Laisrean
January 14th, 2009, 02:49 AM
Link (http://www.miamiherald.com/living/travel/story/841671.html)
It wasn't the towering pines that scared me. Or the dank, muck-filled seeps. It was more the silence, a total lack of sound blanketing my surroundings and awakening fears that only foolish girls hike alone in the Androsian forest. In other words, it made me believe that the chickcharnie might actually exist.
Variously described as a three-toed elf, a red-eyed man beast or a birdlike creature with a lizard's tail and a fluffy mane that likes to hang upside down from trees, the chickcharnie is something out of this world. Hard to describe with precision, but you'd know it if you saw it. According to legend, upon encountering this mischievous beast you must treat it with respect, otherwise your head might spin around on its axis.
Skeptics claim that a 2-foot-high, swivel-headed owl -- now extinct -- was the inspiration for the myth, while others claim to this day to have seen an actual chickcharnie themselves.
Owl or not, the combination of secluded forest and persistent folklore adds a certain layer of suspense to even the simplest of Androsian day hikes.
:hairraise
Sounds a little bit like a certain creature sighted in the vicinity of Point Pleasant in the late 1960s.
It wasn't the towering pines that scared me. Or the dank, muck-filled seeps. It was more the silence, a total lack of sound blanketing my surroundings and awakening fears that only foolish girls hike alone in the Androsian forest. In other words, it made me believe that the chickcharnie might actually exist.
Variously described as a three-toed elf, a red-eyed man beast or a birdlike creature with a lizard's tail and a fluffy mane that likes to hang upside down from trees, the chickcharnie is something out of this world. Hard to describe with precision, but you'd know it if you saw it. According to legend, upon encountering this mischievous beast you must treat it with respect, otherwise your head might spin around on its axis.
Skeptics claim that a 2-foot-high, swivel-headed owl -- now extinct -- was the inspiration for the myth, while others claim to this day to have seen an actual chickcharnie themselves.
Owl or not, the combination of secluded forest and persistent folklore adds a certain layer of suspense to even the simplest of Androsian day hikes.
:hairraise
Sounds a little bit like a certain creature sighted in the vicinity of Point Pleasant in the late 1960s.