Friday, December 18, 2015

The Jersey Devil in Maryland

Most people are familiar with the legend of the Jersey Devil and the creature's connection to the spooky Pine Barrens of New Jersey, but did the infamous beast make its way to Maryland?  Folklore gathered in the late 1940s suggest that people in the old line state believed this to be the case.

From the book "White Magic: An Introduction to the Folklore of Christian Legend, by Grant C. Loomis, we find these two excerpts concerning the legendary beast:

"Back when I was a boy there was a big story goin' around the country here about this Jersey Devil that had all the young people scared, 'cause some of the old people told about it.  I know us kids would go up in the woods to play until somebody say somethin' about the Jersey Devil and everybody would light out and run home.  They're quite a few people over the country here that got scared by it.  This Jersey Devil would swoop down and scare you.  They said it came out of the Jersey (New Jersey) marshes, got over in Maryland here and was travelin' through these marshes."

"The devil used to fly around here on wings and everybody seen him then.  Everybody says they seen him.  Old man Tom Harris seen it.  I never seen him but they say one mornin' they seen him down Church Creek, there to the bridge, and seen him settin' - said he was settin' on it.  A flyin' devil - he had people all worried up about it.  Some of them wouldn't go outdoors at night.  The way they spoke it out to me was he had wings just like one of them wingbats.  That kind of build on him only he was bigger than that.  I ain't kidding ya'.  Everybody with any age on them remembers that."



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