Rare Monsters

  Here are three unicorns from China that feel oddly western. They lack the scales and other traits that make the qilin seam more exotic. The bo is a hybrid creature and the least unicorn like of the three. The bo looks like a unicorn with the paws and fangs of a tiger. It has a white body and black tail. The bo is entirely carnivorous, and hunts leopards and tigers. It primarily lives on Mount Winding Centre where jade and metals are plentiful, according to The Classic Of Mountains and Seas. It was also said to live on the steppes of Mongolia and some isolated islands in the North Sea. It was said the bo could be tamed with some difficulty and doing so would protect you against harm during times of war. The bo was said to be a just and honourable animal. It’s call is the sound of rolling drums. Out of the three the boma has the least information available. Like the bo, it also comes from The Classic Of Mountains And Seas . The boma has a white coat, and ox’s tail and a si...

  The hellidid is one of the fearsome critters of American folklore. Unlike most other fearsome critters, it’s found in the deserts of the south west. It is a chimeric monster with the head of an ant eater, the body of a zebra and four ostrich like legs, and a fluffy tail. The hellidid primarily ate fibrous plants, such as yuccas. It would use its long, serrated tongue to lick at the plants, scraping off the soft bits and leaving the fibre within the leaves behind. The hellidid was also extremely shy and would run off, allowing only quick glimpses of the creature. However, at night it would approach travellers sleeping out in the open and use its rough tongue to lick all the hair off their heads, leaving them shaved in the morning. Obviously the legend of the hellidid was part of a prank cowboys would play on greenhorns and people who overslept, shaving their heads, and blaming it on the hellidid. Sources https://www.deviantart.com/monstrumamericanum/art/Hellidi...

  The wondrous wraith of Willow Creek was a cryptid spotted in Kentucky in 1868. The outlandish name was given to it by the newspapers reporting on the incident at the time. This monster was a fiery centaur. It had pale, corpse-colored skin all over its body. The mane and tail were made of fire covering its body. Its eyes burned with a sulfur blue. The monster stood six feet tall at the top of its head. The centaur carried a sword in one hand and a torch in the other.   The fiery beast was seen by a prominent tobacco merchant, who wished to stay anonymous after his sighting. The incident happened on October 10th, 1868. The tobacco merchant was traveling through Bracken County on his way home to Brooksville. He was running late and ended up riding on dark country roads after nightfall.  The monster was first spotted in the middle of the road, blocking the way forward. It breathed out a cone of flame every time it exhaled. The tobacco merchant stayed motionless on hors...

  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...

  Nuckelavee is a prominent figure in the folklore of the Orkney Islse, Scotland. He is the most evil and malevolent of all the unseelie fae folk, more comparable to a demon than anything else. Nuckelavee would spend most of his time resting in the sea, only occasionally venturing onto land to torment people. Nuckelavee had the appearance of a horse with a human torso emerging out of its back, like a mutated rider who had merge with their horse. The whole monster was skinless, every muscle and sinew showing. Nuckelavee's body was covered in yellow pulsing veins which carried black blood. The human torso was quite misshapen too. The head was massive, too big for the neck and would roll side to side as Nuckelavee walked. Nuckelavee's arms were so long that even positioned on horse back would reach all the way to the ground. The most terrifying detail was that Nuckelavee had one singular eye that would glow like a lantern through even the thickest night and fog. Although it's ...

  The locusts of Abaddon are a type of monster that appears in the book of Revelations. They had the head of a man, the teeth of a lion and the long flowing hair of a woman. They had horse like bodies, wings and scorpion tails. They were also wearing crowns and iron breast plates. No part of the demonic locusts were insect like. The insect shell and wings are my own interpretation, as Revelations doesn't state what kind of wings they have. Referring to these demons as locusts comes from their vast numbers, which is like a locust swarm. The locusts were released from the bottomless pit by Satan after the fifth angel blew their trumpet. The locusts were commanded by the demon Abaddon, also known as Apollyon, his name meaning the destroyer. The locusts were commanded to not harm the natural life of Earth but only attack sinners, or the men who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads. Even then the locusts were not to kill the sinners, but just torture them relentlessly for fi...

      The monoceros is an animal that is mentioned by many Greek and Roman authors. Many people assume the monoceros was just a rhinoceros, however its description differs quite a bit from a mere rhino, and it was probably a mythical amalgamation of different animals. The description was added to multiple times by subsequent authors, further elaborating on the monoceros's attributes.      The monoceros was first mentioned by  Megasthenes, who was a Greek explorer who travelled to India. It's likely out of all the authors who wrote about the monoceros, Megasthenes was the only one who actually saw a rhinoceros. Yet, his description still doesn't quite fit a rhino, as he said the creature had the head of a stag and a horn two cubits long, which would be nearly 3 feet. The monoceros was also said to live in the foothills of the Himalayas, rather than in the lowlands where rhinoceros are actually found. Still Megasthenes' description does have a fair bit i...