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Kali is the Hindu Goddess of time, creation, and destruction. She fought the demon Raktabīja, from every drop of whose blood was spilled sprang a new devil. Kali caught the blood on her tongue and slew the horde, dancing on their corpses. 

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Written around 500 CE, the Devi Mahatmyam (“Glory to the Goddess”) is a sacred Hindu text describing the Goddess as the supreme power and creator of the universe. As such it is one of the most important texts of Shaktism – the “doctrine of energy, power, the eternal goddess“. The earliest evidence of Shaktism dates back ten-thousand years, to shrine a discovered in the Sidhi district of Madhya Pradesh, India, thought to have been created circa 8500 BCE.  

Adi Parashakti is the Supreme Being of the Shaktism sect of Hinduism, she is the creator, observer, and destroyer of all. The Mahavidya (“Great Wisdoms”) are a group of ten aspects of Adi Parashakti – ten goddesses who embody different aspects of the Supreme Being.  Tara – The Goddess as Guide and Protector. Sundari – The Goddess Who is “Beautiful in the Three Worlds”. Bhuvaneshvari – The Goddess as World Mother. Bhairavi – The Fierce Goddess. Chhinnamasta – The self-decapitated Goddess. Dhumavati – The Widow Goddess. Bagalamukhi – The Goddess Who Paralyzes Enemies. Matangi – the Prime Minister of Lalita. Kamala  – The Lotus Goddess. Kali is the tenth of the Great Wisdoms – she is midnight black skinned “devourer of time”.  

In the Devi Mahatmya Kali is described as Chamunda (though Chamunda is also considered a goddess in her own right) – the slayer of the demons Chanda and Munda, though the demon she slays is named elsewhere as Raktabija. Raktabija was said to be un-killable, a fully formed clone of himself springing forth from every drop of his blood that was spilled in battle.

Out of the surface of her (Durga’s) forehead, fierce with frown, issued suddenly Kali of terrible countenance, armed with a sword and noose. Bearing the strange khatvanga (skull-topped staff), decorated with a garland of skulls, clad in a tiger’s skin, very appalling owing to her emaciated flesh, with gaping mouth, fearful with her tongue lolling out, having deep reddish eyes, filling the regions of the sky with her roars, falling upon impetuously and slaughtering the great asuras in that army, she devoured those hordes of the foes of the devas. [1]

Kali is said to have bested the demon by catching every drop of his blood she spilled upon her tongue. She slew the demon and his clone army, and then danced for victory upon a mountain of their corpses.  

[1] Devi Mahatmyam Swami Jagadiswarananda, Sri Ramakrishna Math by Dattatreya https://archive.org/details/DeviMahatmyamSwamiJagadiswaranandaSriRamakrishnaMath/mode/2up

“Here be Dragons” was once used to mark dangerous, uncharted territory on maps. The incredibly detailed Fra Mauro map, circa 1450 CE, went one step further. It shows Isola de’ Dragoni (“Island of Dragons”) in the Atlantic Ocean. No-one has ever journeyed there.  

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HC SVNT DRACONES (“here be dragons”) is a Latin phrase used to label uncharted or dangerous territories on several maps made between the 11th and 15th century CE. On Greek and Roman maps the phrase HIC SVNT LEONES (“here be lions”) was more commonly used for the same purpose, which seems strange given that dragons were more commonly believed in back then.  

There is a region moreover in Arabia, situated nearly over against the city of Buto, to which place I came to inquire about the winged serpents: and when I came thither I saw bones of serpents and spines in quantity so great that it is impossible to make report of the number, and there were heaps of spines, some heaps large and others less large and others smaller still than these, and these heaps were many in number. […]

As for the serpent its form is like that of the water snake; and it has wings not feathered but most nearly resembling the wings of the bat. Let so much suffice as has been said now concerning sacred animals.

These words were written by the 5th century BC Greek historian Herodotus in the first volume of his History. It should be noted though that Herodotus didn’t record seeing a single live specimen, merely reporting what he had been told about the creatures behaviour and appearance. This included their roosting in frankincense trees and having to be specially handled so that the spice could be harvested; shades of the flesh-hungry Cinnamon Bird also described by Herodotus perhaps?  

