Many years ago I lived up in Coos County in New Hampshire. Some of the old
men would talk about things called "wood devils" that live in the woods.
There apparently were a lot more of these creatures back in the 1930's than
there are now. These Wood Devils were tall and very skinny. They are gray in
color with hair covering their bodies. I guess that people saw them mostly
when they didn't expect to see them. These creatures generally stayed in the
deep woods. They have the ability to run with great speed on two legs so
they are not bears.
When a person walked through the woods he would nearly walk into one before
he spotted it. They hide by standing upright and staying completely still
against a tree. They freeze. As a person approaches it, the creature will
stand against the opposite side of the tree. As the person passes it will
move so that the tree is always between the person and the tree. If it
cannot hide it will still stay perfectly still until it knows the person
sees it. They make awful screams. They have a semi human shape, but their
faces don't look at all human. I have never seen one, but the people who
said they did were regular churchgoers and would strap their kids for lying.
I don't think they would carry on discussions of things they made up.
Evan Litchnowski writes that off Nash Stream Road there is a trail called
Dummmer Pond Trail. He and his former wife Edith were walking that trail watching the sunrise
when a dark foreboding figure of a man crossed over the trailhead in front
of them. For a short period of time he says his mind didn't recognize what
it was until the hair and barefooted appearance finally sunk in. By the time
they both said "did you see that?" the creature was gone and the couple was
left to try and sort out what they saw in the flash of a moment.
Litchnowski also included the above Wood Devil story unique to the resident
woodsmen in the area via the telephone and a subsequent email. This occurred
in Spring, 2000. I received the story December 2000.
Originally, Kyle Mizokami picked up the Wood Devils legend off the
alt.bigfoot newsgroup a few years ago. He tried contacting the original
poster for permission to put it on his website, but never heard from that
person again. USENET, like discussion lists are often treated as public
domain; additional source credit for Wood Devils: Kyle Mizokami.
Reprinted under the Fair Use Doctrine of International copyright law. - Bobbie Short
