%%%% __c_suffix “When Peleus, some distance away, saw him torn apart by the frightful wound he shouted: ‘Accept this tribute to the dead, at least, Crantor, dearest of youths’, and with his powerful arm, he hurled his ash spear, at full strength, at Demoleon. It ruptured the ribcage, and stuck quivering in the bone. The centaur pulled out the shaft minus its head (he tried with difficulty to reach that also) but the head was caught in his lung. The pain itself strengthened his will: wounded, he reared up at his enemy and beat the hero down with his hooves. Peleus received the resounding blows on helmet and shield, and defending his upper arms, and controlling the weapon he held out, with one blow through the arm he pierced the bi-formed breast.” -Ovid, _Metamorphoses_, XII, 330. 8 AD. %%%% __d_suffix “Trogdor was a man! I mean, he was a dragon-man! Or... maybe he was just a dragon. ... And the Trogdor comes in the night!” -The Brothers Chaps, “Trogdor”. 2003. %%%% __r_suffix HAMLET [Drawing his sword.]: How now! a rat? Dead, for a ducat, dead [Stabs through the arras.] -William Shakespeare, _The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark_, III, 4. 1603. %%%% __cap-D_suffix “On the other hand, Confucius is made to say to his disciples, ‘I know how birds can fly, how fishes can swim, and how animals can run. But the runner may be snared, the swimmer may be hooked, and the flyer may be shot by the arrow. But there is the dragon. I cannot tell how he mounts on the wind through the clouds, and rises to heaven. Today I have seen Lao-tsze, and can only compare him to the dragon.’” -Life of Confucius “This Dragon had Two furious Wings Each one upon each Shoulder; With a Sting in his Tail as long as a Flail, Which made him bolder and bolder. He had long Claws, and in his Jaws Four and forty Teeth of Iron; With a Hide as tough, as any Buff, Which did him round environ.” -“An Excellent Ballad of a most dreadful Combat, fought between Moore of Moore-Hall, and the Dragon of Wantley”, retold by Ambrose Philips, _A Collection of Old Ballads. Corrected from the Best and Most Ancient Copies Extant. With Introductions Historical, Critical, Or Humorous_. 1723. %%%% __cap-K_suffix “The Parts Septentrionall are with these Sp’ryts Much haunted.. About the places where they dig for Oare. The Greekes and Germans call them Cobali.” -Thomas Heywood, _The Hierarchy of the Blessed Angels_, Book IX, l. 568. 1635. %%%% __cap-O_suffix “The little princess, asleep in her cradle, floated on the water, and at last she was cast up on the shore of a beautiful country, where, however, very few people dwelt since the ogre Ravagio and his wife Tourmentine had gone to live there-for they ate up everybody. Ogres are terrible people. When once they have tasted raw human flesh they will hardly eat anything else, and Tourmentine always knew how to make some body come their way, for she was half a fairy.” -Marie-Catherine Le Jumel de Barneville, Baronne d’Aulnoy, “’Orangier et l’Abeille”. 1697. “NO. Layers. Onions have layers. Ogres have layers. Onions have layers. You get it? We both have layers.” -Shrek. 2001. %%%% __cap-S_suffix “The latter lived in the country, and before his house there was an oak, in which there was a lair of snakes. His servants killed the snakes, but Melampus gathered wood and burnt the reptiles, and reared the young ones. And when the young were full grown, they stood beside him at each of his shoulders as he slept, and they purged his ears with their tongues. He started up in a great fright, but understood the voices of the birds flying overhead, and from what he learned from them he foretold to men what should come to pass.” -Pseudo-Apollodorus , _Library and Epitome_, 1.9.11. circa 150 BC. trans. Sir James George Frazer, 1913. “A snake, with mottles rare, Surveyed my chamber floor, In feature as the worm before, But ringed with power.” -Emily Dickinson, “In Winter In My Room”. circa 1860. %%%% __cap-T_suffix “Buckshank bold and Elfinstone, And more than I can mention here, They caused to be built so stout a ship, And unto Iceland they would steer. They launched the ship upon the main, Which bellowed like a wrathful bear; Down to the bottom the vessel sank, A laidly Trold has dragged it there.” -George Borrow, _Lavengro: The Scholar, the Gypsy, the Priest_. 1851. %%%% A broken pillar “Now Absalom in his lifetime had taken and reared up for himself a pillar, which is in the king's dale: for he said, I have no son to keep my name in remembrance...” -KJV Bible, 2 Samuel 18:18. %%%% A gateway to Hell “I am the way into the city of woe. I am the way to a forsaken people. I am the way into eternal sorrow. Sacred justice moved my architect. I was raised here by divine omnipotence, Primordial love and ultimate intellect. Only those elements time cannot wear Were made before me, and beyond time I stand. Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.” -Dante Alighieri, _The Divine Comedy_, “Inferno”, Canto III. ca. 1315. trans. John Ciardi, 1954. %%%% A gateway to a ziggurat “Captain: Take off every ‘zig’!! Captain: For great justice.” -Zero Wing %%%% A gateway to the decaying netherworld of Tartarus %%%% A granite statue “I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand, Half sunk, a shatter’d visage lies, whose frown And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamp’d on these lifeless things, The hand that mock’d them and the heart that fed. And on the pedestal these words appear: ‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’ Nothing beside remains: round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, The lone and level sands stretch far away.” -Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Ozymandias”. 1818. %%%% A labyrinth entrance “Maze-treaders, whose vision ahead and behind is severely constricted and fragmented, suffer confusion, whereas maze-viewers who see the pattern whole, from above or in a diagram, are dazzled by its complex artistry. What you see depends on where you stand, and thus, at one and the same time, labyrinths are single (there is one physical structure) and double: they simultaneously incorporate order and disorder, clarity and confusion, unity and multiplicity, artistry and chaos.” -Mark Z. Danielewski, “House of Leaves”. 2000. “Since I emerged that day from the labyrinth, Dazed with the tall and echoing passages, The swift recoils, so many I almost feared I’d meet myself returning at some smooth corner, Myself or my ghost, for all there was unreal After the straw ceased rustling and the bull Lay dead upon the straw and I remained, Blood-splashed, if dead or alive I could not tell In the twilight nothingness” -Edwin Muir, “The Labyrinth”. 1949. %%%% A one-way gate to the infinite horrors of the Abyss “And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.” -Friedrich Nietzsche, _Beyond Good and Evil_ , Aphorism 146. 1886. “Well, in our country,” said Alice, still panting a little, “you’d generally get to somewhere else — if you ran very fast for a long time, as we’ve been doing.” “A slow sort of country!” said the Queen. “Now here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!” -Lewis Carroll, _Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There_, ch. 2 “The Garden of Live Flowers”. 1871. %%%% A portal to a secret trove of treasure “‘Stop thief! Stop thief!’ There is a magic in the sound. The tradesman leaves his counter, and the car-man his waggon; the butcher throws down his tray; the baker his basket; the milkman his pail; the errand-boy his parcels; the school-boy his marbles; the paviour his pickaxe; the child his battledore. Away they run, pell-mell, helter-skelter, slap-dash: tearing, yelling, screaming, knocking down the passengers as they turn the corners, rousing up the dogs, and astonishing the fowls: and streets, squares, and courts, re-echo with the sound.” -Charles Dickens, _Oliver Twist; or, The parish boy's progress_, ch. X. 1838. %%%% A rock wall “I know not whether Laws be right, Or whether Laws be wrong; All that we know who lie in gaol Is that the wall is strong; And that each day is like a year, A year whose days are long.” -Oscar Wilde, “The Ballad of Reading Gaol”. 1898. %%%% A staircase to the Ecumenical Temple %%%% A staircase to the Shoals %%%% A staircase to the Tomb %%%% A tree I like trees because they seem more resigned to the way they have to live than other things do. -Willa Cather, _O Pioneers_. 1913. %%%% Asterion “The fact is that I am unique. What a man can pass unto others does not interest me; like the philosopher, I think nothing is communicated by the art of writing. Annoying and trivial minutiae have no place in my spirit, a spirit which is receptive only to whatsoever is grand.” -Jorge Luis Borges, “The House of Asterion”. 1947. trans. Antonios Sarhanis, 2008. %%%% Aizul “I went to Heaven — ’Twas a small Town — Lit — with a Ruby — Lathed — with Down —” -Emily Dickinson, _I went to Heaven_. ca. 1860. %%%% Antaeus “That country was then ruled by Antaeus, son of Poseidon, who used to kill strangers by forcing them to wrestle. Being forced to wrestle with him, Hercules hugged him, lifted him aloft, broke and killed him; for when he touched earth so it was that he waxed stronger, wherefore some said that he was a son of Earth.” -Pseudo-Apollodorus , _Library and Epitome_, 2.5.11. ca. 150 BC. trans. Sir James George Frazer, 1913. %%%% arbalest “(Tell enters with his crossbow) W. TELL: My precious jewel now, —my chiefest treasure— A mark I'll set thee, which the cry of grief Could never penetrate,—but thou shalt pierce it,— And thou, my trusty bowstring, that so oft For sport has served me faithfully and well, Desert me not in this dread hour of need,— Only be true this once, my own good cord, That hast so often wing'd the biting shaft:— For shouldst thou fly successless from my hand, I have no second to send after thee.” -Friedrich Schiller, _Wilhelm Tell_, IV, iii. 1804. trans. Sir Theodore Martin, 1898. %%%% Asmodeus “For myself, I have other occupations: I make absurd matches; I marry greybeards with minors, masters with servants, girls with small fortunes with tender lovers who have none. It is I who introduced into this world luxury, debauchery, games of chance, and chemistry. I am the author of the first cookery book, the inventor of festivals, of dancing, music, plays, and of the newest fashions; in a word, I am ASMODEUS, surnamed The Devil on Two Sticks.” -Alain René Le Sage, _Asmodeus: Or, The Devil on Two Sticks_. 1707. %%%% Awaken Forest spell • Hel: [died to] Infection! She's mine! — Thor: From a splinter that she got bravely fighting an elm! • Hel: Trees are inanimate plants, you buffoon! — Thor: Bravery knows no limits! -Rich Burlew, Order of the Stick, #874 %%%% black sun “The sky is sad and beautiful, like a vast altar. The sun has drowned in its congealing blood.” -Charles Baudelaire, _Flowers of Evil_, 43: Evening Harmony. 1857. trans. Ruth White, 1969. %%%% Banishment spell “An immense river of oblivion is sweeping us away into a nameless abyss.” -Ernest Renan, Souvenirs %%%% Cause Fear spell “And when Miranda sang Everyone turned away Used to the noose, they obey” -The Mars Volta, “Miranda That Ghost Just Isn't Holy Anymore”. 2005. %%%% Cigotuvi's Monster “I beheld the wretch — the miserable monster whom I had created. He held up the curtain of the bed; and his eyes, if eyes they may be called, were fixed on me. His jaws opened, and he muttered some inarticulate sounds, while a grin wrinkled his cheeks.” -Mary Shelley, “Frankenstein” %%%% Corrupt ability “I fumbled to the window to experience the world And to hear my Madness singing, sitting on the kerbstone [A blind old drunken man who sings and mutters, With broken boot heels stained in many gutters] And as he sang the world began to fall apart . . .” -T.S. Eliot, “Prufrock's Pervigilium”. 1912 (published 1996). %%%% Crazy Yiuf “There was an Old Man with a beard, Who said, ‘It is just as I feared! Two Owls and a Hen, Four Larks and a Wren, Have all built their nests in my beard!’” -Edward Lear, _A Book of Nonsense [No. 1]_. 