Large birds carry those dried sticks which we have learnt from the Phenicians to call cinnamon, carry them, I say, to nests which are made of clay and stuck on to precipitous sides of mountains, which man can find no means of scaling. With regard to this then the Arabians practise the following contrivance: — they divide up the limbs of the oxen and asses that die and of their other beasts of burden, into pieces as large as convenient, and convey them to these places, and when they have laid them down not far from the nests, they withdraw to a distance from them: and the birds fly down and carry the limbs of the beasts of burden off to their nests; and these are not able to bear them, but break down and fall to the earth; and the men come up to them and collect the cinnamon. Thus cinnamon is collected and comes from this nation to the other countries of the world.  

Perfumes and spices such as frankincense and cinnamon were Arabia’s top exports and it did well to convince outsiders that they faced literal monsters to obtain them, lest their customers get the idea they could simply cultivate them themselves. Pliny the Elder, writing in the 1st century AD, was onto their tricks writing in his Naturalis Historia that the monstrous “cinnamolgus” was a mere invention designed to drive the price of the spice higher. Piny also wrote of epic battles between elephants and dragons though.  

Elephants are bred in that Part of Africa which lieth beyond the Deserts of the Syrtes, and also in Mauritania: they are found also among the Ethiopians and Troglodites, as hath been said: but India produceth the biggest: as also the Dragons, which are continually at variance and fighting with them; and those of such Greatness, that they can easily clasp round the Elephants, and tie them fast with a Knot. Zelian says, that these dragons conceal themselves among the branches of trees, from which they hang dependent, watching for their prey. When the elephants approach to feed on the branches, the enemy seizes them about the eyes, twines itself about the neck, and lashes them with its tail, in which manner they fall down strangled. In this Conflict they die together; that which is overcome falling down, and with his Weight crushing the one that is twined about him.

This appears to be a somewhat exaggerated (and you will note second hand – “Zelian says”) description of an Indian python however. Indeed all of Pliny’s mentions of dragons seem to actually describe other creatures and it seems much more likely that he was using the word as a kind substitute for “large predatory reptile”, rather than cataloguing actual dragon subspecies. Even when he doesn’t use the term dragon, the (still second hand) descriptions can seem somewhat hyperbolic:

Megasthenes writeth that there are Serpents in India which grow to such a Size that they are able to swallow Stags or Bulls whole.

Doest thou believe everything Megasthenes writeth, Pliny?

Anteros was the brother of Eros, the Ancient Greek counterpart of the Roman Cupid. Like Cupid, he was winged, carrying a bow and quiver of arrows with him. When Anteros aimed for the heart however, he shot to kill. For he was the avenging God of Unrequited Love. 

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Aphrodite was the Ancient Greek Goddess of love, beauty, pleasure, passion and procreation. As you might expect, she had quite a few children. With Ares, God of War, she had (at least) eight children, and (at least) four of these were known as the Erotes. The Erotes were winged Gods who helped their mother with her Earthly duties – serving as love deities.  

Eros, is by far the most famous of the Erotes, his name meaning “desire” (as too does his later Roman counterpart’s name Cupid). Eros was the God of love and sex, which seems fairly straight forward but his bothers had slightly more specific roles: Hedylogos was the God of “sweet talk” and flattery, Pothos the God of longing and yearning, Hymenaeus the God of weddings and marriage, Hermaphroditus the androgynous, intersex God/Goddess of hermaphrodites and “effeminate men”.  

Anteros’ name means “love returned”, but he was also in charge of punishing those who did not return the affections of another.  

ANTEROS is the Deity who avenges slighted love (Deus ultor); hence, in the palaestra at Elis, he is represented as contending with Eros or Cupid. This  conflict, however, was also considered as a rivalry existing between two lovers; and thus Anteros may in some respect be considered as forwarding the schemes of Cupid. And hence we may explain the fable that, on the birth of Anteros, Cupid felt his strength increase and his wings enlarge, and that, whenever his brother is at a distance, he finds himself reduced to his ancient shape. [1]

As the avenger of unrequited, or slighted love Anteros was armed with arrows made of lead, or sometimes with a club of solid gold.   

The famous statue which stands at the top of the Shaftesbury Memorial Fountain in Piccadilly Circus, London is often thought to depict Eros, but is actually a representation of Anteros. A twin of the London Anteros stands atop a the ornate fountain in Liverpool’s Victorian Sefton Park.  

