The Horned Man story comes from the early months of 1886 and is recorded in a Greater Manchester directory of strange reports. Women in Stretford said they were frightened by a figure wearing a covering of skin with two horns on top of his head.
His routine was always the same. He would jump out from behind hedges, shake the woman lightly and run away. Reports of the same figure came from Gorton and Cheetham Hill during the same period, which points to a local scare spread by word of mouth, the kind that in the nineteenth century also produced Spring-heeled Jack panics elsewhere.
The listing does not name any witnesses, and an original newspaper report has not been traced, so how much of the story is a prank, how much is rumour, and how much is a misunderstood event cannot be said. A man in a hide with horns would also fit a practical joker. It is kept as folklore, tagged dubious, because it is an odd and specific scare with little to check it against.
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