<strong>Variations:</strong> ?

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Every unexplained mechanical error, every mysteriously malfunctioning engine, defective wheel, gas leak, fuselage weakness, cockpit damage, and avionics glitch can be blamed on gremlins. These little machine fairies are the modern equivalent of the ancient dwarfs, but they destroy instead of build.

Etymologies for “gremlin” disagree, and are probably all apocryphal. One suggestion holds that it originates from the antiquated Old English gremian, “to vex”. This is related to the Irish Gaelic gruaimin, “grumpy little fellow”, which comes from gruaim, “gloom” or “ill-humor”. Another suggestion is a shortening of grinning goblin. The French grelon or “hailstone” indicates some meteorological confusion. Edwards adds the German gram or “worry” to the mix, from which the diminutive gramlein can be derived. Finally, Fremlins beer may have had a hand in inspiring gremlins.

Similarly there is no consensus on gremlin appearance, but it is generally assumed that they are small, six inches to a foot in height, and humanoid in appearance. They are skinny and nimble enough to move about through complex machinery. Known colors include green and blue-grey. Some have horns, others have pointed ears; webbed feet and suction cups have been suggested for yet others. Clothing is optional, including nudity, pilot gear, breeches and jackets, and even spats and top-hats. They eat treacle and honey, and drink fuel, sucking tanks dry.

Gremlins were first identified by R.A.F. pilots, especially on Maltese airfields in World War I, although there is evidence to suggest that they have been around longer than that. From there tales of the gremlins and their deeds spread throughout the piloting world, until they became a byword for any unexplained mechanical issues.

Gremlin activities range from juvenile pranks to outright destructive cruelty. They view all airplanes as an affront, and do whatever they can to ground them. Some gremlin subspecies specialized in specific forms of mischief. Mole-like Cavity gremlins dug holes in runways, Incisors teethed on wires, Jockeys guided birds into airplane windscreens, and Optics glowed over bomb sights.

While gremlins have faded from the aerial popularity they enjoyed during the war, the preponderance of technology in our modern world has only given them further targets to mess wgsgnslfgnsogdkfjgluiw4v8r93428RQVNWAELIVJWBKkjdhzseuwy5ycjdft3534bsrg5566fgdfgcbvgbc

<strong>References</strong>

Dubois, P.; Sabatier, C.; and Sabatier, R. (1992) La Grande Encyclopédie des Lutins. Hoëbeke, Paris.

Edwards, G. (1974) Hobgoblin and Sweet Puck. John Sherratt and Son, Altrincham.

Variations: Tsamtáx, Tsamtás (pl.)

According to the Nivaklé of Paraguay, dry seasons are exacerbated by the Tsamtás serpents, which lie in the middle of the sky and radiate heat. A tsamtáx will intercept and eat the Fanxás or thunderbirds flying from the south and bringing rain with them. Only the shamans can prevent this state of things by tearing down the tsamtás nest, making them fall to their death and allowing the rainy season to return.

Tosetáx is even more terrifying. He arrived after the tsamtás had been dealt with, and installed himself in the center of the sky. Tosetáx is an enormous green and red snake, with three mouths – one at the head, one at the tail, and one in the middle of his body. As with the tsamtás, Tosetáx was waiting to ambush the returning thunderbirds.

Tosetáx was defeated by five powerful shamans who turned themselves into snakes. One of the shamans coiled himself around Tosetáx and, by turning and coiling, took him to the north out of the thunderbirds’ flight path. There the shamans cut off the serpent’s three mouths and cut him in half, killing him.

References

Chase-Sardi, M.; Costa, M. M.; Mashnshnek, C. O.; Siffredi, A.; Tomasini, J. A.; Wilbert, J. and Simoneau, K. eds. (1987) Folk Literature of the Nivaklé Indians. UCLA Latin American Center Publications, University of California, Los Angeles.

Variations: Égremont, Vif

In Brittany, the Agrippa is one of the most feared and malevolent grimoires, a living book with a mind of its own. Its name in Tréguer is derived from that of Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, but it is also known as Égremont in Châteaulin and Vif (“Alive”) around Quimper.

An agrippa is enormous, standing fully as tall as a man. Its pages are red, while its letters are black – although some variants exist with black pages and red text. It contains the names of all the devils, and how to summon them.

Agrippas are living, malicious creatures, and resent being read. An untamed agrippa will display only blank pages. To get the letters to appear, the agrippa must be battled, thrashed, and beaten like a stubborn mule. A fight with an agrippa can last hours, and victors come out of it exhausted and drenched in sweat. When not in use, an agrippa must be chained to a strong, bent beam.

