Gef, the Talking Mongoose The annals of psychical research are littered with instances of animal ghosts. The Tower of London is said to be haunted by a phantom black bear, the appearance of which has shocked even the most hardened guards at this famously haunted fortress. It has often been remarked that the British are a nation of dog lovers, which may be why tales of ghostly dogs abound. Although many of them appear to be the spirits of faithful companions, often sticking around after their earthly lives have ended in order to keep a watchful eye on their grieving humans, not all such hauntings are quite so nice. Tales of supernatural black dogs such as the Barguest, the Shuck and the Shag have long been a part of the folkloric tradition, where they are said to lurk in cemeteries and prowl the coast at night. Legend has it that the appearance of these hell hounds may herald death, though it must also be pointed out that smugglers encouraged such stories as a means of keeping particular stretches of the coast clear of human interference, enabling them to engage in their illicit activities after dark. On the other hand, encounters with black phantom dogs have been reported for hundreds of years and have taken place under circumstances which have nothing to do with smuggling or any other illegal activity. The black dogs are sometimes said to have glowing red eyes, and even more bizarrely, may shape shift into another animal form right before the astonished witness''s eyes.

This subset of accounts strongly implies that, whatever these entities are, they are unlikely to be the spirit of man''s dearly departed best friend.and may be something altogether stranger. An equally bizarre animal-centric haunting was investigated by Harry Price, he of Borley Rectory fame. Even by Price''s standards, what came to be called the haunting of Cashen''s Gap (known also as Doarlish Cashen) was unprecedented.all because of a mysterious creature named Gef the Talking Mongoose. The Isle of Man can be found in the channel athwart the British mainland and Ireland. In 1931, it was a lonely and windswept place. Although not a part of the British Isles, its population were British citizens.

Many of them made a living by farming. Such was the case with the Irving family: James Irving, his wife Margaret, and their 13-year-old daughter, Voirrey. The Irvings lived in a farmhouse situated halfway up the slope of a small mountain. They lived with a menagerie of farm animals and their faithful sheepdog, Mona. Cashen''s Gap was an isolated place, with no other houses for at least one mile in any direction. One is forced to wonder what effects this had on the mental health of the Irving family. In the fall of 1931, a strange animal suddenly turned up at the farm. Initially, the Irvings mistook it for a weasel.

At first, the creature could not speak, but the newcomer proved to be a skilled mimic, imitating the clucks, moos and screeches of the nearby farmyard animals. According to the Irvings, the mongoose then finagled its way into the structure of the house, where it took up residence in the walls and the ceiling. The sounds of its claws skittering against wood could be heard running around the house all hours of the day and night. Using nursery rhymes as a guide, Voirrey set about teaching the creature to speak, something at which it quickly became adept. In a shrill, high-pitched voice, the mongoose declared its name to be Gef (pronounced Jeff , in the same way that gif is pronounced jiff ). Gef had quite the story to tell. According to the mongoose, it had been born in India back in 1852, then traveled on to the Isle of Man aboard a ship. 1932 brought the first newspaper reporter to Cashen''s Gap.

Having come a long way from the mainland in order to cover a decidedly oddball story, the reporter interviewed the Irvings and was subsequently rewarded by hearing the sound of Gef''s voice speaking from somewhere behind the walls. At that time, Gef was still being referred to as a weasel, rather than a mongoose. In order to get attention (or sometimes, apparently just for the hell of it) Gef pounded loudly on the walls and ceilings, startling the Irvings out of whatever they happened to be doing at the time. The mongoose would sometimes up and disappear out of the blue, claiming later to have been making its rounds of the island by hitch-hiking on the vehicles of unsuspecting drivers. When it returned to the Irving household, Gef regaled them with gossip and the latest goings-on in the vicinity. As time went on, the Irvings discovered that Gef had a most un-mongoose-like taste for human food, including the pickings from hearty fried breakfasts and sweet treats. The more Gef spoke, it showed a propensity for switching in and out of different languages at will. Even by the standards of a human being, it would have been a polymath.

