National/Regional folklore

I want to hear what your country has in terms of weird stories of monsters, creatures, legends that people in other places most certainly don't know about, which could be could to integrate in stories or settings.

I'll start with something from my own place :

The "Dahu" or "Dahut" ( it's pronounced [dɑy] in french phonetics)

It's a weird goat looking animal that lives in french and Swiss mountains according to the popular saying. The only difference is that it has a pair of legs shorter than the other.

And not like rabbits frogs or kangaroos, like the right ones shorter than the left ones or the other way around.

This is, according to my grandmother and most old people in small towns, is because of evolution : they only walk on slopes so their legs became shorter with each generation.

This causes two things :

First, those who have right legs shorter can only climb mountains clockwise and vice-versa, or else they would fall.

Second, hunting them is easy. And funny.

You whistle, they turn around to see where it comes from, and they fall down the mountain.

Yeah my country's got pretty stupid folklore.

I'm gonna dig deeper in my childhood memories for other stories for you, don't hesistate to contribute with your own.

Other urls found in this thread:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidehill_gouger
twitter.com/SFWRedditVideos

The second one I found is of

"Camba Crusa" or "Came-cruse", which litteraly means raw leg

It is a severed leg, often described as still pouring blood from time to time, with an eye on its knee, that jumps around and eats those fool enough to be outside after dark near a cemetery.

Drawings often add details like this one with bat wings, but the only consistent things in the tales are the leg and the open eye.

The third one from France

The "Ankou" [ɑ̃ku]

It's the French version of the Reaper, which is kind of different though because there was, according to the legend, one Ankou for each region, even each church.

In fact, it was the last person to die on one year that became the Ankou for the next year. he is described as a tall, slim man with long white hair and a smile that extended from one ear to another. He does not have eyes but in his orbits there are two lit candles. He often wears old clothes and pants rolled up to his knees like farmers, and has a large hat on his head to hide his terrifying features.

He carries wether a sort of blessed hammer or a scythe which has the sharp-cutting edge on the outside of the blade instead of inside like farmers.

He is seen and/or heard pulling a cart full of dead bodies only when someone is about to die, and it is said that ones who see the Ankou will die during the year.

The Wolpertinger is a rabbit with parts of different animals, usually antlers, duck wings and fangs but everything goes.
It shows up in bavarian folklore, but only after 15 beer.

And the last one for now, one that was always really fun for me

The Tarasque.

Yeah that really stupid looking picture is a Tarasque. Not the terrifying creature in D&D which can destroy the world and is so bloody hard to kill. This.

This, to clarify, is a sort of dragon that lived in swamps near a castle called Tarascon and was pissed because the castle was built on the rock it used to rest on at night.

It is slightly bigger than a horse, has six legs, a tortoise's shell with spikes, a scorpion's tail and its head is described as "like a lion with horse ears and an old's man face on it". It is said to stink from really far away and it drags people into its swap to kill them.

And it looks fucking ridiculous.

In Spain we have quite a lot of perv faes. They are normally asociated more with girls than with boys tough.
For example the Tentirujo from Northern Spain. This kind of Duende/Trasgo (equivalent to Brownies or Goblins in Anglo-land) is short, with brownish or greenish skin, with a beret with an erect steam and wears bright red robes. He turns invisible using a young mandragora than he carries with him, and amuse himself uh, touching young lassies in they pudic parts. That's his mission in the world. Turn quiet and respectable girls in boisterous ones. People asociated them with Masabaques, a lust demon. So when your basic girl turned into a more sluty one people said "¡Esa ya tropezó con el Tentirujo!".

Nz ones based on rough memories from school
- taniwha which is a big sort of malevolent genus loci thing, they tend to hang out near water and carvings portray them as serpentine with four legs and a human-like face.
- some sort of forest spirit who were basically little olive-skinned gingers, i don't remember if they do much
- various sentient mountains that fight over pretty girl mountains and then blow up to express irritation.
These're all maori so i'm garbling them on account of being taught this stuff 20 tears ago and being a honky to boot, but thats what i remember.
Oh and maui is loki with a tan.

