Thursday, April 24, 2008



-Like the wings of ordinary generalized winged insects, e.g. as the image at this link.
-Like butterfly wings (butterfly fairies), e.g. as the image at this link.
-Various fantastic shapes.
Various animals have also been described as fairies. Sometimes this is the result of shapeshifting on part of the fairy, as in the case of the selkie (seal people); others, like the kelpie and various black dogs, appear to stay more constant in form.

Monday, April 21, 2008

Tipes of Dragons

Description: Winged or flying serpents
Famous: Quetzacoatl, the Dragon of Henham (169, Essex), many monsters in the mythology of ancient egypt : Aapep, Mertseger, Buto, Nekhbet

Description:double-headed serpent-dragons with heads at each end of its body. Its name means 'goes both ways' in Greek as it could reportedly stick one head inside the mouth of the other, and roll to where it wanted to go. Some pictures of this creature depict it as having feet, others just as a snake.It was said to be a very evil creature. Pliny recorded medicinal properties of the beast. Wearing a live amphisbæna will protect pregnant women, and wearing a dead one is a remedy of rheumatism.
Element : Earth
Description : They are small dragons less than 1.5 m high but very fierce and hostile to humans. Famous: the dragons of Wilser who lived on the mount Pilate (Switzerland) had poisoned blood and exhaled fire.

Element : Earth
Origin: Germany, Gaule (France)
Description: A drake is a dragon with only legs and no wings. FireDrakes have the breath of flame, and are usually reddish in color. In Europe many cities were named after this dragon: Drakeford, Drakeshill, Draguignan,...
Lore: They often live in caves and guard great treasure. They breath fire to defend themselves. Famous: Wiglaf, the firedrake killed by Beowulf

Origin: Greece Description: many headed dragon who either have wings, or wingless. When one head is cut off, two more grow from the spurting blood.
Famous : the Hydra of Lernea, the Beast of the Apocalypse

Element : Water
Description: A drake is a dragon with only legs and no wings. Icedrakes exhaled snow and hail and are usually white or light bluish in color. These types of dragons do not fly, they look like large lizards being about 5-20 m long.

There are no trace of dragons as made up of different parts of animals in India. The closest creature is the Naga which inherited of many characteristics of the dragon.
Description: pseudo-dragons who are usually portrayed as having a human head, serpentine body, and no wings.
Origin: The word Naga is rooted in Sanskrit and means "Serpent". It is one of a handful of rare words surviving the loss of the first universal language. Even in Mexico, we find the "Naga" which becomes "Nagal."
Powers: Nagas were patrons of water and clouds, but could cause flooding or drought if disturbed. In some stories, the naga can shape-change at will from human to snake form Symbol: In the Esoteric Tradition it is synonymous for Adepts, or Initiates. In India and Egypt, and even in Central and South America, the Naga stands for one who is wise. Nagarjuna of India, for example, is shown with an aura, or halo, of seven serpents which is an indication of a very high degree of Initiation. Nagarjuna are called in Tibetan, Lu-trub. The symbolism of the seven serpents, usually cobras, are also on Masonic aprons of certain systems in the Buddhistic ruins of Cambodia (Ankhor) and Ceylon. In China, the Naga is given the form of the Dragon and has a direct association with the Emperor and is known as the "Son of Heaven" while in Egypt the same association is termed "King-Initiate". The Chinese are said to have originated with the Serpent demi-gods and even to speak their language, Naga-Krita. In the Western traditions we find the same ubiquity for the Naga, or Serpent. One simple example is the Ancient Greek Goddess, Athena. She is known as a warrior Goddess as well as the Goddess of Wisdom; her symbol being the Serpent as displayed on her personal shield. An apocryphal tradition says that Apollonius of Tyana, while on a visit to India, was taught by the "Nagas" of Kashmir. (See The Life of Apollonius, by Philostratos.) The Serpent's reputation for positive medicinal and/or life-preserving qualities is still present through seen the employment of the Caduceus.
Oriental Dragons
Element : Water
Aka: oroborus, uroboros, and oureboros.
Description: a serpent whose end is his beginning as he endlessly eats his own tail.
Origin: The Serpent biting its own tail is first seen as early as 1600 years BC in Egypt. From there it moved to the Phonecians and then to the Greeks, who called it the Ouroboros, which means devouring its tail Famous: The serpent biting its tail is found in other mythologies as well. In Norse mythology Jörmungandr circles the entire world whith his huge body., in Hindu mythology the snake circles the tortoise which supports the four elephants that carry the world. Symbol: the serpent biting, devouring, eating its own tail symbolises the cyclic Nature of the Universe: creation out of destruction, Life out of Death. The ouroboros eats its own tail to sustain its life, in an eternal cycle of renewal. It is also an emblem of immortality. Its endless representation with its tail in its mouth (Ouroboros), and the constant renewal of its skin and vigor, enliven the symbols of continued youth and eternity. Alchemically, the ouroboros is also used as a purifying glyph. He keeps the cosmic waters under control, and is symbolic of the cyclical nature of alchemical work. He is the basilisk, the alchemical serpent.
Western Dragons
Element : Earth and Water
Description: The Western type of dragon has been variously described. He appears to be created from parts of various creatures, having eagle's feet, two bat-like wings, lion's forelimbs, reptile’s head, fish's scales, antelope's horns and a serpentine form of spade tail, which occasionally extended to the head.He can be of any color and some species can even change the color of their skin just like a chameleon. They usually breath fire but this is not a general trait.
Powers: Those dragons usually have huge hoards of gold and jewels hidden in their lairs. They are known to live more than 300 years, some western dragons are even immortal.
Friend/Foe: They do not eat too often and can live on a sheep or ox once a month. They are usually portrayed as evil, mean, and bloodthirsty which is a consequence of the demonization exerced by the Church.
Famous: The end of the dragon came with Christianity as the Church declares them as enemies and send hords of knights to struggle against them. As a result, most dragons have been destroyed (and even more knights have been burned).

