Following my recent post on folk horror and the appearance earlier this year of the Hull Werewolf Old Stinker, who sparked a folk panic in the UK, stories are breaking that a legendary Chupacabra has been caught and killed in the Ukraine with a pitchfork. This beast is a vampiric bloodsucking goat that feeds off livestock. The goat-sucker’s name comes from ‘chupar’, ‘to suck’, and ‘cabra’, ‘goat’. It is a creature that can be found in the folklore of the Americas, with its first purported sightings reported in Puerto Rico.
As in the case of the Hull werewolf, there are numerous sensational reportings and even pictures of the dead body of this folkloric creature in the press. This troubling picture comes from The Daily Mail’s feature, typically entitled ‘legendary mysterious blood sucking beast’.
It does look otherworldly (more kangaroo than goat perhaps). The same story of the ‘Terrifying Chupacabra beast captured and killed by a pitchfork wielding villager’ appears in The Sun
Well now I have even more reason to fear goats. Following this, Black Phillip (below), who is becoming a regular feature on this blog, and sightings of my neighbour’s demonic goat door knocker (also below), Heidi is seeming a distant memory. There is quite a lot of unsettling material on goats as threat, as shapeshifters, as demonic etc. in my book Animals in Folklore edited J.R.Porter and W.M.S. Russell. I am keeping a close eye on this blood sucking goat story. Don’t leave home without your pitch fork!!
I love the stories about the chupacabra. I remember watching an episode about it on ‘The X-Files’ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Mundo_Gira). Time to go look for evidence of them on YouTube.
Oh I didn’t know they were in the X-Files! Yes, on Youtube too. Not as scary as Black Phillip but interesting re: the folklore.
Local residents there complained of a mysterious vampire beast terrorising the community in recent months. They told how the beast had been feasting on their livestock – and had sucked all the blood from their bodies.