1846. %%%% Darkness spell “If I must die, I will encounter darkness as a bride, And hug it in my arms.” -William Shakespeare, “Measure for Measure” %%%% Dispater “Hoc idem magis ostendit antiquius Iovis nomen: nam olim Diovis et Diespiter dictus, id est dies pater; a quo dei dicti qui inde, et dius et divum, unde sub divo, Dius Fidius. Itaque inde eius perforatum tectum, ut ea videatur divum, id est caelum. Quidam negant sub tecto per hunc deierare oportere. Aelius Dium Fidium dicebat Diovis filium, ut Graeci Dioskopon Castorem, et putabat hunc esse Sancum ab Sabina lingua et Herculem a Graeca. Idem hic Dis pater dicitur infimus, qui est coniunctus terrae, ubi omnia ut oriuntur ita aboriuntur; quorum quod finis ortuum, Orcus dictus.” -Marcus Terentius Varro, _De Lingua Latina_, Liber V, circa 40 BC. %%%% Dowan “Skill and grace, the twin brother and sister, are dancing playfully on your finger tips.” -Rabindranath Tagore, _Chitra_, Act I, Scene iv. 1914. %%%% Duvessa “Twin children: the Girl, she was plain; The Brother was handsome & vain; ‘Let him brag of his looks,’ Father said; ‘mind your books! The best beauty is bred in the brain.’” -Aesop & Walter Crane, _The Baby’s Own Aesop_, 36: “Brother & Sister”. 1887. %%%% Edmund “And my invention thrive, Edmund the base Shall top the legitimate. I grow; I prosper.— Now, gods, stand up for bastards!” -William Shakespeare, _King Lear_, I, ii. 1606. “When the forces stood in array Edmund proposed to decide their claims by single combat; but Canute saying that he, a man of small stature, would have little chance against the tall athletic Edmund, proposed, on the contrary, for them to divide the realm as their fathers had done.” -Thomas Keightley, _The History of England_. 1839. %%%% Fire Storm spell “Some have said there is no subtlety to destruction. You know what? They're dead.” -Jaya Ballard, task mage (Magic: the Gathering) %%%% Frederick “I thoroughly disapprove of duels. I consider them unwise and I know they are dangerous. Also, sinful. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet retired spot and kill him.” -Mark Twain, _Autobiography of Mark Twain_. 1924. %%%% Geryon “Khrysaor, married to Kallirhoe, daughter of glorious Okeanos, was father to the triple-headed Geryon, but Geryon was killed by the great strength of Herakles at sea-circled Erytheis beside his own shambling cattle on that day when Herakles drove those broad-faced cattle toward holy Tiryns, when he crossed the stream of Okeanos and had killed Orthos and the oxherd Eurytion out in the gloomy meadow beyond fabulous Okeanos.” -Hesiod, _Theogony_, circa 700 BCE. %%%% Ilsuiw “We have lingered in the chambers of the sea By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown Till human voices wake us, and we drown.” -T.S. Eliot, _The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock_. lines 129-131. 1915. %%%% Khufu “And then I looked farther, beyond the pallid line of the sands, and I saw a Pyramid of gold, the wonder Khufu had built. As a golden wonder it saluted me, as a golden thing it greeted me, as a golden miracle I shall remember it.” -Robert Hichens, _The Spell of Egypt_ %%%% Killer Klown “All the world loves a clown.” -Cole Porter, “Be a Clown”. 1948. %%%% Kirke “Lo, thy comrades yonder in the house of Kirke are penned like swine in close-barred sties. And art thou come to release them? Nay, I tell thee, thou shalt not thyself return, but shalt remain there with the others.” -Homer, Odysseia %%%% Mara “This night the Lord of Illusion passed among you, Mara, mighty among dreamers, mighty for ill. He did come upon another who may work with the stuff of dreams in a different way. He did meet with Dharma, who may expel a dreamer from his dream. They did struggle, and the Lord Mara is no more. Why did they struggle, deathgod against illusionist? You say their ways are incomprehensible, being the ways of gods. This is not the answer.” -Roger Zelazny, “Lord of Light”. 1967. “He who lives looking for pleasures only, his senses uncontrolled, immoderate in his food, idle, and weak, Mara will certainly overthrow him, as the wind throws down a weak tree.” -The Buddha, _Dhammapada_, 1:7. trans. F. Max Muller %%%% Mass Confusion spell “Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.” -KJV Bible, Genesis 11:7-8. %%%% Maurice “‘Stop thief! Stop thief!’ There is a magic in the sound. The tradesman leaves his counter, and the car-man his waggon; the butcher throws down his tray; the baker his basket; the milkman his pail; the errand-boy his parcels; the school-boy his marbles; the paviour his pickaxe; the child his battledore. Away they run, pell-mell, helter-skelter, slap-dash: tearing, yelling, screaming, knocking down the passengers as they turn the corners, rousing up the dogs, and astonishing the fowls: and streets, squares, and courts, re-echo with the sound.” -Charles Dickens, _Oliver Twist_. 1838. %%%% Menkaure “Ye men of Egypt, ye have heard your king! I go, and I return not. But the will Of the great Gods is plain; and ye must bring Ill deeds, ill passions, zealous to fulfil Their pleasure, to their feet; and reap their praise, The praise of Gods, rich boon! and length of days.” -Matthew Arnold, _Mycerinus_ %%%% Murray “Look behind you! A three-headed monkey!” -Guybrush Threepwood, _The Secret of Monkey Island_ %%%% Natasha “It dooth appéere that there is in Cats as in all other kindes of beasts, a certaine reason and language wherby they vnderstand one another. But as touching this Grimmalkin: I take rather to be an Hagat or a VVitch then a Cat. For witches haue gone often in that likenes, And therof hath come the prouerb as trew as common, that a Cat hath nine liues, that is to say, a witch may take on her a Cats body nine times.” -William Baldwin, “Beware the Cat”, 1584 %%%% Nikola “One can prophesy with a Daniel's confidence that skilled electricians will settle the battles of the near future.” -Nikola Tesla, “The Transmission of Electrical Energy Without Wires As a Means for Furthering Peace”, _Electrical World and Engineer_. January 7, 1905. %%%% Norris “Death and death alone gives meaning to life and this meaning is entirely negative.” -Georges Poulet %%%% Polyphemus “...as soon as he had got through with all his work, he clutched up two more of my men, and began eating them for his morning’s meal. Presently, with the utmost ease, he rolled the stone away from the door and drove out his sheep, but he at once put it back again—as easily as though he were merely clapping the lid on to a quiver full of arrows.” -Homer, _The Odyssey_, Book IX. trans. Samuel Butler, 1900. %%%% Prince Ribbit “Princess! youngest princess! Open the door for me! Dost thou not know what thou saidst to me Yesterday by the cool waters of the fountain? Princess, youngest princess! Open the door for me!” -Brothers Grimm (Margaret Hunt), _The Frog King, or Iron Henry_ %%%% Psyche “Let Psyche’s corpse be clad in mourning weed And set on rock of yonder hill aloft; Her husband is no wight of human seed, But serpent dire and fierce, as may be thought, Who flies with wings above in starry skies, And doth subdue each thing with fiery flight. The Gods themselves and powers that seem so wise With mighty love be subject to his might. The rivers black and deadly floods of pain And darkness eke as thrall to him remain.” -Apuleius, _Asinus aureus_, “Cupid and Psyche”. circa. 160 AD. trans. William Adlington, 1566. %%%% Shoals “No man is island, except Lo Wang.” -Shadow Warrior %%%% Sigmund “But Sigmund turned him about, and he said: ‘What aileth thee, son? Shall our life-days never be merry, and our labour never be done?’ But Sinfiotli said: ‘I have looked, and lo, there is death in the cup.’ And the song, and the tinkling of harp-strings to the roof-tree winded up; And Sigmund was dreamy with wine and the wearing of many a year; And the noise and the glee of the people as the sound of the wild woods were And the blossoming boughs of the Branstock were the wild trees waving about; So he said: ‘Well seen, my fosterling; let the lip then strain it out.’” -William Morris, _The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs_. 1891. %%%% Sticky Flame spell “Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life.” -Terry Pratchett, “Jingo” %%%% Summon Demon spell “'Tis now the very witching time of night, When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out Contagion to this world.” -William Shakespeare, _The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark_, III, 2. %%%% Tartarus “There is a drear and lonely tract of hell From all the common gloom removed afar: A flat, sad land it is, where shadows are, Whose lorn estate my verse may never tell.” -Edward Arlington Robinson, “Supremacy”. 1897. %%%% Temple “And I heard a great voice out of the temple saying to the seven angels, Go your ways, and pour out the vials of the wrath of God upon the earth.” -KJV Bible, Revelations 16:1. %%%% Terence “A MAN committed a murder, and was pursued by the relations of the man whom he murdered. On his reaching the river Nile he saw a Lion on its bank and being fearfully afraid, climbed up a tree. He found a serpent in the upper branches of the tree, and again being greatly alarmed, he threw himself into the river, where a crocodile caught him and ate him. Thus the earth, the air, and the water alike refused shelter to a murderer.” -Aesop, _The Manslayer_. 6th century BCE. trans. George Fyler Townsend %%%% Tiamat “He saith that Tiamat our mother hath conceived a hatred for us, With all her force she rageth, full of wrath. All the gods have turned to her, With those, whom ye created, they go at her side. They are banded together, and at the side of Tiamat they advance; They are furious, they devise mischief without resting night and day. They prepare for battle, fuming and raging; They have joined their forces and are making war. Tiamat who formed all things, Made in addition weapons invincible; she spawned monster-serpents, Sharp of tooth, and merciless of fang; With poison, instead of blood, she filled their bodies. Fierce monster-vipers she clothed with terror, With splendor she decked them, she made them of lofty stature. Whoever beheld them, terror overcame him, Their bodies reared up and none could withstand their attack.” -Enuma Elish, Third Tablet. circa 668 BCE. %%%% Tomb “In the depths of every heart, there is a tomb and a dungeon, though the lights, the music, and revelry above may cause us to forget their existence, and the buried ones, or prisoners whom they hide. But sometimes, and oftenest at midnight, those dark receptacles are flung wide open. In an hour like this, when the mind has a passive sensibility, but no active strength; when the imagination is a mirror, imparting vividness to all ideas, without the power of selecting or controlling them; then pray that your grieves may slumber, and the brotherhood of remorse not break their chain.” -Nathaniel Hawthorne, “The Haunted Mind”. 1835. %%%% alligator “Alligators commit errors of diet.” -Bennet Bowler, M.D., _Contributions to the Natural History of the Alligator, (Crocodilus Mississipiensis), with a Microscopic Addendum_, p. 17. 1846. %%%% amulet “Gringoire put out his hand for the little bag, but she drew back. ‘Do not touch it! It is an amulet, and either you will do mischief to the charm, or it will hurt you.’” -Victor Marie Hugo, _Notre Dame de Paris_, Book II, chapter VII “A Wedding Night”. 1831. %%%% amulet of clarity %%%% amulet of faith %%%% amulet of guardian spirit %%%% amulet of inaccuracy %%%% amulet of rage %%%% amulet of resist corrosion %%%% amulet of resist mutation %%%% amulet of stasis %%%% amulet of the gourmand “put a knife to thy throat, if thou be a man given to appetite.” -KJV Bible, Proverbs 23:2 %%%% amulet of warding [...] says a traveller in Central Borneo: “[...] When a company from the middle Mahakam River visited me among the Blu-u Kayans in the year 1897, no woman showed herself outside her house without a burning bundle of /plehiding/ bark, the stinking smoke of which drives away evil spirits.” -Sir James George Frazer, _The Golden Bough_. 1922. %%%% animal skin “He killed the noble Mudjokivis. Of the skin he made him mittens, Made them with the fur side inside, Made them with the skin side outside. He, to get the warm side inside, Put the inside skin side outside; He, to get the cold side outside, Put the warm side fur side inside. That's why he put the fur side inside, Why he put the skin side outside, Why he turned them inside outside.” -Anonymous, in Wells' _A Parody Anthology_, p. 120. 1904. %%%% apocalypse crab “I should have been a pair of ragged claws scuttling across the floors of silent seas.” -T.S. Eliot, _The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock_. 1915. %%%% arrow “I saw in a hall an arrow pointing the way and I thought that this inoffensive symbol had once been a thing of iron, an inescapable and fatal projectile that pierced the flesh of men and lions and clouded the sun at Thermopylae and gave Harald Sigurdarson six feet of English earth forever.” -Jorge Luis Borges, _Mutations_. 