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The dreaded ṣafat
Good news! I got the inside scoop on this ṣafat malarkey. Id save it for the final ABC product, but I need to nip any misunderstandings in the bud before they get out of hand and people start labeling...
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ABC Reviews: A Chinese Bestiary
A Chinese Bestiary Richard E. Strassberg The Shan Hai Jing is the seminal Chinese bestiary, in fact one of the most creature-packed creature books in existence! (It’s also where Borges got his Chinese...
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The Big Wednesday Update – and major changes…
You might have noticed that I haven’t been posting new creatures on ABC in a while. I did say I was going on hiatus for the summer, but this one’s been going on for a suspiciously long time. And you’d...
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James Lewicki and American Folklore
My first encounter with James Lewicki’s art was in The World We Live In, the best natural history book ever written *inserts bias*. His work was primarily eerie seascapes in that series, but this...
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Know your jinn
Pop Quiz: which one of these characters is a jinni? A. The well-dressed woman B. The demure-looking gazelle C. The big freaky spotted ostrich monster D. All of the above If your answer was D, then you...
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ABC Reviews: Créatures Fantastiques Deyrolle
Créatures Fantastiques Deyrolle Jean-Baptiste de Panafieu, Camille Renversade Everyone knows Deyrolle charts. Well, a lot of people do. And even if you’ve never heard of them, the...
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The terrifying alpine dragon
Here we have a menacing alpine dragon – what would be called a tatzelwurm nowadays (a regional name that has since come to conveniently apply to alpine dragons as a whole, but back then they were all...
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Sea unicorns (and their fingers)
A pair of sea unicorns from Rudolf II’s Bestiarium. Probably extrapolated from a narwhal tusk. Those are some freaky fingers.
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“About those shoes you sold me yesterday…” Centaur at the Village Blacksmith’s Shop by Arnold Böcklin, 1888.
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Obscure Modern Monsters: The Uglies of The Princess and Curdie
I had the opportunity to reread George MacDonald’s The Princess and Curdie (TPAC for short) and it wasn’t much fun. MacDonald was the precursor to Lewis and Tolkien, and his moralizing is ham-fisted...
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Another alpine dragon or tatzelwurm. This time with two legs and a reptilian phizog. What really sells it is the melodramatic look of dismay on the guy. That or he’s yodeling to it. Image from Johann...
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Cross-references! Everyone loves ‘em! But how would you like them in ABC (print version)? A. Words bolded to denote separate entries B. A “see also” section with or without page numbers C....
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Have you ever encountered the Mosquito of the North Country? You thought they were pretty well developed animals with keen appetites didn’t you? Then you can appreciate what Paul Bunyan was up against...
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What were the monsters that attacked the Nautilus in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea? Jules Verne doesn’t help much because, while he recounts the Alecton’s encounter with a giant squid, he uses the...
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Got asked about Wenceslas Hollar’s depiction of an encounter between a basilisk and a weasel. The herb the weasel is using is the rue, of which I’ve said in my Basilisk entry, “The only plant immune...
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IT’S DANGEROUS TO GO ALONE! TAKE THIS. A spectacular rendition of Ezekiel’s vision, with only one cherub and ophan (presumably drawing all 4 pairs would have been mindbreaking) by Matthaeus Merian,...
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Obscure Modern Monsters: The Cybrids
Who remembers Starsiege? When it came out in 1999 it was my favorite computer game ever, and it still is. Which makes it even sadder that it got upstaged and replaced by Tribes, and even Starsiege...
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It’s big, it’s weird, it’s almost certainly a seal and it has a really unfortunate name! This is the Bayfart, and Thevet picked up a skin from near Denmark. He describes it as having bristles around...
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One weird misconception that’s propagated is that the Acheri, the disease-causing ghosts of little girls that live in the mountains and react to the color red, are Native American. For instance, as in...
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