The account
In the familiar Mother Leeds telling, a woman expecting her thirteenth child wishes the Devil would take it. The newborn changes into a grotesque creature and escapes into the dark Pinelands. Later accounts send it through wetlands and woodland with a piercing scream. Pictures disagree about the proportions, adding horns, wings, hooves or a forked tail. The New Jersey Pinelands Commission preserves the story as local folklore, including the gentler modern idea of a creature that protects its wooded home.
Following the trail
Established regional folklore; origin story is legendary
The commission’s account is a source for the tradition, not a birth record or authenticated animal observation. The often-repeated eighteenth-century setting belongs to the legend and should not be mistaken for a verified supernatural event. Its varied drawings likewise show how people imagine the creature rather than a stable anatomy established through examination. No single illustration can stand in for every version told in the Pines.
Why it stays with us
The departure is the part that lingers: something leaves an ordinary house and becomes too difficult to locate again. The forest does not create the family’s fear; it gives that fear somewhere to continue living. The later protector version changes who should be afraid of whom.
Follow the sources 1
- Jersey Devil ↗New Jersey Pinelands Commission