Story of the Day – A to Z

Here’s the Story of the Day: A to Z Story (on both sculptures): My mother always told me to finish what I started, but she had no idea of some of the people I’d be dealing with. Addt’l Story (on sculpture with block only – not available as a print, but is available as the ‘Obvious Mistake’ sculpture): Some of the stuff I learned early on was useful, she told me, but most of it was obviously meant for someone who was not me. (When you don’t want the Story of the Day any more, just send us an email at no_more@storypeople.com. Type “Unsubscribe” in the Subject & as soon as we can, we’ll stop them from cluttering your inbox…) Please do not reply to this message. If you have any other questions or comments about our web site or how to order, here’s how to get hold of us: The email address that goes right to the people who can help is: comments@storypeople.com

Copyright 2006, StoryPeople. Click here to send your own e-greeting from www.storypeople.com

New Orleans Really DID Disappear by Eugene Robinson, Washington Post columnist

posted on Sun, Jan. 28, 2007
New Orleans really did disappear By EUGENE ROBINSON, Washington Post columnist More infuriating than anything George W. Bush said in his State of the Union address last week was what he didn’t say. Congress and the nation heard nothing, zilch, nada, not a single, solitary word about New Orleans, the Gulf Coast and the devastation that remains from the worst natural disaster in U.S. history. A disaster that happened on his watch. How nice that the White House has been able to move beyond the trauma of September 2005 — wind and water, death and destruction, poverty and race, “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job.” Too bad the people of New Orleans, St. Bernard Parish, Pass Christian, Biloxi, Miss., and the rest of the coast will never have the luxury of forgetting. They can’t forget that, days after Hurricane Katrina made its tragic landfall, President Bush stood in New Orleans’ historic Jackson Square, while most of the city still lay beneath brackish floodwaters, and said that nature’s trials “remind us that we’re tied together in this life, in this nation — and that the despair of any touches us all.” Must have been a very light touch. That night, Bush promised that “we will do what it takes, we will stay as long as it takes, to help citizens rebuild their communities.” He vowed, “This great city will rise again.” Then, as usual, he acted as if saying something were enough to make it so. Bush said there was “no way to imagine America without New Orleans.” No imagination is needed — the New Orleans that we knew before the flood no longer exists. The remnant of a city that survives between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain has less than half the population of the New Orleans we used to know. Vast neighborhoods are still full of houses abandoned to mold and decay. Hundreds of thousands of residents still have no way to come home — or no home to return to. Vicious hoodlums have returned, however, and are preying on the diehards who never left and the pioneers who are doing the best to help the city rebuild. Yes, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have bought a house in New Orleans and say they will make the city their new home. But they’re likely to have better security than their neighbors. New Orleans was doomed not just by Hurricane Katrina, but by the failure of levees and flood walls that should have provided ample protection. The Army Corps of Engineers has worked day and night to patch the flood-control system, and if Katrina hit again tomorrow, most of the city should stay dry. But if a similar hurricane hit from a different angle — or, heaven forbid, a stronger hurricane hit from any angle — then what’s left of New Orleans likely would be destroyed. The man who inspired Bush’s immortal “Brownie” remark, Michael Brown, will go down in history as the Federal Emergency Management Agency director who botched the federal response to Katrina. But he intends to take others in the White House down with him. Speaking recently to a group of graduate students, Brown claimed he advised that the White House assert federal control of the disaster response in the whole affected area. “Certain people in the White House,” Brown said, wanted to “federalize” the response in Louisiana in order to embarrass Gov. Kathleen Blanco, a Democrat, but avoid taking any steps in Mississippi that would cast Gov. Haley Barbour, a Republican, in an unfavorable light. Brown did not name the White House officials who were behind these alleged machinations. A White House spokesman denied Brown’s claims. I’m about as cynical as anyone about George W. Bush and his administration, but what I mostly saw in the days after Katrina was incompetence, not political gamesmanship. The scale of the disaster was almost unimaginable, and even if the federal government had done its job, lives would have been lost and the Gulf Coast left in ruins. What is unconscionable is that a president who fundamentally does not believe in government has allowed market forces to take the lead in the reconstruction effort, which ensures that the New Orleans he promised to rebuild is gone forever. A logjam of insurance claims, construction permits, flood maps and levee projects keeps things from moving forward. Business can’t function without workers; workers can’t come home if they have no place to live. What kind of president can see one of the nation’s greatest, most historic cities ruined, and not make its rebirth his highest priority? What kind of president gives a State of the Union and doesn’t even mention New Orleans? Robinson is a Washington Post columnist.

Dustin Grella art show at Akron’s ArtSpace

Posted on Sun, Jan. 28, 2007
One-man art show intense, expressive `Dustin Arthur Grella’ at Summit Artspace features slate paintings By Dorothy Shinn Beacon Journal art and architecture critic Dustin Grella paints on large pieces of slate given to him by a fellow artist who salvaged them from an old Cleveland schoolhouse she has converted to studios. The blackboard-size pieces are so heavy, he must call on friends to help him lift them into place, usually about waist-high, so he can reach them from his wheelchair. He uses dry and oil pastels to paint on the slates, sometimes creating permanent images, sometimes using their inherently erasable surfaces to create stop-action animations. Two of these animations are in his current show, Dustin Arthur Grella, as are several large paintings on slate, a long wall of letters he’s written to himself, and two vitrines that hold boxes he’s built to contain journals. All are on view at Summit Artspace through March 3. It’s the first one-man show the gallery has ever had, and it certainly sets a high standard for shows to follow. His works are expressive, intense and obsessive, but then an artist whose current hero is Willem de Kooning could hardly be anything else. One of the hallmarks of this exhibit is Grella’s obsessions: He writes a letter to himself every day and mails it, and he can go to his wall of letters, point to one and tell you what happened on that date, even though his letter still sits, sealed, inside the envelope. He gives a stack of 365 cards to selected friends and family members and asks them to write on one card every day for a year, then give them back to him. These are displayed on top of vitrines, sitting in slotted wooden boxes with beautifully handcrafted copper and brass covers to keep the personal musings of his journal keepers private. His paintings consist of layers upon layers of oil pastels over dry pastels, which he has sprayed down, causing them to run and expose the layers underneath, creating beautiful juxtapositions that pulse and shimmer unremittingly as we get closer to the surface of the works. He’s also created straightforward drawings of cityscapes and landscapes, portraits and lyrical abstractions that owe much of their palette (if not their style) to de Kooning. In a side gallery are two looping digital presentations that show images being created, changed, erased and replaced, once again demonstrating the inherent painterly quality of the digital medium when used with sensitivity. One of these presentations features a portrait of Grella’s brother, Devin, who was killed in Iraq in 2004. The work begins with a swirling vortex surrounding a red apple, with the portrait of Devin quickly forming over the apple, resulting in the apple appearing as a vivid image on Devin’s forehead. The story of William Tell comes quickly to mind: a father successfully shooting an apple from his child’s head and then killing the tyrant who forced him to do it. However, this apple isn’t on Devin’s head, it’s behind it, and his portrait collapses on itself and is replaced by a dark heart shape, followed by a radiant star and other exploding shapes. “I wanted to do something for my brother,” Grella said. “He was 21 when he died. He was driving a diesel tanker from Baghdad to Fallujah and his truck was blown up by an IED. “He went to work at Sterling right out of high school, and the recruiters talked to him and he went into the reserves. Then within six months, he had gone over there. He was killed after he had been over there three or four months. He went in June or July and he died on Sept. 6. “I’m not bitter. I had 20 great years with him. I’m glad that I got the time that I did. He was 21 when he died.” Devin took Grella 12 hours to complete. It comprises four of the 11 tests that he did using time-lapse photography. The second presentation, which Grella calls Glimpse, is the culmination of the rest of the tests he completed using the time-lapse procedure. “A lot of this is a personal narrative,” he said, “what I saw that day or that night.” Glimpse shows quickly developed and erased images, one replacing another in a fluid, painterly continuum. “I had been a computer programmer before and I wanted to get into animation. I wanted to know what happened between point A and point B. The computer actually carries out the animation for me, but I wanted to know what happens, and the first four tests helped me figure that out.” Grella set up his camera to take a photograph every 60 seconds, and he would move in and add or erase on the image and try to get out of the frame before the camera clicked off another image. Sometimes he didn’t quite make it, and the viewer can see an occasional flash of his image as he moves quickly off to the side. He borrowed music for the Glimpse presentation from a friend who lives in Brooklyn, N.Y. “He gave me about 15 pieces of music, but none of it sounded right until I got to this one,” Grella said. “This one worked right off the bat. I could see a rainstorm, a subway scene, and as you can see, I cut it to change with the bells.” The two drip paintings in the main gallery begin his series of works on original schoolhouse blackboard slate. These have a vibrancy and excitement not seen in the other works, and they constitute a discovery Grella made when he was frustrated with the course a work was taking and began to erase it with a spray bottle of water. “I had started to wipe it off, and I saw what was happening at the bottom of the work, the way the pigments were dripping and streaking. I got really excited and continued it all the way up to the top. Of course, there was a pile of stuff down at the bottom that I scraped off, but in places it looks like those oil eggs that you did for Easter when you were a kid.” Factory is an image that he sees from his studio window in B.F. Goodrich Building No. 4. “I was solely going to do it as a test to see if I could animate factory smoke, but it ended up being something different, a factory scene,” he said. “The original concept was to be a statement on consumerism. “The B.F. Goodrich company at one point was a productive mecca, but there’s only one light in the window now. For me, it’s been everything I’ve needed.” Many of his paintings are directly related to his discovery of de Kooning, the Dutch artist who became one of the bulwarks of the Abstract Expressionist Movement. De Kooning nearly always worked in abstract and figurative modes simultaneously and played them off each other. He often stopped at a point where the viewer can still sense the ongoing struggle for resolution, often through the intensification of colors and fragmentation of the figure. De Kooning often talked of the “frozen glimpse” that would come to him as he worked, and his work often contained separately identified anatomical parts treated as abstract forms. With the exception of the digital presentations, the balance of Grella’s work seems, in comparison to works by de Kooning, more finished, with little of the pentimenti (evidence of changes during the painting process) one would expect to see in work inspired by the AE master. Grella might argue that his Drip paintings are similar in a way to de Kooning’s famous Excavation, and in the fact that the dripping pigments gouge out and reveal earlier layers, this is so. However taken in toto, and looked at from a distance, the Drip paintings seem closer to late paintings by Van Gogh than de Kooning. There’s nothing too terrible about that; we’re still talking famous Dutch artists here. It’s in the wall of letters that we see Grella’s obsessive nature in all its force. The sheer numbers of the letters, and the attention paid to them: matching the stamps to the colors of the envelopes; having a friend draw on their surfaces; finally abandoning envelopes in favor of the older form — a large sheet of paper folded in upon itself to form its own enclosure. Grella buys older stamps and adds them together to get the current total mailing price. This has led to cross words with the post office on occasion because sometimes the symmetry of the stamps doesn’t quite add up to the proper amount, so Grella turns his envelope over and continues adding stamps on the back until he reaches the correct total. One post office clerk became so frustrated with this practice that she dug into postal regulations and the next time Grella showed up with one of his special envelopes, she slapped the rules down on the counter, proving to him he could no longer bring her any envelopes with stamps on the back. Some of the most colorful envelopes come from Central America, where he drove in a van by himself after he finished rehabilitation for a crushed cervical vertebra that left him paralyzed from about the middle of his chest down. Grella’s paralysis is the result of a platform collapsing and its roof falling on top of his head while he was attending a Grateful Dead concert 11 years ago. “There were over 100 people injured when that happened,” Grella recalled. “It was in St. Louis, the second to last show that Jerry Garcia played in. It was the Fourth of July weekend, a big party.” In rehab, he said, the therapists spent a lot of time making him want to be independent when he got out on his own, and that’s why he took off. “Three months after my brother died, I left to go to Central America,” he said indicating the rows upon rows of stamps from various countries. “Nicaragua has by far the most beautiful stamps, and Nicaragua has outstanding art. Costa Rica was terrible.” Then one night at a hostel, he was talking to his roommate, whom he had only recently met, and he said, “You know something? I’m really lonely.” “And that guy said, `Dude, you’ve got to get over the independent thing. You have to let people help you, get close to you.’ “So the whole way home, I had people in the car with me –14 kids and seven wheelchairs. It was a full house.” The last long panel begins with Dec. 1, 2006, and Grella has lined it up so that it will run through the end of the exhibit. He’s installed a portable typewriter in the gallery so visitors can write notes to him. Gallery sitters will put the notes in the envelopes and mail them to him each day of the show. Dorothy Shinn writes about art and architecture for the Akron Beacon Journal. Send information to her at the Akron Beacon Journal, P.O. Box 640, Akron, OH 44309-0640 or dtgshinn@neo.rr.com.

