I haven't done this in more than a year so it's time !
Maybe you know some myths and legends that come from your country or your particular town that you want to share as good inspiration. Maybe you know myths and legends that come from anywhere in the world that are not too well-known and wish to share as well Maybe you have some art of strange, unusual creatures that come from such myths Maybe you're looking for things to include in a geographically specific setting
In any of those cases, you're in the right place and feel free to post, ask, share, tell and have fun !
I will start by talking about pic related in my next post to get this thing going
So, in case you don't know, the Tarasque (no, not the one from DnD) is a French monster. More precisely, it was said to live in Provence (Southern France). It is describded as a "sort of" dragon with a lion's head, six short legs like a bear's, an ox-like body covered with a turtle shell, and a scaly tail that ended in a scorpion's sting (descriptions may vary but this is the most consistent one). It reportedly lived near a castle (the Chateau Tarascon, named after the beast) and ate everyone who crossed its path. Warriors tried to kill it but none of them succeeded, until Saint Martha came and tamed it with chants and prayers. She brought it back to the nearest town and the people, stricken by the beast's appearance, attacked it and killed it on the spot. Saint Martha shamed them for killing the tamed beast that wasn't going to hurt them and the people prayed for forgiveness, also naming their town Tarascon.
As of today, the Tarasque is celebrated in Tarascon every year with a festival (which has existed since 1469)
So I used to live in this small town in North Carolina called Statesville. Fairly old place, grew out of colonies from Britain founded in the 1700s. Not a lot of myth, but there are three popular ghost stories about places in the town. I’ll share them with you as I was told them, I can’t really attest to their historical accuracy.
Story 1: The Courthouse Ghost Statesville’s courthouse is one of the oldest structures in town. It serves as the county courthouse and was built around 1899. Big old style building with a weird square dome and columns, built out of stone and brick. It’s said that late at night you can sometimes hear screams, banging, and scraping coming from inside the walls. This is the ghost of a construction worker who died during the building of the courthouse. He was a brick layer, and that’s hard work under the hot Southern sun. He decided one day to take a nap while on the job, but fearing his boss he hid inside a half-finished wall to sleep. He hid so well, his coworkers didn’t see him and bricked him into the wall Cask of Amontillado style. He died of suffocation, and his body was only discovered after he began to rot and the smell was noticed.
Xavier Sanders
Story 2: The Bostian Bridge This one is unique in that I actually can verify that the non-supernatural parts of it did indeed happen. The Bostian Bridge is just an old brick train bridge, not particularly beautiful or impressive. A road passes under it and I used to drive under fairly often. However, the bridge is the site of a very deadly passenger train crash on August 27, 1891. 23 people were killed when the train derailed off the bridge, making it one of the deadliest railroad accidents in North Carolina’s history. It’s said that if you go to the bridge at midnight on the anniversary of the crash, you will see an image of the crash, faint but there, complete with the dying screams of the passengers and the screech of twisting metal. The aparition I never witnessed myself, but I have spoken to people who claim it to be very real.
Alright this one is not from my country, it's from scandinavian folklore : the Hulder (or Huldra) Also those drawings with regional creatures are great, I'll post them all later
The Hulder is a seductive beast, humanoid and usually female. They have normal looking bodies except for a cow's tail or a fox's tail and a large hole in her back, usually described as rotting disgusting flesh. They will try to seduce human men, often because of honest love and desire, but if the man discovers her secret (Hulder is the word for 'secret', by the way), by seeing her tail or the hole in her back, she will lash out at him, often killing him. If she is treated with kindness, she will bring luck and joy to her husband. One of the ways said to rob her of her magic and make her human is to cut of her tail, but it depends on versions of the tales.
Story 3: The Vance Hotel In downtown Statesville, you’ll see a lot of old buildings. Kind of a window into the past of America, but it’s mostly crumbling. One of the most well preserved buildings is the Vance Hotel, a grand old building that echoes the former glory of the Roaring 20s. Or at least, a small Southern town’s attempt at capturing the glory of those days despite being a backwater. It used to be host to lavish parties and dandies with a bit of money playing at being rich folk. Ballroom, smoking lounge, bar, pool, all the trappings of high society. The hotel went out of business decades ago, and now the city owns it. Left to rot, it hasn’t seen much action since then. But it is said that it’s halls are haunted by the spirit of a small girl, particularly around the empty pool. A child of a rich man, she wears a large and frilly dress that was her undoing. See, all that fabric soaks up a lot of water when you accidentally fall into a pool. Too weak to stay afloat with all that weight, she sank to the bottom and drowned before anyone noticed her absence. It’s said you can still see her walking the halls in her sopping wet dress at night.
