Rare Monsters

  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...

  Many real creatures were turned into mythical beasts in the Medieval era. The hyena inspired the crocotta, the wildebeest the bonnacon and the ibex the yale. Yet few beasts have strayed so far from their real life inspiration as the antelope and the calopus. The antelope was first known in Europe by the ancient Greeks, who called it antelopos. The records of Alexander the Great called them aeternae and the Romans called them calopus, which means pretty foot. The name calopus continued through the Medieval period as a mostly separate creature from antelopes. Medieval bestiaries varied on whether they had entries on the calopus, antelope or both. Eventually the calopus became a symbolic beast in heraldry, where it gained its most unfamiliar form yet. The antelope known to the ancient Greeks was considered a fearsome beast, yet it still had the overall form of a goat or a roe deer. The calopus had dangerous serrated horns which it used to shred tree branches. It would hesitate to ...

Mesopotamia is a collection of some of the oldest civilizations on Earth. Written records date back 6000 years. Because of this some of the earliest examples of dragons can be found here. While the dragons of ancient Sumeria, Acadia, Babylon and Assyria may seam strange today, they were the origin of many of the tropes we associate with dragons even until today; things such as dragons being types of snakes, even though they have legs and wings; being venomous to the point of having poison blood, being winged, having seven heads; and having the limb combination of four legs and a set of wings (at least for one dragon). Although Mesopotamia did not distinguish dragons from other monsters, and would have listed them along side less reptilian beasts, such as giant birds and scorpion men. Because the Mesopotamian civilizations are so old very little information remains on each dragon. Compounding this problem is the fact that Mesopotamia was not one one civilizations but a culturally simila...