INTRO:
Hello and welcome to Myth Monsters, my name is Erin and I’ll be your host for these little snack bite size podcasts on folklore and mythical monsters from around the world.
These podcasts focus on the actual cryptids, folklore and mythic monsters from global mythology, rather than focusing on full stories of heroes and their big adventures.
I’ll also be dropping in some references that they have to recent culture and where you can see these represented in modern day content so you can learn more, and get as obsessed as I am about these absolute legends of the mythological world.
Gosh, we’re halfway through October, even closer to spooky time. I hope everyone has their Halloween plans ready - I know I don’t. I managed to go flying off an electric scooter this week and smacked my shoulder and knees, so I’ve been a bit delicate, so writing this was not ideal, but I would never let you all down!
DESCRIPTION:
Speaking of which, this monster is one that’s been suggested for me to cover for a while and is definitely one that is super spooky and interesting.
So this week, we are covering the infamous Kentucky legend that is the Pope Lick Monster. A horrible name for a horrible beast.
This cryptid is described as a half man, half goat or sheep like creature, that lives underneath a railway trestle in Pope Lick Creek, in Louisville, Kentucky in the US. This monster is renowned for actually having a few actual deaths on its hands, indirectly of course, but it's quite a rarity for a monster that we'd cover, although a lot more common for cryptids than mythical beasts.
It's said that it kind of looks like how I described the Wendigo if you've listened to that episode, with a deer skull as a head on a goat man's body. It has fur-covered goat legs and sharp horns protruding from its forehead. Although, it’s said that the monster has a horribly deformed human-like body, however, every image I’ve seen of them illustrated doesn’t really reflect this, other than the goaty legs. It's said it has bony human hands, usually coated in blood and carries a large axe which equally is drenched in blood. The creature is quite humanoid in appearance, and isn’t any bigger or smaller than a normal person - but obviously it’s stature is pretty intense with its deer head.
However, the Pope Lick monster itself is not usually the perpetrator of the actual deaths reported, and it’s usually a train or a fall which kills the person, the person is just being controlled by the monster itself. This is apparently due to the Pope Lick Monster being able to mimic human cries, and lure people to get up onto the railway trestle, where he then butchers them on the tracks. It also has the power of hypnosis for the same purpose, and even being so terrifying to look at, that the victim suffers from some kind of psychosis and throws themself in front of speeding trains in fear. It is said to apparently be hysterical once the victim is dead, but considering most who encounter it are now deceased, it’s definitely hard to confirm this.
ORIGIN:
Now onto etymology, there’s not much more to say on this to be completely honest - considering it’s just named after the area it’s found in, it does make the etymology quite boring this week, which is a shame, it’s usually my favourite part!
But much more interestingly, the history of this monster is great. It’s said that the monster goes back to the 1960’s, however, I can’t find any information to actually back this up - but the first sighting was published in 1984, when the first ‘victim’ of this monster reported that she had seen the monster - before getting hit by a train, and thankfully surviving.
It’s said that the origin of the monster varies though, depending on who tells the story. There are rumours that he is the child of a human-animal interaction, another that he’s the reincarnation of a local farmer who had a deal with the devil, and therefore sacrificed goats. But actually the most popular is that he was an escaped carnie who was out for revenge against a local populace that ridiculed and imprisoned him. I really like this one, mainly because it alludes to the idea of both of the other ideas as well as this one.
However, let’s talk about the area - Pope Lick Park, which is a relatively small park in Louisville. It’s home to a small creek, but mostly is dominated by a massive railway trestle, built in the 1880’s, which is basically the opposite of a suspension bridge - and is a suspended bridge held up by two sloping legs attached to the ground, rather than suspended in the air by tension in metal. These are really common in the US, and you would see these in older western movies, you know when the bridge is broken over the canyon scenes? That’s a trestle railway bridge - they’re not common in the UK or Europe at all, I imagine it’s solely because of this reputation from John Wayne movies.
