SOME MONSTERS (12): THE WYVERN

Wyvern speared by angels, Liber Floridus, 1448

A smallish winged dragon usually with a serpent's tail. In some legends they fell to earth and burrowed into the ground to guard treasure. They were very aggressive and often used in heraldry. There is some speculation that they were based on very early discoveries of fossilized pterosaurs.

SOME MONSTERS (11): A GIANT GROUND SPIDER AND OTHERS

Raiko hunted demons in Kyoto. The giant ground spider has put the guards asleep and wants to catch our delirious hero. He manages to draw his sword and will seriously injure the monster. Please notice the web at the background.

Greedy old woman chose the heavy box 

An old woman could choose between a small and a large basket. The small one contained gems. She selected the big box and greedily opened it. Awful creatures appeared. She has fallen and will be swallowed.

Images by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi

from New Forms of 36 Ghosts

SOME MONSTERS (9): GAKI, The Hungry Ghosts

Gaki are a form of undead created when a person, having lived a life of selfishness or dishonor dies and is cursed to an existance in Gaki-do, the realm of the hungry dead. Also called hungry ghosts, they are spirits in agony from a constant need which they seek to satisfy--though they never can. The hunger drives them mad.

Their forms are ephemeral and ghost like. Moonlight makes them glow softly. There are many specific kinds of gaki which had been categorized, though quite often unique gaki are encountered. Exposed to the taint of Jigoku (the Japanese Hell) due to the proximity of the two realms, many gaki suffer horrible mutations often resulting in strange insectoid characteristics. The Gaki have no true forms in their own realm, so they borrow their forms from the closest Spirit Realm, Chikushudo, taking these insectoid aspect. 

The gaki are vampires who prey on the sleeping bodies of the living. They easily move through solid objects, and only are affected by jade and crystal weapons, or Spirit Ward Magic. Dogs, horses, cats, Nezumi, and Sodan-senzo can aIways see the gaki.

(Adapted from the Legend of the Five Rings Wiki. Searching Gaki in Google Books turns up an excellent discussion by Lafcadiio Hearn, which cannot be copied and pasted.

(Follow the monster label to encounter other monsters.)

A typically unpleasant day in Jigoku

SOME MONSTERS (8): SCYLLA

Scylla, Paestan red-figure krater
C4th B.C., J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu

It's true her voice sounds like a new-born pup,
but she's a vicious monster.  Nobody
would feel good seeing her, nor would a god
who crossed her path.  She has a dozen feet,
all deformed, six enormously long necks, 
with a horrific head on each of them,
and three rows of teeth packed close together,
full of murky death.  Her lower body
she keeps out of sight in her hollow cave,
but sticks her heads outside the fearful hole,
and fishes there, scouring around the rock
for dolphins, sword fish, or some bigger prey,
whatever she can seize of all those beasts
moaning Amphitrite keeps nourishing
in numbers past all counting.  No sailors   
can yet boast they and their ship sailed past her
without getting hurt.  Each of Scylla's heads
carries off a man, snatching him away   
right off the dark-prowed ship.

---

Scylla's tail. Fragment of a marble group (mid 1st BCE) from the cave of Tiberius showing the ship of Ulysses attacked by Scylla.

She's not human,
but a destroyer who will never die—
fearful, difficult, and fierce—not someone  
you can fight.  There's no defence against her.
The bravest thing to do is run away. 
If you linger by the cliff to arm yourself,
I fear she'll jump out once more, attack you
with all her heads and snatch away six men,
just as before.  Row on quickly past her,
as hard as you can go.  Send out a call
to Crataiis, her mother, who bore her
to menace human beings. 

From Homer's Odyssey Book xii

Translated by Ian Johnston

SOME MONSTERS (7): THE EMPEROR JUSTINIAN AND THE EMPRESS THEODORA AS DEMONS

Not Justinian and
Theodora

...to me and to most of us these two persons never seemed to be human beings, but rather as a pair of blood-thirsty demons... For they plotted together to find the easiest means of destroying all races of men and all their works, and, assuming human form, became man-demons, and in this way convulsed the whole world.

It is said that Justinian's own mother told some of her close friends that he was not the son of her husband Sabbatius or any man at all. For when she was about to conceive him she was visited by a demon, who was invisible but who gave her the distinct impression that he was really there as a man giving a woman her fill. Then he vanished as in a dream. And some of those who were with the Emperor late at night... men of the highest character--thought that they saw a strange demonic form in his place. One of them declared that he more than once rose suddenly from the imperial throne and walked round and round the room, for he was not in the habit of remaining seated long. And Justinian's head would momentarily disappear while the rest of his body seemed to continue making these long circuits... Later the head returned to the body... Another man said that he stood by the Emperor's side as he sat and saw his face suddenly transformed to a shapeless lump of flesh: neither eyebrows nor eyes were in their normal position, and it showed no other distinguishing shape. I did not myself witness the events I am describing, but I heard about them from men who insist that they saw them at the time.

Procopius, The Secret History

Penguin edition translated by G.A. Williamson and Peter Sarris

MONDAY MORNING

SOME MONSTERS (6): A HAIRY FISH

Let me tell you now of a marvel that occurred while Bayan was besieging the city. It happened after King Facfur had taken to flight, that a multitude of the townsfolk were fleeing by way of a broad, deep river that flows by one side of the city. All of a sudden, while they were actually on the river, the water completely dried up, so that Bayan, on learning the news, came to this part and compelled all the fugitives to return to the city. And a fish was found lying high and dry across the river-bed -- and what a fish! For it was fully one hundred paces long, but its girth was by no means proportionate to its length. Its whole body was hairy. Many people ate of it, and many who did so died. Messer Marco, as he relates, saw the head of this fish with his own eyes in a certain temple of idols.

