The cockatrice is a monster of English legend similar to a basilisk. It is born when a rooster lays an egg which is then incubated by a serpent; it resembles a rooster with a snake tail. The cockatrice kills with its gaze and touch, though the weasel is immune.
🎨 Marcus Gheeraerts
As the most iconic Norse god, Thor was depicted as utterly distinct. No picture of him would be confused with someone else. While most Norse gods ride horses, wield swords, and are blond, Thor rides a chariot pulled by goats, wields a hammer, and is red-headed.
🎨 Max Koch #mythologymonday#31DaysofHaunting#folklore#mythology#Norse#Viking
The pwca is the black-furred Welsh version of the pooka - a forest goblin trickster. Sometimes the pwca uses a magic candle to lead travelers off the path, and other times the pwca turns into a black animal, such a horse, and entices travelers to try to catch it.
🎨 Tony DiTerlizzi #FairyFriday#31DaysofHaunting#31DaysofHalloween
In Greek myth, while Heracles was battling the Hydra, Hera sent a monstrous crab to distract him. The crab clawed Heracles' foot, but the demigod kicked it to pieces while still focusing on the Hydra. Hera afterwards turned the crab into the constellation Cancer. #MythologyMonday#31DaysofHaunting
In the early stories of Merlin, he would often laugh when his powers of prophecy revealed ironic situations, such as a man expressing love for his "son" without realizing the boy isn't his, or a woman buying a dress even though she'll drown before she wears it.
The huldufólk (hidden folk) of Iceland are human-sized fairies whose communities are hidden in the hills. Sometimes they are depicted with cow tails. It is said that if the huldufólk marry a human, their cow tails fall off, and they become human themselves.
🎨 Brett Manning
One of the most iconic werecreatures of modern fantasy is the sewer-dwelling wererat: the apex predator of the city like the werewolf is of the forest. Wererats were inspired by the ratfolk of Lankhmar in Fritz Leiber's "Fafhrd and Gray Mouser" stories.
🎨 Tony DiTerlizzi #OfDarkandMacabre#31DaysofHalloween#31DaysofHorror#31DaysofHaunting
In one Welsh legend, King Arthur discovered an altar floating in the ocean, and unsuccessfully tried to use it as a table. When Arthur realized the altar belonged to St. Carannog, he returned it in exchange for the saint ridding the land of a troublesome dragon.
"When they got home, the Rat made a bright fire in the parlour, and planted the Mole in an armchair in front of it, having fetched down a dressing gown and slippers for him, and told him river stories till suppertime."
Kenneth Grahame, "The Wind in the Willows"
🎨 E. H. Shepard
Though in Shakespeare, Cordelia dies before her father King Lear, in the original British legend she outlives him and becomes Britain's ruler. Cordelia is a warrior queen, leading armies. Sadly, she is overthrown by her two nephews, who resent being ruled by a woman.
The Welsh hero Lleu was cursed by his mother to never have a human wife, so the wizard Gwydion used flowers from the oak, broom, and meadowsweet to create a wife for Lleu called Blodeuwedd ("Flower-Faced"). However, Blodeuwedd fell in love with another man....
🎨 Jenny Dolfen
To drink from the Well of Wisdom, the Norse god Odin had to give one of his eyes to Mimir, the Well's guardian. In some versions, this is simply a general sacrifice, but in others it's a trade - the eye gives Mimir Odin's knowledge just as the drink gives Odin Mimir's.
🎨 Emil Doepler
Myrddin Wyllt was a 6th-century prophet who inspired the Merlin legend. After being traumatized by war, Myrddin fled into a Scottish forest and became a hermit. He supposedly wrote down his intense visions, which are collectively known as "The Prophecies of Merlin."
🎨 Alan Lee
In the Middle Ages, many Christian Scandinavians believed that the Norse gods had actually been humans from Troy who had fled their burning city and immigrated to Scandinavia, where they had used magic to make the locals believe that they were gods.
"The snow lay thin and apologetic over the world. That wide grey sweep was the lawn, with the straggling trees of the orchard still dark beyond.... All the broad sky was grey, full of more snow that refused to fall. There was no colour anywhere."
"Lest the awe should dwell
And turn your frolic to fret,
You shall look on my power at the helping hour,
But then you shall forget!
Lest limbs be reddened and rent,
I spring the trap that is set.
As I loose the snare, you may glimpse me there,
For surely you shall forget!"
Kenneth Grahame, "Wind in the Willows"
🎨 Arthur Rackham
The Sluagh (the "Host") of Irish and Scottish folklore are sometimes depicted as ghosts, sometimes as fairies. They fly through the sky like a flock of birds, and carry off anyone they find. Some humans are left on a remote island, others are never seen again.
Gwydion is the great trickster of Welsh legend, who uses a mixture of deceit and magic to get what he wants. Like many tricksters, Gwydion is a shapeshifter, but he's also a master of animating the inanimate - turning trees into soldiers and flowers into brides.
🎨 Margaret Jones