A bestiary of lesser-known mythological creatures. Researched over the course of several years! If you get a screenshot of this text to the front page (as that is apparently a thing people do in Imgur), I'll tell you one of my favorite myths that you probably haven't heard about. If you like insects and other small (non-fictional) critters, check out my old account, Conocoryphe!
Although, alliterations are always awesome.
I wonder if this was actually a turtle? If you've never seen a turtle before, nor an image of one, and you heard about a sea creature with a shell on its back, it would make sense to imagine a kind of snail.
Though that doesn't explain the antlers. Also, Thevet did claim to have seen one in Denmark, but perhaps he only caught a glimpse of it?
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I'm still finding new creatures and myths! Though it is getting more difficult to find information, and several times I realized halfway through an article that I already wrote a post about that creature some years ago.
I still want to publish a book or something one day, though I never quite get around to it.
Yeah, there are actually a lot of them! Iceland also has the Lyngbakur and the one in Saint Brendan's story was Jasconius.
I suppose it's a recurring story in several cultures because 'absurdly large fish' is an easy concept to imagine, and humans have been fascinated by the ocean depths for thousands of years.
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I like Centiskorch! I've always been fond of the bug type 'mons, and a giant firebreathing centipede is just an objectively cool monster.
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The Afanc was a lake monster, I made a post about it some years ago but I might rewrite that one because I used bad sources.
The Gwiber is a slightly more well known monster, a Welsh winged serpent dragon.
One of the more interesting ones is the Angelystor, an ancient spirit inhabiting a very old tree in Conwy. At night on a specific date, it would speak the names of the members of the local parish who would soon die.
The Plentyn Newid are fey changelings: normal-looking babies that got swapped for real babies by the fey, and they developed strange characteristics as they grew older. One of these was supposedly exhibited in 1690, a 9 year old girl with a height of 45 cm, she had translucent skin and could not speak, but meowed.
These 'fairies' were likely children with birth defects...
Ooh, the Coblynau are a subterranean, benevolent goblin-like species! They guided miners to ore.
Not a lot unfortunately, there seem to be fewer sources on Welsh folklore than on Irish and Scottish, but I have some!
There is the Gwyllgi, a magical black dog whose gaze paralyzed people. He appeared before lonely travelers, and seeing his burning red eyes was an omen of death.
The Llamhigyn Y Dwr, or water leapers, are winged frog-like monsters with no legs and a long snake-like tail. They were pranksters and stole bait from fishing hooks.
The Morgens are evil Welsh sea spirits.
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Whoops, sorry the for the late reply!
I find it interesting how you see this trope in cultures all over the world, so they likely originated indepentently, while there are only a handful of male seducers in folklore. The male ones are often rooted in oppression of women, sadly, like how the Tupi Guarani people use the seducing spirits to justify unclaimed pregnancies ('none of the men admit it, so it was a spirit!')
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I wonder if there's an intentional moral there, to respect (not evict) the elderly, especially family members.
I might be overthinking it, though.
According to the Ghibli wiki, Yamauba was indeed an inspiration for Yubaba, along with Baba Yaga. It cites an article in Film Criticism about the movie.
Honestly I can see the resemblance. Also, that movie aged really well, I love how fluent the animation is!
Well I assume she gets a lot of protein from devouring a lonesome traveler now and then, surely that helps!
I've never seen it, though I remember loving the first two!
I've been meaning to try the comics, but never get around to it...
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