For a mongoose, this level of intelligence was simply unbelievable. Presumably in an attempt to cause mischief, Gef had a penchant for throwing stones at the Irvings when they were trying to sleep. In addition to being an uninvited houseguest, it was also far from well-behaved. While the entity did hurl and smash crockery, and sometimes threatened to hurt the family, its behavior never escalated beyond the level of being a nuisance. Equally remarkable were the reports that Gef had taken to reading the newspapers whenever Mr. Irving left them lying around. By 1936, Gef had become the darling of the very same print media which it so eagerly consumed. The reality (or charlatanry) underpinning the case of the talking mongoose was the equivalent of water cooler talk.

Skeptics pointed out that despite efforts to objectively investigate the case, Gef had never put in an appearance for any outside observer when they came to visit. Gef seemed to reserve that for the family with which he lived, and to whom he was a constant source of both wonder and bewilderment -- or so they claimed. Gef, Talking Mongoose, Stirs England, Has London Adither declared the Saturday November 14, 1936, edition of the Louisville Courier Journal , shrewdly noting that: .when the reporters swarmed down to Irving''s cottage to see the little animal, he was extremely reticent. In fact, he was completely absent, even though they waited all night so see him." Why would such an extraordinary entity reveal its existence to the Irvings but not to the world at large? Interviewed for the same article, Mrs. Irving noted that "He has often told me he doesn''t like newspaper reporters." Fair enough, yet Gef apparently also had a dislike for scientists and psychic researchers, as he refused to show himself to Harry Price or Nador Fodor when they came to Cashen''s Gap to investigate the claims in person.

Indeed, Gef was apparently no fan of Harry Price, telling the Irvings that the famous ghost hunter was too skeptical for its tastes, and that he should not be allowed near the house. Price came anyway. There was neither hide nor hair of the entity until he left, at which point Gef returned in full force, gleeful now that the object of its ire had gone away empty-handed. Price had initially been reluctant to visit Cashen''s Gap in person and had sent a fellow psychic researcher to scout out the case in his stead. That researcher heard the voice of Gef talking to him inside the house (though he never saw the mongoose itself) and was impressed that the entity seemed privy to information it could not have known through conventional means. It could recount specific actions that Price''s emissary had taken while far away from the farmhouse. This had bolstered Price''s willingness to go Gef-hunting in person. Although Gef failed to put in an appearance for the great ghost hunter, Price would ultimately benefit in other ways from his involvement with the case.

1939 brought Britain''s entry into the Second World War. On the Isle of Man, the new focus on wartime life took the spotlight away from Gef. Within two years, the talking mongoose was gone -- seemingly for good. Today, almost a century after Gef made its first appearance, students of the case are left with the question: what exactly was going on in that run-down farmhouse at Cashen''s Gap? Some considered Gef to be some sort of ghost or trickster spirit, though that seems unlikely considering the fact that the creature left hairs behind for scientists to examine. When analyzed, they turned out to belong not to a mongoose, but to a dog -- possibly Mona, the sheepdog. Mr. Irving dismissed out of hand the notion that he was living in a haunted house. Yet if the powers and faculties attributed to Gef are to be believed, then how best to explain a talking mongoose which was supposedly able to read minds and learn multiple languages in a very short period of time? Gef itself played both sides against the middle.

At one point, it denied being a spirit or ghost. The mongoose attributed its precognitive abilities (knowing what was going on far outside the walls of the farmhouse) as being simply "magic." Yet on another occasion, Gef claimed the opposite, admitting to being a spirit which haunted the Irving family. Gef''s story was nothing if not consistently inconsistent. The entity, whatever it really was, was by no means a reliable historian. In 1945, Mr. Irving died in the farmhouse. Margaret, his widow, moved out.

Gef completely ceased to speak after the remaining Irvings had moved on to pastures new, leaving the next tenants of the house undisturbed. The farmhouse was demolished in 1971, with hardly a trace left of its ever having existed. For quite some time, Doarlish Cashen had de.