Mammyth (Creature)

The mammyth was a creature that either existed, or it didn't. They were covered in wool and had tusks made of ivory. They were shy creatures, and were hesitant to let just any person set eyes on them.

Many rumors persisted about the mammyth. For example, a high priest is supposed to have used owned a throne made of mammyth ivory and that pictures of the throne were found in Fallmereyer's tome, Geistkunstgeschichtliche Wissenschaft. Another rumor held that someone removed every image from every copy of the Fallmerayer work; as there was a print run of nine copies (eleven in a tail wind), this was not an impossibility.

Another rumor held that an unnamed Emperor paraded around his capital city in a robe made of mammyth wool, and that a nasty boy pointed out that the Emperor wasn't wearing anything.

The puppet warrior Tundra Dawn and her friends Cleveland and Tremendous Ptarmigan went on a quest for a mammyth. Tremendous Ptarmigan claimed to be friends with a mammyth, but no one else had seen it. During the group's visit to the city of palace of King Wolcott, Tremendous Ptarmigan encountered a mammyth in the restroom. The two talked for a time, but as King Wolcott had said mammyths weren't common in palaces, Tremendous Ptarmigan didn't bother to tell anyone until days later after they'd left the palace and were out on the tundra again.

When the group found a mammyth, they promptly vanished, for the mammyth, even if it doesn’t quite scan, is a Boojum.

Literary comment

Big Bird's friend Snuffy, inspiration for the mammyth.

The mammyth, with its woolly mammoth-like appearance and especial affinity with Tremendous Ptarmigan, closely resembles Aloysius "Snuffy" Snuffleupagus, a character on the television show Sesame Street. In the earlier episodes, Big Bird (on whom Ptarmigan is closely based) was the only main character with whom Snuffy communicated. Only in later episodes did Snuffy confirm his existence for the general population of the Street.