1960. trans. Mildred Boyle %%%% baby alligator %%%% bardiche “The republic always maintains seven or eight thousand regular troops on the frontiers, to prevent the incursions of the Tartars. The King does not maintain these troops; he only pays the Heydukes, the Semelles, and the Janizaries. The first-mentioned are dressed in blue, with large buttons and plates of tin, and have bonnets made of felt upon their heads. They have firelocks, and the bardiche, which they say is a very good weapon.” -John Pinkerton, _A General Collection of the Best and Most Interesting Voyages and Travels in all parts of the World, many of which are now first translated into English. Digested on a New Plan_. 1808. %%%% bat “The sun was set; the night came on apace, And falling dews bewet around the place; The bat takes airy rounds on leathern wings, And the hoarse owl his woeful dirges sings.” -John Gay, Shepherd's Week, Wednesday; or, The Dumps. “Ere the bat hath flown His cloister'd flight.” -William Shakespeare, _Macbeth_, III, 2, line 40. 1605. %%%% battleaxe “On Carian coins, indeed of quite late date, the labrys, set up on its long pillar-like handle, with two dependent fillets, has much the appearance of a cult image.” -Sir Arthur John Evans, “Mycenaean tree and pillar cult and its Mediterranean relations,” _Journal of Hellenic Studies_ XXI, p. 109. 1901. %%%% battlesphere Rule 4: Close air support covereth a multitude of sins. -The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Pirates %%%% blowgun “Along the Upper Caiary-Uaupes blow-guns are made from the stems of a variety of palm (Iriartea setigera Martius)... The Indian selects two stems of such sizes that the smaller will exactly fit within the larger. After these stems have been carefully dried and the pith cleared out with a long rod, the bore is made smooth by drawing back and forth through it a little bunch of tree-fern roots. The smaller stem is then inserted in the larger, so that one will serve to correct any crookedness that may exist in the other. The wooden mouth-piece is then fitted to one end, and about three and one half feet from it, a boar's tooth is fastened on the gun by some gummy substance, for a sight. Over the outside the maker winds spirally a strip of the dark shiny bark of a creeper which gives it an ornamental finish, and his blow-gun is complete. ”The arrows are from ten to fourteen inches long, and of the thickness of an ordinary lucifer match. Those of the Indians of the Caiary-Uaupes are made from the midrib of a palm leaf or of the spinous processes of the Patawa (Enocarpus Batawa) sharpened to a point at one end and wound near the other with a delicate sort of wild cotton which grows in a pod upon a large tree (Bombax ceiba). This mass of cotton is just big enough to fill the tube when the arrow is gently pressed into it. The point is dipped into poison, allowed to dry, and redipped until well coated. The exact composition of this poison is unknown, and probably varies in different localities; but it would seem that the chief ingredient is always the juice of a Strychnos plant. It is known among different tribes by many names; such as Curari, Ourari, Urari and Woorali.” -C.W. Mead, _The American Museum Journal_, vol. VIII. 1908. %%%% blue devil “From the sad marine decanter I then drew the cork. Instanter Out there jumped a little devil, blue in colour; and before I could speak to the new comer (for I never was struck dumber), Down upon my empty rummer, straight the little devil bore, Right into my empty tumbler straight the little devil bore, Squatted, grinned and nothing more. There the little imp sat grinning at me while my head went spinning, So that had I not sat down I should have fallen upon the floor; ‘Though thy looks be somewhat evil,’ said I ”tell me thou blue devil, Wherefore holdest though thy revel in the glass that held before Much the more agreeable spirit,—mizzle! leave me as before.“ Then the imp said ‘Never-more!’ Though I felt uncommon funky, still this answer put my monkey Up, and at the small blue devil in an undertone I swore. Then I said I must be dreaming, although broad awake I'm seeming; Doubtless I shall have a screaming morning headache — what a bore: Salmon I will eat no more.” -J.T.S, “The Blue Imp”, _Melbourne Punch_. Sept. 4, 1856. %%%% boggart “He thinks every bush a boggart.” -John Ray, _A Compleat Collection of English Proverbs_. 1768. “A BOGGART intruded himself, upon what pretext or by what authority is unknown, into the house of a quiet, inoffensive, and laborious farmer; and, when once it had taken possession it disputed the right of domicile with the legal mortal tenant, in a very unneighbourly and arbitrary manner. In particular, it seemed to have a great aversion to children. As there is no point on which a parent feels more acutely than that of the maltreatment of his offspring, the feelings of the father and more particularly of his good dame, were daily, ay, and nightly, harrowed up by the malice of this malignant and invisible boggart.” -C.J.T., _Folk-lore and Legends: English_ 1890. %%%% bolt “In the midst of our last assault, which would have carried the gate sure and given us Paris and in effect France, Joan was struck down by a crossbow bolt, and our men fell back instantly and almost in a panic — for what were they without her? She was the army, herself.” -Mark Twain, _Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, by the Sieur Louis de Conte_, Book II, chap. 40 “Treachery Conquers Joan”. 1896. %%%% book “On leaf of palm, on sedge-wrought roll; On plastic clay and leathern scroll, Man wrote his thoughts; the ages passed, And lo! the Press was found at last!” -John Greenleaf Whittier, _The Library_, st. 4. %%%% bread ration “It is further reported that in the provinces [Caesar] gave banquets constantly in two dining halls, in one of which his officers or Greek companions, in the other Roman civilians and the more distinguished of the provincials reclined at table. He was so punctilious and strict in the management of his household, in small matters as well as in those of greater importance, that he put his baker in irons for serving him with one kind of bread and his guests with another...” -Suetonius, _De Vita Caesarum, Divus Iulius_. 110 CE. %%%% broad axe “Weapon, shapely, naked, wan! Head from the mother’s bowels drawn! Wooded flesh and metal bone! limb only one, and lip only one! Gray-blue leaf by red-heat grown! helve produced from a little seed sown! Resting the grass amid and upon, To be lean’d, and to lean on.” -Walt Whitman, _Song of the Broad-Axe_, l. 1-6. 1867. %%%% buckler “Let who will boast their courage in the field, I find but little safety from my shield. Nature's, not honour's, law we must obey: This made me cast my useless shield away, And by a prudent flight and cunning save A life, which valour could not, from the grave. A better buckler I can soon regain; But who can get another life again?” -Archilochos. 7th cent. B.C. trans. William H. Goodwin, 1878. %%%% bush “And the angel of the LORD appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed.” -KJV Bible, Exodus 3:2. %%%% butterfly “Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.” -Nathaniel Hawthorne %%%% cacodemon “We’ll call him Cacodemon, with his black Gib there, his Succuba, his Devil’s Seed, his Spawn of Phlegethon, that o’ my Consience was bred o’ the Spume of Cocytus.” -John Fletcher, _The Knight of Malta_. 1647. %%%% catoblepas “So passed he over into the island, taking with him the two brothers of Anaxius; where he found the forsaken knight attired in his own livery, as black as sorrow itself could see itself in the blackest glass: his ornaments of the same hue, but formd into the figures of ravens which seemed to gape for carrion: only his reins were snakes, which finely wrapping themselves one within the other, their heads came together to the cheeks and bosses of the bit, where they might seem to bite at the horse, and the horse, as he champed the bit, to bite at them, and that the white foam was engendered by the poisonous fury of the combat. His impresa was a Catoblepta, which so long lies dead as the moon (whereto it hath so natural a sympathy) wants her light. The word signified, that the moon wanted not the light, but the poor beast wanted the moon’s light.” -Sir Philip Sidney %%%% chain mail %%%% cherub “The glory of Yahweh mounted up from the cherub, and stood over the threshold of the house; and the house was filled with the cloud, and the court was full of the brightness of Yahweh’s glory. The sound of the wings of the cherubim was heard even to the outer court, as the voice of God Almighty when he speaks.” -WEB Bible, Ezekiel 10:4-5 %%%% claymore %%%% cloak “O Bell my wife, why dost thou flyte? Now is now, and then was then: Seek now all the world throughout, Thou kens not clowns from gentlemen: They are clad in black, green, yellow and blue, So far above their own degree. Once in my life I’ll take a view; For I’ll have a new cloak about me.” -Anonymous, “The Old Cloak”. 16th Century. %%%% club “I have always been fond of the West African proverb: ‘Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.’ If I had not carried the big stick, the organization would not have gotten behind me, and if I had yelled and blustered, as Pankhurst and the similar dishonest lunatics desired, I would not have had ten votes.” -Theodore Roosevelt, in a letter to Henry L. Sprague. January 26, 1900. %%%% crimson imp “The Devil, too, sometimes steals human children; it is not infrequent for him to carry away infants within the first six weeks after birth, and to substitute in their place imps.” -Martin Luther %%%% crocodile “How doth the little crocodile Improve his shining tail, And pour the waters of the Nile On every golden scale! How cheerfully he seems to grin, How neatly spreads his claws, And welcomes little fishes in With gently smiling jaws!” -Lewis Carroll, _Alice's Adventures in Wonderland_, 1865. %%%% cutlass “Who was the first that forged the deadly blade? Of rugged steel his savage soul was made...” -Albius Tibullus, _Elegies_ I, xi. ca. 25 B.C. trans. James Grainger, 1822. %%%% daeva “Between these twain the Daevas also chose not aright, for infatuation came upon them as they took counsel together, so that they chose the Worst Thought. Then they rushed together to Violence, that they might enfeeble the world of men.” -the Avesta, Yasna XXX, 6, Ahunavaiti Gatha. trans. Christian Bartholomae, 1951. %%%% dagger “He drew his dagger, that was sae sharp, That was sae sharp and meet, And drave it into the nut-browne bride, That fell deid at his feit. ‘Now stay for me, dear Annet,’ he sed, ‘Now stay, my dear,’ he cry’d; Then strake the dagger untill his heart, And fell deid by her side.” -English traditional ballad, “Lord Thomas and Fair Annet”, circa 1650. %%%% dark maul “This caliber should be appropriate.” -prince Dajmiech, “Kajko and Kokosz: The Battle with Dajmiech”, Janusz Christa %%%% demon blade “Quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit: occidentis telum est.” “A sword by itself does not slay; it is merely the weapon used by the slayer.” -Lucius Annaeus Seneca, _Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium_, Letter LXXXVII: Some arguments in favor of the simple life, l. 30. ca. 65 A.D. trans. Richard Mott Gummere, 1917. %%%% demon trident “At these words he started up, and beheld—not his Sophia—no, nor a Circassian maid richly and elegantly attired for the grand Signior’s seraglio. No; without a gown, in a shift that was somewhat of the coarsest, and none of the cleanest, bedewed likewise with some odoriferous effluvia, the produce of the day’s labour, with a pitchfork in her hand, Molly Seagrim approached.” -Henry Fielding, _The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling_, Book V, ch. X. 1749. %%%% demon whip “With a terrible cry the Balrog fell forward, and its shadow plunged down and vanished. But even as it fell it swung its whip, and the thongs lashed and curled about the wizard's knees, dragging him to the brink. He staggered, and fell, grasped vainly at the stone, and slid into the abyss.” -J.R.R. Tolkien, _The Fellowship of the Ring_. II, 5, “The Bridge of Khazad-dûm”. 1954. %%%% dire flail “‘Ah! ah! ah!’ laughed his two men, ‘how the Norman villains will be humbled when they see their doughty knight's skull beaten in by our brave countryman.’” -_Tales of Chivalry; or, Perils by Flood and Field_. 