| |
|
Thanks, Jack...
There were orginally some notes to the article, with a load of stuff that was extraneous to the thrust of the text, but which I thought was too interesting to leave out; they made the article too long, though, so you can have them here instead. (this could be quite long)
The Catoblepas was probably the Gnu at some point, but it was said to possess the power of killing with its glance; by the sixteenth century, however, it had become a composite monster with reptilian scales and wings. The Chimera, a byword for the absurdities of the composite beast, was described by Homer as being a lion in front, a goat in the middle, and a serpent behind; Hesiod describes it as having three heads, one per part. It spewed flame, and was killed by Bellerophon. It may have been a myth arising from the fiery gases of Lycia (where it was supposed to live), the local people inventing the most hideous form they could to explain it; Robert Graves thinks that it was a calendar beast, expressing in its parts the stages of a religious cycle.
I cannot resist this list of traditional British supernatural beings, so am including it here (it comes from the Denham Tracts): '... ghosts, boggles, bloody-bones, spirits, demons, ignis fatui, brownies, bugbears, black dogs, spectres, shellycoats, scarecrows, witches, wizards, barguests, Robin Goodfellows, hags, night-bats, scrags, breaknecks, fantasms, hobgoblins, hobhoulards, boggy-boes, dobbies, hobthrusts, fetches, kelpies, warlocks, mock-beggars, mum-pokers, Jemmy-burties, urchins, satyrs, pans, fauns, sirens, tritons, centaurs, calcais, nymphs, imps, incubuses, spoorns, men-in-the-oak, hellwains, fire-drakes, kit-as-can-sticks, Tom-tumblers, melch-dicks, larrs, kitty-witches, hobby-lanthorns, Dick-A-Tuesdays, Elf-fires, Gylburne-Tails, knockers, elves, raw-heads, Meg-with-the-wads, old-shocks, ouphs, pad-fooits, pixies, pictrees, giants, dwarfs, Tom-pokers, tutgots, snapdragons, sprets, spunks, conjurors, thurses, spurns, tantarrabobs, swaithes, tints, tod-lownies, Jack-in-the-Wads, mormos, changelings, redcaps, yeth-hounds, colt-pixies, Tom-thumbs, blackbugs, boggarts, scar-bugs, shag-foals, hodge-pockers, hob-thrushes, bugs, bull-beggars, bygones, bolls, caddies, bomen, wraithes, waffs, faly-boggarts, fiends, gallytrots, brags, imps, gytrashes, patches, hob-and-lanthorns, gringes, boguests, bonelesses, Peg-powlers, pucks, fays, kidnappers, gally-beggars, hudskins, nichers, madcaos, trolls, robinets, friars' lanthorns, silkies, caul-lads, death-hearses, goblins, hob-headlesses, bugaboos, kows or cowes, nickies, nacks (necks), waiths, miffies, buckies, gholes, sylphs, guests, swarths, freiths, freits, gy-carlins (Gyre-carlings), pigmies, chittifaces, nixies, Jimmy-burnt-tails, dudmen, hell-hounds, dplle-gangers, boggleboes, bogies, redmen, postunes, grants, hobbits, hobgoblins, brown-men, cowies, dunnies, wirrikows, alholdes, mannikins, follets, correds, lubberkins, cluricanns, kobolds, leprechauns, kors, mares, korreds, puckles, korigans, sylvans, succubuses, black-men, shadows, banshees, liankaushees, clabbersnappers, Gabriel-hounds, mawkins, doubles, corpselights or candles, scrats, mahounds, trows, gnomes, sprites, fates, fiends, sybils, nick-nerins, white-women, fairies, thrummy-caps, cutties, and nisses...' This is where J. R. R. Tolkien found the name for his Hobbits.
The identification of the Basilisk/Cockatrice with the cobra may explain the legend that the only animal which dared attack the monster was the weasel: the weasel might well be a doppelganger for the mongoose.
One of the original legends surrounding the Griffins stated that, like Dragons, they guarded heaps of gold (and that a one-eyed race of men tried to steal it from them). Sir Thomas Browne says of the Griffin (which he does not believe in, and calls an 'intolerable shape') that: 'So doth it well make out the properties of a Guardian... the ears implying attention, the wings celerity of execution, the Lion-like shape, courage and audacity, the hooked bill, reservance and tenacity. It is also an Embleme of valour and magnanimity, as being compounded of the Eagle and Lion, the noblest Animals in their kindes.'
During the Renaissance Paracelsus was busy creating numerous supernatural beings - he was responsible for gnomes and sylphs, and thought that salamanders were fire spirits. Ariosto created the Hippogriff as the winged steed in Orlando Furioso; it had the front parts of a griffin, and the nether regions of a horse.
While it is indeed impossible that any snake should have two heads (one at each end, like the Pushmipullyu), there is a genus of legless lizards, with small or redundant eyes and two rounded ends, which raise their tails when disturbed as though they were their heads, and which can progress either forwards or backwards. They are the Amphisbaenidae.
The most famous example of a cryptid is, of course, the Coelacanth, the living fossil fish. The discovery of this creature has raised the hopes of those intrigued by cryptozoology, who search for the Nandi Bear, the Marozi, the Thylacine, Bigfoot, and Nessie. www.cryptozoology.com
The unimaginable nature of many fabulous beasts is evident in their descriptions: part this, part that, and part the other, as if the writer has no complete picture in his mind. The zenith, or nadir, of this type of monster is reached with the Mermecoleon or ant-lion, a beast achieved through an inept translation in the Septuagint, which was subsequently said to be half lion, half ant, and therefore to perish for want of sustenance. Perhaps unsurprisingly this proved too much for even the more credulous bestiarists, and was edited out of later editions. |
|
|
