Every fisherman wants to catch a big, and even better – a giant fish. And some fish dream of catching a fisherman. Such predators live not only in the deep sea and tropical rivers, but also in us in the north.
The vast spaces of Siberia are very convenient to consider on the map. This is a solid green spot that thin cross strings of rivers. It rests on the Kamchatka mountains, Arctic Ocean and Kazakh steppes. Everything is compact and clear.
In fact, it’s hard to even imagine the huge taiga and tundra – tens of thousands of kilometers of the wilderness where no human foot has stepped. Many areas of Siberia are known only for aerial photography, and even geologists study them, mainly moving along river beds. Along the rivers the local population also prefers to settle – Khanty, Mansi and Yakuts in the center of Siberia, and east and north – the Chukchi, Dolgans, Nganasans, Yukagirs.
What taiga wilds hide, no one knows. Rumor has it that here still live mammoths and giant spirits, similar to primitive people. There are other mysterious creatures, including giant cannibals.
A photo from open sources
Legends say that these fish can be found in large lakes. According to the Selkups, a pike that has reached the age of one hundred, specifically seeks a deep body of water during a river flood and stays in him until his death. Finding out a monster’s habitat is easy – the lake has no source; birds and animals avoid it. Selkups call these purulto lakes – “lakes of black water”, and they will never fish here fish and swim in a boat. They are afraid to even approach them. in winter, believing that monstrous pikes can break ice and feast on the traveler.
Similar stories tell the Yakuts. Soviet ethnographer Alexey Okladnikov wrote a story from a hunter about how a pike ate young man.
“There lived an old man with a guy. One hot day deer sailed away from the old man to the island located on the lake. The guy sat on a birch bark boat and chased after the deer, so as not to go far. Old man at this time stays at home. Suddenly the water was agitated without wind. Seemed big tail, and a huge pike fish swallowed a guy, knocking over a boat big wave. This pike also slammed its mouth with its mouth. Old man sobbed bitterly, mourning the death of his son. The next morning he’s all Deer traveled around the lake, trying to find at least the bones of the deceased the guy.
An old man was holding an ax. And suddenly, when he was driving at the very the coast, again the water, like a mound, was agitated. From the lake to him the huge pike rushed. The shore was low and gentle. Pike rushed with with such tremendous force that she remained on the dry shore, unable to reach old man. The old man jumped up and killed her with an ax. Cut her belly and found bones – from a guy left; only slivers remained from the boat. The old man took the jaw of that fish and set it like a gate on the road, which leads from this mountain lake to Lake Sialah. Through these the gates all, without getting down from a deer, drove through, so high and wide there was a jaw. ”
Many kilometers of impassable swamps share Yakut and Selkups and thickets. It is unlikely that they could borrow from each other stories about cannibals. It’s even harder to believe that such stories came from them. Chukchi. However, they talk about huge pikes.
In the magnificent monograph by Vladimir Bogoraz, the Chukchi separate chapter dedicated to monsters. Pikes are also mentioned there, which the inhabitants of Kolyma call juutku-nen – “biting fish.” According to legend, giant fish live in distant tundra lakes and prey on people, especially bathers. Do not disdain and by fishermen.
A photo from open sources
The Chukchi have a story about how a pike gobbled up a young man who was surprised at the lake. The cannibal was caught in a very original way. Chukchi lowered four sledges loaded with deer meat to the bottom of the lake. When the pike tried to eat the bait, its teeth got stuck in the wreckage. the sled. It took a few people to pull the fish onto shore.
Yukaghirs living near the Chukchi are also known for giant pikes. They told a story about a fisherman who went to inspect their nets and in the water – on both sides of the shuttle – I saw two large yellow eyes, the distance between which was equal to two oars. By According to the fisherman, it was a huge pike, motionlessly lying in water.
I heard similar stories from the Yakuts Okladnikov: “On the lake before they saw a pike: her eyes on both sides of the birch bark boat are visible were. ”
Let’s move six thousand kilometers from Kolyma to the west, to Yamal, where legends go about wheatgrass – a cannibal fish with horns on its head. Valery Chernetsov, who recorded local traditions, believed that The prototype of the monster was huge pike. Nenets hunter told him that once three men were killed in a lake in the Yenisei Delta a huge fish in whose stomach they found a belt buckle. Sharks in these places are rare. There are no man-eating sharks at all, especially in fresh lakes. Chernetsov believed that it was a huge pike.