Only priests can be trusted to keep agrippas, as they have the training and the force of will required to master it. They use it to deduce the fate of the dead by calling upon all the demons in order; if none will admit to having taken the deceased’s soul, then they were saved. Long ago all priests had agrippas, and a newly-ordained priest would inexplicably find one on his table. However, agrippas have since found their way into the hands of laymen, and the temptation to use them can be very strong. A priest will not be able to sleep well as long as one of his parishioners has an agrippa.

Uninitiated readers of the agrippa will always smell of sulfur and brimstone, and walk awkwardly to avoid treading on stray souls. A man with an agrippa will find himself incapable of destroying it – a task that will become increasingly desperate, as possession of an agrippa will prevent entry into Paradise. Loizo-goz, a man from Penvénan, tried to rid himself of his agrippa by dragging it away to Plouguiel on the end of a chain, but came back home to find it had returned to its usual place. He then tried burning it, but the flames recoiled from the book. Finally he dumped the agrippa into the sea with rocks tied to it, only to see it climb out of the water, shake its shackles off, and make a beeline for its suspended perch. Its pages were perfectly dry. Loizo-goz resigned himself to his fate.

Eventually a priest will arrive to save the owner of an agrippa. He will wait until the unfortunate is at death’s door, whereupon he will come to his deathbed. “You have a very heavy burden to carry beyond the grave, if you do not destroy it in this world”, he tells him. The agrippa is untied and brought down, and while it tries to escape, the priest exorcises it, and sets fire to it himself. He then collects the ashes, places them in a sachet, and puts them around the dying man’s neck, telling him “May this weigh lightly upon you!”

Other times a priest will have to save a man whose reading of the agrippa took him too far. A Finistère parson found his sacristan missing, and his agrippa open wide on the table. Understanding that the sacristan had summoned the devils and been unable to dismiss them, he started calling upon them one by one until they released him. He was blackened with soot and his hair was scorched, and he never told a soul of what had transpired.

References

Le Braz, A. (1893) La Légende de la Mort en Basse-Bretagne. Honoré Champion, Paris.

Luzel, F. M. (1881) Légendes Chrétiennes de la Basse-Bretagne, v. II. Maisonneuve et Cie, Paris.

Seignolle, C. (1964) Les Évangiles du Diable. Maisonneuve et Larose, Paris.

Variations: Yama-biko

The Yamabiko, “mountain echo” or simply “echo” is heard rather than seen. It is found in the high mountains of Japan, and answers anyone shouting in the mountains with a mocking echo of their voice. While there is no definite version of its appearance, it was depicted by Toriyama Sekien as a rather simian creature.

Its name can also be interpreted as “spirit of valley reverberation”. It is not known if the yamabiko yokai was named for the echo, or if the echo was named for the yokai. The Yamabiko Shinkansen train, on the other hand, is named for the echo and not the yokai.

References

Foster, M. D. (2015) The Book of Yokai. University of California Press, Berkeley.

The Mantabungal is known to the Tagbanua of Palawan, in the Philippines. It is found primarily in the forests of Mount Victoria in Baraki, and is the most feared of the mountain demons.

A mantabungal is like a cow in body and voice, but lacks horns. It has a long coat of shaggy hair that reaches the ground. Its monstrous mouth has two pairs of huge incisors – two above and two below – that it uses to tear its victims to shreds.

One man reported hearing bovine moos while gathering gum in the mountains. Spooked and disoriented in the darkness, he ran aimlessly into the forest as far as he could and spent the night shivering miserably under a tree. When he returned to camp, he found that the mantabungal had destroyed everything he had touched. His hut, gear, and even the firewood had been dismantled and chewed to bits.

References

Fox, R. B. (1982) Religion and Society among the Tagbanuwa of Palawan Island, Philippines. Monograph No. 9, National Museum, Manila.

Ramos, M. D. (1971) Creatures of Philippine Lower Mythology. University of the Philippines Press, Quezon.

The Swan Valley Monster made its appearance on August 22, 1868, in the otherwise tranquil locale of Swan Valley, Idaho. Its presence was witnessed and reacted to by an unnamed old-timer crossing the river at Olds Ferry.

The first thing he saw of the monster was an elephant’s trunk rising from below the surface and spouting water. This was followed by a snake-like head the size of a washtub, with a single horn that kept moving up and down, and long black whiskers on both sides of the face. It had ten-inch-long fangs and a red forked tongue that spewed green poison. When it hauled its massive body onto the shore, the old-timer noted that it must have been twenty feet long, and it stank to high heaven. A pair of wing-like fins – or fin-like wings – came out of the sides of its neck. Its forward half was like a snake, the thickness of a calf, greenish-yellow with red and black spots; this in turn led into a fish-like section with hand-sized rainbow scales shining in the sun; finally, the tail was a drab, scaly gray like a crocodile or lizard tail. Shiny black barbed spines, like those of a porcupine, lined its back from head to tail. Finally, it had twelve stubby legs that were easily missed at first glance; the first pair under the fins had hoofs, followed by two pairs of legs with razor-sharp claws, then a pair of hoofed feet, a pair of clawed feet, and another pair of hoofed feet near the tail.

