(01-19-2025, 10:54 AM)F2d5thCav Wrote: "Fakelore". I like that term, very apt.
Yeah, I'd say Mothman is much more Appalachian than Wendigos etc.
Cheers
Apparently, "fakelore" is a more commonly used term than I thought. It is, however, an appropriate term!
I've never heard of a "wendigo" around here... until the internet, CreepyPasta, and Fakelore became a thing. Likewise for "the rake" and "pale crawlers". I've heard of "sheepsquatch", but have never heard of any tales of sheepsquatch around here, and generally place sheepsquatch in the fakelore category. "Devil Monkeys" actually were a thing around here at one point, many years ago and before the internet. There was apparently a rash of sightings of them on the road that intersects route 19 and runs south east runs beside Witten's Fort back in the 1950's through the 1970's. Interestingly, there is an Indian village site on the other side of that road from the fort that had "an old Indian burial ground" from which several bodies were excavated back in the 1970's.
In the 1990's, "something" slaughtered a bunch of goats over a couple week period in southern Russell County, VA. The goats were just slaughtered, but not eaten. Oddly perhaps, there were about 3 ancient Indian "mortuary caves" in that near vicinity as well. The caves are still there, and still have Indian burials in them, but the government has suppressed their locations using "pot hunters" as an excuse for supressing the locations, and only the locals know where they are. I remember when the stock slaughters occurred, but now you can't find mention of them on the internet anywhere. I reckon that got "supressed" too.
"Bigfoot" and "sasquatch" has always been a thing around here, but not under those names. Way back when, it was referred to as a "wood booger" Daniel Boone told a tale of seeing one, which he referred to as a "Yahoo", apparently a hat-tip to "Gulliver's Travels". But generally, they were referred to as "wood boogers" by white folks, and a variety of names such as "mishishingwa" by the Indians before them.
Native Americans had a well-developed folklore for this area, but it mostly involved "little people", thunderbirds (some of which are painted in ancient petroglyphs on Paint Lick Mountain), Great Horned Snakes (like the Cherokee Uktena, but not limited to the Cherokee - Great Horned Snakes go back at least to the Mound Builders), and various wood spirits such as the Mishishingwa, which was apparently a Gamekeeper spirit, later known as the wood booger, and still later as bigfoot or sasquatch.
The werewolves must have been imported by Europeans, as the Indians never mentioned anything like them that I know of.