Magic: Eating a dragons' heart will give the the power of understanding the language of animals, eating the dragons' tongue enables to win any argument, and rubbing the dragons' blood on skin will protect against stabs

Description: These are dragons which have neither legs nor wings
Origin: Worms are known to be the first incarnations of dragons. They are linked to water and are omnipresent in most primitive cultures (Australia, Africa, Amazonia)
Famous: the Lambton Worm.
Lore : forests and wells and any dark place near water

Aka: Wyver, Lindworm, Lindorm, Wouive, Vouivre
Element : Earth
Description: two-legged dragon with two wings, a serpent’s head and the claws of an eagle.In modern images, they may have claws on the wings and a sting filled with poison on the end of its tail. The French Wyvern known as a Vouivre or Wouive, is portrayed with the head and upper body of a voluptuous woman with a ruby or garnet set between her eyes that help her to find her way through the Underworld.
Origin: from the Old French wyvere which means both viper and ‘life’. They were also very popular mountains of central europe and in Sweden
Friend/Foe : Wyvern are frequent in heraldry and are considered a sign of strength to those who bear the symbol. Wouive is the good ‘Genius’ who hovers protectively over the countryside and masters the underlying currents of the earth. She is ‘the spirit that breathes or inspires.’ The ancients represented these currents, that today we term cosmic or magnetic, by winged serpents. Neverthelessthe Wyvern appears in some western folk tales as a malign and violent predator with a fierce head, bat’s wings and a tail that sometimes has an extra scorpion-like head on its end. The life-giving aspect of the Wyvern is inverted in favour of death as she takes life. The Wouive’s ‘Breath of Life’ has been reversed, for the Wyvern is said to have poisonous and corrupt breath. These dragons symbolise envy, war, pestilence, and viciousness.
Famous: Marco Polo met and described Lindworms while crossing Central Asia. They were quick and mighty enough to take down a man on a galloping horse.

Dragons Hystorycal Stories



A knight and a dragon.


A norseman fights off a sea dragon.

A wizard fighting a wyrm on a cliff.


Dragons are important mythological creatures. ragons are mythical creatures that appear in many different cultures and time periods.

Modern fantasy describes dragon characteristics in great detail. A dragon looks much like a reptile, at least at first glance. It has a muscular body, a long, thick neck, a horned head, and a sinuous tail. It walks on four legs with clawed feet, and it flies using its vast, batlike wings. Heavy scales cover a dragon from the tip of its tail to the end of its snout.
Dragons are different sizes, of course. They start out as eggs, from 1-4 feet in length, and about half that in diameter. As adults, some species of dragons can be as long as 85 feet, with a wingspan of 170 feet. A dragon's eye has a large iris and a vertical pupil, like a cat. This allows the pupil to open extremely wide and admit much more light than a human eye. The white of a dragon's eye us often not white, but yellow, gold, green, orange, red, or silver. A dragon's eye is protected by a leathery outer eyelid and three smooth inner eyelids. The innermost membrane is crystal clear and protects the eye from damage while the dragon flies. The other two eyelids mainly serve to keep the eye clean. They are not as thin nor clear as the innermost membrane. A dragon can use these inner lids to protect its eyes from sudden flashes of bright light. Dragons are hatched from eggs. These eggs vary in size depending on the dragon type, but are usually the same color as the mother dragon. Dragon eggs have elongated, ovoid shapes and hard, stony shells. When born, a dragon's scales are as soft as tissue paper, and slowly harden as the dragon ages. During the first year of life, a dragon's scales will be very soft and supple. Over time, they will become as hard as stone or steel. Metallic dragons' scales start out very dull, but become shinier throughout the life of the dragon.

