Mythical Organisms - MT1 - Part 1 Flashcards
What 3 things are in the cryptozoo catagorie?
- Sphinx
- Manticore
- Basilisk
Sphinx (4)
- Body of a lion
- Wings
- Head of a women (Greek)
- Head of a king (Egyption)
How does the sphinx kill you?
Asks a riddle and if you get them wrong you were eaten
Manticore (3)
- Body of a lion
- Face of a person
- Maneater
Basilisk
The king of snakes
How does the basilisk kill you?
By glancing at it
How does the manticore kill you?
Can shoot arrows from their stinging tail
What 3 things are in the cryptogarden catagory?
- Mandrake
- Apple of sodom
- Zieba tree
What does the mandrake resemble?
The root resembles a human figure
How does a mandrake kill you?
The skreik it emits
How did one use to remove mandrakes from the ground?
Use to dig around the bottom and tie a rope with a dog on it and then run away to have the dog pull it up and the screamed killed the dog but the person was fine
Apple of sodom
Grows at the site of the former towns of sodom and gomorrah, which god destroyed in his righteous wrath over lustful behaviour
What happens when an apple is picked from the tree of sodom?
It turns into ash and smoke in the hand
Zieba tree
A tree full of bare-breasted mystics and philosophers
- tree of life
- people lived in the tree
When were unicorns first mentioned? And by who?
- c. 398BC
- By Ctesias
Unicorn (2)
- Larger than a horse
- had a half horn on the head
What was believed that the horn could do?
Believed that crushed up unicorn horn was an antidote for poison
How did unicorns get into the old testament?
Were trying to translate it and got stuck on the word re’em
- knew it was an animal but got mistranslated
What does re’em mean?
Wild ox
Monoceros (5)
- Stags head
- Elephants feet
- Boars tail
- Horses body
- Horn in the middle of the head
What was a unicorn in Arabic mythology?
It killed elephants by skewing them
- after killing 3-4, it got tired and exhausted and fell to the roc (which was a bird)
What was the unicorn in Jewish mythology?
It was too big to fit on Noah’s arc, so it survived by treading water and resting its horn on the ark
What was the unicorn in Christian mythology?
Could only by pacified by virgins
- the virgin lured them out and then would catch them using a very large net
Alicorn
Medicinal unicorn horn
What happened when the alicorn touched the food?
It became poisonous
What did they start replacing unicorn horn with?
Narwal horn
- but it was actually a tooth
What is the Upas tree also known as?
The Javan Tree of Death
Where is the Upas tree grown?
In Java
- Indonesia
What did the Upas tree produce?
Toxic fruit
Who first mentioned the Upas tree?
Friar Oderich
- 1330
What did John Mandeville claim?
That the Upas tree made the deadliest poison in the world
What would people try and collect from the tree?
Sap
What did Dr. Englebert Kampfer say about the tree?
Local people used to get criminals to collect the sap because the tree was deadly to approach
- if the criminals lived, they were set free as a reward
What did Rumphius say about the tree?
Poisonous gas emanates from the tree
- could only approach the tree if all your skin was covered by fabric
- no other plants grew near the tree
- dead birds littered the ground underneath it
What did Anarticle say about the tree?
The danger zone had a radius of 12-14miles
- criminals assigned to collect the sap were equipped with leather caps, protective glasses and leather glovers
- a priest living near would bless their efforts
- 700 criminals went in, 70 came out
- bodies littered the ground underneath it