Of course, the old-timer’s first reaction to the abomination slithering up the bank was to fire a slug into its eye. The monster reared up, hissing, bellowing, and spurting poison over its surroundings, so it got shot a second time in its yellow belly, convulsed, and stopped moving. Everything its poison had touched, whether trees or grass or other living beings, withered and died.

As the monster was too large to be carried off by one man, the old-timer returned to town to fetch a wagon and six strapping lads to help him, as well as a tarp to protect them from the poison. They could smell the odoriferous creature a hundred yards away, and one of the men had to stay with the horses to keep them from bolting, while another got sick and refused to come any closer. But when they reached the bank where the monster had fallen, there was nothing but withered vegetation and a trail leading to the water.

Presumably the Swan Valley monster had crawled back into the river to die – or perhaps it didn’t die. Whatever its fate, the old-timer recommended keeping a close watch on the river, as “I’ve hunted an trapped an fished all over the state fer nigh ontuh seventy-five year… but I ain’t never seen nothin tuh compare with that speciment”.

References

Clough, B. C. (1947) The American Imagination at Work. Alfred A. Knopf, New York.

Fisher, V. ed. (1939) Idaho Lore. Federal Writers’ Project, The Caxton Printers, Caldwell.

Lewicki, J. and the editors of LIFE (1960) Folklore of America, part V. LIFE Magazine, Aug. 22, 1960.

Variations: Kama-itachi, Kamakaze (“Sickle wind”)

The Kamaitachi, or “sickle weasel”, is the Japanese yokai of unexplained cuts. It is most common in snowy Honshu. The name itself may be alternately derived from kamae-tachi, “poised sword”.

A kamaitachi looks something like a weasel with razor-sharp sickle claws. It travels in whirlwinds, but it is never seen. Instead, the presence of a kamaitachi is known by the cuts it leaves on its victims. It will also cause people to trip and fall, taking malign pleasure in causing injury.

Kamaitachi are useful scapegoats for inconvenient injuries. A woman in Niigata, after injuring herself during a nocturnal tryst, successfully deflected attention by blaming the kamaitachi for her wound.

The kamaitachi was rationalized in a number of ways, including pieces of sharp debris tossed around in whirlwinds. Y. Tanaka suggested that the “kamaitachi disease” was the result of temporary vacuums forming from stray air currents, slicing skin that came in contact with them. Such vacuums would be common in mountainous areas and thunderstorm conditions.

In Gifu the kamaitachi becomes three gods, the first pushing over the victim, with the second cutting with a knife and the third healing the injury.

References

Foster, M. D. (2015) The Book of Yokai. University of California Press, Berkeley.

Griffis, W. E. (1876) The Mikado’s Empire. Harper and Brothers, New York.

Y. Tanaka (1911) An Epitome of Current Medical Literature: Spontaneous Wounds. British Medical Journal, v. 2, p. 37.

Variations: Ṣannājah, Ṣunnājah, Sannaja; Nubian Horse (erroneously)

The Ṣannāja, “Cymbalist” (!), is a gigantic, deadly, yet pathetic creature originally described by al-Qazwini. It can be found in the land of Tibet, making it an abominable snowman of sorts, although it has more in common with the Gorgons of Greek myth.

According to al-Qazwini, the ṣannāja is indescribably vast, such that no animal can compare to it in size. This largest of all beasts makes dens one league wide.

Neither al-Qazwini nor al-Damiri describe its appearance, so artistic depictions of ṣannājas vary. As it is described in the same section along with insects and reptiles, the Wasit manuscript shows it with six stubby legs and a segmented, shelled turtle-like body. Its red, vaguely spiderish head is blank except for hair and two large, staring eyes. The artist of the C.1300 manuscript gives the ṣannāja a tusked, leonine head with massive, spotted folds of skin all over its body. A third is more cautious, assigning it the looks of a dragon. Finally, one Egyptian account is a ṣannāja in name only, placing it in African rivers and giving it four duck feet, a horse’s mane, water-buffalo skin, and a huge mouth. Described as the “Nubian Horse” living in water and ruining crops on land, this is the only case where the name has been applied to the hippopotamus.

The most distinctive quality of the ṣannāja is its deadly gaze, which nonetheless has a peculiar quality. Any animal that sees the ṣannāja dies instantly, but if the ṣannāja sees the animal first, it is the one to expire. Thus animals of Tibet come up to ṣannājas with their eyes closed, such that the monster will see them and drop dead, guaranteeing them a feast for weeks to come.

