More Legendary creatures.

[Otis McNutt 395]

Could you have the Werewolf?

I did the Werewolf in the first edition of this post called, "The creatures of yesteryear"

here is the entry from said post.

Part 13: Werewolf

Werewolves, also known as lycanthropes, are mythological or folkloric people with the ability to shapeshift into a wolf or wolflike creature, either purposely, by using magic, or after being placed under a curse. The medieval chronicler Gervase of Tilbury associated the transformation with the appearance of the full moon; however, there is evidence that the association existed among the Ancient Greeks, appearing in the writings of Petronius. This concept was rarely associated with the werewolf until the idea was picked up by fiction writers.

Shape-shifters similar to werewolves are common in tales from all over the world, though most of them involve animal forms other than wolves.

Werewolves are a frequent subject of modern fictional books and films, although fictional werewolves have been attributed traits distinct from those of original folklore, most notably the vulnerability to silver bullets.

Many authors have speculated that werewolf and vampire legends may have been used to explain serial killings in less enlightened ages. This theory is given credence by the tendency of some modern serial killers to indulge in practices commonly associated with werewolves, such as cannibalism, mutilation, and cyclic attacks. The idea (although not the terminology) is well explored in Sabine Baring-Gould's seminal work The Book of Werewolves.

A recent theory has been proposed to explain werewolf episodes in Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.[citation needed] Ergot, which causes a form of foodborne illness, is a fungus that grows in place of rye grains in wet growing seasons after very cold winters. Ergot poisoning usually affects whole towns or poor sections of towns, resulting in hallucinations and convulsions. (The hallucinogen LSD was originally derived from ergot). Ergot poisoning has been propounded as both a cause of an individual believing that one is a werewolf and of a whole town believing that they had witnessed a werewolf. This theory, however, is controversial and not widely accepted.

Some modern researchers have tried to use conditions such as rabies, hypertrichosis (excessive hair growth over the entire body), or porphyria (an enzyme disorder with symptoms including hallucinations and paranoia) to explain werewolf beliefs. Congenital erythropoietic porphyria has clinical features which include hairy hands and face, poorly healing skin, pink urine, reddish colour to the teeth, and photosensitivity, the latter of which leads sufferers to only go out at night.

There is also a rare mental disorder called clinical lycanthropy, in which an affected person has a delusional belief that he or she is, or has transformed into, another animal, but not necessarily a wolf or werewolf. Supernatural lycanthropy myths could originate from people relating their experiences of what could be classified as a state of psychosis.

Others believe that werewolf legends were partly inspired from shamanism and totem animals in primitive and nature-based cultures.

The name most likely derives from Old English wer (or were) and wulf. The first part, wer, translates as "man" (in the sense of male human, not the race of humanity). It has cognates in several Germanic languages including Gothic wair, Old High German wer, and Old Norse verr, as well as in other Indo-European languages, such as Latin vir, Irish fear, Lithuanian vyras, and Welsh gŵr, which have the same meaning. The second half, wulf, is the ancestor of modern English "wolf"; in some cases it also had the general meaning "beast." An alternative etymology derives the first part from Old English weri (to wear); the full form in this case would be glossed as wearer of wolf skin. Related to this interpretation is Old Norse ulfhednar, which denoted lupine equivalents of the berserker, said to wear a bearskin in battle.

Yet other sources derive the word from warg-wolf, where warg (or later werg and wero) is cognate with Old Norse vargr, meaning "rogue," "outlaw," or, euphemistically, "wolf". A Vargulf was the kind of wolf that slaughtered many members of a flock or herd but ate little of the kill. This was a serious problem for herders, who had to somehow destroy the rogue wolf before it destroyed the entire flock or herd. Herders would often hang the wolf's hide in the bedroom of a young infant, believing it to give the baby supernatural powers. The term Warg was used in Old English for this kind of wolf (see J. R. R. Tolkien's book The Hobbit) and for what would now be called a serial killer. Possibly related is the fact that, in Norse society, an outlaw (who could be murdered with no legal repercussions and was forbidden to receive aid) was typically called vargr, or "wolf."