>and eats those fool enough to be outside after dark near a cemetery.
How?

That's a really good question user, and actually there is no real explanation. Some versions of came-cruse have mouths but most don't. So I don't know.

That's cool I don't hear about maori legends often. and I like their version of volcanos.

Is that the kind of animal you make city dweller hunt uh? We call them Gamusinos.

>animal whose left or right legs are longer and so can only go clockwise or counterclockwise around a mountain

That's exactly like the wild haggis of Scotland

Bunyips, they're not easily describable other than they hang out around watering holes.

Then Tiddalick, he is the frog that holds all the water from the desert, only to laugh it all out when the other animals try to make him laugh.

The rainbow serpent who made the lands.

Then theres like Drop Bears, carnivorous koalas in trees that drop onto you. Hoop Snakes that make themselves into wheels to chase youu down.

The strange more recent lore of an intelligent creature that stalks a well known route for truckies and takes them to their den to take their legs and eat the rest.

Dreamtime is very similar to TES lore of wierdness. I do have a book on Aboriginal Lore with me, but... its 2 AM.

>wild haggis

I didn't know that this magnificent creature was found alive in the wild. Does it have legs at all or does it roll on its sheep-stomach body ?

You cut the legs off before you eat it, silly. Its legs are the reason why the Clockwise Haggis and the Counterclockwise Haggis are separate subspecies. Because a haggis has to get behind another haggis to mate, and if a clockwise haggis tries to turn around and mount a counterclockwise haggis, he rolls off the mountain.

huh they say the same about Dahuts around here. But I think they wouldn't taste so good once cooked.

Bump
I think these are icelandic or other scandinavian folk outfits

Also if that counts, when I was in Australia, the locals tried to make me believe that there was such a thing as Drop-Bears, which they described to me as sociopathic murderous versions of koalas that let themselves drop from trees on passerbys and ripped their throats apart before dying themselves.

And another funky outfit

Bulgarian kukeri.

Ancient Finns.

Icelandic Yule lads.

>which they described to me as sociopathic murderous versions of koalas

And that differs from a regular koala how exactly?

Dropbears don't deserve to go extinct.

They made it abundantly clear that they were MUCH MORE sociopathic and murderous

Moral of the story: lock up the larder properly, and do the dishes already!

In China 年獸 (nián shòu) was a monster who was scared away by loud noises and the color red. That's why on Chinese New Years you wear red clothes and set off firecrackers.

Is new years when he turns up? Are you safe otherwise?

I'm pretty sure, yes. My mom just said that in the old times he would attack people, and then people learned to scare him away.

The huldra.

A really hot lady that lures you into the woods with the promise of funtimes, then shows you her back, which is said to show her insides being empty and look like rotten bark and then it becomes fuzzy on how, but you die. Some say she can control nature and got animals to kill you others say they are actually really ferocious.

Crazy, crazy scandies.

The Fougre

it's kind of a small vulture-like dragon that eats sheep

I heard how their backs were covered in bark or their skin was bark if seen from the right angle.

They would lure you deeper and deeper into the forest then hide and watch you get lost and die. Because they found bit fun to watch.

I have a shit-ton of those, even made some drawings. I live in a place in south america that is all desert and mountains, with jungles in the north and glaciers in the south and there are still some natives around and small towns in the middle of nowhere with tales of witchcraft and shit.

>Zupay
He's the lord of secrets, he holds all the forbidden knowledge. There is a cavern near my town (its actually a huge cave system) where witches gather every thuesday night to perform unholy rituals on his name and where people goes to learn witchcraft. He oversees the ceremonies there and choses the ones worthy to learn the secrets he guards and be trabsformed by them. When the conquistadores came they feared the place and the ancient gods and witches that gather there and they added their christian beliefs to the myth, and linked zupay with the devil, even saying that the cave is a gate to hell, but zupay is a much older god from a more ancient time.