1830. %%%% dryad • Roy Quixote: Wait, what's my beef with clean energy again? — Durkon Pansa: Dunno, but if'n ye prefer, I know a grove o'peach trees tha've been gettin' fresh wit tha locals. -Rich Burlew, “Haleo and Julean” %%%% efreet “When the hoopoe returned to Solomon (he told him the news), and he responded (to Sheba’s people): “Are you giving me money? What GOD has given me is far better than what He has given you. You are the ones to rejoice in such gifts.” (To the hoopoe, he said), “Go back to them (and let them know that) we will come to them with forces they cannot imagine. We will evict them, humiliated and debased.” He said, “O you elders, which of you can bring me her mansion, before they arrive here as submitters?” One afrit from the jinns said, “I can bring it to you before you stand up. I am powerful enough to do this.” -The Quran, Sura 27 Al-Naml %%%% electric golem “I sing the Body electric” -Walt Whitman, “I Sing the Body Electric”, _Leaves of Grass_. 1867. %%%% elephant “And the King went to where the blind men were, and drawing near said to them: ‘Do you now know what an elephant is like?’ ‘Assuredly, Lord: we now know what an elephant is like.’ ‘Tell me then, O blind men, what an elephant is like.’ And those blind men, O Bhikkhus, who had felt the head of the elephant, said: ‘An elephant, Sir, is like a large round jar. Those who had felt its ears, said: 'it is like a winnowing basket.’ Those who had felt its tusks, said: ‘it is like a plough-share.’ Those who had felt its trunk, said: ‘it is like a plough.’ Those who had felt its body, said: ‘it is like a granary.’ Those who had felt its feet, said: ‘it is like a pillar.’ Those who had felt its back, said: ‘it is like a mortar.’ Those who had felt its tail, said: ‘it is a like a pestle.’ Those who had felt the tuft of its tail, said: ‘it is like a broom.’ And they all fought amongst themselves with their fists, declaring, ‘such is an elephant, such is not elephant, an elephant is not like that, it is like this.’” And the King, O Bhikkhus, was highly delighted. -_Udāna_, VI “Jaccandhavagga”. ca. 5th cent. B.C. trans. Dawsonne Melanchthon Strong, 1902. %%%% emperor scorpion “Portents had occurred indicating [Titus Flavius Vespasianus'] approaching end, such as the comet which was visible for a long time and the opening of the mausoleum of Augustus of its own accord. When his physicians chided him for continuing his usual course of living during his illness and attending to all the duties that belonged to his office, he answered: ‘The emperor ought to die on his feet.’” -Cassius Dio, _Roman History_, LXVI, xvii, 2. 222 A.D. trans. Earnest Cary, 1925. %%%% ettin “But he had not been long in his hiding-hole, before the awful Ettin came in; and no sooner was he in, than he was heard crying: ‘Snouk but and snouk ben, I find the smell of an earthly man, Be he living, or be he dead, His heart this night shall kitchen my bread.’” -Joseph Jacobs, _The Red Ettin_ %%%% eudemon blade %%%% eveningstar “It is said to have been the favourite weapon of the Norman priest, who, objecting to the shedding of blood, had no scruple about the dashing out of brains.” -T. M. Allison, “The Flail and Kindred Tools (from a historical and literary standpoint)”, _Archaeologia Aeliana_, Third Series, vol. IV. 1908. %%%% executioner's axe “She danced, and was compelled to dance—to dance in the dark night. The shoes carried her on over thorn and brier; she scratched herself till she bled; she danced away across the heath to a little lonely house. Here she knew the executioner dwelt; and she tapped with her fingers on the panes, and called,—‘Come out, come out! I cannot come in, for I must dance!’ And the Executioner said,—‘You probably don’t know who I am? I cut off the bad people’s heads with my axe, and mark how my axe rings!’ ‘Do not strike off my head,’ said Karen, ‘for if you do I cannot repent of my sin. But strike off my feet with the red shoes?’ And then she confessed all her sin, and the Executioner cut off her feet with the red shoes; but the shoes danced away with the little feet over the fields and into the deep forest. And he cut her a pair of wooden feet, with crutches, and taught her a psalm, which the criminals always sing; and she kissed the hand that had held the axe, and went away across the heath.” -Hans Christian Andersen, “The Red Shoes”, _Nye Eventyr. Første Bind. Tredie Samling._. 1845. %%%% falchion “I have seen the day, with my good biting falchion I would have made them skip: I am old now, And these same crosses spoil me.” -William Shakespeare, _King Lear_, V, iii. 1608. %%%% fire crab “The planet brought forth scintillating jewelled scuttling crabs, which [they] ate, smashing their shells with iron mallets; tall aspiring trees with breathtaking slenderness and colour which [they] cut down and burned the crab meat with.” -Douglas Adams, The Hitch-hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy %%%% fire dragon armour %%%% fire dragon hide %%%% flail “Even after forcing their way, with great effort and loss, through this double defense, [the Germans] still found themselves at a disadvantage; for their armor scarce enabled them to contend on equal terms with the uncouth but formidable weapons of their adversaries. The Bohemians were armed with long iron flails, which they swung with prodigious force. They seldom failed to hit, and when they did so, the flail crashed through brazen helmet, skull and all.” -James A. Wylie, _The History of Protestantism_, vol. I, book 3, ch. 15 “Jon Huss and the Hussite Wars”. 1878. %%%% Flight spell “What surprised him the most, however, was the logic of his wings. They seemed so natural on that completely human organism that he couldn’t understand why other men didn’t have them too.” -Gabriel Garcia Marquez, _A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings_. 1955. trans. Gregory Rabassa. 1972 %%%% flying skull “Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio, a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. He hath bore me on his back a thousand times, and now how abhorr’d in my imagination it is! My gorge rises at it.” -William Shakespeare, _The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark_, V, 1. 1603. %%%% ghost moth “Always in focus You can't feel my stare. I zoom into you You don't know I'm there.” -Judas Priest, “Electric Eye” %%%% ghost-faced bat %%%% ghoul “In the desert I saw a creature, naked, bestial, Who, squatting upon the ground, Held his heart in his hands, And ate of it. I said, ‘Is it good, friend?’ ‘It is bitter — bitter’, he answered, ‘But I like it Because it is bitter, And because it is my heart.’” -Stephen Crane, _The Black Riders and Other Lines_. 1895. %%%% giant club “Therewith the gyant buckled him to fight, Inflamd with scornefull wrath and high disdaine, And lifting up his dreadful club on hight, All armed with ragged snubbes and knottie graine, Him thought at first encounter to have slaine.” -Edmund Spenser, _The Faerie Queene_, Book I, “The Legend of the Knight of the Red Crosse”, Canto VIII, stanza vii, l. 55-9. 1590. %%%% giant eyeball “El ojo que ves no es ojo porque tú lo veas, es ojo porque te ve.” -Antonio Machado, Campos de Castilla. 1912-1917. %%%% giant frog “Hello, my baby Hello, my honey Hello, my ragtime gal Send me a kiss by wire Baby, my hearts on fire If you refuse me Honey, you’ll lose me Then you’ll be left alone Oh baby, telephone And tell me I’m your own.” -Ida Emerson and Joseph E. Howard, “Hello My Baby!” %%%% giant spiked club oni-ni-kanabō “oni with a spiked iron club” -Japanese proverb indicating overwhelming power %%%% giga bat %%%% glaive “To know the perfect length of your ſhort ſtaffe, or half Pike, Forreſt bil, Partiſan or Gleue, or ſuch like weapons of vantage and perfect lenghts, you ſhall ſtand vpright, holding the ſtaffe vpright cloſe by your body, with your left hãd, reaching with your right hand your ſtaffe as high as you can, and then allow to that length a ſpace to ſet both your hands, when you come to fight, wherein you may conueniently ſtrike, thrust and ward, & that is the iuſt length according to you ſtature. And this note, that theſe lengths will commonly fall out to be eight or nine foor long, and will fit, although not iuſt, the ſtatures of all men, without any hindrance at all vnto them in their fight, becauſe in any weapon wherin the hands may be remoued, and at libertie, to make the weapon lõger or ſhorter in fight at his pleaſure, a foot of the ſtaffe behind the backmost hand doth no harme.” -George Silver,_Paradoxes of Defence_.1599. %%%% gnoll “Then he descended softly and beckoned to Nuth. But the gnoles had watched him through knavish holes that they bore in trunks of the trees, and the unearthly silence gave way, as it were with a grace, to the rapid screams of Tonker as they picked him up from behind — screams that came faster and faster until they were incoherent. And where they took him it is not good to ask, and what they did with him I shall not say.” -Lord Dunsany, “How Nuth Would Have Practised His Art Upon the Gnoles”. 1912. %%%% goblin “Swish, smack! Whip crack! Batter and beat! Yammer and bleat! Work, work! Nor dare to shirk, While Goblins quaff, and Goblins laugh, Round and round far underground Below, my lad!” -J.R.R. Tolkien, _The Hobbit_ %%%% gold dragon armour %%%% gold dragon hide %%%% gold piece “Here it was that the ambassadors of the Samnites, finding him boiling turnips in the chimney corner, offered him a present of gold; but he sent them away with this saying; that he, who was content with such a supper, had no need of gold; and that he thought it more honourable to conquer those who possessed the gold, than to possess the gold itself.” -Plutarch, “Marcus Cato”, _Lives_. 75 AD. trans. John Dryden, 1683. %%%% golden dragon “You do not come dramatically, with dragons That rear up with my life between their paws And dash me butchered down beside the wagons” -Philip Larkin, “To Failure”. 1949. %%%% golden eye “No coveting nor envy burns In thy bright golden eye, That calm and innocently turns On all below the sky.” -Hannah Flagg Gould, _The Youth’s Coronal_ %%%% great mace “There will arise one named Feridoun, who shall inherit thy throne and reverse thy fortunes, and strike thee down with a cow-headed mace.” -Firdausi, _Shahnameh_. ca. 1000 A.D. trans. Helen Zimmern, 1883. %%%% great sword %%%% greater mummy %%%% greater naga “Then there have also come nagas from Lake Nabhasa, Vesali, and Tacchaka. Kambalas, Assataras, Payagas, and their kin. And from the River Yamuna comes the prestigious naga, Dhatarattha. The great naga Eravanna: He, too, has come to the forest meeting.” -Mahasamaya Sutta, _Dīgha Nikāya_, 20. ca. 500 B.C. trans. Thanissaro Bhikkhu %%%% griffon “As when a Gryphon through the wilderness, With winged course, o’er hill and moory dale, Pursues the Arimaspian who by stealth Hath from his wakeful custody purloined His guarded gold.” -Milton, _Paradise Lost_, Book II. 1667. %%%% halberd “And Diarmid oh, Diarmid he perished in the strife; His head it was spiked upon a halberd high; His colours they were trampled: he had no chance of life If the Lord God Himself stood by!— Och, ochone!” -James Clarence Mangan , _A Farewell to Patrick Sarsfield, Earl of Lucan_. ca. 1840. %%%% hammer “The hammah that John Henry swung, It weighed over nine poun', He broke a rib in his left han' side, And his intrels fell on the groun', And his intrels fell on the groun'.” -Onah L. Spencer, _John Henry_. Early 20th cent. %%%% hand axe “Lizzie Borden took an axe And gave her mother forty whacks. When she saw what she had done She gave her father forty-one.” -A popular skipping-rope rhyme, after 1893. %%%% hand crossbow %%%% harpy “Bird-bodied, girl-faced things they are; abominable their droppings, their hands are talons, their faces haggard with hunger insatiable.” -Virgil, Aeneid 3 “And Phineus had scarcely taken the first morsel up when, with as little warning as a whirlwind or a lightning flash, they dropped from the clouds proclaiming their desire for food with raucous cries. The young lords saw them coming and raised the alarm. Yet they had hardly done so before the Harpyiai had devoured the whole meal and were on the wing once more, far out at sea. All they left was an intolerable stench.” -Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica 2. 