by all the neighbors and by many strangers.
The Shelby mentioned in this last report, is apparently Shelbyville, Indiana, which did in fact have a newspaper named the Republican
Paris, Texas. One ostensible cow-human hybrid was reported in the Houston Daily Post (Dec. 4, 1895, p. 11, col. 7):
PART CALF, PART HUMAN
Paris, Texas, December 3.—Last night a cow belonging to Mr. W. N. Ellis of Blossom [Texas] gave birth to a calf with a body of normal size and shape but its neck and head are human. The strange creature lived only a few hours, but Mr. Ellis skinned and stuffed the hide. A great many people here have looked with astonishment at the wonderful freak of nature, half human and half animal.
Shreveport, Louisiana. Another case appeared in the Fort Worth, Texas, Gazette (Mar. 9, 1892, p. 3, col. 4):
Shreveport, La., March 8.—There is on exhibition in this city a monstrosity in the shape of a calf with human characteristics. The “what is it?” came into the world Sunday last [i.e., March 6, 1892] on the Freewater place, this parish, and was dead at birth. Several physicians have examined the freak and pronounce it marvelous. Its head is shaped somewhat like that of a negro, and the breast is of perfect human shape. It is sexless, and the fore feet are shorter than the hind ones, lending them a look of arms.
Jackson, Mississippi. A second 1892 case is from nearby Mississippi, but cannot be the same case since the report predates the March 6, 1892, birth date implied by the previous quotation. This report appeared on of the issue of the Pascagoula, Mississippi, Democrat-Star (Jan. 15, 1892, p. 4, col. 4):
Freak of Nature
Jackson, Miss., Jan. 3.—On the farm of Steve Britten, situated eleven and a half miles from here, was a few days ago born a most wonderful freak of nature, a calf with a well developed negro’s head. Mr. Britten cut off the head and sent it to a friend in Jackson to be placed on exhibition. The receipt of the head by the gentleman so frightened him that he has been prostrated and he is now in a critical condition. The head was secured by a gentleman here and will be placed on exhibition. There is little to distinguish the head from that of a negro, except the ears are remarkably like those of a calf.
An advertisement from the classified section of the Los Angeles Daily Herald (Mar. 3, 1890, p. 1, col. 1). The relevant portion of the ad is highlighted in pink.
Florida. Another such report appeared in the Jeffersonville, New York, Sullivan County Record (Aug. 2, 1889, p. 4):
A Calf With a Human Head
A calf with a human head is on exhibition in Binghamton. The monstrosity was born in Florida, is several months old and is apparently in the enjoyment of excellent health. Its forehead is high and receding, its eyes are round, have heavy lashes and are arched with a fine pair of eye-brows. The nose is flat and turned slightly upwards. The lips are thin and close over a set of even teeth. The chin is square and perfectly formed and the cheek bones are high. The face is black and the lips and nose are hairless.
Reports about another calf with a human head born in Florida appeared in U.S. newspapers in 1876 (e.g., in the Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania newspaper The Jeffersonian,Sept. 28, 1876, p. 1, col. 5). The following information about this birth appeared in the Yuma, Arizona, Sentinel (Nov. 4, 1876, p. 3, col. 3):
Last year a cow delivered in the streets of Fernandina [Florida] a calf, perfect in every particular, except it had a human head. This freak of nature was exhibited by Mr. Geo. E. Sewyer, at the Duval County [Florida] Fair, in the same year, and we believe is still in his possession. But how is it to be accounted for that the same cow has this year delivered another monstrosity of the same kind, which is now in possession of a Fernandina chemist?
Boswell’s Depot, Virginia. The Cambria Freeman (Sep. 2, 1887, p. 2, col 6) published the following report, which, since it provides no specifics as to the identity of the witnesses, is little more than hearsay.
—The Richmond [Virginia] Dispatch says: A few days since a gentleman near Boswel’s [sic] depot, on the Richmond and Allegheny railroad, missed a cow. He searched for her and when he found her she had given birth to what should have been a calf, and yet, with all other formations of such, from the shoulder out the neck and head of a woman with all the symmetry thereof, and, furthermore, the hair on this strange head was parted or had gracefully fallen back on each side as ladies usually part theirs. The nose, eyes and other features of its face were [as] clearly and beautifully developed as that of a woman’s. In a word, from the shoulder out was human in form and the body that of a beast. The truth of this statement can be verified by gentlemen of veracity.
Silver Creek, Nebraska. The following is from the Columbus, Nebraska Journal (Feb. 22, 1888, p. 2, col 5). It originally appeared in the Silver Creek Times. Silver Creek is a village in Merrick County, 16 miles southwest of Columbus.
One of the most remarkable freaks of nature recorded comes from the farm of Mat Harry, who resides three and one-half miles from this place. It is a calf with a human head, neck and shoulders, being almost as perfect as those of a person. The cow owned by Mr. Harry gave birth to the wonderful animal last week; but the calf did not live. Mr. Harry has saved the skin, and as soon as prepared it will be placed on exhibition.
Friendship, New York. The next case appeared in the Dunkirk, New York, Evening Observer (Apr. 14, 1885, p. 4, col. 4):
Friendship, Allegany County [New York], is happy in the possession of a freak of nature in the shape of a calf, with a human head, the features of a female, the nose of a hog, and wearing a mustache and whiskers. It is the product of a farm between that place and Belvidere [a hamlet in Allegany County].
Additional information about the last mentioned event was given in the Newark, New York, Union (Apr. 4, 1885, p. 4, col. 4):
The Friendship Register says, “a monstrosity in the shape of a calf, with human head and ears, hog’s nose, calf’s body and pig’s tail was on exhibition at the Chadwick house last week.” It was the product of a cow belonging to Henry Higgins and was still-born.
A second case in New York that same spring was reported in the Potsdam Junction, New York, Commercial Advertiser (Mar. 5, 1885, p. 2, col. 2):
A “freak of nature” in the way of a calf with a head similar to that of a human being, has been exhibited by Elmer A. Tiffany, of Glendale, Lewis County. The calf was dead when born. Mr. Tiffany had the animal photographed and then left it with a taxidermist to be set up.
Ohio. Three cases are reported as having occurred in Ohio, one in 1885, one in 1886, another in 1888. The first case appeared in the Woodsfield, Ohio, Spirit of Democracy (Jan. 13, 1885, p. 3). It originally appeared in the Bellaire Independent. The notice reads as follows:
It is said that a man by the name of Doyle, living on Deep Run, Pease township [Ohio], is the owner of a young heifer which on Wednesday gave birth to a calf that is half human and half animal. The head and shoulders are exactly like that of a man’s, while the remainder of the monstrosity is that of an ordinary calf. The heifer had to be shot, and the monstrosity was skinned and stuffed, and will no doubt be placed in some museum. If this is a fact it is remarkable.—It seems incredible to say the least.
The second, mentioned in the Springfield, Ohio, Globe-Republic (Mar. 18, 1886, p. 4), reads, “Up at Shelby, Ohio, a calf has been born with a human head.” More details about this Shelby birth appear in a special section below.
The third appeared in Island Pond, Vermont’s Essex County Herald (Sep. 21, 1888, p. 1, col. 2). The Herald notes that the article, which reads as follows, was taken from the Cincinnati Enquirer.
Calf with A Human Head
Samuel Stepelton, a farmer living in Auglaize Township, Ohio, has quite a freak of nature. One of his cows gave birth to a fully developed calf which bore a perfect human head covered with a thin layer of hair, similar to that which covers the head of a new-born babe. The mouth of the animal was like that of a dog, and within it was a double row of sharply pointed teeth it lived but a few hours.
