The Story
As the story goes: a lumberjack was making his way through a forest when out of nowhere, he heard the familiar sound of a horse galloping. Only, it was fast. Too fast (and too furious).
No, really, this thing was fast.
And it was really close.
Like, really close. I know I’m repeating myself, but to emphasize how quick and close this thing was would be an understatement since, within seconds of hearing the noise, the horse darted right by the lumberjack.
Well, I guess calling it a “horse” would be doing it an insult to horses since this thing, while it had the head of a horse, had eight legs that were positioned like those of a spider. If you look at the image that serves as the header, that’s what it looked like—presumably. One has to wonder how on God’s green Earth this thing eats because unless it falls onto its side right on top of its prey, I don’t think it’s capable of consuming food. Unless it has a mouth on its tummy.
I digress. The lumberjack somehow didn’t faint from terror at the sight of Spider-Horse. No, his reaction was, “by golly, I gotta chase after this thing!” So, he got onto his own horse and decided to chase after it. Alas, Spider-Horse was way too dang quick because it got away. Real shocker given, you know, the creature had twice as many legs and spiders are nothing if not ridiculously fast.
After this chance encounter with the creature that would later become known as Old Spider Legs, many lumberjacks have reported hearing the legendary beast, but none have ever laid eyes upon it.
Ever since then, some have wondered what exactly Old Spider Legs is—or was. Well, let’s hop into the theories section and ponder just that.
Theories
1. It’s a real hideous abomination
To start things off, we have the theory that Old Spider Legs was—and maybe still is—real.
I don’t quite know how likely it is that a creature like this one could exist. I know there are some pretty weird animals out there (you need not look any further than the octopus, which some say is actually an alien—or from alien DNA), but Old Spider Legs is something entirely different. As stated earlier, and admittedly as stolen (though reworded) from the caption on the Cryptidz Wiki, it would appear that the creature wouldn’t even be able to eat if it were to exist as described. The head wouldn’t have anywhere to go because it would struggle to even eat.
Though that’s the least of Old Spider Legs’ problems. I have no idea how this thing would mate—let alone carry a child. Unless it had the egg sac like a regular spider. In which case, that raises an entirely new problem in the form of: how the heck does this thing carry them? It doesn’t look like it could support the weight of it.
Those questions (along with more that no doubt exist) make this theory quite hard to buy into, but I’m sure there are answers to them. Perhaps the creature weighs less than it appears to, perhaps it’s smaller than it appears to be, and mayhaps its neck is more flexible than one would give it credit for. Who knows and, quite frankly, who… seriously knows.
2. An undeveloped twin
The second theory regarding this wickedly terrifying beast is that it was a horse that had an undeveloped twin; the legs having formed and proceeded to live out in the woods. Perhaps its own let it loose or it escaped. I honestly don’t know, but I’m skeptical that it ended up having the legs develop to look like those of a spider.
I do know that, sometimes, an animal can grow an additional appendage, but I don’t know for certain if they can grow a full set of them. Though I guess it wouldn’t be impossible for a horse to be born with an undeveloped twin’s legs. If any zoologist knows this—and if anyone at all knows if the legs could be positioned like those of a spider—do let me know.
3. Additional appendages
Our third theory is a lot like the previous one, but it states that the horse was simply deformed and got an extra set of legs. Not much more to it than that. Sorry!
4. It was made up
The final theory of ye olden skeptics and those who aren’t lumberjacks and haven’t seen the eight-legged terror with their own eyes, this theory posits that it was made up. A fearsome critter for the ages, Old Spider Legs was nothing more than a myth to explain… something. Or it was made up to frighten other lumberjacks. I honestly don’t know how on Earth someone could come up with something so absurd and bizarre.
My Take
You know, initially, I was ready to just dismiss this story as nothing more than a legend. However, the thought that this could have been a deformed horse that was thrown out into the forest by an owner who didn’t have the heart to put it down seems somewhat plausible to me. I mean, deformities happen and it’s possible that maybe the horse was going to have a twin that never formed or heck, maybe it just had the unfortunate (or fortunate, depending on how you look at it) fate of having four extra legs.
Now as for the legs being positioned like those of a spider, I think that was probably an embellishment. I mean, lumberjacks are known for exaggerating—it’s like with sailors. I think that the legend could have spawned from the person seeing a wild equine that had a deformity and, because of its eight legs, the person likely went, “Nobody would ever believe me if I said I saw a horse with eight leg, but you know what they would believe? A Spider-Horse!”
With that said, I don’t know what the exact odds of a horse having eight legs is. So, common sense dictates that it’s more likely that this entire story was made up. Though I do think it’s possible that it was a deformed horse.
Conclusion
If I ever see this thing in real life, I’m running the other way—and I hope you do too, dear reader. If you attempt to befriend it, I feel like it wouldn’t go over so well. However, you know what would? Smashing that follow button on the side, giving this write-up a thumbs up, and wait a minute, this isn’t YouTube.
There's a mythological horse with eight legs, which was legendarily fast - Slepnir from Norse myth - is it possible this is some distantly imported and then perhaps degraded Scandinavian legend? You ask how someone came up with something so absurd/bizarre, and Slepnir seems like the likely answer.
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