The Bizarre Legend Of The New England Cryptid, The Egopantis

To be fair, no one really knows what the — let’s call it “head” — hanging on the wall at Bull Run Restaurant in Shirley, Massachusetts really is. It kind of looks like a giant platypus, maybe a chunk of carved wood with some fur lining and marbles stuck on it for eyes, a failed attempt at taxidermizing someone’s enormous leather shoe, or — yeah, who knows? But it’s apparently been hanging in its exact, current resting spot over Bull Run Restaurant’s fireplace for over 200 years. No one knows the exact year it arrived — when Nathaniel Smith valiantly rescued locals from its bill — or anything else at all. We do know that Bull Run Restaurant has been around since 1740 and looks like a pretty sweet old, wooden, cozy tavern if you’re ever in the area. Beyond that, we’ve only got tall tales.

And to be sure: Those tall tales have served Bull Run Restaurant well. Aside from podcasts on sites like “New England Legends,” blog posts on sites like that of writer M.A. Kropp, and entries in roadside attraction sites like Roadside America, the Egopantis has its own dedicated Bull Run Restaurant page. In full campy, self-aware, jolly fashion, the page dispels naysayers, writing, “Doubt flickers, rises, recedes. Legends grow. In ‘boots off’ comfort around our fireplace, YOU are the sole judge, as you have seen the Egopantis. And SEEING is BELIEVING! LONG LIVE THE EGOPANTIS!”

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[Featured image by John Phelan via Wikimedia Commons | Cropped and scaled | CC BY-SA 3.0 DEED]