Monday, April 14, 2008


Location: The South Central region of present-day Mexico was once the home of the Aztec. They lived in the highlands of Mesoamerica in an area of basins separated by eroded volcanic peaks and dissected mountain ranges.

History: The Aztecs came from the remote north, probably around the early 13th century. They were migratory at first, wandering around the Mexican Valley struggling to survive. They were even enslaved once by another tribe. In the year 1325, however, they stopped their migratory pattern on the southwest border of Lake Texcoco as they beheld an eagle sitting on the stem of a prickly pear. He was holding a serpent in this talons and his wings were open to the sun. They saw this as an omen, announcing the location of their future city and capital, Tenochtitlan. In order to build their city, the swamps and standing water around them had to be drained and artificial islands were constructed to form gardens.
The Aztec maintained their subsistence by utilizing fishing, hunting, gathering and gardening techniques. The valley rivers were rich in fish, insects, shrimp, tadpoles, and a naturally occurring pasta called ahuatle. Those near the ocean ate crabs, oysters, fish and turtles. Thus, the water was a major source of food for the Aztec who wished to utilize them. Among the wild animals are rabbits, snakes, armadillos, deer, pumas and coyotes. Along with the hunting of some of these, the ancient Aztecs also hunted the wild turkey.
Many of the gathered plants eventually became domesticated by the Aztec. These crops include cocoa, vanilla, bananas, squash, pumpkin, beans, chili, tobacco, onions, red tomatoes, green tomatoes, sweet potatoes, jicama, huautli and maize.
Raiding and warring often began simply to collect captives for use in sacrificial offerings to the principal Aztec god, Huitzilpochti. The Aztec conquered many other tribes, allowing them to retain their own religion and government. However, the tribes were expected to supply the Aztecs with food, textiles, pottery and other items needed to support the nobles, priests and administrators of the city of Tenochtitlan, which numbered perhaps in the hundreds of thousands.
Language: The Aztec did not have a written language, but spoke Nahuatl. They did have written records, however. They chiefly used the method of direct representation and varieties of hieroglyphic paintings.

Daily Life: Today, many indigenous groups of Latin America can trace their roots back to the Aztec. The fact that the Aztec conquered so many of their neighbors made them a major influence on past and modern indigenous life in the area.

Best Known Features-Human sacrifice: In modern times, the Aztec are best known for human sacrifices. On special occasions, a slave was sacrificed. His flesh would be elaborately dressed and would be the center ornament of the banquet. Cannibalism was not a daily occurrence in the Aztec life, but it was common on special religious and social occasions. Human sacrifices were necessary to honor the gods and to perpetuate human existence. They believed that humans were responsible for the pleasure or displeasure of the gods and, therefore, they aimed to make sure that the deities were happy. Twenty to fifty thousand people were sacrificed yearly.
However, most experts consider these numbers to be overstated. For example, the sheer logistics associated with sacrificing 84,000 victims would be overwhelming. A similar consensus has developed on reports of cannibalism among the Aztecs.
In the writings of Bernardino de Sahagún, Aztec "anonymous informants" defended the practice of human sacrifice by asserting that it was not very different from the European way of waging warfare: Europeans killed the warriors in battle, Aztecs killed the warriors after the battle.

Saturday, April 12, 2008

The Mystical Mayas

Unlike the cultures of the Valley of Mexico, the only period in which the urban centers were important to the Mayas was during the Classic period from 300 to 900 AD. The culture of the Mayas, however, has little changed from the classic period to the modern period, for Maya culture was largely tribal and rural all throughout the Classic period. What distinguishes Classic from post-Classic Maya culture was the importance of urban centers and their structures in the religious life of the Mayas and the extent of literate culture.

The Mayas were never a "true" urban culture; the urban centers were almost entirely used as religious centers for the rural population surrounding them. Therfore, the decline of the urban centers after 900 AD did not involve titanic social change so much as religious change; it is believed by some scholars that the abandonment of the cities was primarily due to religious proselytizing from the north. Nevertheless, the Classic period saw an explosion of cultural creativity all throughout the region populated by the tribes we call "Mayan." They derived many cultural forms from the north, but also devised many cultural innovations that profoundly influenced all subsequent cultures throughout Mesoamerica. Much of Maya culture, particularly the religious reckoning of time, is still a vital aspect of Native American life in Guatemala and Honduras.

