The Legend of the Goatman Essay example -- Urban Legends

Goatman The story I collected, entitled â€Å"Goatman,† was recounted by a nineteen year old male sophomore at the University. The person who told the story is a white male whose father is an engineer and mother stays at home. After I inquired if he knew of any local urban legends, he first told the story of Hell House; and as we both live in Ellicott City and have never actually seen this mysterious building, we decided to pay it a visit. It was a foggy night on March 21st during our school’s spring break as we slowly cruised through the back roads near the Howard and Baltimore county line. When he told me the story before we left I was not particularly nervous; however, the eerie settings added a hint of fear into the air. Unfortunately, after a long search, we were unable to locate the house and decided to return home. On our trip back he recounted another story that he had heard from a friend a few months ago, which I thought was even more exciting. The urban legend is known as â€Å"Goatman† and took place in northern Prince George’s County, the same county that University is located in: Rumor has it that back in the early 1970s, a scientist working at an agricultural research center in central Maryland was performing an experiment with goats when something went terribly wrong. He was doing tests on manipulations of goat DNA, when one of the subjects attacked and bit him. When the saliva from the goat entered the scientist’s bloodstream he immediately began undergoing changes from the goat’s DNA combining with his own. The man began to morph into a half-man, half-goat creature and escaped the lab into the nearby surrounding woods. Following this incident there have been eye-witness accounts of Goatman causing havoc aro... ... The story uses scare tactics to discourage premarital sex by adolescents, and also demonstrates society’s stereotype of women as in need of protection. The story may evolve to change over time, but the message the legend carries will most likely carry down from generation to generation just as the Goatman legend has for many years. Works Cited "Goatman (Cryptozoology)." AllExperts. 27 March 2007. http://en.allexperts.com/e/g/go/goatman_(cryptozoology).htm. "Goatman (Maryland)." Wikipedia. 31 March 2007. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goatman_%28Maryland%29. Lawson, John. "The Goatman Legend of Prince George’s County." ESortment. 2002. 1 April 2007. http://azaz.essortment.com/goatmanlegend_rhcn.htm. Livingston, William L. Jr. "GoatMan Hollow...the Legend." GoatMan Hollow. 30 March 2007. http://www.goatmanhollow.com/the_legend/the_goatman_legend_1.html.