The World of Lore

by Aaron Mahnke

  Some cultures have revered them as gods. Others have seen them as valuable sacrifices to offer to whatever deity they wanted to please. In many cultures, animals have served as our companions through daily life; in others, they’ve journeyed with the dead into the afterlife.

  Just think about what we know of ancient Egyptian culture. There were entire cults built around specific animals, such as bulls and cats. Their dead were frequently buried alongside animals that held personal or spiritual significance. And many of the Egyptian gods and goddesses were represented through simple animal symbolism. Anubis, for example, was part man and part jackal. Sekhmet was a woman with the head of a lion.

  Ancient Hindu teachings, for thousands of years, have demanded deep respect for the animals around us. In China, the ancient philosophies of Confucianism and Taoism both stress the same thing. For the Hindus, that respect is founded on the idea of reincarnation. In China, it’s rooted more in moral responsibility. But the result is the same. Animals are, and always have been, important to us.

  And yes, I know that ancient cultures focused a lot of their religion and practice on the sun and moon and stars, but they often framed those complex systems with simple animal-related language. That’s why so many cultures have their own zodiac system, where the major constellations are represented by animals. The Greek root of the word “zodiac,” by the way, literally means “circle of little animals.”

  (As an aside: the ancient Egyptian word for “cat” was myw, which sounds a lot like the noise that cats actually make. And that classic, stereotypical dog name, Fido? It comes from the Latin word fidelis, which means “faithful and loyal.”)

  It’s easy to see, then, how animals have helped us understand our world a little better. They help us find our bearings and keep us company in a big, wild world. More significantly, though, they’ve helped us understand ourselves by giving humans a sense of identity and purpose—a theme or a banner to unite around, in a sense.

  Sometimes those themes took the form of religion, as was the case in Egypt with the bull cult. Sometimes it’s more of a totem thing, where an entire tribe or community builds their identity around a significant animal from their environment. Sometimes they did it for a feeling of safety; sometimes the animal was a symbol of power.

  In Icelandic folklore, the Norse warrior class known as berserkers were members of the bear cult. Berserker, in Old Norse, literally meant “bear shirt,” but it also embodied the fierce, powerful nature that they wanted for themselves as warriors. They were often depicted wearing bear skins, and sometimes even bear heads as head coverings. That’s a tradition that still survives, by the way. You can see it in the ceremonial military caps worn by some personnel in multiple European countries.

  The most common tribal animal, though, has always been the wolf. It’s a global fascination seen in cultures in Mexico, the United States, Canada, India, Mongolia, and many countries of the Middle East. This is probably because wolves represented so much of what early humanity identified with: they move in packs, they hunt their food, and they have a distinct social hierarchy. Any hunter-gatherer community would instantly admire those qualities.

  And like bears, wolves were also seen as brave and powerful warriors. Ancient Persian and Hittite warriors were known to dress in wolf skins for battle. Interestingly, though, they also had a reputation for tossing their weapons aside and just jumping on their enemies, literally biting them like animals. For a very long time, humans have wanted to be animals.

  Which of course led to stories in which that was the case. Animals that became people, people who became animals—it’s an idea so powerful that we can find it hiding inside the folklore of dozens of cultures. The Native American skin-walker. The nagual of Central America. And then, throughout much of Europe there’s the werewolf.

  They’re all stories, of course. Artifacts from another time, when animals were gods and humans desperately wanted to imitate the divine. And yes, these stories also address our dual nature, because we are—in many ways—nothing more than animals ourselves, right? But those moral lessons have a way of distracting us from the plot: for thousands of years, people have told stories of mysterious beasts.

  And, it turns out, those stories might be more real than we care to believe.

  ROADKILL

  In 1989, a woman was driving along the same country road that Heather Bowey and her cousins had just walked along weeks before when they’d sighted that strange creature. In Lorianne Endrizzi’s case, it was well after sunset, so she was doing the responsible thing and scanning the road for wild animals. Wisconsin has plenty of deer, after all, and deer don’t mix well with windshields and front ends.