Artemisia

Herbal Etymology Artemesia

Herbs and their uses are some of the most ancient recorded plants cultivated and wild-gathered it also makes sense to wonder about the origin of the name of the herbs or their etymology.So what is in a name anyway? We begin with an herb well known for it’s properties in the making of absinthe, a tincture-like drink that supposedly made people mad. In France, the drink was called la Fée Verte, or the green fairy and it was a much-loved indulgence of artists and writers. This herb was sometimes called cronewort, mugwort, or wormwood. It is known today most commonly as Artemisia.

Artemisia is one of my favorite herbs to discuss herbal etymology about because it has so many names, the origins of the names give us insight into how herbal medicine was practiced historically, and how modern herbalist are trained today.

We shall now break down the herb and its uses. First, consider cronewort. If you have yet to make the connection, herbs are often related to legends about witches or crones. Artemisia was called cronewort- crone now a bit more obvious because it was an herb regularly used for all sorts of ailments from relief of menstrual cramps to grief. Midwives or ‘crones’ used it to ease pain in pregnancy. Wort in the old English use of the word meant herb, or root. So effectively, Artemisia vulgaris could be translated to be called witch root.

The same type of Artemisia vulgaris is also called mugwort. Perhaps this is why the study of herbs is so interesting to explore because it opens windows into words and ideas we use everyday without knowing why we use them – in this case, the word wort has a second meaning, an infusion of malt that ferments into beer or mash, thus mugwort or a fermented herb used for beer- and how do we drink beer? Why yes, in a mug!

Finally, wormwood. Artemisia vulgaris was made into a tonic that was used for-you guessed it- worms, especially worms in goats!

There are at least thirteen or fourteen species of Artemisia that are used by herbalist and herb gardeners. Each Artemisia has a distinct property. For instance, tarragon is Artemisia drancuncula and I am sure there are a number of chefs out there who would love to have their own fresh tarragon for soups, chicken, and fish recipes. I bet some of their recipes may even be – magical? Ok, enough kidding about the first witches, I mean doctors.

What about the relationship of women and herbs? The herb Artemisia gives us some insight into ancient use of herbal medicine and how women who practiced the art of herbal healing were considered. It is true; women were revered and respected, we even had our own goddess.

Review the herbal etymology for this plant, think about the actual name of the herb Artemisia. Incidentally, women who practiced herbal arts usually had a picture of Artemisia painted on their door or growing in the ground near their cottage. Have you guessed yet the name of the venerable goddess of herbalists? Those of you who stopped for a moment and said, “Artemis it must be Artemis!” may now go straight to the head of the etymology class.

So who was this Artemis, anyway? I realize this may be difficult to digest at first, but historically women were powerful not because they could wield a sword or a gun or war on another nation, but because they could heal. How fitting that Artemis is called the Amazonian moon goddess, Goddess of the hunt, Goddess of the wild things, Goddess of the midwife, Goddess of the herbalist, Mother of all Creatures, Ever Virgin, owned by no man. Artemisia the herb named after Artemis the goddess of women healers is an herb for every garden.

For more information about specific varieties of Artemisia please email the editor of herbs or visit http://www.girlfarm.org to purchase plants.

Story of the Day – Saving Up

Here’s the Story of the Day: Saving Up saving up a bag full of peak moments she’s going to have someday if she can ever get away from all the same old stuff that’s holding her back & you can pretty well guess how it’s going (When you don’t want the Story of the Day any more, just send us an email at no_more@storypeople.com. Type “Unsubscribe” in the Subject & as soon as we can, we’ll stop them from cluttering your inbox…) Please do not reply to this message. If you have any other questions or comments about our web site or how to order, here’s how to get hold of us: The email address that goes right to the people who can help is: comments@storypeople.com

Copyright 2006, StoryPeople. Click here to send your own e-greeting from www.storypeople.com

Qlippoth

The following comes from the Notes on the Demonic Orders (Adverse Sephiroth) in Magical Correspondences by Bill Heidrick.

[ edit] Thamiel

Thamiel: Duality in God

“Thamiel represents duality whereas Kether represents unity. Thus Thamiel is the division of that which is perfect only in unity. As a demonic order name, the Thamiel were before their ‘revolt’. This signifies ‘Perfection of God’. These angels sought to become more powerful by adding an Aleph to their name. They then became the ‘Duality of God,’ an order of the lesser demons. In the lowest state of their ‘fall’, they become the ‘the Polluted of God.’ The cortex or outer form of the Thamiel is called Cathariel, ‘the Broken’ or ‘Fearful Light of God’.”

Satan : Adversary and King

To Thamiel, “there are two demons that are attributed to stress the view that the demonic opposite of Kether is duality instead of unity and are Satan and Moloch or Malech.”

[ edit] Chaigidel

Chaigidel : Confusion of the Power of God

“These are the confusion of that great power which, as Chokmah, goes forth at the beginning to give the vital energy of creation to the processes of Binah. The cortex of the Chaigidel is called Ghogiel, ‘Those Who Go Forth into the Place Empty of God’.”

Beelzebub: Lord of the Flies and Adam Belial: Wicked Man

To Chaigidel, “both Satan and Beelzebub are attributed as well as Adam Belial. The name Belial is often used separately as a demonic name.”

[ edit] Sathariel

Sathariel : Concealment of God

“Even as Binah is the great revealing one who bestows the structure of the Absolute onto the created, its opposite, the Sathariel, conceal the nature of The Perfect. The cortex or outer form of the Sathariel is called the order of Sheireil, ‘The Hairy Ones of God’.”

Lucifuge: One Who Flees Light

To Sathariel, Lucifuge “is attributed and is probably a name made up to replace the name Lucifer , ‘Light Bearer’.”

[ edit] Gamchicoth

Gamchicoth : Devourers

“Chesed is the source of bounty both in idea and in substance to the lower forms. Gamchicoth is the order of ‘Devourers’ who seek to waste the substance and thought of creation. The outer form is the order of Azariel, ‘The Binding Ones of God’.”

Astaroth: One of the Flock

To Gamchicoth, “ Astaroth is attributed. This is the name of the goddess Astarte, the Ishtar of the Babylonians and perhaps also the Isis of the Egyptians.”

[ edit] Golab

Golab: Burning Bodies

“Geburah is a going forth in power to rule in strength. The order of Golab is composed of those who burn to do destruction — even on themselves. The outer form is the Usiel, ‘The Ruins of God’.”

Asmodeus: The Destroying God

To Golab, Asmodeus is attributed. “This name is half Hebrew and half Latin. Asmodeus is often mentioned in the literature of demonology. The name can also be translated as ‘The one adorned with fire’.”

[ edit] Togaririm

Togaririm (n): Those Who Bellow Grief and Tears

“Tiphereth is the place of great beauty and rejoicing. The Togaririm build ugliness and groan about it. The cortex of the Togaririm is called the Zomiel, ‘The Revolt of God’.”

Belphegor: Lord of the Dead

To Togaririm, “the replacement of Tiphereth, the sphere of the vitalizing Sun, with a place holding Belphegor, the lord of dead bodies, is most striking.”

[ edit] Harab Serapel

Harab Serapel : Ravens of the Burning of God

“Netzach is the openness of natural love. The Harab Serapel are the Ravens of Death who reject even their own. The outer form is Theumiel, ‘The Fouled Substance of God’.”

Baal: Lord and Tubal Cain: Maker of Sharp Weapons

To Harab Serapel, “ Baal is attributed, and is “a word which means Lord , much as Adonai means Lord. The word Baal or ‘Bel’ has become restricted in its usage to signify a ‘Lord of Darkness’.” Also attributed is Tubal Cain.

[ edit] Samael

Samael: The Desolation of God, or The Left Hand

“Hod is the complex working of the will of the Absolute. Samael represents the barren desolation of a fallen and failed creation. The outer form is the Theuniel, ‘The filthy Wailing Ones of God’.”

Adrammelech: Powerful King

To Samael, Adrammelech is attributed. “This name is found in Second Kings: XVII, 29-31: ‘ And the men of Babylon made Succoth-benoth, and the men of Cuth made Nergal, and the men of Hamath made Ashima, and the Avvites made Nibhaz and Tartak, and the Sepharvites burnt their children in the fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvaim.”

[ edit] Gamaliel

Gamaliel : Polluted of God

“Yesod is the place of the final forms that become matter in Malkuth. The Gamaliel are the Misshapen and polluted images that produce vile results. The outer form is the order of Ogiel, ‘those Who Flee from God’.”

Lilith: Night Spector

To Gamaliel, Lilith is attributed and “is the grand lady of all demons. The demons are sometimes considered to be the children of Lilith and is said to be the woman who comes to men in their dreams.”

[ edit] Nehemoth

Nehemoth: Whisperers (or Night Spector)

“These are responsible for frightening sounds in strange places. They excite the mind and cause strange desires.” This corresponds with Malkuth as well.

Nehema: Groaning

To Nehemoth, Nehema is attributed, “and is traditionally a demon and the sister of Lilith, possibly a remembrance of the Egyptian Nephthys and Isis. It is conceivable that Nehema is the same as Naamah, the sister of Tubal Cain.”

The following comes from the Notes on the Demonic Orders (Adverse Sephiroth) in Magical Correspondences by Bill Heidrick.

[ edit] Thamiel

Thamiel: Duality in God

“Thamiel represents duality whereas Kether represents unity. Thus Thamiel is the division of that which is perfect only in unity. As a demonic order name, the Thamiel were before their ‘revolt’. This signifies ‘Perfection of God’. These angels sought to become more powerful by adding an Aleph to their name. They then became the ‘Duality of God,’ an order of the lesser demons. In the lowest state of their ‘fall’, they become the ‘the Polluted of God.’ The cortex or outer form of the Thamiel is called Cathariel, ‘the Broken’ or ‘Fearful Light of God’.”

Satan : Adversary and King

To Thamiel, “there are two demons that are attributed to stress the view that the demonic opposite of Kether is duality instead of unity and are Satan and Moloch or Malech.”

[ edit] Chaigidel

Chaigidel : Confusion of the Power of God

“These are the confusion of that great power which, as Chokmah, goes forth at the beginning to give the vital energy of creation to the processes of Binah. The cortex of the Chaigidel is called Ghogiel, ‘Those Who Go Forth into the Place Empty of God’.”

Beelzebub: Lord of the Flies and Adam Belial: Wicked Man

To Chaigidel, “both Satan and Beelzebub are attributed as well as Adam Belial. The name Belial is often used separately as a demonic name.”

[ edit] Sathariel

Sathariel : Concealment of God

“Even as Binah is the great revealing one who bestows the structure of the Absolute onto the created, its opposite, the Sathariel, conceal the nature of The Perfect. The cortex or outer form of the Sathariel is called the order of Sheireil, ‘The Hairy Ones of God’.”

Lucifuge: One Who Flees Light

To Sathariel, Lucifuge “is attributed and is probably a name made up to replace the name Lucifer , ‘Light Bearer’.”

[ edit] Gamchicoth

Gamchicoth : Devourers

“Chesed is the source of bounty both in idea and in substance to the lower forms. Gamchicoth is the order of ‘Devourers’ who seek to waste the substance and thought of creation. The outer form is the order of Azariel, ‘The Binding Ones of God’.”