Accounts of mammoth fossils from Central Asia may have inspired the enormous ṣannāja. Traditional Tibetan art and kirttimukha faces may also have had a hand in its genesis.

References

Berlekamp, P. (2011) Wonder, Image, and Cosmos in Medieval Islam. Yale University Press, New Haven.

al-Damiri, K. (1891) Hayat al-hayawan al-kubra. Al-Matba’ah al-Khayriyah, Cairo.

Jayakar, A. S. G. (1908) Ad-Damiri’s Hayat al-Hayawan (A Zoological Lexicon), vol. II, part I. Luzac and Co., London.

Komaroff, L. and Carboni, S. (eds.) (2002) The Legacy of Genghis Khan. Yale University Press, New Haven.

Rapoport, Y. and Savage-Smith, E. (eds.) (2014) An Eleventh-Century Egyptian Guide to the Universe. Brill, Leiden.

al-Qazwini, Z. (1849) Zakariya ben Muhammed ben Mahmud el-Cazwini’s Kosmographie. Erster Theil: Die Wunder der Schöpfung. Ed. F. Wüstenfeld. Dieterichsche Buchhandlung, Göttingen.

ABC will be going on hiatus for 1 week to the entire month of May (depending on how soon I can get things done), as the author sorts things out in real life. Lots of things going on! Keep watching for  updates, and see you again soon!

Since ABC is taking a break right now, I’d like to hear from you! Yes, YOU, the readers. What are some creatures you’d like to see sooner rather than later? Anything you think I’m missing? Let me know via FB or the email provided on the site!

Hello again ABC readers!
Here’s another question for you. Would you be interested in one or more of the following:

1) Detailed descriptions of the art process, including any sketches, inspirations, and first drafts.

2) Detailed descriptions of the writing process, going through how exactly I dig up all these things and the trail of citational breadcrumbs I have to decipher.

3) Reviews of other creature compendia, including honest appraisals of reliability.

As always, answer via the Facebook page or the email. Happy creaturing!

Updates are still on hold, I’m sorry to say. Currently going through a very dark time in my life, but I will be coming back to ABC as soon as possible, I guarantee that. Haven’t left yet.

Variations: Each-uisge, Water horse

While the kelpie plies the rivers and streams of Scotland, the lochs and seas are home to the far more dangerous Each Uisge, literally the “Water Horse”. Each uisges are carnivorous, and relish human flesh. While other water-horses are content with playing pranks, tossing riders into ponds and laughing at their lot, an each uisge’s actions are always predatory. In addition to hunting humans, they will also reproduce with farm animals, siring foals with flashing eyes, strong limbs, distended nostrils, and an indomitable spirit.

Like kelpies, each uisges are shapeshifters and can assume a wide variety of forms, from sea life to attractive human beings. Their most common guise, however, is that of a fine horse, standing by the waterside and waiting to be mounted. Such horses are always magnificent, sleek, and wild-looking, and their neighs can wake people up all around the mountains.

The each uisge in human form is attractive and charming, but always has some features that give it away – horse’s hooves, for instance, or hair full of sand and seaweed, or a tendency to whinny in pain. In such cases where an each uisge lover was found out, it is usually killed by the girl’s father or brothers before it can devour her. Regardless of the shape it has taken, an each uisge’s carcass will turn into formless jellyfish slime by the next day.

Sometimes the each uisge is a large bird, although this may be confusing it with the boobrie. More worrisome features have been observed, including viciously hooked, 17-inch long beaks, enormous claws, and footprints larger than an elephant’s. An each uisge observed at the Isle of Arran was light grey, with a parrot-like beak and a body longer than an elephant’s.

For all their carnivorous nature, each uisges can be easily tamed by slipping a cow’s cap or shackle onto it, turning it docile and harmless. If the cap or shackle ever falls off, the each uisge immediately gallops off for the safety of the loch, possibly dragging its would-be master with it. Each uisges can also be tamed by stealing their magic bridles. They use them to see fairies and demons, and are vulnerable without them. Finally, like many other evil creatures, each uisges avoid crosses and other religious symbols.

Every loch in Scotland has its own each uisge. Loch Treig was said to have the fiercest each uisges. Loch Eigheach means “Horse Loch” and is home to a much-feared each uisge, with a deadly charm and a silky grey hide. It would yell triumphantly as it bore its prey into the water.

Seven girls and a boy once found an each uisge on a Sunday afternoon near Aberfeldy. It was in the form of a pony, and it continued grazing as the first girl jumped onto its back. One by one, the other girls followed their friend onto the pony, but only the boy noticed that the pony’s back grew longer to accommodate its riders. Finally, the pony tried to get him on as well. “Get on my back!” it said, and the boy ran, hiding in the safety of the rocks. The terrified girls found that their hands stuck to the each uisge’s back, and they could only scream as it dove into the loch. The next day, seven livers floated to the surface.

