453. Monsters

1. Abominable Snowman enigmatic yeti of the Himalayas. [Tibetan Lore: Wallechinsky, 443]
2. Aegaeon gigantic monster with 100 arms, 50 heads. [Gk. and Rom. Myth.: Wheeler, 5]
3. Ahuizotl small creature with monkey hands and feet, a hand at the end of its long tail. [Mex. Myth.: Leach]
4. Ammit part hippopotamus, part lion, with jaws like a crocodile’s. [Egypt. Myth.: Leach]
5. Amphisbaena two-headed monster, either scaled like a snake or feathered; one head remains awake while the other sleeps. [Roman Myth.: White]
6. Anubis jackal-headed god. [Egypt. Myth.: Jobes, 105]
7. Argus hundred-eyed giant who guarded Io. [Gk. Myth. and Rom. Lit.: Metamorphoses ]
8. banshee spirit with one nostril, a large projecting front tooth, and webbed feet. [Irish Folklore: Briggs, 14]
9. basilisk lizard supposed to kill with its gaze. [Gk. Myth.: Brewer Handbook, 93]
10. beasts of the Apocalypse one has ten horns, seven heads, and ten crowns on the horns; the other has two horns and speaks like a dragon. [N.T.: Revelation 13:1,11]
11. bonnacon Asian monster with bull’s head and horse’s body, and fatally incendiary excrement. [Gk. & Rom. Myth.: White]
12. bread-and-butter fly its head is a lump of sugar, its wings are made of thin slices of buttered bread, and its body is a crust. [Br. Lit.: Lewis Carroll Through the Looking-Glass ]
13. Briareus, Cottus, and Gyges the three Hecatoncheires (or Centimani), giants each having 50 heads and 100 arms. [Gk. Myth.: Zimmerman, 118]
14. Brontes cruel thunder-maker of the three Cyclopes. [Gk. Myth.: Pan finder, 47; Jobes, 251, 400]
15. cactus cat has thorny hair and ears, knifelike leg bones, and a branched tail. [Am. Folklore: Botkin]
16. Cacus fire-breathing giant monster. [Rom. Myth.: Kravitz, 49]
17. Caliban misshapen “missing link.” [Br. Lit.: The Tempest ]
18. capricornus half goat, half fish. [Gk. Myth.: NCE, 450]
19. Cecrops the traditional founder of Athens was half man, half serpent. [Gk. Myth.: Hamilton, 393]
20. Cerberus three-headed watchdog of Hades. [Gk. Myth.: Avery, 270]
21. Charybdis Poseidon’s daughter; monster of the deep. [Gk. Lit.: Odyssey ; Rom. Lit.: Aeneid ]
22. chimera mythical creature: goat-lion-dragon; vomited flames. [Classical Myth.: LLEI, I: 325]
23. cockatrice half-serpent, half-cock; kills with glance. [Heraldry: Brewer Dictionary, 243]
24. Cyclopes Poseidon’s sons, each with one eye in the center of his forehead. [Gk. Lit.: Odyssey ]
25. divis devils shown as cat-headed men with horns and hooves. [Pers. Myth.: Barber & Riches]
26. Echidna half nymph, half snake; never grew old. [Gk. Myth.: Kravitz, 85]
27. Fenris frightful wolf, grew sinisterly in size and strength. [Scand. Myth.: LLEI, I: 328]
28. Frankenstein’s monster created from parts of corpses. [Br. Lit.: Frankenstein ]
29. Geryon celebrated monster with three united bodies or three heads. [Rom. Lit.: Aeneid ]
30. Gorgons monsters with serpents for hair and brazen claws. [Gk. Myth.: Zimmerman, 114; Gk. Lit.: Iliad ]
31. Grendel giant in human shape; lives in a murky pond. [Br. Lit.: Beowulf ]
32. griffin fabulous animal, part eagle, part lion. [Gk. Myth. and Art: Hall, 143; Ital. Lit.: Purgatory ]
33. harpy foul-smelling creature; half-vulture, half-woman. [Gk. Myth.: Mercatante, 212–213]