The Greek term lycanthropy (a compound of which "lyc-" derives from the Proto-Indo-European root *wlkwo-, meaning "wolf") formally denotes the "wolf - man" transformation. Lycanthropy is but one form of therianthropy, the ability to metamorphose into animals in general. The term "therianthrope" literally means "beast-man," from which the words turnskin and turncoat are derived. (Latin: versipellis, Russian : oboroten, O. Norse: hamrammr). The French name for a werewolf, sometimes used in English, is loup-garou, from the Latin noun lupus meaning wolf. The second element is thought to be from Old French garoul meaning "werewolf." This in turn is most likely from Frankish *wer-wulf meaning "man-wolf."

In Greek mythology, the story of Lycaon provides one of the earliest examples of a werewolf legend. According to one version, Lycaon was transformed into a wolf as a result of eating human flesh; one of those who were present at periodical sacrifice on Mount Lyc

Edited 27 Mar 2008 by diamondtriforce82 (see edit history)

[Zeroshift3 0]

I did the Werewolf in the first edition of this post called, "The creatures of yesteryear"

here is the entry from said post.

Oh.

[adfsgh 0]

because Na Riknia ignored my tip i say to Na Riknia "zar nach secetren depour" to be follod forever(by leaprichauns).

leaprichauns

mischeavious theaving(there gold only) worshipers of the entity of truth zeroxus the distroier of deminiss the dark, entity of evil, servant of good.unlike that movie lepreachaun they don't kill and aren't territoreal(unless they are roges{roges are all dead}).

[Otis McNutt 395]

Leprechaun

In Irish mythology, a leprechaun (Irish: leipreach

[Na Riknia 4]

because Na Riknia ignored my tip i say to Na Riknia "zar nach secetren depour" to be follod forever(by leaprichauns).

leaprichauns

mischeavious theaving(there gold only) worshipers of the entity of truth zeroxus the distroier of deminiss the dark, entity of evil, servant of good.unlike that movie lepreachaun they don't kill and aren't territoreal(unless they are roges{roges are all dead}).

do not speak in forbidden tounge to a demon of my stature.

[LDGM 0]

can you tell us about the Ankou, the skeletal grave watchers?

[Otis McNutt 395]

Ankou

Ankou is part of the fairy lore of the Celtic countries. He has largely been forgotten in Cornwall, Wales and Ireland but remains part of the living folklore in French Brittany.

Ankou (Ahn-koo) is the personification of death who comes to collect the souls of passed-over humans. He is male dark, wearing a black-robed costume pulled up high about his head and a large hat that conceals his face. No one living has ever seen his face, for to do so would be to die. He is sometimes depicted as the Grim Reaper sporting a scythe with a handle of human bone.

His eye sockets, like smothering ashes, burned an eerie light because they had been taken out by an angel, angry when the Ankou had attempted to rip the soul from a good, untainted man.

He drives a black cart, though some say it is really a small coach or even a hearse, pulled along either by two horses, one is old and thin, while the other is youthful and strong, or four black horses of unspecified age.

It was said that some of the misfortunate souls harvested by the fearsome foreman were forced to aid him in his dark work, adding carcasses of family and friend to the great funereal mounds that laced a gigantic cart.

He is always preceded by a cold gust of wind. Neither barroom brawler or gentle wife was foolish enough to leave the illusional safety of tavern or bedside if the creaking lull of a cart might be heard to break the deep silence.

An old Irish proverb says, "When Ankou comes, he will not go away empty." In Ireland, Ankou is always classified as a fairy rather than a ghost or some other type of spirit, and he is given more of a personality than he is accorded in many other lands.

Collect the souls of those recently passed over and escort them into the Land of the Dead.

The Ankou is a Psychopomp. Myth abounds with these figures who walked the borderlands between life and death, guiding (or forcing) souls to the Land of Death. In some Southern regions of the United States, the bird known as a Harpy was thought to do this, in some instances carrying the unwilling soul to Hell. In ancient Greek and Roman Mythology, Charon was one name for the lonely boatman who paddled souls across the river Styx in exchange for currency. In Europe, the Ankou was one of these twilight guides, so money and gifts were left as a forms of spiritual bribery.

