Celtic
-
Revolving Beast
The Revolving Beast comes from Celtic myth and is specifically from a poem recounting the voyage of Mael Duin. The voyaging ship he is on gets to an island with a stone fence around it. As soon as the crew got on the island, a massive creature started running around and then charged at Mael Duin with surprising speed. It resembles a mammal in many depictions but is actually thought to be representative of reptilian life. It has the ability to change form but doesn’t really classify as a shapeshifter. Instead of turning into something else, its bones move beneath the skin, which would either remain still or revolve like…
-
Rawhead/Tommy Rawhead/Bloody Bones
The Rawhead is a creature known from British and US folklore, commonly the American Midwest. Stories of this creature are thought to have originated in Britain or Celtic myth. It’s used as a bogeyman figure, and often seen as a companion to Bloody-Bones with them sometimes being seen as two parts of the same entity. One is a headless skeleton that dances, and the other is a skull that bites people. It’s described as very ugly with blood constantly pouring from the mouth. Sometimes it’s described as a tall figure in a black cloak. In the Pacific Northwest it sometimes appears as a cloud of green fog. It is thought to…
-
Boar Of Ben Bulbain
The Boar of Ben Bulbain is a monstrous creature from Celtic mythology. It was thought to be the body of Gulben, reanimated by his father Roc. It took the form of a sixteen foot long white boar without ears or a tail and lived on Ben Bulbain mountain. It killed many people but was eventually killed by a hunting party led by a man named Fionn, along with Gulben’s half-brother Dermot. When Dermot measured the boar, his foot was pierced with the boar’s poisonous bristles and he died of blood loss. Citations: Bane, Theresa. Encyclopedia of Beasts and Monsters in Myth, Legend and Folklore. United States, McFarland, Incorporated, Publishers, 2016.