34. hippocampus fabulous marine creature; half fish, half horse. [Rom. Myth. and Art: Hall, 154]
35. hippogriff offspring of griffin and mare. [Ital. Lit.: Orlando Furioso ]
36. Hydra seven-headed water snake; ravaged Lerna, near Argos. [Gk. and Rom. Myth.: Hall, 149]
37. Jabberwock frightful burbling monster with flaming eyes. [Br. Lit.: Carroll Through the Looking-Glass ]
38. Kirtimukha the Face of Glory, depicted as a lion’s head, without body or limbs. [Hindu Myth.: Barber & Riches]
39. Kraken giant snakelike sea creature. [Dan. Folklore: Merca tante, 194–195]
40. Ladon dragon who guarded the Apples of the Hesperides. [Gk. Myth.: Zimmerman, 145]
41. Lamia scaly, four-legged, hermaphrodite creature. [Br. Folklore: Briggs, 260–262]
42. Leviathan frighteningly powerful sea serpent. [O.T.: Job 41; Psalms 74:14; 104:26; Isaiah 27:1]
43. Loch Ness monster “Nessie”; sea serpent said to inhabit Loch Ness. [Scot. Folklore: Wallechinsky, 443]
44. Medusa the only mortal Gorgon. [Gk. Myth.: Zimmerman, 161]
45. Midgard serpent monstrous serpent that encircles the earth. [Norse Myth.: Leach, 723]
46. Minotaur beast with bull’s head and man’s body. [Gk. Myth.: Brewer Dictionary, 714]
47. mock turtle turtle with a calf’s head, hooves, and tail. [Br. Lit.: Lewis Carroll Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland ]
48. Naga semi-divine beings with serpent bodies and human heads of terrible and ferocious aspect. [Hindu Myth.: Leach]
49. Nicor Scandinavian sea monster; whence, “Old Nick.” [Br. Folklore: Espy, 44]
50. Nidhogg terrible beast in Nastrond; gnaws ashtree, Yggdrasil. [Norse Myth.: Wheeler, 259]
51. nix or nixie siren-like water-sprite, sometimes fish-tailed, that lured men to drown. [Teutonic Myth.: Barber & Riches]
52. opinicus fabulous amalgam of dragon, camel, and lion. [Heraldry: Brewer Dictionary, 782]
53. Orc monstrous sea creature; devours human beings. [Ital. Lit.: Orlando Furioso ]
54. Orthos two-headed dog; brother of Cerberus. [Gk. Myth.: Zimmerman, 186]
55. python huge serpent which sprang from stagnant waters after the Deluge. [Gk. Myth.: Zimmerman, 227]
56. Questing Beast serpent-headed leopard that emitted loud noises. [Br. Lit.: Malory Le Morte d’Arthur ]
57. roc white bird of enormous size. [Arab. Lit.: Arabian Nights, “Second Voyage of Sindbad the Sailor”]
58. Sagittary half man, half beast with eyes of fire. [Gk. Myth.: Brewer Handbook, 947]
59. Sasquatch giant hairy hominid said to lurk about the Pacific Northwest. [Am. Hist.: Payton, 601]
60. Scylla half beautiful maiden, half hideous dog. [Gk. Lit.: Odyssey ; Rom. Lit.: Metamorphoses ]
61. siren half-woman, half-bird, enticed seamen to their death with song. [Gk. Myth.: Benét, 934]
62. 666 number of the blasphemous beast with seven heads and ten horns. [N.T.: Revelation 13–14]
63. Sphinx head and breasts of a woman, body of a dog, and wings of a bird. [Gk. Myth.: Zimmerman, 246; Gk. Lit.: Oedipus Rex ]
64. Typhoeus hundred-headed beast killed by Jovian thunderbolt. [Gk. Myth.: Brewer Dictionary, 1111]
65. Typhon tallest of the giants; his arms and legs ended in serpents. [Gk. Myth: Benét, 1034]
66. werewolf a man transformed into a wolf. [Eur. Folklore: Benét, 1082]

