'...It got my head in its jaws and bit me. I was terrified and I thought it was going to kill me. I started screaming and ran. The animal ran away as well into some nearby fields. It was a really big cat, it would have ripped my face off. I don’t feel safe to go out and play any more.'
Of the beast in Trellock.
Bodmin Moor is an eighty square mile wilderness, dotted with hills, rocks and the occasional church or village amid the endless wild fields. It is a place where wildlife can flourish, and a happy haunt for a variety of hikers to lose themselves among the rock formations and grassy plains. It is reputed as a quiet walk in the wilderness, and so a big attraction for those after the quiet compared to the overwhelming noise of the city in this day and age.
Amid the regular fogs that roll through Bodmin however, there are supposedly plenty of things that stir. Including one legend with more teeth then any other.
(Maybe)
The reports of a Beast on Bodmin began back in 1983 - since then there have been sightings right up to the present day, of a huge black feline creature measuring in at four or five times the size of an average cat. One all to capable, according to many locals, of slaughtering livestock. 'She died of a broken neck, her sternum ripped from stomach to leg...' wrote Glenda Cooper of the Independant in 1995. '...But the tell-tale signs were four long scratch marks which Rosemary Rhodes thinks identifies the killer of her ewe... the Beast Of Bodmin Moor.' [1]
As the articles goes on to point out, this is not an isolated incident. In the twelve years since the creature was first sighted, farmers in the area had reported and complained repeatedly about the death of livestock in such a way - 'The way they kill...' John Goodenough in the same article said. '...a dog there's wool and trouble everywhere. A cat goes in, kills and eats...very little mess.'
The idea of an efficient killer in the moors does plenty to inspire the supernatural sense. Foxes, a creature domestic to England can go into chicken coops, slaughter the entire flock and take one bird. Dogs not much better. The idea of a creature doing otherwise on the farms and plains of rural England is almost alien - and adds to the Beast Of Bodmin's menacing reputation. Although no-one has even been reported to be killed by these giant cats of the dark, numerous times MP's have spoken up at Prime Ministers questions, posing the question of the danger these shadowy creatures pose to people themselves. Numerous investigations have been launched - one night, a highly equipped special unit of RAF volunteers took night vision equipment into the moors in order to see the creature - only to be foiled by the fog that descended that night. [2] If there is a Beast Of Bodmin out there then certainly the vast, unbuilt tracks of land in places like Bodmin are the perfect place for such large creatures to hide.
With all of this, you would think there would be more convincing evidence. However, there has been little if any public evidence of the creature existing at all, despite the massive amount of reports by rational and normal minded people.
What does exist though, is probability. It is said that the 1976 Dangerous Wild Animals Act, (which prohibited the owning of numerous dangerous animals without a licence) caused owners to release animals into the wild for fear for the lives of their pets, or not report them missing if they escaped for fear of police retribution [3]. Cats regularly escape from zoos, and are quiet and stealthy enough to evade capture afterward. The Beast Of Bodmin indeed, is far from the only legendary cat to haunt the British Isles. Another savage tale is that of the Beast Of Exmoor, in neighbouring and equally rural Devon. A creature also never found, it is said to have killed over a hundred sheep in the space of three months in 1983, all having died from 'violent throat injuries' [4].
These are far from the only stories of big wild cats - there are many stories of big cats found in back gardens, such as one lynx the police had to spend six hours capturing after it was discovered in a back garden in North London [5]. In a darker tale, one boy was savaged by a big black cat in the night in Trellock, South Wales [6], and one retired tracker is said to get at least two big cat sightings a week [7].
So the mythological status of these beasts in the wild isn't so much about a lack of sightings or interest but a lack of irrefutable evidence for the world to see. Photos are contested, reports treated with scepticism - photos can be faked and reports can be bogus. Even articles in the news can be lies.
So in a world where anything can be a lie, the beasts of Bodmin and Exmoor remain legendary, and so retain a mythological status. Silent as death, their prey can be lost before ever realising its being hunted - and all these creatures leaves behind, said zoologist Quentin Rose once, are 'bones and wool.' [8]
So in spite of the lack of the indisputable evidence, there are plenty who say that these monsters are waiting in the dark. And in places like the Bodmin moors, and the wilderness of Devon, there are miles of dark in which to hide.
[1]: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/on-the-trail-of-the-beast-of-bodmin-moor-1574378.html
[2]: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/519700.stm
[3]: http://thetroubledtimes.wordpress.com/2010/07/14/the-beast-of-bodmin-moor/
[4]: http://www.everythingexmoor.org.uk/encyclopedia_detail.php?ENCid=125
[5]: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-44519/Lynx-caught-garden.html
[6]: http://thetroubledtimes.wordpress.com/2010/07/14/the-beast-of-bodmin-moor/
[7]: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-gloucestershire-16760599
[8]: http://thetroubledtimes.wordpress.com/2010/07/14/the-beast-of-bodmin-moor/
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