  Lorianne worked as a manager at one of the local bars in Elkhorn and had just wrapped up a very long, very tiring shift. All she really wanted to do was get home safely. But when she did notice something unusual, it wasn’t in the periphery of her headlight beams; it was right on the road in front of her.

  Seeing it early enough gave her the chance to slow down and swerve to avoid hitting it, but it also helped her get a good look at it. From a distance, it looked as if there was an animal hunched low to the pavement in the opposite lane. Its head was gently bobbing at an irregular rhythm, too. She couldn’t tell for sure, but it almost seemed to be eating.

  Then, as she slowly passed it, she claims she saw that it was eating, all right. Whatever it was, the creature was hunched over a pile of roadkill, pulling big chunks of flesh off a dead animal. Lorianne said she could clearly make out what appeared to be long, white fangs that protruded from a gray snout. Together with the pointed ears, she couldn’t help but think of it as a wolf.

  The trouble was, this wolf was kneeling on the road. Like a human.

  It’s one story, I know. And stories that are born in the middle of the night after an exhausting day of work are often full of flaws. That might very well be the case here. I think we’ve all had moments when we’ve seen things that don’t make sense. So Lorianne’s story could just be a bit of midnight confusion, I suppose…if it wasn’t for the other stories.

  Two years later—on Halloween night, in fact—it was Doris Gipson’s turn. She was just eighteen at the time, and had been driving out to pick up a friend for some trick-or-treating back in town. Like Lorianne before her, she was driving that same stretch of country road, named for the old Bray family farm that it passed.

  According to the story Doris later told to a local reporter, she’d briefly taken her eyes off the road to switch stations on the radio when she felt the car lurch. It was as if, she said, she’d run something over. Frightened by the possibility of what had just happened, she stopped her car, put it in park, and then got out for a look.

  Doris, it seems, wasn’t a big horror movie fan. Because anyone who knows anything about horror films knows that you never, ever get out of the car. Ever.

  Still, there wasn’t a scratch on her car. The bumper was spotless, with no sign of blood or fur or anything else that might hint at fresh roadkill. And even more convincing, there was nothing on the road. No dead animal, no unlucky farmer out for an evening walk. Not even a pothole. There was no clue anywhere that could explain the bump she’d felt.

  She was about to turn and head back to her car when movement caught her attention. There was something in the trees and shadows along the roadside. According to her, it was a large figure that stood upright like a man but seemed hairy and very muscular. Which, as you might imagine, was a pretty shocking thing to see on a dark, lonely country road.

  So Doris did the smart thing and bolted for her car door. As she did, the thing—whatever it was—chased after her. Doris said she could hear the heavy thud of the creature’s feet on the pavement behind her and the sound of deep, panting breaths.

  Thankfully, she managed to get into the car, and quickly shifted back into drive. But as she pulled away, she felt her car shudder once more. When she looked into her rearview mirror, all she could see was the dark silhouette of the
creature filling her back window. It had jumped onto the trunk.

  Whatever her attacker was, she claims that it fell off once she got her car moving quickly enough, but she wasn’t willing to stop for another look. She did, however, continue on to her friend’s house, and eventually they both headed back to town for some Halloween fun.

  Later that night, on her way back along Bray Road to drop her friend off at home, Doris swears she saw the figure one more time. It was far off in the distance, at the edge of the light cast by her headlights, but it was the same unmistakable shape: tall, thick, and very animal-like, but standing upright on two legs.

  It wasn’t until the next day, in the safety of her own driveway and by the light of the noonday sun, that she took another look at the car. There, on the trunk, she found evidence that something very peculiar, and very dangerous, had taken place the night before: long, vicious scratches…all grouped together as if they were made by claws.