monsters The meaning of the word ‘monster’ has undergone drastic variations throughout history. The word involves a twofold Latin root — ‘monstrum’, from monere (to warn) or monstrare (to exhibit) — and was in principle the equivalent of the Greek teras, meaning sign or warning. The ‘monsters’ of the classical world were thus those signs, not necessarily of human or animal origin, that were clearly identifiable as such, and teratology, the science that studied those signs, was simply a different form of divination. It must be emphasized that it was precisely because of their unusualness that monsters were defined as being clear and distinguishable warnings.

It is important to take into consideration that during the Middle Ages a distinction was drawn between monstrous individuals and monstrous races or species, and that the members of these particular groups, who were first given a systematic classification by Pliny the Elder (23–79 ad), qualified as ‘monsters’ mainly as a consequence of their unusualness. They were monsters not so much because they were deformed, but because they were rare and extraordinary. From this point of view, a monster was a curiosity, a portent, an unusual sight.

The Renaissance saw the first serious attempt to bring the ambiguous nature of the word ‘monster’ to an end, and to bring the study of teratology within the scope of anatomical investigations. In sixteenth- and seventeenth-century treatises on monsters the senses of ‘monster’ both as a divine or unnatural sign or omen, and as an unusual or curious phenomenon, were seriously challenged. According to Martin Weinrich, a German naturalist who wrote a treatise on monsters at the end of the sixteenth century, not every phenomenon that threatened the natural order could legitimately be called ‘a monster’. Teratology, on the other hand, could no longer be defined as a discourse related primarily to unusual events. It was suggested, by the French surgeon Jean Riolan and the Italian naturalist Ulysses Aldrovandi, that the new teratological science claimed to understand monstrosity exclusively in terms of physical deformity. By defining monsters as natural beings, it became possible to establish a classification of potential deformities based, for the first time, on anatomical criteria. But this new attitude towards the realm of monsters was not without its difficulties. First, seventeenth- and eighteenth-century anatomists, naturalists, and surgeons proposed so many different definitions of the word ‘monster’, on many occasions upon examination of a single and isolated case, that far too often there was no possibility of reaching a consensus about a ‘monstrous’ nature. Second, in order to separate the study of monsters from the popular imagery — still anchored during the Enlightenment in medieval and Renaissance sources — the enlightened teratologist understood that abnormalities had to be established as fact before any further investigation could legitimately take place. This lack of agreement in the definition of the term ‘monster’ helps to explain why the study of physical abnormalities was almost strictly confined to a collection of examples or instances during the eighteenth century. For example, in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society between 1665 and 1780, there were over 100 communications regarding forms of ‘monstrosity’, and the French Academy of Sciences published another 130 papers on the subject between 1699 and 1770.

A transition from the understanding of monsters as beings ‘from outside’ to seeing them as ‘deviations from within’ led in the mid nineteenth century to teratology becoming a modern science, whose main concern was no longer the enquiry into the nature and origins of monsters but the study of major physical abnormalities or malformations in humans or animals. In fact, when the French naturalist Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire published his Traité de Teratologie — the first important milestone in the contemporary history of teratology — in 1832, he explicitly mentioned that this new teratological science should refrain from using the word ‘monster’ to describe its new object of study. From the mid nineteenth century, those who suffered from major or minor physical abnormalities, no matter how serious or unusual their condition, were no longer termed ‘monsters’ in scientific literature. However, many of these, like Siamese twins for example, were still referred to as ‘monsters’ in the ‘freak shows’ and circuses popular during the nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries.