Evan Martinez
Here's a myth from northern swedish folklore that has it's origin in Asatro but has been hijacked by early swedish Christianity.
Jättekast Big solitary rocks far away from anywhere they could have come from*. It was believed that giants and trolls up in the mountains had thrown the rocks trying to hit the churches, as the sound of churchbells hurt them and drove them insane. Also called Trollsten or Jätteslunga
*In reality these rocks are glacial erratics that dropped from glacier-ice as it was moving southwards
aren't there similar folktales/variants of this? I remember an user telling of a beautiful forest woman with a hole in her back, but her insides were all wood and moss, like a dryad of sorts
Blake Peterson
Sure.
The Macedonian tolosum is your classic vampire except with a minor(?) difference; he can shapeshift into pretty much every animal, not just a wolf or a bat. An unconventional way of defeating him is to convince him to turn into a pig, then slaughtering him and getting tasty, tasty bacon.
Ethan Ross
Yes, there are always a lot of versions, especially for this one which is told differently across Norway, Finland, Denmark etc...
Owen Martinez
Love these, thanks !
Jackson Price
The Selkies are mythological creatures found in Irish, Scottish, Faroese, and Icelandic folklore. Selkies are said to live as seals in the sea but shed their skin to become human on land. They're said to be beautiful, frail, fearful creatures The stories frequently revolve around female selkies being coerced into relationships with humans by someone stealing and hiding their sealskin, sometimes in order to marry them, often not regaining the skin until years later upon which they commonly return to the sea, forsaking their human family.
>literally having sex with a seal Do these people not have prostitutes or something? Like hell, I've had bards that would fuck a seal given half a chance, but not go through the work of hiding its skin to do it.
From the Orkney Islands we get the Nucklevee, a fey harbinger of waterborne disease. Appearing as a skinless horse with the rider fused to its back, the beast is a grotesque sight with arms that hang to the ground and yellow bile pulsing through blackened veins. Depending on who you ask either both heads have only a single eye or the creature only has one eye and the head that gets it varies. Foul breath brings plague to all, and some tales claim it has flippers in place of legs. Only fresh water can drive off this sea dwelling horror.
At home in the woods and hills around the northern alps. (I don't actually know if Italians have them too) He is made of several animal parts seemingly at random. The name probably derives in some way from the Walpurgisnacht since an animal like this can only be the work of the devil. It isn't particular dangerous though since it only prays on smaller animals and critters and is very shy.
Capelobo is from brazilian folklore. There are variants, but I like the humanoid version which eats kittens and puppies, screeches so you know it's coming, has claws which open skulls and an anteater's head which sucks your brains.
Frail and fearful depends on the story but certainly they are seen as generally not dangerous, and most of the stories it's the human being a dick and tricking the Selkie.
Meanwhile Kelpies are the fuckers you need to watch out for. Mostly said to take the form of a horse with wet/dripping mane, if you ride one you get stuck to it and it'll jump into the water drown and eat you leaving any remains on the shore. There are a fair few mentions of them being able to take human form though.
Nicholas Jenkins
I come from a small village in France called Crest-Voland, litterally "flying rock"
The name comes from a popular french legend, the giant Gargantua (son of Pantagruel) from Rabelai's eponymous books. It is said that he crossed the mountains of the Aravis and got tired of climbing, so he basically kicked the shit out of the mountain, dislodging a rock. The hole left is called le col des Aravis (Aravis pass) and the rock that flew landed on the opposing mountain and is called la Pierra Menta. The village is on the mountain between those two and is litterally called flying rock. Always thought that was a pretty fucking badass story.
Easton Clark
That's a jackalope, user
Jordan Roberts
A popular legend is also the Dahu, a mythical creature supposed to look like a goat with the specificity that his legs are shorter on one side. A popular methodto hunt him is to pass behind him and imitate a goat so that he turns around and falls.
Looks like you crossbred a sidehill gouger with a goat.
Bentley Howard
>Selkies want to live like humans >If a human took their sealskin they do everything to go back to the sea even if they had kids with said human Stupid seals
Cooper Miller
>the humanoid version which eats kittens and puppies
Whelp, that fucker MUST DIE! This is why humanity developed (or stole) fire.