To hear his knock foretold death in a family before the year was out. If a man or woman was unlucky enough to discover a red mark outside their door when emptying the urine bucket, it was a condemnation of approaching illness, and neighbors would shun such people for fear of bad luck. This "mark of Death" motif bares striking resemblance to the "warning marks" plague-infested European towns placed upon the walls and doors of families who were boarded up to die in their homes before the entire village was infected. Several people were thus starved, stabbed if they ran, or burned to death.

The Ankou cut down man and woman, child and senior, without mercy. The notion that there was "always room for one more body" in his cart was perhaps the inspiration of the "prophetic dream" folk tale where a man or woman dreams of a sinister hearse driver whose words warn them of not taking the next day's plane or bus.

The Christian translators of folklore even connected the heritage of Ankou to the first blood spiller, Cain. According to the Hebrew Old Testament, Cain condemned man to death after slaying his brother. A folk legend took this one step further, stating that Cain himself was cursed to walk the earth forever collecting the dead for penance, similar to the myth of the Wandering Jew. Many believed that Ankou was Cain, forced to blindly search with his sense of smell for a late night wanderer. Other versions pretend that he is the first son of Adam and Eve.

One says that there were three drunk friends walking home one night, when they came across an old man on a rickety cart. Two of the men started shouting at Ankou, and then throwing stones, when they broke the axle on his cart they ran off.

The third friend felt bad, and so wanting to help Ankou, first found a branch to replace the broken axle, and then gave Ankou his shoe-laces to tie it to the cart with. The next morning, the two friends who were throwing stones at Ankou were dead, while the one who stayed to help only had his hair turned white. He would never speak in detail about how it happened.

One legend hinted that Ankou had once been a cruel landowner who foolishly challenged Death to a game of chance. A Prince, prone to fits of jealous anger and petty viciousness, loved to hunt. The moment of death, like the pain of his fellows, was as mother's milk to him. One night, on the Sabbath, the man decided to have some sport in his forest. While chasing a white stag, a magical animal found in several Celtic Fay stories, the man and his then-drunken companions stumbled across a massive figure drabbed in black atop a magnificent white horse (another symbol of death). The Prince challenged the silent man to a contest, angry at having found him on his land. Whoever could kill the stag would not only keep the meat and hide, but could also determine the fate of the loser. The stranger readily agreed, his voice reminding the assembled men of the sound of leaves scraping against the castle walls.

The hunt was over so quickly that the Prince could only stammer. As hard as he had rode, the stranger had galloped faster. Through field and stream and mountain, the dark stranger remained in the lead, night winds tugging wildly at his cloak. And when the Prince was still stringing his bow, the stranger let his arrow loose with a dead whistle and a sickening tear of shredding flesh.

The vindictive Prince ordered his men to surround the stranger, bragging that he would bring two trophies back to his hall that night.

The stranger laughed.

"You can have the stag," he said, "and all the dead of the world. Your joy is hunting? Hunt then! Your trophies will be found across battlefields and hearth, and they will reek of decay, huntsman."

[LDGM 0]

awesome

and rather scary

[Otis McNutt 395]

Vegetable Lamb of Tartary

The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary (Latin: Agnus scythicus or Planta Tartarica Barometz) is a semi-legendary plant of central Asia, believed to grow sheep as its fruit. The sheep were connected to the plant by an umbillical and grazed the land around the plant. When all the plants were gone, both the plant and sheep died. Although it owed its currency in medieval thought as a way of explaining the existence of cotton, underlying the myth is a real plant, Cibotium barometz, a fern of the genus Cibotium. It was known under various other names including the Scythian Lamb, the Borometz, Barometz and the Borametz (pronounced Baranetz, from russian baran (he-sheep)).

The Cibotium barometz fern, if I saw this plant and didn't know what it was i'd see a lamb too!

A plant called Borometz is mentioned in Chapter 22 of Simplicius Simplicissimus, a picaresque novel by Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen, when the protagonist describes his abduction by Tartars.

In the PlayStation 2 game Odin Sphere, Baromett seeds can be planted and grow to be plants that bear two sheep.

[Na Riknia 4]

I've been sent on a nearly impossible task...

kill a leviathon

any advice because i know little about them

[Otis McNutt 395]

Leviathan

Leviathan is a Biblical sea monster referred to in the Old Testament (Psalm 74:13-14; Job 41; Isaiah 27:1). The word leviathan has become synonymous with any large sea monster or creature. In the novel Moby-Dick it refers to great whales, and in Modern Hebrew, it means simply "whale".

