Favorite folklore creatures.

Hey guys, you got some random beasties you wanna share? so fun little creatures, a good yarn about a bogart or a demon, a kelpie, or and angel, post'em here, pictures links question.

I thought it would be fun to swap such creatures. find some new ones and get some perspective on others.

plus then we end up with a solid database for use later. so that's cool.

I'll go first.

ever since I heard the story of the A-boa-a-qu its fascinated me. Its like, the journey of a man to enlightenment given form, the personification of the growing mind. Too bad it always falls back down.

The creature lies formlessly and without mind at the bottom of the tower of victory, and follows those pilgrims who try to reach the top. As it follows them it grows brighter, more solid, and more conscious. however the top of the tower and the completion of the a-boa-a-qu can only be reached if the person is pure of heart, and has been previously enlightened. thus the A-boa-a-qu most often tumbles back down the stairs to sit in formlessness and wait for the next pilgrim. some accounts say it turns back with a sigh, some silently, some say it falls with a scream like no other.

anyway here are some links to some stories, if you are interested.
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last one has a bit more commentary, but an older story apparently.

Very, very fascinating, b. I've never heard of the a bao a qu before. Thanks for sharing! I'm definitely gonna look more about it later :D Really interesting that a creature would exist as the physical manifestation of a person's journey towards nirvana. Gonna read the rest tomorrow morning, for sure!

Well, let's see, I'll try to think of a good one. Mind, I'm kinda half-awake and I just fell asleep too, but this is too cool.

Okay, well, one of the Filipino creatures that I really feared as a child wasn't the lady who can rip herself in half, or the demon baby who kills people at night. Okay well, maybe I really found the demon baby thing really creepy and stuff, but one that really affected me when I was a child was the Duwende, or Nuno sa Punso. Dwarves.

Back when I was still living in the Philippines, the whole family and I used to live in this rather large house. Others say it was a haunted house, but that's another story for another time (and frankly, I don't believe it was haunted at all).

One day, while I was walking along my gramma's garden, I managed to come across a small dirt hill next to one of her trees.

In Filipino folklore, the nuno sa punso lives in these little dirt hills. How they do that is beyond me, but that's part of the story itself, they're like the grandfather of anthills or termite mounds or something (but I'm pretty sure we didn't have termites). Basically, if a child tramples on its dirt mound accidentally or willingly, the Nuno sa Punso will curse that child. It'll cause the kid to vomit blood and grow hair on his/her back, and would even let the child become possessed by an evil spirit. The kid's family would need to make an offering to the old man of the mound, or the kid could just simply apologize.

So when I saw that dirt hill when I myself was a child, I ran the hell out of there and refused to go to my gramma's garden for a long, long, long damned time. Damned folklore. I was really afraid of that, though, especially since I found the idea of little men walking around, casting curses to be really creepy.

Ten years later, as an experiment, I stomped on one of the dirt mounds in my gramma's garden. Repeatedly. Bastards.

And then I ran the hell away before the nuno sa punso would curse me.

No blood vomiting, no hair on my back, and I think I'm already an evil spirit (the evil spirit of idiocy) so no dice there, either.

Okay! Time for me to go back to sleep....

Huh... kinda reminds me of faerie knolls. glad the little guys didn't get to cursing ya. that could have sucked.

Yeah, thank god for that Was worried all day after that, though, hahah.

Another famous one we got's the White Lady. They're basically these women - young or old - who wears all white, and who appears 'round the roads. They usually ask to hitch a ride in passing cars. And then they just disappear right after.

There're loads of filipino movies based around that supernatural creature. Usually women who're vengeful would become 'white ladies' but I don't really know much about filipino movies.

huh that's interesting.

here in utah they have stories of these ghosts down south who appear by road ways. they have some connection withe mormon saints but i don't remember what... ill look into it and post again with better info.

Oh sweet that would be awesome! :D