Abominable Snowman

The abominable snowman of the Himalayas is supposed to be a creature half-human and half-animal, hairy and about the size of a child of 12 or 14, which walks erect on two legs, swinging its arms. It is described as reddish or light brown, and not very thick. European travellers called the snowman ‘abominable’ because of the horror with which the Sherpas, a Himalayan people, regard the creatures which they call yeti.

Expeditions have searched without success for the yeti. Mountaineers have found what they thought to be its footprints in the snow, but research has revealed that these tracks were made by other animals. Anthropologists have questioned the Sherpas’ stories as unreliable, and the view that the snowman is a legend is now widely accepted. Legends of hairy mountain men have also been reported from the Gobi desert, Mongolia and the North American Rocky Mountains.

According to Sherpa folklore a monkey king was converted to Buddhism and lived as a hermit in the mountains. An ogress fell in love with him and he abandoned his solitary life to marry her. The children she bore him were covered in hair and had tails, and they were the first yeti.