‘Hillbilly Beast’ KY Legend Dates Back to Daniel Boone Days

The beginning of August flames my desire for the beginning of fall. In the second half of August, I start thinking about Halloween. In September? Well, that's full-on Halloween season and time to start planning accordingly.

There will be haunted attractions aplenty and fall festivals that stretch into the nighttime hours when that wonderful gothic vibe the crisp air brings descends upon us. But Halloween season is also the perfect time to launch or join investigations into the eerie, the other-worldly, the downright terrifying.

Yes, this looks like a job for the Hillbilly Beast.

By www.geocaching.com, Public Domain, Link

A wonderfully rich piece of Kentucky folklore, tales of the Hillbilly Beast date all the way back to when Daniel Boone was roaming the Commonwealth before it was a Commonwealth. Legend has it that Boone killed a "ten-foot, hairy giant he called a 'Yahoo.'" Who knows? Maybe it was the iconic frontiersman himself who gave us the whole Bigfoot legend.

And no, I cannot CONFIRM the Hillbilly Beast = Bigfoot/Sasquatch, but maybe this does:

Extra points for sharing this with us while we watch a campfire. (Also, confirmation or not, we HAVE to be talking about Bigfoot here, right?)

Before we go on, the Hillbilly Beast isn't nearly as tall as what is indicated by that statue. Legend has it that he tops out somewhere between 8 and 10 feet. Plus, he "announces" his presence by way of a breathy grunting sound accompanied by an acrid smell.

Back in 2010, the History Channel had heard enough and devoted an entire episode of its MonsterQuest series to the Hillbilly Beast:

If he's still there, he's in eastern Kentucky near the Ohio River. Again, breathy grunting and an unpleasant odor are tell-tale signs.

So...bring clothespins.