Bestiary |
Minotaur
Mínótauros is one of the most famous monsters of Greek mythology. Despite the fact that he didn't live very long, he didn't drive more than thirty people out of the world and didn't even guard the treasures. But so it goes. He became entangled in the stories of two great men of the Mediterranean, Zeus' son Minos and Poseidon's descendant Theseus.
That name, Mínótauros, of course, means Minos' bull, and Mínós, the ruler in Crete, is certainly a more interesting character, whose curriculum vitae and curriculum post mortem will be revealed some other time since his afterlife career in the realm of Hades makes him an adept for membership in our collection. But to the point.
The monster inhabiting the Labyrinth was half man and half bull, and for a simple reason:
Well weigh'd Pasiphae, when she prefer'd
A bull to thee, more brutish than the herd.
is reproached in Ovid's Metamorphoses by a certain Scylla, who is not the monstrous Scylla you can read about here. For Mínós's wife, Pasiphaë did indeed went off the rails with the white bull which the king refused to sacrifice to Poseidon. She solved her lust with the help of the famous engineer Daedalus. He made a wooden cow, covered it with real leather, attached wheels, and dragged the model out to pasture. Pasifaé climbed in, and the bull, grazing nearby, soon did as his instinct commanded.
The result of this union was a man with a bull's head. His real name, as may be seen from the title, was Asterios or Asterion. This name appears several times in the Mínós myth, and while the "bull of Mínós" Mínótauros is a later designation from the time when the affair became public and Asterión was already disposing of victims in the Labyrinth, the "Celestial" or "Star" Asterios represents the bull in its original mythic function, i.e. as the animal of the Moon Goddess.
Daedalus, living in Cretan exile at the time, entered the story a second time when he built the fabled Labyrinth at the request of a cheated husband. Mínós locked Pasiphaë and Asterius in it, while the sacred bull-father went mad in the meantime. He became dangerous, attacking people. Hérákles took him away from Crete and released him on the Argean plain, but things were not much better on the mainland. By the time Theseus destroyed him, the bull had killed hundreds of people, including Minos's son Androgeus.
Which doesn't quite add up.
Androgéos was apparently murdered in Athens at the behest of an ardent fan of the local athletes, King Aigeus of Athens, or the home team wouldn't have won. And this unsportsmanlike behavior upset Minos. He wielded enormous naval power at the time, so it was no problem for him to force his former allies in the Seven against Thebes to make regular sacrifices.
Every nine years the seven Athenian boys and girls would be thrown to Minotaur (suddenly the king found the monster convenient). There is also a variant of nine young men and women after seven years and a version that acknowledges this sacrifice annually, but the former is both more familiar and more mythologically comprehensible.
The ship with the black sail set sail twice before the third draw saw the entry of Theseus, the great hero of Greek myth, now forgotten in the shadow of Heracles and Perseus. Also, two young men, disguised as ladies to make the squad stronger, but there was no need for that.
Thanks to the treachery of Minos' daughter Ariadne and her now-famous ball, Theseus penetrated the center of the Labyrinth and killed Minotaur. With what, there was already controversy at the time. Whether it was the sword, Théseus' fabled club, or just his bare hands, in any case, Asterion left the story, the hero climbed out safely and thumbed the nose at the king.
He took the amorous Ariadne with him, just in case, to forget her - like Iásón Médeia - on the island of Naxos. Though it is said that the god Dionysos claimed her.
The Cretan version of this semi-historical legend does not include Minotaur; according to it, Theseus clashed with the Minos general Tauros, even with the secret permission of the king, because Tauros made Minos cuckold. The Labyrinth was said to be a well-guarded prison. There is a Cyprus story too, and it is downright political.
But if the more realistic versions were to take hold, we would lose one rather interesting monster and therefore this Bestiary entry.
Plate painted by Lydos. Struggle between Theseus and the Minotaur presumably in the presence of Ariadne, 550--540 BC, Yair-haklai, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
18.12. 2024 (13.6.2004)
Krivapeta
A solitary species making its home in caves, ravines, or near mountain streams. A wild woman with long green hair, dressed in white. With feet backward, heel first. Quite a common sign of supernatural forest creatures, and not only Slavic ones. However, it was Slavic settlers who brought Krivapeta to the inhabitants of Italy's Natisone Valley, a region on the border with Slovenia.
A well-known herbalist, able to predict the future. Sometimes dangerous, sometimes willing to advise, especially with the running of the farm (which reveals the true age of this being, in its original form it could have belonged to the Teachers and therefore, since we are in the south of the Slavic settlement, to the Vilas). She sometimes took a reward for her advice - the children she fed on - which brings us to the last phase and the last piece of information, both to the readers here and to the once Natisonian immature: if you think of playing in such dangerous places as valleys with steep slopes, the proximity of treacherous water or caves, beware of her.