Two cases of anencephaly
Two reports describe animals lacking a brain, a condition known as anencephaly:
A calf with a human head was born recently on the farm of Joseph Hiett, near Winchester, Va. Its body was that of an ordinary calf, while its head, mouth, nose, etc., was the shape of that of a human being. Upon being dissected its head was found to be totally without brains, containing nothing but water, and its body a total malformation throughout. It was pronounced to have been alive up to the time of its birth, but to have died instantly upon that event.
A Warren, Me., cow recently gave birth to a calf having a human head, covered with soft hair, while the body was natural. The creature had no brain and died soon after birth.
Fort Scott, Kansas. Another case in 1879 is mentioned in the Dodge City Times (Aug. 2, 1879, p. 8, col. 2):
Fort Scott had a singular monstrosity in the shape of a calf, which had a head shaped like that of a man with the nose where the chin is usually situated in a person, with a mouth above and below the nose, making two mouths in one head.
Prattsville, New York. The following is from the Cobleskill, New York Index (Mar. 20, 1879, p. 3, col. 1). It originally appeared in the Prattsville, New York News.
Mr. Charles Lewis, a farmer residing between this village [i.e., Prattsville] and Gilboa [New York], has a cow which recently gave birth to a calf with a human head.—Prattsville News.
Paterson, New York. And the following is from the Port Jervis, New York, Tri-states Union (Sep. 13, 1878, p. 3, col. 2). The story was originally published in the Paterson, New Jersey, Guardian.
A HUMAN CALF
Perhaps our readers will not think this heading suggests anything extraordinary, as a human calf, as well as a human ass, is quite a common thing. But the freak of nature to which we now refer is not a usual thing. The other day a farmer, living back of Garret Mountain had an addition to his lacteal family in the shape of a calf. But such a calf! The body was the same as any other juvenile bovine, but the head, as we are informed, was a perfect human head! The monstrosity died shortly after it was born, fortunately. The facts are given us by a man who alleges that he saw the beast.—Paterson Guardian
Brooklyn, New York. A notice about a human-cow hybrid appeared in the Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, Jeffersonian (Nov. 26, 1874, p. 1 , col. 5):
A Sacred Bull That has an Arm Like a Man
In Mr. Martin’s stable, Columbia Heights, Brooklyn, is a so-called sacred Brahmin bull—bought in Calcutta by Capt. Folge, and brought here in the ship Scindia—that has just back of the shoulder an appendage very similar to a human arm, with shoulder, elbow, and wrist joints, and horny twisted fingers. The arm is covered with fine hair, and is of dark lead color, shaded into white. It swings when the bull moves, but whether the bull has control of the limb is disputed, the keeper and the sailors of the ship saying that it can strike with it. The limb is composed of flesh and a horny substance, and is said to harden when it has little to eat. The animal is valued at $25,000. It is attached by the Custom House authorities for duties, since animals that are not intended for breeding purposes are dutiable.
Another report about the same creature:
News notice about a Brahma bull with a human arm (Jefferson City, Missouri, State Journal, Nov. 20, 1874, p. 14, col. 5).
Thirty years later, in a notice appearing in the Owensville, Missouri, Gasconade County Republican (May 27, 1904) a second case of a similar nature was mentioned as having occurred in Texas:
This case, in which a human arm was attached to the back of a bull, parallels another case, an ostensible deer-cow hybrid, a male animal that looked like a bull with the muzzle and pelt of a deer, and that had in the middle of his back a well-formed deer leg, which was attached to a male member about a foot long, including two testicles. This phenomenon of a hybrid, which has the overall appearance of one of its parents, having one or more appendages that are like those of the other parent (“exterogenetic parasitic attachments”), and, often, seemingly randomly attached, is seen in various other distant hybrids (example #1, example #2, example #3, example #4, example #5; see other cases in the conjoined twins article).
Three similar cases
The three following cases involve similar births. In each case, a calf or cow had, atop its own head, a growth similar in size and shape to a human head.
A Japanese museum specimen. The bizarre specimen pictured at right seems to be known only from a Japanese postcard. As can be seen from the image, it had a human-like head, sheathed with cow hair, atop its ordinary calf head. According to a (most helpful!) translator, the caption in the photo reads: “I was born in Beppu, Bungo,” which is an old name of Oita Prefecture [私しや (I was) 豊後の別府の (Bungo, Beppu) 生れ (born in)]. One website says this creature was born in 1926. Oita Prefecture is on Kyushu, the southernmost major island of Japan. This picture was supposedly taken in Kobe. Note that this specimen has the same conformation as the Parisian cow described by Morand below, and the Shelby, Ohio, animal, also described below.
Paris. Jean-François-Clément Morand (1812), a Parisian physician, describes a cow that he saw at the St. Germain fair in 1748. He says this animal had “atop its true head, a growth of the same size and form as a human head” (Original French: “au-dessus sa vraie tête, un kiste ayant la grosseur et la forme d’une tête humaine”). This is exactly the conformation seen in the Japanese specimen shown in the photo at left. He also notes that she had calved 12 offspring.
Ohio. Another such report appeared in the Ohio Democrat (Mar. 18, 1866, p. 2, col. 3), a newspaper published in Tuscarawas County, Ohio. Headlined, “A Calf with a Human Head,” it reads, “Shelby, O., March 12—A cow belonging to W. H. Morris of this city gave birth this forenoon to one of the most remarkable monstrosities on record. It was a well formed calf, with a large sized lump, a perfect representation of a human head, between the ears. The head of the calf was otherwise well formed. It will probably be given into the hands of an expert taxidermist and properly prepared for exhibition.” (This report can be accessed through newspaperarchive.com)
Above: News report about a human-cow hybrid (Pittburgh, Pennsylvania, Weekly, Sep. 1, 1818, p. 3).
Eighteenth Century
There were various cases of ostensible cow-human hybrids reported in the eighteenth century.
Clayworth. In the June 1752, issue of the Gentleman’s Magazine, there is an account, “Extract of a Letter from a Clergyman at Clayworth in Nottinghamshire” (Anonymous 1752), of a creature half calf and half human born of a cow.
The name of the clergyman in question is not specified, but given the small size of the parish of Clayworth, he would almost certainly have been Reverend James Carrington, who was at that time Rector of Clayworth. The following is the extract published from his letter: “I should have wrote sooner but that I wanted to be satisfy’d in the truth of a report of a monstrous production in a neighbouring village. The animal in question
St. Peter’s, Clayworth, the country church where Rev. James Carrington was serving as rector at the time the alleged cow-human hybrid was born.
is the offspring of a cow, is about the size of a child of 10 years old, and formed in all respects like a human creature, except the ears and hoofs, the latter of which are cloven, and the ears resembling a calf’s, are covered with a kind of down. But no hair appears in any part, except for about three inches above the hoof on each foot or hand, (which you will please to call it) and on the upper lip, like a Spanish mustacho. The face is much like that of an old man, the chest perfectly resembles that of a woman, to which sex ‘tis said that it has also a very distinguishing analogy [in the 18th century, one of the senses of the word analogy was “similarity”; so this seems to be Carrington’s euphemistic approach to saying this hybrid was female]; but I was not very curious in that part of the scrutiny; the skin is soft, smooth and of a complexion at least equal to a French foot soldier after a summer’s campaign.
A Lithuanian case
In his Memoirs (1857, p. 188), Bartholomew Michalowski briefly mentions that in 1788 in Samogitia ("Żmudzi"), a region of northwestern Lithuania, a calf was born with a human head.
An Egyptian case
In 1847, the Egyptian newspaper Al-Waqa’i’ al-Misriyyapublished a report that in a village in Upper Egypt a cow had given birth to a calf with a human head.
Ancient Greece
Aristotle (Generation of Animals IV, iii) refers to the belief of his contemporaries that cow-human hybrids, calves with human heads, were sometimes born.