The son of the Laird of Kincardine encountered an each-uisge near Loch Pityoulish. He and his friends found a black horse with a bridle, reins, and saddle all made of silver. They got onto it and immediately found themselves on a one-way trip to the loch, their hands glued to the reins. Fortunately for the heir of Kincardine, the youth had only touched the reins with one finger, and freed himself by cutting it off, but he could only watch as the water-horse took his friends with it.

While the water-horse legend may be pervasive and universal in northern Europe, some of the each uisge’s appearances may be more prosaic. The beak and large footprints of some each uisges suggest a leatherback turtle more than they do a horse.

References

Fleming, M. (2002) Not of this World: Creatures of the Supernatural in Scotland. Mercat Press, Edinburgh.

Gordon, S. (1923) Hebridean Memories. Cassell and Company Limited, London.

MacKinlay, J. M. (1893) Folklore of Scottish Lochs and Springs. William Hodge & Co., Glasgow.

Parsons, E. C. M. (2004) Sea monsters and mermaids in Scottish folklore: Can these tales give us information on the historic occurrence of marine animals in Scotland? Anthrozoös 17 (1), pp. 73-80.

Variations: Seal Mother

The Selamóðir, or “Seal Mother”, is the protector of the harbor seals and grey seals of Iceland. It is called by seals when persecuted, or it may appear of its own accord to defend its charges. Unlike most seals, it can be found inland as well as at sea, in freshwater and saltwater.

Seal mother or not, a selamóðir is a monstrous sight. It is like a seal in general appearance, but of “unusual dimensions”, “terrifying size”, or simply the size of a large foreign dog with short legs. It is reddish-pink in color (perhaps with a red neck), with flashing eyes and a back like an island. There is a tuft of hair, like brushwood or heather, between its eyes.

Seal mothers may be found wherever seals gather, and ferociously attack anything that approaches their “children”. There is one report of a selamóðir charging out of the sea to scare off would-be seal hunters, and others of selamóðirs swimming upriver.

A selamóðir was also one of the three monsters inhabiting the Lagarfljót river. It slept under the waterfall, and was much feared until it was vanquished and transfixed to a rock.

References

Hlidberg, J. B. and Aegisson, S.; McQueen, F. J. M. and Kjartansson, R., trans. (2011) Meeting with Monsters. JPV utgafa, Reykjavik.

Ah yes, the 90s, back when men were XTREME, women were XTREME, and toys were THE KOOLEST EVER. Toy manufacturers were constantly outdoing themselves in making XTREME action figures, and in a post-Transformers landscape, the importance of a storyline to enhance the play pattern was recognized.

Makers of toy cars in particular had to reinvent themselves. Making die-cast toys was becoming increasingly expensive, forcing them to cut corners (more on that in a later post); worse, they were losing in popularity to the XTREME newcomers. That’s when increasingly bizarre lines of “cars” were produced and died with a whimper. They were not huge sellers, but they were pretty cool- sorry, I mean XTREME. This post is dedicated to one such short-lived line.

Matchbox’s Carnivores (Carnivores, get it?) were short-lived and obscure by any account. There was only one wave produced in 1995, and nothing else after that. The backstory was fairly flimsy – car-monsters battling each other in an XTREME post-apocalyptic landscape – and the marketing was half-hearted (Skull Shooter, for instance, didn’t even get advertised on the back of the packaging). They did make a catchy ad for them with a bit of claymation, though. Nowadays they lurk in the dark recesses of eBay.

What connection do I have with them? Back in 1995, I was presented with the opportunity of having either a Carnivore or The Illustrated Book of Myths. I chose the latter, obviously, but the toys and their box art remained etched in my young mind. It wasn’t until years later that I found out what those things were.

There were seven Carnivores in total. All of them had “Ax-L Action”, which is to say that the wheels made their legs move around like they were crawling forward. Two of those were “deluxes” slightly larger than the others and with more action features. As for the creatures themselves, well… let’s see what they have to offer. I will be using the box art because it’s even more gloriously monstery than the toys.

Iron Claw is fairly typical of the “basic” line, with crawling legs and a simple action feature – in this case, pressing the back claw causes the front claw to stab downwards. Iron Claw himself (only male pronouns are used, because girls aren’t allowed to play with XTREME car monsters) appears to be some kind of slug (or at least a mollusc), with a round sucker mouth, the eponymous iron claws, and an engine block in his back uncomfortably surrounded with tubercular tumorous tissue. He’s beautiful.

