Joshua Dowidat

Mythical Creatures: Harpies

Hello Everyone,

Well keeping up a little better than I thought and since a few close friends have been harping on me I thought we would talk about Harpies. Just a little corny joke.

Harpies Origins:

Starting in the Greek myth, or at least when they were first mentioned, they first seem to come about around the same time as the Gorgons and Furies. Perhaps it was an era in Greek Mythology for women to be the popular cursed beasts of legend.

In some tales they were not always as we know them today, almost seductive like the Sirens. Tales after Homer who described this way would see them as the hags that grew more popular in our culture and the myths in those times

Harpies:

Harpies were most mentioned as a nuisance rather than anything else. They stole food from the tables before people could eat them. They would Continue reading →

Mythical Creatures: Stymphalian Birds

Hello Everyone,

As we think of birds we usually of soft colorful, sometimes noisy, little birds that charm the morning sunrise and evening sunsets. However, stories and movies have managed to bring a darker side out of birds and it is not always in awe and wonder that the stories portray them. The Stymphalian Birds are one example of that. Probably best compared to stories of Hercules and darker played down versions like Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds movie that made audiences think twice about their little chirping friend.

The Stymphalian Birds:

Since they are most known as the huge swarm of birds that they are we will look at them this way throughout the post. This is how they get their greatest powers anyways, in numbers. The Stymphalian Birds are a large swarm of birds that plagued the ancient lands of myth. They were supposedly set to one location and Continue reading →

Mythical Creatures: Simurgh

Hello Everyone,

Back to the mythical creatures, at least for now, and this time it is another lesser known creature by the name of the Simurgh. Another creature of mythical legends that roams that skies and this one seems to be pretty much all good and granting wise words of wisdom.

SFA: Simurgh sketch by Unita-N

Simurgh:

A massive bird as are most of them in legends. Said to be the size of 30 birds, which doesn’t help much for defining an actual size, but there is one thing. It can be big enough to carry off a whale or elephant. This leads me to believe it is similar in size to the Thunderbird. Both share a similar trait when the size was mentioned.

The most popular story is one of a man named Zal. An albino born to a Persian king who was abandoned by his father to die for exposure. The Simurgh raised Continue reading →

Mythical Creatures: Basilisk & Cockatrice

Hello Everyone,

This week’s blog is a little different as we discuss the Basilisk & Cockatrice. Although the Basilisk is bound to slither on the Earth’s surface the Cockatrice, however, has the ability to fly.

Basilisk:

Many of us are familiar with the Basilisk from the Harry Potter series but that particular Basilisk was much different than the more historical myth of the Basilisk. To start that one was huge. Slithered through large caverns like a serpent-like dragon. The mythical creature itself, according to Pliny the Elder, was merely a foot long.

It was, of course, a small slithering, and reptilian creature. Very much resembling a snake with a white spot on its head. But it didn’t need to strike to inflict damage. Looking at the Basilisk alone was immediate death. It could burn through grass while it slithered around. It could smash rocks apart just by being in their Continue reading →

Mythical Creatures: Thunderbird

Hello Everyone,

Well here we go, first of the blogs with some sort of a different direction and since the overcast today was reminding of rain, I decided to touch base on the old Thunderbird to begin with.

Although I will be jumping around from different blogs at times, I did want to focus on these mythical creatures. I wanted to do this because sometimes when I do write my regular blogs, some of these mythical and eerie creatures are mentioned.

Hopefully this will be interesting for everyone and educational. Hopefully it will also clear up and wondering or help when these creatures show up in my “Haunted Places” or “Eerie for Thoughts.”

Thunderbird:

The Thunderbird gets its name from kind of obvious reasons. It’s a bird that comes with thunder. Although there are stories throughout ancient mythical history that are similar to the description of the Thunderbird, this one Continue reading →