Boogeymen: The Thunderbird

[GeauxHomeLittleD]

I have never seen the Thunderbird but one of my aunts told me stories when I was a little girl. She (and her entire family, she married one of my uncles) were Cherokee Indian. She told me how when she and her brothers and sisters were children they had to be careful when they were out in the open because the Thunderbird might swoop down and take them like it did the livestock. She said the Thunderbird took smaller livestock like goats, sheep, pigs, calves and occasionally chickens but usually left the cattle and horses alone. She said her parents and grandparents had a very real fear of children being snatched away- something that had happened far in the past but my aunt and her siblings never witnessed. The way she described it sounded like a hawk or an eagle only much, much larger. I'd love to ask her more but she passed last year.