thumb|Piglet dreams of the Heffalump. [[E. H. Shepard's original illustration, from Winnie-the-Pooh, shows the "elephant" inspiration]]
A Heffalump is an elephant-like creature in the Winnie-the-Pooh stories by A. A. Milne. Heffalumps are mentioned, and only appear, in Pooh and Piglet's dreams in Winnie-the-Pooh (1926), and are seen again in The House at Pooh Corner (1928). Physically, they resemble elephants; E. H. Shepard's illustration shows an Indian elephant. In Disney's Winnie the Pooh franchise, they are mentioned repeatedly, with several Heffalumps appearing featured in the animated television series The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1988–1991), followed by two animated films in 2005 featuring a Heffalump as a main character, Pooh's Heffalump Movie and Pooh's Heffalump Halloween Movie.
Origins
Although the fifth chapter of Winnie-the-Pooh is titled "In Which Piglet Meets a Heffalump", Piglet only actually meets a Heffalump in his imagination. In this chapter, Pooh and Piglet bravely attempt to capture a heffalump in a clever trap; however, no heffalumps are ever caught, and indeed they never meet a heffalump in the course of the books. The sole appearance of heffalumps in the books is imagined, as Pooh tries to put himself to sleep:
In the third chapter of The House at Pooh Corner, Pooh and Piglet fall into a similar trap (it is implied it was the same trap) and think that it was made by a Heffalump to catch them. Pooh and Piglet rehearse the conversation they will have when the heffalump comes, but Pooh falls asleep and when Piglet hears a voice, he panics and says the wrong thing. He is mortified when the voice turns out to be that of Christopher Robin.
Explanation
Although this is not explicitly stated, it is generally thought that heffalumps are elephants from a child's viewpoint (the word "heffalump" being a child's attempt at pronouncing "elephant").
- The term "heffalump trap" has been used in political journalism for a trap that is set up to catch an opponent but ends up trapping the person who set the trap (as happens to Winnie the Pooh in The House at Pooh Corner).
- The protagonist, Gnossos Pappadopoulis, in Richard Fariña's 1966 novel Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me believes his best friend to be named Heffalump for the majority of the novel, although Gnossos discovers in Cuba that Heffalump's birth name was Abraham Jackson White.
- There is an orchestral score called To Catch a Heffalump (1971) by Willem Frederik Bon.
- The Swedish newspaper Expressens Heffalump Award is an annual literary prize awarded to the year's best Swedish author for children and young adults.
- A search for "heffalon particles" is the subject of an April Fool's Day paper posted on a scientific pre-print server.
- The heffalump operator "=>" is used in the BCPL programming language for structure references.
- The 2018 Cosmo Sheldrake song "Come Along", featured in an ad for the iPhone XR, contains the line "Come along, catch a Heffalump".
- The longstanding Labour MP for Liverpool Walton from 1964 to 1991, Eric Heffer, taciturn and portly, was often known in satirical media stories as "The Hefferlump", initially in Private Eye magazine and then elsewhere.
- The 2020 Song Heffalumps by Sematary and Ghost Mountain references Heffalumps.
- In March 2024, shortly after Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2 was released, it was announced that Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 3 had entered development, and will feature Heffalumps.
- The videogame Diplomacy is not an Option features Heffalumps.