Mastodawn

Goatman – Tripping on a Legend

Believe it, or not, the idea of a “goat man” is very widespread, even though it has just emerged from folklore and myth to become a Popular Cryptid. In this short orientation on the goatman as a cryptid, I’ll touch upon several better known goatman legends, and other up-and-coming ones.

Let’s first dispatch with the mention of satyrs, fauns, Pan, images of the devil/Baphomet, and even Krampus. I didn’t delve too deep into why the poor goat had a reputation for sexuality because I’m not sure I want to know that much. In Biblical lore, the goats represent the “damned”, while the sheep are the “saved” – quite the unfortunate association.

The various goatmen that follow are unrelated to each other in time, space and origin. Many began as contemporary legends or folklore.

In the Internet age, the definition of “cryptid” became squishy, and all sorts of legendary creatures and supernatural figures were labled as cryptids by those who found the word useful to encompass any weird thing people claimed to encounter. For most of what follows (but not quite all), the creatures in question are not assumed to be a real animal in need of scientific classification. In some examples, the goatman is more associated with the murderous monster spawned from a curse. But, like I said, other than the upright stance, the ungulate legs (walking on toes or tips of toes/hoofs – the extended metatarsals and a “hock” make the leg look like it is bent backwards), the horns, and the hairiness, each of the goatman (or sheepman) creatures of contemporary lore are very much their own being.

The Goatman of Prince George’s County, Maryland

Maryland’s version of the Goatman was made of the same spooky ingredients as the infamous Lover’s Lane legends of The Hookman and the Boyfriend’s Death. The story of the “goat man” has countless variations to which I can’t possibly do justice here. But this goatman was a popular contemporary (“urban”) legend of Prince George’s County, east of Washington, D.C.

According to The Washingtonian, the first media mention of the Goatman was around Halloween time, 1971 , in a county newspaper. The folklore of the area included the legend of the hideous creature threatening people around Fletchertown Road. The local teens would do what we now call “legend tripping” – seeking out places and facing their fears. The earliest Fortean writer on the Maryland goatman was Mark Opsasnick, who claimed he and his friends would “go Goatman hunting” for fun. In 1984, Opsasnick wrote up his Goatman research in Strange Magazine. (If anyone has this saved, please send me a copy!) The Goatman’s popularity rose.

Folklorist David Puglia has done modern work on the legend. He admits that the “earliest formation of the legend is beyond scholarly reach”, but the oral tradition was extended and enhanced by the media interest, especially newspapers. Thus, the legend “flourish[ed] in a way it could not with just oral telling.” And then came the internet – it made the Goatman even more than a legend. It became a potentially real cryptid.

An image showing a humanoid-goat monster with a carcass became the iconic image of the PG Goatman in 2011.

Created by “Viergacht” using “Photoshop Elements, stock photos, and a lot of free time”, they state that it was made for the ‘fake cryptid’ contest for the website io9. As with countless other manufactured images, there remain some gullible people who accept it as real without asking the obvious questions.

This well-used image put the idea of the Goatman into the weird mainstream. Now, the Maryland Goatman is associated with Beltsville, University of Maryland research facility and a nearby bridge called the Goatman bridge that draws people for a test of courage. The bridge idea has become essential to many other goatman stories, with the tales heavily promoted on social media.

The Pope Lick Monster

The most famous Goatman bridge is a railroad trestle in Kentucky, just outside of Louisville over Pope Lick (Floyd’s Fork) Creek. This is supposedly the domain of a monster – half man, half goat (or sheep). Ultimately, like the Maryland/Prince George’s Goatman, this one is also steeped in urban legend lore of the killer in the dark, and its origins (sometime in the 1930s) are in oral traditions that were not documented. The usual tropes are applied: the travelling circus freak show escapee, the insane hermit, the experiment gone wrong, the violent farmer seeking revenge, the native protector of the forest, or the manifestation of Satan himself. The truth is that the Pope Lick Monster is a manifestation of the danger of the train trestle that claimed the lives of so many over decades. The active train bridge is so high that a fall from it is fatal. The scary legends tell of the goatman luring or chasing people onto the bridge, blocking their escape or hypnotizing the victims. Then the train comes.

A 1988 film The Legend of the Pope Lick Monster promoted the legend and, unfortunately, brought new visitors to the site seeking an experience with the monster. The Norfolk Southern company who owns the tracks, struggles to keep people away but the lure is strong for people to test their bravery and have an experience. The legend continues to grow and encourages these potentially deadly efforts.

The Pope Lick monster is a dubious cryptid – no one has ever actually seen it though some claim they heard it or suspected they saw it. However, it is regularly included in “cryptid” content despite its improbability. There is also a festival that ghoulishly celebrates the infamous location and creature. I’ll circle back to the tragic consequences of this legend and the celebration related to tragedies in an upcoming post.

Lake Worth Monster

The Summer of ’69 was notable for the appearance of a goatman around Greer Island in Texas. Said to be huge, bipedal, hairy, and white, the monster reportedly scared teenagers who wanted some alone time near Lake Worth. The creature jumped on a car, attempted to assault a woman, and damaged the paint. The next night, as law enforcement and enthusiastic townsfolk looked for the beast, it threw a tire at them.

The beast was also characterized as Bigfoot-like, though the original report described it as a “fishy man goat”, having horns, thus the goat- or sheep- man association. And, there was eventually a photo.

The photo generates additional questions and no answers. Other than more eyewitness claims, no additional evidence came to light. Of course, there is also a festival that keeps the story from disappearing into the dark past. Check out this recent video on the topic from Lyle Blackburn.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEb4dhLEGvA

Huay Chivo

Described as having a hairy body, red eyes, and an unmistakable stench, in Mexico’s Yucatecan territory, stories of the Huay Chivo are common. People say they hear it breathing nearby as it stalks the fields, and makes the dogs howl. More often, claims of sightings of the Huay Chivo are shared online and reported in the local press. The creature is said to be a sorcerer that transforms into a goat, dog or deer, in order to prey upon livestock. While it has become associated with the chupacabra, the literal meaning is sorcerer-goat, and represents a local variation of the Mesoamerican Nahual – a human that uses magic to shapeshift into a spirit-animal form.

Of folkloric origin, once again, we see legend crossing into reality as people claim to actually see the creatures. As with the chupacabra, the creature may represent concern about dead livestock or unusual circumstances or bad luck. According to a recent article on El Huay Chivo, the stories have been passed down from generation to generation to “keep alive the connection between people and the ancestral mysticism of the Yucatecan territory.” Of note, guess what image is used to represent Huay Chivo in that article? It’s Viergacht’s Goatman image.

Commodification? Check! Huay Chivo is now part of the tourist draw as it appears in festivals and cultural events that celebrate the Maya.

Sheepsquatch and Others

There are several other goat/sheep monsters that deserve mention. And some I probably don’t even know about.

The Sheepsquatch from West Virginia was also known as the “White Thing,” for its pale fur or “wool”. A later edition to the cryptid compendium, the 9′ tall, woolly, horned beast made its appearance in the mid-1990s. With sharp teeth and a musky odor, some speculated witnesses may have encountered a strange bear. The Sheepsquatch attained fame by association, being lumped in with other WV cryptids to emphasize the theme of Spooky Appalachia (the ancient mountains having their own genii loci, spirits of the land). The claims were featured on monster TV shows such as Monsters and Mysteries in America (the first episode) and Mountain Monsters. The Sheepsquatch appears in the infamous monster-laden Fallout 76 game. With the successful social spreading of the creature, it acquired a history that appropriated the past and was blamed for animal deaths and attacks. Acting in the local role of a Bigfoot-character, the Sheepsquatch is responsible for the growls and screams that people hear in the forest.

The Denton goatman is the story of Oscar Washburn, a successful farmer in Texas who was murdered by the KKK. He haunts the bridge, near where his body was dumped, in the form of a man-like goat. The bridge-goat tales harken to the famous fairy tale of Three Billy Goats Gruff where goats must outsmart a troll that lives under the bridge they must cross to reach fresh grass. The goatman is now the troll.

Ollie Asser, dressed in a Goatman costume in front of the Old Alton Bridge. From Texas Standard, 2023.

The Waterford Sheepman (also called a goatman, thanks to that cryptid label coming out in popularity ahead of “sheep”) is a legend from rural Waterford, Pennsylvania. Sticking with the same tropes, it also originated as a contemporary legend in the late 60s and early 70s, influenced by car culture, and it lives under a bridge and encourages teens to plan a legend trip to find it. Some online sources report the the Sheepman, fitting the usual description of tall, hairy, horned, and gruesome, killed livestock and even people, but there is no evidence of the latter. If there were any livestock deaths, they were eventually exaggerated into a taller tale. But facts hardly matter if the story is good.

Conclusion

Collectively looking at the goatman examples in this growing genre of cryptid creatures, we can make a few conclusions about why the goatman tales are so widespread and popular. Context is key. Many of the infamous goatman encounters were related to teens testing their boundaries and crossing a bridge (both physically and metaphorically). We can also suppose that the goat creatures perhaps reflect the connection to sexuality and the Satanic symbolism of the goat.

It seems obvious that the legends are spreading to other areas, shaping and boosting similar local lore. The story tellers are taking the common tropes from goatman stories and adding them to their tales with popular results. The media and, later, the Internet did wonders in propelling contemporary legends. Creation and propigation of images and ideas have been key in shaping and expanding the goatman stories. Some real tragedies and social forces also inspired and boosted the goatman legends. However, manufactured cryptid and monster tales are ubiquitous. These are provided to Internet forums or paranormal web sites as “true” stories when they are really more like creative writing exercises where others in the audience play along. Occasionally, the fictional boundaries are lost and the imaginary bogeyman intrudes into reality.

People “see” cryptids regardless if they make zoological sense or not. Contemporary legends, like those of mysterious creatures, are reflective of cultural trends. The expansion of the general ideas of “cryptids” now includes all kinds of mysterious creatures, even ones that are biological impossible (like man-animal hybrids). As a potential unclassified creature, goatmen simply do not work. Unless they really are supernatural.

This post is part 3 of the 12 days of Cryptids.

#12DaysOfCryptids #cryptid #DentonGoatman #LakeWorthMonster #MarylandGoatman #PopeLickMonster #sheepman #sheepsquatch #WaterfordSheepman