13th Son of Leeds

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by XanderDWulfe

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#8: Jersey Devil

In a lot of ways the Jersey Devil is my favorite cryptid and I think it's due mainly to it's name sake. I mean really, what's more terrifying then something being from New Jersey? All jokes aside, that's actually kind of the case while the Jackalope and other such cryptids were definitely known to me, none of them really struck a chord with me like the Jersey Devil and I believe that's because up until that point I had never head of a creature with such a title. Usually it's just some vague feature about them like "bigfoot" used to describe them, or simply a noun or adjective with 'man' at the end, like the Crooked Man (seriously, just look into how many cryptids have 'man' at the ends of their names!) but then in comes the Jersey Devil who straight up owns the state he's from! He's not just a devil he's the JERSEY devil! That's HIS place and no one can take it from him and I tell no lie this is basically what I thought of the first time I heard the name and I stick to it to this day.

Of course, the old Leeds Devil has had it's fair share of media attention, most notable for me is the obscure PlayStation game where the Jersey Devil is Batman-esque vigilante which I added into a previous Halloween Countdown and I'll admit, I am fine with this incarnation as well even if the game is clunky as all hell. Maybe with all these PlayStation remakes we've been getting maybe a Jersey Devil remake will pop up eventually? ...maybe not, but a man can dream! Aside from this, I think what I find most truly compelling is that the Jersey Devil is a case where sightings of a cryptid lead to an urban legend, one that isn't simply giving a wild visage and name to an otherwise unknown animal but a full out origin story that is absurd in all the best ways and while maybe I can't give him top billing, this devil will always be among my personal favorite cryptids, bested by only one other... but we'll get to that later.

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