NationStates Jolt Archive

I'm curious about local legends, ghosts, and monsters that people who post here grew up with. Note that I don't beleive in such things, but they make for fun stories.

In New Jersey we have the legend of the Jersey Devil. The thirteenth son of a woman named Leeds who lived in the New Jersey pine barrens during the American revolution. She was said to have been impregnated by a British soldier, and havin 12 children already she was heard to say that she wished the devil would take this one. When the child was born it looked normal, but soon transformed into a monstrous creature with pig's hooves, bat-like wings, a long horse-like face and antlers. It ate it's siblings and tormented it's mother for the rest of her life. Sometimes people still claim to see this monster in the Pine Barrens.

You are that monster arent you? come on admit it!

Would that I were, but alas, I am the normal human variety of monster.

A friend of mine from the Gatineaus in Quebec told me about a lake-monster myth in their local area, one that she saw for herself. It had a name, and people didn't know what it was- but she and her brother saw it sidle up along their fishing boat one fine Saturday, and she recognized it instantly. It was an incredibly large sturgeon, one that could easily have been over a century old. Bony-plated, prehistoric fish three times as long as their little boat.

Yes, these sorts of tales are always great, fascinating.
Loch Ness monster
sasquatch
yeti
etc.

The "stories" section on this guy's page(http://biteycastle.com/) has some very chilling stories, several dealing with local Australian legends...

I don't know you have this one in Anglo-Saxical countries as well, but in Sweden we talk of a water spirit named Näcken (perhaps "the nuder" would be an appropriate translation?). A naked man sitting on stones in rivers playing his violin so beutiful that people are dragged to him, when they have reached him and are paralysed by the music he drowns them, pretty weird I'd say...

www.weirdnj.com
great stories and photos of my weird and wonderfull home state.

well its not a monster story but

the local catholic church here in socorro NM (established in 1598) was originally known as nuestra senora del socorro -- our lady of succor. so named because when the conquistadores came north from el paso, through the jornada del muerto, to the area where socorro is now, the local indians welcomed them and gave them food and water which they were in sore need of due to the lack of water on the jornada.

in those times the local indians (tewas or tiwas, i can never remember, they dont live here anymore, they went south to el paso with the spanish during the pueblo revolt) were in constant danger from the apaches who liked to raid the villages up and down the rio grande.

one day the apaches attacked most fiercely and all the missionaries hid behind the mission walls for protection. they expected to be overrun by the apaches and slaughtered.

the attack never reached the mission. when the priests came out they asked the local indians what had happened and they were told they had been protected by the apparition of an angel with a flaming sword. freaked out, the apaches had run away.

the priests realized that this angel with a flaming sword had to be the archangel michael. so they renamed the mission to San Miguel as it is known to this day.

I was always interested in the Mothman legends surrounding the collapse of the Silver bridge in West Viriginia that the Mothman Prophecy movie was based off of.

http://www.prairieghosts.com/moth.html