Buzz Off is much easier to narrow down: a giant car-wasp, with ragged membranous wings and three pairs of legs. And bull horns, apparently. But what’s with the chains? You will note that almost all the Carnivores have broken chains on their legs. Were they once tied up? Are they a top secret government experiment gone wrong? The world may never know.

Buzz Off’s gimmick is a “stinger missile”, a missile that can be spring-loaded and fired a short distance. It also appears to be sentient. Maybe they chat with each other in between dismembering prey.

A huge mouth, teeth, drool, wrinkly skin… Yup, this hits all the right buttons. Chomper’s gimmick is straightforward: he chomps stuff. This is the sort of thing that could keep you busy forever. Chomper seems rather toadlike, but I want to imagine that it’s a mutated horned lizard. And can also shoot blood from its eyeballs.

Spitfire is apparently some kind of squid? But it also has a ring of teeth and tentacles with claws attached to them? Yeah, I don’t know either. This one’s gimmick is spewing “deadly venom” – OK, water – that you load up and fire by pressing the soft plastic engine block on the back.

Skull Shooter, the zombie skeleton of the bunch, is the “secret” Carnivore, being largely unadvertised. He’s grabbing a pair of human skulls, so apparently the Carnivores share the Earth with us, and it gives us a sense of scale. He doesn’t seem to correspond with any known animal as far as I can tell.

Oh, and he shoots his own spring-loaded head off as a weapon. Metal.

Venom Spitter is one of the two “deluxe” Carnivores, and is a large creature that’s mostly mouth and which has stolen Spitfire’s venom-spewing powers. It’s not clear what it’s mean to be, but the first thing I think of when I see that huge mouth and those tusks is a hippopotamus.

Bite Wing, finally, is the other “deluxe” and is the most unconventional Carnivore, being not a car but a helicopter that evolved from some kind of mutated bat. It also has what seems to be an insect’s thorax and abdomen, so it’s another one of those darn GMOs.

It comes with not one, but two “parasite bombs” that look like secondarily flightless vampire bats. And they too seem to have a mind of their own. Do they make small talk while being carried by their “parent”? Do they monitor Carnivore activity from on high?Are they good cops or loose cannons? Do they like lattes? So many questions, but the closure of the line in 1995 means that there will never be answers.

Carnivores are © Matchbox.

Variations: Bruchus, Brucha (pl.)

If the Hortus Sanitatis is to be believed, a young locust is far more dangerous than its adult counterparts. Referred to as a bruchus, it is an immature stage lasting until the animal can fly, and is distinguished by absent or undeveloped wings and a yellow color. As bruchi cannot fly, they remain in one place and gnaw fruiting plants down to the roots.

The Epistil Ísu, the Irish version of the pseudo-epigraphic Sunday Letter, describes the Bruch (pluralized as Brucha) differently. Here as before, the bruch is separated from its adult, and both are used to punish people who disrespect Sundays. A bruch has iron bristles and fiery eyes. Swarms of brucha go into the vineyards of sinners and cut the branches, roll about in the fallen grapes to impale them on their spikes, and carry the fruit off into their lairs – much like Pliny’s hedgehogs, which doubtlessly inspired this account.

Brucha apparently mature into locusts, which have iron wings that scythe wheat and make the ears fall. They too are avengers of Sunday.

References

Borsje, J. (1994) The Bruch in the Irish Version of the Sunday Letter. Ériu, v. XLV, pp. 83-98.

Borsje, J. (1996) From Chaos to Enemy: Encounters with Monsters in Early Irish Texts. Brepols Publishers, Turnhout.

Cuba, J. (1539) Le iardin de santé. Philippe le Noir, Paris.

Variations: Skate Mother; Fluxuskrímsl (Flake Monster); Vatnsandi (Water Spirit); Vatnaskratti (Water Devil)

Skate in Iceland are mystical creatures. Saint Peter recognized them as the holiest fish in the sea, and they are intimately connected with the number nine. A skate has nine good qualities and nine bad. It will watch over a drowned man for nine nights, and spend the next nine nights eating him. A skate will carry its young within her for nine months, then lie upon them for nine weeks, during which a stone grows within them. This stone, the “skate-stone”, could make a man invisible for one hour, or relieve labor pangs. Empty mermaid’s purses, or “Peter’s purses” as they are known, have lost their skate-stones.

Most terrifying of all is the Skötumóðir, or “Skate Mother”. Like the other Icelandic “fish mothers”, they are not necessarily skate themselves; in fact, some accounts describe them as evil whales that resemble skates. They are enormous and toxic to eat, with backs like mud-covered islands, and sport nine tails. Unlike regular skate, they have been found inland, in freshwater, and even on dry land.

There is always a swarm of skate swimming around a skötumóðir. As they are caught by fishermen, the sea seems to get shallower as the skötumóðir rises to the surface. Finally, the vengeful skate mother hooks its wings onto the gunwales of the boat, and drags it below the waves.