[1] A manual of classical mythology; or, A companion to the Greek and Latin poets, designed chiefly to explain words, phrases and epithets, from the fables and traditions to which they refer,  Thomas Swinburne Carr, 1846  

https://archive.org/details/manualofclassica00carrrich/page/viii/mode/2up/search/Anteros?q=Anteros

Beowulf’s tale is more than 1000 years old. First he bested the giant Grendel, tearing off the creature’s arm. Next he beheaded Grendel’s monstrous mother with a blade found in her underwater lair. Beowulf died a hero’s death; mortally wounded slaying a dragon.

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Beowulf is an epic poem, the oldest written version of which dates from around 1000 CE. Whether this extant version – which was copied from a now lost older version by two scribes –  was previously learned by rote and passed down orally, remains a topic of debate. It agreed by most scholars however, that the story of Beowulf dates back to 700 CE at earliest. The poem is written in Old English, but uses a mixture of dialects – Mercian, Northumbrian, Early West Saxon, Kentish and Late West Saxon – making it something of a linguistic patchwork.  

The hero Beowulf was said to be a member of the North Germanic tribe who inhabited Götaland – known as the Geats, or sometimes the Goths. In the poem, Beowulf came to the aid of King Hrothgar of the Danes who had built a vast mead-hall named Heorot where he his wife, Wealhtheow, and his men drank and sang merrily. The music and merriment were loud enough to be overheard by Grendel – a troll-like monster, said to be descended from the biblical, murderous Cain – who could not stand either. Grendel attacked the hall while everyone slept, and slaughtered many of Hrothgar’s men, causing the king and his people to abandon the place.  

Beowulf travelled to the hall and, refusing all weapons, laid in wait for Grendel, pretending to be asleep. When the monster entered Heorot, Beowulf’s companions leapt to his aid but none of their weapons could pierce Grendel’s flesh. Wrestling with the beast, Beowulf tore off Grendel’s arm at the shoulder using his bare hands.  

Grendel returned to the underwater cave which he came from to die, and the arm was displayed in Heorot as a trophy. This angered Grendel’s mother – described only in the poem as “aglæc-wif”, which has been interpreted both as “wretch, or monster of a woman” but also as “warrior, or hero” – who rose out of the water to enact revenge, killing Hrothgar’s most mighty fighter Æschere. So, Beowulf and his men returned to Hrothgar’s land to hunt her down.  

Beowulf jumped into the swamp, fought off a few water-monsters on the way down, and entered the cave where Grendel and his mother lived. Grendel’s mother appeared impervious to all weapons, and seemed certain to kill Beowulf until he laid his hand on a giant sword stored amongst the other loot in her cave. Beheading Grendel’s mother, Beowulf also found the corpse of Grendel and removed its head. The blade of the sword melted away to nothing from the monster’s corrosive blood. Beowulf emerged from the lake with the Grendel’s head in one hand, and the hilt gigantic sword in the other.  

Beowulf, now a rich and famous hero, became King of the Geats. Fifty years after his battle with Grendel’s mother, a slave stole a golden cup from the treasure hoard of a dragon in Earnanæs, Sweden. The furious dragon went on a murderous rampage, and Beowulf was the only man who could stop it. Ever the hero, Beowulf says he will battle the dragon alone, but he is followed by a warrior named Wiglaf into the fight. Between the two they slay the dragon, but Beowulf is mortally wounded and dies. His body is ritually burned on a great pyre and a barrow is built in memorial to the great hero king Beowulf.  

The location in the bottom panel is based on The Pinnacles in Australia. 

(Not much time to go in depth here for this one, pencilled, inked and coloured in clip studio. Researched via google.)

 The Aboriginal people of Australia are one of Earth’s oldest cultures. Their folklore stretches back millennia. Passed down from storyteller to storyteller. The Wandjina – the cloud spirits from the sky – brought life to the planet. All images of them are sacred 

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Australia is burning. “This is a climate crisis, but this is a climate crisis caused by colonization and mismanagement of land”. These are the words of Larissa Baldwin, from the Widjabul clan of the Bundjalung nation, and the First Nations justice campaign director of GetUp – an organisation bringing people together on issues of Environmental Justice, Human Rights, Economic Fairness and Democratic Integrity [1]. The 26th of January is Australia Day – a commemoration of anniversary of the day in 1788 when the First Fleet of British ships arrived at Port Jackson, New South Wales, and the Flag of Great Britain was raised at Sydney Cove by Governor Arthur Phillip. It used to be known as Foundation Day, but now it is increasingly known as Invasion Day and Survival Day.

