January 1st 1909. Ten-Footed Bear. Tarak told us Wednesday evening that the tenfooted bear lives mostly in the water like a seal. Looks like a polar bear all but the ten legs. When he walks on ice the five feet of each side track after each other so the bear makes a double track like …
She appeared to be a slight and graceful person, handsomely dressed; and her hair was arranged like that of a young girl of good family. ‘O-jochu,’ he exclaimed, approaching her, ‘O-jochu, do not cry like that! … Tell me what the trouble is; and if there be any way to help you I shall be …
She is one of the Panotii. She has ears so big that she can hear evil. Sometimes she goes out with no clothes on, because her ears are big enough to wrap around her and keep her warm. She lives on an island along with the other Panotii. Noted cataloguer of made-up beings, Pliny the …
One of my all-time favourite books is Jorge Luis Borges’ The Book of Imaginary Beings. I’ve talked before about my love of bestiaries, and this one is perhaps the finest ever compiled. It takes a scattered, all-inclusive approach to the creatures it describes, with Borges hopping about from anecdote to anecdote and placing ‘classical’ beasts …
Medieval Europeans believed in many strange peoples inhabiting the uncharted lands beyond the edges of their maps. The medieval conception of the world would have been of a charted haven surrounded by boundless strangeness. Living in the far distance were all manner of wonderful civilizations: the one-legged people, the people whose faces looked out of …