Nemyriv. Another report from the eighteenth century appeared in a supplement to the July 1784, issue of Observations sur la Physique, l’Histoire naturelle et sur les Arts, a scholarly journal published by the botanist Jean-Baptiste François Rozier and his nephew, scientist and explorer Jean-André Mongez. In this case, the report includes an intaglio plate showing the specimen (see image below), but the head is considerably less like a human’s than in the other accounts, perhaps because this individual had undergone only seven months of development, whereas the other reports listed here seem all to refer either to the products of full-term pregnancies (in both cattle and humans the gestation period is approximately 280 days). It is also possible that development was simply aberrant in this case, as it is in a certain fraction of the individuals produced by some hybrid crosses.
A drawing of the supposed cow-human hybrid from Rozier and Mongez’s report.
A parallel case. A case somewhat similar to Rozier and Mongez’s is briefly described in the June 4, 1910, issue (p. 7, col. 3) of the Znaimer Wochenblatt, a newspaper published in Znojmo (Znaim), a town that now lies in the southern Czech Republic:
An Abnormality. After a cow was slaughtered today in the slaughterhouse at Moravská Třebová, a calf was found that had a head like a human being’s but with an imperfectly developed eye on each of its temples. On the forehead it had a pig’s snout [frontal proboscis?] and beneath it, a single large eye. The monster has been sent to the Anatomical Institute in Vienna.
[Translated by E. M. McCarthy. Original German.]
Still, in the individual pictured, the lower portion of face is quite similar to a human being’s, as is the cranial region. This illustration is the only one on this page that is, apparently, drawn by an artist with access to an actual specimen, except for that of Schreyer (below) and, perhaps, Martin Luther’s Monk-calf (also pictured below). The distribution of facial hair, as shown in the picture (which is similar to what in humans is called a Van Dyke) is of interest because it is consistent both with several other mentions of facial hair around the mouth in other reports quoted on this page. The limitation of hair to the lower portions of the legs is also consistent with the descriptions of both Carrington and Schreter. At any rate, click on the box below to reveal the collapsible text of a translation of Rozier and Mongez’s original report:
On a Monstrous Calf born at Nemyriv. An important event for the study of natural history has taken place in [the village of] Nemyriv in the Ukraine. There, on September 23rd of this year [1783], a Jew slaughtered a cow in her seventh month of pregnancy. A male fetus of singular appearance was extracted alive, but died a few minutes later. The torso of this animal (Plate 2, July 1784 issue) is that of a naked calf with dark red skin. The hooves are unusually large, and the skin above the forehooves is covered with short light brown hair. The forehead and the scalp, which is completely bald, exactly resemble those of a human being. But instead of a nose there is a kind of snout [i.e., a frontal proboscis, a structure that’s fairly common in ostensible pig-human hybrids], attached at its upper end to the forehead. It is soft, without bone or tendon, and three inches long by 1.5 inches in diameter. At the end of this snout, which is much like a small elephant trunk, is a one-third-inch-wide opening ringed by short hair. The eye openings are an inch long and lie below the base of the snout. The eyes are rather deeply embedded and their lids have lashes like those of a human being. On either side above the eyes are five long hairs that serve as eyebrows. The rest of the face is extremely similar to a human being’s. The cheeks are round and covered with a smooth skin. The upper lip is quite large and bears a thick curly mustache. The tip of the tongue is split to a depth of one-quarter inch. Instead of bone, the upper jaw is composed only of cartilage; the lower jaw has four incisors. The chin is rather large and covered with a bushy light brown beard. The creature is 26 1/4 inches long; its height at the shoulders is 12 1/2 inches; and it is 15 inches from the ends of the hind legs to the top of the spine. It weighs 23 1/2 pounds. By order of Count Vincent de Potoski, Grand Chamberlain of the King of Poland, this monster has been preserved in alcohol in a glass vase prepared especially for that purpose, and it is now in the court apothecary. [Translated by E. M. McCarthy. Original French]
Cotton Mather
Boston, Massachusetts.George Lyman Kittredge (1916, p. 37) notes that in 1716 the Puritan minister and author Cotton Mather (1663-1728) reported to the Royal Society, via a letter to Dr. John Woodward (1665-1728) of Gresham College in London, that a cow near Boston had produced a calf with a face like a human being’s. In the same article (p. 18), Kittredge states that “No historical student would think of denying that Cotton Mather was one of the best informed Americans of his time in scientific matters.”
Cow-human hybrids: Early reports
Zeitz, Germany. The German physician Johannes Schreyer (1682) reports a creature found in the White Elster (Weiße Elster) River near the German town of Zeitz on July 17, 1681 (two miles downstream at the village of Bornitz), which he says had the head of a human being and the body of a calf. His letter to the editors of the Leipzig University scientific journal Acta eruditorum included an illustration of the rotting carcass, a crude woodblock print (shown at right). As can be seen in the picture, the abdomen of the animal is distended, perhaps by gasses released by internal decomposition, as is usually the case with bodies left to rot in warm water; the prominence atop the head, evident in the picture, may represent a protrusion, due to similar pressures, of convoluted brain matter through the fontanelle, which would explain why Schreyer describes it as “corrugated” since the convolutions of the brain would have that appearance. Note that the tufted tail is similar to that shown in Rozier and Mongez’s illustration above. This animal bore a beard on its chin, according to Schreyer, as did those in several of the other accounts on this page. His report, as translated from the original Latin, reads as follows:
Report of a Monstrous Human-calf
Communicated by Dr. Schreyer, a naturalist residing at Zeitz
On July 17, 1681, the river that flows past Zeitz [i.e., the White Elster] produced near the village of Bornitz a horrible monster having the head of a man affixed to the neck of a calf. The head bore a prominence above [see illustration], enveloped in a corrugated membrane. The eyes were shut. The ears were like a cat’s. The nose, which lacked a left nostril, was flat. The mouth gaped and bore teeth in both jaws. On the chin was a beard like that of a goat. The neck was quite long. The breast and forefeet were those of a calf, the hind, of a pig [four-toed?], and the tail was short and hairy at the end. Otherwise, this monster, which was of the female sex, was hairless and black. No interior examination was made due to the horrid stench of the putrid carcass. [Translated by E. M. McCarthy. Original Latin]
A Malagasy case. In his Histoire des Indes orientales (1688, p. 78), the French colonial administrator Urbain Souchu de Rennefort reports that during his sojourn on the island of Madagascar a cow produced “a monster half-human and half-ox.”
Other German cases. The chronicler Johann Christoph Becmann, a professor at the University of Frankfurt, stated (Historische Beschreibung der Chur und Mark Brandenburg, 1751, vol. 1, p. 883) that a calf “with many human parts” was born at Drebkau in 1673. Martin Schurig (1731, p. 582, §72) records a report by Caspar Theophil Bierling, who claimed that in 1659, a two-year-old girl had been living at Halle (Salle) who had a one normal eye, but the other, like that of a calf. In a report of a similar nature, Christianus Helwich (1700, Obs. 70, pp. 136-137), stated that a girl recently brought to him with a fever had had both eyes like those of a calf.§
§ In Germany, a Stadtphysikus was the physician assigned by the city government to be responsible for public health measures for the town. All four of the physicians just mentioned were Stadtphysiki for various German cities (Bierling, for the city of Magdeburg, Schurig, for Dresden, Helwich, for Breslau, and Schreyer for the cities of Zeitz, Hamburg and Leipzig).
Kalkaboda. In his book On Meteors,† Joan Petri Klint (d. 1608), a Swedish clergyman and historian, gives an account (translated in Rosen 1994) of a cow-human hybrid born in March 1588,
Near Örebro [Sweden] in the parish of Svensta, in a croft called Kalkaboda just outside Stenkulla, a cow gave birth to a calf with the appearance of a human head and human feet, but without forelegs.‡ The calf seemed to be a half-man, half-calf. He had big eyes, stretched out his tongue and wanted to get at the people who were watching him; he rose bellowing and off he went, but was slain.
