When I was growing, there was a tale about creatures called waterheads that roamed the trails and dirt roads around here. It was probably the Henry County version of Bigfoot, but there seemed to be a few too many details about the legend to dismiss it entirely.
As the story goes, two teenage couples decided to park their car on one of a hundred dirt roads in the county. They were approached by creatures that looked human except for their heads, which were a little too large and translucent like they were filled with mostly water. For some reason, the boys decided to get out of the car to investigate, which was a bad idea. They were torn to pieces while their dates watched in horror.
I suspect this is just some cautionary tale designed to keep teenagers from doing things they shouldn’t be doing, but I had to investigate a little on my own. There’s nothing on the internet, but I can fill in some details from what I learned word of mouth.
Waterheads have been around for centuries. They learned from the Creek Indians and lived in peace with them. That all changed when the Creeks were pushed out. Waterheads will eat just about anything. They will destroy beehives for the honey and even raid bumblebee nests for the nectar they store. They will eat animals, but they don’t like animals with fur, which limits their choices. They will eat birds if they can catch them, but they will pluck all the feathers first. They will even eat the inner bark layer of pine trees called cambium, something they learned from watching the Creeks.
I have taken up walking around the woods behind my house, so I figured I would look for evidence. This first photo is one foot off one of our trails. This area on the ground had been dug out, but I couldn’t find any animal footprints. When I looked into the shallow hole, I could see a large nest of bumblebees.
This photo is of a pine tree damaged a foot off a trail, and it had been damaged down through the cambium layer.
And this final photo is a pile of feathers directly on the trail. There was no blood, no bones, no animals prints – nothing but feathers. I have often seen this walking the fields after a dove shoot, but there have been no hunters in these woods in a very long time.
So, what do I make of this? Well, I’ve been in the woods many times after dark, and I’ve never seen anything strange. Of course, there was plenty of habitat for coexistence back then. I have my doubts about the legend, but I don’t have any need to wander the woods after dark. You just never know.