179 — 434 %%%% hell hound “About her middle round A cry of Hell-hounds never-ceasing barked With wide Cerberean mouths full loud, and rung A hideous peal; yet, when they list, would creep, If aught disturbed their noise, into her womb, And kennel there; yet there still barked and howled Within unseen.” -John Milton, _Paradise Lost_, Book II, l. 653-659. 1667. %%%% hell knight “Ok, let’s review. It’s up to the fair young maiden to rescue the dragon from the fire breathing knights in shining armour.” -Exiern %%%% hobgoblin “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson, _Essays: First Series_, Essay II: Self-Reliance. 1841. %%%% hog “Fern came slowly down the stairs. Her eyes were red from crying. As she approached her chair, the carton wobbled, and there was a scratching noise. Fern looked at her father. Then she lifted the lid of the carton. There, inside, looking up at her, was the newborn pig. It was a white one. The morning light shone through its ears, turning them pink. “He’s yours,” said Mr. Arable. “Saved from an untimely death. And may the good Lord forgive me for this foolishness.” -E.B. White, _Charlotte’s Web_ %%%% horn of Geryon ‘So Joshua called together the priests and said, “Take up the Ark of the Lord’s Covenant, and assign seven priests to walk in front of it, each carrying a ram’s horn.’ ‘When the people heard the sound of the rams’ horns, they shouted as loud as they could. Suddenly, the walls of Jericho collapsed, and the Israelites charged straight into the town and captured it. They completely destroyed everything in it with their swords—men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep, goats, and donkeys.’ -Joshua 6:6,20-21, New Living Translation %%%% hound “A traveller, by the faithful hound, Half-buried in the snow was found, Still grasping in his hand of ice That banner with the strange device, Excelsior!” -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “Excelsior” %%%% human “Do you know Do I know What’s this thing called ‘man’? God only knows what a man is! I only know his price.” -Bertolt Brecht, “The Measures Taken”. 1930. %%%% ice bat %%%% ice dragon armour %%%% ice dragon hide %%%% iguana “Once on a time when Brahmadatta was reigning in Benares, the Bodhisatta was born an iguana. When he grew up he dwelt in a big burrow in the river bank with a following of many hundreds of other iguanas. Now the Bodhisatta had a son, a young iguana, who was great friends with a chameleon, whom he used to clip and embrace. This intimacy being reported to the iguana king, he sent for his young son and said that such friendship was misplaced, for chameleons were low creatures, and that if the intimacy was persisted in, calamity would befall the whole of the tribe of iguanas. And he enjoined his son to have no more to do with the chameleon. But the son continued in his intimacy.” -_Khuddaka Nikāya_, Jātaka 141 “Godha-jātaka”. ca. 4th cent. B.C. trans. Robert Chalmers, 1895. %%%% insubstantial wisp “Lead then, said Eve. Hee leading swiftly rowld In tangles, and made intricate seem strait, To mischief swift. Hope elevates, and joy Bright'ns his Crest, as when a wandring Fire Compact of unctuous vapor, which the Night Condenses, and the cold invirons round, Kindl'd through agitation to a Flame, Which oft, they say, some evil Spirit attends Hovering and blazing with delusive Light, Misleads th' amaz'd Night-wanderer from his way To Boggs and Mires, and oft through Pond or Poole, There swallow'd up and lost, from succour farr.” -John Milton, _Paradise Lost_ %%%% jackal Always ready to take advantage of every favourable opportunity, the Jackal is a sad parasite, and hangs on the skirts of the larger carnivora as they roam the country for prey, in the hope of securing some share of the creatures which they destroy or wound." -John George Wood, _The Illustrated Natural History: Mammalia_. 1865. %%%% javelin “Suppose you found your brother in bed with your wife, and put a javelin through both of them, you would be justified, and they would atone for their sins, and be received into the kingdom of God.” -Brigham Young, _Journal of Discourses_, 3:247. 1856. %%%% jelly “Beware of the Blob! It creeps And leaps and glides and slides Across the floor Right through the door And all around the wall, A splotch, a blotch...” -Burt Bacharach, “Beware of the Blob” %%%% kobold “Kobolds are harmless.” -Bearand the Bold, epitaph (Magic: the Gathering) %%%% kraken “... Kraken, also called the Crab-fish, which [according to the pilots of Norway] is not that huge, for heads and tails counted, he is no larger than our Öland is wide [i.e. less than 16 km] ... He stays at the sea floor, constantly surrounded by innumerable small fishes, who serve as his food and are fed by him in return: for his meal, if I remember correctly what E. Pontoppidan writes, lasts no longer than three months, and another three are then needed to digest it. His excrements nurture in the following an army of lesser fish, and for this reason, fishermen plumb after his resting place ... Gradually, Kraken ascends to the surface, and when he is at ten to twelve fathoms, the boats had better move out of his vicinity, as he will shortly thereafter burst up, like a floating island, spurting water from his dreadful nostrils and making ring waves around him, which can reach many miles. Could one doubt that this is the Leviathan of Job?” -Jacob Wallenberg, “Min son på galejan”. 1781. %%%% lajatang “A weapon that comes down as still As snowflakes fall upon the sod; But executes a freeman’s will, As lightning does the will of God.” -John Pierpont, “The Ballot”. ca. 1850. %%%% large rock “Well, I run to the rock and I hide my face The rock cried out, No hiding place There's no hiding place down here.” -Negro spiritual. 19th cent. %%%% large shield %%%% lasher statue “To be a slave for a moment The body offered up to cruelty To the lash which whips on the skin Which slashes the flesh, lacerates the back” -Samael, “Flagellation” %%%% leather armour “Nought can Deform the Human race Like to the Armours iron brace” -William Blake, “Auguries of Innocence”, 99-100. 1803. %%%% lindwurm “Freilich verbürgt uns keine Silbe die Existenz von solcherlei Thieren, wenn wir uns den Drachen oder Lindwurm als ein Ungeheuer vorstellen, dessen langer Hals in einen Adler-, Löwen- oder Delphinenkopf endigt; das auf dem breiten Rücken Greifs- oder Nachisittige trägt; und am vielfach gerollten Schweif einen Stachel mit Widerhaken hat; Feuer speit; sich in Mädchen verliebt und diese entführt; bald diese bald jene Gestalt annimmt; auf sauer erworbenen Schatzen ruht — kurz, als ein Ungeheuer, das alle Eigenschaften besitzt, welche die Fabel ihm andichtet; dann wäre es Wahnsinn, an Drachen und Lindwürmer glauben zu wollen. Nehmen wir aber dafür bloß ein furchtbares Ungeheuer überhaupt, welches nun aus unserem Welttheile vertilgt ist, so hat der Glaube daran nichts Lächerliches.” -Leopold Ziegelhauſer, _Schattenbilder der Vorzeit: Ein Kranz von Geschichten, Sagen, Legenden, Märchen, Skizzen und Heldenmahlen, Aus allen Gegenden Deutschlands und des österreichischen Kaiserstaates_. 1844. %%%% long sword “While we were at grips with this great army and their dreadful broadswords (maquahuitl [made of obsidian]), many of the most powerful among the enemy seem to have decided to capture a horse. They began with a furious attack, and laid hands on a good mare well trained both for sport and battle. Her rider, Pedro de Moron, was a fine horseman; and as he charged with three other horsemen into the enemy ranks—they had been instructed to charge together for mutual support—some of them seized his lance so he could not use it, and others slashed at him with their broadswords (maquahuitl), wounding him severely. Then they slashed at his mare, cutting her head at the neck so that it only hung by the skin. The mare fell dead, and if his mounted comrades had not come to Moron's rescue, he would probably have been killed also.” -Bernal Díaz del Castillo, _The Conquest of New Spain_. 1623. trans. J.M.Cohen, 1963. %%%% longbow “Robyn bent a full goode bowe, An arrowe he drowe at wyll; He hit so the proud sherife Upon the grounde he lay full still.” -_A Gest of Robyn Hode_ Sixth Fytte, l. 120-123. ca. 1450. %%%% lorocyproca “There it had assumed a wild, incalculable and incredible shape, twisted into a fantastic arabesque — invisible to their eyes, but dreadful nonetheless — into the unfamiliar numeral under whose menace they lived.” -Bruno Schulz, “The Brilliant Epoch”. 1937. %%%% lost soul “She walks in the twilight, her steps make no sound, Her feet leave no tracks on the dew-covered ground. Her hand gently beckons, she whispers your name— But those who go with her are never the same.” -Magic: the Gathering %%%% mace “[My plan] does not propose to fill your lobby with squabbling colony agents, who will require the interposition of your mace at every instant to keep the peace among them.” -Edmund Burke, “On Conciliation with America”, speech in Parliament. 1775. %%%% mad acolyte of Lugonu “And when you look long into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.” -Friedrich Nietzche, “Beyond Good and Evil”. 1886. %%%% manticore “Ctesias writeth, that in Aethiopia likewise there is a beast which he calleth Mantichora, having three rankes of teeth, which when they meet togither are let in one within another like the teeth of combes: with the face and eares of a man, with red eyes; of colour sanguine, bodied like a lyon, and having a taile armed with a sting like a scorpion: his voice resembleth the noise of a flute and trumpet sounded together: very swift he is, and mans flesh of all others hee most desireth.” -Pliny the Elder, _Natural History_, Book 8, Chapter XXI %%%% manual %%%% merfolk “Again at length my thought reviving came, When I no longer found my self the same; Then first this sea-green beard I felt to grow, And these large honours on my spreading brow; My long-descending locks the billows sweep, And my broad shoulders cleave the yielding deep; My fishy tail, my arms of azure hue, And ev'ry part divinely chang'd, I view.” -Ovid, _Metamorphoses_, XIII, 546-7. 8 A.D. trans. Garth, Dryden, et al. %%%% merfolk aquamancer %%%% merfolk impaler %%%% merfolk javelineer %%%% mermaid “Then up it raise the mermaiden, Wi the comb an glass in her hand: ‘Here’s a health to you, my merrie young men, For you never will see dry land.’” -“Sir Patrick Spens”, Scottish folk song, version 58J in Francis James Child, _The English and Scottish Popular Ballads_. 1898. %%%% microbat %%%% molten gargoyle %%%% morningstar “Little did then his pomp of plumes bestead The Azteca, or glittering pride of gold. Against the tempered sword; little his casque, Cay with its feathery coronal, or drest In graven terrors, when the Briton's hand Drove in through helm and head the spiked mace; Or swung its iron weights with shattering sway. Which, where they fell, destroyed.” -Robert Southey, _Madoc_. 1805. %%%% moth of wrath “When within sight of their foe Berserks wrought themselves into such a state of frenzy, that they bit their shields and rushed forward to the attack, throwing away their arms of defence, reckless of every danger, sometimes having nothing but a club, which carried with it death and destruction.” -Paul Belloni Du Chaillu,_The Viking Age: the Early History, Manners, and Customs of the Ancestors of the English Speaking Nations_. 1889. %%%% mottled dragon armour %%%% mottled dragon hide %%%% mummy “I see Egypt and the Egyptians — I see the pyramids and obelisks; I look on chisel’d histories, songs, philosophies, cut in slabs of sand-stone, or on granite-blocks; I see at Memphis mummy-pits, containing mummies, embalm’d, swathed in linen cloth, lying there many centuries; I look on the fall’n Theban, the large-ball’d eyes, the side-drooping neck, the hands folded across the breast.” -Walt Whitman, “Salut au Monde” %%%% naga “Amongst the deities and Asuras and celestial Rishis, O amiable lady, the Nagas are endued with great energy. Possessed of great speed, they are endued again with excellent fragrance. They deserve to be worshipped. They are capable of granting boons. Indeed, we too deserve to be followed by others in our train. I tell thee, O lady, that we are incapable of being seen by human beings.” -Mahābhārata, Santi Parva, Mokshadharma Parva, section CCCLX. ca. 500 B.C. trans. Kisari Mohan Ganguli, 1883. %%%% naga mage %%%% naga warrior %%%% needle “I pray that, risen from the dead, I may in glory stand— A crown, perhaps, upon my head, But a needle in my hand.” -Eugene Field, “Grandma's Prayer”. late 19th cent. %%%% neqoxec “If thus mutation is influenced by natural selection, it implies, that any particular mutation must advance in a direction advantageous for the respective species, and, indeed, many examples of mutation known among fossil animals are apparently due to the advantage produced by the change. I must add here, however that probably not all mutations (in a palaeontological meaning) are due to natural selection, but that many do not imply an actual improvement.” -_Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society_, Volume XXV, no. 150. 