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Encyclopedia of Beasts and Monsters in Myth, Legend and Folklore
"Here there be dragons"--this notation was often made on ancient maps to indicate the edges of the known world and what lay beyond. Heroes who ventured there were only as great as the beasts they encountered. This encyclopedia contains more than 2,200 monsters of myth and folklore, who both made life difficult for humans and fought by their side. Entries describe the appearance, behavior, and cultural origin of mythic creatures well-known and obscure, collected from traditions around the world.
428 pages, Paperback
Published May 9, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
July 10, 2019
I did not finish this. I simply wanted to scan through this and early on I had my suspicions when reading that the Ababil are from the Quran and the entry even states that they dropped some stuff upon the army sent by the king of Yemen to attack Mecca but the entry also claims them to be from Korean folklore. Did she confuse Korean with Quran?
And the oddities did not stop:
It claimed that Alps always wear white hats!? This is the first time I ever heard of that. Plus, several of the names given are also carried by other creatures in German folklore.
The only German source given for the entry on the Alp is the book Teutonic mythology by the Grimms, so I took this with a grain of salt. Considered that I am searching this for creatures from German mythology, this first entry was not very assuring to me. In fact, I doubted that there would be much German folklore in here.
Shortly after the book claimed that the Aufhocker is a black, vampiric dog that can shapeshift, which it isn't. Aufhocker is more of a category for several creatures which can be dwarves, goblins, ghosts, cattle, dogs etc. And calling it vampiric… that is a stretch. From there on I decided to check this out further and see what it says about other German folklore creatures.
And save to say that it did not get better. That entry on the Beast of Gevaudan is really bad. I got the impression that the author just copied other half-assed books on the topic.
Spelling was also off, as e.g. it is spelled Böxenwolf or maybe Büxenwolf but not Buxenwolf, sure a Buxe is a lower German word for trousers but the spelling here is wrong. Also what she describes is basically a werewolf and while a Böxenwolf can be a werewolf, in many other cases it is just a wolf in trousers and is only a spook for children. But no wonder she gets it wrong as her source is a book on vampires.
Afterwards she claimed that the Chupacabra was first sighted in 1540! Is she serious? BS!!!!! That stuff started in the 1990s in Puerto Rico and not in Mexico.
I had to make sure and so I skipped to a well-known folkloric creature from Germany: the Wolpertinger
I looked on whether she has an entry on the Wolpertinger and according to this, the Wolpertinger, Elwedritsche and Jackalopes are the same thing when they are Bavarian, Palatian and American. And unlike what she claims here the Wolpertinger has no fixed shape !!!! They are made-up chimerical folklore creatures!!!
And at that point I was out!!! This book is not worth mine or anyone's time.
And the oddities did not stop:
It claimed that Alps always wear white hats!? This is the first time I ever heard of that. Plus, several of the names given are also carried by other creatures in German folklore.
The only German source given for the entry on the Alp is the book Teutonic mythology by the Grimms, so I took this with a grain of salt. Considered that I am searching this for creatures from German mythology, this first entry was not very assuring to me. In fact, I doubted that there would be much German folklore in here.
Shortly after the book claimed that the Aufhocker is a black, vampiric dog that can shapeshift, which it isn't. Aufhocker is more of a category for several creatures which can be dwarves, goblins, ghosts, cattle, dogs etc. And calling it vampiric… that is a stretch. From there on I decided to check this out further and see what it says about other German folklore creatures.
And save to say that it did not get better. That entry on the Beast of Gevaudan is really bad. I got the impression that the author just copied other half-assed books on the topic.
Spelling was also off, as e.g. it is spelled Böxenwolf or maybe Büxenwolf but not Buxenwolf, sure a Buxe is a lower German word for trousers but the spelling here is wrong. Also what she describes is basically a werewolf and while a Böxenwolf can be a werewolf, in many other cases it is just a wolf in trousers and is only a spook for children. But no wonder she gets it wrong as her source is a book on vampires.
Afterwards she claimed that the Chupacabra was first sighted in 1540! Is she serious? BS!!!!! That stuff started in the 1990s in Puerto Rico and not in Mexico.
I had to make sure and so I skipped to a well-known folkloric creature from Germany: the Wolpertinger
I looked on whether she has an entry on the Wolpertinger and according to this, the Wolpertinger, Elwedritsche and Jackalopes are the same thing when they are Bavarian, Palatian and American. And unlike what she claims here the Wolpertinger has no fixed shape !!!! They are made-up chimerical folklore creatures!!!
And at that point I was out!!! This book is not worth mine or anyone's time.