  CLAW MARKS

  This is the point in the story where you would probably expect me to clarify what the creature was. All of the physical descriptions certainly point toward the folklore regarding werewolves, but almost no one in Elkhorn made that connection.

  Maybe that’s because there were never any stories of humans transforming into the monster. Or perhaps it’s because the sightings weren’t limited to full moons. In the end, whatever it might have been, the people of the area took to calling it the Beast of Bray Road. But there were other theories, of course.

  One common suggestion was rooted in the Native American folklore about a giant wolf known as the shunka warakin, which was described as sort of a hybrid between a wolf and a coyote. Others have made comparisons to the Inuit stories of the amaroq or the waheela, both of which were enormous, monstrous wolves. But honestly, there are far too many human characteristics attributed to the Bray Road creature to make the comparisons stick.

  And that’s without taking into account the additional sightings. Because Lorianne and Doris weren’t the only ones to see something strange along that stretch of country road. And once they spoke to a local reporter, others found the courage to come forward with tales of their own.

  Marvin Kirschnik was one of them. According to his testimony, he had his own encounter way back in 1981—a full decade before Doris Gipson’s. Unlike the others, though, his sighting didn’t happen in the dark. He’d been driving along Highway 11, which runs just northeast of Elkhorn, and as he approached the turnoff for Bray Road, he saw an unusual animal among the trees along the side of the road.

  Kirschnik slowed down when he saw it, and then pulled over to get a better look. The way he described it, much of the creature was obscured by the underbrush, but it was clearly wolf-like. They stared at each other for a moment before the beast moved toward the car. Frightened, Kirschnik drove quickly away.

  Five years later, in 1986, Diane Koenig was traveling in the same area, returning home after a day in nearby Burlington. From a distance, her headlights didn’t give her a very clear view, so at first it just looked like a tall man was walking along the side of the road with something heavy in his arms.

  As she drew closer, though, Koenig saw that this man had the head of a wolf. And the heavy burden it held in its arms turned out to be a full-sized deer. Unlike Kirschnik, though, Koenig didn’t stop for a closer look, and instead sped up…just in case the creature decided to give chase. She kept the story to herself for years out of fear that she’d be considered a lunatic.

  More stories flooded in. One unnamed girl told the authorities that she’d been chased up a tree by a wolf and had to stay there for over an hour while it paced around trying to find a way to climb up after her. What struck her as odd, though, was that the wolf walked on its hind legs. When she led her parents back to the tree the next day, they found large claw marks on the lower portion of its trunk.

  Even Scott Bray, who lived on the family farm that gave the road its name, claimed to have seen extraordinary things, including enormous wolf tracks. Local animal control authorities were called to several homes in the area to examine and collect a large number of mutilated animal corpses. A few townsfolk tried to blame that one on satanic cults, but everyone else agreed it was the Beast of Bray Road.

  There was a good amount of fear in town, as you might expect. But the sightings were also creating something else that’s lasted to this day: a reputation. The bar where Lorianne Endrizzi worked eventually created a menu item called the Silver Bullet Special. A bakery in town started making wolf-shaped cookies. Think Roswell, New Mexico, and UFO collectibles, but with wolves, and you’ll get the idea.

  Even Chuck Coleman, a local state representative, got involved by using the Beast of Bray Road in his election campaign. He ran an ad that showed a man dressed up as the Beast casting his vote for Coleman. Perhaps proof of the popularity of the Bray Beast stories, Coleman won the election.

  Doris Gipson’s encounter also seems to have been the last sighting of the creature by travelers on Bray Road. After that, Elkhorn, Wisconsin, sort of became quiet. For a while, at least.

  You see, in the spring of 1992, county animal control officer John Frederickson was called to a field outside of town, near Bray Road. This is a man who was used to the occasional roadkill or injured farm animal. He’d seen a lot in his career, but when he arrived at the field, he was well out of his depth.

  Because there, lying in the pasture, were the bodies of five horses. Their throats had been slashed.