There are near infinite local varieties about the Huldra, or Skogsrå or just Rå to the point where I don't know if there can be said to truly be a definitive version (often the case Scandinavian folklore or just folklore in general).
I think it was during my second or third year in school that we got to read and learn about local folklore and mythology because at least at the time that was part of the curriculum in Sweden (it probably still is, but I can't say for certain as I have no kids). What we were taught about Norse myth was pretty much just an abridged version of Snorri's Edda and thus fairly consistent all things considered.
When we got to the folklore though. Wew. Little 9-year old me couldn't wrap his tiny ass head around it and neither could his teachers presumably considering the confused tone in their voice as they explained the stories to us. One of the stories about the Huldra we got was the one you wrote down. In another she just finds two sleeping woodcutters and can't understand why one of them is taller than the other and so cuts off the taller one's head to make them equal in height. The text then said that both of them ran away, so I assume she never got around to doing anything to them. The same story also said something along the lines of, she'll kill you if she realizes that you're awake but you'll be fine as long as she thinks you are sleeping which seems to directly contradict that she was about to cut off the head of a sleeping man? I still don't know, honestly.
Anthony Hall
yeah I remember it too ! My grandfather told me stories about it. I think there were two species of dahu : the ones who had long legs on the right an the ones who had the long legs on the left. Cause, since they can only walk on mountains in one direction (clockwise or counter-clockwise) to avoid falling, they can't mate with the ones that don't walk in the other direction, without falling to their death.
Evan Gutierrez
That's what I love about myths and legends : there are so many variations you can use.
Sebastian Cooper
The Penanggalan next ! Fun fun fun Found mostly in Southeast Asia, the Penanggalan is a... Variation, of sorts, of the western vampire. They are not undead per se : they are women who were cursed or obtained incredible beauty through dark, demonic magic. This leads her to become a blood sucking monster, but only during the night. During the day, she's a perfectly normal person... But when the night comes, her head detaches from her body, taking all of her organs with it. She flies around like that, looking for someone to feed on, usually young mothers or babies. She waits on the roof of the house of expecting mothers and when the child is born, she extends an invisible tongue to suck out the blood of her victim. Anyone she drinks from, even if she didn't drink all of their blood, will suffer an incurable disease and die a few days later.
A way to protect yourself from a Penanggalan is to tie vines with pricks to your windows so that, if she enters the room, she will hurts her organs on it and get trapped. It's also said that they can ooze from under the floor, so when a mother is excpecting, the family plants pineapples under it so the thorny leaves can trap her there too.
One of the way to get rid of a Penanggalan is to find her body and fill her neck cavity with broken glass so that she severs her own organs when trying to reattach herself.
As I recall the novel of 13th Warrior mentioned seductive women with false backs, which I assume is related. It was somewhat inverted in that you wanted to touch their backs to confirm they were human, though.
>Do these people not have prostitutes or something? I assume it's an ancient form of Oh God So Lonely GF From Sky Pls.
Christian Cruz
does anyone have good folklore or creatures I could use in Africa ? More precisely somewhere like Ethiopia or Kenya ? I'm running a Cthulhu game set during the colonization era and my group is leaving for Africa soon.
Kevin Lee
I've heard of those particular ones called a "wood wife". The tales I've heard of them are mostly, "seduce men into having sex with them and then eat them" though occasionally the man is kind and a good talker and she grants him a boon or becomes his loyal wife. Assuming she has more than "animal cunning" and isn't more plant than person, that is.
Mermaid rocks up and causes locals minor inconveniences. They catch her, she sings to them, and they're charmed and politely let her go. She thanks them by serenading them on the riverbanks every night. Everyone's happy. Rich bastard hears of her and decides to snag her. She's captured and locked away. Locals break her out. She says, "OK, obvs can't stay here and sing like I was, but I'll take up my sword and shield and protect you henceforth."
I believe at least one version of the Huldra myth says that if you point out her non-human features she'll become so embarrassed that she runs away, leaving you unharmed.
Anthony Perez
>>it drops out of trees and beats you to death so, a normal cat then?
Sebastian Butler
One of my favorite Japanese stories is that of "Utsuro Bune". The most information I've ever found of it is this article: hyakumonogatari.com/2014/06/09/utsuro-bune-the-hollow-ship/ (Website great if you want to dig up on Japanese legends/yokai. I could post several really cool articles from here - but I'll just post this one.)
tl;dr version: Once upon a time, a strange vessel washes ashore in Japan. A beautiful woman with unusual features opens the hatch of this hollow ship and climbs out, carrying a box. She doesn't speak the local language, won't let them have the box she holds, and seems distressed.
