#mythical giants

[peterkothe]

Inktober 2023 Day 21-THE GIANT ARGUS PANOPTES.

-One of the primordial giants, possessing a hundred eyes and the ability to survive without sleep, Argus served the Olympian goddess Hera as her guardian, slaying the Echidna, the Mother of Monsters and to safe guard the priestess Io.

-My take was inspired by Terry Pratchett’s Discworld deity character, the (ironically named) Blind Io, with the many eyes floating about!

[whereserpentswalk]

Reblog to receive the transformation. Like to upgrade your power.

[rocketbirdie]

just put in my two weeks, so to speak.

[jula483]

I'm just gonna leave this here 🙂

[vixivulpixel]

2025 (cm tall)

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 52

So I’ve seen several catboy Danny prompts, but hear me out: All of Amity becoming so ecto-contaminated that everyone becomes something akin to a mythological creature. And Danny? He becomes a Nekomata- a two-tailed cat that was said to be able to shapeshift into humans for mischief, including straight up haunting people and stealing corpses. Vlad ends up a kitsune- which is already associated with taking on human forms to seduce people and with things such as foxfire and possession. Tucker ends up a sphinx sort of creature- “It’s not fair you guys can just float around while I have to figure out how to use these stupid wings when I could be coding!”- and Sam ends up a dryad of some sort, they aren’t entirely sure what but that’s what they joke it is so…

The people sent to investigate this city are more than slightly freaking out.

[bestiarium]

The Aasivarluit [Inuit mythology]!

The oceans have fascinated humans for millennia. As such, it is no surprise that a great many cultures from around the world have their own stories about scary and dangerous creatures from beneath the waves. One such being is the ocean-spider, or Aasivarluit, a massive monster from Inuit mythology.

As the appellation ‘ocean-spider’ implies, the Aasivarluit resembles a spider, albeit an unnaturally large one. It is a dangerous, giant animal and it was known to prey on unsuspecting kayakers by waiting underneath the surface of the sea and then pouncing upwards when a suitable victim appeared. In the absence of human prey, the monster was known to hunt walruses and seals for sustenance. 

It doesn’t appear to be a common creature in Inuit mythology, in fact, all references I could find only mention one single story about the Aasivarluit:

A man was kayaking near the coast of Nuuk, the capital of Greenland (although it was called Godthåb back then). Suddenly he saw a massive object beneath the waves, which confused him greatly because he was familiar with this location and he knew that there was no shoal nearby. He then remembered stories about giant aquatic spiders, and quickly deduced that this must be the thing that suddenly appeared beneath his kayak. Indeed, he looked down into the water and saw a giant eye.

But the man was a skilled kayaker and he managed to get away safely. It is said that a less experienced kayaker would certainly have perished in his situation. 

The idea of a giant oceanic spider that eats people might have originated as a cautionary tale (as in, don’t venture too far from the coast or the giant spider will eat you). While stories about giant animals are not uncommon in Inuit culture, the Aasivarluit is certainly a rather strange monster, considering that there are no marine spiders in real life (although there are freshwater spiders). Technically, sea spiders do exist, but they are spiders in name only: they belong to the class Pycnogonida whereas real spiders are Arachnida. They only share a vague resemblance (though there are some really pretty and weird sea spiders out there, I recommend googling them).

Sources: Rink, H., 1974, Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo, Montreal, McGill-Queen’s University Press, first published 1875, 473 pp, p. 471. Christopher, N., 2013, The Hidden: a compendium of arctic giants, dwarves, gnomes, trolls, faeries, and other strange beings from Inuit oral history, 191 pp, p. 134-135. (image source: @another_maker on Instagram)

[illustratus]

Virgil and Dante Sitting on the Back of Geryon by Bartolomeo Pinelli

[sfde8871]

[missagonyy]

Mythological Rabbit Hole

I have been wanting to do giant/tiny art for a while on giant mythical spirits, but I am kind of embarrassed 😭

🥲

Here’s a collection of my favorite creepy g/t art-

Credit : https://www.deviantart.com/tobiee

[theriu]

All creatures were chosen at random (i.e. as they popped into my head). I used "Wyvern" because creatures that fall under the term "Dragon" can be Literally Anything, so wanted to narrow it down slightly. I will not be placing any other limits, please share any personal interpretations* regarding your choice's superiority in the replies/tags :D

*(But for my sake, please TRY to keep it PG, no graphic descriptions of guts and gore I beg you. Pretend it's WWE and they all go out for coffee later or something.)

[jessicas-pi]

mersoka tano

(click for better quality)

[whereserpentswalk]

Imagin witnessing a giant dying. This massive creature of the land that's been here for generations. He looks like a massive human, as tall a skyscraper, his shoulders sprouting plants and his back covered in vines, his body its own ecosystem as birds make their nests in their beard.

He is old. He was here when the first humans came to this land from across the bering strait. He's seen great cities grow, great cities burn, seen empires fall, seen empires rise. His kind's lifespans are far longer than humanity's, but they are limited, as all creatures of flesh and blood are thus limited.

When you first talk to him you ask him what he thinks of your era. He ponders for a moment. You wish for him to condemn all of humanity or all of your generation for a moment. Yet he does not. He speaks of things you wouldn't think to, songs barely heard, festivals of lost woods, and creatures beyond humanity. And when he tells you about humanity's destruction, of the loss of life, he does not blame the commoners but the rulers. And he tells you not to grieve for an extinction that has not yet come to pass.

When you ask him if he fears death he tells you he does not. He wonders why humans do, perhaps for how ephemeral you are. He has lived a long life. And he will die as his ancestors did, and as his decedents someday will. He tells you he does not know where beings are to go upon their death, but that it does not matter, for it will not prevent that final moment.

He tells you that you must wish he was the last of his kind, but he is not. You must wish his death was humanity's story, that it could be a tragedy or a triumph for humanity, but it is not. He is merely sinking into one of nature's many cycles, one that humans tend to fear too much in your era.

[mythical-art]

Here is a piece of a troll herb which nobody else but me can find by John Bauer (1912)

[jula483]

this is what i call ART

[vixivulpixel]

⚠️Giant Monster Spotted⚠️