The Travels of Marco Polo

Edited by R. E. Latham

Penguin Edition

(The hairiest fist I could find was the Hairy Frog Fish. It is not 100 paces long, but it is very hairy, most unappetizing, and quite aggressive. It even stalks a flounder.)

SOME MONSTERS (5): A VETALA

Walking up to the sinsipa tree, the king climbed it, cut the rope by which the corpse was hanging and let the body fall to the ground. What was this corpse like?

     Dark blue as a rain cloud,
     the hair on its hair standing erect,
     goggle-eyed, no trace of flesh on its frame,
     marked with the signs of a ghost,
     it was a horrid sight.

No sooner had the king climbed down than the corpse was up again hanging from a branch. Again the king climbed the tree, placed the corpse on his shoulders and set out on his journey back. The corpse was possessed by a genie and as the king walked along, the genie spoke, 'Listen, O king!' it began

     'Time passes for the intelligent
     in the enjoyment of poetry and martial sports;
     but for the foolish and ignorant,
     in sleep, mischief or vicious pursuits.
     What good is good fortune without discipline?
          What good is night without the moon?
     Without true wisdom, what good is skill without words'

"So, listen, O king, while I regale you with a tale,' said the genie.

from The Five-and-Twenty  Tales of the Genie,  by Sivadasa

Translated and with an introduction by Chandra Rajan

Penguin Edition

SOME MONSTERS (4): A LOATHSOME CREATURE

In this province live huge snakes and serpents of such a size that no one could help being amazed even to hear of them. They are loathsome creatures to behold. Let me tell you just how big they are. You may take it for a fact that there are some of them ten paces in length that are as thick as a stout cask: for their girth runs to about ten palms. These are the biggest. They have two squat legs in front near the head, which have no feet but simply three claws, two smaller and one bigger, like the claws of a falcon or a lion. They have enormous heads and eyes so bulging that they are bigger than loaves. Their mouth is big enough to swallow a man at one gulp. Their teeth are huge. All in all, the monsters are of such inordinate bulk and ferocity that there is neither man nor beast but goes in fear of them. There are also smaller ones, not exceeding eight paces in length, or six or it may be five.

Let me tell you how these monsters are trapped...They are so bulky and heavy and of such great girth that when they pass though the sand on their nightly search for food and drink they scoop out a furrow that looks as though a butt  full of wine had been rolled that way. Now the hunters that set out to catch them lay traps at various places in the trails...These are made by embedding in the earth a stout wooden stake to which is fixed a sharp steel tip like a razor blade or lance head, projecting about a palm's breath beyond the stake and slanting in the direction from which the serpents approach. This is covered with sand so nothing of the stake is visible...When the snake, or rather the serpent, comes down the trail to drink, he runs full tilt into the steel , so that it pierces his chest and rips his belly right to the navel and he dies on the spot. The hunter knows that the serpent is dead by the cries of the birds, and then he ventures to approach his prey. Otherwise he dare not draw near.

From The Travels of Marco Polo

Edited by R.E. Latham

Penguin Edition

SOME MONSTERS (3) : REASONS TO AVOID BACTRIA

From this land men go to the land of Bactria... In this land too there are many hippopotami, which live sometimes on dry land and sometimes in the water; they are half man and half horse. And they eat men, wherever they can get them, no meat more readily. And in that land are many griffons, more than in any other country. Some men say they have the foreparts of an eagle and the hindparts of a lion; that is indeed true. Nevertheless the griffon is stronger than eight lions of these countries, and bigger and stronger than a hundred eagles. For certainly he will carry to his nest a great horse with a man on his back, or two oxen yoked together, as they work together at the plough. He has talons on his feet as great and long as the horns of oxen, and they are very sharp. Of these talons men make cups to drink out of, as we do with the horns of bulls; and the ribs of his feathers they make into strong bows to shoot with.

The Travels of Sir John Mandeville

SOME MONSTERS (2) : A JAPANESE DEMON

Not the demon from the story, but still a  pretty cool demon

As the man turned to look back, he could see the demon's face, vermillion in color and round like a sitting mat, and its single eye. It had three hands, with claws like knives five inches long. Its body was bluish-green in color, and its eye was amber. Its hair was a tangle, like a bramble bush, and just looking at it turned one's heart cold, an unspeakable horror. But because he kept praying to Kannon as he raced along, the young man was able to reach safety, in a place where other humans were about. At that time, the demon said, "Very well -- but sometime we'll meet again!" and with that vanished from sight.

From The Demon at the Agi Bridge and Other Japanese Tales

translated by Burton Watson

Columbia University Press

For more monsters, follow the Monsters label.

SOME MONSTERS (1): A DESERT BEAST

In the desert of the land of Egypt a holy hermit, once upon a time, met a monstrously shaped beast; for it had the shape of a man from the navel upwards and from their downward the form of a goat, with two horns standing up on its head. The hermit asked him, in God's name, what he was; and the beast answered and said, "I am a mortal creature as God made me, and in the desert I dwell, and I go about seeking my suffrance. Therefore I pray you, hermit, to pray to God for me, that He who came from Heaven to earth for the salvation of man's soul, and who was born of maiden, and suffered bitter Passion, through whom we all live and have our being, may have mercy upon me." The head of that beast, with the horns, is still kept in Alexandria as a marvelous thing.

From   The Travels of Sir John Mandeville

Penguin Edition