In The Folk Tradition
By Hiram Hester
Let’s talk about the Beast. That’s right, the Beast of Bladenboro.
In the past few weeks, I’ve learned a lot about BOB. And in the meantime, we’ve joked a lot about him. But on December 29, 1953, something “sleek, black,” a catlike animal, “about five feet long with a round face” terrorized the town of Bladenboro. To this day not a soul knows what the beast was. But as reported by Joseph F. Gallehugh, Jr., in the North Carolina Folklore Journal [Student Issue], August, 1976, it had extraordinary strength and sucked the blood from living animals.
2nd Annual Beastfest `08