1896. %%%% octopode “In their brief time together Slothrop forms the impression that this octopus is not in good mental health, though where’s his basis for comparing? But there is a mad exhuberance, as with inanimate objects which fall off of tables when we are sensitive to noise and our own clumsiness and don’t want them to fall, a sort of wham! ha-ha you hear that? here it is again, WHAM! in the cephalopod’s every movement, which Slothrop is glad to get away from as he finally scales the crab like a discus, with all his strength, out to sea, and the octopus, with an eager splash and gurgle, strikes out in pursuit, and is presently gone.” -Thomas Pynchon, _Gravity's Rainbow_. 1973. %%%% oklob plant “Carbonic acid is one of the three materials which together form the starting point of vegetable growth; the others being water and nitric acid. This acid is formed of carbon and oxygen in the proportion of one part of the former to two of the latter chemically combined. It is a colorless gas, having an acid taste and smell; is soluble in water; weighs one-half more than air and can be poured from one vessel to another, as a liquid may be; 100 parts of water dissolve 106 parts of this gas, and it is from this source that the roots of plants derive the needed supplies of it.” -Henry Stuart, _The Culture of Farm Crops: A Manual of the Science of Agriculture, and a Hand-book of Practice for American Farmers_, ch X. 1887. %%%% oklob sapling %%%% ooze “Sea horses floundering in the slimy mud, Tossed up their heads, and dashed the ooze about them.” -John Dryden. _All For Love_, I, i, 15-17. 1678. %%%% ophan “As I looked at the living creatures, I saw a wheel on the ground beside each creature with its four faces. This was the appearance and structure of the wheels: They sparkled like chrysolite, and all four looked alike. Each appeared to be made like a wheel intersecting a wheel. As they moved, they would go in any one of the four directions the creatures faced; the wheels did not turn about as the creatures went. Their rims were high and awesome, and all four rims were full of eyes all around.” -Ezekiel 1:15-18 (New International Version) %%%% orange demon “In Sparkill buried lies that man of mark Who brought the Obelisk to Central Park, Redoubtable Commander H.H. Gorringe, Whose name supplies the long-sought rhyme for ‘orange.’” -Arthur Guiterman, “Local Note”. 1934. %%%% orb of fire “There ’s not the smallest orb which thou behold’st But in his motion like an angel sings, Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins.” -William Shakespeare, _The Merchant of Venice_, V, i. 1597. %%%% pandemonium lord “Mean while the winged heralds by command Of Sovran power, with awful Ceremony And Trumpets sound throughout the Host proclaim A solemn Councel forthwith to be held At Pandaemonium, the high Capital Of Satan and his Peers...” -John Milton, _Paradise Lost_, Book I, l. 752-7. 1667. %%%% pearl dragon armour %%%% pearl dragon hide %%%% phantom “Who wondrous things concerning our welfare, And straunge phantomes doth lett us ofte foresee.” -Spenser, _The Faerie Queene_ II. xii. 47 %%%% phase bat %%%% pillar of salt “Then the LORD rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven; And he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground. But [Lot's] wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.” -KJV Bible, Genesis 19:24-6. %%%% player ghost “Know thyself.” -Inscription in the pronaos of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi %%%% polar bear “The Polar Bear is an animal of tremendous strength and fierceness.iBarentz, in his voyage in search of a north-east passage to China, had proofs of the ferocity of these animals, in the island of Nova Zembla, where they attacked his seamen, seizing them in their mouths; carrying them off with the utmost ease, and devouring them in the sight of their comrades. It is said that they will attack and attempt to board armed vessels, at a great distance from shore, and have sometimes been with much difficulty repelled.” -George Shaw, _General Zoology, or, Systematic Natural History_, vol. I, p. 2. 1800. %%%% potion “Then gave I her, — so tutor’d by my art, — A sleeping potion; which so took effect As I intended, for it wrought on her The form of death: meantime I writ to Romeo That he should hither come as this dire night, To help to take her from her borrow’d grave, Being the time the potion’s force should cease.” -William Shakespeare, _Romeo and Juliet_ %%%% potion of poison “If when you say "whiskey" you mean the devil's brew, the poison scourge, the bloody monster, that defiles innocence, dethrones reason, destroys the home, creates misery and poverty, yea, literally takes the bread from the mouths of little children... then certainly I am against it.” -Noah S. Sweat, Jr. “If By Whiskey”. 1952 %%%% potion of curing “But if when you say "whiskey" you mean the oil of conversation, the philosophic wine, the ale that is consumed when good fellows get together, that puts a song in their hearts and laughter on their lips, and the warm glow of contentment in their eyes... then certainly I am for it.” -Noah S. Sweat, Jr. “If By Whiskey”. 1952 %%%% profane servitor “A spell was cast and the sky turned red The angel's heart froze to ice In the gloomy sky black clouds were gathering The silence was broken by cries A spell was cast and the sky turned red The angel's heart froze to ice In the gloomy sky — The silence where dead angels lie Touch the snow... Caress the lifeless sculptures Die!!!” -Dissection, “Where Dead Angels Lie” %%%% program bug “If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization.” -Gerald Weinberg, Weinberg’s Second Law %%%% quarterstaff “Then Robin he unbuckled his belt, And laid down his bow so long; He took up a staff of another oak graff, That was both stiff and strong. ‘But let me measure,’ said jolly Robin, ‘Before we begin our fray; For I'll not have mine to be longer than thine, For that will be counted foul play.’ ‘I pass not for length,’ bold Arthur replied, ‘My staff is of oak so free; Eight foot and a half it will knock down a calf, And I hope it will knock down thee.’ Then Robin could no longer forbear, He gave him such a knock, Quickly and soon the blood came down, Before it was ten o'clock. About and about and about they went, Like two wild boars in a chase, Striving to aim each other to maim, Leg, arm, or any other place. And knock for knock they hastily dealt, Which held for two hours and more; That all the wood rang at every bang, They plied their work so sore.” -Anonymous, “Robin Hood and the Tanner”. %%%% quasit “You’ll have to pay double reckoning; ’tis only fair you should pay for your dexterity.” -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, _Egmont_, I, 1. 1788. trans. Anna Swanwick, 1914. %%%% quick blade “He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword...” -Julia Ward Howe, “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”. 1861. %%%% rakshasa “Vaisampayana said, 'Not far from the place where the Pandavas were asleep, a Rakshasa by name Hidimva dwelt on the Sala tree. Possessed of great energy and prowess, he was a cruel cannibal of visage that was grim in consequence of his sharp and long teeth. He was now hungry and longing for human flesh. Of long shanks and a large belly, his locks and beard were both red in hue. His shoulders were broad like the neck of a tree; his ears were like unto arrows, and his features were frightful.” -_Mahābhārata_, Adi Parva, Hidimva-vadha Parva, section CLIV. ca. 500 B.C. trans. Kisari Mohan Ganguli, 1883. %%%% raven “The Hatter opened his eyes very wide on hearing this; but all he said was ‘Why is a raven like a writing-desk?’” -Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland %%%% ring “A ring of gold and a milk-white dove Are goodly gifts for thee, And a hempen rope for your own love To hang upon a tree.” -Oscar Wilde, “Chanson”. 1881. %%%% ring mail %%%% ring of dexterity %%%% ring of evasion %%%% ring of fire “Love is a burning thing And it makes a fiery ring” -June Carter, Merle Kilgore, “Ring of Fire”. 1963. %%%% ring of flight %%%% ring of loudness %%%% ring of ice “Some say the world will end in fire; Some say in ice. From what I've tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate To say that for destruction ice Is also great And would suffice.” -Robert Frost, “Fire and Ice”. 1920. %%%% ring of intelligence %%%% ring of invisibility “With yells of delight the goblins rushed upon him. A pang of fear and loss, like an echo of Gollum's misery, smote Bilbo, and forgetting even to draw his sword he struck his hands into his pockets. And — there was the ring still, in his left pocket, and it slipped on his finger. The goblins stopped short. They could not see a sign of him. He had vanished.” -J.R.R. Tolkien, _The Hobbit, or There and Back Again_. 1937. %%%% ring of magical power %%%% ring of poison resistance %%%% ring of positive energy %%%% ring of protection %%%% ring of protection from cold %%%% ring of protection from fire %%%% ring of protection from magic %%%% ring of regeneration %%%% ring of see invisible “Here is my secret. It is very simple: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” -Antoine de Saint Exupéry, _The Little Prince_. 1943. %%%% ring of slaying %%%% ring of strength %%%% ring of sustain abilities %%%% ring of stealth %%%% ring of teleport control %%%% ring of teleportation %%%% ring of wizardry %%%% robe “CLEOPATRA: Give me my robe, put on my crown; I have Immortal longings in me” -William Shakespeare, _Anthony & Cleopatra_, V, ii. ca. 1605. %%%% rod of striking “He that spares his rod hates his son: but he that loves him chastens him early.” -King James 2000 Bible, Proverbs 13:24 %%%% rotten bat %%%% salamander “As for example: the Salamander made in fashion of a Lizard, marked with spots like to stars, never comes abroad and sheweth it selfe but in great showers; for in faire weather he is not seene. He is of so cold a complexion, that if hee do but touch the fire, hee wil quench it as presently, as if yce were put into it. The Salamander casteth up at the mouth a certaine venomous matter like unto milke, let it but once touch any bare part of a man or womans bodie, all the haire will fall off: and the part so touched will change the colour of the skin to the white morphew.” -Gaius Plinius Secundus, _Naturalis Historia_, Book X, ch. LXVII. 79 A.D. trans. Philemon Holland, 1601. %%%% scale mail %%%% scimitar “The museum-cabinet and huge library arrogated to themselves the entire lower floor — there were the controversial and incompatible books that are somehow the history of the nineteenth century; there were scimitars from Nishapur, in whose frozen crescents the wind and violence of battle seemed to be living on.” -Jorge Luis Borges, _The Form of the Sword_. 1953. trans. Andrew Hurley. %%%% scorpion “Those poisonous fields, with rank luxuriance crown’d, Where the dark scorpion gathers death around” -Oliver Goldsmith, “The Deserted Village”, l. 351-2. 1770. %%%% scroll “To drift with every passion till my soul Is a stringed lute on which all winds can play, Is it for this that I have given away Mine ancient wisdom, and austere control? Methinks my life is a twice-written scroll Scrawled over on some boyish holiday.” -Oscar Wilde, _Helas_. 1881. %%%% scroll of acquirement %%%% scroll of amnesia %%%% scroll of blinking %%%% scroll of brand weapon %%%% scroll of curse armour %%%% scroll of curse jewellery %%%% scroll of curse weapon %%%% scroll of enchant armour %%%% scroll of enchant weapon %%%% scroll of fear %%%% scroll of fog %%%% scroll of holy word %%%% scroll of identify %%%% scroll of immolation %%%% scroll of magic mapping %%%% scroll of noise %%%% scroll of random uselessness %%%% scroll of recharging %%%% scroll of remove curse %%%% scroll of silence %%%% scroll of summoning %%%% scroll of teleportation %%%% scroll of torment %%%% scroll of vulnerability %%%% scythe “It was instinct. Illogical as lightning striking and not hurting. Each day the grain must be cut. It had to be cut. Why? Well, it just did, that was all. He laughed at the scythe in his big hands. Then, whistling, he took it out to the ripe and waiting field and did the work. He thought himself a little mad. Hell, it was an ordinary-enough wheat field, really, wasn't it?” -Ray Bradbury, _The Scythe_. 