N is for… Nhang
“Nhang” is a Persian word for crocodile. In Armenian it refers to the Biblical crocodile and hippopotamus and a monstrous aquatic spirit that lives in the Euphrates. It can appear as a woman or a seal. It seizes people and drowns them, then drains them of their blood.
O is for… Opimachus
The chargol insect of Leviticus begat the ophiomachus (“snake fighter”) of the Septuagint, by way of Aristotle’s account of snake-eating locusts. This in turn begat the opimachus of the Ortus Sanitatis, which merges it with the snake-fighting secretary bird. Did it beget the word “opinicus” as well?
P is for… Peteliae
Aelian describes the Peteliae as tiny, pale crabs that form in mud. They have small wings that are incapable of flight, instead generating only enough lift to speed them up a bit. Eating them is good for sciatica.
Q is for… Qique
Another of the many monstrous man-eaters of the Shan Hai Jing, the Qique or Qi-magpie looks like a white-headed chicken with rat’s feet and tiger’s claws. It lives on North Shouting Mountain.
Worth including in ABC? The dreaded alligator horse of Kentucky.
“Unlike my people, whose religious and superstitious beliefs are entirely grounded in verifiable, empirical science, and whose keen practical intellects could in no way conceive of fairies, dragons, ghosts, or other such nonsense”.
I is for… Ieltxu
Ieltxu is a Basque spirit that appears as a human, a pig, or a bird shooting flames from its mouth. It is mischievous rather than evil, but that distinction is moot after you’ve spent a miserable night following its flame in the wilderness.
I always thought the Protoceratops-griffin connection was unrealistic, but this does a way better job of taking it apart than I ever could!
Sadly I will never be able to top Lewicki’s rendition of the alligator-horse, published in the LIFE Treasury of American Folklore.
There’s a good reason why it’s front half horse, back half alligator and not the other way round
in awe at the size of that beaver
R is for… Rosmaputh
The Rosmaputh is a hideous creature found in the Caspian Sea. It has a man’s head covered with bristles and armed with long sharp teeth. It has a long neck, scaleless skin, broad shoulders, and flippers that reach to the tail. Its tongue is shaped like a laurel leaf. When out of the water it screams nightmarishly.
S is for… Shuyu
One of the many denizens of the Guideways, the Shuyu is a four-headed (or four-eyed) cawing red chicken with six feet and three tails. Eating it cures melancholy.
T is for… Trollgädda
The Trollgäddor or “troll pikes” are enormous pikes that haunt lakes in Sweden. The one in Lake Bolmen is as long as the lake is wide, and has a willow shrub on its head. One enterprising angler tried to catch it with a line baited with an entire calf and tied to a farmhouse, but the pike pulled the farmhouse into the lake.
Hot take: Fenrir, Skoll, Hati, Garm, Hrodvitnir, etc are all different names and roles for the same cosmic wolf, they just got their own names and personalities over time as they were differentiated.
U is for… Ugunqu-kubantwana
Ugunqu-kubantwana is the Mother of the Animals, a colossal Zulu monster who protects animals and guards a lake with water that tastes like milk. Her mouth is like a cleft in a mountain, her legs like pillars. Forests grow on her back. She is seconded by four oribis who act as her lieutenants. Like the similar Usilosimapundu she is less a creature and more a force of nature. Her name comes from the sound she makes as she moves – gunqu, gunqu, gunqu!
V is for… Velachif
The Velachif is a large amphibious snake found near Tenochtitlan. It has a round head with a parrot-like beak, and a colorful, mostly red body. Its bite is certain death.
Al-Qazwini’s description of the sea turtle – not a distinct monster per se, just “sea turtles are huge and have vegetation on their backs and look like islands and people land on them”.
W is for… Wapaloosie
The Wapaloosie is a lumberwoods critter something like a squirrel, but with woodpecker feet and a distinctly caterpillarish way of climbing trees. Even dead and skinned, the wapaloosie’s climbing instincts never depart. It is also among the fearsome critters immortalized in song here!
ABC al-Qazwini pop quiz! What on earth is this whalewolf-looking animal?