Javier Moscoso

monsters and imaginary beasts The mythologies and legends of ancient and modern cultures teem with an enormous variety of monsters and imaginary beasts. A great number of these are composites of different existing animals and of human beings and animals. Among the animal composites are the Babylonian winged bulls and leopards; the Hindu winged elephants; the Greek three-headed dog Cerberus ; the Western European griffin , with a lion's body and eagle's wings; the dragon , with a winged reptilian body and fiery breath; and the Chimera, with a goat's body, lion's head, and lizard's tail. Examples of human-animal composites abound in Greek mythology; the Triton , with a man's head and torso and a sea-serpent's tail; the Siren , with a woman's head and a bird's body or a woman's head and torso and a fish's tail; the satyr , with a man's head and torso, a ram's horns, legs, and hooves, and a horse's ears and tail; the sphinx , with the body of a lion and a woman's head and bust; and the centaur , with a man's head and torso and a horse's body. Most such creatures represent evil or at least mischievous forces. The restless souls of the living dead are embodied, in ubiquitous legends, by vampires . Equally grisly and widespread is the werewolf legend (see lycanthropy ), in which a man is transformed by night into a wolf that devours human beings. A few imaginary creatures are benign, e.g., the gentle unicorn , a medieval European symbol of chastity and the power of love. The Native North Americans, particularly the Eskimo, who have no epic hero, have created a vast panorama of monsters, ogres, bodiless heads, cannibal mothers, and semihuman beasts. The Zuñi and Pueblo peoples respect many beasts that are considered curers of illness, guardians, and intercessors. Most of these spirits are associated with actual animals. In the folklore of the United States a host of fantastic, impossible "fearsome critters" have been developed. There are the prock, also called the sidehill dodger or the gwinter, an animal with shorter legs on one side that enable it to keep its balance while feeding on steep mountains; the augerino, an underground creature in Colorado that lets the water out of irrigation ditches; and the glitch of the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., that is responsible for general chaos. Legendary monsters and beasts, which appear to be a feature common to all cultures, are the subject of considerable scholarly study.

Bibliography: See S. Thompson, Tales of the North American Indians (1929); R. Barber and A. Riches, A Dictionary of Fabulous Beasts (1972); B. Evslin, Monsters of Mythology (25 vol., 1987–90).

278. Monsters

See also 286. MYTHOLOGY .

dysmorphophobia

an abnormal dread of deformity, usually in others.

monstrosity

1. the state or quality of being monstrous.

2. a monster or monsterlike thing or person. —monstrous , adj.

prodigiosity

1. the state, quality, or phenomenon of being immense, wondrous, or extraordinary.

2. a prodigious thing, person, or event.

teratism

a love of monsters or marvels. Also called teratosis .

teratoid

Biology. resembling a monster.

teratology

1. the writing or collecting of fantasies containing monsters and prodigies.

2. Biology. the scientific study of monstrosities or abnormal formations in plants or animals. —teratologist , n. —teratological , adj.

teratophobia

an abnormal fear of monsters or of giving birth to a monster.

teratosis

teratism.

Monsters

Monsters peer and prowl, roar and ravage in myths and legends the world over. They are the stuff of nightmares, the looming presences outside the comforting circle of firelight, the menacing shapes glimpsed moving through the shadows of trees or in deep water. Monsters are creatures that represent everything that is fearful about the natural world and the darker corners of human nature. Mythological monsters inspire dread and embody evil. They challenge heroes and heroines to prove their worth in order to advance in their quests or simply to survive.

Types and Characteristics of Monsters. Monsters are by definition unnatural, something that should not exist. The word monster comes from the Latin monstrum, meaning a sign of future events. The Romans used the word to refer to bizarrely unusual events—such as a rain of mud or the birth of a two-headed calf—that were believed to show divine displeasure or a troubled future.

The world's mythmakers and storytellers have created hundreds of kinds of monsters, but all share two qualities. First, monsters are not human. Even those that look and act to some extent like people are not fully human. Second, monsters are hostile to people, enemies of the human world.