1943. %%%% seraph “In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the LORD sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory.” -KJV Bible, Isaiah 6:1-3. %%%% shadow “Between the idea And the reality Between the motion And the act Falls the Shadow For thine is the Kingdom Between the conception And the creation Between the emotion And the response Falls the Shadow Life is very long” -T.S. Eliot, “The Hollow Men”. 1925. %%%% shadow demon “As we grow old, we become aware that death is drawing near; his shadow falls across our path...” -Stefan Zweig, _Twenty-Four Hours in the Life of a Woman_. 1927. %%%% shadow dragon “Crux sacra sit mihi lux / Non draco sit mihi dux Vade retro satana / Numquam suade mihi vana Sunt mala quae libas / Ipse venena bibas” “Let the Holy Cross be my light / Let not the dragon be my guide Step back Satan / Never tempt me with vain things What you offer me is evil / You drink the poison yourself.” -full text of initials on the Saint Benedict Medal, worn to ward off evil spririts. Inscription from 11-15th century, formally approved by pope Benedict XIV in 18th century %%%% shadow wraith “Yesterday, upon the stair, I met a man who wasn’t there He wasn’t there again today I wish, I wish he’d go away...” -Hughes Mearns ,_Antigonish_, 1-4. 1899. %%%% shapeshifter “And then th' old Sea-God crept From forth the deeps, and found his fat calves there, Survey'd, and number'd, and came never near The craft we used, but told us five for calves. His temples then dis-eased with sleep he salves; And in rush'd we, with an abhorred cry, Cast all our hands about him manfully; And then th' old Forger all his forms began: First was a lion with a mighty mane, Then next a dragon, a pied panther then, A vast boar next, and suddenly did strain All into water. Last he was a tree, Curl'd all at top, and shot up to the sky.” -Homer, _The Odyssey_, IV, 602-14. trans. George Chapman, 1857. %%%% shield %%%% shortbow “You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.” -Khalil Ghibran, _The Prophet_, “On Children”. 1923. %%%% short sword “Who was the first that forged the deadly blade? Of rugged steel his savage soul was made” -Albius Tibullus, _Elegies_ I, xi. ca. 25 B.C. trans. James Grainger, 1822. %%%% silent spectre “There is a silence where hath been no sound, There is a silence where no sound may be,— In the cold grave, under the deep, deep sea, Or in the wide desert where no life is found.” -Thomas Hood, “Silence”. Early 19th cent. %%%% simulacrum “The simulacrum now hides, not the truth, but the fact that there is none, that is to say, the continuation of Nothingness.” -Jean Baudrillard, “Radical Thought”. 1994. trans. François Debrix, 1995. %%%% siren “Row'd on, in reach of an erected voice, The Sirens soon took note, without our noise, Tuned those sweet accents that made charms so strong, And these learn'd numbers made the Sirens' song: ‘Come here, thou worthy of a world of praise, That dost so high the Grecian glory raise, Ulysses! stay thy ship, and that song hear That none past ever but it bent his ear, But left him ravish'd, and instructed more By us, than any ever heard before. For we know all things whatsoever were In wide Troy labour'd; whatsoever there The Grecians and the Trojans both sustain'd By those high issues that the Gods ordain'd. And whatsoever all the earth can show T' inform a knowledge of desert, we know.’” -Homer, _The Odyssey_, XII, 268-82. trans. George Chapman, 1857. %%%% sixfirhy “I saw a mouth jeering. A smile of melted red iron ran over it. Its laugh was full of nails rattling. It was a child’s dream of a mouth. A fist hit the mouth: knuckles of gun-metal driven by an electric wrist and shoulder. It was a child’s dream of an arm. The fist hit the mouth over and over, again and again. The mouth bled melted iron, and laughed its laughter of nails rattling. And I saw the more the fist pounded the more the mouth laughed. The fist is pounding and pounding, and the mouth answering.” -Carl Sandburg, “Gargoyle”, _Cornhusker_. 1918. %%%% skeletal archer “For a glory of all evil spirits rise for victory Pain for pain, blood for blood Pagan warriors moved quickly forward Bows are ready to shoot out their searing Darts...” -Mastiphal, “For a Glory of All Evil spirits” %%%% skeletal bat %%%% skeletal warrior “Speak! speak! thou fearful guest! Who, with thy hollow breast Still in rude armor drest, Comest to daunt me! Wrapt not in Eastern balms, But with thy fleshless palms Stretched, as if asking alms, Why dost thou haunt me?” -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “The Skeleton in Armor”. 1841. %%%% skeleton “God save us from the skeleton Who sitteth at the feast!” -James Jeffrey Roche, _The Skeleton at the Feast_. 1890. %%%% sky beast “Her own mother lived the latter years of her life in the horrible suspicion that electricity was dripping invisibly all over the house.” -James Thurber, _My Life and Hard Times_. 1934. %%%% slave “Who rebels? Who rises in arms? Rarely the slave, but almost always the oppressor turned slave.” -E.M. Cioran, _History and Utopia_. 1960. %%%% slice of pizza “When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that’s amore.” -Jack Brooks, “That’s Amore”. 1952. %%%% slime creature “The very deep did rot: O Christ! That ever this should be! Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs Upon the slimy sea.” -Samuel Tayor Coleridge, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”. 1798. %%%% hunting sling “And David put his hand in his bag, and took thence a stone, and slang it, and smote the Philistine in his forehead, that the stone sunk into his forehead; and he fell upon his face to the earth.” -KJV Bible, 1 Samuel 17:49. %%%% greatsling “Thrice whirling round his head The whistling thong, Mezentius took his aim. Clean through his temples hissed the molten lead, And prostrate in the dust, the gallant youth lay dead.” -Virgil, Aeneid 9 trans. E. Fairfax Taylor %%%% sling bullet “For when things are once come to the execution, there is no secrecy comparable to celerity; like the motion of a bullet in the air, which flieth so swift as it outruns the eye.” -Francis Bacon, _Essays_, “Of Delays”. 1625. %%%% small abomination “No — it wasn't that way at all. It was everywhere — a gelatin — a slime yet it had shapes, a thousand shapes of horror beyond all memory. There were eyes — and a blemish. It was the pit — the maelstrom — the ultimate abomination. Carter, it was the unnamable!” -H.P. Lovecraft, _The Unnamable_. 1925. %%%% smoke demon “Why does the thin grey strand Floating up from the forgotten Cigarette between my fingers, Why does it trouble me?” -D.H. Lawrence, “Sorrow”. 1916. %%%% snapping turtle “After a while they came to a village. ”Now then,“ said Snapping Turtle, ”in the morning at daylight, my friends, we will make on attack. I myself will first go to the place,“ the leader of the war party said to them. ”Good,“ said the other little one, ”thou art the one who sees to it what we shall do,“ they said to that Snapping Turtle. ”Now then,“ said Snapping Turtle, ”verily I am now going to tell you what I shall do.“ Thus he spoke. ”Now is the time I shall begin to walk toward this village. Verily at the time I shall kill the daughter of the chief will be when the light of day is breaking, and at the same instant the sky will glow with red in the direction whence the morrow comes. ‘Ho, there, our comrade has killed her!’ will thus be the thought in your hearts. Then is the time when you want to make a great noise, when you shall whoop all keep it up. Now is the time that you go to attack this village.“ Thus he spoke to those his young men. ”All right!“ said the other little fellows.” -“When Snapping Turtle went to War”, _Publications of the American Ethnological Society, Volume IX: Kickapoo Tales_. 1915. trans. Truman Michelson %%%% soul eater “Negation is the mind's first freedom.” -E.M. Cioran, _The Temptation to Exist_. 1956. %%%% spatial vortex “It was just a colour out of space—a frightful messenger from unformed realms of infinity beyond all Nature as we know it; from realms whose mere existence stuns the brain and numbs us with the black extra-cosmic gulfs it throws open before our frenzied eyes.” -H.P. Lovecraft, “The Colour out of Space”. 1927. %%%% spear “The halberd is inferior to the spear on the battlefield. With the spear you can take the initiative; the halberd is defensive. In the hands of one of two men of equal ability, the spear gives a little extra strength.” -Miyamoto Musashi, _The Book of Five Rings_. 1645. %%%% spectral thing “On the hungry craving wind My Spectre follows thee behind.” -William Blake, “Broken Love”. ca. 1800. %%%% staff “Bashō Osho said to his disciples, ‘If you have a staff, I will give you a staff. If you have no staff, I will take it from you.’ Mumon's Comment It helps me wade across a river when the bridge is down. It accompanies me to the village on a moonless night. If you call it a staff, you will enter hell like an arrow.” -Mumon Ekai, _The Gateless Gate_, case 44. 1228. trans. Katsuki Sekida %%%% staff of air %%%% staff of cold %%%% staff of conjuration %%%% staff of death “'I am Aed Abaid of Ess Rúaid, that is, the good god of wizardry of the Tuatha Dé Danann, and the Rúad Rofhessa, and Eochaid Ollathair are my three names.’ And thus he was, with Cermait Milbél, one of his sons, on his back, who had fallen in fight and combat by Lug, son of Cian, High King of Ireland. The Dagda betook himself to his knowledge and learning, and therefore frankincense and myrrh and herbs were put around the body of Cermait, and he lifted Cermait on his back, and bearing Cermait he searched the world, and came to the great eastern world. He met three men going the road and the way with their father’s treasures. The Dagda asked news of them, and they said ‘We are three sons of one father and mother, and we are sharing our father’s treasures.’ ‘What have ye?’ said the Dagda. ‘A shirt and a staff and a cloak,’ said they. ‘What virtues have these?’ said the Dagda. ‘This great staff that thou seest,’ said he, ‘has a smooth end and a rough end. One end slays the living, and the other end brings the dead to life.’” -Osborn Bergin, “How the Dagda Got His Magic Staff”, _Medieval Studies in Memory of Gertrude Schoepperle Loomis_. 1927. %%%% staff of earth %%%% staff of energy %%%% staff of fire “The wizard suddenly remembered the words of the god. He remembered that of all the creatures that people the earth, Fire was the only one who knew his son to be a phantom. This memory, which at first calmed him, ended by tormenting him. He feared lest his son should meditate on this abnormal privilege and by some means find out he was a mere simulacrum. Not to be a man, to be a projection of another man's dreams—what an incomparable humiliation, what madness!” -Jorge Luis Borges, _The Circular Ruins_. 1940. trans. Anthony Bonner, 1962. %%%% staff of poison %%%% staff of power %%%% staff of summoning %%%% staff of wizardry %%%% steam dragon armour %%%% steam dragon hide “His scales are his pride, shut up together as with a close seal. One is so near to another, that no air can come between them. They are joined one to another, they stick together, that they cannot be sundered.” -KJV Bible, Job 41:15-17. %%%% stone “How happy is the little Stone That rambles in the Road alone, And doesn't care about Careers And Exigencies never fears — Whose Coat of elemental Brown A passing Universe put on, And independent as the Sun Associates or glows alone, Fulfilling absolute Decree In casual simplicity —” -Emily Dickinson, “How happy is the little Stone”. ca. 1865. %%%% stone giant “I really believe what you say, answered the knight; for, I have been engaged with the giant, in the most obstinate and outrageous combat that I believe I shall ever fight in all the days of my life: with one backstroke, slam went his head to the ground; and discharged such a quantity of blood, that it ran like rills of water, along the field.” -Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, _The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha_, IV, 10. 