The Wampus Cat

Up the Appalachian hollows they tell of the Wampus Cat, a fearsome half-woman half-mountain-lion that screams in the night, born, the tale says, of a Cherokee woman cursed for spying on the men’s sacred hunt. Panther screams that sound like a woman in terror are real enough in this country, and they are most of where the legend lives. Told here as the mountain folklore it is.