Rare Monsters

  The pyraustra, also known as the pyrallis was a fiery dragon like insect from Greek and Roman mythology. It is tiny, somewhere between the size of a gnat and a house fly. It had fiery colours, and a glowing bulb on the end of its tail. It also only had four legs in spite of being insect like, but believing insects had only four legs was a pretty common thing in ancient times. Pyraustras are born directly from fire. They must stay within the heat of the fire or die. Within the fire’s range pyraustraus fly about chaotically, mostly moving upward until they are out of range of the fire and then puff out of existence. The pyraustra were primarily found in the copper smelting furnaces of Cyprus. It’s wildly believed today that the legend of the pyraustra was misinterpretations of sparks or embers flying away from the fire. How dragony the pyraustra was has been called into question, as the only reference to it being dragon like comes from a modern source, Inventorum Naturum ...

  The Stratford Lyon is a local legend from New Forest, an area in the southwest of England. It rests somewhere between folklore and cryptid, with people reportedly seeing the beast in modern times, but it’s hard to tell how serious these encounters are. Legend has it that in the early 1500’s a local aristocrat named John Stratford was walking the land he had newly inherited. While travelling his land he spotted some antlers sticking out of the ground. They were magnificent, huge antlers. So John Stratford tried to pull them out of the ground. As he pulled he saw that the antlers were attached to fur, then a lion’s head and finally the whole lion’s body emerged. The lion was furious and lunged at Stratford. He hung onto the antlers for dear life, narrowly dodging the lion’s swipes at him. As the lion struggled Stratford jumped on its back. The lion bucked and fought back but Stratford hung on and refused to be removed. With Stratford on its back, the lion ran around New ...

  Cryptozoologist Chad Arment wrote about a mystery animal from Honduras in his Biofortean Notes, Volume 5 While attending a cryptozoology conference Chad heard second hand stories about a missionary working in Honduras who had seen a strange creature. After extensive searching he was able to track her down. The woman didn’t want to be identified, and is only known by her initials LS in the report. She had no interest in anything fortean or paranormal. As well, she had only told people about the encounter a few times shortly after it happened in 2001, and then moved on with her life. She has never tried to profit off the encounter or tried to widely publicize it. These qualities together convinced Chad Arment that she was a reliable witness. The sighting happened on the mission’s farmland in Cort é s Department, Honduras. The landscape was along a mountain river, with cleared pasture on one side and jungle on the other. The time was between late morning and noon. LS was d...

Tsukumogami are a type of yokai from Japan. These are ordinary objects that have gained souls through some means. Usually this happened because the object was very old. It was believed that after a 100 years an object would receive a soul, making it conscious and giving it the ability to transform into a being who could interact with the world. Usually these objects would continue to behave themselves and not show off these abilities if they continued to be used and cherished by their owners. It was very old objects that were thrown away or abandoned that would start turning into creatures and misbehaving. They could do anything from pulling silly and annoying pranks to being actual threats. When an old object was broken and had to be discarded a small ceremony was held by the household to appease its spirit, and old objects in working order were not thrown away if it could be avoided. Cherishing old objects was part of the concept of mottainai, the desire to not be wasteful. Anoth...