In 2016/17 researchers at the University of Newcastle compiled the most complete list to date of the massacres of Australian First Nationals carried out by the British settlers. “The exact death toll from massacres and the frontier wars is unknown, but it runs in the hundreds of thousands. More than 65,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were killed in massacres or conflicts between 1788 and 1930 in Queensland alone”[2]. It’s genocide, and its ongoing.  

Colonization also led to the “Stolen Generations,” when at least one in three Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children were forcibly removed from their families between 1910 and the 1970s, to be confined in institutions or raised by white families. This was a practice meant to “breed out the color” [3]

Fire-stick farming, also known as  cultural burning, was once practised widely by Aboriginal Australians as a means of clearing and managing the land. These controlled burnings created fire-breaks which helped stop the spread of wild-fires – which occur naturally in the hot, dry Australian climate. The 2019-2020 bush-fire season has been the most destructive and devastating on record. As of the 14th of January 2020, 72,000 square miles of land had burned, destroying 6,000 buildings, killing 35 people, and an estimated one billion animals, many of which are now endangered species.

For thousands upon thousands of years Indigenous Australians lived in harmony with nature. They understood the signs and cycles of their environment and passed these down through folk-tales and stories, told and retold. Nature is sacred to the Aboriginal people, but there is no one over-arcing deity covering all of Australia.  

Each tribe has its own deities with an overlap of beliefs, just as there is an overlap of words between language groups.The Wandjina spirits in the northern Kimberley of Western Australia belong to the Ngarinyin,Worora andWunambal tribes. These Wandjina are responsible for bringing the Wet Season rains, as well as laying down many of the laws for the people. As one travels east, this function is taken over by Yagjagbula and Jabirringgi, The Lightning Brothers of the Wardaman tribe in the Victoria River District of the Northern Territory, then by Nargorkun, also known asBula, in the upper Katherine River area, and by Namarrgun, the Lighning Man in the Kakadu and western Arnhem Land regions.[4]

[1] https://www.vox.com/identities/2020/1/24/21080027/invasion-day-australia-aboriginal-indigenous-torres-strait-islander

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/jul/05/map-of-massacres-of-indigenous-people-reveal-untold-history-of-australia-painted-in-blood

[3] https://www.vox.com/identities/2020/1/24/21080027/invasion-day-australia-aboriginal-indigenous-torres-strait-islander

[4] http://www.aboriginalculture.com.au/religion.html 

The Yedua is a plant-creature recorded in the Talmud [edit: it isn’t, it’s recorded in later appended discussion of the Talmud. Apologies]. Tethered to the ground by a vine, they grow into human-like shapes. Any creature straying too close to a Yedua is killed and devoured. Only by severing the plant-man from its roots can the Yedua be defeated.

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The Yedua (variously also spelled Yadu’a, Jeduah, and Fedua) are part of a strange subcategory of plant-lore in which the line between flora and fauna has become blurred. The humanoid, screaming Mandragora root – the Mandrake – has already been discussed, but before we get on to the Yedua, there are a couple of other notable examples.  

The Barnacle Goose (a real species of actual goose) was, for a long time, thought to grow on trees (or on wood, at least).  

There are likewise here many birds called barnacles,(barnacle geese) which nature produces in a wonderful manner, out of her ordinary course. They resemble the marsh-geese, but are smaller. Being at first, gummy excrescenses from pine-beams floating on the waters, and then enclosed in shells to secure their free growth, they hang by their beaks, like seaweeds attached to the timber. Being in progress of time well covered with feathers, they either fall into the water or take their flight in the free air.

The above words were written by the archdeacon of Brecon, Gerald of Wales, in his book Topographia Hiberniae, around 1188 AD. It should be noted that Gooseneck Barnacles are also real things, which do bear some co-incidental resemblance to Barnacle Geese, but lack of knowledge of the migration of birds seems to have been the main factor at play here. That and the fact that if these geese weren’t strictly geese, they could technically be eaten freely on days when religious observances called for abstinence from meat.  

The Vegetable Lamb is another strange example. Widely believed now to have come from the first reports of the cotton plant, with its wool-like yield, the Vegetable Lamb seems to have undergone a significant number of evolutions in the retelling. Some stories tell of a large gourd, inside of which, when ripe, could be found a lamb-like creature. Others tell of a living, moving, grazing lamb-like fruit, tethered to the plant from which it grew by means of an umbilical vine. It is this latter version of the Vegetable Lamb which bears a striking resemblance to the Yedua.  

