HUNTING THE BEAST
The Beast of Exmoor is a folktale for our times. Shrouded in local legends of great dogs, there seems little doubt that flesh and blood big cats are at large in the British Countryside.
In eighteen ten in Ennerdale
In the dales of Cumberland
The Girt Dog made its presence felt
And struck fear into man;
For some they called it devil
Though most they thought it hound
A half year passed upon the dales
Before it was run to ground.
One man saw it closely
It was running from the pack
It charged him straight between the knees
And tossed him on his back -
And Jack Wilson swore to his dying day
That it was not dog, but cat!
This very year in Exmoor
Prowls another Beast
It takes lambs from the farmers' fields
And on pony foals makes feast.
Some they call it panther,
Black as jet is its hide
While others call it mountain lion
And some a Lynx describe.
Do not doubt its presence
The Beast is blood and flesh
But keeps itself well hidden from
The scores who want it dead.
The Exmoor beast, it hides its face
With a price upon its head.
From Exmoor in the West
To Norfolk in the East
They are hunting the beast, hunting the beast.
From Scotlands's Glens and Dales
To Tonmawr in Wales,
They are hunting the beast, hunting the beast.
In other parts of England
Lurk grey Lynx and Lion, gold,
And who knows what strange menagerie
The British Isles now holds?
Do Leopards sleep in shadow
While Panthers prowl the dales
Do Mountain Lions haunt Scotland's glens
Like that Beast of Ennerdale?
From Scotland through to Cornwall
Great cats stalk in the night,
And from mankind stay hidden
Preferring flight to fight?
From Scotland's glens to the West Country
The great cats hunt the night!
From Exmoor in the West
To Norfolk in the East
They are hunting the beast, hunting the beast.
From Scotlands's Glens and Dales
To Tonmawr in Wales,
They are hunting the beast, hunting the beast.
THE BEAST OF BODMIN
Note: Expert trappers (who hunt big cats for a living in their native country) have identified the "Alien Big Cats'" pug-marks and killing style/wounds as belonging to dogs. The livestock-killing creatures of Britain are most likely free-roaming dogs - strays, ferals or daytime pets. Far from worrying about Alien Big Cats, perhaps we should be worrying about packs of feral dogs such as those already found in the USA, Australia and parts of Europe.
There is a beast of Bodmin,
It hunts the lambs and sheep,
It prowls the Bodmin moorland,
While decent humans sleep,
And when we wake at morning,
Its handiwork is found,
Slaughtered sheep half-eaten,
Are strewn upon the ground,
And all the men who've seen it,
Will swear it is a cat,
A puma or a panther,
Its pelt an inky black.
A trapper from a far land,
He came to stalk the beast,
To help the local farmers,
Whose sheep made up its feast,
But all the tracks he found there,
And all the ovine kills,
Were not the work of big cats,
But to his expert skills
The pug-marks spoke quite clearly,
As did the killing style,
Of the fabled beasts of Bodmin,
Being rogue dogs all this while.
There is a beast of Bodmin,
A beast which shares our homes,
By daytime quite familiar,
But which at night-time roams,
A beast that's causing losses,
A wolf in pet-dog clothes,
That runs amok at night-time,
That no-one claims to own,
But in the glare of daytime,
The beast's no doubt a pet,
But it's a livestock killer,
And we'll find and shoot it yet.
Humans being humans, we would rather blame the killings on a "beast" than accept that our own pet dogs are the real culprits.