Beast of Bodmin Moor - Elizabeth S. - Fourth Hour

Imagine that you are a farmer in a small village near Bodmin Moor. One day you are out rounding up your sheep when you hear a rustling behind you. You find this odd because all of your sheep are in front of you. Out of curiosity, you turn around and see a giant black cat staring longingly at you and your sheep. It has a hungry and evil look in its eyes. Terrified, you scream and run leaving your poor defenseless sheep to fend for themselves. You get back into the village and tell everyone what you saw, and you find out it is the terrifying Beast of Bodmin Moore. The next morning, you and the villagers return to the moor where you find your sheep slaughtered in a river of blood. This was the village’s first encounter with The Beast of Bodmin Moor and it won’t be the last.

The Beats of Bodmin Moor is a large black cat that is approximately three and a half feet long with a tail that is about 18-24 inches long, and resembles a black panther. It is also said to not just make the normal of a cat, but also the sound of a screaming woman. The beast has been sighted about sixty times in the Cornwall area since 1983, and in the early nineties, farmers reported the large cat to the national press. Many people think that The Beast of Bodmin Moor isn’t real and neither do I.

The Beast of Bodmin Moor was thought to be just a myth even though there were pictures and videos of the beast. That was until one day, a fourteen year old boy found a skull with really big fangs. The giant fangs made the boy think that it was the skull of the beast, so the skull was taken to the Natural History Museum to see what it truly belonged to. There, they found out that the skull belonged to a leopard, which is native to Asia. Not England. But that’s not all; there were also cockroach eggs, which more than likely originated from somewhere tropical, along with knife marks on the back of the skull. This means that the animal that the skull actually belonged to, was turned into a rug and the whole thing was a hoax. But, there are other reasons why it is so hard to believe in the Beast of Bodmin Moor. In 1995, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food held an official investigation, where they could find “no verifiable evidence” of large cats in the area.

While there is no proof that the Beast of Bodmin Moor actually exists, people still continue to see it and are convinced that it actually exists. For years farmers have been blaming the slaughter of their livestock on the beast, there are even pictures and videos.

I don’t believe in the Beast of Bodmin Moor for a couple of reasons. First, there is no proof that there is actually a giant cat living on the moors. Yes, farmers are waking up in the morning and finding their livestock dead, but that could be the work of a number of other animals. Second, it could just be an escaped cat from the zoo, not a supernatural being that terrorizes the countryside with its blood-thirsty ways. The Beast of Bodmin Moor is most likely a myth and shouldn’t be taken seriously.

Resources

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/136546.stm date accessed: April 3, 2009 (Beast of Bodmin Moor)
http://www.paranormality.com/beast_of_bodmin.shtml date accessed: April 3, 2009 ( Beast of Bodmin Moor)
www.associatedcontent.com/article/750069/the_beast_of_bodmin_moor.html?cat=58 date accessed; April 3, 2009 (The Beats of Bodmin Moor)
www.anglefire.com/pa3/mw/topics/mar2000.html date accessed: April 3, 2009 ( Beast of Bodmin Moor)
www.cornwall-calling.co.uk/gazetter-cornwallbodmin-moor-beast.htm date accessed: April 3, 2009 (Beast of Bodmin Moor)
www.bodminmoor.co.uk/legends.html (figure 1 and information) date accessed: April 3, 2009 ( Bodmin Moor Myths and Legends)
http://www.cornwalltour.co.uk/beast_of_bodmin_moor.htm date accessed: April 3, 2009 (Beast of Bodmin Moor)