Oh cool. Thanks! This is the kind of thing that might motivate me to update more often!
I’m sorry that only about 60% of what I write is from actual lore and the other 40% is added for comedic effect or that I’m stupid. I hope that’s okay.
YEHASURI is a small, gnome-like creature about two feet tall and hairy. They live in old tree stumps and eats bugs and frogs. They’re total jerks who will attack anyone who gets too close to them. They also like to steal children’s shadows and footprints. The best way to keep yehasuris away is to just avoid them altogether, but since there are no maps to yehasuri stumps, travelers can also rub tobacco on their hands and say the old Catawba prayer “dugare ini para’ti na yehasuri deme hana te we stere yanamusi sere”. Okay?
GASHADOKURO is a giant skeleton. So tall! Like, a thousand feet tall! Or maybe fifty feet. Taller than several men, that’s for sure. A gashadokuro is made by gathering the bones of people who’ve starved to death. It walks around in the streets, and you know one’s coming because of a high-pitched noise it makes that hurts/rings your ears. And if that happens, beat feet! Gashadokuros grab any people they see and chomp their heads off! And that would be the worst!
LIDERC has been described as a sort of Miracle Chicken (whatever that means). It’s a chicken, yes, but it has goose feet! What happens is this: When a black hen lays its first egg, a person takes that egg and incubates it under their armpit. The egg hatches into a Liderc, and it attaches itself to that person and sucks their blood and creepily gropes them. Then the Liderc makes the person hunt out treasure for it. It’s totally annoying, because the Liderc never stops. As soon as the person finds the treasure, the Liderc needs to start looking for the next pile of treasure or whatever. To get rid of a Liderc, one needs to give it an impossible task to do, like push a rope or eat a million cheesy-burgers. The Liderc will stomp off in frustration or die trying to do the task.
Hey, thanks for the suggestion, Erin!
ENERA is a monster that is formed from the smoke from bonfires. It shows up at high-school keggers in the woods and hangs out saying, “I’M MADE OF SMOOOOKE!” in a creepy, ghost voice. It is said that only the pure of heart can see it, so nobody at the high-school kegger really notices it’s there. Drunk teenagers! So Enera just has a couple beers and passes out in the shed.
Oh! Please note that this smoke monster has nothing to do with that other smoke monster that lives on that mystery island in the Pacific and throws castaways around and can take the form of John Locke. I guess there’s more than one smoke monster.
OGOPOGO, aka N’ha-a-itk, aka Snake in the Lake, is a serpent monster that lives in Lake Okanagan in British Columbia (Canada). It’s got a vaguely horse-like face, flippers, and an undulating body that looks like humps sticking out of the water. It’s possibly a cousin to the Loch Ness Monster (but probably not!), but its first sighting was way before Nessie’s. Ogopogo swims around and eats bad children who go swimming in the lake without a parent or a lifeguard on duty. It also likes eating horses. People have been known to throw small animals into the lake when they try to cross as a sacrifice to Ogopogo or maybe just a distraction so the lake snake doesn’t eat the people, thinking they’re children swimming without an adult or something.
MORMO is a ghost that bites bad children! Who knows if it’s a real thing? It was a legend told by mothers to scare their children into behaving. But it might be real! (A real ghost? Sure!) So children, think twice before shoplifting or staying out after curfew or kissing under the bleachers or turning your i-pods up too loud when listening to Hannah Montana! You might get bitten by a ghost! And no one wants that!
Also, it’s a female ghost. Does that make a difference?
SQUONK is a woodland creature whose big thing is that it’s ugly. Well, it’s not so much that it’s ugly, but that it THINKS it’s ugly and is way self-conscious about it. They’re short and fat, and they have too much skin, and they’re covered in warts. They’ll get depressed about how ugly they are and start to cry. They’ll cry and cry and dissolve themselves in their own tears. They’re hard to catch, because if they’re spotted, they think, “Oh no! Someone’s seen my ugliness!” and immediately cry until they’re dissolved. You can follow a squonk’s trail of tears, but it’ll only end in a puddle where the creature has dissolved. And even if you can catch a squonk, it’ll cry and dissolve in your squonk-satchel.
October is a good time to resume, yes? Halloween and so on.
NOSFERATU is a vampyr, based on Dracula, but not really, because the filmmakers couldn’t afford the rights! Anyway you can expect certain vampire traits to be true with old Nosferatu: Aversion to light, ability to turn into a bat, blood suction, general ghoulishness, etc. I suppose there’s not much left to say about vampires that hasn’t been said before. Thanks, Twilight! Just kidding. That series is awful! Hey, check out this documentary about Nosferatu.