Confused and frightened, the locals force her back into her ship and push her back out to sea.
Some time later, the strange vessel and the distressed woman with the box wash up on another shore. Wax, rinse, repeat several times until she's never heard from again.
Tl;dr: In Danish folklore, if a raven eats the bodies of the slain on a battlefield, it becomes the first form of the monster. If it can eat the entire heart of a child, it can turn into either (a) a knight, or (b) a raven/wolf hybrid creature.
Do you know of another alien waifu that wasn't born from anime? I mean, unless we're talking moon fairies - I'm aware of those!
That is great I'm definitely going to steal it for my games If anyone has other tales of ancient UFOs I'll gladly take them
Elijah Scott
that bamboo waifu. kaguya hime
Joshua Green
I was actually thinking of her when I was thinking moon fairies! But now that you point it out, I do remember distinctly that her story seems different from the usual moon fairy story. Nothing about, "oh no, the sash that lets me fly back to the moon has been stolen, I guess I have to stay and be your wife!" and all about, "So, yo.... I'm going back to my space house, so don't get too attached to me."
Caleb Ramirez
The animated film was beautiful though
Luis Carter
in northern Italy we have the Bes Gatobe (snake cat in the local dialect) a monster that can charm with his glance and the Gigiat, a goat-like creature.
I love tales of phantom vehicles. They're really fucking weird and they're also uncommon.
One of the ones with the most information about it is Silverpilen - an unpainted train in Stockholm. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silverpilen
Depending on your setting, it may be difficult to make a fantasy story that involves trains and haunted train stations. (But not necessarily impossible. Dwarves or gnomes may be involved, perhaps?)
I know there are lots of Japanese haunted train stories to draw from too.
There was a whole story arc from the anime Mononoke that involved a haunted train. (I think it was the finale story arc. Since each story arc is kind of its own thing, you could technically watch just that, but it's better to have watched the whole series to get full impact.
There was the ghost train in Spirited Away. An anime series that involved bish boys on a weird train. A short student project video game that involved a train ride (youtube.com/watch?v=L69Z0_nlGd4). Hell, even the urban legend Teke-Teke en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teke_Teke comes from trains.
So lots of material to draw from if anyone wants to use it.
>I've never heard of selkies being frail or fearful. Selkies in most stories almost never wish to do any harm, and female selkies often have something of a reputation of being exceptionally kind and obedient wives, which is why the story of a male tricking Selkie by stealing her coat into being his wife is such a popular motive. Though there are some stories in reverse - I remember one modern interpretation of an older song involving love between a male selkie and human girl - in this particular version the male selkie would be dead if he stayed on surface for more than past midnight of a single day.
They don't want to live like humans. Sometimes they get curious and what to see humans, but they don't usually want to stay with them forever. Very frequently, the tales actually mention that the selkie has a family of her own underwater, and thus being captured by humans causes her a lot of pain, being separated from her husband and children.
Also quite a lot of the stories mention that while a selkie that regains her coat is pretty much guaranteed to never show herself to the man who tricked her, she does frequently keep in contact with her children in secrecy. Another addition to the "Selkies are kind and loving" aspect of the myth.
Brandon Diaz
There's a film about these, Mystics in/of Bali. Redlettermedia covered it, it looked fucking crazy. The witches turned into snakes, ate mice and spent the day vomiting Skeletons and hair, they turned into pigs too. And at one point, like you said, her head detached with her organs attached, flew through a window and sucked a baby out of a pregnant woman.
Jeremiah Gutierrez
>sucked a baby out of a pregnant woman. sounds like a good plot for a porn movie
Jace Morales
Nigga that's just a deformed goat Like is there anything magic about it? After it falls over, does it give you a wish if you stand it up again? I mean one of the few Irish legends that doesn't have international popularity is the Fear Gorta, who is a spirit that walked the land during the famine, and supposedly resembled... a starving irish beggar. If you give him food, you will be blessed with good luck. If you don't, he shanks you.
These creatures somehow made it into Jap folklore as well, under the name Rokuro-kubi.
Gabriel Perez
Nah, just a deformed goat really
Landon Miller
That just sounds like an Irish beggar.
Gabriel Torres
That's exactly the point really. Just seems like lazy folklore, except at least the Fear Gorta (Lit. Famine Man) has a moral; Give beggars food or they'll stab you. The goat thing sounds like it was thought up by bored teenagers who liked spooking goats.
