A short humourous article surveys a few of The Mythical Beasts of Birmingham, being: the Wump-Tay; Brummies; the “Boss” Tin; The Abominable Snow Hill Man; and The Wrekin.

In the spirit of Ken Reid’s new artbook Creepy Creations, I can think of a few more suggestions, off the top of my head: the Back-a-rack ‘Em (“Back of Rackhams”); the ‘Bumbler 11’ (No 11 bus); the ‘Cad’ Berry (Cadbury); the Certain Coldfeet (Sutton Coldfield); the Suit-on Pork (Sutton Park); the Jolly Cutter; the Bull Wringer (Bull Ring); the Snot Hill (Snow Hill); the Bag-a-Bush (Beggar’s Bush); the Buzz Tin (“Bostin”); the Lickers (The Lickeys); the dreadful monster-pop band the Broomies (“Brummies”) who play strung sweeping-brooms; the dreadful monster-rock band Dark-Hover and d’ Billz Mudders (“It’s dark over Bill’s Mother’s”); the Soul-In-Hell (Solihull) and the distant Doodley Doodler (Dudley).

There’s also the historically recorded Mine Knockers of the South Staffordshire coalfield.