The Region

Classic Maya culture developed in three regions in Mesoamerica. By far the most important and most complete urban developments occurred in the lowlands in the "central region" of southern Guatemala. This region is a drainage basin about sixty miles long and twenty miles wide and is covered by tropical rain forest; the Mayas, in fact, are only one of two peoples to develop an urban culture in a tropical rainforest. The principal city in this region was Tikal, but the spread of urbanization extended south to Honduras; the southernmost Mayan city was Copan in northern Honduras. In the Guatemalan highlands to the north, Mayan culture developed less fully. The highlands are more temperate and seem to have been the main suppliers of raw materials to the central urban centers. The largest and most complete urban center was Palenque. The other major region of Mayan development was the Yucatan peninsula making up the southern and eastern portions of modern-day Mexico. This is a dry region and, although urban centers were built in this region, including Chichen Itza and Uxmal (pronounced "Oosh-mal"), most scholars believe that this was a culturally marginal area. After the abandonment of the Classic Mayan cities, the Yucatán peninsula became the principal region of a new, synthetic culture called Toltec-Mayan which was formed when Toltecs migrating from the north integrated with indigenous Maya peoples.

Almost all the urban centers were built in tropical rain forest. This is the singularly most important fact of Mayan cultural development and probably the most significant reason why the Mayans never developed a fully urban culture. For tropical rain forest is extremely difficult to live in; despite its lushness and moisture, tropical rain forest can only support small human populations. While plant and animal growth seems almost out of control and the rains never stop, tropical rain forest makes extremely poor agricultural land. As a consequence, a greater amount of area is required to support each person—this encourages population dispersal rather than the concentration necessary to do things like build cities and temples and such. It has been estimated that there were never more than 30 people per square mile during the classic period. So the Mayan accomplishment is truly awe-inspiring! With a difficult life, with heat and humidity that would melt the hardiest North American, and with a very sparse population, the Mayans built incredibly sophisticated urban centers, an astronomical science and mathematics among the most sophisticated in the pre-modern world, and the most developed and complex system of writing in the Americas.

The Mayans enter history with the diffusion of certain architectural styles throughout the Mayan cultural area. The early diffusion of this architecture, which includes stelae (stone, flat columns) and corbelled vaults, and culture is called the Early Classic Period (292-593). The Late Classic Period (593-889) is characterized by the efflorescence of Maya culture in over ninety cities and the widespread use of writing.

The cities the Mayas built were ceremonial centers. A priestly class lived in the cities, but for the most part the Maya population lived in small farming villages. The priestly class would carry out daily religious duties, particularly sacrifices, and the peasants would periodically gather for religious ceremonies and festivals. For reasons that we don't understand, the Mayas, abandoned their cities around 900 AD. There is evidence of invasion from the outside and its possible that economic difficulties led them to abandon the cities. The greatest change seems to be the disappearance of the priestly class; with this disappearance, the Mayas stopped working on their cities. The peasans seem to have continued to use their cities for a time, but that eventually came to a halt as well. Life for the Mayas did not really change drastically after the decline of their cities, for the cities were central only in their ceremonial life.
Maya population was in general very small, and very few of the Mayas permanently lived in the urban centers. The central reason for this is the nature of agriculture in tropical rain forest. The Mayas, like others forced to cultivate tropical rain forest, practiced slash and burn agriculture. Because growth is so rapid in tropical rain forests, the nutrients provided by dead plants and animal feces gets used up very quickly. Rain forest soil, surprisingly, is remarkably unfertile for agriculture. In slash and burn agriculture, the Mayans would cut down a swath of forest, burn the felled trees and plants for fertilizer, and then cultivate the plot. Now as then the Mayans did not employ sophisticated fertilization techniques, so the plot of land would be exhausted in two to four years (some archaeologists estimate that it may have taken as long as seven years if the Mayans weeded by hand rather than using tools). What all this means is that it takes an immense amount of land to support a family—among the Maya, it probably required at least seventy acres for every five people. The population, then, throughout the Classic Period was very small.

Slash and burn agriculture (called milpa by the Mayas) is also labor intensive. Modern-day Native Americans in Guatemala who employ this agriculture spend about 190 days every year in agricultural work. Despite this labor, you can see that at least 170 days are left over (almost half of a year) for other types of labor. This excess time was used in the Classic Period in the building and maintenance of cities as well as the extensive production of art-work and the agricultural labor necessary to support the priestly populations in the cities.

