[Clearwitch]

Ok, I have to jump in here...

Jotun (Jotne) has nothing at all to do with demons, they are pre-christian giants from the Asatru religion. They were separated into categories such as frost giants, storm giants and fire giants. They lived in Jotunheimen, one of the nine realms of the world.

Trolls were later versions of the jotuns, also giants. Through fairytales and myths they are known to be big, stupid and dangerous, if they get caught outside in the sunlight they'll turn to stone.

Bergelmi and Ymir were both Jotuns, Ymir was the one to steal Thor's hammer, something he paid for with his life. His daughter, Skadi, was then allowed to choose a husband among the Aesir, as retribution for her father's death.

This post has been edited by Clearwitch: 16 August 2004 - 09:21 AM

[Rhuen]

Noticed the Norse Mythology thread in Arcane and how alot of threads got moved from here to there "although they seemed like they got better responses being here such as the magic thread" decided to put monsters back in the title to keep this thread seperate from the arcane sections thread.

and remember just because I don't post that often doesn't mean I am not still here watching the threads. :alien:

[Clearwitch]

Oh, I know you are. :) This section is the cleanest of them all.

The magic thread is more arcane related than otherkin related though, you have to admit that...and you're still free to post there. ;)

[Rhuen]

Baba Iaga: In slavic lore she was a powerful forest witch who looked like a skeleton with skinned wrapped around it with a hooked nose and sharp metal teeth. She is so powerful she can control animals and even day and night. She is the origen of the ugly halloween witch image. She rides around in a pot and propells her self with a broom.
Her house sits atop four giant chicken legs and her fence is made of bones. She also guards a doorway in this moble home to the other world.

[Rhuen]

Domovoi: in slavic belief it is a spirit of the home. Mostly active at night they guard the house. They look like grety beared old men with lots of grey body hair. So long as they are treated with respect and food is left out for them they are very kind but become mischevous if mistreated "acting like a poltergeist".

The Domovoi is also believed in in Russia "a seperare entry as it behaves differently and looks different"

[Rhuen]

Alfar: Nordic elves, often helpfull around farms and with fisherman and often mischevoius they are associated with forests and the dead, however these are no little people often standing as tall as a man, but not like the elves in Lord of the Rings. these elves had beards and muscles looking much like normal humans only with magic powers.

[Rhuen]

Surt: the ruler and most powerful of the fire giants, its said at Ragnarok he will scorch the world in his fire and be the only thing to survive Ragnarok "even the gods will all die"

[Rhuen]

Tarasque: a turtle like spike backed dragon from the Rhone river. it would eat people and spew out toxic water. it had the same weakness as the Unicorn where a virgin maiden could control it. The most famous of these dragons was brought into a town by a virgin where the towns people than killed the now docile monster.

[Rhuen]

Unicorn: has the body of a white deer, the head of a small horse adorned with a single spiral horn, and tail of a lion. Its is the purest of all creatures and can only be subdued by a virgin maiden.

[Bright One]

Sources of the name "orc"
In Beowulf, ll: 112,the zombie-like Grendel's race is described as Orc-néas, which seems to mean "corpses of Orcus." Orcus, in Roman mythology, was an alternative name for Pluto, Hades, or Dis Pater, god of the land of the dead. The name "Orcus" seems to have been given to his evil and punishing side, as the god who tormented evildoers in the afterlife. Like the name Hades (or the Northern Hel, for that matter), "Orcus" could also mean the land of the dead. Tolkien derived his 'Orcs' from this passage in Beowulf. (See below.)

However, the word "orc" had long existed in English as the name of a type of sea monster. This derives ultimately from Pliny the Elder's description of the orca, modulated through the long tradition of Medieval Bestiaries. In his Natural History, Pliny described a creature that was "so monstrous and aggressive a whale, that no words are adequate to describe it, except as a huge mass of flesh armed with menacing teeth." Historia Naturalis 9.v.12

According to one medieval source, Charlemagne encountered and destroyed an orc that attacked his ship in the Mediterranean. In Orlando Furioso, an epic by Ludovico Ariosto, the name of "orc" was given to a sea monster that captured the damsel Angelica, and was fought by the hero Rogero riding a hippogriff. This orc was huge, scaly, tusked, pig-nosed, and bristled.

A land-dwelling orc also appears in Orlando Furioso, XVII: 29. This "land orc" is a blind giant with a long nose and tusks jutting out like a savage swine. The land orc is a cannibal who holds king Norandino and his men captive in a cave. The story is reminiscent of the tale of Polyphemus. It should be noted that, in Italian, "orca" means a killer whale while "orco" means an ogre, a humanoid creature.

From this usage, the word "orc" made it into English by being used by Michael Drayton in his Polyolbion, an epic poem about Brutus the Trojan and the mythical founders of Britain, and also appears in the epic poem Paradise Lost, by John Milton.

orcs

[Rhuen]

"orcs merged into the Germanic and Nordic thread"

[Fluid of life]

Here is an oldie that could use an update. Any more Germanic or eastern European monsters?

[Rhuen]

Fluid of life, on Apr 1 2008, 06:07 AM, said:

Here is an oldie that could use an update. Any more Germanic or eastern European monsters?

looked back through the last page,

what's left? I can't think of any germanic monsters I missed, at least none that can make it past a name that just says "another word for imp or another word for demon"