This specific trestle is 90 foot tall, and is pretty slim in terms of width to walk across - not only that, but it’s often said that this train route is not in use anymore, but unfortunately, it’s actually a very active trainline, which is where the people in this story lose their lives. The only reported deaths in this case, are always found on, or knocked off of the trestle - there are at least 8 people who have been killed this way and their deaths have been attributed to this monster due to the location.
There were a couple of incidents following the first non-lethal accident in the 1980’s - these were John K. List, who died in 1985 - John K. List was when he was hit by a train as he shot crows on the trestle - sadly he was only 30 foot away from the end of the trestle when he died. Then David Wayne Bryant in 1986, who jumped off the trestle to avoid a train, dying from his injuries at only 19. Jack Charles Bahm II who was 17 in 1987 when he was struck and killed by a train when crossing the trestle.
This didn’t stop in the 90’s and noughties, with Grady in 1992 - who was on the trestle late at night, he jumped out of the way of a train and held onto the tracks for as long as he could before falling to his death at 19 years old. James Ratterman was 35 in 1994 when he was trapped under an overturned quad bike, and was hit by a train. Then lastly, Nicholas Jewell who in 2000, when he was 19 he fell after trying to get out of the way of a train.
There was a bit of a break after these incidents, but we had the most recent incidents in 2016, when Roquel Bain who was 26 was hit by a train when trying to find the monster with her boyfriend on the trestle, and thankfully her boyfriend survived by hanging onto the side of the tracks and managing to hold on. Lastly, Savanna Bright, who was 15 was the last victim in 2019 when hit by a train whilst trying to find the monster too.
All of these cases are unbelievably sad, and usually the victims are very young - but the common denominator is that really, the monster is the train and the trestle - but due to the hypnotic powers this monster has to convince you to get on the trestle, the belief in this monster is still upheld. A good note too is that many more people have been killed on this trestle since its construction, these are just the ones that made it into the press of the time.
So as you can imagine, it's pretty dangerous to be around this area - and strangely, instead of warning people away from the area in fear, people actively go and hunt for this monster. There is now an eight foot fence to keep people away from the trestle itself, but people still scale it in the hunt for this legend in a fad called ‘legend-tripping’. In fact, there was a film made about this in 1988 after the first death, and the train line was horrified to hear the film said that the track was not in use - so the company put out public notices, the fence and made speeches at the premier to warn people that it was in fact a heavily used track and to avoid the trestle at all costs.
I will say now, if you’re listening to this in Kentucky, or are a fan of legend-tripping, please please please do not go near this location - it’s just so unsafe, be there a monster there or not. I would be devastated to hear that another person loses their life in the hunt of something as silly as a murderous goat-man legend. As much as we celebrate these monsters and the belief in them on this podcast, please do not let these beliefs blind you to reason either. I’ll stop being your mum now, I promise.
Interestingly though, goat men are not unique throughout history either - we’ve got the goat version of the Devil which is heavily implied throughout modern and older media, with the devil either possessing goats, or having goat legs - as well as Baphomet being an actual goatman in appearance, but we also have Satyrs and Fauns from Greek mythology - with Satyrs being the evil goat men who are heavily linked to the devil anyway, and Fauns being the whimsical representation of nature and friendly forest folks, like Mr Tumnus in the Narnia universe. They’ve been around in folklore since the Greeks and Romans, dating back to at least the 9th century BC, so although this myth is certainly more modern, the idea of the evil, murderous goat men is not a new one.
And of course, we will be covering these legendary beasts in other episodes along the line, as they’re all really great for content, and that’s including the Devil by the way!
Just one last thing, there is a group of people who are trying to come up with a way to stop people from going on the trestle for the monster, by erecting a statue of it on the public footpaths safely under the bridge for photo ops - which I think is a brilliant idea - you can find out more on the Beargrass website, which is a Louisville local podcast too and have a great blog post on the monster that really helped with my research this week.
CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE:
Now onto modern media, I have to admit - I really struggled with this one this week. There’s absolutely nothing on this monster, bar the short film that’s 16 minutes long from 1988 and a Monsters and Mysteries in America episode - so I’m going to be focusing on where you can see evil goat men monsters within this segment this week.
For art, I would really recommend independent stuff this week, as is my usual cryptid spiel. The artwork I used this week is from a really cool American artist who does monster work, so I’ll probably use it again, but you can find him under Jamie Snell on ArtStation.
In movies, we have the actual The Legend of the Pope Lick Monster film for the only media this week on this specific monster. Then we have goat men highlighting films, such as My Neighbour Totoro, Ringing Bell, Zootopia, The Day of the Best, The VVitch, Drag Me to Hell and Krampus.
For TV, we have; Monsters and Mysteries in America, Gotham, Grimm, Darkwing Duck, Ducktales, Green Eggs and Ham, Digimon, Dragon Ball Super, Berserk, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, My Little Pony ‘n’ Friends, Total Drama & Scrappy Happy Daffy - which is a LooneyTunes short featuring Hitler - certainly an interesting one.
In video games, we have ones such as; Apocalypse, The Binding of Isaac, Castlevania: Circle of the Moon, Catherine, Cult of the Lamb, Cuphead, Death Road to Canada, Devil May Cry 2, Diablo 2 & 3, Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare, SPY Fox, Undertale, DOOM Eternal, Dragon Quest 5, Elden Ring, Dune 2, Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon, Night in the Woods, Quest for the Shaven Yak & Witchery.
My book recommendation this week is The United States of Cryptids: A Tour of American Myths and Monsters by J.W Ocker for some great summaries of US cryptids, or there’s also American Monsters: A History of Monster Lore, Legends, and Sightings in America by Linda S. Godfrey too for this same topic.
DO I THINK THEY EXISTED?
Now it’s time for, do I think they existed?
So as much as I really want a monster to be taking people out here, it just seems that it’s a vicious circle with this one - that the monster myth exists, so people go and investigate in an unbearably unsafe area, then they die through these means, but it feeds the monster myth - therefore, in theory, people are keeping the myth going, rather than the monster itself.
Although in contrast to this, maybe the legend was created in order to keep people away - but has unfortunately had the opposite effect, and made monster hunters go and look for the beast - and thus creating that cycle. Again, it is strange that this monster is made responsible for the deaths caused in this area by something completely logical and human - it’s a very odd mythical beast because of this and makes it completely unique to anything I’ve ever looked at before.
I will say though that I think it certainly creates a more eerie feeling around this monster, as it does have an actual body count attributed to it - it was enough to give me the creeps this week - which is actually pretty rare for me now. I think the last one that properly scared me whilst researching was Slenderman, which I think is fair enough - as he too has an actual real life body count too. It definitely makes them more real in my mind at least.
But what do you think? Does the Pope Lick Monster roam the Earth? Let me know on Twitter!
OUTRO:
What a horrible sounding monster - and one that all too well reflects the fears of a local community, and seems like it has horrendously backfired on them. I really do hope not to read of anymore deaths on this trestle, especially ones as young as some of the victims, and as recently as 2019 too.
To any younger listeners, please heed my warning earlier - and never venture onto train tracks, ever, in any circumstances.
Next week, we’re heading over to Japan, which is always exciting - and we’re looking at possibly one of the funnier monsters that come from the East, one linked with testicles and racoons, yes - it’s the Tanuki. Make sure you’re ready for some mischief next Thursday!
For now, thank you so much for listening, it’s been an absolute pleasure. If you enjoyed this podcast, please give it a rating on the service you’re listening on - I’ve got the twitter for any questions, or suggestions on what monsters to cover next and I’d love to hear from you. The social media handles for Tiktok, Youtube and Instagram are mythmonsterspodcast, and twitter is mythmonsterspod. But all of our content can be found at mythmonsters.co.uk - you can also find us on Goodpods and Patreon if you want to help me fund the podcast too.
Come join the fun though and share this with your pals, they might love me as much as you do.
But for now, stay spooky and I’ll see you later babes.