Toller

Toller

Origin: Manly Wade Wellman's "The Desrick on Yandro (fiction)"

Description

"Oh, there's other creatures, too. Scarce animals, like the Toller... it's the hugest flying thing there is, I guess, its voice tolls like a bell, to tell other creatures their feed's near...."

...There was a gong-gong farther off, the voice of the Toller norrating to the other creatures their feed was near... Gong-gong, said the Toller as Mr. Yandro tried to slip along next to the trees....

— Manly Wade Wellman's "The Desrick on Yandro (fiction)"

The Toller is a large flying creature - reckoned by some he largest flying thing there is - with a voice like a tolling bell, announcing the doom of unfortunate travelers through its backwoods territory, calling to the other strange beasts of the mountains and hills that a vulnerable traveler is nearby, fit for eating....

Keeper Notes

• Manly Wade Wellman provided only the sketchiest of details for this monster, which is, perhaps, as it should be: it works nicely this way, the "gonging" of the Toller's voice contributing to the story's weird atmosphere as one of the strange noises of the trackless Appalachian mountain forest setting....

Associated Mythos Elements

• setting: Folk Mythos
• story: Manly Wade Wellman's "The Desrick on Yandro (fiction)"

References

• Fiction: Manly Wade Wellman's "The Desrick on Yandro (fiction)"