From the Archives
11: A Tale of Mike the Headless Chicken, or Getting Ahead of Yourself
I had the fortune—neither good nor bad—to see Mike the Headless Chicken in the short months before he became a cryptid. He was still headless, of course, and more terrifying to behold as a “living” bird than as a mappable cryptid. I say mappable, but Mike has a bit of reputation for not caring much for Casters, as this story—published in the now defunct Collier’s Weekly in the mid-1950s—shows. As a point of interest, this was the first time I’d heard mention of shmoos, so the anonymous author was quite on top of the latest cryptids joining our society. Only 991 tales to go.
A Caster did to Fruita come—
Xanadu!—its bird called Mike
Each morn this rooster tried to crow
Nay, it gurgled wet, not poultry-like
Once, Mike had roamed the chicken run
’Til dinner was to feed, not be fed,
Farmer Olson, he chopped a myth
One that survived without its head
Ranged free he did about the farm
With nothing left above the neck
How Casters came to map poor Mike
Or laugh to see his pointless peck
Mike didn’t mind, he had no mind
Tucked underneath his wing
His head he carried for its thoughts
Except it thought of not a thing
Gossip’s not a cryptid’s friend
Relying on Casters to forget
It’s hard to fly the coop if you’re
Little more than a Bantam Antoinette
Late one night did Ivy come
Cocksure with arrogance she prowled
Ready to map white headless meat
Or chicken out should plans be fouled
With only minor cryptids mapped before
Snipes and squonks and shmoos
It seemed she lacked a Caster’s smarts
To warn her, A calmer cryptid choose
Chased around the entire farm yard
Routed back behind the barn
Other chickens ran for the henhouse
When it was clear there’d soon be harm
She ran, did Ivy, straight for the fences
Fleeing a silent flapping dread
One that hurled its cranium true and
Rightly cleaned her cluck instead
Tales of secrets in the run
How buried Ivy pushes up weeds
Each story of Headless Chicken Mike
Ends when he plants the fricasseed
