In 1735,, Jane Leeds, also known as “Mother Leeds”, found herself pregnant, already having twelve children to care and provide for, she cursed the arrival of this 13th child, and crying out loud that the child would be the Devil. On the day of birth, during a stormy night, when the wind howled around the vulnerable colonial house in the Pine Barrens of Southern New Jersey, then still a British colony, Mother Leeds cried out as the child was born, first emerging as a normal child, but then transforming with terror to all those who had aided the birth, into a winged creature; the child’s features transforming into a goat’s head, its back sprouting bats wings, and a forked tail emerging from its back. Flapping its wings, with screams the creature beat its tail against those surrounding the bed, whereupon it began to fly up the chimney, disappearing into the dark storm ridden night.

This original illustration celebrates this mythological event.