In the Mishna Kilaim (vin, 5), a portion of the Talmud, we meet the passage, “Creatures called adne sadeh (‘lords of the field’) are regarded as beasts.” Rabbi Simeon, who died about 1235, comments on this statement as follows: ” It is asserted in the Jerusalem Talmud that this creature is the ‘man of the mountain.’ It draws its food out of the soil by means of the umbilical cord: if its navel be cut, it cannot live. Rabbi Meir, the son of Kallonymos of Speyer, has added these remarks:  

‘There is an animal styled Yedua? with the bones of which witchcraft is practised. It issues from the earth like the stem of a plant, just as a gourd. In all respects, the yedua has human form in face, body, hands, and feet. No creature can approach within the tether of the stem, for it seizes and kills all. As far as the stem (or umbilical cord) stretches, it devours the herbage all around. Whoever is intent on capturing this animal must not approach it, but tear at the cord until it is ruptured, whereupon the animal soon dies.'”

This quotation is taken from a 1915 article taken from The Journal of American Folklore, written by Berthold Laufer. Why would anyone want to kill the Yedua? Well, apart from the fact that it seemed to want to murder anyone who came too close to it (the same could be said for many wild animals though, to be honest), the bones of the creatures were thought to be useful in magic. If held in the mouth of a sorcerer, the bones (exactly what form these plant/animal bones would take is not recorded) were supposed to grant them the ability to foretell the future.  

We ended up, somehow, out of sync with the folklore thursday account, tweeting our stories on week ahead of theme (christmas, a confusing time all round). So this is a resync strip. John sent me the tweet and I had all sorts of ideas for what Hidebehinds could look like (9 meter tall stick humanoid stick insects stuck in my head) but I wanted to do a goofy cartoony style, and so, this is what you get!

I could’ve gone gory, had toyed with the idea of the a hidebehind suddenly spotting the reader (after despatching the lumberjack) but that would’ve need a creepier art style than what I was going with.

Anyway, here we go – all synced up again!

Being a lumberjack is a hazardous career choice. More dangerous than the blades and falling trees though, are the monsters. American folklore tells of mysterious woodland predators nicknamed Hidebehinds. No lumberjack has ever seen one and lived to tell the tale.

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In the timberlands of late 19th and early 20th century America, lumberjacks lived a migratory lifestyle. Moving from camp to camp, down from the North East of the country, into the Upper Midwest, and eventually into the Pacific North West, the loggers kept themselves entertained during their non-working hours by swapping camp-fire tales. These stories took on a life of their own as they were passed from lumberjack to lumberjack, and camp to camp, becoming the folklore of the wood-cutters.  

Many of these stories dealt with what came to be known as “Fearsome Critters” – strange, otherwise unknown or undocumented creatures which roamed the forests. It is believed that many of these stories originated as a means of scaring or pranking newcomers to an area (very much like the infamous Drop Bear which tourists are warned about in parts of Australia), with several story-tellers in on the joke warning about the particular hazards which might be faced in that region. That said, many of the creatures bear resemblances to previously documented folkloric and cryptozoological beasts.  

One such creature, often blamed for the mysterious disappearance of any logger who left the camp that morning but back there at the fireside that night, is the Hidebehind.  

The Hidebehind is never found in the open. He always conceals himself behind a tree trunk. His marvellously quick, stealthy gait makes it possible for him to stay constantly behind his prey, no matter how quickly the suspicious victim may spin about in the hope of glimpsing the marauder.  

This description is taken from Fearsome Critters (1939) – a (somewhat tongue in cheek) field guide to the creatures of timberland folklore, written by Henry H. Tryon. He continues:

Its food is chiefly intestines. Leaping from its hiding-place with a demoniacal laugh, it swiftly disembowels its victim with one swipe. Sometimes the fiendish howl frightens the prey to death before the blow falls.   

It was said that Hidebehinds hated the smell and taste of alcohol or tobacco, which was a good enough excuse for any lumberjack to always make sure he had a pouch of tobacco and a hip-flask with him. According to Tryon:

One bottle of Uno beer has been proven to be a complete safeguard even in thickly infested country.