Draft two:

Tales from the Holler No. 1: The Devil Monkey

I’ve always been interested in the strange stories that turn up around the Blue Ridge and Appalachian Mountains. There are plenty of local legends, sightings, and odd little bits of folklore that don’t get much attention outside the areas where they’re told. Some probably have perfectly ordinary explanations, while others leave you wondering what someone might have seen out there.

One story that caught my attention is the Devil Monkey, a creature reportedly seen in and around Southwest Virginia.

One account dates back to the spring of 1994. A woman from Ohio was driving toward the Outer Banks when storms and road construction forced her off the highway and onto a dark, two-lane road south of Roanoke, around 2:30 in the morning. A flash of lightning briefly lit up the roadside, revealing something walking alongside the road.

She described it as roughly six feet tall, with a muscular but lean build, short black fur, pointed ears, a flat snout, and a long, thin tail. The closest comparison she could make was something between a monkey and a wolf. It didn’t seem particularly interested in her or the car, and simply continued walking away.

There were other reports from the region: A couple near Shawsville reportedly saw a similar creature, and their German Shepherd later disappeared. Farmers around Shawsville, Elliston, and Vinton described hearing strange screams coming from the woods. They sounded like a human yell mixed with a hyena’s cackle. I’ve been in that area and that isn’t a usual sound of the nighttime woods.

Similar sightings have been reported in Tennessee, West Virginia, and eastern Kentucky, going back to the 1970s and 1980s. Near Saltville, an elderly man reportedly saw a black, dog-faced creature with monkey-like features rummaging through his trash. Hikers near Marion spoke of being followed through the woods by something that grunted and snapped branches as it moved. They said it kept pace with them for more than a mile.

The creature has gone by a few different names over the years: the Devil Monkey, the Mountain Ape, and the Ridge Runner. L.B. Taylor Jr. included accounts of it in his book Monsters of Virginia: Mysterious Creatures in the Old Dominion.

There have been suggestions that the sightings might involve an escaped zoo animal or some other exotic critter that found its way into the mountains. That’s certainly one possibility, although there’s no photograph, specimen, or official record confirming what people saw. At this point, the story rests on eyewitness accounts, some of which are separated by years and considerable distances.

I can’t say what was walking along that road over thirty years back. A misidentified animal is certainly possible, especially in the middle of a storm during the early hours of the morning. Still, the description is interesting, particularly when you start finding similar stories from other parts of Appalachia.

I suppose that’s part of the appeal of local folklore. You don’t necessarily have to believe every story to enjoy looking into it. Sometimes it’s the details, the differences between accounts, and the way a story gets passed along that make it worth exploring. Around here, there are plenty of back roads and wooded hollers with stories of their own.

This is the first entry in Tales from the Holler, a series about strange stories, local legends, and unexplained happenings from around the valley and beyond. I’ve got a few more things I’d like to dig into, so this probably won’t be the last time we go looking for something unusual in the mountains.