Cockatrice
The cockatrice creature is a mythical animal that seems silly, but is very interesting, and powerful. It's basically a dragon with a cocks head, and its born from a rooster egg hatched by a toad. It's also said to be hatched by a serpent which is probably more suited considering its apperance, and its influence with the basilisk. Like the gorgon sisters, it can stone people if you look at it or vice-versa, and breathe fire. But unlike the gorgon sisters its weakness seems to lie that it can't look at itself, and the sound of a roosters morning crow annoys it. Also adding its serpent poison in, and this makes a very strange creature, but I wanna talk about some other monsters as well.
Futakuchi-onna
What is this weird looking thing? It's an older woman, with a mouth on the back of her head. With many interpretations of the Futakuchi-onna the one I like is the story of a girl trying to be thin. In doing so a second mouth sprouts from behind her head causing stress, and damage to the woman. If not complied with the second mouth will be able to feed itself using her hair as hands, and will mostly eat twice as much as the woman normally would. Most pictures depict the mouth around the hair, but it's said that the back of head itself splits open to form the mouth.
Preta (hungry ghost)
There's actually a festival for the hungry ghost. Its been over 10 years for me to realize that I've been celebrating this. Hungry ghosts is the ghosts of ancestors returning to them family, and home that day to satisfy their stomachs, and boredom. That's just the Chinese festival, but other versions actually shows the hungry ghost realm as the deceased with needle thin neck, mouth, and bloated stomachs. They would spend their life in agony, and anything consumable that touches them would just rot to ashes. They are said to have formed from a life of selfish, and greediness or a life of regret.
black eyed children
This is definitely the most modern in the list. Rumpors being spread, the news, and even Yahoo posted their opinion, on the matter. What it is is that at night time they show up to people are in a way related to a certain shelter. Whether they're inside their house, their car or going to, and from their car the children aging from 5-15 will ask for a favor. They apparently only show up at night, and if listen to their monotoned voices, and look at their pitch black eyes you'll know you bumped into one or a few. They'll ask for something mundane like using the phone or the restroom, and the idea is that you're not supposed to invite them to do anything. A nice story to make us feel like we're part of something bigger, but that's pretty much there is to these beings.
Pooka, and tikbalang
Now these creatures are very similar so I'll just give the general idea of what they are. A shapeshifter of some sort, but usually a horse head with a large mans body this creature. Although dangerous looking; they are said to be do lethal harm, but like to waste peoples time. The most it does is control an area by destroying property, giving false directions to lost travelers, and scaring people just for the fun. Although not dangerous, some people would rather have that danger over a pooka.
blemmeyes
Now these look weird. If any of you had a background of Pokemon you would say it looks like Hitmonlee. These are blemmeyes, and they were nomads having mouths, and eyes on their chest, and no neck or head. They are a real group of people, but myth wise they have that obscure look, and are maneaters that do not think.
tiddalik
It's in childrens books too, but that doesn't make it bad. It's not about the genre or the aimed audience, but about the quality it unveils, and the Tiddalik is an interesting creature with a nice story. The tiddalik is a large frog that was real thirsty one day, got greedy drank all the water in the world. Water only came from one source, and after Tiddalik drank it the world became in peril, anything alive is angry, and wants a solution. The animals figured the only way to get their water back was to make him laugh, many failed, but the eel under the Wombat's instructions tied itself in funny knots which made tiddalik burst into laughter. They got their water back, but also trouble considering all the flooding. All the flooding is what scattered the water into rivers, and lakes as we have now. And afterwards tiddalik was turned into stone, not sure why.
The Ya-ta-veo tree
Also named the man-eater tree of Madagascar; the ya-ta-veo had a small history to its legend. A man named Calr Liche was on an expedition in the late 1800's. They were doing the usual axing roots infront of them until they came a cross a unique looking, but normal sized tree, maybe bigger. They witnessed a tribe offering the tree one of their members, and the tree entangled the person crushing it, and consuming it.
mare
Without an explanation of sleep paralysis or nocturnal emission yeah, the mare was thought up as the culprit. The mare would look like an evil, ghostly nurse that would sit on top of peoples chest during their sleep, and emitt dreams into their head. Doing so could cause nightmares, sleep paralysis, sleep apnea, and other ill effects. They're supposed to be cursed beings, but there doesn't seem to be any motivation to their actions.
Jincan
Somewhat of a Chinese curse, a jincan was a form of Ku which is basically poison. The fable is that one would have a pot, and they would put poisonous animals or insects inside it like, centipedes, snakes, spiders etc. The pot would then be buried, and months later the hexer would open it. Inside was one organism that survived, and devoured the other poisonous beings, this was called the Jincan meaning gold-silkworm. The Jincan was venomous enough to pretty much kill anything, and it would create gold, bring protection, and luck to the owner. The downside is that you must feed it plenty of human hosts or else it comes after the owner. Being unharmed by fire or piercing weapons your option was to either cope with the jincan's demands or give it to someone else. A very distasteful use of the Jincan was giving it to someone who was unfamiliar with the process. They would take the gold from the pot, not know the meaning of the Jincan, and later be devoured by it. Just remember this the next time a lone organism in a pot is infront of your house.
Sphinx
Now everyone knows what this is. When ever anyone thinks of Egypt this is one of the structures they remember, and it's great, but the idea, and history of the creature itself brings attention. The Sphinx was a composite female creature with a human head, eagles wings, and the body of a lion. That was the Greek version, but the Egyption version has the creature as a lion with a human head. Having a more meaningful reason, but its purpose was giving young people riddles to answer. If you answered it wrong, yeah she kills you, but if you answer it right she is the one that dies.
That’s some of the strangers creatures I can think of at the time. Still the cockatrice seems to be one of my favorite just for its bizarre, yet suiting design. I may find more great creatures like the cockatrice, and the pooka in the future.
Hope you enjoyed my selection
