Many strange animals and creatures exist in the world of mythology. Almost every culture in the world has stories about some sort of mythological animals. How could people defend themselves against these blood-hungry creatures when they also had the ability to shapeshift into bats, wolves, and luminous fogs? And then there were the supernatural beings, such as the incubus and the succubus, who were more interested in seizing human souls than in sucking human blood. Such creatures were painted by Stone Age artists more than 10,000 years ago and represent some of the world’s oldest cave art—and they probably precipitated some of the world’s first nightmares. There is no known culture on this planet that has not at one time or another cowered in fear because of the savage attacks of a nocturnal predator known as a therianthrope, a human-animal hybrid such as a werewolf, “werebear,” “werelion,” or a “were-something.” It is difficult for those living in the modern world to imagine the night terrors of our ancestors as they prepared to face the demon- and monster-riddled world after sundown
Ghoul
グールはアラブ人の伝承に登場する怪物の一種である。ゴール、ゴリなどとも呼ばれる。英語のghoul はアラビア語のal ghûl から来てる。また、女性のグールはグーラと呼ぶ。伝承によると、砂漠に住み、動物に姿を変えられる悪魔であり、特にハイエナを装う。墓をあさって人間の死体を食べたり、小さな子供を食べたりする。また旅行者を砂漠の奥まで誘い込み、彼らを殺して食べたりもする。死体を食べることから日本では屍食鬼（ししょくき）、あるいは食屍鬼（しょくしき）または死食鬼（ししょくき）と訳されることが多い。また、ロールプレイングゲーム等ではゾンビなどと類似の存在として登場することが多い。女のグーラは男のグールと違って美しい外見をしており、その性的魅力によって魅了した男を食べると言われる。クトゥルフ神話作品にも頻出するが、この場合は、地下生活や神話的存在の影響により人間が変異したものとして描写されることが多い。 詳細
A ghoul is a folkloric monster associated with graveyards and consuming human flesh, often classified as undead.The oldest surviving literature that mention ghouls is likely One Thousand and One Nights. The term is first attested in English in 1786, in William Beckford’s Orientalist novel Vathek, which describes the ghūl of Arabian folklore.
Jersey devil
ジャージー・デビル（英語：Jersey Devil）は、米国ニュージャージー州一帯で古くから報告されているUMA。リーズ・ポイントの悪魔またはリーズ家の悪魔とも呼ばれる。 詳細
Some witnesses say that the Jersey Devil that haunts the Pine Barrens in southeastern New Jersey is a cross between a goat and a dog with cloven hoofs and the head of a collie. Others swear that it has a horse’s head with the body of a kangaroo. Most of the people who have sighted the creature mention a long tail, and nearly all of the witnesses agree that the thing has wings. But it doesn’t really fly as much as it hops and glides.Most accounts of the Jersey Devil legend attribute the creature to a “Mother Leeds”, a supposed witch, although the tale has many variations. According to one version, she invoked the devil while giving birth to her 13th child, and when the baby was born, it either immediately or soon afterwards transformed into a devil like creature and flew off into the surrounding pines.
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Succubus
夢魔（むま）は、キリスト教の悪魔の一つ。淫魔ともいう。夢の中に現われて性交を行なうとされる下級の悪魔。 詳細
A succubus is a female demonic legendary creature who seduces men in their sleep. Similar to a vampire, succubi draw energy from men to sustain themselves. In the past succubi were depicted as frightening and demonic, usually with wings and a tail. Sometimes the wings are that of a bat or a bird. The tail takes various shapes, sometimes that of a snake or an aquatic tail like that of a mermaid.Succubi appear to men as beautiful, sensual women, tempting and promising, but they also may be vampires thirsting for human blood. While those males who consort with a succubus often meet an untimely end, on occasion their interaction with the entity brings about a horde of demonic children, who will one day gather at his deathbed and hail him as their father.
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Vampires
吸血鬼（きゅうけつき）は、民話や伝説に登場する架空の存在で、ヒトや動物の血を吸う怪物。多くのフィクションにおいて題材として取り上げられてきた。バンパイヤ、ヴァンパイヤ、ヴァンピルなどとも書かれる。 詳細
Vampires are mythological or folkloric beings who subsist by feeding on the life essence (generally in the form of blood) of living creatures, regardless of whether they are undead or a living person. Although vampiric entities have been recorded in many cultures and according to speculation by literary historian Brian Frost that the “belief in vampires and bloodsucking demons is as old as man himself”, and may go back to “prehistoric times”, the term vampire was not popularized until the early 18th century, after an influx of vampire superstition into Western Europe from areas where vampire legends were frequent, such as the Balkans and Eastern Europe, although local variants were also known by different names, such as vampir (вампир) in Serbia and Bulgaria, vrykolakas in Greece and strigoi in Romania. This increased level of vampire superstition in Europe led to mass hysteria and in some cases resulted in corpses actually being staked and people being accused of vampirism
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Werewolf
狼男（おおかみおとこ）は、獣人（伝説の生物）の一種で、狼または半狼半人の姿に変身したり、狼に憑依されるなどした人間の男性である。同様の女性は狼女（おおかみおんな）で、男女を特定せず狼人間（おおかみにんげん）・人狼（じんろう）ともいう。 詳細
A werewolf or werwolf, also known as a lycanthrope, is a mythological or folkloric human with the ability to shapeshift into a wolf or an anthropomorphic wolf-like creature, either purposely, by being bitten or scratched by another werewolf, or after being placed under a curse. This transformation is often associated with the appearance of the full moon, as popularly noted by the medieval chronicler Gervase of Tilbury, and perhaps in earlier times among the ancient Greeks through the writings of Petronius.
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