The “Man-Eater of Lucknow”

 via HorseTalk.co.nz

Journalist William Knighton had been travelling by horse and buggy through the streets of Lucknow, India, wondering why they had been deserted by locals.

The stallion spied Knighton and his companion in the buggy. The horse immediately threw the toddler on the road and set off after his new prey.

Knighton knew what fate had in store, he recounted in his book, The Private Life of an Eastern King, about his time in the service of Nasir al-Din Haidar, the maharaja who ruled Oudh from 1827 to 1837.

The Englishman described how they had earlier come across the horribly disfigured corpse of a native woman on the road.

“The body was bruised and lacerated in all directions, the scanty drapery torn from the form; the face had been crushed as if by teeth into a shapeless mass,” Knighton reported.

The victim’s long matted hair, which fell in bundles over the road, was clotted with blood.

They proceeded, finding houses closed. A palpable sense of terror hung over the silenced city.

Further down the road they found a second victim — a youth similarly mangled and destroyed.

The pair then noticed one of the king’s troopers atop a nearby house, who warned of the stallion that would become known as the Man-Eater of Lucknow.

Suddenly, the soldier shouted, “Look out! He has turned in our direction. Flee for your lives.”

Story here