I was a bit later posting this than I expected as I got sidetracked making some Pumpkin Pie and then some Dark Chocolate Dough Balls with the left over pie dough. But then this sets the mood, Halloween! Fall! Autumn!
Our first stop this week in the run up to spooks day is the mischievous and dangerous Agropelter. A monkey-like mythical Fearsome Critter. This beast is said to have long elastic-like arms, or arms that are described as whip-like. The name, Agropelter, is clearly the combination of the words “aggressive” and “pelt”, describing its behavior and one of its favorite activities.
These long wavy arms are attached to a body that resembles a monkey. The Agropelter is adept at climbing and so is always hidden away within the canopy of the trees within the wilderness of its territory, said to stretch from Maine to Oregon. This aggressive critter will throw pieces of dead wood it plucks off trees at any unfortunate person who happens to be wondering underneath, the sheer force that this animal can throw these pieces of wood is said to resemble the force of a cannon, making it almost certain death to anyone hit by it. This is not only just due to the force though, but the Agropelter is extremely accurate in its throws, it never misses its target.
The Agropelters like to live within hollow trees and so these trees will also be the ones they make their attacks from. Perhaps they are very territorial in nature, it would almost certainly seem the case. Also, the Agropelters are said to be scarce in numbers due to the rarity of their diet, which consists of hoot owls and woodpeckers. And so due to this, it is rare to find Agropelters in any kind of large grouping/family. They are basically solitary and out for themselves.
Clearly, this folklore was made up to describe the deaths of lumberjacks that were unfortunately killed by falling wood, which was likely a common accident in the line of dangerous work. The description of hollowed out trees could also tell us that maybe the weaker and dead trees are more of a hazard as the dead branches would fall off easier, posing more of a death hazard and as such these dead and hollow trees became the homes of these elusive but dangerous creatures.
The Agropelter is also described as extremely fast and agile when on the move. In many cases this means that it is almost always impossible to see. The Agropelter is said to always have a litter in May and that they are always an odd number, this probably came about as a way to establish the creature as unlucky, just as getting hit on the head by a piece of wood and dying is considered unlucky. Coming across this creature would also be unlucky.