Im on my phone so its a pain in the ass to writhe, so anyone interested on more?

Local Bogeyman from the Doubs, to incite children not to lean out on the windows:
The grapner is an old man in burlap robes, that will sink big rusty hooks into your eyes and pull to make you fall if you lean out too much.

That's the most violent and unsubtle bogeyman I've encountered yet. The idea that a crazy hobo hiding under windows to ambush you with butcher's hooks seems to be a bit of an overkill.

IIRC the two kinds of dahut are called dextre/senestre or dextrochere/senestrochere.

Kek i hope those are real

You draw very well.

And yes, I'm interested.

Ijiraq

It's some kind of weird moose/human dude that kidnap inuit kids. Pretty goffy.

I think the Mohawk had a weird flying skull too. Can't remember the name.
Then there's always the wendigo, wich depending on the native tribe, can be trully terrifying.

Another one as i wait on the mail office

>Cachiru

he is like a great owl that flies in the night on the mountains (i mean huge, like a plane), the indians always close their eyes and cover their ears when they see his shadow or hear his wings because anyone that sees him dies instantly, and anyone that hears his voice go mad, also in their tradition he brings disaster wherever he goes (earthquakes, great storms and shit)

Thanks mate, i like drawing mythical things

Also

Here are few Czech ones.

>Polednice.
Polednice has been made pretty notorious by the Witcher series translated as the "Noonwright". However, the local folklore version is quite different from the undead spirit of a bride in that game.

Polednice here is more of a natural phenomena: not an undead spirit, but more of a physical manifestation of heatstroke. They are said to appear in fields at on hot sunny days around noon, preying on lone lonely farmers. They are supposed to be very tall (taller than an average man by significant margin), wear dirty beggars clothes and a hood over their faces: their face looks like that of a very old human with dried, grey parchment like skin.
The polednice's "function" seems to be to maintain literacy of the farmer populace, as when they approach humans, they will grab them by the hand (with a very strong grip) and proceed to quiz them about various trivial knowledge about farming and basic household management. If it's satisfied with the answers, it will let the human go. However, should the farmer prove himself ignorant and poorly educated, the polednice will strangle him to death.

>Jezinka
Jezinka is another popular creature, mostly from children tales. Jezinka's are supposedly woodland creatures, in appearance similar to ugly, olive-skin colored women with ginger hair. They live in damp caves in deep forests and sometimes wear clothes made of moss.
Jezinka's are said to be particularly fond of children, and tend to often kidnap them if they are unsupervised in the forest. They seem to admire them and want to play with them. The problem is that they don't really know how to care for them and have a very short temper: when - inevitably, the child stops being cute and starts to be whinny, the Jezinka will lose patience and usually kill the child eventually.

Yes I want more, and holy shit please post more of your art.

Reminds me a bit of good old mothman.

Dont know the tale of mothman, care to tell it?

OP here I like your stories and I loove you art style please post more if you can

As I said, differs region to region.
Some say it got a fox tail, some say it got a troll tail hidden away.

The smith of Bielefeld is a peculiar story. It tells of a smith that became one of the best smith that history ever saw, but nevertheless wanted to know more and more secrets about smithing so he made a contract with the devil to make him the most legendary gear creator ever known. He became so famous that even St. Peter, when on a mission from the holy spirit down on earth, heard of him and asked him to make new horseshoes for his earthly horse. The smith refused to take money from a saint and instead asked him to bless the wallet he stored his gold and silver in. The saint did and left on his mission.

Years later, when the devil came to collect the smith soul, he tried to come in through an eye hole in the front door as a thread of mist because the smith refused to open up. The smith however anticipated this and pressed his empty wallet against the hole. The wallet was able to trap the devil inside because it was blessed by a saint. He then took his mighty smithing hammer that he created with his forbidden lore and it was powerfull enaugh to even deform the devil inside the purse and after a few good hourse of working the devil accepted a new deal to never take his soul.

