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Authors: Daniel Cohen
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CHAPTER 1
THE WORLD OF MONSTERS
Monsters they frighten us and they fascinate us.
People have probably always been like that. You can imagine people thousands of years ago sitting around a campfire at night. They hear noises out there in the darkness, just beyond the light of the fire. What is it? A harmless animal? A dangerous animal? Perhaps it is something strange and terrible and completely unknown—a monster.
Of course, people would be afraid. They would imagine all kinds of terrible and terrifying creatures. Everyone would want to know what was out there. But very few would be brave enough to go out into the dark and try to find the thing.
Today we are more fascinated by monsters than frightened by them. We might feel differently if we thought we were going to meet one in the woods. But as long as we are safe at home, most of us like to believe in monsters. It would be boring to think that science has been able to identify and classify every large animal on earth. It is far more exciting to believe that there still are strange, terrifying, and unknown things out there somewhere.
Creatures like Bigfoot and the Loch Ness monster are well known. But there are many other monsters that some people believe exist now, or have existed not too long ago. These monsters just have not received the right publicity.
Here, for your education and entertainment, are accounts of a dozen of these lesser-known monsters—monsters you probably never heard of before.
These monsters are a mixed group. They range from a 115-foot-long snake with glowing eyes to a winged thing in the pine woods of New Jersey, and from something that might have been human and hopping around London in Queen Victoria's day to something that might be a kangaroo hopping around Chicago in our own day. These monsters range from creatures that are quite down to earth, and ordinary—for monsters—to creatures that seem out of this world.
All of these accounts are "told as true." That is, they are reports of what was supposed to have actually happened. They are not just stories made up to frighten and amuse people.
I warn you, however, if you are looking for hard evidence that any of these creatures exist, you are not going to find very much of it here, because there isn't very much. Most monsters have proved to be extremely hard to catch, and these are no exception.
But then, if we could catch them and classify them, they really wouldn't be monsters anymore, would they?
CHAPTER 2
THE JERSEY DEVIL
Right in the middle of one of the most thickly populated areas in the United States are the New Jersey Pine Barrens. The Pine Barrens are about 1,700 square miles of trees, sandy soil, and not much else.
Not many people live in the Pine Barrens. About 150 years ago iron was mined there. But it was poor quality iron and could not compete with better iron found in other places. The mines closed down. Some people moved away. The small number of people who do live in this region today are poor and isolated.
From the Pine Barrens come tales of a monster called the Jersey Devil.
The earliest tales of the Jersey Devil date back to colonial times. According to one legend, the Jersey Devil was the monstrous offspring of a woman known only as Mother Leeds. The creature is also called, among other things, the Leeds Devil.
Views of the Jersey Devil that appeared in a Philadelphia newspaper during the 1909 scare.
Mother Leeds had a dozen children and didn't want any more. When she discovered she was going to have another one, she said, "I am tired of children! Let it be a devil!" And, according to the legend, it was. After it was born the monstrous thing escaped up the chimney and hid out in the Pine Barrens.
There are many other versions of this story. But this one is the most common.
Whatever its origin, by the middle of the nineteenth century a lot of people thought there was some sort of monster living in the Pine Barrens.
There have been many different
THE WORLD OF MONSTERS
Monsters they frighten us and they fascinate us.
People have probably always been like that. You can imagine people thousands of years ago sitting around a campfire at night. They hear noises out there in the darkness, just beyond the light of the fire. What is it? A harmless animal? A dangerous animal? Perhaps it is something strange and terrible and completely unknown—a monster.
Of course, people would be afraid. They would imagine all kinds of terrible and terrifying creatures. Everyone would want to know what was out there. But very few would be brave enough to go out into the dark and try to find the thing.
Today we are more fascinated by monsters than frightened by them. We might feel differently if we thought we were going to meet one in the woods. But as long as we are safe at home, most of us like to believe in monsters. It would be boring to think that science has been able to identify and classify every large animal on earth. It is far more exciting to believe that there still are strange, terrifying, and unknown things out there somewhere.
Creatures like Bigfoot and the Loch Ness monster are well known. But there are many other monsters that some people believe exist now, or have existed not too long ago. These monsters just have not received the right publicity.
Here, for your education and entertainment, are accounts of a dozen of these lesser-known monsters—monsters you probably never heard of before.
These monsters are a mixed group. They range from a 115-foot-long snake with glowing eyes to a winged thing in the pine woods of New Jersey, and from something that might have been human and hopping around London in Queen Victoria's day to something that might be a kangaroo hopping around Chicago in our own day. These monsters range from creatures that are quite down to earth, and ordinary—for monsters—to creatures that seem out of this world.
All of these accounts are "told as true." That is, they are reports of what was supposed to have actually happened. They are not just stories made up to frighten and amuse people.
I warn you, however, if you are looking for hard evidence that any of these creatures exist, you are not going to find very much of it here, because there isn't very much. Most monsters have proved to be extremely hard to catch, and these are no exception.
But then, if we could catch them and classify them, they really wouldn't be monsters anymore, would they?
CHAPTER 2
THE JERSEY DEVIL
Right in the middle of one of the most thickly populated areas in the United States are the New Jersey Pine Barrens. The Pine Barrens are about 1,700 square miles of trees, sandy soil, and not much else.
Not many people live in the Pine Barrens. About 150 years ago iron was mined there. But it was poor quality iron and could not compete with better iron found in other places. The mines closed down. Some people moved away. The small number of people who do live in this region today are poor and isolated.
From the Pine Barrens come tales of a monster called the Jersey Devil.
The earliest tales of the Jersey Devil date back to colonial times. According to one legend, the Jersey Devil was the monstrous offspring of a woman known only as Mother Leeds. The creature is also called, among other things, the Leeds Devil.
Views of the Jersey Devil that appeared in a Philadelphia newspaper during the 1909 scare.
Mother Leeds had a dozen children and didn't want any more. When she discovered she was going to have another one, she said, "I am tired of children! Let it be a devil!" And, according to the legend, it was. After it was born the monstrous thing escaped up the chimney and hid out in the Pine Barrens.
There are many other versions of this story. But this one is the most common.
Whatever its origin, by the middle of the nineteenth century a lot of people thought there was some sort of monster living in the Pine Barrens.
There have been many different
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