† Although its original title page has been lost, Rosen (1994, p. 151) says Klint’s “book is usually referred to by the name On Meteors. It seems originally to have been called Om the tekn och widunder som föregingo thet liturgiske owäsendet (On the Signs and Wonders preceding the Liturgical Broil). The book is now in the Stifts- och Landsbiblioteket library (Box 3085, S-580 03 Linköping, Sweden) and carries a new title page crediting the work to Jonas Petri Klint, a 19th century librarian’s mistake for ‘Joan’ (John).”
‡ In distant hybrids, limbs are often absent or develop imperfectly as stumps, probably due to developmental conflicts resulting from the mixture of highly disparate genomes.
Hieronymus Fabricius
Italy. In the present context, it is worth mentioning that the 16th-century Paduan anatomist and surgeon Hieronymus Fabricius (1537-1619), in his De gula, ventriculo, intestinis tractatus (1618), reported (see Fabricius 1738, p. 137b) dissecting a man who chewed cud and whose father had a “horn on his forehead at least as thick as a finger, and as long as a Spanish olive.” On this basis, Fabricius concluded that these men had some type of hereditary connection with horned beasts (“parentis semen aliquam habuisse affinitatem cum cornigeris animalibus”). Indeed, modern medical research has revealed that many humans ruminate (about human rumination).
Norway and Hernberg. Franck (1585, p. 1038) states that in the year 1578, two calves were born with human heads, one in Norway (“im Landt zu Bergen”), the other in the town of Hernberg in Germany.
Bamberg, Germany. Jobus Fincelius, the sixteenth-century German humanist and physician, was a professor of philosophy and medicine at the University of Jena. He authored a two-volume work entitled Wunderzeichen in which he lists events he interpreted as miraculous signs. Among them was a creature with human features supposedly birthed by a cow near Bamberg in northern Bavaria. The following is his account (Fincelius 1559, vol. 2): “In the same year of 1556, on the 24th of July,
a calf was born in the village of Kleisdorf on the River Itz about three miles [north of] Bamberg. This dreadful creature was fat and had the hooves of an ordinary calf, but a large human head and a black beard, as well as ears and breasts like a human being’s. The torso, too, was like a human’s, but longer, and the naked tail was like a dog’s. This monstrosity, which did not live long, was birthed on the farm of a noblewoman there at Kleisdorf. [Translated by E. M. McCarthy. Original German.]
So again, in this account the alleged cow-human hybrid has a human-like head and torso, but cloven hooves and a tail. Also, as did Schreter and Carrington, Fincelius says the Kleisdorf birth had breasts like a woman’s (see also the image of Kamadhenu above). The Freewater animal, in the quoted news report above, also was described as having breasts. And in the present case, as in the ones reported by Carrington, by Schreyer, by Rozier and Mongez, and in the 1913 case in Vermont, the hybrid supposedly had facial hair around its mouth.
Camerarius (1537-1624)
Fincelius says the creature born near Bamberg “did not live long,” but Lycosthenes, who also reported this birth, makes no such statement. Conceivably, this strange being survived, which might then account for historian Philipp Camerarius’ bizarre tale of the so-called Bamberger cattle-boy. Camerarius (Operae Horarum Subcisivarum, 1624, vol. 1, ch. 75, p. 343) described a “human” quadruped, which he said he often saw in his hometown of Bamberg. His report inspired Linnaeus to list “Juvenis bovinus bambergensis” in the Systema naturae (1758) as a specimen of Homo sapiens ferus (“wild man”). Later authors construed the cattle-boy as an example of a feral child. The following is the passage in question:
In the court of the Prince-Bishop of Bamberg, we have often gazed in wonder upon a man who, as he himself affirmed, grew up among the cattle of the neighboring mountains. He was so swift and agile that those who beheld him were filled with awe. There were many therefore who thought he deceived the eyes with magic. But it seemed to me that this was in no way certain, nor did I think he had the power to do such a thing even if he had so desired. But the most surprising thing about him was that he accomplished these displays of agility, not standing erect, but rather on all fours.
There in his court, the Prince-Bishop kept a certain dwarf by the name of Marinette who rode this agile being as if he were a horse, turning him in circles and riding him hither and thither, drilling him in various ways, though, in truth if he wanted he could buck off his rider with a single leap, no matter how hard he might try to hold on.
Afterward this quadruped would pick a fight with the dogs some of which were extremely ferocious and then, with his barking and growling, and his dangling hair, drive them from the room. Sometimes they would chase after him and try to catch him with their teeth, but this quadruped, with amazing leaps, would hop all around the room, as even a monkey could scarcely have done, as he was from the country and so fit. And seemingly he did this without the least difficulty.
Once, while I was eating lunch with the Prince-Bishop, after the quadruped had shaken off his dwarf rider and shagged the dogs from the room, I saw him leap from behind over the head of one of the guests onto the table, without disturbing the cups and dishes, and then leap onward to the upper parts of the room, with such speed that, like a squirrel—or like Julius Caesar Scaliger’s Indian cat—he seemed to fly. He would run around high up on the roof as if he were a cat, and it were the easiest and most ordinary thing to do. Moreover, he performed various other tricks with his agility, so that now he is spoken of everywhere as an unprecedented phenomenon. [Translated by E. M. McCarthy. Original Latin]
Is it conceivable, then that this quadruped, was the same creature born at Kleisdorf in 1556? If so, it would explain why he went on four legs and “grew up among the cattle of the neighboring mountains.”
The Bitterfeld creature (Aldrovandi 1642).
Bitterfeld, Germany. Caspar Peucer (1525-1602), a physician who married the daughter of Luther’s colleague Philipp Melanchthon, mentions a another German case, a creature supposedly found dead near the town of Bitterfeld in 1547. Peucer’s brief account (Peucer 1553, pp. 326-327) reads as follows:
In the year 1547, in the town of Bitterfeld, a calf was found in the fields with short red hair atop its head. Its eyes, nose and ears were those of a human being, but its mouth and chest, those of a calf. The forelegs, too, were mainly like a calf’s, but the hind legs more like a human’s, though somewhat short. In both front and rear, each separate digit bore the hoof of a calf. Translated by E. M. McCarthy. Original Latin: “Anno 47 ad oppidu Bitterfeld vitulus in agro repertus oculis, naribus & auribus humanis, vertice tonso & miniato, rictu & pectore vitulino, cruribus anterioribus vitulinis posterioribus humanis & brevibus admodu, sed utriusque desinentibus, partim in vngulas vitulinas, partim in humanos digitos qui ungulis superabat, & separatim propendebant.”
Note: Franck (1585, p. 812) also describes the Bitterfeld cow-human and says it was found “near Bitterfeld at Göuw.”
Cow-human hybrids birthed by women
If a woman gives birth to an ox, the king of universal rule will prevail in the land.
The Minotaur (Roman copy of Greek original). Image: Marsyas
Pasiphae with infant Minotaur (Tondo of an Attic red-figure kylix, 340-320 BCE)
Although far less common than reports about cows giving birth to cow-human hybrids, some reports do exist about such creatures being birthed by women. These accounts seem to describe offspring that differ from those birthed by cows, in that they are alleged to have bodies that are more human-like, and faces, more cow-like than are those of hybrids birthed by cows. Three of the reports also mention that the hybrid walked erect. These accounts, then, are more in agreement with the appearance of the Minotaur of Greek legend, which also was supposedly birthed by a woman, Queen Pasiphae of Crete.
Thus, the following report describes a case of an ostensible cow-human hybrid, with the face of a calf, being birthed by a woman, just as in the ancient Minoan case—but this report was published 1905.