Astaroth: One of the Flock

To Gamchicoth, “ Astaroth is attributed. This is the name of the goddess Astarte, the Ishtar of the Babylonians and perhaps also the Isis of the Egyptians.”

[ edit] Golab

Golab: Burning Bodies

“Geburah is a going forth in power to rule in strength. The order of Golab is composed of those who burn to do destruction — even on themselves. The outer form is the Usiel, ‘The Ruins of God’.”

Asmodeus: The Destroying God

To Golab, Asmodeus is attributed. “This name is half Hebrew and half Latin. Asmodeus is often mentioned in the literature of demonology. The name can also be translated as ‘The one adorned with fire’.”

[ edit] Togaririm

Togaririm (n): Those Who Bellow Grief and Tears

“Tiphereth is the place of great beauty and rejoicing. The Togaririm build ugliness and groan about it. The cortex of the Togaririm is called the Zomiel, ‘The Revolt of God’.”

Belphegor: Lord of the Dead

To Togaririm, “the replacement of Tiphereth, the sphere of the vitalizing Sun, with a place holding Belphegor, the lord of dead bodies, is most striking.”

[ edit] Harab Serapel

Harab Serapel : Ravens of the Burning of God

“Netzach is the openness of natural love. The Harab Serapel are the Ravens of Death who reject even their own. The outer form is Theumiel, ‘The Fouled Substance of God’.”

Baal: Lord and Tubal Cain: Maker of Sharp Weapons

To Harab Serapel, “ Baal is attributed, and is “a word which means Lord , much as Adonai means Lord. The word Baal or ‘Bel’ has become restricted in its usage to signify a ‘Lord of Darkness’.” Also attributed is Tubal Cain.

[ edit] Samael

Samael: The Desolation of God, or The Left Hand

“Hod is the complex working of the will of the Absolute. Samael represents the barren desolation of a fallen and failed creation. The outer form is the Theuniel, ‘The filthy Wailing Ones of God’.”

Adrammelech: Powerful King

To Samael, Adrammelech is attributed. “This name is found in Second Kings: XVII, 29-31: ‘ And the men of Babylon made Succoth-benoth, and the men of Cuth made Nergal, and the men of Hamath made Ashima, and the Avvites made Nibhaz and Tartak, and the Sepharvites burnt their children in the fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvaim.”

[ edit] Gamaliel

Gamaliel : Polluted of God

“Yesod is the place of the final forms that become matter in Malkuth. The Gamaliel are the Misshapen and polluted images that produce vile results. The outer form is the order of Ogiel, ‘those Who Flee from God’.”

Lilith: Night Spector

To Gamaliel, Lilith is attributed and “is the grand lady of all demons. The demons are sometimes considered to be the children of Lilith and is said to be the woman who comes to men in their dreams.”

[ edit] Nehemoth

Nehemoth: Whisperers (or Night Spector)

“These are responsible for frightening sounds in strange places. They excite the mind and cause strange desires.” This corresponds with Malkuth as well.

Nehema: Groaning

To Nehemoth, Nehema is attributed, “and is traditionally a demon and the sister of Lilith, possibly a remembrance of the Egyptian Nephthys and Isis. It is conceivable that Nehema is the same as Naamah, the sister of Tubal Cain.”

Cues

Story cues:

Wurzles, Crittlebums, Kooras, Feather duster parakeets, Bishop fish, Amphisbaena, Marsupials, Opossums, Capybaras, Bilby, Chimerea fish, Black dragon fish, Deep sea anglerfish, Fossa, Fangtooth fish, Shovel nose lobsters, Lizard fish, Umbrella mouth gulper eel, Sea spider, Aye-aye, Dobson fly, Giant squid, Kalibi-Yah manifold, Nefesh

God Character – Bal Tachlis “Bahl Takliss”

Twelve Tribes

• Reuben
• Simeon
• Levi
• Judah
• Dan
• Naphtali
• Gad
• Asher
• Issachar
• Zebulun
• Joseph
• –Manrasseh
• –Ephraim
• Benjamin

Babylon – Babil Province “Gateway to the Gods” wife Amyitis received the Ishtar Gate and Hanging Gardens because she was homesick. King Solomon – Prince Darius

• Nefesh – lower part of the soul. Animal part. Instincts and cravings.
• Ruach – middle soul or spirit. Morality. Sentience. Right/Wrong
• Neshamah – higher soul, intellect.
• Chayyah – part that allows us to perceive Divine existance
• Yahidah – highest place. As full as of a union with God as possible.

Maya – Latin/Central America – Toltecs.

• Quetzacoatl –> Kukulcan = “feathered serpent”
• King ZiBalba –> Prince Zutugil, counselor Coxoh, lady Chol and princess Pipil.
• Nahua
• Zapotecs
• Septs – priest kings
• Hzaes – warriors
• Nahua – mercenaries
• System of the Cross – writing system
• Zotzilaha Chimalman – BAT GOD – a.k.a. Camazotz (Lord of Death and Hell) blocks attempts at heros journey.
• Goddess was a water goddess.

Calabi-Yau manifold

Calabi-Yau manifold

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Calabi-Yau manifold (3D projection)

Calabi-Yau manifolds are a special class of manifolds used in some branches of mathematics (such as algebraic geometry) as well as in theoretical physics. For instance, in superstring theory the extra dimensions of spacetime are sometimes conjectured to take the form of a 6-dimensional Calabi-Yau manifold. The precise definition of a Calabi-Yau manifold, given below, builds on a considerable mathematical background. The designation “Calabi-Yau space” for a member of this class was coined by physicists in the 1980s, ^[1] but mathematicians have been studying such manifolds since at least the 1950s.

Contents [hide] 1 Formal definition 2 Examples 3 Applications in string theory 4 Calabi-Yau Manifold in Popular Culture 5 References

[edit] Formal definition

A Calabi-Yau manifold is a Kähler manifold with a vanishing first Chern class. A Calabi-Yau manifold of complex dimension n is also called a Calabi-Yau n-fold. The mathematician Eugenio Calabi conjectured in 1957 that all such manifolds admit a Ricci-flat metric (one in each Kähler class), and this conjecture was proved by Shing-Tung Yau (丘成桐) in 1977 and became Yau’s theorem. Consequently, a Calabi-Yau manifold can also be defined as a compact Ricci-flat Kähler manifold.

Equivalently one may define a Calabi-Yau n-fold as a manifold with an SU(n) holonomy . Yet another equivalent condition is that the manifold admit a global nowhere vanishing holomorphic (n,0)-form.

The first Chern class vanishes if and only if the canonical bundle is trivial, which in turn is the case if and only if the canonical class is the zero class. While the Chern class fails to be well-defined for singular Calabi-Yau’s, the canonical bundle and canonical class may still be defined and so may be used to extend to definition of a smooth Calabi-Yau manifold to a possibly singular Calabi-Yau variety.

[edit] Examples

In one complex dimension, the only compact examples are family of tori. Note that the Ricci-flat metric on the torus is actually a flat metric, so that the holonomy is the trivial group, for which SU(1) is another name. A one-dimensional Calabi-Yau manifold is also called an elliptic curve over the complex numbers.

In two complex dimensions, the K3 manifolds furnish the only simply connected compact examples. Non simply-connected examples are given by abelian surfaces, Enriques surfaces, and hyperelliptic surfaces. Abelian surfaces are sometimes excluded from the classification of being a Calabi-Yau, as their holonomy (again the trivial group) is a proper subgroup of SU(2), instead of being isomorphic to SU(2). On the other hand, the holonomy group of a K3 surface is the full SU(2), so it may properly be called a Calabi-Yau in 2 dimensions.

In three complex dimensions, classification of the possible Calabi-Yaus is an open problem, although Yau suspects that there are a finite number of families (albeit a much bigger number than his estimate from 20 years ago). One example of a 3 dimensional Calabi-Yau manifold is a non-singular quintic threefold in CP⁴, which is the algebraic variety consisting of all of the zeros of a homogeneous quintic polynomial in the homogeneous coordinates of the CP⁴. Some discrete quotients of the quintic by various Z₅ actions are also Calabi-Yau and have received a lot of attention in the literature. One of these is related to the original quintic by mirror symmetry.

For every n, the set of zeros of a general homogeneous degree n+2 polynomial in the homogeneous coordinates of the complex projective space CPⁿ⁺¹ is a compact Calabi-Yau n-fold, although it is not always a differentiable manifold. The case n=1 describes an elliptic curve, while for n=2 one obtains a K3 surface, one of which is a singular Z₂ quotient of the 4-torus.

[edit] Applications in string theory

Calabi-Yau manifolds are important in superstring theory. In the most conventional superstring models, ten conjectural dimensions in string theory are supposed to come as four of which we are aware, carrying some kind of fibration with fiber dimension six. Compactification on Calabi-Yau n-folds are important because they leave some of the original supersymmetry unbroken. More precisely, in the absence of fluxes, compactification on a Calabi-Yau 3-fold (real dimension 6) leaves one quarter of the original supersymmetry unbroken if the holonomy is the full SU(3).

More generally, a flux-free compactification on an N-manifold with holonomy SU(N) leaves 2^1-N of the original supersymmetry unbroken, corresponding to 2^6-N supercharges in a compactification of type II supergravity or 2^5-N supercharges in a compactification of type I. When fluxes are included the supersymmetry condition instead implies that the compactification manifold be a generalized Calabi-Yau, a notion introduced in 2002 by Nigel Hitchin.^[2] These models are known as flux compactifications.

Essentially, Calabi-Yau manifolds are shapes that satisfy the requirement of space for the six “unseen” spatial dimensions of string theory, which may be smaller than our currently observable lengths as they have not yet been detected. A popular alternative known as large extra dimensions, which often occurs in braneworld models, is that the Calabi-Yau is large but we are confined to a small subset on which it intersects a D-brane.

See also: hyper-Kähler manifold

[edit] Calabi-Yau Manifold in Popular Culture

In the best-selling computer game Half-Life 2, the human “teleportation device” employs the Calabi-Yau model of space to teleport users to different points instantaneously, without passing through the intervening space. At the time of the game, the technology hadn’t been perfected, and the character is transported to several different locations as a result of the holonomy of the model.

[edit] References

1. ^ Candelas, Horowitz, Strominger and Witten (1985). “Vacuum configurations for superstrings”. Nuclear Physics B 258: 46-74. DOI:10.1016/0550-3213(85)90602-9.
2. ^ Hitchin, Nigel (2002). “ Generalized Calabi-Yau Manifolds“.

• Calabi-Yau Homepage is an interactive reference which describes many examples and classes of Calabi-Yau manifolds and also the physical theories in which they appear.
• Dominic D. Joyce Compact Manifolds with Special Holonomy (Oxford Mathematical Monographs) ISBN 0-19-850601-5

Retrieved from “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calabi-Yau_manifold“

Encyclopedia Mythica; Bestiary

Amphisbaena
The Amphisbaena is a Greek serpent with two heads and eyes that glow like candles. It has a head at each end of its body. This is how it got its name which means “goes both ways” in Greek. It is also called the “mother of ants”, because it feeds on ants. If it is chopped in half, the two parts will join again. The medical properties of the Amphisbaena were recorded by Pliny. The wearing of a live Amphisbaena is a supposed safeguard in pregnancy. The wearing of a dead one is a remedy for rheumatism. Medieval bestiaries also document the Amphisbaena as a two-headed lizard, and even a two-headed serpent-like fowl.

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Barghest
by Micha F. Lindemans
A monstrous dog with huge teeth and claws from the area around Yorkshire, northern England. It only appears at night. People believe that anyone who sees the dog clearly will die soon after the encounter. In Wales, they have the red-eyed Gwyllgi, the Dog of Darkness. On the Isle of Man it is called Mauthe Dog. (See also: Black Dogs.)

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Basilisk
by Micha F. Lindemans
The mythical king of the serpents. The basilisk, or cockatrice, is a creature that is born from a spherical, yolkless egg, laid during the days of Sirius (the Dog Star) by a seven-year-old rooster and hatched by a toad.

The basilisk could have originated from the horned adder or hooded cobra from India. Pliny the Elder described it simply as a snake with a golden crown. By the Middle Ages, it had become a snake with the head of a cock, and sometimes with the head a human. In art, the basilisk symbolized the devil and the antichrist. To the Protestants, it was a symbol of the papacy.

According to legend, there are two species of the creature. The first kind burns everything it approaches, and the second kind can kill every living thing with a mere glance. Both species are so dreadful that their breath wilts vegetation and shatters stones. It was even believed that if a man on horseback should try to kill it with a spear, the power of the poison conducted through the weapon would not only kill the rider, but the horse as well. The only way to kill a basilisk is by holding a mirror in front of its eyes, while avoiding to look directly at it. The moment the creature sees its own reflection, it will die of fright.

However, even the basilisk has natural enemies. The weasel is immune to its glance and if it gets bitten it withdraws from the fight to eat some rue, the only plant that does not wither, and returns with renewed strength. A more dangerous enemy is the cock for should the basilisk hear it crow, it would die instantly.

The carcass of a basilisk was often hung in houses to keep spiders away. It was also used in the temples of Apollo and Diana, where no swallow ever dared to enter. In heraldry the basilisk is represented as an animal with the head, torso and legs of a cock, the tongue of a snake and the wings of a bat. The snake-like rump ends in an arrowpoint.

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Behemoth
by Micha F. Lindemans
In the Old Testament (Book of Job, verse 40:15), behemoth is the name for a very large animal, like the hippopotamus or crocodile. They both play a part in the Apocalyptic, as monsters that must be killed. In later Christian religion, the behemoth is identified with Satan.

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Bishop-fish
by Matthew Seibert, Clarksville Middle School
The bishop-fish is a European sea-monster. It has the shaved head of a Catholic monk and the body of a huge fish. Its existence has been documented as early as the thirteenth century when one was caught swimming in the Baltic Sea. It was then taken to the King of Poland, who wished to keep it. It was also shown to some Catholic bishops, to whom the bishop-fish gestured, appealing to be released. They granted its wish, at which point it made the sign of the cross and disappeared into the sea. Another was captured in the ocean near Germany in 1531. It refused to eat and died after three days.

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Black Dog
by Micha F. Lindemans
The black dogs are found all over the British Isles, especially on deserted roads. They are roughly the size of a calf and they move in utter silence, except for the clicking of their claws. The chill despondency and despair these dogs cause is the reason why there are no detailed descriptions of their appearance. While a companion is no guarantee for safety — for one might see the dog and the other might not — it offers a better protection than walking alone. It is said that the best companion is a descendant of Ean MacEndroe of Loch Ewe. He rescued a fairy once and in return he and his descendants were given perpetual immunity from the power of the black dogs. (See also Barghest).

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Bolla
by Micha F. Lindemans
In ancient Albanian folklore, Bolla is a snake-like (or dragon-like) creature that sleeps throughout the entire year. On Saint George’s Day, it will open its eyes and look into the world. A human unfortunate enough to be spotted by Bolla will be devoured instantly. At the end of a twelve-year cycle it mutates into another being, called Kulshedra. This creature is a horrible, fire-breathing dragon with nine tongues. Kulshedra is sometimes also represented as an enormous woman with a hairy body and hanging breasts. The monster can cause a shortage of water and it requires human sacrifices to propitiate it. The creature is also known as Bullar in south Albania.

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Boobrie
by Micha F. Lindemans
A fabulous water-bird of Scottish Highland folk belief. The creature haunts lakes and salt wells.

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Broxa
by Micha F. Lindemans
In Jewish folklore the name of a bird believed to suck the milk of goats during the night.

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Bunyip
by Micha F. Lindemans
A bellowing water monster from Aboriginal legend, believed to bring diseases. It lives at the bottom of the water holes, swamps, lakes and rivers of the Australian outback. The creature is roughly the size of a calf and requires calm water to live in. Unless its food sources are interfered with, the bunyip usually leaves human beings alone. However, if necessary it has the strength to pull a person down into the water and drown him. The name comes from an Aboriginal word meaning “devil” or “spirit”.
Science sees it rather as misrecognized animals like seals, whose voices are mistaken for the cries of bitterns.
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Catoblepas
by Andrew Fowler
In some tales, the catoblepas was a creature that looked like a bull with scales. It was mentioned in a book by Gustave Flaubert, but it was first “sighted” by Pliny on a travel between Ethiopia and Egypt. He said that the locals called it “Catoblepas.”

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Centaurs
by Micha F. Lindemans
The centaurs of Greek mythology are creatures that are part human and part horse. They are usually portrayed with the torso and head of a human, and the body of a horse. Centaurs are the followers of the wine god Dionysus and are well known for drunkenness and carrying off helpless young maidens. They inhabited Mount Pelion in Thessaly, northern Greece. According to one myth, they are the offspring of Ixion, the king of Lapithae (Thessaly), and a cloud. He had arranged a tryst with Hera, but Zeus got wind of it and fashioned a cloud into Hera’s shape. Therefore, the Centaurs are sometimes called Ixionidae.

Notorious is their bestial behavior on the wedding of Pirithous, king of the Lapiths. They violated the female guests and attempted to abduct the bride. What followed was a bloody battle, after which they were driven from Thessaly. An exception was the kind and wise centaur Chiron, the teacher of the Greek heroes Jason and Achilles.

In medieval romances, the centaurs were called “Sagittary.”

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Centipede
by Micha F. Lindemans
A terrifying, man-eating monster the size of a mountain. It lived in the mountains of Japan near Lake Biwa. The dragon king of that particular lake asked the famous hero Hidesato to kill it for him. The hero slew it by shooting an arrow, dipped in his own saliva, into the brain of the monster. The dragon king rewarded Hidesato by giving him a rice-bag; a bag of rice which could not be emptied and it fed his family for centuries.

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Cerberus
by Micha F. Lindemans
In Greek mythology, the three-headed watchdog who guards the entrance to the lower world, the Hades. It is a child of the giant Typhon and Echidna, a monstrous creature herself, being half woman and half snake.
Originally, the dog was portrayed having fifty or hundred heads but was later pictured with only three heads (and sometimes with the tail of a serpent). Cerberus permitted new spirits to enter the realm of dead, but allowed none of them to leave. Only a few ever managed to sneak past the creature, among which Orpheus, who lulled it to sleep by playing his lyre, and Heracles, who brought it to the land of the living for a while (being the last of his Twelve Labors).

In Roman mythology, the Trojan prince Aeneas and Psyche were able to pacify it with honey cake. (See also: Garm.)
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Ceryneian Hind
by Ron Leadbetter
The fourth labor was to capture the Hind of Cerynaea, the hind was known as Cerynitis. Eurystheus bestowed this task upon Heracles knowing full well that the animal was the sacred property of Artemis, that meant he would be committing impiety against the goddess. Artemis found a small herd of five while out hunting, she captured four to harness to her chariot, but the fifth escaped to Mount Cerynaea which borders Arcadia and Achaea. The animal was larger than a bull, brazen-hoofed also with huge golden horns or antlers of a stag.
With the hind being swift of foot it took Heracles a whole year to get close to the creature. He tracked the hind through Greece and into Thrace, (in some versions it says the chase took Heracles as far as Istria and the northern lands of the Hyperboreans). Never daunted by the long chase, Heracles was waiting for the hind to tire, this was not to be, and the hind seemed to have plenty of stamina and agility left.

Heracles knew he must disable the creature in some way, then by chance the hind stopped to drink at a river. Taking an arrow and removing the blood of the Hydra from the tip, Heracles took aim and hit the hind in the leg, making it lame, this made catching the creature much easier. Heracles bound the wound and then set off on his long journey home. On the way to the palace of Eurystheus he was met by the goddess Artemis and her twin brother Apollo. On seeing the Ceryneian Hind, the huntress accused Heracles of sacrilege. Heracles pleaded with them, saying it was a necessity to return the sacred hind to the court of king Eurystheus, as he was bound by the labor imposed on him. Artemis granted Heracles forgiveness and he was allowed to carry the hind alive to the palace.
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Cherufe
by Micha F. Lindemans
The Cherufe is a enormous lava creature in Chilean mythology who lives in volcanoes and feeds upon young maidens. To protect the local population, the sun god sent his two warrior daughters to guard the Cherufe. With them they brought magical swords which are capable of freezing the creature. But on occasion it will escape and thereby causing volcanic eruptions.

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Chimera
by Micha F. Lindemans
In Greek mythology, the Chimera is a monster, depicted as an animal with the head of a lion, the body of a she-goat, and the tail of a dragon (sometimes it has multiple heads). It is a child of Typhon and Echidna. It terrorized Lycia (in Asia Minor), but was eventually killed by the Corinthian hero Bellerophon.

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Cretan Bull
by Ron Leadbetter
The seventh labor took Heracles outside of the Peloponnese to Crete. The task was to capture a savage bull which had extraordinary strength and ferocity. (There are many variations to whether it was the bull that galloped over the waves carrying Europa to the island, or the wonderful beast Pasiphae, the wife of Minos, king of Crete, fell in love with, and with her sired the Minotaur).
When Heracles reached the island of Crete, the king, Minos, gave full approval to Heracles to capture and take the menacing bull back to Eurystheus, since it had caused havoc as it roamed freely throughout his domain. To capture the bull the hero made a lasso, and then chased the great beast until it weakened, throwing the lasso over the bulls head. Then, calming the beast into submission, Heracles leapt on to the bull’s back and rode the creature across the sea to the palace of Eurystheus.

Heracles presented the bull to Eurystheus, who, on seeing the magnificent beast, wanted to sacrifice it to Hera. The goddess who disliked the hero, refused the offering, saying it reflected glory on the deeds of Heracles, so the bull was released to run wild in Greece. Later it reached the plains of Marathon, where it was captured by Theseus. It was said that Theseus took pride in doing deeds in the pattern of his great kinsman.

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Cusith
by Micha F. Lindemans
An enormous hound of the Scottish Highlands. It is said to be a dark green in color, with a long braided tail and the size of a bullock. Whenever his baying was heard on the moors, farmers would quickly lock up their women because the hound’s mission was to round up women and drive them to a fairy mound so they might supply milk for fairy children.

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Dragon
by Graig Bakay
Few creatures of folklore and mythology conjure up the mental images of the dragon. Also known as wurm, wyrm and firedrake, these mercurial creatures pervade almost every pantheon of classical mythology and have become an integral inclusion of an entire genre of fantasy literature.
Descriptions of the beast’s benevolence vary from the playful Puff (of Peter Yarrow’s song) to the sinister Smaug in J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit”. Babylonian legends portray the Queen of Darkness as a multi-headed dragon – Tiamat. Walt Disney’s Sleeping Beauty features a battle between Prince Phillip and the evil Maleficent and the Germanic myth “Die Nibelungen” climaxes with the battle between Siegfried and the giant Fafnir, who has transformed himself into a wyrm in an effort to become more frightening.

Physical characteristics of dragons also vary but several consistencies are usually present. The beasts are typically depicted as huge lizards, larger than elephants on average. Long fangs are generally accepted as are twin horns of varying length. Western cultures generally include large bat-like wings giving the dragon the capability of flight. But eastern dragons, usually wingless, use a more magical means of flying. As well, eastern dragons tend to be more snake-like in nature, albeit with front and rear legs.
Most dragons will be covered in scales, although there are some with a leathery skin. Coloring ranges the entire gamut of the spectrum but red, green, black and gold appear to be the most common. It is also generally accepted that most dragons are magical creatures in nature and have the ability to breathe fire (as a weapon). Some dragons may have a modification in this breath weapon (frost, lightning, gas) but this appears to be purely a fabrication of fantasy role-playing games and the myths they spawn.

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Each uisge
by Micha F. Lindemans
The each uisge, in Ireland called the Aughisky, is analogous with the Kelpie, but far more dangerous. After he carried the unsuspecting victim into the water, it would tear him apart and devour the entire body except for the liver. As long as the each uisge is ridden in the interior, he is rather harmless. But the merest glimpse or smell of water would mean the end of the rider. The creature assumes human shape, woos maidens, and can be recognized only by the water weeds in his hair.

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Fear Liath More
by Traci Anderson
Fear Liath More, or the Grey Man, is a creature said to have inhabited the vicinity of the summit cairn of Ben MacDhui, one of the six great peaks of the Scottish Cairngorm Mountains, for generations. The Grey Man is identified as a presence encountered both physically and psychically. In its physical form, the Grey Man is most often described as quite large and broad shouldered, standing fully erect and being in excess of 10 feet in height, with long waving arms. He is also reportedly olive complected or, alternatively, covered with short brown hair. Because of this, some tend to associate him with the Bigfoot or Sasquatch of North American fame, or the Yeti of the Himalayas. Footprints found on the summit of Ben MacDhui do closely resemble the “typical” Bigfoot imprint. However, this association is misleading, as the Grey Man has far more interesting identifying characteristics than his physical description alone.
More frequently, the Grey Man is encountered in physical sensation, but without a true physical form. Sensations of this type include vast, dark blurs which obscure the sky, strange crunching noises, echoing footsteps which pursue the listener, an icy feeling in the surrounding atmosphere, as well as a physical feeling of a cold grip on, or brush against, the observer’s flesh. There is also a high pitched humming sound, or the Singing as it is sometimes called, which is associated with Ben MacDhui and the Grey Man.

Additionally, the Grey Man has an extremely powerful psychic effect. Visitors to Ben MacDhui report a feeling of overwhelming negative energy. Occasionally this is described as extreme lethargy and despondency. More often, it is typified by acute fear, apprehension and an overwhelming panic, leading to suicidal thoughts or physical flight from the area. Generally, this fear is accompanied by the physical sound of echoing footsteps chasing the observer, and sometimes the sound of a resonant and yet completely incomprehensible voice which seems to be faintly Gaelic in nature.

Curiously, the Grey Man has a distinct area of influence. At a certain point in their downward flight all observers report that the negative energies and feelings of fear end as abruptly as they began. The Grey Man has most often been encountered within this century by mountaineers climbing in the Cairngorms. He has also been described in several books, including Affleck Gray’s The Big Grey Man of Ben MacDhui and F.W. Holiday’s, The Goblin Universe.

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Feng-huang
by Micha F. Lindemans
The Chinese phoenix and the personification of the primordial force of the heavens. Feng-huang has the head and the comb of a pheasant and the tail of a peacock.

The name of Feng-huang in traditional Chinese format.

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Fenrir
by Micha F. Lindemans
Fenrir (or Fenris) is a gigantic and terrible monster in the shape of a wolf. He is the eldest child of Loki and the giantess Angrboda. The gods learned of a prophecy which stated that the wolf and his family would one day be responsible for the destruction of the world. They caught the wolf and locked him in a cage. Only the god of war, Tyr, dared to feed and take care of the wolf.
When he was still a pup they had nothing to fear, but when the gods saw one day how he had grown, they decided to render him harmless. However, none of the gods had enough courage to face the gigantic wolf. Instead, they tried to trick him. They said the wolf was weak and could never break free when he was chained. Fenrir accepted the challenge and let the gods chain him. Unfortunately, he was so immensely strong that he managed to break the strongest fetters as if they were cobwebs.

After that, the gods saw only one alternative left: a magic chain. They ordered the dwarves to make something so strong that it could hold the wolf. The result was a soft, thin ribbon: Gleipnir. It was incredibly strong, despite what its size and appearance might suggest. The ribbon was fashioned of six strange elements: the footstep of a cat; the roots of a mountain; a woman’s beard; the breath of fishes; the sinews of a bear; and a bird’s spittle.

The gods tried to trick the wolf again, only this time Fenrir was less eager to show his strength. He saw how thin the chain was, and said that was no pride in breaking such a weak chain. Eventually, though, he agreed, thinking that otherwise his strength and courage would be doubted. Suspecting treachery however, he in turn asked the gods for a token of good will: one of them had to put a hand between his jaws. The gods were not overly eager to do this, knowing what they could expect. Finally, only Tyr agreed, and the gods chained the wolf with Gleipnir. No matter how hard Fenrir struggled, he could not break free from this thin ribbon. In revenge, he bit off Tyr’s hand.

Being very pleased with themselves, the gods carried Fenrir off and chained him to a rock (called Gioll) a mile down into the earth. They put a sword between his jaws to prevent him from biting. On the day of Ragnarok, Fenrir will break his chains and join the giants in their battle against the gods. He will seek out Odin and devour him. Vidar, Odin’s son, will avenge his father by killing the wolf.

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Firebird
by Cyril Korolev
In Russian folklore the Firebird (Zshar-ptitsa) is a miraculous bird. Its feathers shine like silver and gold, its eyes sparkle like crystals, and it is usually been seen sitting on a golden perch. At midnight this bird comes to gardens and fields and illuminates the night as brightly as a thousand lights; just one feather from its tail could light up a dark room. The Firebird eats golden apples which give any who eat them youth, beauty and immortality; when the bird sings, pearls would fall from its beak. The Firebird’s chants can heal the sick and return the vision to the blind.

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Gagana
by Cyril Korolev
In Russian folklore Gagana is a miraculous bird with the iron beak and copper claws; it lives on the Booyan island. This bird is often mentioned in incantations.

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Gamayun
by Cyril Korolev
In Russian legends the Gamayun is a miraculous, prophetic bird. It lives on a island which lays in the east, close to Paradise.

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Garafena
by Cyril Korolev
In Russian folklore Garafena is a magical snake. According to the legends, Garafena lies upon a golden artefact on the Booyan island. This snake is called upon in incantations against snake bites.

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Gargouille
by Micha F. Lindemans
The great dragon that lived in the river Seine (France) and which ravaged Rouen. It was slain in the 7th century by the Archbishop of Rouen, St. Romanus.

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Gargoyle
by Micha F. Lindemans
Gargoyles are the grotesque carvings of faces and bodies of humans and animals. Serving originally as water spouts to direct the water clear of a wall, they can often be found on (Gothic) buildings and churches. In medieval times, the function of Gargoyles changed. They became representations of religious events, created for the illiterate population to “read”.

From the fact that Gargoyles are such hideous creatures stems the notion that they were created to avert evil. Placed on the outside of buildings supposedly kept evil out. In later times, most of them became mainly ornamental and served no other purpose than decoration.

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Giant
by Micha F. Lindemans
The giants in mythology are primordial creatures of enormous size, the personifications of the forces of nature. They usually are the enemies of humans and often battle the gods (such as the Greek Titans, the Irish Fomorians and the Norse giants of Jotunheim).
Giants frequently play a significant part in the Creation Myths. They existed long before the gods and humans came. With the appearance of gods there followed a struggle between the two, in which the giants got the worst of it. When a giant was slain by a mighty god, the god would create heaven and earth from the giants body (see: Ymir and Tiamat). Even in the bible there are references to giants. In Genesis it is said that “in those days there were giants in the earth” and of course there is the story of David and Goliath, although the latter can hardly be considered a giant, being only 3 meters (9,8 ft), when compared to the giants in mythology and folklore.

There are many fairy tales in which giants appear. Those giants are usually very stupid, greedy and fond of human flesh. Often a resourceful young man (named Jack) is able to kill or defeat the giant (Jack and the Bean Stalk, Jack the Giant Killer). However, not all the giants are evil; in some tales they are kind beings, who befriend little children.

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Glashtyn
by Micha F. Lindemans
The Manx version of the water horse, the Phooka.

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Gorgoniy
by Cyril Korolev
In Russian folklore the Gorgoniy is a mythical beast who protects Paradise against mortals, similar to Gabriel the Archangel.

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Griffin
by Micha F. Lindemans
The Griffin is a legendary creature with the head, beak and wings of an eagle, the body of a lion and occasionally the tail of a serpent or scorpion. Its origin lies somewhere in the Middle East where it is found in the paintings and sculptures of the ancient Babylonians, Assyrians and Persians. In Greek mythology, they took gold from the stream Arimaspias and, neighbors of the Hyperboreans, they belonged to Zeus. The later Romans used them for decoration and even in Christian times the Griffin motif often appears. Griffins were frequently used as gargoyles on medieval churches and buildings.

In more recent times, the Griffin only appears in literature and heraldry.

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Hippocampus
by Marissa Montanez, Clarksville Middle School
The hippocampus was a fabled sea animal from Greek mythology. It was found in classical myth. It resembles a horse with the hind parts of a fish or dolphin. The chariot of Poseidon was drawn by a hippocampus. The name comes from the Greek hippos, horse; and kampos, sea monster. ——————————————————————————-
Hippogriff
by Micha F. Lindemans
A legendary animal, half horse and half griffin. Its father was a griffin and its mother was a filly. It is often found in ancient Greek art and appeared largely in medieval legends. It is also a symbol of love (Ariosto: Orlando furioso, iv, 18,19).

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Hydra
by Ron Leadbetter
The Hydra which lived in the swamps near to the ancient city of Lerna in Argolis, was a terrifying monster which like the Nemean lion was the offspring of Echidna (half maiden – half serpent), and Typhon (had 100 heads), other versions think that the Hydra was the offspring of Styx and the Titan Pallas. The Hydra had the body of a serpent and many heads (the number of heads deviates from five up to one hundred there are many versions but generally nine is accepted as standard), of which one could never be harmed by any weapon, and if any of the other heads were severed another would grow in its place (in some versions two would grow). Also the stench from the Hydra’s breath was enough to kill man or beast (in other versions it was a deadly venom). When it emerged from the swamp it would attack herds of cattle and local villagers, devouring them with its numerous heads. It totally terrorized the vicinity for many years.

Heracles journeyed to Lake Lerna in a speedy chariot, and with him he took his nephew and charioteer Iolaus, in search of the dreaded Hydra. When they finally reached the Hydras’ hiding place, Heracles told Iolaus to stay with the horses while he drew the monster from its hole with flaming arrows. This brought out the hideous beast. Heracles courageously attacked the beast, flaying at each head with his sword, (in some versions a scythe) but he soon realized that as one head was severed another grew in its place. Heracles called for help from Iolaus, telling him to bring a flaming torch, and as Heracles cut off the heads one by one from the Hydra, Iolaus cauterized the open wounds with the torch preventing them from growing again. As Heracles fought the writhing monster he was almost stifled by its obnoxious breath, but eventually, with the help of Iolaus, Heracles removed all but one of the Hydras’ heads. The one remaining could not be harmed by any weapon, so, picking up his hefty club Heracles crushed it with one mighty blow, he then tore off the head with his bare hands and quickly buried it deep in the ground, placing a huge boulder on the top. After he had killed the Hydra, Heracles dipped the tips of his arrows into the Hydras’ blood, which was extremely poisonous, making them deadly.

Other versions say that while Heracles fought the Hydra the goddess Hera sent down a giant crab which attacked his feet). This legend comes from a marble relief dating from the 2nd century BCE found at ancient Lerna, showing Heracles attacking the Hydra, and near his feet is a huge crab. Also other legends say that a stray arrow set alight the forest, and it was the burning trunks which Heracles ripped up and used to cauterize the open wounds.

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Indrik the Beast
by Cyril Korolev
In Russian folklore Indrik the beast is a miraculous beast, the lord of animals. He lives on “the saint mountain” and treads there where no other foot may tread. When he stirs, the Earth tremble. This beast has two horns, he rules the water with snakes and crocodiles. According to a legend, Indrik has rescued people from a drought.
His name is a distorted version of the word “unicorn”.

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Intulo
by Micha F. Lindemans
In Zulu tradition, a lizard-like creature with human characteristics.

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Jabberwock
by Micha F. Lindemans
The Jabberwock is the eponymous central figure in a strange, almost gibberish poem by Lewis Carroll, called “The Jabberwocky”, which appeared in Through the Looking-glass. It was represented as a dragon-like creature by Sir John Tenniel, who did the illustrations for Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass and Alice in Wonderland.

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Jormungand
by Micha F. Lindemans
In Norse mythology, Jormungand is one of the three children of the god Loki and his wife, the giantess Angrboda. The gods were well aware that this monster was growing fast and that it would one day bring much evil upon gods and men. So Odin deemed it advisable to render it harmless. He threw the serpent in the ocean that surrounds the earth, but the monster had grown to such an enormous size that it easily spans the entire world, hence the name Midgard Serpent. It lies deep in the ocean where it bites itself in its tail, and all mankind is caught within his coils.
At the destruction of the universe, Jormungand and Thor will kill each other.

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Kelpie
by Micha F. Lindemans
In old Scotland, the Kelpie is a treacherous water devil who lurks in lakes and rivers. It usually assumes the shape of a young horse. When a tired traveler stops by a lake to rest or to have a drink, he would see a horse, apparently peacefully grazing. When he mounts the horse, the Kelpie dives into the water and drowns its victim. Occasionally is helped millers by keeping the mill-wheel going at night.

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Ki-lin
by Micha F. Lindemans
A mythical being of Chinese mythology, comparable with the western unicorn. Ki-lin personifies all that is good, pure, and peaceful. It lives in paradise and only visits the world at the birth of a wise philosopher. The unicorn, which can become one thousand year old, is portrayed as a deer with one horn, the tail of an ox, the hooves of a horse, and a body covered with the scales of a fish. It is one of the four Ling.

The name of the Ki-lin in traditional Chinese format.

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Kludde
by Micha F. Lindemans
In Belgian folklore, a water spirit which roams the Flemish country side. This creature, called Kludde, hides in the twilight of dawn and sunset and attacks innocent travelers. Warned travelers listen for the only sound which betrays that Kludde is in the vicinity: the rattling of the chains with which the spirit is covered.

Kludde usually appears in the shape of a monstrous black dog that walks on his hind legs. The faster one walks, the faster this monster follows, often swinging through the trees like a giant snake. No one can ever hope to outrun or escape this creature. The dog is not the only shape in which it can be seen. It can also assume the shape of a huge, hairy, black cat or a horrible black bird.

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Kraken
by Micha F. Lindemans
In Norwegian sea folklore, the Kraken is an enormous sea monster which would sometimes attack ships and feed upon the sailors. It was supposed to be capable of dragging down the largest ships and when submerging could suck down a vessel by the whirlpool it created. It is part octopus and part crab, although others refer to it as a giant squid or cuttlefish. (See also: Sea Serpent.) It was first described by Pontoppidan in his History of Norway (1752).

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Kulshedra
by Micha F. Lindemans
A different name for dragon-like creature Bolla from Albanian folklore.

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Lambton Worm
by Sophia Pacheco
The Lambton ‘Worm’ (old english for ‘dragon’) has long been part of folklore in Durham, England. The ‘worm’ began wreaking havoc in the middle ages, when a young member of the Lambton family caught an eel-like creature while fishing on a Sunday. He threw it down a well, where it grew to an enormous size. When the youth went off to on a crusade, the worm escaped the well and devoured anything that came near. It is said that the worm was long enough to wrap itself around the hill, now called “worm hill”, completely three times, and it slept wound around the hill in this manner.
The young man managed to kill the worm upon his return from the crusades — cutting the worm in three pieces — but only with the help of a witch. His promise to her was that he would kill the first creature he met after his victory. Unfortunately, the first creature he met happened to be his father. Unable to murder his father, the young crusader reneged on his promise to the witch and condemned his family to a curse of untimely deaths that continued for nine generations.

Reader’s Digest, ‘Strange Stories and Amazing Facts’, copyright 1977 Reader’s Digest Association Far East Ltd.

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Leviathan
by Micha F. Lindemans
Literally, “coiled”. In the Bible, and especially the Old Testament, the Leviathan is some sort of chaos animal in the shape of a crocodile or a serpent. In other bible texts it is taken to mean a whale or dolphin, because the animal is there described as living in the sea. Later the Leviathan became a symbol of evil, an anti-divine power (some sort of devil) which will be destroyed on Judgement Day.
The Leviathan appears in more than one religion. In Canaanite mythology and literature, it is a monster called Lotan, ‘the fleeing serpent, the coiling serpent, the powerful with the seven heads’. It was eventually killed by Baal. The Leviathan is also the Ugaritic god of evil.

“This great and wide sea, wherein are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts. There go the ships: there is that leviathan, whom thou hast made to play therein.”
— Ps. civ, 25-26

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MakaraJust as the mermaid is half human half fish the Makara is half animal half fish. For example, he is sometimes described as having the head of an elephant and the body of a fish. He is generally large and lives in the ocean rather than in lakes or streams.

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Manticore
by Micha F. Lindemans
A monstrous creature which inhabits the forests in Asia, especially in Indonesia, Malaysia and India. The manticore, considered to be the most dangerous predator in these regions, has the body of a lion and a head with human resemblance. The mouth is filled with three rows of razor-sharp teeth and the scaled tail ends in a ball with poisonous darts. The monster stalks through the forest in search of humans. Upon an encounter with a human, the manticore fires a volley of darts at the victim, who dies immediately. This unfortunate person is devoured completely, even the bones and clothing, as well as the possessions this person carried, vanish. When a villager has completely disappeared, this is considered proof of the presence of a manticore.

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Minotaur
by Micha F. Lindemans
Before he ascended the throne of Crete, Minos struggled with his brothers for the right to rule. Minos prayed to Poseidon to send him a snow-white bull, as a sign of approval by the gods for his reign. He promised to sacrifice the bull as an offering, and as a symbol of subservience. A beautiful white bull rose from the sea, but when Minos saw it, he coveted it for himself. He assumed that Poseidon would not mind, so he kept it and sacrificed the best specimen from his herd instead. When Poseidon learned about the deceit, he made Pasipha, Minos’ wife, fall madly in love with the bull. She had Daedalus, the famous architect, make a wooden cow for her. Pasipha climbed into the decoy and fooled the white bull. The offspring of their lovemaking was a monster called the Minotaur.
The creature had the head and tail of a bull on the body of a man. It caused such terror and destruction on Crete that Daedalus was summoned again, but this time by Minos himself. He ordered the architect to build a gigantic, intricate labyrinth from which escape would be impossible. The Minotaur was captured and locked in the labyrinth. Every year for nine years, seven youths and maidens came as tribute from Athens. These young people were also locked in the labyrinth for the Minotaur to feast upon.

When the Greek hero Theseus reached Athens, he learned of the Minotaur and the sacrifices, and wanted to end this. He volunteered to go to Crete as one of the victims. Upon his arrival in Crete, he met Ariadne, Minos’s daughter, who fell in love with him. She promised she would provide the means to escape from the maze if he agreed to marry her. When Theseus did, she gave him a simple ball of thread, which he was to fasten close to the entrance of the maze. He made his way through the maze, while unwinding the thread, and he stumbled upon the sleeping Minotaur. He beat it to death and led the others back to the entrance by following the thread.

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Moddey Dhoo
by Micha F. Lindemans
A ghostly black spaniel that hunted Peel Castle (Isle of Man) for many years. It used to enter the guard room as soon as the candles were lighted and leave at daybreak. While it was present, the guards would perform their nightly duties but forebore all oaths and profane talk. One night, a drunken guard, from bravado, performed the rounds alone. He lost his speech and died in three days. The dog has never appear again.
In 1871, during excavations, the bones of Simon, Bishop of Sodor and Man (died 1247) were uncovered, with the bones of a dog at his feet.

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Monster of Loch Ness, The
by Micha F. Lindemans
A legendary animal which lives in the depths of Loch Ness, a lake in the Highlands of northern Scotland. The size of this monster, Nessie as it is fondly called, is 12-15 m (40-50 ft) and it has a long, snake-like neck. It is popularly believed to be female.
The sightings date back to 565 CE when the Irish Saint Columba claimed he saw the Niseag (the Celtic name for Nessie) when he attended a burial for a man who had been bitten to death by the monster. While it has been sighted in the subsequent centuries, it was not until the 19th century that the sightings become more frequent. The most famous encounter was perhaps in the summer of 1933. On that day Mr. and Mrs. Spicer, returning from a trip to London, saw a monster cross the road, with an animal in his jaws, and submerge in the lake. This incident drew the attention of the world press and Nessie became an international phenomena. There have been many expeditions since, but none as successful as to prove its existence. Also the many sightings, photos and films have been inconclusive.

Other lakes and monsters
Loch Ness is not the only lake reputed to be inhabited by a monster. In Scotland there is also Loch Morar, where there have been sightings of such a creature. In Ireland there are two Loughs (“lakes”), Lough Ree and Lough Fedda, where there have been glimpses of a peista (meremonster). Also in the Scandinavian countries are many tales about monsters in lakes. In Iceland there is the Skrimsl, also called Lagerfljótsskrímslið, which has been seen in the Lagerfljót Lake and in many other lakes besides. In Norway, in Lake Sudal, lives an animal of great size; the head is as big as a small rowboat. The first encounter with the monster of the Storsjö Lake in Sweden took place in 1839. The farmers who saw it claimed it resembled a great sea-horse: red, with white manes. Faster than other monsters, this one can reach speeds up to 70 km (43 mi.) per hour. Another famous monster is that of Lake Okanagan, Canada. This creature, called Ogopogo or Naitaka, has been regularly sighted since 1854.

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Nahuelito
by Micha F. Lindemans
An Argentinian lake monster. Like its counterpart Nessie, it too is named after the lake it supposedly inhabits, the Nahuel Huapi Lake. Descriptions of the appearance of the creature vary rather, as does those of its size.

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Nemean Lion
by Ron Leadbetter
The first labor for the hero Heracles, was to rid the Nemean plain of the wild, enormous and extremely ferocious beast known as the Nemean Lion. This huge creature was the son of the monsters Typhon (who had 100 heads) and Echidna (half maiden – half serpent), and brother of the Theban Sphinx, in some legends it is said that the Nemean lion was suckled by Selene the goddess of the moon, other versions say that it was nursed by the goddess Hera.
Heracles set out to find the monster, which roamed the land of Argolis. Armed with his bow and arrows, (in some versions usually the Classical period he also had a bronze sword) and his club (made from an olive tree which he tore up from the roots). Hunting through the Nemean forest trying to find the lions lair, he suddenly stopped in his tracks when he heard a fearsome roar. Heracles turned and saw the huge lion rushing toward him. Quick as a flash Heracles drew his bow and released an arrow, but it failed to harm the lion. As the monster bore down on Heracles he quickly fired another arrow, and again it did no harm, the bronze heads bending as if hitting solid rock; the skin of this creature could not be penetrated by the sharpest of points. The lion pounced, but Heracles smashed his heavy club into the on coming monster, stunning it.

Realizing no weapon could kill this monster he rid himself of them, and fought the monster with his bare hands, with incredible strength, Heracles wrapped his great arms around the lions neck and strangled it to death. Once the huge monster was dead Heracles set about skinning the beast, but the skin was so tough he could neither tear or cut it. Then he tried the enormous claws which were very sharp, this time it penetrated the hide and Heracles removed his trophy. Realizing how impenetrable it was he threw it over himself as a cloak, and pulling the head over his own as a helmet making the pelt into armor which would make him even more powerful. From this time on the skin of the Nemean Lion became one of the attributes of Heracles, and so did the olive-wood club.

In art the hero is usually depicted wearing the Nemean lion skin, its jaws forming the peak of the helmet while its great clawed paws are knotted at his chest forming a hooded cloak, and he is usually leaning on his club, or hanging it on his shoulder.

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Nixes
by Micha F. Lindemans
In Norse folklore, they are water spirits who try to lure people into the water. The males can assume many different shapes, including that of a human, fish, and snake. The females are beautiful women with the tail of a fish. When they are in human forms they can be recognized by the wet hem of their clothes. The Nixes are considered as malignant in some quarters, but as harmless and friendly in others.

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Ogre
by Micha F. Lindemans
In folklore and fairy tales Ogres are creatures of very malignant disposition, who live on human flesh. They are larger and broader than a man but somewhat shorter than a giant. The word was first used (and probably invented) by Perrault in his Histoires ou Contes du temps passé (1697).

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Orc
by Micha F. Lindemans
A sea-monster fabled by Ariosto, Drayton, and Sylvester to devour men and women. According to Pliny, it was a huge creature ‘armed with teeth’.

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Ouzelum Bird
by Micha F. Lindemans
A fabulous bird that flies backwards and thus does not know where it is going, but likes to know where it has been.

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Pegasus
by Micha F. Lindemans
In Greek mythology, Pegasus is the winged horse that was fathered by Poseidon with Medusa. When her head was cut of by the Greek hero Perseus, the horse sprang forth from her pregnant body. His galloping created the well Hippocrene on the Helicon (a mountain in Boeotia).

When the horse was drinking from the well Pirene on the Acrocotinth, Bellerophon’s fortress, the Corinthian hero was able to capture the horse by using a golden bridle, a gift from Athena. The gods then gave him Pegasus for killing the monster Chimera but when he attempted to mount the horse it threw him off and rose to the heavens, where it became a constellation (north of the ecliptic).

In another version, Bellerophon killed the Chimera while riding on Pegasus, and when he later attempted to ride to the summit of Mount Olympus, Zeus sent a gadfly to sting the horse, and it threw Bellerophon off its back.

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Phoenix
by Micha F. Lindemans
In ancient Greek and Egyptian mythology, the phoenix is a mythical bird and associated with the Egyptian sun-god Re and the Greek Phoibos (Apollo). According to the Greeks the bird lives in Arabia, nearby a cool well. Each morning at dawn, it would bathe in the water and sing such a beautiful song, that the sun-god stops his chariot to listen. There exists only one phoenix at the time.
When it felt its death approaching (every 500 or 1461 years), it would build a nest of aromatic wood and set it on fire, and was consumed by the flames. When it was burned, a new phoenix sprang forth from the pyre. It then embalmed the ashes of its predecessor in an egg of myrrh and flew with it to Heliopolis (“city of the sun”). There it would deposit the egg on the altar of the sun god.

In Egypt is was usually depicted as a heron, but in the classic literature as a peacock, or an eagle. The phoenix symbolizes immortality, resurrection, and life after death. In that aspect it was often placed on sarcophagi. It is associated with the Egyptian Benu, the Garuda of the Hindus, and the Chinese Feng-huang.

Judaic lore mentions that the phoenix achieved its unique status as an immortal bird because it refrained from bothering the overburdened Noah during the Flood voyage (Sanh. 108b).

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Questing BeastOne day, when King Arthur stopped to rest by a spring, he was surprised by a sound like thirty baying hounds. A strange animal with a snakes head the body of a leopard the back legs of a lion and the hooves of a deer burst through the underbrush, pursued by king Pellinore. Pellinore had hunted the Questing Beast, as the creature was called, all his life but never managed to capture it. Malory describes it as “the strongeste beste that ever he [Arthur] saw or herde of.”
This strange best reappears frequently, beginning with Suite du Merlin and Perlesvaus, in French, Spanish, and Italian romance and in Malory.

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Raicho
by Micha F. Lindemans
The Japanese Thunder-Bird. It looks like a rook, but can make a terrible noise. The creature lives in a pine tree.

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Re’em
by Ilil Arbel, Ph.D.
Many monsters were created on the Sixth Day, some destroyed during the Flood, some still with us. The re’em is described as a giant even among these strange animals. At any given time, only two exist, one male and one female, because had more of them existed, the world could not support them. No one is certain what the re’em looks like. The sources describe him as fierce, fast, and indomitable. Scholars argue about the number of his horns, some say he has one, like a unicorn or a rhinoceros. Some say two, and he could be related to the giant aurochs (Bos primigenius), a species of a wild ox that became extinct during the sixteenth century. On the other hand, he may be a purely mythological creature, based on the bas-reliefs of the huge Mesopotamian and Egyptian beasts that were unquestionably familiar to the Jews of the Talmudic era.
The re’ems live at the opposite ends of the earth, one in the east, the other in the west, and for seventy years never see each other — until the day of their mating. Finally they meet, mate once, and then the female kills the male with one bite.

The female becomes pregnant, and her pregnancy lasts for twelve years. During the last year she cannot walk, only role from side to side, and she survives only because her saliva waters the earth around her sufficiently to produce enough vegetation for her support. Instead of giving birth, her stomach bursts open and she dies instantly. However, twins are born, one male and one female. They get up immediately and wander away, one to the east, one to the west.

During the flood, when Noah collected all the animals into the arc, the re’ems came to join the procession. However, because of their giant size, they could not fit into the arc. Yet Noah saved them. One version claims he tied them behind the arc, and they followed it by running and later by swimming. Another version tells that the flood happened just as the young re’ems were born, so they were small enough to fit in the arc.

King David had an encounter with a re’em. When David was still a simple shepherd, he saw a sleeping re’em and thought it was a mountain. He started climbing it, and the re’em woke up and lifted David on his gigantic horns. David vowed that if God saved his life, he would build Him a temple, a building as high as the re’em himself. God heard him and sent a lion. As the lion is the king of the beasts, the re’em bowed to him by prostrating himself on the ground, and David could descend from the horns. Then God sent a deer, and the lion started chasing her. So David was saved from both the lion and the re’em.

Sources:
Ginzberg, Louis. Legends of the Jews. The John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore and London, 1998 Shepard, Odell. The Lore of the Unicorn. Harper and Row Publishers, New York, 1979

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Roc
by Micha F. Lindemans
In Arabian legends, the Roc are gigantic birds, often referred to as ‘the Great’, and capable of carrying off elephants for food. They are found in various stories of ‘The Thousand and One Nights’, and are also mentioned to by Marco Polo on his travels. Their eggs, according to Sinbad the Sailor, could measure up to 50 paces in circumference.
The Rocs are probably based on the Elephant-bird, which lived on Madagascar.

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SafatMaybe the most curious bird of all is the Safat. She is supposed to spend all her time flying and never comes to rest. As she soars, usually high, she lays her eggs which hatch while they are falling through the air. Only the shells reach the ground, and if part of a shell is eaten by an animal, the animal will go mad.

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Sasquatch
by Micha F. Lindemans
North American version of the Abominable Snowman, the Yeti, in the Himalayas. In Canada it is called ‘Sasquatch’, while in the United States they popularly refer to it as Bigfoot.

The word Sasquatch closely resembles and is derived from several native names for the creature used by tribes in the coastal area of the Pacific north west. The creature is supposed to be at least 2,1 m (6,9 ft) tall, but adults can be as tall as 3,5 m (11,5 ft). Its footprints measure somewhere between 40-55 cm (16-20 in). It has long arms, an ape-like face with a flat nose, and thick hairy fur. Sasquatch lives in the caves and hidden valleys of Canada and North America.

It was first seen (by white men) in 1811 and since then there have been hundreds of reports on sightings and encounters. There are several photos and films of the creature, besides casts taken from its footprints, but many of these turned out to be forgeries. There are numerous people who claim they have either seen the creature itself or its tracks. Expeditions set out to search for Bigfoot have never found it, nor is there scientific evidence for its existence.

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Sea Serpent
by Micha F. Lindemans
Imaginary snake-like creatures of monstrous size that inhabit the deep. In the early times of seafaring, but also until more recent times, many sailors mentioned the existence of such creatures, and they were accounted for destroying a great number of ships. These tales were largely exaggerated and probably based on sightings of large amounts of floating seaweed and ordinary marine creatures such as a sea snake and oarfish. A monster such as a sea snake is reputed to exist in Loch Ness.

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Selkie
by Micha F. Lindemans
The shy Selkies are marine creatures in the shape of a seal. They can be found near the islands of Orkney and Shetland. A female can shed her skin and come ashore as a beautiful woman. When a man finds the skin, he can force the Selkie to be a good, if somewhat sad, wife. Should she ever recover the skin, she will immediately return to sea, leaving her husband behind. The male Selkies are responsible for storms and also for the sinking of ships, which is their way of avenging the hunting of seals.

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Simurgh
by Micha F. Lindemans
In Persian legend Simurgh is a gigantic, winged monster in the shape of a bird; a kind of peacock with the head of a dog and the claws of a lion. Its natural habitat is a place with plenty of water. According to legend, the creature is so old that it has seen the world destroyed three times over. In all that time, Simurgh has learned so much that it is thought to possess the knowledge of all ages.

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Singa
by Micha F. Lindemans
A mythical creature of the Indonesian Batak people who live in the mountains in Sumatra. Although the name means “lion”, it resembles no living creature. Its representation, generally confined to the head, is the synthesis of several superior forms of creation and its appearance varies between the buffalo and a distorted human figures. However, some Singas show clearly identifiable legs beside the face and every form of intermediate between the Singa and the clearly anthropomorphic is to be found. Characteristics are invariable the bilateral symmetry, the lengthened face, and round impressive eyes, occasionally accompanied by highly developed eye-brows (which at time are depicted almost like antlers).
The Singa is the dominant theme of Batak decoration, particularly among the Toba Batak where it is to be found on houses, domestic utensils, wooden coffins, stone sarcophagi, copper jewelry, etc. Its omnipresence would seem to indicate above all a protective role.

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Sphinx
by Micha F. Lindemans
In ancient Egypt, the Sphinx is a male statue of a lion with the head of a human, sometimes with wings. Most sphinxes however represent a king in his appearance as the sun god. The name “sphinx” was applied to the portraits of kings by the Greeks who visited Egypt in later centuries, because of the similarity of these statues to their Sphinx. The best known specimen is the Great Sphinx of Gizeh (on the western bank of the Nile) which is not a sphinx at all but the representation of the head of king Khaf-Ra (Chephren) on the body of a crouching body. It was supposedly built in the 4th dynasty (2723-2563 BCE), although others claim it dates back to the 7th-5th millennium.

The Greek Sphinx was a demon of death and destruction and bad luck. She was the offspring of Typhon and Echidna. It was a female creature, sometimes depicted as a winged lion with a feminine head, and sometimes as a female with the breast, paws and claws of a lion, a snake tail and bird wings. She sat on a high rock near Thebes and posed a riddle to all who passed. The riddle was: “What animal is that which in the morning goes on four feet, at noon on two, and in the evening upon three?” Those who could not solve the riddle were strangled by her. Finally Oedipus came along and he was the only who could answer that it was “Man, who in childhood creeps on hands and knees, in manhood walks erect, and in old age with the aid of a staff.” The Sphinx was so mortified at the solving of her riddle that she cast herself down from the rock and perished.

The name ‘sphinx’ is derived from the Greek sphingo, which means “to strangle”. In ancient Assyrian myths, the sphinx usually appears as a guardian of temple entrances.

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Tarbh uisge
by Micha F. Lindemans
The water bull, a supernatural creature from the highlands of Scotland.

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Tatzlwurm
by Sophia Pacheco
Also known as the tunnel worm, jumping worm or mountain stump. The tazel worm, a worm-like lizard about two to three feet long with two or four short legs, is said to be so poisonous that even its breath could kill a human. It is also said to be very agressive, attacking anything that moves. Rumored to live in the Alps, some say that it can jump two or three yards in one bound. Its scales are supposedly so thick that blades cannot pierce them.

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Tikbalang
by Micha F. Lindemans
A half-man half-horse creature from Philippine folklore. It lives in secluded areas in swamps. It is said that the knees of the tikbalang rise above its head, hiding its face. The tikbalang is responsible for misleading travelers so that they will get lost. However, a traveler may find his way back by wearing his shirt inside-out. It is also believed that if it rains with the sun fully out, a tikbalang is getting married.