  TREES AND SHADOWS

  We’re drawn to animals. We always have been, and if the Internet’s collection of cat videos and dog tricks tells us anything, it’s that our passion for these animals isn’t fading anytime soon. Perhaps they meet a deep, unspoken need in our soul, or maybe they just trigger the right pleasure center in our brains. Whatever the reason might be, animals are significant to us.

  And every time I see someone dress up their dog in a sweater, I can’t help but think of how, for a very long time, humans used to be the ones dressing up as animals. We envy their grace, their strength, and their power. And that envy has woven itself into the very fabric of global folklore.

  But what if there’s another reason we tell stories of animals that act human? What if, deep down, we fear the possibility? Or what if our ancestors told just enough stories about human-like animals that we wonder, just a little?

  Whatever it was lurking in the trees and shadows of Elkhorn, Wisconsin, back in the 1980s and early 1990s remains a mystery to this day. No answers have been uncovered. No unexpected corpses have been found in the woods, or along the roadside. No nests or dens or whatever sort of dwelling a creature like the Beast of Bray Road might have lived in. All we have is story.

  Sometimes all we ever have is story.

  All of the witnesses who came forward to tell their stories seem to agree on the details. And, surprisingly, all of them appear to be telling the truth. When a documentary on the events was being produced in 2008, all of the witnesses agreed to take polygraph exams. And each of them passed. It’s not irrefutable proof, but it’s enough to make you wonder.

  Sometime after the events of the early 1990s, a local who lived along Bray Road looked out his window to see a man standing in his driveway with a handgun. Obviously frightened by the sight of an armed stranger in his yard, he called the police, who quickly arrived. Jose Contreras was immediately arrested, and his handgun—along with fifty rounds of ammunition—was confiscated.

  He eventually went to trial, and his lawyer attempted to build a case around self-defense. Contreras, he told the judge, was looking for the Beast of Bray Road, which he believed was a werewolf. That meant, according to his defense, he wasn’t a danger to anyone else.

  The judge, though, dismissed the notion and convicted Contreras anyway. His reason? None of the bullets in the gun had been silver.

  Maybe it’s fantasy. Maybe it’s real. But it’s amazing, at the very least, how parts of fantasy can become so accepted that they play a role
in something as significant as a criminal trial.

  Here’s a final tale. One night in October 2010, six people were driving together down Bray Road. On the road ahead, they watched as a shadow seemed to move across their path. As they drew closer, they watched a shape run into the open field to their right.

  What they say might seem hard to believe, so we’ll have to take their word for it. They claimed it was an animal, covered in fur and similar in appearance to a wolf. Except it was running on two legs, not four. Once in the field, the beast dropped to all fours and ran off.

  One detail sets this report apart from all the others, though. Because unlike every other encounter mentioned here, this one finds a way to make the Beast of Bray Road even more frightening. According to the witnesses, it wasn’t a single creature.

  There were two of them.

  I’VE SPENT MOST of my life in the presence of troubled sports teams. Growing up in the Chicago area, I was always aware of how long the Cubs had gone without winning a World Series title. It was less a point of pain and more a numb spot in the collective conscience of everyone around me.

  When I moved to Boston in the late 1990s, I discovered a similar culture, this time centered on the Red Sox. Again, here was a team that had spent decades waiting. Year after year, hope would be manufactured and piled high into the cart of expectations, only to have that cart dumped on its side at the end of each season.

  Until 2004, that is. That was the year things changed. That was the year in which the tower of hopelessness and doubt—a tower that had taken eighty-six years to construct, brick by brick, year after year—came crashing down. Twelve years later, the Cubs experienced that very same change. The wait was over.

  I don’t plan to talk about baseball anymore here, but I do think the story of teams like the Cubs and the Red Sox have something valuable to teach us about how our minds work. Our ability to justify, to explain, to make sense of what seems so often to make no sense at all—that’s what I find fascinating. Humans are so very good at finding reasons.