The Terror Goat of Treveth is on the loose.

[bunn]

I just drove past the old railway embankment where the Terror Goat brought fear to Rosie and Brythen a couple of days ago, and can report that it has ESCAPED.  Its enormous shaggy form is now wandering free among the old mine buildings, munching on brambles and looking ridiculously smug.   If it jumped off the railway embankment then it has

Comments

[timetiger]

Goats of Terror are an entirely new concept to me. Up to now I've thought of goats as friendly, cheerful, curious, and spritely -- the squirrels of the cloven-hooved set.

Of course, the only goats I've met have lived in petting zoos.

[ladyofastolat]

When I was about 8, we went to a sort-of petting zoo (a rare breeds farm park) and stood outside the goat enclosure, smiling with delight at the friendly, cheerful, curious and spritely animals therein. Then my parents allowed me to buy a bag of food and go into the field to feed said friendly, cheerful etc. creatures. My parents still tell the story of the result: a mad stampede of about 25 voracious monsters who were all determined to rip the entire bag from my hand and would brook no resistance. The last they saw of me was a desperate waving hand emerging from the churning ocean of goats, and then even that was gone.

Strangely, despite this traumatic experience, I still like goats. From a distance. And as long as I don't look at their eyes.

[timetiger]

Oh, poor wee you! All of the petting zoo animals I've met have been so well fed as to be entirely blasè about one more human approaching them with a bag of food.

Well, excepting one particular donkey. I was ten and my mother had taken me to a place specializing in hooved animals. (The strangeness of this hadn't occurred to me until this moment.) It was a four-hour bus trip from our house but we went every year because I so loved seeing and petting the baby llamas, and feeding the goats, piglets, lambs, deer, etc. On this occasion, my mother had bought me a chocolate ice cream cone and then departed to do something or other. Suddenly I was confronted with a big donkey with a glint in his eye. There was no mistaking what he wanted. I handed him the ice cream, pleased I think to have gotten away without any trouble.

I still love donkeys.

And I know just what you mean about the eyes of goats.

[timetiger]

Oh, poor wee you! All of the petting zoo animals I've met have been so well fed as to be entirely blasè about one more human approaching them with a bag of food.

Well, excepting one particular donkey. I was ten and my mother had taken me to a place specializing in hooved animals. (The strangeness of this hadn't occurred to me until this moment.) It was a four-hour bus trip from our house but we went every year because I so loved seeing and petting the baby llamas, and feeding the goats, piglets, lambs, deer, etc. On this occasion, my mother had bought me a chocolate ice cream cone and then departed to do something or other. Suddenly I was confronted with a big donkey with a glint in his eye. There was no mistaking what he wanted. I handed him the ice cream, pleased I think to have gotten away without any trouble.

I still love donkeys.

And I know just what you mean about the eyes of goats.