Witchcraft basics

The Pope Lick Monster

^his horns are smaller than that but you get the point

Today is my birthday so i felt like sharing something about the city i'm from. This has nothing to with witchcraft, however this is a piece of local folklore in my area and i felt like sharing. Maybe encourage you to look into the local lore of your area

The Pope Lick Monster is also known as Louisville Kentucky's Goatman

He is part goat, part sheep, part man. Various overwrought descriptions have given the monster the grotesquely deformed body of a man, fur-covered goat legs, an alabaster face with an aquiline nose, wide set-eyes, sharp horns protruding from his forehead and long greasy hair matching the fur on his legs. Other descriptions had him looking more like a sheep – with "Sheepman" the name being given to the beast.

The monster lives in near Pope Lick creek under a train trestle, just a few hundred yars off from Taylorsville road, and while we don't know whether or not he is real, he has lead to many very real deaths. All of them consist of people dying while looking for the monster, but usually they get run over by a train or die near the train tracks. He is said to use hypnosis or a siren like song to lure people near there. Some say he kills with an axe, while others say with his bare hands. It is said that the very sight of the creature leads people to jump off the bridge. He is also said to summon the ghost train (see below) to run people over.

One man managed to survive the Pope Lick monster, but his girlfriend wasn't so lucky

No one knows the monsters origins, but there are many theories on it.

One is that he was a circus freak in the 1800s who vowed to get his revenge after being mistreated. In another version, the creature escaped after a train carrying circus freaks on it derailed on the trestle which actually links the Pope Lick Monster to the legend of the "Ghost Train" which as also sighted on the trestle (the Ghost Train was a train carrying circus freaks and got struck by lightning on the Pope Lick Train Trestle and it is said that the Pope Lick Monster was the only one to survive. This is the most popular to be told as a scary story over a camp fire)

Another theory is that he was an old farmer who preformed satanic rituals on his sheep and goats

It has been a right of passage for teenagers to go to the bridge and look for the monster (i haven't done it, because most of my friends have never heard of it even though he is the most popular cryptid from Louisville Ky.)

In the 1970s this cryptid became an inspiration for a short 16 minute film called "The Legend of the Pope Lick Monster". There is also a Genius award winning play called "The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek.

There are no official sightings of the monster (because as stated above people who see him are driven to jump off the bridge)

But he still exists in legends and photographs

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/pope-lick-trestle-bridge

https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/local/2016/05/05/pope-lick-monster-survivor-says-charges-unfair/83840134/

https://cryptidz.fandom.com/wiki/Pope_Lick_Monster

http://louisvilleghs.com/LGHS_MASTER/SUB/Legends/Pope%20Lick/The%20Legend%20of%20Pope%20Lick.html

https://www.theparklands.org/Blog/15/THE-POPE-LICK-MONSTER