Judaism

The word "Leviathan" appears in five places in the Bible, with the Book of Job, chapter 41, being dedicated to describing Leviathan in detail:

Book of Job 3:8 "May those who curse days curse that day, those who are ready to rouse Leviathan "; NIV

Book of Job 41:1-34: "Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook? or his tongue with a cord which thou lettest down?...He beholdeth all high things: he is a king over all the children of pride." KJV (quoted 1 and 34 only)

Psalms 74:14: "Thou brakest the heads of leviathan in pieces, and gavest him to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness." KJV

Psalms 104:24,25: "O LORD, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all: the earth is full of thy riches. So is this great and wide sea, wherein are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts." KJV;

Isaiah 27:1: "In that day the Lord with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea." KJV

The word Leviathan is also mentioned in Rashi's commentary on Genesis 1:21: "God created the great sea monsters - Taninim." Jastrow translates the word "Taninim" as "sea monsters, crocodiles or large snakes". Rashi comments: "According to legend this refers to the Leviathan and its mate. God created a male and female Leviathan, then killed the female and salted it for the righteous, for if the Leviathans were to procreate the world could not stand before them."

The festival of Sukkot (Festival of Booths) concludes with a prayer recited upon leaving the sukkah (booth): "May it be your will, Lord our God and God of our forefathers, that just as I have fulfilled and dwelled in this sukkah, so may I merit in the coming year to dwell in the sukkah of the skin of Leviathan. Next year in Jerusalem."

A commentary on this prayer in the Artscroll prayer-book (p. 725) adds: "The Leviathan was a monstrous fish created on the fifth day of Creation. Its story is related at length in the Talmud Baba Bathra 74b, where it is told that the Leviathan will be slain and its flesh served as a feast to the righteous in [the] Time to Come, and its skin used to cover the tent where the banquet will take place."

There is another religious hymn recited on the festival of Shavuot (celebrating the giving of the Torah), known as Akdamut, wherein it says: "...The sport with the Leviathan and the ox (Behemoth)...When they will interlock with one another and engage in combat, with his horns the Behemoth will gore with strength, the fish [Leviathan] will leap to meet him with his fins, with power. Their Creator will approach them with his mighty sword [and slay them both]." Thus, "from the beautiful skin of the Leviathan, God will construct canopies to shelter the righteous, who will eat the meat of the Behemoth [ox] and the Leviathan amid great joy and merriment, at a huge banquet that will be given for them." Some rabbinical commentators say these accounts are allegorical (Artscroll siddur, p. 719), or symbolic of the end of conflict.

In a legend recorded in the Midrash called Pirke de-Rabbi Eliezer it is stated that the whale which swallowed Jonah narrowly avoided being eaten by the Leviathan, which generally eats one whale each day. In a hymn by Kalir, the Leviathan is a serpent that surrounds the earth and has its tail in its mouth, like the Greek Ouroboros and the Nordic Midgard Serpent.

Legend has it that in the banquet after the end of conflict, the carcass of the leviathan will be served as a meal, along with the behemoth and the ziz.

Leviathan may also be interpreted as the sea itself, with its counterparts behemoth being the land and ziz being the air and space. Some scholars have interpreted Leviathan, and other references to the sea in the Old Testament, as highly metaphorical references to seafaring marauders who once terrorized the Kingdom of Israel. Others liken the mention to Tiamat and other similar monsters who represented the sea as a foe to the gods in myths of nearby cultures.

The Biblical references to Leviathan have similarities to the Canaanite Baal cycle, which involving a confrontation between Hadad (Baal) and a seven headed sea monster named Lotan. Lotan is the Ugaritic orthograph for Hebrew Leviathan. Hadad defeats him. Bibilical references also resemble the Babylonian creation epic En

[Anon 0]

I've been sent on a nearly impossible task...

kill a leviathon

any advice because i know little about them

AND WHY DO YOU HAVE TO DRAG ME ALONG!!!

[Otis McNutt 395]

Man-eating tree

Depiction of a native being consumed by a Ya-te-veo ("I can see you") carnivorous tree of Central America, from Land and Sea by J.W. Buel, 1887.