Louisville, Kentucky. The notice quoted below appeared on page 4, column 5, of the November 22, 1905, issue of The Fairmont West Virginian, a newspaper published in Fairmont, West Virginia (source). It reads as follows:
There is the skin, stuffed so to speak, in the museum of the Louisville Medical College, of a monstrosity born in Kentucky. It has the face of a calf, with hoof-like hands, small horns and a tail. It was dead when born. It was the result of a fright received by a woman who was pursued by an infuriated bull, while she was crossing a pasture, it bringing about nervous prostration.
Pebble Township, Ohio. A long article, originally published in the Chillicothe, Ohio, Leader, about a fully viable minotaur who lived for several decades in Ohio, appeared in the Cairo, Illinois, Bulletin (May 28, 1884, p. 24, cols. 2&3):
A FREAK OF NATURE
An Ohio Monstrosity, With an Animal’s Nature and a Voice like a Cyclone.
Marvelous as are the “freaks” gathered together by the show people, they haven’t anything in the way of a human curiosity to compare with the remarkable being confined in the county infirmary of Pike County. The creature is a man—but his right to that title rests solely upon the fact that he was born of woman. In every other respect he differs from his kind, and possesses no attribute in common with ordinary representatives of his sex. He bears upon his person, in his habits, and vocal organs all the characteristics of a bull in as nearly a perfect form as it is possible for a two-legged creature to possess them.
This remarkable being is named John Haines, and is 40 years old. He is the son of very respectable parents, who at the time of the monster’s birth lived in Pebble township [Pike County, Ohio]. Twelve years ago the mother who gave birth to the unnatural object died, but his father is still living. Prior to the mother’s death John was watched and cared for at home but since her demise he has been confined at the infirmary. The existence of the monstrosity is known to comparatively few people, and many of those who do know of his being have never seen him, being deterred from visiting his cell because of the terrible sight that would meet their eyes.
Haines, or “John,” as he is called by everybody who has occasion to speak about him, has been confined at the infirmary twelve years. He is of medium height, with a very large head, and the forehead broad and bold, with a strongly marked ridge running down the center of it. The sides of the head are flat, running back almost at right angles with a forehead, while the top of the head slopes backward and downward at a sharp incline, leaving the cranium without brain room. His face is dark skinned, heavy and brutish in expression, and very repulsive. The eyes are like those of a bovine and roll about in his head in an animalish sort of way. A heavy mouth, in which a restless tongue is almost constantly rolling a quid [of tobacco?], strengthens the creature’s likeness to a bull. His large ears stand out from his head like those of an alarmed beast.
The long, thick, and bushy head is covered by a close growth of short, coarse, stubby hair. His shoulders and breast are remarkable features of the monster, they being extraordinarily thick and heavy. He has a remarkable depth of chest, the formation of which bears a strong resemblance to that of his shaggy counterpart. From the breast downward his body gradually tapers to the thighs. His lower limbs are slender and joined together like those of the noble steer. The feet and hands are those of a man. To finish reading this report, click on the collapsible text below
John is a remarkably strong and vigorous combination of flesh and bone, and prior to his confinement in the infirmary he was noted for his wonderful speed of foot. He would dart away from his home into the woods and run like a hound for miles, making the air melodious as he went, bellowing like a bull. His actions are governed by instinct. His reason is an infinitesimal quantity.
He lacks the power of speech, and the only word that he can say that possesses meaning to his hearers is “bacca.” He is intensely fond of tobacco, and the first thing a visitor hears when nearing his apartment is his cry “Bacca! Bacca!”
When he is given a piece of the palatable leaf he tears it into little pieces, and puts them into his mouth, one at a time. He rolls the tobacco around with his tongue like a cow treats a quid of grass, and finally swallows the mass—tobacco and all. Tobacco is a luxury that fills the poor devil with keen delight, and when he sees a pouch produced his eyes roll in pleasurable anticipation. John is kept in confinement in a little eight by ten cell entrance to which is had through a barred door of heavy hickory strips. Just in the rear of this is an enclosure, twenty or thirty feet square, and unroofed. The fence surrounding is about twenty feet in height. This is John’s exercising yard. He possesses the instincts of a bull, and is strongly affected by changes in the weather. He becomes greatly excited just before a rain, thunder, snow, or wind storm, and will plunge out into his exercising-pen, tear about at a fearful rate, paw up the earth, and bellowing most frightfully. He has a voice of wonderful power, and the bullish noise he makes can be heard for a mile around. They cannot be distinguished by a stranger from those of a gorgeous bull. So unerring is John in his demonstrations, that the residents in that locality rely upon him as their barometer, and he never fails to acquaint them with pending meteorological changes.
He wears men’s coarse clothing, after a manner peculiar to himself. He cannot be induced to wear suspenders. He is frequently presented with those useful appendages to the male’s toilet, but it matters not how bright and gaudy the colors may be, John will tear the suspenders up and ornament his neck, arms and legs with the pieces. He keeps his pantaloons in place by constantly holding them up by the band in front. When one hand is tired he catches a fresh grip with the other and struts around his dismal quarters with all the pomp and circumstance of a prize bull at an agricultural fair. He sleeps on a small cot in one corner of his cell, having for his bed-fellows a number of old tin cans, bones, and brick bats. He never removes his pantaloons, and nothing can induce him to wear shoes. He is a rugged, healthy creature, with a voice like a Kansas cyclone.
The man’s history is a sad one. His mother, a very pleasant and intelligent woman, was one day crossing a field not far from their home a few month’s prior to John’s birth. A vicious bull was pastured in the field and when he caught sight of Mrs. Haines he came plunging toward her at full tilt, snorting angrily. The terribly affrighted woman ran with all speed to the nearest fence, and succeeded in getting on the other side of it before the bull, which was close in her wake, could harm her. The shock was a terrible one, and Mrs. Haines suffered for days from nervous prostration. The terrible effects of that fright was impressed upon her unborn child, and when he was ushered into the world, the poor mother found that her offspring partook more of the nature of a bull than he did that of a human being. Her grief over this misfortune was pitiable, and for almost thirty years her life was embittered by a contemplation of the hideous child. When the wretched woman died John was removed to the infirmary, and has been confined there ever since.—Chillicothe (O.) Leader.
Pebble Township is about 20 miles south of Chillicothe in Pike County. In 1866, Pike County purchased a farm adjacent to the village of Idaho, Pebble Township, and erected a new infirmary there, which was also know as the poorhouse or poorhome. It was still at the Idaho location in 1942. The main building was a two-story frame structure with 22 rooms, and there was an adjacent a one-story male dormitory building. “Records of the home are located in the office of the superintendent of the county home, which occupies one room in the southwest corner of the first floor of the main building of the home, at Idaho, Ohio. The records, all bound, are kept in a wooden desk in the office” (source).
Yuma, Arizona. The Los Angeles Herald (July 21, 1875) carried the following item from Yuma, Arizona:
A male child was born here a day or two since which was a most singular monstrosity. The head, from the lower jaw up, was that of a calf, with indescribable appendages. It lived one day. Dr. De Courcey the attending physician, and Dr. Loring, Medical Director of Fort Yuma, examined this and are satisfied as to the cause.
Jackson, Tennessee. Another case describing a hybrid with the minotaur configuration is reported from Tennessee. If this individual was in fact a hybrid, then presumably, since she was named and dressed as a woman, she was the offspring of a woman, not a cow. This report appeared in the the Clarksville, Tennessee Weekly Chronicle (May 20, 1876, p. 1, col. 9). Similar reports appeared in papers across the United States.
A HUMAN MONSTROSITY
Frances McClellan Creates an Excitement in Jackson
A reconstruction of the appearance of Frances McClellan based on the news report quoted at left (Image: E. M. McCarthy).
