By the Gods!

Lamia

Lamia is another character from Greek mythology that ran into trouble when she met up with Zeus. A queen of Libya and daughter of Poseidon, her affair with the king of the gods put her on Hera’s radar as another competitor for Zeus’ affection. Not being the forgiving sort, Hera slew Lamia’s children, driving her insane with grief. Hera also transformed Lamia into a baby-eating monster with the lower body of a snake, or, depending on the source, a half-woman half-cat with snake scales.

Lamia was unable to get the image of her slaughtered children out of her mind, which meant that the sight of other children unbearable for her. Clearly, eating them was the only rational choice. At this point Zeus felt he was maybe at least partially responsible for Lamia’s misfortune, and decided to intervene: instead of restoring her children, her human form, or her sanity, Zeus decided to grant Lamia the ability to remove her own eyes. What a champ of an ex-boyfriend.

Some stories go on to say that Lamia had more crazy monster children afterwards, all sporting the same appearance: top half of a beautiful woman, lower half of a snake. These nightmarish land-mermaids are known as lamias with a lowercase “L” and appear in every good fantasy universe to this day. 

Apep

The eternal enemy of the great sun god Ra, Apep was a terrifying serpent who symbolized chaos and destruction in the Egyptian pantheon. Each day, as the sun god Ra crossed the sky in his boat, Apep would viciously attack the vessel and occasionally, during a total eclipse, he was believed to have swallowed it whole. 

Despite his ferocity, Apep never gained total victory over his enemy. However, at the same time, he himself was never believed to have been finally and completely conquered. The reddening of the sky at dusk was said to demonstrate that Apep had been overcome by Ra’s strength, but not utterly defeated. It’d be unnerving to have a divine god-snake still lurking around with a chip on his shoulder, I say. 

According to one story, Apep was created with Neith, the Great Mother, spat into Nun, the primal, watery chaos. That’s a dirty habit, Neith. In later times, Apep came to be identified with Seth, the rising baddie of the Egyptian pantheon in later days. 

Balor

The Irish Cyclops Balor was a one-eyed god of death, and the most formidable of the Fomorii––you remember them, right? The violent and monstrous sea gods who ruled Ireland before the arrival of the Tuatha De Danann, the “nicer” gods and goddesses. 

So dreadful was the one eye of Balor that he destroyed whoever he looked upon, and his eyelid had to be levered up by four servants. It was prophesied that he would be slain by his own grandson, as is often the case with gods and their inconvenient yet inexorable prophecies. He stowed his daughter Ethlinn in a crystal tower on Tory Island, but a determined young god named Cian made it up to provide her with some bonafide lovin’. 

Balor found out that his daughter had popped out three sons, and ordered them drowned. The servants wrapped the boys up in a sheet, but on the way to the whirlpool, one of the boys fell out, unnoticed. That boy was Lugh, the sun-god-to-be. He was taken to Manannan Mac Lir, the god of the sea, and fostered. Once he was grown, Mac Lir took him to a major battle against the Fomorii. Balor wreaked havoc on the Tuatha De Danann with his lethal gaze, but eventually Lugh crept near him with a magic slingshot, taking advantage of Balor’s weariness in a moment when his eye was closed. As soon as that ugly eyeball opened up again, Lugh fired a shot into it, and it hit so hard that Balor’s eye was blown backward through his head, and all the Fomorii behind him suffered the power of its stare. The Fomorii, in losing this battle, were driven from Ireland forever.

Perseus

Time to roll out yet another son of Zeus (too many to count). Today’s pleasure: the mighty Perseus!  Obviously the bolt-slinger was the father, but the mother of Perseus, Danae (a mortal princess) was a tough prize for old Zeusie to get at. Acrisius, king of Argos and father of Danae, had shut his daughter up in a bronze tower to avoid a prophecy suggesting her son would be his end. If there’s one lesson we should take away from Greek Myth, however, it’s that nothing can stop a horny Zeus. He visited her through a ceiling grate in the form of a golden shower, and knocked her up no problem. When lil’ Perseus popped out, a terrified Acrisius shut mother and son in a wooden chest and cast it on the sea, but the protection of Zeus was enough to bring them safely to Seriphos, where Perseus grew up among fishermen. Good, simple folk.

Once he was a grown-ass man, Perseus was tasked by the local ruler, Polydectes, to fetch the head of the Gorgon Medusa. For those who professed to crave continued life, this was a bad deal. Perseus learned from the Graiae, three old hags, all about Medusa: that she could turn you to stone with her eyes, and that she was an all-around ass-butt, besides. Luckily for P-man, Athena hated Medusa more than most, and offered her assistance. Perseus was hooked up with a cap of invisibility, winged shoes from Hermes, and a bag for the gorgon’s head. Using his shield’s reflection to track her movements, Perseus cut Medusa’s ugly ol’ head off, and put it in the legendary sack. 

The magic head and magic sack were put to good use on his trip home, helping save the beautiful Andromeda from a sea monster, and turning a few jerks to stone who stood in Perseus’ way. He and Andromeda then returned to Danae, gave the magic gear back to Hermes, and got hitched. Poor old Acrisius, still in a constant state of fear-induced-diarrhea, eventually saw the prophecy fulfilled when a disc thrown by Perseus during a competition flew wide and beaned him in the head, killing him. 

Athena placed both Perseus and Andromeda in the sky as constellations after their deaths, in honour of their exploits.

Adlet

The Adlet are blood-sucking creatures based in Inuit mythology. They are also known as Erqigdlit to the peoples of Greenland and Baffin Island. Werewolf-like in appearance, it is said they are the result of a union between an Inuit woman and a giant red dog. I’d be willing to guess that’s one story about Clifford that PBS isn’t going to ever publish.

The woman gave birth to ten fur-covered puppy-kids. Terrified, she set five of them adrift in the sea. According to the myth, these five managed to cross the Arctic and Atlantic and spawned the European races.

The other five became known as the Adlet. They remained with their mother, apparently because she decided she could handle just five little abominations. Instead, they grew into five big abominations that developed a taste for human flesh, fighting, and presumably, causing trouble for their mom by trying to be too damn helpful. The Adlet and their offspring (also called Adlet) now wander the tundra in packs, seeking out Inuit villages to feed on.

The real tragedy here is this whole thing probably could have been averted if the poor little guys had a solid father figure in their lives. Clifford, stay together, for the puppy-kids.

Futakuchi-Onna

The Futakuchi-Onnas originated in Japanese folklore and are two-mouthed women. A futakuchi-onna is a beautiful, skinny woman with a serious scalp condition. Under her hair at the back of her head is a large mouth with a sharp tongue that eats as much as it can find. The woman’s long beautiful hair acts as the mouth’s hands, reaching out for food and positioning itself to cover and hide the mouth whenever company is present. The woman herself does nothing to please the mouth other than lay beside a rice patch or dawdle near the fridge.

The mouth formed on the back of the head is normally connected to how little the woman eats. In many stories, the soon-to-be futakuchi-onna is a wife of a miser, so she rarely eats enough. To counteract this, a second mouth mysteriously appears on the back of the woman’s head. While little food passes through her normal lips, the mouth in the back of her head consumes twice what the other one would. Although these women eat so much unintentionally, they gain no weight. Where does the food go? If you don’t already know, I can’t tell you. (I don’t know.)

The most common story of the Futakuchi-onna goes a little like this: In a small village there lived a stingy miser who, because he could not bear the expense of properly feeding a wife, lived entirely by himself.

One day he met a woman who rarely ate anything, whom he immediately took for his wife. Though she never ate a thing, she was still a surprisingly hard worker. The old miser was thrilled with her, until his stores of rice started to slowly decrease. One day the miser pretended to leave for work, but instead stayed behind to spy on his new wife. To his horror, he saw his wife’s hair part on the back of her head, her skull split wide revealing a gaping mouth. She unbound her hair, which reached out like tentacles to grasp the rice and shovel it into the hungry mouth.

That is the whole story. I feel that we can safely surmise that Mr. Mouth was feeling a tad peckish that day and that the miser couldn’t run fast enough. 

Note: When I say that this story is from “Japanese Mythology,” you might be wondering “well come on: which division of Japanese myth? Shinto? Buddhist? Agricultural folktales?” The correct answer seems to be a melding of the three. Buddhism did not simply override Shinto beliefs when it arrived in Japan, but adapted it, to give Japanese Buddhism its own individual flair. Folktales of this nature aren’t from any particular pantheon or belief set, but generate from the Japanese mythological identity as a whole, with all its subsets and separate communities and histories at play. 

Amphisbaena

The Amphisbaena has its origins in Greek mythology and is a double-headed ant-eating serpent. It has the legs of a chicken and the wings of an eagle. Amphisbaena closely translates to “goes both ways.“ This is the part where we put in a joke. I dunno, maybe one about Lady GaGa or something. Anyway.

The Amphisbaena has one lucky head and one very unlucky head, as they are both on opposite ends. This could lead to problems; say you’re a doctor: which head do you offer the chew tablet and where do you stick the suppository? The Amphisbaena has two sets of glowing yellow eyes and green scales, just as its “mother,” Medusa, had. 

Amphisbaena spawned from Medusa’s blood drippings as Perseus flew over the Libyan desert, carrying the gorgon’s head. Lil’ Amphisbaena grew and flourished, both heads dining on scrumptious ants and the occasional corpse. 

This dual-headed phenomenon is particularly common in snakes and many believed that these creatures had aphrodisiac or healing powers. Pregnant women would pay a pretty penny for a live amphisbaena to wear around their necks to ensure a safe pregnancy, though one would think a snake with two heads would be twice as dangerous/ominous as a snake with one head, especially if when you’re wearing it ‘round the jugular. So remember: if you’re pregnant and you see a snake with two noggins, it’s your lucky day! You’ve just found yourself a new scarf!

Yara-ma-yha-who

The Yara-ma-yha-who hail from from Australian aboriginal mythology and are male sucker-covered vampiric monsters that prey on travelers in the forest. The Yara-ma-yha-who live and await passersby in thick, leafy trees. 

The Yara-ma-yha-who are about four feet tall, have red skin and surprisingly large heads (approximately thrice the size of a human’s) and likely extremely strong neck muscles. These creatures have sucker-shaped toe and finger tips that they use for sucking their prey’s blood. They also use these sticky-fingers for getting a good hold on they’re a-suckin’.

You might be thinking “Yara-ma-yha-who do they think they are?” Well these creatures are more people-friendly than I have thus far suggested. They do drink human blood and swallow their human victim whole after a drink of water and a nap, but later they regurgitate said victim back up. The post-digested may be a tad shorter and may appear redder-skinned after that experience, but they are alive! That’s what really matters. The process of being nearly digested and regurgitated can happen countless times to one person, and every time they get squeezed out they’re shorter and redder. 

If the victim feigns death after being regurgitated, the Yara-ma-yha-who will tickle it to test the legitimacy of its demise, and then watch it from afar, eventually falling asleep from boredom. This is when the victim should/could make a run for it. If the Yara-ma-yha-who suddenly awakes and gives chase, the ex-captive has a good shot at escaping, as the Yara-ma-yha-who has a wobbly way of ambling about, much like a guy after prostate exam… or a penguin. 

Bunyip

For something with an adorable name, this creature from Aboriginal mythology is a terrifying specimen. The Bunyip has appeared in the lore of Aboriginal tribes all over Australia, but the origin of the word “Bunyip” has been traced back to the Wergaia people of the South-Eastern region of the continent.

The Bunyip exists in this mythology somewhere between being a water sprit and a terrifying river-monster. The word itself is usually translated to “devil” or “evil spirit.” The descriptions of the Bunyip’s physical form can vary, though most depictions of the beast show it as an enormous dog-hippopotamus with flippers. Some have described it as a giant, malevolent starfish, and some as a walrus-horse. One thing all the descriptions have in common: it’s big. That, and we’re pretty sure it wants to kill you.

The origins of the Bunyip lie with the aboriginal cultures, though the popularization and drive to hammer down a universally accepted physical description comes from European colonists. When they arrived on the continent, there was a great deal of fauna they didn’t recognize, and some descriptions of the Bunyip sync up with animals we’re now familiar with. One popular belief over the myth of the Bunyip is that it was actually an exaggerated story told about large seals that made their way up major rivers to more inland locations, whose barking and big eyes then scared the bajeezus out of whoever was within earshot of the river. Just in case the Bunyip’s actually a dog-hippo-demon, though, maybe stay out of the water when you go to Australia to “find yourself.”