None of the villagers know what the Morlock looks like. He is only a collection of fleeting impressions – a howling in the night, a strange shadow in the undergrowth, an odd-looking figure that a child has glimpsed from afar. If not for the missing people, one could think that he is a legend. And even those might be explained by other means, for people can go missing for many reasons, and the people of the village are not very attentive to the doings of their neighbors. But sometimes there is a broken window, a bloodstain on the floor, or marks of a body being dragged towards the woods.

Of course the fact that nobody knows anything about the Morlock does not prevent some people from knowing a great deal about the Morlock. He is a giant, they say, with sharp claws on his hands and covered in black fur from head to foot. He sees in the dark, they say, and can move as fast as the wind and as soundless as a bat. He drags the people whom he kills to his cave in the woods and devours them there.

The people of the village bar their doors at night, and most of them have walled their windows long ago, but they have never made an effort to light the village at night, nor have they ever tried to hunt the Morlock down. In fear him, of course, but a deeper fear lives in their hearths. They fear that there is no monster in the woods. They fear that the Morlock is one of them – perhaps the kindly butcher, who sometimes looks so strange at children. Or maybe it is the shy parson, who was transferred to the village for unknown reasons. It might even be that there are several Morlocks about – one madman and other persons who want to settle some scores. But the villagers ban such thoughts to the bottom of their consciousness.

They want to live in a nice village with nice people after all.