To evade a skötumóðir, prompt action is required. When the huge ray latches its wings onto the boat, they must be immediately chopped off with whatever sharp implement is handy. This will effectively neutralize the threat.

An enormous skate, no doubt a skötumóðir, was one of three monsters terrorizing people around Lagarfljót, lying in wait at ferry crossings. It was transfixed to the bottom of the river by a powerful sorcerer, and unless it has escaped, it is there still.

References

Davidsson, O. (1900) The Folk-lore of Icelandic Fishes. The Scottish Review, October, pp. 312-332.

Hlidberg, J. B. and Aegisson, S.; McQueen, F. J. M. and Kjartansson, R., trans. (2011) Meeting with Monsters. JPV utgafa, Reykjavik.

La Grande Encylopédie des Lutins/Fées/Elfes (The Great Encyclopedia of Faeries; The Complete Encyclopedia of Elves, Goblins, and other Little Creatures)

by Pierre Dubois, illustrations by Claudine and Roland Sabatier

The three encyclopedias written by Pierre Dubois and illustrated by Claudine and Roland Sabatier are a bit of a special case. As of writing this, there are 3 volumes, covering goblins, fairies, and elfs (respectively), but they are relatively little-known in the English-speaking world. Passable English translations are available, but the books have had an influence on French bestiaries in the same way Rose’s books have had in English – and that includes the mistakes too. I have a soft spot for these books – again, I read them cover to cover back in the day – but do they stand up to scrutiny today? Let’s find out.

Can be bought from Amazon in French here, here, and here, and in inferior English here and here.

Scope

The encyclopedias cover all sorts of magical beings but leave out the more “prosaic” creatures such as bonnacons and leucrotas. There is a marked tendency to favor humanoids above everything else, even when the creature in question isn’t humanoid (more on that below).

Otherwise, they cover a broad range of cultures across the world, with a strong focus on French creatures, giving them a niche that sets them apart.

Organization

Goblins, fairies, and elfs, but the distinction is vague and hazy at best. “Fairies”, for instance, includes basilisks and codrilles, valkyries and nagas. Chapters are by habitat: those of the Earth and caves, those of woods and forests, and so on.

The distinctions are arbitrary at best, but then that’s the author’s prerogative. Considering Dubois’ views on scholarship and classification, his categories come across as somewhat ironic.

Text

Florid, long-winded, pompous, purple, and fluffy. Dubois is a master at making mountains out of molehills, and creatures with summary descriptions are given extended biographies. For instance, the Duphon – literally the eagle owl, except it’s blamed for typical fairy behavior – is made into a sort of Knight Templar of the mountains by Dubois, with extended descriptions of its hunting habits and suicidal recklessness. None of this is corroborated in the primary literature.

Each creature gets a summary of vital statistics (size, habitat, food, activities, etc.) in the margins, which gives the book a further encyclopedic feel. These vital statistics are also often completely fabricated.

Dubois’ embellishment can take on rather uncomfortable tones. We really did not need to know what the pubic hair stylings are for the skogsra (thick) or the makralles (shaved). Nor is there an explanation for his alteration of some stories: the original tale of the girls and the pilous, for instance, ends with the girls shutting up and the pilous leaving, but Dubois makes the pilous stomp into the room, strip the girls naked, and force them to dance until exhaustion. There is no mention of the fact that vouivres get slain same as any other dragon. These modifications have no basis in the literature, which is cause for concern – not just for bad scholarship, but because they also say quite a bit about Dubois.

Images

There have been complaints that the drawings are “childish” and “comic-booky” and “not serious enough”. I on the other hand have no such problem. The ink and paint drawings by the Sabatiers are easily some of the best selling points of the books, often conveying a setting without even showing the creature front and center. There are interesting takes on some creatures (the Yara-ma-yha-who and the Gremlin come to mind).

Any inaccurate depictions are ultimately Dubois’ fault, and I would not blame the Sabatiers for them.

Research

This is where I reserve most of my criticism, although it overlaps a bit with the text complaints. The fact that most of what Dubois writes about is obscure gives him free rein to invent anything he wants, and a lot of his inventions have been parroted by later authors, making it even harder to separate myth from, er, modern man-made myth. Dubois has also made it clear that he has nothing but scorn for research, study, academia, books… And it shows.

Creatures that are non-human are changed to become humanoid, often losing their best features in the process. The beefy-armed water-horse Mourioche becomes a goblin in a jester’s hat. The shapeless pilous become anthropomorphic dormice (to be fair, I liked that look enough to keep it for my pilou. I am part of the problem). The tourmentine and parisette plants become a goblin and fairy respectively, complete with backstory. The Rabelaisian coquecigrue bird becomes a tiny snake-fairy. The Breton tan noz will-o’-wisps become goblins. The list goes on and on.