A photo from open sources
Now go down to the pool of the great Ob, to the Khanty, who believe that the water spirit of Sart-lung turns into giant pike. Werewolf fish live in deep pools and lakes and can easily have a snack on the boat.
By the way, Khanty consider the pike not a fish, but a beast, which the supreme god Torum created headless, apparently fearing him cruelty. But the pike was not taken aback and made a head for itself by yourself. She swam across the Ob, swallowing everything met on the way, – an elk, a bear, a woman with a bundle of firewood, fisherman, crow. From the eaten head.
Having prepared a pike, the Khanty take its skull apart, telling the children whom the first pike ate. Pike head bones really reminiscent of the shape of the figures of people, animals and birds. Thus, Khanty not only entertain children, but also inspire them, how dangerous is the water cannibal.
The Khanty neighbors are aware of the existence of monstrous pikes. Mansi told folklorists about yur-grade – a giant lake pike with with a thin body and a big head, and about the Anten variety – a four-seated horned pike, which on occasion can eat a person.
It is unbelievable that for such different nations as the Chukchi and Mansi, there would be the same tales about the same animal, if on there was no good reason. But still, let’s say that somehow in an incredible way, stories of cannibal pikes came up with, for example, Selkups, and all other nations liked them so much that they began to retell them in their own way. In this case, it is not clear how to be with similar stories that Canadians, Finns and even Kalmyks.
The legend of the Canadian Eskimos tells how gigantic the fish ate two fishermen at once. It happened when three men crossed a large lake at Saninjoka. Two sat in tied kayaking with each other, the third swam separately and suddenly heard a loud cry for help. This huge fish attacked the bonded kayaks and swallowed them. Eskimo realized that saving comrades is not succeed, and quickly swam to shore. The monster set off after him. It raced so fast that it drove in front of itself, and they pushed kayak forward. As soon as the boat touched the shore, a man jumped out and ran away.
The Finnish epos Kalevala speaks of a pike from the Tuonela River, from jaws of which were made large gusli-kantele.
The most interesting belief is among the Kalmyks, who believe that in remote steppe lakes are home to very old moss-covered pikes, that swallow people and boats. Moreover, on the full moon they get ashore and crawl through the fields in search of food, attacking calves and cows.
Tales of giant pikes are very widespread. It is noteworthy that they say not just about cannibalistic fish, but it is about pikes. This is hardly an accident. In addition to pike in mythology, there is many other monsters, including cruel water spirits. Why not to write off troubles and catastrophes on their account? Why attribute them fish, and not taimen or, for example, catfish, namely pike?
A photo from open sources
So the stories have a real foundation? Why so giant pikes not found anywhere except folklore? That’s just the point matter what meet. The same ethnographers have repeatedly seen the remains monstrous pike.
One of the old, still pre-revolutionary Siberian researchers nationalities N. Grigorovsky in his work “Essays on the Narym Territory” wrote that giant pikes actually occur “here in remote places where a person’s foot hasn’t been before. “He said that in the forest “near the village of Ketsky” hung for a long time nailed to to a tree the lower jaw of a pike is the length of a horse’s head. By the way, by According to him, the locals called the jaw of the pike a sled that also speaks of their considerable size.
Huge remains were also seen by Soviet scientists. Ethnographers Vladislav Kulemzin and Nadezhda Lukina in one of their books mention pike jaw nailed to the wall of the Khanty hut. The jaw had such teeth that fishermen hung raincoats and quilted jackets on them.
My great-grandfather, who lived in the Don, during the great flood saw in the flood meadow near the haystack a huge pike similar to the old mossy log. He killed her with a pitchfork and fed her to the pigs.
And the traveler Anatoly Pankov in the Oymyakon Meridian spoke of a bulldozer who shot a giant pike from guns. This happened in Yakutia, in the lower reaches of the Indigirka. The fish was old, covered with algae, greenish-brown, flabby like cotton wool. IN it reached a length of four meters. In addition, Pankov brought more one curious story.
“Worker of the state farm” Silyannyakhsky “, the center of which is located on tributary of the Indigirka, a young erudite specialist, learning about my addiction to water travel, offered himself as satellite.
– Will we sail along Silyannyah? I asked half-jokingly.
