The Jersey Devil and other legends

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THE JERSEY DEVIL
Aka: the Leeds Devil

Description
There are over thirty different descriptions of the Devil ranging from a feathered animal with the head of a ram to a flying lion to a green upright monster. The Jersey Devil is blamed for all unexplained animal deaths in the Jersey Pine Barrens and surrounding areas, mysterious footprints, and strange cries in the night. There are several new sightings of the beast reported every year.

Place
The Jersey Pine Barrens and surrounding areas.

Sightings
The most popular tale took place in 1735 where the 13th pregnancy of a Mrs. Leeds was said to have led to the birth of a devil child who flew away up her chimney. Local records vaguely support the idea that a thirteenth child in a family named Leeds disappeared. Some believed that Mother Leeds was a witch and the child's father was the devil. The child was described to have hooves, the head of a horse, bat wings, and a forked tail.

Another version tells of a Mrs. Shrouds of Leeds Point who wished her next child to be a devil, and gave birth to a misshapen and deformed child who also escaped up a chimney. Other stories that took place at Leeds Point includes the one which tells of a young girl who was cursed by the townspeople for falling in love with a British soldier during the Revolutionary War and as a result, gave birth to a devil child.

Since then, numerous New Jersey residents have earnestly reported sightings of the demon for the last two hundred years.

Folklore
Most of the sightings are of a winged creature with a ram or bull's head, which is similar to the traditional image of the horned devil. During 1830 and 1840, when numerous livestock died mysteriously, the blame was laid on the Devil, who became an invisible beast capable of killing even those animals in highly secured areas. It then became a winged creature with a bird's body and the head of a ram that leaves strange footprints in the snow. Then it changed to a flying lion in the early 1900's, and a half-man, half-beast in 1932. In wake of the Roswell Crash of 1947, the devil became a "green, clearly male, upright monsters". Later in the 1950s, the Jersey Devil took on the appearance of a "seven feet tall, faceless hairy creature, or a cross between a Tasmanian devil and a human being. The legend has also changed and adapted to the passing of time in order to stay current.

Today, the Jersey Devil has won iconic status, being the regional symbol of the area. The NHL hockey team is even named “ New Jersey Devils”

THE DEATH WORM
Aka : Allghoi khorkhoi means "intestine worm", also known as the Mongolian death worm

Description
A fat, bright red snakelike animal measuring two to four feet in length, which is vividly likened to a cow's intestine.

Origin
As many invertebrates, worms cannot survive in a brutally hot and dry climate like the Gobi desert. Mackerle has proposed the skink, a strange variety of lizard whose nondescript head is hard to distinguish from its tail. Skinks also live buried under desert sands but the smooth-bodied death worm has no legs. He has also suggested that it could be a type of lizard called the worm lizard, although that species is not poisonous. Among lizards, only the Mexican beaded lizard and the Gila monster possess poisonous venom, but they do not squirt it, and their venom definitely is not instantly lethal on contact. The only existing snake that sprays its venom and could survive in the Gobi environment is the death adder, a member of the cobra family but he is found only in Australia and New Guinea and is much smaller. More likely, the death worm is a mythological monster based on an exaggeration of some desert-dwelling snake or reptile, which is not truly as deadly as its reputation would suggest

Place
The desolate Gobi Desert

Powers
The death worm is so feared among the people of Mongolia that many consider the mere mention of its name bad luck. It is attributed with the dramatic ability to kill people and animals instantly at a range of several feet. It is even believed that the worm sprays an immensely lethal poison; a sort of acidic liquid that immediately makes anything it touches turn yellow and corroded. The nomads also said that the color yellow attracts the Allghoi khorkhoi. The analogy with the basilick (cockatrix) is strong as this creature has also the power to kill instantaneously anyone who tries to observe it.

Sightings
The worm was popularized by Czech author author Ivan Mackerle, who learned about the creature from a female student from Mongolia. After Communism collapsed in Mongolia in 1990, he mounted an expedition to the country's desert wastes to hunt for the worm. Except a few testimonies from locals, he did not bring back any evidence.

THE MERMAIDS

Description
Mermen or Mermaids depending upon their gender. They have the lower bodies of fish and the upper bodies and heads of humans.

Sightings
In the twelfth century it was reported that a merman was caught by fishermen off the east coast near Suffolk, England (UK). He seemed unable to speak when released from the nets. The merman was taken to a church, and even tortured but still not utter a sound. Described as 'the appearance of a man in all his parts' the merman quickly escaped when taken to the water supposedly to bath.