Nicholas Ramirez
Ancient people really by and large had boring folklore
I guess that beats modern man who has no folklore, but seriously all of human history, and only like a few dozen oral myths are actually interesting into the current day
John Sanchez
Based on how it is used its more about telling the story to children to make them explore a bit. Parents used to give us empty potato sacks and send us hunting the Dahu so that we'd go out hiking instead of staying home
Mason Turner
Probably because you have consumed at least a version of the majority of them since you where a kid, every tale has been told alredy told in his basic form.
Joshua Johnson
B... But I like boring folklore I think it's actually healthy for your Veeky Forums adventures to have some harmless folkies around, it gives more depth than just "oh oh theres a legend around here, guess we get ready to roll initiative haha" Also imho grim legends are kinda boring, its always the same shit >x monster is actually just the local vampire >Werewolf except it is a cat/dog/mouse/seal >giant monster dragon + insert random dragonslayer >grants wishes but be careful what you wish for >troll on a bridge except its not a troll
But well, my favourite lovecraft story is the one with the magical house where actually everyone survives, noone goes crazy and all is weird that ends well so take it witha grain of salt also stfu cause Dahu is awesome
Bentley Sullivan
This looks like the precursor to some New England tall tales about a race of mountain dwelling boars with the same leg defect, so they can only navigate the mountains in one direction.
Grayson King
Oooh fuck this sounds awesome, I was thinking about a way to make Dahu more menacing to include it in a game later this week
Folklore is a product of the culture that spawned it. Not all folklore is descended from heroic knight fiction. Most of it is practical knowledge framed form a superstitious mindset. Like the stalking cat yokai from the previous thread. A monster that stalk you at night and kills you if you trip. Literally just telling you to be careful when traveling at night. It may not appeal to everybody but I think there's something quaint about minor fantasy fauna, it's a nice break from "this monster is as big as a house, it's eaten a hundred men and it has impenetrable hide, etc. etc."
Nathaniel Nguyen
Näcken is a creature from Swedish folklore. He often take the form of a naked man living by lakes playing music. This music is played to trick kids to come close so he can drown them. Additionally he often take the form of an elegant white horse called Bäckahästen. This horse will trick people to ride him and once a target is safety on its back it will walk down in the lake or river to drown the rider.
>He often take the form of a naked man That's actually a modern invention. In traditional folklore he generally wore elegant clothes, though he was also able to shapeshift.
Camden Wright
Really? I didn't know this. Also Jesus my spelling is trash sorry about that
Luis Barnes
A lot of Japanese folklore seems to be just practical advice/true tales wrapped in the supernatural.
Maybe don't marry a pretty lady who wanders up to you under suspicious circumstances. (Any number of yokai legends such as the kitsune and yukionna.)
Clean your fucking house, you slob. Why? Because if you don't, filth monsters are going to show up, why do you have to fucking ask? (Ceiling lickers, toilet lickers; etc)
Take care of your things. What do you mean why? Because they develop souls over time and they'll get pissed at you if you were the one mistreating them. (Tsukumogami)
Aaron Rivera
Yep. This painting is, as far as I'm aware, the first time he was depicted as a naked man.
As an artist, I would almost lay money on the idea that they sketched up a body they were proud of and couldn't bear to put clothes on it. I mean - look at that area in the hip/thigh region. Putting clothes on that would be criminal.
Christopher Collins
AFAIK there's another nice fuzzy part to the legend: since when she gets back home/burrow she's bloated for all the blood drank, she keeps some vases of vinegar around to drench her organs in it and make them shrink, so she can fit again in her waiting body.
So ancient japs were huge dicks to distressed women. Nice. And when years later pissed off aliens come and FOR SOME REASON destroy their cities they have the gall to cry to mommy and call Mazinger to save them...
Austin Gomez
I'm thinking that applies to lot of folklore and mythologies.
For example, Swedish have , Finns have Näkki and Sami have Vesiraukka, who all are basicly creatutes trying to drown you.
Landon Wood
Yeah - that's what the person I was replying to said - I just phrased it the way I did because I know more bits and pieces of specifically Japanese folklore than I do any other single area's. I did mean to agree that a lot of folklore worldwide is the same.
(On the subject of drowning tales - the Japanese have the kappa, who like to feast on a person's shirikodama and/or liver, which they access through a person's anus either way.)