Illustration by Samuele Madini, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
13.1.2025 (24.7.2022)
Elementary beings
Already the ancient Romans – oops, the wrong peninsula again – already the ancient Greeks assumed that matter consists of four elements, namely fire, earth, water, and air. They were not alone in this, in distant India it looked similar, the four elements Agni - fire (sometimes replaced by Tejas, heat), Ap - water, Prithvi - earth, Vâyu - air, but sometimes supplemented by ākāsha – space, and vijñāna - consciousness, such a six were then called the primordial elements.
In both these cases, of course, it was a fairly decent philosophical idea, based on the scientific knowledge of the time. Later times, however, brought supernatural beings into the picture. Here are these inhabitants of the elements, mainly from the point of view of the famous medieval physician Paracelsus:
Earth
The spirits of the mountains and the earth are usually called Gnomes. It is believed that this name was coined by Paracelsus. However, as even he admits, we can – and many people do, of course – call them Pygmies. Through what we consider a solid and impenetrable substance (and how impenetrable when one stumbles and the road warmly hugs him!), that is to say, through rocks, they cheerfully pass to and fro, which does not prevent them from building dwellings-sometimes people find them; they are unhigh vaulted rooms with trampled floors. Gnomes can see through the ground and don't need air because they breathe - minerals, of course. What they eat is uncertain, but I know for certain that, like the creatures that follow, they do not drink water, for thirst is only natural to humans.
Gnomes look as you might imagine - two spans tall elves, wealthy, guarding both treasures and deposits of precious metals. They probably have their own economy because they mint coins, but since they like to give them to humans, it won't be too bad with the underground market. They don't like the sun and prefer to flee from it back into the stone.
Paracelsus also tells us that the gnomes and the others dress themselves, which wouldn't be so interesting if he didn't mention the origin of the basic raw material of the local clothing industry:
"For it is possible for God to create not only the sheep which are known to us, but also the same in fire, in water, in the earth.“
In all cases, they must be really interesting animals.
Air
Paracelsus' name for the creatures of the air is Sylphs. But there is no reason not to call them Sylvestri.
They are, in a way, the closest to us because they breathe air. They are also more rude and unkind than other creatures. This is not the sarcastic observation of a wise man, but a characteristic belonging to all beings of the air; while men have not often met with gnomes, and, owing to their philanthropy, have been quite happy to do so, they have always been in contact with airy beings; wind, storm, and hail have taught the peoples of the whole world to be on guard in this case.
Because of their ancient mythological origins, Sylvesters also had many forms, but the one in the illustration is the work of the nineteenth-century painter Edward Fellowes Prynne and is understandably highly romanticized.
Water
Call them what you want, like Undines, Paracelsus says of the water demons. And he writes of Nymphs, a relic of ancient heritage. As in the case of the Sylphs, the influence of the deep past is more than evident.
Although the water beings are of both sexes, most of the legends speak of water ladies, mentioning instances of their marriages to humans, which the Undines (in their desire for their own souls, for this is the only way elemental beings can obtain souls) often enter into. Paracelsus recalls the story of Melusine, as well as a number of similar European legends. The offspring of such a union are of course descended from the father.
According to the author of the Elementary Beings, the Undines include the Sirens and the Sea Monks; there was, as can be seen, an attempt to categorize all supernatural creatures. Therefore, both Slavic Vilas and Rusalki as well as Mediterranean Naiads can be included among the Undines. And, of course, similar creatures from Germany or France.
Even Undines guard treasures. Those in the deep, of course.
Fire
While their amphibious namesakes are found near water, for the mythological Salamanders we must travel to a liquid of a completely different composition. The Salamanders, creatures of fire, live in volcanoes, which is why they are also sometimes called Vulcans. They are long, lean, and thin and breathe fire. Paracelsus considers the Sicilian Etna to be their residence, but it is usually supposed that they live in any fire.
Like the Gnomes, the Salamanders know the hidden present and future, so an intimate friendship with one of these creatures may not be out of the question. Sometimes they give up their monster shape as a fire dragon and may appear in human form. Similarly, the strange lights hopping around the meadow can be identified as them.
Fire is the essence of their bodies; da Vinci remarks that the Salamanders feed on fire, while Pliny, on the other hand, as an authority much older than the gentlemen so far mentioned, informs us that the creature is so cold that their touch will extinguish the fire. This is connected with the synthesis of the lower mythological beings mentioned; in the case of the Salamanders, of course, a similar conversion took place as in the case of Paracelsus' Undines; the Phoenix did not later turn into a fire elemental just for its fame, the salamander group of Paracelsus' time certainly includes Pliny's Pyrota, a winged quadruped living in the Cypriot smelting furnaces. If it leaves the fire and rises into the air, it dies after a while.
Which, in conclusion, adds another creature to our collection.
Sylphs by Edward Arthur Fellowes Prynne (1854-1921) [Public domain]
23.1.2025 (11.7.2004)
