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The child of a young mum came home in tears one afternoon after being frightened by what he described as 'a cow standing up like a person with smoke coming out of its nose'. He and his little friend had both seen this fiendish shape and had run home in terror.

Childish imagination? A trick played on two small children? Something like that, I thought - but the eerie image of this cow on its hind legs stayed in my memory. There was something so medieval about it, so devilish.

Unfortunately, my friend Wendi who recounted this story had lost touch with the informant and because she had heard the story a year or two previously, she couldn't remember where exactly it was supposed to have taken place. All she could tell me was that it was 'somewhere near Wrexham' and that it was on a path that goes up a hill in the middle of the village and acts as a short cut.

Come forward two decades and I happen to mention this odd anecdote to another friend, Jonathan, who reckoned it sounded like the village of Brymbo where he was brought up, but he had never heard of it being haunted by such a spectre. His mother, however, had heard something about it. When Jonathan mentioned it to her, she recalled that two women she knew had spoken of encountering something very similar.

And this is how I met Mrs J and Mrs S (both names on record). Their brush with what I can't help but call The Beast of Brymbo took place one bright, moonlit night in December, 1985. They were both happy to admit that they had had a few drinks before the sighting, since they had been walking home after a jolly night out at the Miner's Arms. However, there was no doubting their conviction; indeed, Mrs S became suddenly a bit tearful when she remembered how frightened she had been. Genuine encounters with the very strange can have that effect, as I know myself.

Mrs J told the story, with occasional corrections or added details from Mrs S. This is a précis:

"We were walking up the Red Path at about midnight. When we got near the top, we paused for a breather, leaning on the railings. Just there, to the left, there is another set of very steep steps which you can take as a short cut. But they're very overgrown and can be slippery, so I wasn't being serious when I suggested we take them. But because I did so, [Mrs S] looked up in that direction.

"[Mrs S] said: 'What's that looking at us?' I looked up and there it was, standing on the bank. It was cow-like, standing on its hind legs and at least 6ft tall. It was a light brown colour and smooth haired. There were two little bumps where you might expect horns. We could see it clearly because it was illuminated by the moon and the streetlights.

"It just stood there, frowning down at us with its eyes wrinkled up. Its hooves were sort of dangling down in front of it. We ran up the Red Path but then realised it could easily cut us off at the top. When we got there, though, it had vanished. I realised I had dropped my scarf on the path, so I had to go back for it. I was so frightened. The thing didn't appear again but I didn't dare use that path for a whole month."

That was the end of their adventure. There's no doubt in my mind that the two children saw the same thing, possibly in the same year (although there was no 'smoke' emerging from nostrils on this occasion).

Mrs J and Mrs S are convinced it wasn't somebody in a costume. It may have been some sort of dummy but someone must have been waiting in the bushes on that cold night for it to have vanished again so quickly. On the same evening that I met Mrs J and Mrs S, however, I also met a Mr J (no relation), who had another strange experience in Brymbo more than a decade earlier. His sighting bore similarities to The Beast of Brymbo.