A bizarre and rather horrible story of a possible encounter with a particularly nasty member of the ‘Little People’ courtesy of Richard Freeman, of the Centre for Fortean Zoology.
Lee Walker is a Fortean researcher from Liverpool. He publishes an excellent magazine called ‘Dead of Night’. In one section called ‘New Ferry after Midnight’ he recounted personal experiences from Merseyside.
One of the strangest concerned an encounter with what appeared to be a latter day goblin. The story occurred in the late 1970s. Lee’s family had two pet rabbits that they thought were both female. As it turned out one was male and had to be re-homed but not before it had made its little friend pregnant.
The rabbit gave birth to a number of young and all was well for several weeks. Then one morning one of the babies was found dead. Its head had been crushed flat. It was assumed to have been an accident were the mother had stood on the youngster’s head. Next day another rabbit turned up dead. Once again its head had been literally crushed flat. It was decided that the babies, now weaned, were to be separated from their mother for their own safety. The young were put in a separate enclosure.
However the next day a third young rabbit was found dead in the same condition as the other two.
The Walker family considered that some kind of predator was at work. But the hutch remained bolted and what kind of predator crushed its victim’s skull but did not eat them?
The next day and the day after the same thing happened. Finally the last rabbit was taken into a shed and put in a hutch with its lid weighted down with a brick.
Lee’s sister checked up on it and was amazed to see that something had moved the brick. She had a feeling she had disturbed something just before it was about to attack the rabbit. But what kind of an animal could lift a brick off the roof of a hutch?
She replaced the brick and went back inside the house. A short while later she had a feeling that he rabbit was in danger and rushed back out to the shed. Lee and his family heard her scream. She came rushing into the house in hysterics.
Finally they managed to calm her down and she blurted out a bizarre story. She had entered he shed and one again seen that the brick had been removed from the lid of the hutch. She saw a dark shape crouching beside the hut and at first thought it was a huge rat. Then the thing stood up. She said it was a squat, humanoid figure clad in what looked like a monk’s hooded robe. I was about three feet tall. As it turned to look at her she saw it had leathery brown skin. It had a wide mouth filled with sharp teeth, pointed ears, bloodshot eyes and a large, warty nose. In one hand it clutched what looked like a lump hammer. She had run screaming into the house at that point.
A search of the shed revealed no creature but the last rabbit lay dead in its hutch. Its skull had been complexly flattened.
© Richard Freeman, 2009 / www.cfz.org.uk
Photograph of ‘Grind the Rabbit’ © roadkilltoys.com – a fine selection of gruseome plush toys
A bunny-killing goblin – oh come on please.