A monster may be a creature grown unnaturally large and strong. Fenrir, the immense world-devouring wolf of the Norse* gods, was so large that when he opened his mouth his jaws spanned the gulf between earth and sky. According to the Ambundu people of Angola, the hero Sudika-mbambi slew two giant creatures in the underworld: the great serpent Kinioka kia Tumba and the monstrous crocodile Kimbiji kia Malenda.

Many monsters are hybrids, the offspring of unions between deities or demons and animals or people. Hindu myths tell of Bhutas, monstrous beings born of unions between demons and ghosts. They hover over sleeping people and drop disease into their ears. In Chinese myth, Lei Jen Zu was the son of the thunder dragon and the earth. The egg from which he hatched was formed when lightning struck the earth. He started out as a human but then changed into a green-faced dragon with boars' tusks and an anteater's snout.

underworld l and of the dead

deity god or goddess

Monsters may be composites that combine the features of several kinds of beings. The Chimaera of Greek myth, for example, had the head of a lion, the body and legs of a goat, and the tail of a

* See Names and Places at the end of this volume for further information.

snake. Another Greek mythological monster, the Lamia, occurred in various forms, one of which was a mixture of woman, rabid dog, cow, and mule. Even monsters that are not hybrids are generally deformed or hideous. The Flying Head of the Native American Iroquois people is a huge, hungry head with wings of flapping hair, fiery eyes, and knife-blade teeth. Palraiyuk, an Eskimo water monster, has two faces, two spiked tails, and three stomachs. Roman mythology features Cacus, a creature with an enormous spider body and three fire-breathing heads, who hunts at night for anything warm-blooded.

Some monsters combine human and animal qualities. The tengu of Japanese mythology, mysterious and mischievous supernatural creatures, are part human and part bird. Eastern and northern European cultures have legends of werewolves, beings that look like humans but take wolf form when the moon is full. Such shape shifting, or shape changing, is a common feature of monster legends. The Chaga, a Bantu people of Tanzania, have a tale about a young woman who met a handsome man at a village dance. She married him, but after they left her village together, she discovered that he was really a werewolf.

Not all such beings are hostile to people, at least not all the time. For example, the centaurs of Greek myth, creatures half human and half horse, were sometimes warlike and sometimes friendly. Dragons, the fire-breathing serpents of myth and legend, also appear benevolent on occasion, as do giants. The term monster is generally reserved for the destructive and cruel creatures who attack and torment people.

Many mythic monsters prey on human beings. The Aborigines of northern Australia have stories about the Namorodo, skeletons that fly by night. They create more Namorodo by sucking the flesh from living people and turning them into arid skeletons. The vampires of European legend also feed on humans by sucking their blood. The fearsome Minotaur of Greek mythology had to be fed a steady diet of young humans. Grendel, one of the monsters in the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf, preyed on the warriors of Denmark. Native American mythology, too, includes many eaters of human flesh. Among these are the Hantceciitehi or cannibal dwarfs of the Arapaho people, the Dzoavits or cannibal giants of the Shoshone, and dozens of people-eating giants, babies, grandmothers, water monsters, and more.

supernatural related to forces beyond the normal world; magical or miraculous

benevolent desiring good for others

epic long poem about legendary or historical heroes, written in a grand style

Monsters and Myths. The Orokaiva people of the Pacific island of New Guinea have a myth that includes the themes of shape shifting, unnatural union, and cannibalism. A monster named Totoima married a human woman. He was in human form at first, but when his wife had children, he turned into a wild boar and devoured them. His wife got the help of a magician. After Totoima ate his baby son, the magician made the boy grow up at once in the boar's stomach. The son then burst forth, killing the boar. The wife married the magician and fed the boar's meat to her neighbors.

