Images are examples only: Records of an enormous wolf-like animal in north Wales date back to 1790, when a stagecoach travelling between Denbigh and Wrexham was allegedly attacked and overturned by an enormous black beast almost as long as the coach horses. The terrifying animal tore into one of the horses and killed it, while the other horse broke free from its harness and galloped off into the night, whining in terror. The attack took place just after dusk, with a full moon on the horizon. The moon that month seemed blood red due to dust from a recent forest fire in the Hatchmere area. In the winter of 1791, a farmer went into his snow-covered field just seven miles east of Gresford, and he saw enormous tracks that looked like those belonging to an overgrown wolf. He followed the tracks with a blacksmith for two miles, and they led to a scene of mutilation which made the villagers in the area quake with fear that night. The tracks led into a farmstead where every single animal had either been literally torn to shreds or mortally wounded.