Rare Monsters

  To end off the one year anniversary month I'm featuring one of the strangest beast I've ever found in mythology, the khara. Also known as the three legged ass, it's a unicorn found in Zoroastrian mythology, which is like no other. Khara means donkey in Sanskrit, it's name in Persian is xar-i-se-pay. It's one of the oldest written accounts of a unicorn like creature and likely influenced every other unicorn from Europe and western Asia. The idea of unicorns purifying water with their horn certainly originated with the khara. The overall appearance is like a donkey, and the khara was said to be a divine donkey. It was as tall as a mountain. It had three legs that were like tree trunks. The khara had six eyes, two in the normal location, two on top the head, and two on the shoulders. With this arrangement of eyes the khara could see in all directions at once and no threat could sneak up on it. The strangest aspect of the khara is that it is covered in extra mouths...

 Lake Ontario has had it's share of monster sightings over the year. Every sighting has been drastically different, which doesn't help the credibility of this monster. Yet the different forms it takes have been fascinating. Many of the sightings have been concentrated around the shores of Kingston, which has given the monster or monsters the name Kingsie. There are more sightings than I can list here, so I will only cover the most interesting. While sightings occurred before this point, the earliest that was given a definite date happened in July 3 rd , 1817, where a ship's crew saw a giant snake like creature in the water. It was one foot in diameter and 30 to 40 feet long. The name of the ship or the crew members who witnessed the event was not given. On July 1 st , 1833, Captain Kellogg and his crew on the Polythermus saw a giant worm like creature. It was blue in color and had no obvious head, tapering to a point at both ends. The creature swam by the ship in a smooth ...

  Azi Dahaka, also known as Zahak, was a dragon in early Persian mythology. He first appears in the Avesta and the later Denkard texts of the Zoroastrian religion. The legend of Azi Dahaka continued in folklore after the Muslim conquest of Persia, where he appeared in the epic poem Shahnama. Azi Dahaka was described as a three headed dragon, unlike other person dragons, which are usually single headed and long bodied, like an evil version of far eastern dragons. In the Avesta Azi Dahaka was the son of Ahriman. Even though he was a dragon he had the intellect and cunning of a human, and could take human form. With his human cunning Azi Dahaka was so evil he committed every form of sin. Later in the Shahnama, Azi Dahaka, then named Zahak, was said to be a human 'blessed' with evil magic and foresight by Ahriman, but Ahriman's touch leaves two snakes which grow from Zahak's shoulders which must be fed with human flesh. In the Avesta Azi Dahaka lived in Babylon and worshipp...

  Yayu is a vicious man eating monster from Chinese mythology. He has the face of a human and a body that is a mix of lion and dragon, like an eastern version of the manticore. Yayu started out as the son of Zhulong, and was a beautiful and well loved god. He was kind hearted before his death and transformation. However he was killed by Wei, one of the constellation gods. Zhulong was distraught over the death of his son and begged the heavens to bring Yayu back to life. The heavenly emperor warned that such things are dangerous, but seeing how much Zhulong grieved, he allowed it. Yayu was brought back from the dead. However doing so violated the natural order of things, which transformed him into a monster. Not only was he transformed into a beast like form, but he violently attacked everything around him, killing and eating humans. Because of this the legendary archer, Hou Yi was sent to kill Yayu again.  

  This month I'm celebrating the one year anniversary of this blog with all my favorite monsters which I've been saving up for a special occasion. So all month long I'll be posting articles on the most bizarre and epic monsters I've come across. On August 22, 1864 one of the strangest cryptids ever described was seen in Swan Valley, Idaho. The creature in question was spotted by an unnamed elderly man while crossing the river on the Olds Ferry. The trunk of the monster emerged from the water first, followed by the head and then the back. It swam to shore and climbed out of the water where the old man could see the rest of the creature. The monster had a snake like head, with an elephant's trunk. Sharp teeth lined the mouth and the creature had a flickering snake like tongue which was bright red. There was a singled horn on its forehead which continually moved up an down. The monster had thick whiskers on its cheeks and a pair of fin like wings, or wing like fin...