1605. trans. Carlos Fuentes, 1997. %%%% storm dragon armour %%%% storm dragon hide %%%% sun demon “Behold him setting in his western skies, The shadows lengthening as the vapours rise.” -John Dryden, “Absalom and Achitophel”, I, 268. 1681. %%%% swamp dragon armour %%%% swamp dragon hide %%%% swamp drake “Sweet is the swamp with its secrets, Until we meet a snake; ’T is then we sigh for houses, And our departure take At that enthralling gallop That only childhood knows. A snake is summer’s treason, And guile is where it goes.” -Emily Dickinson, “A Snake”. ca. 1865. %%%% swamp worm “The fool, as I think, at the chasm’s brink, Prone by the swamp or the marsh’s side, Did, even as I, in the end rejoice, Since the voice of death must be His true voice.” -Arthur Edward Waite, “At The End of Things”. 1906. %%%% tengu “A Bird came down the Walk — He did not know I saw — He bit an Angleworm in halves And ate the fellow, raw” -Emily Dickinson, “A Bird came down the Walk”. ca. 1865. %%%% tentacled monstrosity “Oozing and surging up out of that yawning trap-door in the Cyclopean crypt I had glimpsed such an unbelievable behemothic monstrosity that I could not doubt the power of its original to kill with its mere sight. Even now I cannot begin to suggest it with any words at my command. I might call it gigantic — tentacled — proboscidian — octopus-eyed — semi-amorphous — plastic — partly squamous and partly rugose — ugh!” -H.P. Lovecraft and Hazel Heald, “Out of the Aeons”, _Weird Tales_, 25, No. 4, pp. 478-96. April 1935. %%%% the Lernaean hydra “The second Labour which he undertook was the slaying of the Lernaian Hydra, springing from whose single body were fashioned a hundred necks, each bearing the head of a serpent. And when one head was cut off, the place where it was severed put forth two others; for this reason it was considered to be invincible, and with good reason, since the part of it which was subdued sent forth a two-fold assistance in its place. Against a thing so difficult to manage as this Herakles devised an ingenious scheme and commanded Iolaos to sear with a burning brand the part which had been severed, in order to check the flow of the blood.” -Diodorus Siculus, _Bibliotheca Historica_. [4. 11. 5.]. c. 100. %%%% throwing net “The look of a scared thing Sitting in a net!” -Edna St. Vincent Millay, “When the Year Grows Old”. 1917. %%%% titan “And on the other part the Titans eagerly strengthened their ranks, and both sides at one time showed the work of their hands and their might. The boundless sea rang terribly around, and the earth crashed loudly: wide Heaven was shaken and groaned, and high Olympus reeled from its foundation under the charge of the undying gods, and a heavy quaking reached dim Tartarus and the deep sound of their feet in the fearful onset and of their hard missiles. So, then, they launched their grievous shafts upon one another, and the cry of both armies as they shouted reached to starry heaven; and they met together with a great battle-cry.” -Hesiod, _Theogony_, 8th cent. B.C. trans. H.G. Evelyn-White, 1914. %%%% toadstool “But the Seneschal gathered the toadstool fly-bane.” -Adam Mickiewicz, _Pan Tadeusz_, III. 1834. trans. G.R. Noyes, 1917. %%%% toenail golem “Gentle socks pamper them by day, and shoes cobbled of leather fortify them, but my toes hardly notice. All they’re interested in is turning out toenails—semitransparent, flexible sheets of a hornlike material, as defense against—whom?” -Jorge Luis Borges, “Toenails”. 1960. trans. Andrew Hurley, 1998. %%%% tomahawk “Let them draw the sharpest knife, and whirl the swiftest tomahawk, for their bitterest enemy is in their hands.” -James Fenimore Cooper, “The Last of the Mohicans”, 1826. %%%% tome of destruction %%%% tormentor “Thou art to me a delicious torment.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson, _Essays: First Series_, Essay VI: Friendship. 1841. %%%% training dummy “Things are only mannequins and even the great world-historical events are only costumes beneath which they exchange glances with nothingness, with the base and the banal.” -Walter Benjamin, _Protocols to the Experiments on Hashish, Opium and Mescaline 1927-1934_, “Protocol II: Highlights of the Second Hashish Impression”. 15 January 1928. trans. Scott J. Thompson, 1997. %%%% trident “Without noticing the occupations of an intervening day or two, which, as they consisted of the ordinary sylvan amusements of shooting and coursing, have nothing sufficiently interesting to detain the reader, we pass to one in some degree peculiar to Scotland, which may be called a sort of salmon-hunting. This chase, in which the fish is pursued and struck with barbed spears, or a sort of long shafted trident, called a waster, is much practised at the mouth of the Esk, and in the other salmon rivers of Scotland.” -Sir Walter Scott, _Guy Mannering_, ch. XXVI. 1815. %%%% triple crossbow %%%% troll hide “THE TROLL KING: Now, listen, Prince Peer, and give way to reason! You're cut out for a Troll. Why, look, already You bear yourself quite in a Troll-like fashion! And you want to become one, don't you? PEER GYNT: Of course. In return for a bride and a well-found kingdom I'm not unwilling to sacrifice something; But all things have their natural limit. I have taken a tail, it is true; but, then, I can undo the knots that our friend has tied And take the thing off. I have shed my breeches; They were old and patched; but that won't prevent me From putting them on if I have a mind to. I shall probably find it just as easy To deal with your Trollish way of living. I can easily swear that a cow's a maiden; An oath's not a difficult thing to swallow. But to know that one never can get one's freedom — Not even to die as a human being — To end one's days as a Troll of the mountains — Never go back, as you tell me plainly — That is a thing that I'll not submit to.” -Henrik Ibsen, _Peer Gynt_ . 1867. %%%% troll leather armour %%%% ufetubus “We were permitted to shriek in the tongue of dwarfs and demons” -Czesław Miłosz, “A Task”. %%%% ugly thing “Beauty is no quality in things themselves: It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty. One person may even perceive deformity, where another is sensible of beauty; and every individual ought to acquiesce in his own sentiment, without pretending to regulate those of others.” -David Hume %%%% unseen horror “The awful shadow of some unseen Power Floats, tho’ unseen, amongst us.” -Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Hymn to Intellectual Beauty”, I, 1-2. 1816. %%%% vampire • Scuze me. My friend Burt says you're a vampire hunter. 'zat so? — Uh yes. Yes it is. • Well you n'ain't gonna find one round here, mate. They ain't no vampires. — You don't believe in vampires? • 'course not! • But I do believe in con artists. And charletans who like to stir up trouble! • Dead people who get up at night and suck blood. How stupid do you think we are? • My place is haunted with 16 ghosts and they all say there n'ain't no vampires! -Rich Morris, Yet Another Fantasy Gamer Comic %%%% vampire bat “For something is amiss and out of place When mice with wings can wear a human face.” -Theodore Roethke, “The Bat”. 1938. %%%% very ugly thing “All the infections that sun sucks up From bogs, fens, flats, on Prosper fall and make him By inch-meal a disease! His spirits hear me And yet I needs must curse. ” -William Shakespeare, _The Tempest_, II, 2. 1611. %%%% wand “[The principle of selection] is the magician’s wand, by means of which he may summon into life whatever form and mould he pleases.” -William Youatt, _Sheep: their breeds, management, and diseases; to which is added the Mountain Shepherd's Manual_, ch. III. 1837. %%%% wand of cold %%%% wand of confusion %%%% wand of digging %%%% wand of disintegration %%%% wand of draining %%%% wand of enslavement %%%% wand of fire %%%% wand of fireball %%%% wand of flame %%%% wand of frost %%%% wand of hasting %%%% wand of invisibility %%%% wand of lightning %%%% wand of magic darts %%%% wand of paralysis %%%% wand of polymorph %%%% wand of random effects %%%% wand of slowing %%%% wand of teleportation %%%% wandering mushroom “Telimena, wearied with the prolonged wrangling, wanted to go out into the fresh air, but sought a partner. She took a little basket from the peg. “Gentlemen, I see that you wish to remain within doors,” she said, wrapping around her head a red cashmere shawl, “but I am going for mushrooms: follow me who will!” Under one arm she took the little daughter of the Chamberlain, with the other she raised her skirt up to her ankles. Thaddeus silently hastened after her—to seek mushrooms!” -Adam Mickiewicz, _Pan Tadeusz_, II. 1834. trans. G.R. Noyes, 1917. %%%% war axe “‘God speed the kiss,’ said Max, and Katie sigh'd, With pray'rful palms close seal'd, ‘God speed the axe!’” -Isabella Valancey Crawford, “Malcolm's Katie: A Love Story”, Part I, _Old Spookses' Pass, Malcolm's Katie and Other Poems_. 1884. %%%% war gargoyle “Their innumerable sculptures of demons and dragons assumed a lugubrious aspect. The restless light of the flame made them move to the eye. There were griffins which had the air of laughing, gargoyles which one fancied one heard yelping, salamanders which puffed at the fire, tarasques which sneezed in the smoke. And among the monsters thus roused from their sleep of stone by this flame, by this noise, there was one who walked about, and who was seen, from time to time, to pass across the glowing face of the pile, like a bat in front of a candle.” -Victor Hugo, _The Hunchback of Notre-Dame_, 10, ch. IV. 1831. trans. Isabel F. Hapgood %%%% water nymph “Oh, but you can't expect to wield supreme executive power just because some watery tart threw a sword at you.” -Monty Python and the Holy Grail, 1975. %%%% whip “Not with a Club, the Heart is broken Nor with a Stone — A Whip so small you could not see it I've known To lash the Magic Creature Till it fell, Yet that Whip's Name Too noble then to tell.” -Emily Dickinson, “Not with a Club, the Heart is broken”. ca. 1865. %%%% wight “Unhappie wight, borne to desastrous end, That doth his life in so long tendance spend!” -Edmund Spenser, “Mother Hubberds Tale”, _Complaints_. 1591. %%%% witch “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.” -KJV Bible, Exodus 22:18. %%%% wizard “Each family or tribe has a wizard or conjuring doctor, whose office we could never clearly ascertain.” -Charles Darwin, _The Voyage of the Beagle_, ch. X. 1839. %%%% worm “While the angels, all pallid and wan, Uprising, unveiling, affirm That the play is the tragedy, ‘Man’, And its hero, the Conqueror Worm.” -Edgar Allan Poe %%%% wraith “God, though this life is but a wraith, Although we know not what we use, Although we grope with little faith, Give me the heart to fight—and lose.” -Louis Untermeyer, “Prayer”. 1919. %%%% ynoxinul “He fixed his eyes upon the door, which, slowly opening, disclosed a stranger of majestic form, but scowling features, who demanded sternly, why he was summoned? ‘I did not summon you,’ said the trembling student. ‘You did!’ said the stranger, advancing, angrily; ‘and the demons are not to be invoked in vain.’ The student could make no reply; and the demon, enraged that one of the uninitiated should have summoned him out of mere presumption, seized him by the throat and strangled him. When Agrippa returned, a few days afterwards, he found his house beset with devils. Some of them were sitting on the chimneypots, kicking up their legs in the air; while others were playing at leapfrog, on the very edge of the parapet. His study was so filled with them that he found it difficult to make his way to his desk.” -Charles Mackay, _Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions_, Vol. III, Part I. 1841. %%%% zombie “It seemed that while the zombie came from the grave, it was neither a ghost, nor yet a person who had been raised like Lazarus from the dead. The zombie, they say, is a soulless human corpse, still dead, but taken from the grave and endowed by sorcery with a mechanical semblance of life—it is a dead body which is made to walk and act and move as if it were alive. People who have the power to do this go to a fresh grave, dig up the body before it has had time to rot, galvanize it into movement, and then make of it a servant or slave, occasionally for the commission of some crime, more often simply as a drudge around the habitation or the farm, setting it dull heavy tasks, and beating it like a dumb beast if it slackens.” -William Seabrook, _The Magic Island_. 1929. %%%%