Charles Jones
Well, hobgoblins used too be a pagan cherub like creatures who where wholy good and only wanted to bring luck and help to the world.
Christians trying to convert the regions where absolutely terrified of dealing with benevolent pagan spirits and usually tried their hardest to paint it that they were demons, only doing good to trick you.
Austin Gutierrez
I'm wondering if norway has the same folklore about mountain mounsters like sweden, finland and northern russia has with forest monsters.
Because those insanely deep forests man
Brandon Cox
>"Stay away from the fucking river, stupid kid, or you... you... you'll get fucked in the ass by a giant turtle-man who wants to eat your liver!"
Jack Martinez
Palesmurt - meaning "Halfman" in udmurt. In udmurt folklore a giant living in forests that tends to steal domestic animals. It is believed that if you yell or whistle in the forest he'll come find you and tickle you to death.
Yeah, like "don't jump on any unsupervised ungulate you come across, you don't know how it will react, dumbass". Nowadays we have youtube videos with idiots hurting themselves by fucking around horses or cattle, back then they had cautionary tales. Aesop's fables, fairytales, so many had their lesson attached. Like a more subtle version of a Lou Scheimer cartoon.
Cameron Russell
I used this as a swamp monster in a warhammer session last week
Isaac Evans
How about a legend that turned out to be at least partially true?
Legend: A king and his entourage were on a pilgrimage. They decided to pass through an area sacred to a goddess, in spite of locals warning them not to. Infuriated, the goddess rained hail down on them, killing approximately 200 people.
Catoblepa: described by good Ol' Plinius like an ethiopian large donkey/ox-like animal. Always held its head down, some say because its head was so heavy, others because it hideousness (or its gaze) would kill you on the spot.
For the Huldra or other nordic creatures, Humon Comics has stories and illustrations.
Brandon Evans
I remember reading about a monster on snowy regions that could freeze blood with his roar Anyone knows what I am talking about?
Camden Phillips
Denmark has 2, connected, creatures. It has the elvengirl, who looks like a beautiful girl from the front, but her back is hollow and rotten. She tempts men away from their fiances and to the underworld/elven lands where he either stays forever, or leaves a part of his soul so that he is never quite the same.
Then there are the elvenwomen, who in Denmark, and only Denmark, also have the name "Slattenpat" (Floppy-tits). They have incredibly floppy and long tits, which they fling across their shoulders so that their children can nurse hanging on their back. Which they have to, because the peaceful slattenpat is always pursued by Odin leading his wild hunt, or the wild hunter King Valdemar.
Brayden Roberts
Humon is incredibly bad, and everything she says is poorly researched and/or wrong.
That being said, her illustrations are sometimes neat.
Nathaniel Roberts
>They have incredibly floppy and long tits, which they fling across their shoulders I was this coming up again an again for ogreish female monsters in middle/eastern European folklore. Does anyone have any info on the origin/theory behind this?
Brandon Lee
I mean, flappy tits are horrifying.
Samuel Adams
Remind me to the Ijanas (some kind of fae than aren't good or bad, will seduce a man and burn a preacher house if provoqued, but in general they are lazy and will steal honey or butter) or the Ojancanas from the Cantabrian folklore.
I've been looking into fearsome critters to fill out a North American fantasy setting, and I've been modifying them to be more intimidating. Except the hidebehind, which is scary enough as it is.
Adrian Watson
>North America always use Wendigo
Austin Wright
Skinwalkers, Hodag, Genoskwa and Spearfinger.
Logan Reyes
this literally sounds like some shit drunk grandpa would tell the grandkids when they ask why the mountain goats can climb the mountains so well.
Grayson Sanchez
one of my friends growing up had a siamese cat with a damaged tail, and it basically ended in a mace-like ball.
Ian Ortiz
Bumping an epic thread with some excerpts from a book I picked up in VT on my honeymoon. Title is "The Vermont Monster Guide" with illustrations by Stephen Bissete for those interested. Pic related is the sidehill croncher, most likely an immigrant and evolution of the Dahu to America
Apparently There was a case documented in newspapers in the 1800s of a man who swalled a salamander which lived in his stomach for 4.5 years before a doctoe gave him an emetic to vomit it out.
One of my favorite overlooked pieces of New England folklore is the vampire vine. A demonic root that grew into coffins and devoured the body inside. Apparently the root had supernatural abilities to ensure constant food so when it finished consuming a corpse a new person was fated to die. Since family plots were much more common back then this phenomenon was often attributed to events in which a series of family members would die one by one.