Last Wednesday a mulatto girl named Frances McClellan, living on the farm of Mrs. McClellan, about ten miles from Jackson, visited that city, and created quite a sensation. She was raised in Madison County, and is now about seventeen or eighteen years old. Her face appears to be that of a human, with a mask-like covering on the upper portion, resembling very forcibly the front and nose of a calf. From the top of her forehead down to her lower lip, the face is a calf’s face. The nostrils perform the duties of the human nose, and extend down on the lower lip like the nose and upper lip of a calf. Her eyes are several inches apart, large and peculiar in appearance. The skin of her calf-face is smooth like other parts of her person. The lower lip, chin and under jaws are natural human features, and of common size. The large eyes, the broad, flat, calf-like face, the wide nostrils, and the thick, heavy upper lip, joined to the human features below, gave to the face at once a horrible, revolting and hideous appearance. All who saw the girl were excited with curiosity, and eyed her very closely. She soon noticed this, and hid herself from public gaze.
The case of Frances McClellan is especially interesting, not only because the description given of her differs from that typically given in reports about cow-human hybrids birthed by cattle, but also because she supposedly reached an advanced age, was raised as part of a human family, and could communicate (perhaps talk?) in a sufficiently human way to allow her to go shopping in town.
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Above: An article from the Pensacola, Florida, Journal (Jul. 25, 1909, section 2, p. 9). Note that no specific names or addresses are given, so unless supported by the results of further research, the claims made in this article cannot be taken as anything more than hearsay. Vernon is about 50 miles south of Dothan, Alabama, and 110 miles east of Pensacola. The Messenger is a newspaper published in Troy, Alabama, which lies about 61 miles northwest of Dothan. It seems that Troy, was briefly renamed Seay, in honor of Alabama governor Thomas Seay, but that the name failed to stick.
Facade of Saint-Nizier, the church where French physician Jean-Ferapie Dufieu claims a cow-human hybrid was baptized on the 20th of January, 1759.
Lyon, France. A case dating to the eighteenth century is recorded in Jean-Ferapie Dufieu’s Traité de physiologie (Lyon, 1763, vol. I, pp. 228-229) in which the author, a French physician, describes an “infant” baptized in Lyon. Thus, he writes that “on the 20th of January, 1759, the vicar of Saint-Nizier in Lyon baptized an infant who had features like
those of a calf. The lower portion of the face was human and the upper a mixture of calf and man. He had a had the nose of a calf above another nose like a human being’s, and his skin was covered with hair from the upper part of the small of the back upward over the top of his head all the way to his calf-like nose. The priest had to lift this shaggy hair out of the way to baptize the infant. The eye sockets were large but contained no eyes.† The arms were very short and had only two digits [i.e., cloven hooves again]. The child died the next day, the 21st, and was buried in the cemetery there at St. Nizier. [Translated by E. M. McCarthy. Original French.]
† The incidence of anophthalmia and cyclopia seem to be greatly elevated in distant hybrids.
So here again the mother is supposed to have been a woman, not a cow. (Presumably no one would have chosen to have this creature baptized in a church if it had been birthed by a cow.) And here again, the alleged hybrid has a face that is more cow-like.
The Monk Calf (Artist: Lucas Cranach the Elder).
Waltersdorf, Germany. One cow-human hybrid actually played a significant role in the Reformation. Martin Luther claimed that a monstrous human-like calf born on Dec. 8, 1522, at the village of Waltersdorf near Freiberg (about 70 miles southeast of Luther’s Wittenberg) was a sign from God that the Catholic Church was corrupt. Catholics, in their turn, interpreted it as a sign that Luther was accursed by God.
Pictured at right, this creature was, according to Aldrovandi (1642, p. 372, citing Amboise Pare and Jakob Ruf†), born of a woman. Supposedly, it had a deformed head, stood upright, had hooves instead of hands and feet, and on its shoulders, a cape-like flap of skin that Luther likened to a monk’s cowl, for which reason it became known as the Monk Calf (German: Munchkalb). It seems that Lucas Cranach the Elder, the creator of the only surviving representation of this creature (above, right), was living in Wittenberg in 1522, which suggests his drawing may have been based on direct observation.
† In a chapter on abnormal infants birthed by women, the Swiss obstetrician Jakob Ruf (De conceptu, et generatione hominis: de matrice et eius partibus, nec non de … Francofurti ad Moenum, 1587, Book V, chapter iii, p. 44) pictures and describes the Monk Calf. According to the German Wikipedia page on Ruf (accessed 6/21/2018), he was the first to make a systematic compilation of human congenital deformities, which he first published in a book entitled Ein schoen lustig Trostbuechle von den empfengknussen und geburten der menschen… (Zürich, Christoph Froschauer, 1554), of which there was a reprinting issued in Zürich in 1981. Since Ruf died in 1558, the material for De conceptu, et generatione hominis would presumably have been drawn from this earlier publication.
Christoph Martin Wieland 1733-1813
Locale unknown. Another description of an exceptional cow-human born of a woman appears in a letter published in the German periodical Der Teutsche Mercur (1784, pp. 253-263), published and edited by Christoph Martin Wieland. It, too, depicts an individual with a head that is more cow-like than what is usually described in reports alleging hybrids produced from cows. Here translated into English, it tells of three sisters who kept, in a room at the back of their house, a creature that, at least based on its description, must have been a 32-year-old, fully viable cow-human hybrid. It is the sister’s maintaining this creature in their own house for many years, despite extreme inconvenience, that suggests it was birthed by a family member, perhaps their mother.
A Highly Mysterious Natural Phenomenon
February 24, 1784
People seek to follow Nature down her most secret paths, preferring to entertain themselves with the infinite peculiarities of her productions, a truly fruitful occupation for the reflective mind. And here in this letter, my friend, you have a contribution to the natural sciences whose subject you will find most remarkably strange.
In one of the local suburbs lives a family of three sisters. But there is also a fourth member of their household, a creature that could just as well be classified as either human or animal. It is human in form, but eats and acts like a beast. And had I not been hardened by the study of natural history, I would have been shaken with horror at the very sight of it.
The three sisters are fully aware of the dread this creature inspires, which is why they make it so hard to see. They keep it hidden away in a back room, and for years have been covering up its existence by saying it was dead. But I learned it was not, and I went to the utmost trouble to see this nondescript with my own eyes. Public opinion indeed made a great monster of it, but what I in the end saw myself was even more terrible than anything anyone had described. I was taken to a small room at the back. As we went in an appalling stench struck my nostrils, and it became even worse as I approached a misshapen form, asleep upon a mattress. As it lay there, I could see the thing had an unnaturally thick head, upon which, here and there, were scattered wisps of blonde hair. The forehead was broad and flat as an ox brow, but smooth and without the slightest wrinkle. It had no eyebrows. The nose was a full two inches wide, and seemed to be pressed out wide. She had only one nostril, the other had grown shut. The upper lip was missing, but in its place was tight white row of upper teeth, which were unusually wide. The lower lip was round and very thick, blue and repulsive. Just below the chin a fleshy growth stood out, larger that an ordinary goiter, but hanging and limp. Close beneath it rose a pair of prominent breasts. A pair of small round teats, like a fourteen-year-old girl’s (the creature is female) swayed back and forth, and beneath them was a belly swollen like that of a pregnant woman. The feet were crooked and turned inward. There were no toes. They had grown together, as had her fingers. Her arms were thin and undeveloped. The bone seemed to be covered with only with a thin yellow skin. Indeed, the entire creature was bright yellow, which made her inexpressibly repulsive.
The creature still slept and I expressed to my wish to see it awake. The maid, my guide, told me I must not scare it, and gave it a shake. Suddenly it opened its eyes and uttered a cry that pierced me to my core. It was the natural voice of an ordinary calf. It beat the air with its hands and feet, and to calm it, the girl placed a flat bowl of porridge, a mixture of milk and grated bread, near to its mouth. It sniffed and at once it lowered its whole head into the bowl and, with its eyes closed, slurped up the milk like a dog. When bread got stuck between his teeth, it chewed and lifted its head slightly from the bowl. It was a horrible thing to see.
The creature is so greedy that one cannot take away its dish without it’s raising a terrible mooing and thrashing about with its hands and feet. I had a small dog with me who was lured by the scent of the milk. Before venturing to the bowl, he paced round the creature three times, and when it failed to make way, he began to bark. The thing seemed to be listening, but never stopped licking until the whole bowl was empty. And then it sniffed round the bowl and licked the floor.
And then it began its lowing once again, not so loud as before, but rather more like the weak voice of a drunkard whose tongue is too heavy, and stomach, too full. Now it began to throw itself about and to roll from side to side, thrashing its hands and feet in the air. The girl said that she always does this after she’s eaten, and that often she seems to smile, but I myself saw no smile. Presumably, such expressions are elicited by a feeling of well-being from satisfying a basic animal need.
At first I thought it would to go to sleep again, but it didn’t. Instead, it thrashed and rolled about, harder than ever, and finally rolled right off the mattress onto the hard floor. But it seemed not to notice. Rather, it continued these movements even more frenetically, and in the end rolled right out of the cloth in which it was wrapped, so that it lay completely naked before me. For it had no garments beneath. Really, I have no idea how they dress it at all, given that it is always rolling and dragging itself about from one place to another on its belly, or on its hands and feet.
It is always hungry. And if you place a full bowl before it, it will fall upon it at once and never stop eating before it is emptied to the bottom. It usually eats six times a day, and its forceful cries make the feeding times clear.
It refuses to eat bread, unless it has been crumbled. Nor will it eat meat or legumes. If one offers it such food, it may eat for a while, but it seems to taste at once that it is not its usual fare, and then it raises a great cry and does not leave off until it gets its customary porridge of milk and grated bread. And then when it has finished eating, it always behaves as I have already described. This dish must therefore always be at hand because often this creature will cry out in the middle of the night or early in the morning and wake the whole house and never stop until someone has brought it food.
Unable to speak, its only voice is its calf-like lowing. Nor, seemingly, does it hear properly either. For I stood next to it and stamped loudly against the floor, and I also struck a nearby leather-covered chair with a metal pipe, but it brought no reaction. But it must be able to hear the door, for the girl said it was always drooling when it opened, which is not surprising, since it only opens when food is being delivered. The other sisters do not trouble themselves with its care—and I must say, I do not care to see it again myself.
Nevertheless I did inquire about many things, so that I might determine whether this monstrosity† showed any human desires and impulses, other than the most basic animal cravings. But I failed to get any information, partly because the girl sees this thing only a few times a day—and that for a short time—and partly because she has grown too accustomed to it to feel any curiosity. I would have liked to have spent a week or two observing it, but it simply wasn’t possible. I had enough trouble even seeing it once. In fact, my sister had to promise the maid that if she was caught by her employers and dismissed, that she would take her into her own service. But I can’t really hold it against the sisters.
In the summer they often put the creature out in a high-walled garden. The neighbors became aware of its presence and began peering over the wall. But the sisters complained to the authorities, who expressly prohibited this intrusive behavior, for the neighbors were extremely curious and, at one point, a throng standing on ladders rang the walls.
And then the sisters had a roofed garden house built where the creature could stay during the summer and planted a lawn around it, for its room reeked so much that opening the door made the whole house stink. But at first she refused to stay there, until finally it was realized that she loved the sun. The house was then turned to admit the sunlight and then she would spend the entire day there or lolling on the lawn, where she was often heard mooing, not in a distressed way, but more like small cries of joy. They often neglected to bring her into her room at night, only to find her in the morning all fresh and frisky out in the open.
And now a bit of a detour. The chambermaid told me that sometimes, especially in the spring, the creature will lie on the lawn in the sun and roll about, so much that it ends up completely naked, and then it moans, thrusts, pants and seems to smile. “Thrusts?” I said in all innocence. At this the girl blushed a deep red, and I suddenly realized what she had meant. These movements were nothing more or less than the expression of that same natural drive seen many young girls.
…
While the creature is out in the garden they fumigate its room. But they cannot do so as often as they would like, because after a fumigation the creature stays up all night. When they bring it in, it begins sneezing over and over and then starts up with loud mooing, and keeps it up throughout in the night. It must be very irritable. So the sisters are put to a lot of bother in the winter, given that the beast is easily chilled and it must be kept in a heated room already in September.
What is most surprising is that this unfortunate creature is 32 years old. Ordinarily such beings die soon after birth, but this individual is an exception. However, it seems that it was formerly friskier and less thin, and that it smiled and ate more. It has only been sick a few times in its life, and even on those rare occasions it recovered its appetite and bounced back in just a few days. It does not at all like to drink, but gets what liquid it needs from its milk porridge, which it laps up. It allows no one to feed it. It grew only for its first twelve years, reaching then its mature size. It is only three-and-a-half feet long. I wanted to include a drawing of this creature, but I myself cannot draw, and it wasn’t possible to bring someone along who could.
The final two paragraphs are omitted here because they are mere speculation about why the mother had given birth to such a creature.
† The German word used was Mondkalb, equivalent to the obsolete English word mooncalf, meaning monstrosity or abortion. The old idea was that exposure to celestial influences, such as moonbeams, was the cause of such births.
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The report above, telling of a minotaur-like offspring birthed by a woman in Burma, appeared in the Wellington, New Zealand, Times (Sep. 20, 1902, p. 15, col. 2). The Friend of Burma was a newspaper published in Rangoon.
Atypical cases birthed by women:
Conrad Lycosthenes (1557, p. 649) says a woman gave birth to a cow-human on a Pomeranian farm called Rossauw near Pasewalk in December, 1555. But his description seems not to correspond with the Minotaur pattern. He says that it had the body of a calf, but a naked, round head, much like that of an ape, that the chin was bearded, that the front legs were stumps, but the hind legs, like a cow’s. This description corresponds reasonably well with the descriptions given in reports about cow-humans birthed by cows, so it may be that Lycosthenes had heard of the birth, but was simply mistaken in saying it was birthed by a woman. Possibly, too, a woman was merely accused of birthing this creature when it was actually birthed by a cow. But, again, if this creature actually was birthed by a woman, it was not Minotaur-like. (Liceti (1665, p. 188), and also Palfijn and Mauriceau (1708, p. 203), reiterate Lycosthene’s report.)
A quite atypical case, supposedly birthed by a woman, is briefly described in the eighteenth-century medical dictionary Nouveau Dictionnaire Universel et Raisonné de Médecine, de Chirurgie et de l’Art Vétérinaire, vol. IV, Paris, 1772, p. 392. According to the account, a certain midwife, Marie de Mony, delivered a woman of a child that was normal in its upper parts as far down as the navel, but just beneath that point, a leg sprouted from the abdomen. It, too, was supposedly normal, except in that it terminated in a hoof like that of a cow. This brief mention, however, was unsupported by any cited sources and seems not to be corroborated in other publications. Nor could any reference to this midwife, “Marie de Mony,” be found elsewhere. So this account may well be fictional.
Incertae sedis. Ahlfeld (1877) described a male anencephalic born to a human mother. It had a protruding muzzle which Ahlfeld (p. 160) says even against his will made him “think of calves, foals, and the like.”
Eugène Boudou, known as L’Homme à la Tête de Veau (The Calf-headed Man), was a stage performer who sang in Paris cabarets during the early 1880s. Though he was described as having a head like that of a calf, it appears from pictures (see below) that he differed from other human beings only with respect to the structure of his mouth, which resembled that of a non-human animal. However, from available images, it is not clear that he specifically resembled a calf, as opposed to some other kind of animal, even in that region of his face. Thus, he would seem to constitute an incertae sedis case and is only provisionally listed here with other reports about cow-humans due to his stage name.
Lord Byron on His Deathbed, by Joseph Denis Odevaere (c. 1826). Oil on canvas, Groeningemuseum, Bruges. (Note the sheet covering his deformed right foot.)
Lord Byron: A cow-human hybrid?
A story that made the rounds of world newspapers in 1870 claimed that the poet Lord Byron was a cow-human, or, at least, an artiodactyl-human, hybrid of some sort, whose development had been influenced in the womb when his mother encountered a painted image of Satan. Byron’s right foot was in fact deformed, but the exact nature of the deformity remains a matter of dispute, and the following rendition of the story, taken from the Marin County Journal (Jan. 22, 1870, p. 3, col. 1), seems little more than unsubstantiated fantasy based on rumor:
A NEW STORY ABOUT BYRON
He was Born with Horns, Cloven Feet, and a Tail
An entire new solution of the Byron mystery is furnished by a writer in the Madras Mail, who says that his father had it from one of Lord Byron’s most intimate friends. According to this lively correspondent, whose story we find in the Echo, Lord Byron was, in a sense, a devil. Incredible as the thing may seem to the thoughtless, the handsomest man in England had a small tail, a pair of rudimentary horns, and short squab feet, divided forward from the instep into two parts instead of being furnished with toes. Before he was born, his mother had been greatly terrified by seeing, when in a very delicate state of health, the celebrated picture of Satan Spurned, in the gallery at La Haye, and the result had been the fashioning of her child to some extent after the monstrous form of which the sight caused her alarm, and of which the continuous recollection could not be effaced by any means known to her physicians. At Byron’s birth it was at first suggested that the monstrosity should not be suffered to live but the child’s body, as a whole, was so perfectly shaped, and its face so wondrously beautiful, that the suggestion was forthwith put aside, and England was not deprived of what was to become in due time one of its chiefest ornaments. Poor Lady Byron never recovered wholly from the shock caused by the discovery of what her husband really was; and partly through excess of imagination, partly in consequence of bad advice from persons who shall be nameless, she felt it to be her duty to insist upon her husband subjecting himself to certain painful operations. But this Lord Byron obstinately refused to do. He urged, and with considerable force, that the peculiar manner in which he wore his abundant curls effectually hid from view the rudimentary horns; and, that, as he never appeared in public without his boots and trousers, none would ever suspect the existence of his other defects, with the exception of his valet, in whom he placed implicit confidence.
And in the B movie Gothic (1986 Virgin Vision), Byron’s lover Claire jokingly suggests he is the Devil incarnate and tries to pull off his boots to reveal his cloven hooves.
However, Hirschmann (2020), citing multiple sources, offers a strong case supporting the conclusion that Byron's deformity was an ordinary clubfoot.
Xenogenesis
A supposedly nonfictional case of cow-human hybrid was described by the Jesuit theologian Martin Delrio (1551-1608). If true, it would be of interest mainly because this particular hybrid, if it was a hybrid at all, was indistinguishable from a human being. Delrio’s account (Delrio 1755, p. 149) reads as follows:
To these things I will add a true story. Right here in Belgium a certain nefarious individual joined himself with a cow. Subsequently, she became pregnant and some months thereafter produced a male offspring, not a calf, but rather a boy. More than one person was present and saw him fall from her womb. Taken up by a nurse, he was baptized and taught to be a proper Christian. [Translated by E. M. McCarthy]
Schenck (1609, pp. 149-150) reports a second case, which supposedly took place at Burgos in Spain in 1597. But here, supposedly, two children, a boy and a girl, were birthed by a cow.
Stillborn cyclopean fetus delivered by cesarean from a cow in Kashmir in 2007 (source). This image is included here as an incertae sedis case because it has certain characteristics in common with the more typical cow-borne specimens described above (naked skin, hair around the mouth, protruding tongue). Moreover, cyclopia seems to occur at elevated rates in distant hybrids. However, the head seems insufficiently human-like to warrant the classification of this creature as a probable cow-human hybrid. It may represent a specimen that falls within the variation produced by this cross, or it may not. The curled hooves are similar to those seen in numerous putative pig-human hybrids. The green slime on the hooves is of unknown origin.
A Woman with an Udder
Illustration from an old medical journal showing a woman with an udder. The Swiss surgeon Johannes de Muralto, who reported this case, states that this woman was born with the appendage, which was attached to her groin and had three teats. It grew as she did and, when she died at the age of 37, it was amputated and found to weigh 73 pounds. Source: Miscellanea Curiosa, sive Ephemiridum Medico-Physicarum Germanicarum…, 1683, dec. 2, vol. 2, pp. 208-209. A parallel case in which a colt was born with an udder and had to be milked was reported in the Langdon, North Dakota, Courier Democrat (Jul. 13, 1893, p. 3, col. 3).
Bull-men (plaque, Ivory/Bone-Reliefs, ca. 8th–7th century B.C.,Iran, Luristan, Surkh Dum, source: Metropolitan Museum of Art).
Sumerian representation of a man embracing two cow-human hybrids. Bull-men were protective spirits who warded off chaos (image on the soundboard of the Great Lyre from the Royal Cemetery of Ur, now in the Penn Museum; Early Dynastic III Period, 2550-2450 B.C.).
Sumerian bull-man (2500 B.C.).
Bull-men, cylinder seal impression (Neo-Assyrian, ca. mid-8th–7th century B.C., Northern Mesopotamia, Metropolitan Museum of Art).
Bull-man (Tel Brak, Akkadian Period, ca. 2350–2150 B.C.).
Mesopotamian lamassu
In the 1930s Oriental Institute archaeologists excavated a monumental citadel gate—flanked by human-headed bulls—at the Assyrian capital of Dur-Sharrukin (modern Khorsabad)
Kamadhenu (as shown in Zakariya al-Qazwini's Book of Wonders, 13th cen.).
An advertisement from the classified section of the Los Angeles Daily Herald (Mar. 3, 1890, p. 1, col. 1). The relevant portion of the ad is highlighted in pink.
News notice about a Brahma bull with a human arm (Jefferson City, Missouri, State Journal, Nov. 20, 1874, p. 14, col. 5).
Enlarge
Above: News report about a human-cow hybrid (Pittburgh, Pennsylvania, Weekly, Sep. 1, 1818, p. 3).
St. Peter’s, Clayworth, the country church where 
Cotton Mather
Hieronymus Fabricius
The Kleisdorf birth (source: 
A second representation of the Kleisdorf birth (source: 
Camerarius
The Bitterfeld creature (Aldrovandi 1642).
A reconstruction of the appearance of Frances McClellan based on the news report quoted at left (Image: E. M. McCarthy).
Facade of Saint-Nizier, the church where French physician Jean-Ferapie Dufieu claims a cow-human hybrid was baptized on the 20th of January, 1759.
The Monk Calf (Artist: Lucas Cranach the Elder).
Christoph Martin Wieland
The report above, telling of a minotaur-like offspring birthed by a woman in Burma, appeared in the Wellington, New Zealand, Times (
Lord Byron on His Deathbed, by Joseph Denis Odevaere (c. 1826). Oil on canvas, Groeningemuseum, Bruges. (Note the sheet covering his deformed right foot.)
Stillborn cyclopean fetus delivered by cesarean from a cow in Kashmir in 2007 (
Illustration from an old medical journal showing a woman with an udder. The Swiss surgeon 
Bull-men (plaque, Ivory/Bone-Reliefs, ca. 8th–7th century B.C.,Iran, Luristan, Surkh Dum, source: