My great grandfather passed last November. He was 101. He was from Sweden originally. Born and raised. Before moving to sleepy hollow, New York when he was in his 20s. I’ll spare you all empty lore about him, because it doesn’t really have much impact on the story. All you need to know, he was old, rich, Swedish and liked hunting with his friend, Lyle.
He used to tell me hunting stories my entire life. Except one. He’d always start it, but then get really quiet. And stop talking about it. It always started the same way. It was 1949. He put on his tweed coat and tall leather boots. Got his shotgun. And then he’d go quiet and change the topic. I knew better than to pry.
One Christmas however, I suppose he had a bit too much wine. And began sharing the story he refused to talk about.
It started the same. Tweet coats, little bowties and tall boots, he picked up Lyle at the country club. And the two went out to go deer hunting. He said it was mostly uneventful for the first two hours or so.
He said eventually they saw a deer. A big strong buck. They shot at it and it ran off, as they tend to do. But when they went to where the deer was standing, it didn’t leave any footprints. It ran off into the woods yet no footprints were left in the mud like you’d expect. But they just carried on.
bout an hour later, they saw the buck again. But he said this time it was watching them from behind. As though it just materialized. No wound from where he was shot. He was just there watching. But Granddad did tell me his eyes were nothing he’d seen before in deer. Not big brown eyes like deer normally have. But almost hypnotically blue eyes. Almost human he said.
And sure enough after a moment the buck trotted off.
soon after they found another deer. A doe this time. But said it looked unnatural. She was grunting, her knees were backwards and she had teeth like a dog. They shot at it as well. And again, it ran off. Left no footprints.
At this point, they were uncomfortable. They convinced themselves it was just an inbred, deformed deer. But still wanted to head home. They were a couple hours from the car, so walking back was taking some time. And there again was another buck. Different from the first one. This one he said was even more deformed than the doe. He said it’s legs were wrong. As though it had too many joints in its body. Or too much muscle but not enough skin to contain it. He said one of it’s knees were backwards, but only one, it’s neck was far too thin to hold up its large head. And it too only had two, large blue eyes. They said it smiled. Almost like a man. He didn’t make any noise, but they knew it was almost mocking them. But they still thought it was just a really fucked up deer. No point wasting ammo shooting at something like that he said. He told me there was no good meat or taxidermy out of something that deformed.
They carried off and then another deformed deer. And another. And another. Some less monstrous than others. Some so horrific they could barely be called deer. But still they brushed it off as just severe local inbreeding. Until they saw one that was really bad.
When I asked him what it looked like, Granddad almost started crying. All he could say was that, whatever it was, it certainly was not a deer. He said it was a beast. Or a ghoul dressing up as a deer.
He said it laughed. And then cried. And then screamed. And then the two started running for their truck. As it was relatively near by.
At this point granddad started crying. I never saw him cry before. I never saw him cry again. And I knew it was bothering him so I changed the topic.
He and Lyle stayed close friends until the early 70s when Lyle died of cancer. And granddad lived on until just last year.
My great grandpa claims to have seen something in the woods around sleepy hollow. And maybe he did. I don’t know what it could have been. But he died convinced it wasn’t a deer. And when he was telling the story, he got extremely upset.
I’m sorry if my retelling of his story isn’t very good. I’m a history major not a literature major so I’m not great at writing lmao. It’s also a second hand story, I mean neither of the two who experienced it are still around. So I’m the only one who can share granddads story. He was a good man. May he rest in peace.