Here's a new piece (new to me, at any rate) of info that ties
directly into the research in my new book regarding alternate
biospheres or aspects of ours, and certain cryptids or unknown
types of creatures....
In the book "Men and Gods in Mongolia," by Henning Haslund,
originally pubished in 1935 (new edition 1992, Adventures
Unlimited Press), the following material is provided regarding
the lake called Socho (Sogno) Nor in Outer Mongolia, from
Chapter XV, pgs. 137-138 (from a Mongolian's account):
"Where the lake of Socho-nor now heaves there once stood a
great and wealthy city. Its inhabitants lived a sinful and
unrighteous life which called forth the wrath of the gods. In order
to punish the people the angry gods one night caused the whole
city to sink into the earth, and in the hollow made by this they
created a lake into which they cast alkali and salt so that no
people would be able to live in its proximity. But the innocent
cattle were not to suffer for the sake of their sinful owners and
the animals therefore were transformed into socho, the
water-cattle, who could live and multiply on the rich pastures of
the lake's bed. Sometimes one could see them rise to the
surface of the water, but always right out in the middle of the
lake. Sometimes, when the water level was specially low, early
morning hunters had seen their tracks on the brink, and old folk
could remember their parents telling them how sixty years ago,
when the lake was dried up after a very dry summer, the
mysterious water cattle had been seen disappearing into the
interior of the earth through a hole in the bottom of the lake."
This parallels legends about "water-cattle" and "water-horses" in
the folklore of the Scottish Highlands and Ireland, as well as in
the Norse world. In these traditions, "lake and sea/fjord
monsters--" the same entities or creatures chased currently by
modern cryptozoologists, and after which the vikings designed
their dragon-prowed ships--were said to dwell in cavern or
"faerie" lands beneath the bottoms of lakes and seas. Another
parallel is found in the Mongolian version, which, like the *many*
Celtic versions, states that interbreeding takes place upon
occasion between the lake-creatures and terrestrial cattle,
resulting in a form of "hybrid vigor:"
"And if this poor huntsman on the next night led a cow to the
edge of the lake and laid himself down to sleep beside it after
having cried the proper formula out over the lake, during the night
the cow would be visited by socho and soon afterwards would
become pregnant and give birth to a calf whose productivity was
equal to that of a herd of many hundred animals."
Interesting how these motifs seem to be universal, regardless of
race, culture, or location.
--Mike