When he died, however, he was refused by St. Peter at heavens gate because he had sold his soul to the devil and sent him to hell. The devil however did not want him either, bound by his contract to not take the smith' soul and wanted to leave him in eternal limbo. The smith however climbed back to heavens gate and when St. Peter let in the virgin nun in front of him, he threw his mantle inside the gates and pretended the wind blew it there and chased after it.Then he sat on his coat and refused to move like a stubborn child when St. Peter used his powers to stop him from going in further. Remebering the smith' niceness and his kindness to the poor, St. Peter left the stubborn Smith sitting on his black cape in the entrance way to heaven so he wouldn't have to go to limbo.

Thanks mate

>The chiqi
This one is my favourite of the local gods, its like a lovecraftian horror, its god the atmosphere and all the events that depends on it (with that i mean it has power over almost everything) he also had power over mens emotions and over disease (or health), it doesnt have a shape or a gender as we understand it and lives outside of our world. When the spanish came they where horrified by this god's cult and when they had conquered the land they did everything in their power to force the people to forget it even existed.

Each year the indians gathered at the "tacun" a huge and very ancient tree (that is still standing) for a whole week to worship and make offerings to this being (because it was above the gods themselves) they danced, sang and had ritual combats on it's honour. They lit fires around the tree and made hundreds of sacrifices, human and animal alike that where left hanging from the tree for days while their blood fell to the earth like rain. After seven days of rituals a great storm would come and "the god" would materialize as a formless figure in the sky and would take some of his worshippers with it. Then the festival ends

Forgot pic
Thanks mate, i really appreciate it

Failed again

America has a similar critter

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidehill_gouger

Those indians where metal as fuck

Here in Catalonia we have "El Peladits", translated as finger skinner. Basically it's a tall (2 meters or so) humanoid creature with dog-like face that comes at night to skin the children that are not asleep, and it starts doing it by the fingers, slowly peeling away every inch of skin.

shet that's awesome
and that's a really cool story

In "History of the Nordic People" by Olaus Magnus, it is said that Squirrels are very smart and think ahead since they prepare for the winter. Because of this, wizards use their teeth to see the future.

dafuq are those

kek those are awesome, imagine having all of them making mischief at your farm (except the children stealing one)

you won't say it looks ridiculous when it drags you to his swamp

There's a lot of Local Legends from parts of Southern India where my family lives.

I've told the story on Veeky Forums of how I ran into a "Black Magic" practitioner once who cursed me and my sister. He was run out of town later and my uncles burned down his shrine/house.

wot. Do tell

Any creature other than an old man is made more horrific and miserable if you just give it an old man's face.
Imagine this but gigantic, surrounded by a putrid odor, and driven by hatred. It probably wouldn't even particularly enjoy human flesh but eat it out of spite.

this, some monsters might look stupid in old drawings and statues but they would be fucking terrifying if they where real

The huldra, or skogsrået is a form of forest spirit in Scandinavian folklore. Its appearance and behavior varies depending on where the story is told. The huldra I will tell you of is the swedish one.

It has the appearance of a beautiful woman. Its back does however betray it; its like a hollow log, and its back is a gaping hole.

It will try to lure men and children to follow her with promises just as hollow as her. She will then lead them into the woods and turn them into trees.

It's only called huldra in Norway, right? It's always referred to as skogsrået where I'm from.

Also, I think "skogsrå" might refer to several different kinds of forest creatures, but I'm not entirely sure and it's definitely not the way the word is used nowadays.

I think that several people saw what looked like a hybrid between a human and a moth in relatively recent history, until a bridge or something collapsed near the sightings. It wasn't seen again afterwards. Some people think it either caused the accident, or tried to warn us.