Gef the Talking Mongoose

In the early 1930s, a talking mongoose named Gef became quite the media celebrity. Gef lived in a farmhouse on the Isle of Man. Initially, Gef was only known as a "man-weasel" and when the farm owner James Irving and his family asked the animal to identify itself, it responded, “I am the ghost of a weasel, and I will haunt you with weird noises and clanking chains" or, later, (I am) "just a little extra, extra clever mongoose." In Fortean Times, Chirstopher Josiffe investigates this fascinating tale. From FT:

Whether he was supernatural or animal in nature, Gef’s behaviour was often surprising and capricious. Sometimes he appeared to enjoy his life with the Irvings, leaving dead rabbits for them and being rewarded with bananas, sausages and other treats. He took not just to talking but to music, singing along to the gramophone (his favourite record was Carolina Moon), performing the Manx national anthem or snatches of hymns and Spanish folk songs. Often, though, he appeared to delight in tormenting the Irving parents, once throwing stones at (Irving's wife) Margaret as she walked home and, on another occas­ion, losing his temper when Jim took too long opening the morning paper, crying out “Read it out, you fat-headed gnome!” in his high-pitched voice.

"Gef the Talking Mongoose"

• [mkultra]

  I read this a couple of months ago. Seems like a fairly standard case of schizophrenia, along with some fairly gullible people and perhaps a few merry pranksters along the way.

  The thing that struck me was how little evidence there was that an animal even existed, much less was talking.

• [David Pescovitz]

  Exactly! It’s amazing to see how these “media sensations” unfolded back in ye olde days based on little or no factual information beyond a single witness’s comments which often may have been misrepresented anyway!

• [mkultra]

  I guess that kind of raises the question*, what has changed? Are we more cynical now as a society? Better informed? More skeptical? More rational? Or has the media itself changed? All of the above?

  * I would say “begs the question”, but the legions of amateur grammar nazis haunting message boards have made that a hazardous pastime.

• [Arthur S.]

  There’s an excellent Lemon Demon song about this. 
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyzQ-ZFSQic

• [Cpieper]

  I’ve loved the strange story of Gef my whole life! A few years ago I wrote a feature length screenplay based off of it…I hope to one day be able to make it into a film…Time will tell I suppose!

• [Brainspore]

  Somehow putting the phrases “man-weasel” and “grips” in the same headline sounds vaguely homoerotic. I guess that sort of thing probably happens all the time on the Isle of Man.

• [pauldrye]

  I’ve been fascinated by Gef ever since I was little. I loved paranormal stories when I was small, but it was one of the ones that struck me even then as being different from the others — a lot of ghost and UFO stories (the latter because my childhood was during the 70s UFO craze) are awfully same-ey, one of the reasons teenaged me came to realize there wasn’t an awful lot to the paranormal, discounting that “things that happen in peoples’ heads” is kind of interesting. The Monster of Glamis is another one that holds up pretty well.

  I’m writing my next book, “Passing Strangeness”, about weird events in actual history in an attempt to recover the frisson that Gef and the like gave me when I read about them by flashlight under the covers of my Star Wars-sheeted bed(*)

  (*) In the 70s, I should emphasize, not now. Now I have Firefly-themed sheets.

• [Ceronomus]

  I remember reading about Gef, as well as the single grainy picture of him leaping above the hedge.

• [LightningRose]

  On the other hand, Mike, the headless chicken,  is well documented.

  http://www.miketheheadlesschicken.org/

• [Martain Chandler]

  Now we know who fathered Dr. Steve Halls.

• [Nicky G]

  I am going to decide to live in the world where Gef is very much real, and a combination, if you will, of a number of the theories about him.  Nature-spirit, linked to the psyche of the Irving family.  I love it!  What a trickster.  :)

• [MelSkunk]

  I remember reading this in a children’s book of illustrated ‘mysterious world’ garbage as a small child and being utterly fascinated by Gef, only to never find any reference of the matter ever again, to the point I assumed the book made up the story, or I was crazy and never read such a thing.

  It’s nice to know it’s authentically 1930′s madness and not more modern personal madness

• [Jason Roberts]

  I live just along the road from Dalby and explanations for Gef still cause arguments in pubs :)
  It’s by far not the only oddity on the Island – fairies, water cows, ghosts of black dogs, etc!

  • [grangethorpe]

    Hi Jason,

    Do you, or does anyone else in the Dalby area have any idea when - and more importantly, why - the farmhouse was demolished?

    I’m the author of the FT piece linked to above, and when I visited the site, I was struck by how difficult it would have been to get any heavy machinery up there – no roads to speak of, just muddy paths. I also saw one or two ruined buildings elsewhere in the vicinity, so whoever decided to demolish Doarlish Cashen (presumably the farmer or landowner?) must have had a pressing reason to do so. Perhaps to prevent it becoming a shrine for Gef-o-philes?!

    I was told that the building was pulled down some time in the 1980s, but could not discover any more.

    Thanks,

    Christopher 

• [Bill Galloway]

  …And how are you, Mr. Wilson?

• [Lurking_Grue]

  It was obviously a time traveling up-lifted weasel test pilot that crashed landed and had to survive.

• [sy]

  I always loved this story. I even wrote a short SF story that explains the mystery. 
  http://www.furaffinity.net/view/7530362