This is an alternative name for the GIANT PROCRUSTES in the classical mythology of Greece and Rome. POLYPEMON, whose name may be translated as the "Injurious", also known as DAMASTES, meaning the "Tamer," was a monstrous GIANT of ELEUSIS who offered a bed for the night to belated travelers in a mountainous region. What his victims did not know was that this evil being would make each person fit the bed exactly by cutting off whatever overlapped, whether it be head or feet, if they were too tall. For those who were too small, they would be "racked" and stretched until all their bones were dislocated enough to stretch them to the dimensions. Whichever way, the malicious GIANT tortured his victims to death, until the hero THESEUS dispatched the GIANT by doing the same to him.
Source: Giants, Monsters, and Dragons: An Encyclopedia of Folklore, Legend, and Myth
]]>This is the name of a water monster in the legends of the Maori people of New Zealand. The PARATA belonged to the class of monsters known as TANIWHA that preys upon humans and other creatures. However, the PARATA is a vast ocean monster whose mouth is so wide and cavernous that it sucks in all the waters of the seas and then spews them back out. This TANIWHA therefore accounts for the tidal motions of the seas.
Source: Giants, Monsters, and Dragons: An Encyclopedia of Folklore, Legend, and Myth
]]>This is the name of a giant in the classical early literature of France. PENTAGRUEL appears as the main character in the works by the author FRANCOIS RABELAIS (ca. 1494-ca. 1553), in the satires Pantagruel (1532) and later in Gargantua (1534). The name, according to the author, was derived from the GREAT PANTA, meaning "All", and the Arabic word Gruel, meaning "thirst", because he was born during a great drought. He was so vast that his cradle was made from ship's beams, and although he was chained into it he broke out by smashing the base of the cradle and released himself. In maturity he became omniscient and outshone everyone in every manner. PENTAGRUEL was the KING of the DIPSODES, and his goal was the search for the "Oracle of the Holy Bottle", during which he journeyed to Utopia.
Source: Giants, Monsters, and Dragons: An Encyclopedia of Folklore, Legend, and Myth
]]>This is the name of a monstrous serpent in the Hindu mythology of India. KALIYA is described as a five-headed, bejeweled snake that inhabited the deepest parts of the River Yamuna, or Jumna. KALIYA was the king of the serpents who emerged from their depths at night to lay waste to the surrounding countryside and then sleep in a particular tree.
One day the the young god KRISHNA climbed this very tree and dived into he water beneath. The vast, heated wave that he created burned the tree.
The outraged KALIYA summoned his serpent hordes and encircled KRISHNA, ready to destroy him. But the god easily escaped and danced on the head of KALIYA. All his powers were drained, which so terrified the serpents that KALIYA and they departed to the oceans forever. For this gesture of good will, KRISHNA promised that GARUDA, who killed serpents, would never touch them.
Source: Giants, Monsters, and Dragons: An Encyclopedia of Folklore, Legend, and Myth
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]]>This is the name of a gigantic fish in the mythology of Japan. The KAMI is described in the sacred literature of Japan as being a vast fish that resembles a cat fish whose body is in the great ocean beneath the islands of Japan. It was the movement of this enormous fish that made many of the earthquakes above it in the islands. However, after one such episode the great deity of Deer Island took an enormous sword and speared it deep through the earth down into the great ocean and straight through the head of KAMI, transfixing it forever.
Henceforth, whenever the KAMI wriggled beneath the islands, the Great Deity would take hold of the hilt of the sword and apply pressure to the head of the KAMI until it was still. This great sword is carved from a granite rock in the temple, and during the seventeenth century one of the lords of the island had his men dig to find the point. After six days the point of the sword had still not been reached, and they gave up.
Source: Giants, Monsters, and Dragons: An Encyclopedia of Folklore, Legend, and Myth
]]>This is the name of a monstrous dog , also known as SHUCK, SHUCK DOG, or OLD SHUCK, in the folklore of East Anglia, England. Then name is possibly derived from the Anglo-Saxon Scucca, meaning "demon". BLACK SHUCK is described as about the size of a shaggy donkey with huge glowing red eyes, or a single eye, which shower sparks of green or red fire.
At Clopton Hall near Stowmarket however, this monster is described as resembling a monk with the hound's head. Its abode is variously the salt marshes or the sea its self, from which BLACK SHUCK emerges only at dusk to patrol the lanes, marshes, river banks, and graveyards. This creature may be encountered on the roads, where its icy breath and shaggy pelt can be felt as it draws alongside a traveler.
]]> In Suffolk it offers no harm if left alone, but death soon follows for any who challenge it. In Norfolk merely seeing the BLACK SHUCK was enough to invoke sickness or death. One variant of this monster, said to have the face of a monkey, haunts the area between Balsham and Wratting in Cambridgeshire, where it is known as the SHUCK-MONKEY.Another variant, the ESSEX SHUCK, however, is a benevolent creature that has been known to guide lost travelers and protect those under attack. The fact that it haunts gallows, gibbets, or cemeteries links it with the EVIL SHUCK.
Source: Giants, Monsters, and Dragons: An Encyclopedia of Folklore, Legend, and Myth
In the classical mythology of ancient Greece, EMPUSA was a terrible female supernatural hybrid monster. She was described as having one leg of brass, and the other that of an ass. The EMPUSA was sent by the goddess HECATE to torment and terrify travelers on dark country roads, and they were accused of being the monster that devoured their corpses when terrified to death.
