Hide Article Text (OCR)
——Old times in the news-Stories from snipe countryBy GINSEY GURNEY'*1 regard the yarns as deserving a definite place in American folklore/* said a young timberman in 1937, as he told a reporter some of the timberland tales he'd gathered.The most familiar of those involved the snipe, hunted with unceasing diligence by thousands uf young woodsmen, but never the victim of a lasting capture. He himself had caught one once, though, he said, The snipe had entered the bag he was holding, but knowing what a rare specimen he had, he couldn't resist trying to take a closer look at it — just what the snipe wanted. II dazzled its curious eaptor with a stream of green and yellow sparks from its right eye, escaped the bag, and ficw off into the brush with a derisive call, But no wonder that the snipe was such an elusive prey; its beak was mounted on a swivel base, enabling it to catch insects at any angle without turning its head, and the pupils of its eyes winked in alternation, and were mounted at right angles to each other, keeping It constantly on the watch.But besides the snipe, our young woodsmnn-raconleur told of other species, less known perhaps, but quite as Impressive.There was the fJJIa-madoo, which liked to see where he’d been, so he preferred tofly backward. And there was the hidcbehind, a fearsome creature which stuck with a man alone In the woods. No matter which way he turned* the hidcbehind wus always behind him.And there was the bothersome agropelter that lived in a hollow tree and was said to break off a dead branch, the heaviest it could lay hold of, and whauk one on the head with it as one passed under the tree.And there was the hungry hodag, equipped with massive jaws, stout dorsalspines, and powerful hooked tail. It was \ extremely fond of dogs, which it gleefully sopped in runny mud before devouring.Less carnivorous but more bothersome was the axchandle huund, the bane of lumberjack camps. Shaped long, like a dachshund, it came in the night, eating up all the axehandles it could find.And then there was the engaging and harmless little side hill gouger, whose long . association with steep hillsides had rendered it incapable of reversing its direction. When it attempted such a dubious maneuver, it simply tumbled over and had to be helped back on its feet. With a grateful lick to the hand ot the rescuer, ii loped off then in Us right, and only, direction.Thai species was not edible, our yarns- • pinner commented, nor was it dangerous.But the most ominous of the creatures, he warned, was the whirling wimpus, the mysterious forest creature that, seeing a lone, unsuspecting traveler, begins to whirl at a furious rale, closing in, until the traveler melts into a virtual pool of syrup which the greedy wtmpus then simply Jieks up.It’s that proclivity of the wimpus, you . see, that accounls for all those who have gone into the forest and never returned,t
Newspaper Details
Kingsport Times News
Kingsport, Tennessee, US
Sun, May 08, 1977
Page 19
Full Page
Clipped by
Kevin S.
CA 13 Oct 2021
Other Publications Near Kingsport, Tennessee
Times News
Kingsports Times News
Kingsport Times News
Kingsport Times
Kingsport News
