The Legend of the Fairbury Snagglemaw
By Fr. Scott Archer In the dense, shadowed woodland areas surrounding Fairbury, Illinois, there are whispers—quiet, fearful tales passed from generation to generation. They speak of the Fairbury Snagglemaw , a creature of nightmares with a body like a hunched wolf, covered in coarse gray hair, and a face eerily like an opossum twisted in permanent hunger. Two massive, curved fangs, honed sharply as ancient blades, jut downward from its upper jaw. The first recorded sighting of this creature was in 1838, when a trembling Silas Thorne staggered out of the woods along Indian Creek at dawn, his eyes wild with terror—swearing he’d glimpsed a great beast with enormous fangs gleaming in the moonlight. The calendar turned, marking a year since the incident, when a trapper named Elijah Griggs vanished without a trace in the same area. All that remained was his shattered rifle and deep gouges in the bark of a black oak tree—claw marks unlike any animal known to man. But the Fairbury Snaggle...