Glowing Eyes and the British Bigfoot

While there is no doubt that the most famous resident of Britain's Sherwood Forest was the legendary Robin Hood, according to some people the woods in question have been home to far stranger things, too - and of a distinctly large and hairy nature even.

Some Thing in the Woods was the headline that appeared in the November 28, 2002 issue of the Nottingham Evening Post newspaper. It transpired that Chris Mullins, a British-based mystery-animal researcher, had been given details of an "eight-foot, hairy man beast with red glowing eyes" seen within the legendary forest.

It was this story that prompted a man to contact Chris on December 4, 2002 with details of his own sighting of a seven-to-eight-foot-tall ape-like creature in the vicinity of Sherwood Forest late at night in 1982.

It's an intriguing fact that many of the Bigfoot-like entities seen in Britain reportedly have glowing eyes. The Sherwood Forest beast aside, the Man-Monkey of the Shropshire Union Canal is said to have a pair of "great white eyes;" while the Beast of Bolam was described by witnesses as having "sparkling eyes."

To learn more about such glowing eyed monsters, check out Kithra's excellent article on the subject.

And it should not be forgotten that although Robin Hood is generally portrayed (in Hollywood films, at least) as a dashing and heroic figure who - armed with bow and arrow and with his band of merry men - took from the rich and gave to the poor, it's an often overlooked fact that Robin Hood has also been linked with such issues as the legendary Green Man and Wild Men of the Woods of European folklore - as this article demonstrates amply.

In view of this, perhaps the hairy beast seen in Sherwood Forest in the 1980s was merely a modern day incarnation of a very old phenomenon that has been resident in the area for centuries...