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Troll
by Micha F. Lindemans
In Scandinavian myth, trolls are ugly, malicious creatures and the enemies of mankind. They are much bigger and stronger than humans, and leave their caves only after dark to hunt. If they are exposed to sunlight they will instantly turn to stone. Trolls are very fond of human flesh. In later myths they are roughly the size of humans or elves, and thought to be the owners of buried treasures. They are sometimes, although very rarely, portrayed as friendly, less ugly creatures.

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Unhcegila
by Gerald Musinsky
A land creature often depicted as dragon-like and was the source of mysterious deaths and inexplicable disappearances.
[Plains, Lakota]
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Unicorn
by Micha F. Lindemans
The unicorn is a legendary animal. It is usually portrayed as a slender, white horse with a spiraling horn on its forehead, although its appearance and behavior differs, depending on the location. In the west it was usually considered wild and untamable, while in the Orient it was peaceful, meek and thought to be the bringer of good luck. There it is usually depicted as a goat-like creature, with cloven hooves and a beard. In Japan it is called Kirin, and in China Ki-lin.
The word “unicorn” is based on the Hebrew word re’em (“horn”), in early versions of the Old Testament translated as “monokeros”, meaning “one horn”, which became “unicorn” in English. The creature is possibly based on the rhinoceros or the narwhal, a marine creature with one horn.
In the west it was first mentioned by the Greek historian Ctesias in 398 BCE. According to him they lived in India and he described them as ‘wild asses which are as big as a horse, even bigger. Their bodies are white, their heads dark red and their eyes are deep blue. They have a single horn on their forehead which is approximately half-a-meter long.’ This description was based on the tales of travelers, and is a mixture of an Indian rhinoceros, the Himalayan antelope, and the wild ass.

The horn itself is white at the base, black in the middle and with a sharp, red tip. It is believed to possess healing abilities. Dust filed from the horn was thought to protect against poison, and many diseases. It could even resurrect the dead. Amongst royalty and nobility in the Middle Ages, it became quite fashionable to own a drinking cup made of the horn of an unicorn, not in the least because it was supposed to detect poison.

The belief in the healing abilities of the horn is probably based on a medieval story. In this particular tale, many animals once gathered around a pool in the midst of night. The water was poisoned and they could not drink from it, until a unicorn appeared. He simply dipped his horn in the pool and the water became fresh and clean again.

Another medieval story tells of the capture of a unicorn by a maiden. The unicorn was far too fast and wild for the man that was hunting him. He could only be tamed by a maiden who sat lonely underneath a tree in the woods. Attracted by the scent of purity he would lay his head on her lap and she would rock him to sleep. Then she would cut of his horn, and leave him for the hunter and his dogs.

There have been attempts to give these tales a Christian interpretation. In the first tale the horn symbolizes the cross and the pool the sins of the world. In the second story the maiden was Maria, the unicorn Jesus Christ and the horn a representation of the unity of the Father and the Son. Jesus, embodied in the unicorn, was killed for sake of a sinful world.
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Unwaba
by Micha F. Lindemans
In Zulu tradition, a mythical chameleon that was send by the sky-god to tell humanity they had eternal life. Because the creature was so slow, humans and other species became mortal after all. The color of a chameleon changes from green to brown, this because it mourns the fact that Unwaba was too slow. ——————————————————————————
Vegetable Lamb
by Sophia Pacheco
The tale of the Vegetable Lamb of Tartary comes from the Middle Ages, a traveler’s tale from the far east. It’s full name was ‘Planta Tartarica Barometz’ – ‘barometz’ is the Tartar word for ‘lamb’. The fruit of the Vegetable Lamb was cotton, but travelers from Europe knew nothing about cotton in those times. They reasoned that the material was wool – a fabric they did know. The figured that since wool came from sheep, and that the plant was some kind of animal/plant. They thought that the puffs of cotton were tiny sheep attached to the plant by their navel. It is said that the plant bent to let the sheep graze on the grass beneath it, and that when all the grass was gone, the sheep dropped from the plant and ran off, the tree dying.
The myth of the Vegetable Lamb dates back to the 11th century in the Middle and Far East. It is a species of fern. The ‘body’ of the Vegetable Lamb is the root of the plant.

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Vilkacis
by Aldis Putelis
Vilkacis (to be translated literally as “wolf’s eyes”; ‘werewolf’) is usually a malicious creature; a scary being people can turn into. There are particular ways how the people with this curse turn into the wolves and then get their human appearance back. There are particular places, where this is said to have happened. Although mostly malevolent, on occasion it would bring treasures. It belongs to the same lower level of mythological beings as Dievini, Ragana, Pukis and Vadatajs. It is not clear whether Vilkacis it is human flesh or just the soul that transforms, as their are accounts of moving an apparently asleep person whose soul is out “running as a werewolf”, after what the person turns out to be dead, as the soul couldn’t enter the flesh to return.

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Werewolf
by Micha F. Lindemans
In popular folklore, a man who is transformed, or who transforms himself, into a wolf in nature and appearance under the influence of a full moon. The werewolf is only active at night and during that period, he devours infants and corpses. According to legend, werewolves can be killed by silver objects such as silver arrows and silver bullets. When a werewolf dies he is returned to his human form.
Origin
The word is a contraction of the old-Saxon word wer (which means “man”) and wolf — werwolf, manwolf. A Lycanthrope, a term often used to describe werewolves, however, is someone who suffers from a mental disease and only thinks he has changed into a wolf.

The concept of werewolves, or lycanthropes, is possibly based on the myth of Lycaon. He was the king of Arcadia, and in the time of the ancient Greeks notorious for his cruelty. He tried to buy the favor of Zeus by offering him the flesh of a young child. Zeus punished him for this crime and turned him into a wolf. The legends of werewolves have been told since the ancient Greeks and are known all over the world. In areas where the wolf is not so common, the belief in werewolves is replaced by folklore where men can change themselves in tigers, lions, bears and other fierce animals.

History
In the dark Middle Ages, the Church stigmatized the wolf as the personification of evil and a servant of Satan himself. The Church courts managed to put so much pressure on schizophrenics, epileptics and the mentally disabled, that they testified to be werewolves and admitted to receive their orders directly from Satan. After 1270 it was even considered heretical not to believe in the existence of werewolves.

The charge of being a werewolf disappeared from European courts around the 17th century, but only for the lack of evidence. The belief in werewolves, however, did not completely disappear. In Europe after 1600, it was generally believed that if there were no werewolves, then at least the wolf was a creature of evil. This resulted in an unjustified and negative image of the wolf; an image that most people still have today.

(Greek) lykanthropos – lykos wolf; anthropos human being; Wolfman.

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Wyvern
by Micha F. Lindemans
A creature very similar to a dragon except it only has four limbs (2 wings, 2 hind legs) and is smaller in size. Usually the other aspects are the same, although wyverns are generally not characterized as breathing flame.

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Yali
by Micha F. Lindemans
In Indian legend, the Yali is a creature with the body of a lion and the trunk and tusks of an elephant.

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Yara-ma-yha-who
by Micha F. Lindemans
In aboriginal cultures, there was a vampire-like being, described as a little red man, approximately four feet tall, with a very large head and mouth. It has no teeth and swallowed its food whole. Its most distinguishing features were it hands and feet. It tips of the fingers and toes were shaped like the suckers of an octopus.
The yara-ma-yha-who lived in the tops of fig trees and did not hunt for food, but waited until unsuspecting victims sought shelter under the tree. It then jumped down and placed its hands and feet on the body. It would drain the blood from the victim to the point the person was left weak and helpless, but rarely, to cause the victim to die. The creature would later return and consume its meal. It then drank water and took a nap. When it woke, the undigested portion of its meal would be regurgitated. According to the story, the person regurgitated was still alive, and children were advised to offer no resistance should it be their misfortune to meet a yara-ma-yha-who. Their chances of survival were better if they let the creature swallow them.

People might be captured on several occasions. Each time, they would grow a little shorter until they were the same size as the yara-ma-yha-who. Their skin would first become smooth and then they would begin to grow hair all of their body. Gradually they were changed into one of the mythical little furry creatures of the forest.

The story of the yara-ma-yha-who was told to young children who might wander from the tribe, and to naughty children to scare them that it might come and take them away.

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Yeti
by Micha F. Lindemans
The Abominable Snowman of the Himalayas. In 1951, an expedition found a track on the Menlung Glacier between Tibet and Nepal, at an altitude of 6000 meters. The footprints they saw were 33 cm by 45 cm and were made by a foot which has 5 toes of which the inner toes were larger than the others. The heel was flat and exceptionally broad. The track itself appeared to be fresh so the footprints were not enlarged by melting snow. This was clearly shown by the many photographs they took. Although there were many doubts about these photographs, if they were believed to be true at all. But those who did belief were certain that was not made by any known animal.
Origin
The people of Nepal call it a “rakshasa” which is Sanskrit for “demon”. According to them, stories of its existence date back to the 4th century BCE; references to the Yeti are found in a poem called ‘Rama and Sita’. It has regularly been sighted since 1832. Yeti means “magical creature”. The name ‘The Abominable Snowman’ however, was given to it by western newspapers who wanted to give their readers the feeling of terror which the creature supposedly causes in the valleys, crevices and glaciers of the Himalayas.

According to legends, there are three species: the Rimi (some 2,5 m), the Nyalmot (4,5 m) and the Raksi-Bombo (1,5 m). In spite of differences in size, the species have a general resemblance. The Yeti has reddish hair (although others claim it is gray), smells terrible and it is very strong (it throws boulders as if they were pebbles). It makes an ululating or whistling sound, and is sometimes heard roaring like a lion. The Yeti is rumored to be very fond of strong alcoholic drinks.

There are many uncertainties about its origin, whether it exists or not. Some say that the Yeti is a descendant of a race of giant apes, the ‘gigantophitecus’ who retreated into the Himalayas some 500.000 years ago. Another theory is that the Yetis are descendant of the A-o-re, an ancient people that fled into the mountains to escape their enemies. In the following millennia, they degraded to a race of monstrous creatures. Skeptics say that the tracks were made by ordinary animals like a bear or an ape.

Expeditions
Of the many expeditions set out to find it, was also that of Sir Edmund Hillary, the first ever to climb the Mount Everest. He funded this expedition himself, for he and his guide Tenzing Norgay had seen footprints of a Yeti on a previous expedition. Unfortunately, his expedition was as unsuccessful as those who had gone before. However, he brought back with him a borrowed artifact: the upper half of the skull of a Yeti. This scalp came from the Khumjung Gompa (monastery) in Nepal where it is kept as a relic. It is some 300 years old, 20 cm high and has a circumference of 65 cm. Scientists said it belonged to a serow (mountain goat) which lives in eastern Asia.

There have been many other expeditions, but on none of those they got so much as even a glimpse of the creature. However, just like the 1951 expedition, they found tracks of the Yeti, and made casts of its footprints. The lack of evidence did not keep the government of Nepal from officially declaring the Yeti to exist in 1961. It became their national symbol, and an important source of income. There are even stamps of the creature.
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Yofune-Nushi
by Micha F. Lindemans
A sea-serpent from Japanese mythology. It lived in cave under the rocks of the Oki Island’s cost. Every year on the night of June 13, the serpent had to be offered a fair maiden. If this was refused, the creature would cause storms and destroy the fishing fleet. One year, a young girl, called Tokoyo, volunteered to go as the serpent’s next victim. When the monster approached her, ready to devour her, she pulled a knife and slashed at its eyes, blinding it. When the serpent reared back in pain and confusion, Tokoyo slew it.

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Mike the Headless Wonder Chicken

For years I have been wondering how our country ( and many of the citizens and the officials running it) have survived without common sense and working agendas. I have LEARNED, my pasty friends. I have learned. It all started with MIKE THE HEADLESS WONDER CHICKEN in the 1940’s. Proof that you do NOT need a head (or a brain) to have a fulfilling life.