'This morning, one of our companie saw a Mermaid, and calling up some of the companie to see her, one more came up...From the navel upwards, her back and breasts were like a woman's...her body as big as one of us; in her going downe they saw her tayle, which was the tayle of a Porposse, and speckled like a Macrell.'

Henry Hudson, Explorer, 1608.

'My attention was arrested by the appearance of a figure resembling an unclothed human female sitting on a rock extending to the sea, apparently in the action of combing its hair. It remained on the rock three or four minutes after I observed it, and was exercised during that period in combing its hair, which was long and thick. I has a distinct view of the features, being at no great distance from an eminence above the rock on which it was sitting, and the sun brightly shining.'

'The Carmina Gadelica' William Munro, Schoolmaster circa 1785. 'The Times' newspaper.

A mermaid was said to haunt 'Mermaid Rock', Cornwall (UK). Whenever she was sighted it indicated that there was a shipwreck to be expected and therefore the lifeboats should be prepared. It was said that she lured the ships towards the rocks by her singing. 'Doom Bar', in east Cornwall, was a sand bank that used to cause many shipwrecks near the mouth to the harbour. It was believed that the sand bar caused the many disasters as the result of a mermaid that had been shot there whilst she was enjoying swimming in the harbour. The constant arrival of fog on the Isle of Man, off England (UK), was believed to be the result of a mermaid who was rejected. She was so upset that fog surrounded the island, causing problems for the local shipping.

In 1830 a reported sighting by local people was alleged to have occurred in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland (UK). The mermaid was said to have disappeared underwater after having been hit on the back by a rock. She was later buried after being found dead on the beach.

'The upper portion of the creature was about the size of a well-fed child of three or four years of age, with an abnormally developed breast. The hair was long and glossy, while the skin was white, soft and tender. The lower part was like a salmon, but without scales.'

The sighting of a mermaid in the UK was made in 1947 off the Isle of Muck, Scotland (UK). Sandwood, in Sutherland (UK), was once known as the 'Land of Mermaids' because of the number of sightings.

The mermaid was described as the top half of the body resembling that of a European woman, whilst the bottom was said to resemble that of a fish. This sighting was in 1977. In 1990 a creature, which has yet to be categorised, was found in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland (UK) believed by some to be a mermaid. The last reported sighting of a mermaid outside the British Isles was in Lusaka.

The Merman
This merman was reputedly found tangled up in a Japanese fishing net some thirty years ago. It was not breathing and exhibited no signs of life. It took up temporary residence in a Japanese bar where it attracted the local clientele until it was sold to a German businessman who donated it to a museum in Munich around 1978. In April 1981, the museum suffered a catastrophic fire and the merman was thought lost forever. In 1990 it resurfaced somewhere in Florida, where it was passed from hand to hand. Most believe this Merman is a hoax like the many artefact that flourished in the XVIIIth and XIXth centuries.

THE MOKELE-MBEME
Aka : N’yamala, Guanérou, Diba

Description
In 1913, a German expedition in Congo heard from pygmies about an animal they called mokele-mbeme, which means "one who stops the flow of rivers." They said this beast was about the size of an elephant or hippopotamus, with a long, flexible neck and a long tail like an alligator's. The pygmies claimed that the animal would attack and kill any humans that got too close to it, but it would not eat them, because of its strictly herbivorous diet. Similar descriptions have been given time and time again throughout central Africa, consistent with a sauropod or other small dinosaur.

Dwelling
The Likouala swamps and Lake Tele in Congo. This primitive semi-aquatic forest has not changed much since the Cretacean and is almost untouched by man. It could harbor some strange animals that have survived through ages.

Sightings
Numerous expeditions have been mounted in search of mokele-mbeme, with mixed results. In 1980 and 1981, monster-hunter Roy P. Mackal headed explorations into the Likouala and Lake Tele regions of the Congo, reputed hot spots of dinosaur sightings. But he did not collect anything but oral testimonies. So did his followers.

In 1992, a Japanese film crew captured some of the best photographic evidence of a mokele-mbeme ever presented. They were filming aerial footage from a small plane over the area of Lake Tele to obtain some panoramic landscape shots for a documentary. They noticed a large shape moving across the surface of the lake and leaving a V-shaped wake behind itself. The cameraman zoomed in and got about 15 seconds of the object in motion before it dives under the surface. The resulting footage is very jumpy and indistinct, but it shows a vertical protuberance at the front of the object that could be a long neck.

The congolan zoologist Marcellin Agnagna claimed to have sighted the creature in 1983 during 20’ and at a distance not further than 250 m. Unfortunately, the pictures did not reveal anything.