MYTHICAL CREATURES AND THEIR INTERESTING STORY

1. MANTICORE

One of the most forbidding of all mythical creatures, the manticore was a bloodthirsty quadruped that supposedly sported the head of a blue-eyed man, the auburn body of a lion and the stinging tail of a scorpion. The legend of this deadly hybrid first began with Greek authors such as Ctesias, who chronicled it in a book about India. Ctesias and others described the manticore as having three rows of teeth like a shark and a tuneful bellow that sounded like a trumpet. Most terrifying of all, it had an insatiable appetite for human flesh. After using its blistering speed to chase down its prey, the beast was said to slash at them with its claws or sting them with its tail before devouring them bones and all. According to Ctesias, the manticore was even capable of paralyzing or killing its victims from a distance by firing stingers from its tail “as if from a bow.

2.SELKOLLA 

STORY:

The events of Selkollu þáttr take place in the Westfjords, beginning when a man and woman are taking a baby girl to be baptised. On the way, they indulge in an "immoral rest" beside a large stone, fittingly called Miklisteinn ('large stone') and "turn onto the alternative road of fornication". Once they have finished having sex, they return to the child, who they had set down, and find that it is now "black, dead, and hideous". The couple decide to leave the child behind and walk away, but as they do so they hear a cry. They return to the child and find that it is alive, but it is now so "terrifying that they dare neither touch it nor come near". They go to the farm to fetch more people, but when they return to the stone, the child has vanished.

It is then said that a certain woman is "newly arrived in the district, sometimes with an ordinary face but sometimes with a seal's head. This devil walked about as boldly by day as by night, for which reason this midday-devil was called Selkolla in the district".

What follows is an account of the assaults of this being at a farm which is never localised in any more detail. First, in the guise of the farmer's wife, she tries to entice him into having sex. When he realises what is actually going on, he tries to turn for home, but Selkolla bars his way, such that he gets home to the farm "tired and exhausted", and lies in bed "on account of that sickness, which the deceitful trick of the Devil had afflicted upon his virility. He could not have any thereafter, because the same unclean spirit seeks him day and night with enthusiasm". No-one wants to be near the farmer to provide him with any solace, "except for one diligent kinsman of his, who lies beside him until Selkolla overcomes him in the night and bursts out his eyes".

Guðmundr, who is wandering the Westfjords, is called in and asked to tackle the fiend. He decides to stay at the farm which Selkolla is afflicting, and once he has gone to bed for the night he sees that a woman "takes him by surprise" and tries to pull off his shoes, which his servants have forgotten to do. Guðmundur realises immediately who it is and drives Selkolla away with the words "far niðr, fjandi, ok gakk ei framarr!" ("go down, devil, and don't come back!"). The next day, Guðmundr and Selkolla meet again and he drives her down once more, this time by setting up seven crosses.

So ends Guðmundr's dealings with Selkolla. She rears her head once more on board a ship which is on the way "over the flord, or bay" which separates the country's dioceses. But the crew have received the blessing of Guðmundr for the journey, and the blessing prevents Selkolla from harming them.

3.  WENDIGO:

The wendigo lends its name to a form of psychosis known as "Wendigo psychosis" 

which is characterized by symptoms such as:

Wendigo psychosis is described as a culture-bound syndrome. In some First Nations communities other symptoms such as insatiable greed and destruction of the environment are also thought to be symptoms of Wendigo psychosis, an intense craving for human flesh and an intense fear of becoming a cannibal.

STORY:

One time long ago a big Windigo stole an Indian boy, but the boy was too thin, so the Windigo didn't eat him up right away, but he travelled with the Indian boy waiting for him till he'd get fat. The Wendigo had a knife and he'd cut the boy on the hand to see if he was fat enough to eat, but the boy didn't get fat. They traveled too much. One day they came to an Indian village and the Windigo sent the boy to the Indian village to get some things for him to eat. He just gave the boy so much time to go there and back. The boy told the Indians that the Wendigo was near them, and showed them his hand where the Windigo cut him to see if he was fat enough to eat. They heard the Windigo calling the boy. He said to the boy "Hurry up. Don't tell lies to those Indians." All of these Indians went to where the Wendigo was and cut off his legs. They went back again to see if he was dead. He wasn't dead. He was eating the juice (marrow) from the inside of the bones of his legs that were cut off. The Indians asked the Windigo if there was any fat on them. He said, "You bet there is, I have eaten lots of Indians, no wonder they are fat." The Indians then killed him and cut him to pieces. The end of this Giant Wendigo

 

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