Other creatures are fabricated out of whole cloth. The H’awouahoua has found its way into less critical bestiaries, even though this purported Algerian bogey has meaningless gibberish for a name. The Processionary, the Fougre, the Danthienne… The list of dubious creatures goes on, made worse by the difficulty of finding primary sources.

Dubois has also used a pseudonym, Petrus Barbygere (“Peter the Bearded”, i.e. himself), which he uses as a source for a number of citations. Whether this is amusing or not depends on who you ask, but it only muddies the mixture further.

Summary

There is a lot to fault in the Dubois encyclopedias, foremost being an attitude to research similar to that espoused by Attila the Hun. Once again, however, I can’t bring myself to lower the grade too much, as those books have nice drawings, obscure creatures, and helped set me on the track to finding out more.

Variations: Muirgris (erroneously); Sínach, Sinech; Píast Uiscide (“Water Beast”); Úath (“Horror”)

Fergus mac Léti, the King of Ulster, was an inveterate swimmer. Captured while sleeping by water-spirits, the lúchorpáin or “small bodies” (actually the first appearance of leprechauns), he was awoken by the cold water they tried to carry him into. This allowed him to turn the tables on his would-be captors, and he seized three of the lúchorpáin. Fergus demanded that the sprites grant him three wishes: the ability to breathe underwater in seas, pools, and lakes.

The sprites granted him his wish, in the form of enchanted earplugs and a tunic to wear around his head. But like all wishes granted by the Fair Folk, it came with a caveat. Fergus was not to use his gifts at Loch Rudraige (Dundrum Bay) in his own land of Ulster.

Of course, Fergus arrogantly disregards the rule and swims underwater at Loch Rudraige anyway. There he encounters the Muirdris, the “Sea Bramble” or “Sea Briar”, a huge, mysterious, undefined horror that inflates and deflates, expands and contracts like a bellows. It has features of a thorn-bush, with branches and stings, and its appearance alone is deadly.

Fergus does not take well to his encounter with the muirdris, and he is horribly disfigured after seeing it, with his mouth moving to the back of his head. His courtiers are dismayed, as a man with a blemish cannot be king, but they somehow keep this defacement a secret from Fergus for seven years. They prevent him from accessing mirrors, and surround him only with people who will protect the king’s deformity. He finds out only after Dorn, a highborn slave, taunts him about it after he strikes her with a whip. She is bisected for her troubles, and Fergus goes to face his nemesis alone.

The battle between Fergus and the muirdris lasts a day and a night, during which the water of the loch bubbles like a giant cauldron. Finally Fergus slays the monster with his bare hands, and emerges from the loch holding its head in triumph – only to collapse and die from the ordeal.

A thirteenth-century retelling of Fergus’ tribulations renames the monster sínach or sinech. In this version, it is the king’s wife who reveals his secret after an argument.

The muirdris is a monster, but is it rooted in fact? Surely the expansion and contraction, the comparison to a thornbush, and the disfiguring stings strongly suggest a large jellyfish, perhaps the lion’s mane jellyfish.

References

Borsje, J. (1996) From Chaos to Enemy: Encounters with Monsters in Early Irish Texts. Brepols Publishers, Turnhout.

MacKillop, J. (2005) Myths and Legends of the Celts. Penguin Books, London.

Variations: Tien-schu, Tin-schu, Tyn-schu, Yn-schu

In Siberia, mammoth fossils were seen as the remains of giant mole-like creatures that lived and moved underground. These subterannean monsters tore up riverbanks as they tunneled, but died in broad daylight.

In China, numerous sources, including the treatise Ly-Ki, tell of the Yin Shu, the “Hidden Rodent” or “Hidden Mouse” that dwells in dark caves. The yin shu grows from the size of a buffalo to as big as an elephant in Manchurian manuscripts, but otherwise looks mouselike. It has a no tail (or a short tail), is dark in color, and has short legs, a short neck, and small eyes. Yin shu are dim-witted, slow, and extremely powerful, digging out caves in areas with the roots of the fu-kia plant. They have shown up when rivers flooded plains, and die instantly when exposed to sunlight.

Until recently, mammoth bones in drugstores were labeled as yin shu.

References

Buel, J. W. (1887) Sea and Land. Historical Publishing Company, Philadelphia.

Laufer, B. and Pelliot, P. (1913) Arabic and Chinese Trade in Walrus and Narwhal Ivory. T’Oung Pao, Second Series, v. 14, no. 3, pp. 315-370.

Pouchet, F. A. (1865) L’Univers. Librairie de L. Hachette et Cie, Paris.