July 10, 2019
I did not finish this. I simply wanted to scan through this and early on I had my suspicions when reading that the Ababil are from the Quran and the entry even states that they dropped some stuff upon the army sent by the king of Yemen to attack Mecca but the entry also claims them to be from Korean folklore. Did she confuse Korean with Quran?
And the oddities did not stop:
It claimed that Alps always wear white hats!? This is the first time I ever heard of that. Plus, several of the names given are also carried by other creatures in German folklore.
The only German source given for the entry on the Alp is the book Teutonic mythology by the Grimms, so I took this with a grain of salt. Considered that I am searching this for creatures from German mythology, this first entry was not very assuring to me. In fact, I doubted that there would be much German folklore in here.
Shortly after the book claimed that the Aufhocker is a black, vampiric dog that can shapeshift, which it isn't. Aufhocker is more of a category for several creatures which can be dwarves, goblins, ghosts, cattle, dogs etc. And calling it vampiric… that is a stretch. From there on I decided to check this out further and see what it says about other German folklore creatures.
And save to say that it did not get better. That entry on the Beast of Gevaudan is really bad. I got the impression that the author just copied other half-assed books on the topic.
Spelling was also off, as e.g. it is spelled Böxenwolf or maybe Büxenwolf but not Buxenwolf, sure a Buxe is a lower German word for trousers but the spelling here is wrong. Also what she describes is basically a werewolf and while a Böxenwolf can be a werewolf, in many other cases it is just a wolf in trousers and is only a spook for children. But no wonder she gets it wrong as her source is a book on vampires.
Afterwards she claimed that the Chupacabra was first sighted in 1540! Is she serious? BS!!!!! That stuff started in the 1990s in Puerto Rico and not in Mexico.
I had to make sure and so I skipped to a well-known folkloric creature from Germany: the Wolpertinger
I looked on whether she has an entry on the Wolpertinger and according to this, the Wolpertinger, Elwedritsche and Jackalopes are the same thing when they are Bavarian, Palatian and American. And unlike what she claims here the Wolpertinger has no fixed shape !!!! They are made-up chimerical folklore creatures!!!
And at that point I was out!!! This book is not worth mine or anyone's time.
And the oddities did not stop:
It claimed that Alps always wear white hats!? This is the first time I ever heard of that. Plus, several of the names given are also carried by other creatures in German folklore.
The only German source given for the entry on the Alp is the book Teutonic mythology by the Grimms, so I took this with a grain of salt. Considered that I am searching this for creatures from German mythology, this first entry was not very assuring to me. In fact, I doubted that there would be much German folklore in here.
Shortly after the book claimed that the Aufhocker is a black, vampiric dog that can shapeshift, which it isn't. Aufhocker is more of a category for several creatures which can be dwarves, goblins, ghosts, cattle, dogs etc. And calling it vampiric… that is a stretch. From there on I decided to check this out further and see what it says about other German folklore creatures.
And save to say that it did not get better. That entry on the Beast of Gevaudan is really bad. I got the impression that the author just copied other half-assed books on the topic.
Spelling was also off, as e.g. it is spelled Böxenwolf or maybe Büxenwolf but not Buxenwolf, sure a Buxe is a lower German word for trousers but the spelling here is wrong. Also what she describes is basically a werewolf and while a Böxenwolf can be a werewolf, in many other cases it is just a wolf in trousers and is only a spook for children. But no wonder she gets it wrong as her source is a book on vampires.
Afterwards she claimed that the Chupacabra was first sighted in 1540! Is she serious? BS!!!!! That stuff started in the 1990s in Puerto Rico and not in Mexico.
I had to make sure and so I skipped to a well-known folkloric creature from Germany: the Wolpertinger
I looked on whether she has an entry on the Wolpertinger and according to this, the Wolpertinger, Elwedritsche and Jackalopes are the same thing when they are Bavarian, Palatian and American. And unlike what she claims here the Wolpertinger has no fixed shape !!!! They are made-up chimerical folklore creatures!!!
And at that point I was out!!! This book is not worth mine or anyone's time.
April 3, 2023
Though there are many creatures in this one, it doesn’t include an entry on the aspis (a small, two-legged dragon from medieval European folklore), the farralis (a fire fairy), and some other obscure folklore creatures.
It does have a wide selection and is a good place to start when searching for mythological monsters.
A good addition to any fantasy writer’s shelf.
It does have a wide selection and is a good place to start when searching for mythological monsters.
A good addition to any fantasy writer’s shelf.
January 14, 2019
A thorough resource, although some of the information contradicted what I have read elsewhere. Also, this book focuses heavily on demons and spirits, while I would have liked more discussion of non-spiritual entities. A few illustrations would have been nice, but you can't have everything.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews