Mythical Creatures

Hello, I'm Casey. And I'm Falun. And this is... Render the Darkness! Fun fact for today's episode is that hippos, Hippopotamus, Hippopotamia, produce their own sunblock. It's a, uh, red, oily stuff that they secrete or whatever. It's actually not only a sunblock, but it's actually a bumper plant as well. Oh, that's cool. Alright, so this episode, we are going to be talking about some mythical creatures you may or may not know. Alright, let me do my own synopsis of her title. Mythical creatures she may or may not be able to pronounce. There's one that I probably won't be able to pronounce correctly, but I think I got the other one. We'll see. I'm anxious to see. Yeah, there's gonna be a lot of... Maybe? But if I do incorrectly pronounce these, I have no problem. Because as soon as she's looking at my screen, does she see all the parentheses that I put in? I did. Yeah. Immediately thought, this will be fun. We're going on an adventure today. Yeah. That's alright, we've got mythical creatures with us. Okay, so the first one that we are going to talk about is the Nuclavee. This creature is said to have gotten its many names from different recorders using different spellings. But my brain's like, nope. Nuclavee. Nuclavee seems to be the most popular, and it comes from the dialect of the Scotch language, or the Orcadian dialect name, or the Nogelvee. I already got my Orcadian. What am I saying? Kind? What did I say? I don't know, but it wasn't what I said. But anyway, that's probably the way... Looking at it, it's probably the right way to go. According to the 19th century folklorist Walter, I hope I said his name correctly, Kyle Dennison, the word also means devil of the sea. The same creature is named, let's see if I can do this one, the Nuclavee, on the Shetland Islands, where it is called an unpleasant sea trout or sea dove. And this creature is said to become a demon with horse-like features when it comes onto land. It's said that it has evil powers, and its hostile behavior can affect events throughout the island. Now some of the people that live on the islands are so afraid of it that they will say a prayer right after they say its name. It's also said that when it is seen, it will go on the beach, and it will not come on land if it's afraid. When it comes to what the creature looks like, there are stories about what it looks like on land, but not on sea, or in sea. At sea. I couldn't figure out how I wanted to say that. Sorry. Anything to do with the seas. There was a resident named Tammis of the islands that claimed to have walked away from the account of the creature. He described it as having a man's torso connected to the back of a horse, like it was a man riding it, but the torso doesn't have any legs. But the arms dried on the ground, and the legs on the horse had thin legs. And the head was described to be three feet in diameter, and just flopped back. I think you're going to get it. That's why I was like, what? Sorry. I'm a child. I think you're going to get it. The horse's head was said to have a large mouth that releases toxic fumes, and one huge eye that burns bright red. Another detail is that the creature doesn't have any skin. So you can see blood coursing through its yellow veins. Some others have said that it has the mouth of a pig. It looks similar to a centaur, and one said that it had the mouth of a whale. It was said that it was the cause of epidemics and droughts, because its breath would supposedly kill crops and make the livestock sick. In 1722, some people on the Stronsay Islands started to burn seaweed to make what was recognized as Venice kelp, which was actually soda ash that would later be used to make the soap and wax. According to the islanders, a terrible odor of the process made the creature furious, which resulted in death of livestock and crops. That would be ironic, wouldn't it? Apparently, it can't smell its own breath. It's complaining about it. The creature was also blamed for giving horses a deadly disease that they called, I hope I said this correctly, which would cause the animal to waste away and was blamed for low rain causing water shortages. It's claimed that the only way to get away from it is to cross a large body of fresh water. Okay, so the next one we are going to talk about is called the Achephaloi, or the Limnids. The first believed sighting of these creatures was by... This one is going to have a lot of ones that I may or may not mess up. He was a Greek historian and geographer. His writings called them the Achephaloi, which in Greek means without a head. And according to him, lived in the eastern edge on ancient Libya with other strange creatures like the dog-headed Cynocephali and the wild Min-An. The descriptions of these creatures are pretty similar. They do not have a head and their faces are in the middle of their chests with some accounts of them having eyes on their shoulders. I just saw a commercial the other day that reminded me of that because it's like the guy came in and he had all of his face except for his mouth. His mouth was in his chest and he was talking to the lady. And she was like, uh-uh. Yeah, I thought the same way. No, no thank you. Anyway, I remember what the commercial was about. I was so distracted with the fact that his mouth was in the middle of his chest. Understandable. Around 43 AD, Milla, who was a well-known Roman geographer, was the first to give the creature the name Limnid, writing that they were headless and had their faces buried in their chests. An author named Pliny the Elder reported that the tribe in North Africa didn't have any heads and their eyes and mouths were in the middle of their chests too. It's told that the creatures are born with their heads actually dismembered. What? They're born with their heads dismembered? How is that? Well, they should be like, well, just... They shouldn't have said it that way, but you know, they give birth and out comes their head and then out comes the rest, I guess? But it's separated? Yeah. That's what they say. I've never seen one... born before, but... Just do a double pop, Casey. I was looking for a more scientific reason, but okay. Like, how were they born? Yeah, like, haven't they survived? Like, how are you... How can you dismember a head inside the womb? Like, I don't understand how that happens. Anyway, sorry. I'm trying to just picture why I'm trying to picture that. I don't know, but I am. I should have brought... I should have, like, had a picture of them. I'm trying to understand the science of it, I guess, I should say. Some other accounts are of people without heads standing 12 feet tall and 7 feet wide with a gold color on the island in the river, which is in Ethiopia. Creatures are also referenced in Alexander's legend, and it's said that he came across gold-headless creatures that stood 6 feet tall that had beards down to their names. I'm like, is this just me, or...? Uh... Sorry! I'm so sorry. There are even 15th century maps that have writings detailing the headless beings. In the late Middle Ages, a German Catholic scholar and writer named Conrad of Meggenburg wrote about there being people with no heads and coarse hair covering their entire body. He also wrote about them being born without heads as a result of their sins. Throughout history, these creatures have been seen, but some think that there could be reasonable explanations for such. One is, during the age of the Enlightenment in the late 17th century, Joseph Francis... I don't know. What was that question again? Lepito? ...argued that, yes, there were acephalous people in North America, but the headless feature was just a trait where, like, the head was, quote, set deep in the shoulders. Good, because you have a neck. Another explanation is that the creatures could have been misidentified as apes because some species hold their heads close to their chests and have hair all over their bodies. This is the one that I knew I was going to have an issue with, so I'm going to let her see if she can do it. The next creature we're going to talk about is called the Cthagoras. Cthagoras? Cthagoras. I put R in there because I don't know where it was supposed to be. Okay. Which are also known as the hundred pandas. It's called that. Yeah, that's where I'm... Yeah, that's where it's from. Yeah. Could you imagine having a hundred ants in front of you? A lot of things you could get that. I assume you have arms, too, right? Yeah. So you've got, like, a... Who's that lady with all the ants? Oh. Maybe I'm thinking of, like, one of them. Sheba? Yeah, but... Sheba. She had, like, the one ponytail. Yeah. I had three. Dude, she was awesome. I picked her every time. She was unbeatable. You know why? Extra hands. Imagine this one. I know. That would be incredible. Now, these creatures are out of Greek mythology. Each of them was extremely large and had a great amount of strength, and they each had fifty heads. Sorry. It's okay. Each had fifty heads and arms. Each one also had a name. One was called Caudus. One was named, let's say it was called Priarius, and the other one was called Vetus. These beings were some of the eighteen children of Uranus and Skye and Gaia or Earth. They also had twelve titans and three cyclones. Okay. I'm going to have to explain this. Okay. So, in my writing, we were out of internet the other day, and I was writing it and all these words that I wasn't sure exactly how to spell. I had to put parenthesis and I was going to go back and put my own how I put my own I'm not a genius to say it. I forgot to put them in there. So, we're going to try it. Adventure. Yeah. Okay. So, according to hopefully I said this correctly, Hesodite, who was an ancient Greek poet, they were the last children born, but the mythographer Apollodorus they were the first born children. They played a large role in the great succession myth where the titan Cronus dethroned his dad Uranus, then Zeus dethroned him and his people and then he became the eternal king. The story of what happened is that the three hundred handlers and the cyclopses were put into prison by their father Uranus. Gaia then convinced Cronus to castrate Uranus and take over the throne. That's terrible. How would you laugh at that? That's the way you're saying it. Well, how did I say it? Did I say it right? You said Uranus. Yeah, Uranus. Uranus. I want to say Uranus because I like the way it sounds. Uranus. You can't say it if it's so cute. Just use it. I did. Guess I'm gonna start saying it Uranus. Anyway, okay, so take over the throne. Now with his sister Rhea by his side, he had new children. But he would actually eat them not long after she gave birth to them. His last child, Zeus, didn't make the same fate because of his mother's fate. He then freed his brothers and sisters and a war started with the Titans. The hundred handed's mother told Zeus that they would win the war if they were allowed to fight. So he let them out and they won the war and the Titans were put in jail where the hundred handers were placed to keep the gods. Out of the three hundred handers, Priarius was the most favored by the gods. Poseidon gave him his daughter Cleopatra to marry according to a move forward but this one just found Uranus alone. Uranus made him castrate Uranus. The Titanomachy says that Priarius was actually an enemy to the gods and he went against them with fifty shields and fifty swords. It also says that he wasn't the son of Uranus but the son of Pontus of the sea and therefore he lived in the sea. He had arms so strong that they could overpower well with humans. The last one we are going to talk about is called the Clude. I'm going to say it that way. The Clude. The Clude. The Clude. The Clude. The Clude is Shape Shifter. Sometimes just for fun it will turn into trees, bushes and even a person. Because it can turn into pretty much anything it's appearance isn't known. Some say that it could be a demon, goblin, or water spirit, and some even claim that it could be the devil itself. The Klood is considered a shapeshifter, so it could take out its victims pretty easily if it wanted to, with incredible speed and an ability to change its height and weight. Like the Puck and the Kelpie, the Klood was a spirit that played tricks a lot, and its tricks could be funny and mischievous to the creature, or it could actually be fatally harmful, it just depends on how it's feeling that time. It's said that the creature would sometimes wait until bright before dawn or sunset and attack people. People could sometimes tell if it was coming by listening for the chains that were covering its body. Sometimes it could also be seen with blue flames dancing around its eyes. When the creature turned into a horse, it would often ride to travelers, and when they got on its back, it would run at a terrifying speed and then thump the person off into the pool of water like this. Some people just thought, here's a talking horse, I'll take a ride. I don't know, maybe it just kind of like slowly walked up to them. I'm sorry, but if I'm walking and a talking horse approaches me, I'm not getting on its back. Sometimes it would turn into landmarks like trees and bushes to confuse people who used those landmarks to get where they needed to go. Other times it would turn into a sticky animal and it would trick people into putting it on their backs where it would get so heavy it would cause the person to become fatally exhausted. I don't know. What the hell is a sticky animal? To convince people it was. They were like, sure, hop on, I'll carry you. I need more information about these things. I got questions. The most dangerous form that the clue will take is that of the black dog with wings. In this form, it would walk beside people and then jump on their backs, crushing them under its massive weight. Sometimes it would be happy to just create fear and others it would stand on its back legs and grow tall enough to rip out the victim's throat. Now the only thing that could potentially save someone from attack is the ringing of church bells or the start of a new day. Attention. And that is my case on some mystical creatures. Mythical. Some mystical, mythical creatures. You might not know them. You do now. You're welcome. I know I may not pronounce those words. Or don't. It's okay. Nobody knows how to pronounce those words. Nobody's going to comment and be like, well, you pronounce it like this and this and this and this and this. Can you give me some pointers on how to spell or to spell? I can spell. I can do that, I promise. But anywho, thank you for listening to this episode. Thanks, thanks. We appreciate you joining. Hopefully you did join and that's why we're having this conversation right now. Yeah. I mean, technically, you can pronounce it either way, but the technical pronunciation is different. And I definitely would have said it that way in context of the sentence in which you used it. I've said it twice and it was still just as funny. That's true. They are definitely children. But yeah, that wraps up our episode and thanks for hanging out with us and we hope you continue to do so. We appreciate your support and give us a like, a share, a follow. And we have a Discord now. Hey, Discord now. Finally, right? And for starting the Discord, we're not putting any episodes that have a green screen on it. Sorry about that. Everybody can watch them. We probably shouldn't have done that, but hey. But, you know, it's also, you know, it can be an opportunity for somebody growing up and being out there and being constructive with the group, so they can say, hey guys, it's hard to watch your ---- because you can't see your ----. Pretty sure I brought that up too. But, it's okay. We live, we learn, we grow. Let's grow together, guys. Guys, have a good day. Bye. That's it for us. Bye.