The principal food of the Mayas was maize and maize production was the central economic activity of the Mayas. Milpa farming itself, which is dependent on a holistic view of one's activities since the cultivated plot keeps moving, seems to have been the foundational basis of the Mayan religion and the Mayan concern with time.

We know almost nothing of Mayan society beyond the social division between the priests and the peasants. Mayan society had several strata: rulers, priests, commoners, and slaves. The extent to which the rulers were differentiated from the priests is unknown. At the top of the Mayan hierarchy was the halach uinic ("True Man"), whose position was hereditary. The halach uinic ruled both domestic and foreign affairs with the help of a council. Lesser chiefs ruled smaller social units.

In the religious hierarchy, the head was called Ah Kin Mai ("The Highest One of the Sun") who ruled over all the priests below him (called Ah Kin , "The One of the Sun"). There were two special priestly functions involved in human sacrifice: the chacs , who were elderly men who held down the victim, and the nacon , who cut the living heart from the victim.

Mayas had a sense of physical beauty very different from other peoples in Mesoamerica. They prized a long, backward sloping forehead; in order to attain this look, infants would have their skulls bound with boards. Crossed-eyes were an important item of physical beauty; infants would have objects dangled in front of their eyes in order to permanently cross their eyes (this is still practiced today).


Mayan religion grew primarily out of the milpas agriculture which required accurate predictions of time and accomodation to the cycles of life in the rain-forest. There is one overwhelming aspect to Mayan religion: it is based on accomodating humanity to the cycles of the universe. The universe functions in a logical, cyclical, and predictable way; human beings can exploit that cyclical nature by accomodating themselves to these cycles.
For this reason, Mayan religion is obsessed with time. In order to correctly orient oneself to the cycles of time, one must be able to calculate these cycles with great accuracy. To this end, the Mayas developed a number of calendrical systems. At the center was the tzolkin , or sacred calendar, which consisted of 260 days; this calendar worked on two cycles, a cycle of 13 numbered days and a cycle of 20 named days. These two cycles would repeat themselves every 260 days. In addition, they had the tun , or ceremonial calendar, which was 360 days long plus five concluding, unlucky days. Another calendar was the katun , which was a cycle of 20 tuns . They also used a Venus calendar (584 days), a half-year lunar calendar, and cycles of the sky gods. In combination, these calendars made the Mayans the most accurate reckoners of time before the modern period reaching an accuracy of being one day off every 6000 years (which is far more accurate than our calendar). All the days of these calendars in their incredible complexity served as astronomical almanacs that rigidly controlled behavior and religious ceremony. It is not unfair to say that Mayan life was one long continuous cycle of religious ceremonies.

Religious ceremonies involved several aspects: dancing, competition, dramatic performances, prayer, and sacrifice. The gods required nourishment from human beings in order to work. While sacrifice often involved foodstuffs, the bulk of sacrifice involved some form of human sacrifice. The majority of this human sacrifice was blood-letting, in which a victim, usually a priest, voluntarily pierces a part (or parts) of their body&$151;usually their tongue, ears, lips, or penis—and "gives" blood to the gods. The higher one's position in the hierarchy, the more blood was expected. Some ceremonies demanded the living heart of a victim, in which case the victim was held down by the four chacs at the top of a pyramid or raised platform while the nacon made an incision below the rib cage and ripped out the heart with his hands. The heart was then burned in order to nourish the gods.

The Mayas believed that the world had been created five times and destroyed four times; this eschatology became the fundamental basis of Mesoamerican religion from 900 AD onwards when it was adopted by the Toltecs. Most of the Mayan gods were reptilian and they all had dual aspects, that is, each god had a benevolent aspect and a malevolent aspect. The Mayas believed in an elaborate afterlife, but heaven was reserved for those who had been hanged, sacrificed, or died in childbirth. Everyone else went to xibal , or hell, which was ruled over by the Lords of Death.

Thursday, April 3, 2008

The Mothman

“Mothman”, as the strange creature came to be called, is perhaps one of the strangest creatures to ever grace the annals of weirdness in America. Even though this mysterious and unsolved case has nothing to do with ghosts, it would be remiss of me to not include it in a section of the website about the unexplained.
television series of the day.
On that same tragic night, the James Lilley family (who still lived near the TNT plant at that time) counted more than 12 eerie lights that flashed above their home and vanished into the forest.
The collapse of the Silver Bridge made headlines all over the country and Mary Hyre went days without sleep as reporters and television crews from everywhere descended on the town. The local citizens were stunned with horror and disbelief and the tragedy is still being felt today.