The Jersey Devil

http://www.strangemag.com/jerseydevil1.html

In Southeastern New Jersey there are two thousand square miles of a dark, beautiful area of land which is home to many creatures of legend. The most famous of these is the Jersey Devil which is described as a creature with the head of a horse, large wings and claws, and has a roughly four-foot-long serpentine body. I don't know about you but that sounds like one bad ass mythical creature. Apparently, from sources undefined, whenever one sees this devil they immediately see an omen of a future disaster. Some unsourced examples are omens including ship wrecks and the outbreak of war. While all of this sounds fine and dandy, the most interesting information about this devil is how it originated. The widely accepted story goes something like this...

"When Mrs. Leeds, an indigent woman living in secluded poverty with her twelve starving children, found out she was to have another child exclaimed: "I don't want any more children! Let it be a devil." When the child was born, it was horribly deformed. It crawled from the womb and up the chimney and out into the woods. It is rumored to have fed on small children and livestock while haunting the area for years to come." (Perticaro)

Now where the feeding of small children developed into an ability to forecast omens to people it encounters, I have no idea. It all does make for an interesting story though....good luck hunting!