Man-eating tree can refer to any of various legendary carnivorous plants that are large enough to kill and consume a person or other large animal. No such plant is known to exist, though a variety of unconfirmed reports have been recorded. Presently, the carnivorous plant with the largest known traps is probably Nepenthes rajah, which produces pitchers up to 35 cm (14 inches) in height and will sometimes consume small mammals.

Nepenthes rajah

The Madagascar tree

The earliest well known man-eating tree originated as a hoax. In 1881 German explorer "Carl Liche" wrote an account in the South Australian Register of encountering a sacrifice performed by the "Mkodo" tribe of Madagascar:

"The slender delicate palpi, with the fury of starved serpents, quivered a moment over her head, then as if instinct with demoniac intelligence fastened upon her in sudden coils round and round her neck and arms; then while her awful screams and yet more awful laughter rose wildly to be instantly strangled down again into a gurgling moan, the tendrils one after another, like great green serpents, with brutal energy and infernal rapidity, rose, retracted themselves, and wrapped her about in fold after fold, ever tightening with cruel swiftness and savage tenacity of anacondas fastening upon their prey."

The tree was given further publicity by the 1924 book by former Governor of Michigan Chase Osborn, Madagascar, Land of the Man-eating Tree. Osborn claimed that both the tribes and missionaries on Madagascar knew about the hideous tree, and also repeated the above Liche account.

In his 1955 book, Salamanders and other Wonders, science author Willy Ley determined that the Mkodo tribe, Carle Liche, and the Madagascar man-eating tree itself all appeared to be fabrications.

Similar tales have reported such trees in Central America, South America, Mexico and elsewhere.

In fiction

Man-eating plants have figured in a number of science fiction stories and films. One central character in The Little Shop of Horrors (1960), its stage musical spinoff, and the musical film, is Audrey Jr. ("Audrey II" in the 1986 remake), a talking plant that feeds off human blood and flesh. A more serious example was the January 12, 1957 episode of Science Fiction Theatre, "The Killer Tree". Stanley G. Weinbaum's 1935 short story, Parasite Planet, describes a variety of carnivorous plants on Venus that eat humans and each other.

[Otis McNutt 395]

Afanc

The Afanc is a lake monster from Welsh mythology. Its exact description varies; it is described alternately as resembling a crocodile, beaver or dwarf-like creature, and is sometimes said to be a demon. The lake in which it dwells also varies; it is variously said to live in Llyn Llion, Llyn Barfog, near Brynberian Bridge or in Llyn yr Afanc, a lake near Betws-y-Coed that was named after the creature.

Legends and traditions

The afanc was a monstrous creature that, like most lake monsters, was said to prey upon any foolish enough to fall into or swim in its lake.

One tale relates that it was rendered helpless by a maiden who let it sleep upon her lap; while it slept, the maiden's fellow villagers bound the creature in chains. The creature was awakened and made furious; its enraged thrashings crushed the maiden, in whose lap it still laid. It was finally dragged away to the lake Cwm Ffynnon, or killed by Peredur.

Some later legends ascribe the creature's death to King Arthur or to Percival (Peredur's name in the later Arthurian legend of the continent and England). Close to Llyn Barfog in Snowdonia is a hoof-print petrosomatoglyph etched deep into the rock "Carn March Arthur", or the "Stone of Arthur's Horse", which was supposedly made by King Arthur's mount, Llamrai, when it was hauling the afanc from the lake.

Iolo Morganwg

According to a version of an afanc legend as put forth by the famous forger of myths and folklore Iolo Morganwg, its thrashings caused massive flooding which ultimately drowned all inhabitants of Britain save for two people, Dwyfan and Dwyfach, from whom the later inhabitants of the British Isles descended.

According to one version of the myth, also put forth by Iolo Morgannwg, Hu Gadarn's oxen dragged the afanc out of the lake; once it was out of the water, it was powerless and could be killed. This version locates the creature in Llyn Llion.

Fiction

Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising sequence features an afanc which inhabits LLyn Barfog. It is driven away by a supposed descendant of King Arthur.

China Mi

[Ryu 7]

Ankou is awesomeness!!