Rare Monsters

  The coulobre of Fontaine de Vaucluse was a hideous salamander like dragon who lived in the town she was named after. She made her home in a mountain spring just outside of town, which formed a large pool by a cliff side and fed the Sorgue River. The coulobre was so horrible looking that her dragon mates would immediately leaver her. All of her children became small black salamanders rather than dragons. The coulobre was a menace to the land and people around her, devouring humans and live stock alike. Saint Véran took up the calling to kill the dragon. He watched the coulobre for many days to learn her behaviours. Then when she emerged from the pool one night he ambushed the coulobre and made the sign of the cross, injuring and subduing the beast. She few away into the Alps in fear of the saint. The coulobre then died high in the mountains. A village named Saint Véran was built on the location where the coulobre died. For several centuries people thought the coulobre was...

  Graoully is a dragon from Metz, France. It is most often depicted as a rather standard wyvern, although in the castle Haut-Koenigsbourg there’s a Graoully statue with four legs. I’ve based my art on the effigy that hangs over Taison Street. The name Graoully comes from the old Germanic word graulich, which means horrible or monstrous, and is the origins of the English word gruesome. Legend has it that back in the 3 rd century Saint Cl é ment was travelling around Gaul Christianizing the population. When he came to Metz he found everyone hiding in their homes, afraid to come out. One of the locals told Saint Cl é ment that a dragon named Graoully lived in the local Roman amphitheatre, along side a horde of serpents, and would routinely come out to terrorize the townsfolk. The townsfolk warned Saint Cl é ment that the serpents in the amphitheatre were so venomous they made the air toxic so nothing could survive near them, but Saint Cl é ment was not deterred. He went to the...

  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 ...

  I would just like to acknowledge the Benchends Blog https://benchends.wordpress.com/ They did all the research into the origin of the Gurt worm, without them I would have stopped at the legend as written and never realized something was off. This time we look into a mystery, exactly what is the Gurt Worm, and why does its legend not line up with how the beast is depicted in art? Specifically the Gurt worm is a rather odd wyvern, depicted with a second face in its chest, yet no such thing appears in the written accounts of its story. In the town of Crowcomb, Somerset there is a legend about a dragon who used to terrorize the near by Shervage Woods. It would eat livestock and attack anyone who entered the forest. Unfortunately for the people of Crowcombe, the Shervage Woods were the source of much needed firewood, as well as bilberries, the town’s claim to fame. The bilberries were so important that every year they would hold a festival when the berries ripen, and bake ...

  The Aksar is an apocalyptic beast from Arabian mythology, where it’s also known as Dabbat al-Ard, or Beast of the Earth. The Aksar was a chimeric beast with parts from many animals. It had the head of a bull, eyes of a pig, ears of an elephant, antlers of a stag, neck of an ostrich, shoulders of a lion, hips of a leopard, tail of a ram and legs of a camel. Most scholars think this assemblage of animals is meant to just be freaky for the sake of freaky, to get across the idea of ‘monstrousness’, although I think it’s the result of someone explaining a giraffe to another person who’s never seen one before, and many more additions made in repetition. The aksar is said to be a stunning 30 meters tall too. The Aksar would take part in the destruction of the world at the end of time. It would wield Moses’s staff and Solomon’s ring, using them to separate believers from non-believers. Before this, while Moses was on Mount Sinai God brought the Aksar out from its sanctuary to ...

  The carcolh is possible the strangest ‘dragon’ in Europe. It’s described as either a giant snail, or a serpentine dragon with a snail’s shell. In addition to this it has several slimy and hairy tentacles on its face. I imagine the hair helps keep copious amounts of slime on the tentacles. The carcolh lives in a network of caverns under the city of Hastingues, in south France. No one knows how it got there or how long it’s lived. During the Spanish invasion of the region in 1635 the treasures of Hastingues were taken down into the caves to be guarded by the carcolh. However the carcolh was loyal to no particular country and would attack humans indiscriminately, so no one has ever been able to retrieve the treasure. After many attempts were made the caves were walled off. Unlike many other European dragons the carcolh has never been defeated. While belief in the existence of the carcolh has all but disappeared, legend has it that it still lurks in the walled off caves. ...

  In the medieval era and earlier, so little was know about whales that they were regarded in the same manner as dragons and sea serpents. Today physeter, meaning blower or whirlpool, is the genus name of sperm whales. And while the name always referred this species of whale, what was believed about their appearance and behavior was worthy of being called a mythical beast. The earliest surviving accounts of physeter was from Pliny the Elder. He states that it was the largest beast in the Sea of Gaul, today known as the North Atlantic. According to Pliny the physeter would rise itself up in a column above the masts of ships and spray out water from its head in a fountain like torrent. The physeter was often found in medieval bestiaries, where it was described as a giant fish with a horse like head and neck. It's head had two spouts from which it could spray out water. A horse like mane ran down the back of its neck. Often the depiction would end here, with the body hidden beneat...

  The knucker dragon was a water dragon who lived in a pond in Sussex England during the medieval and renaissance periods. It was a water dragon, but didn't have many water like features to its appearance. It looked like a stretched out western dragon with a long serpent like body. It is consistently depicted as red in color. The dragon was also considered unusually clever and conniving, and was capable of talking, which usually wasn't something dragons were capable of doing until modern fantasy. The name knucker is derived from words like nix or nacken, showing a connection back to malicious water fae. The pond the dragon inhabited is known as the knucker hole, and still exists on the Somptings Estate. Legend goes that the knucker dragon was quite a threat to the surrounding communities, coming out of its pond at night and eating livestock and people. The people begged an authority figure, in some version the local mayor of Lyminster, in other version they went all the way t...

  The escornau was an unusual unicorn from Ahigal, Spain. It was a vicious beast the terrorized the village sometime in the 16 th century. It was a hybrid creature with the head of a boar, ears of a rabbit, front body of a bull and back end of a horse. It had a cork screw unicorn horn in the middle of its forehead. There are two versions of its origin. Either the escornau was sent by god as a punishment for the village's sinful ways. Alternately the beast was the union between two different species of farm animal. Pretty much any combination of the four animals that make up the escornau were said to be the parents, a cow and a stallion, or a bull and a sow, or a horse and a rabbit, I honestly don't know how that one would work. Either way, there was so much sin in this village that even the farm animals per partaking in it. The escornau would use its horn as a weapon, impaling its victims with it. It would sharpen its horn on rocks to keep its tip as sharp as a spear. The be...

  Peluda, known as La Velue in French, is a dragon from the River Huisne in France. It was known by many names in the Medieval era, including the Shaggy Beast in English, yet today it's best known by it's Spanish name Peluda. Peluda was most well known and feared in the High Middle Ages period and early Renaissance. Peluda had a snake's head and tail, an egg-shaped body that was covered in thick fur. From between the fur was porcupine or hedgehog like quills that were tipped in poison. It stood on four sturdy tortoise like feet. It was the size of a large ox. Peluda was green all over, even it's fur. According to legend Peluda existed from the early days of creation, on the day when God created all the things that swam in the sea and crawled on the Earth. During the flood, Peluda tried to climb on the ark with the other animals being loaded on. Noah and his family fought Peluda off and refused to let it on board, knowing it would devour all the other animals. Yet Peluda...