– According to Silyannyah ?! On a canvas kayak? There are such pikes it is believed that either the kayak will be proportioned, or it will be pulled out of the boat itself. How many cases were there when pikes grabbed their legs. So they quantities – scary to think … ”
Biologists do not recognize the existence of giant pikes, especially cannibals. The most they can do is admit that reach two meter length. However, what can prevent pike grow even more – because she, like most fish, grows in throughout life!
A photo from open sources
Ethnographers’ records of jaws beyond recognized the size of pikes, legends of various nations dedicated to pikes, testify that those can really achieve tremendous quantities.
Why are they unknown to scientists? The answer is really simple. Almost all stories tell about lake, not river fish. it it is not surprising – in rivers, pikes have serious competitors, their fishermen catch and they simply can’t reach a huge size in old age.
In the lakes, no one threatens pike, especially in the lost taiga ponds. People are rare here, almost large predators not. True, there is not much food. Maybe this explains why pikes attack a person. If a four-meter predator can to drag an elk or a fisherman under water, why shouldn’t she? By more if she is hungry.
Most taiga and tundra lakes in which they can meet such giants have not been investigated. Just for unnecessary. Yes, and there are huge pikes, apparently seldom. The reason is also simple – to grow to a gigantic size, pike must live more than a hundred years.
It is doubtful that in one pond several monsters – the ecosystem of even a large lake is unlikely to feed two giants. So, after the death of a monster, at best, a hundred will pass years until another appears. And most likely, much will pass more time – not every pike can survive to such an advanced age.
Therefore, it is unlikely that a rare beast will soon fall to scientists. But if you suddenly find yourself in a remote place and begin to fish in a dark lake without source, be careful. Maybe you will see a huge a multi-meter pike and want to catch it for the glory of science. Am I really I would be in your place quickly got ashore. Maybe a monster swims to have a bite of you. And still he will not succeed in catching him. Such a pike is not caught either by fishing rod or spinning.
Comment on the article from the Internet:
– Giant pikes are a reality, in my childhood, not in Glukhomani, and the Vologda region. near Krasavin, in the lake Romanovsky visiting fisherman after hearing about a pike attacking punts the fishermen decided to catch her, and ordered a tee in the forge, fried chicken, but the tee only towed along the lake, and the end is very men kept a thick fishing line on the shore. As soon as the pike grabbed tee, he threw the fishing line and quickly got ashore and joined to the peasants.
For me, then all the men were tall, but when the pike was hung on the branch of a tree, the angler reached for the gills of the pike, standing on tiptoe, and about a meter of tail lay on the ground. The fisherman took his head and tail, and threw the rest on the shore. Romanovskoye Lake is everywhere described in the article: four kilometers in length, with three drops, with double or triple bottom, as the divers said, trying find the drowned in him, but more often to no avail.
This was already when I was not 8 years old, but 12. Narrow no more than 20 meters wide, the coast as if carved with a knife to crawl out onto you need to make the shore a bench with force, since the supports are even for the toes very hard to find. But many descriptions are stupid enough remember that the eyes of the pike are very close to the head, while the mouth of the head is much wider than the eyes, and if the eyes shone on both side of the kayak, then the width of the mouth should be three meters or more. The ocean bridgeodont even has smaller jaws.
But the author does not want to recall that in Yakutia, Siberia, and even in Ryazan region there are lakes with real prehistoric monsters, whose eyes are located on the side of the head, as they attack their victims, or attacked, in front and not from below, as an ambush does the predator is the pike. And for many of them, their heads resemble pike, and even with teeth out. Such monsters from Africa have a hippo snack. in one bite. And this is evidence of an international expedition, who decided to check the message of people living on the shores of the lake, that the monster feeds on hippos, transported a family of hippos from a nearby lake, and a few days later they found an adult male hippo bitten in half, for one bite.
And yet … when the pike swims close to the surface, the wave goes ahead of it from the upper fin, but not from the muzzle, I myself saw it with high bank of the Northern Dvina, and well remembered that if the pike fin is not visible on the surface, it is clearly visible as a fin cuts the water, but there’s no wave near the head,
And also from the characteristics of the attacking pike and other predators, sharply the open mouth of the predator creates a vacuum, and the water trying to fill this vacuum itself sucks the prey into its mouth, the mouth slams and their mouth water is thrown out through the gills, or through not tightly compressed teeth. So one of the details of the attack described above, points to the attacker’s gills lack. You may have a different opinion, but the anatomy of pikes rejects some of the details of a predator’s description.
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