In the folklore of modern Greece she is a shape-shifting evil spirit. She may manifest in the form of an ox, a dog, a mule, or a beautiful woman. She is a frightening SPIRIT to humans but is considered responsible for causing injury to the sheep on the mountains during the noonday heat.
Source: Giants, Monsters, and Dragons: An Encyclopedia of Folklore, Legend, and Myth
]]>This is the name of humanoid monsters in the traditions and beliefs of the Native Australian people of northern Arnhem Land in northern Australia. The NAMORODO were described as having the shape of humans, but they they were only the skeletal structure held by ligaments, through which the winds of the desert howled. In the traditions of the vampires of western Europe, the NAMORODO rested during the day but at night flew to the homes of sleeping humans. There, if they could gain entry, they would turn them into NAMORODO by draining their blood from their bodies as they slept.
Source: Giants, Monsters, and Dragons: An Encyclopedia of Folklore, Legend, and Myth
]]>This is the name of a princess who became a dragon in the Mythology and Folklore of the Malay people of West Malaysia. TIOMAN fell in love with the son of a neighboring king, and , although she was a princess in her own right, the prince did not return her devotion. In the agonies of unrequited love, she brooded and was so consumed with tortured thoughts that her outward appearance metamorphosed into that of a DRAGON with horns on her head and a vast, swirling tail. Despairing even further in her reptilian form, she swam into the South China Sea and sat in the waters, where she again transformed. Soon her vast bulk became an island called PULAU TIOMAN, where her hors showed as the two peaks standing high from her back as the mountains of Bali Hai, and the great tail swirled above the waves to Salang. This is now the most beautiful of the Malaysian islands off the eastern coast and was used as the location for the Bali Hai of the film South Pacific
Source: Giants, Monsters, and Dragons: An Encyclopedia of Folklore, Legend, and Myth
]]>The Italian monk ANNIUS OF VITERBO (Giovanni Nanni, c.1432-1502) asserted the the biblical NOAH was a GIANT. He re-created a whole genealogy of GIANTS from NOAH and IAPETUS to justify the constructed line of decent through the GIANT DIS SAMOTHES to the ancestry of the French nobility of the period. Within this genealogy ANNIUS asserted that the sons of NOAH - SHEM, HAM, and JAPHETH - who were also GIANTS.
Source: Giants, Monsters, and Dragons: An Encyclopedia of Folklore, Legend, and Myth
]]>This is the name of a monster in the traditions and folklore of Mexico. In South America it is known as ANDURA. The HOGA is described as being like a gigantic fish creature, with a head and ears like those of a pig, and extremely long barbs or thick whiskers round its mouth in which were great fangs. This creature amazingly had the ability to change color and could be red, green or yellow. The HOGA was said to inhabit the lake of the city of THEMISTITAN, where it grazed on the leaves of the HOGA tree at the shoreline. Humans were afraid of it since it was reported to take vast fish and even land animals if they strayed too close to the water's edge.
Source: Giants, Monsters, and Dragons: An Encyclopedia of Folklore, Legend, and Myth
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This is the name of one of the GIANTS in the classical mythology of Greece and Rome. EPIMETHEUS was one of the progeny of the TITAN called JAPETUS and the ocean NYMPH CLYMENE according to HESIOD in his work Theoeny (ca. 750 BC), but according to AESCHYLUS (525 BC-456BC) his mother was THEMIS. His sibling were the GIANTS ATLAS, PROMETHEUS, and MENOETIUS. EPIMETHEUS was responsible for endowing the creatures of the world with certain attributes such as speed and strength and helped PROMETHEUS with the forming of human attributes, encouraging him to take fire from the gods for them. His wife was PANDORA, whose curiosity allowed the troubles of the world to be unleashed and her husband to be changed by ZEUS, the king of the gods, into a monkey for his meddling with the domain of the gods.
Source: Giants, Monsters, and Dragons: An Encyclopedia of Folklore, Legend, and Myth
]]>This is a monstrous being in the folklore of the county of Lancashire in northwestern England. JENNY GREENTEETH is evil and malignant, inhabiting stagnant lakes and pools of water. She is a predator of humans and in particular awaits for the unwary child who may go too close to the water. When this happens, she grabs the child in her long, green fangs and drags them down under the water to drown. JENNY GREENTEETH may be found in any pool or pond that is covered with green slime or scum. She is a monstrous, demonic being that belongs to a class of Nursery Bogies described with vigor by watchful nursemaids and anxious parents in order to prevent the untimely death of children in such fearful places.
Source: Giants, Monsters, and Dragons: An Encyclopedia of Folklore, Legend, and Myth
]]>This is the name of a monster in the legends and folklore of South America, especially Chile. The GUIRIVULU is described as a beast that has the shape of a Puma with the head resembling that of a fox. It has the curiously adapted tail that ends in a massive claw. Because of it features it is sometimes called the fox-snake. This monster inhabits the deepest pools and waters of the rivers, where it will attack not only animals but any human that is foolish enough to go near it. Should it come upon a vicim, they are quickly enveloped in the enormous mouth and swallowed into the body, which expands and extends like that of a snake, to take the victim whole.
Source: Giants, Monsters, and Dragons: An Encyclopedia of Folklore, Legend, and Myth
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