A Native American myth from eastern North America illustrates the hero's role in protecting the community from monsters. Gluskap, a trickster god and hero, created a village where life was perfect—until the spring that provided water dried up. A villager went to investigate and found a huge, grinning monster who had built a dam to hold all the water. Inside the monster's gaping mouth were the many things the monster had devoured, and the man did not like the way the monster was eyeing him. Gluskap saw what was happening and armed himself with a sharp knife made from a flint mountain. He fought the monster and slit its stomach open, causing a mighty river to flow forth. Then he seized the monster, squeezed it small, and tossed it into a swamp. It became no more than a croaking frog.

How to Defeat a Flying Head

Intelligence and good fortune may be more useful than brute force against monsters. In a myth of the Iroquois Indians, a clever woman outwits the Flying Head. Knowing that the Head would see her, she roasted chestnuts in a fire and ate them with obvious enjoyment. The Head thought she was eating stones heated by the fire and decided to share the feast. It flew into her hut and gobbled up the hot stones of the hearth and the entire fire. But the Head could not swallow the fiery stones, because it was only a head with no stomach. It could not spit them out past the barrier of its teeth. It had to hold the hot stones in its mouth until they burned it up.

trickster mischievous figure appearing in various forms in the folktales and mythology of many different peoples

Greek mythology contains a great number of monsters. Heroes such as Odysseus* and Hercules* are frequently pitted against them. Sometimes the outcome depends as much on good luck and sharp wits as on strength. Odysseus, for example, outwitted a one-eyed Cyclops after blinding him. One of Hercules' tasks was to clear the Stymphalian Marshes of the monstrous, man-eating birds that infested them. Hercules tried shooting the birds out of their nests with arrows, but there were far too many of them. When he shook his weapons in frustration, the rattling sound drove the birds into flight. At this, Hercules ran about shaking his weapons and uttering a loud battle cry, and the birds kept flying until they left the human world altogether.

See also Basilisk; Beowulf; Centaurs; Cyclopes; Devils and Demons; Dragons; Fenrir; Furies; Giants; Golem; Gorgons; Griffins; Harpies; Hydra; Leviathan; Loch Ness Monster; Manticore; Minotaur; Nemean Lion; Satyrs; Scylla and Charybdis; Serpents and Snakes; Sphinx; Thunderbird; Trolls; Unicorn; Vampires; Werewolves.

mon·ster / ˈmänstər/ • n. an imaginary creature that is typically large, ugly, and frightening. ∎  an inhumanly cruel or wicked person: he was an unfeeling, treacherous monster. ∎ often humorous a person, typically a child, who is rude or badly behaved: Christopher is only a year old, but already he is a little monster. ∎  a thing or animal that is excessively or dauntingly large: this is a monster of a book, almost 500 pages. ∎  a congenitally malformed or mutant animal or plant. • adj. inf. of an extraordinary and daunting size or extent: outfitted with a monster 120-mm gun.

monster misshapen creature XIII; † prodigy; horribly cruel or savage person; huge object XVI. — (O)F. monstre — L. mōnstrum something marvellous or prodigious, orig. divine portent, f. monēre warn.
So monstrous XV. — OF. or L. monstrosity XVI. — late L.

monster •all-nighter, biter, blighter, fighter, igniter, inciter, indicter, inviter, lighter, mitre (US miter), overnighter, reciter, righter, sighter, smiter, writer •shyster • rhymester • backbiter •expediter • prizefighter • dogfighter •bullfighter • gunfighter • lamplighter •highlighter • downlighter •moonlighter • uplighter • firelighter •screenwriter • scriptwriter •copywriter • signwriter • typewriter •songwriter • ghostwriter •underwriter •blotter, cotta, cottar, dotter, gotta, hotter, jotter, knotter, otter, pelota, plotter, potter, ricotta, rotter, spotter, squatter, terracotta, totter, trotter •crofter •concocter, doctor, proctor •Volta • prompter • wanter •adopter, dioptre •Costa, coster, defroster, foster, Gloucester, impostor, paternoster, roster •lobster, mobster •oxter • monster • songster •witchdoctor • helicopter •teleprompter • globetrotter