#bodach

[yourselfcola]

[dgorringeart]

Bodachs, from Alan Garner's YA fantasy book The Moon of Gomrath. They were smaller than Susan, a young adolescent; bald, pointy-eared, covered in flat locks of hair like scales, had the legs of birds and bounded along with an unpleasant pecking motion. They served Morrigan, living only for the scream of blades.

The dwarf Uthecar described them as much like Goblins, but, loath as he was to admit it, braver, more aggressive. They stuck with me from reading that book a long time ago. I remembered their spears and odd legs, but falsely recalled horns and scaled armour, because these things are tricky.

I've settled on some raven or crow forms in their kit, and let them have the lamprey as a favourite animal motif. In the story, they can be eerily still and hard to detect; I decided their fur should accumulate algae and leaf litter like a loth to help them along with this.

I had a lot of fun with these nasty little men, and got to horse around with some new digital tricks. Like them!

[theriversdaughter]

I went out to refill the bird feeder, and came back in to find my little shadows waiting for me beside the door.

[legend-collection]

Bodach

A bodach (Scottish Gaelic pronunciation: [ˈpɔt̪əx]; plural bodaich "old man; rustic, churl, lout"; Old Irish botach) is a trickster or bogeyman figure in Gaelic folklore and mythology. The bodach "old man" is paired with the cailleach "hag, old woman" in Irish legend.

Bodach (Old Irish also botach) is the Irish word for a tenant, a serf or peasant. It is derived from bod (Old Irish bod) "tail, penis".

Pic by Mary-Ann Caruthers

The word has alternatively been derived from both "cottage, hut" (probably a borrowing from Old Norse, as is English booth). The term botach "tenant farmer" is thus equivalent to a cotter (the cotarius of the Domesday Book); a daer botach was a half-free peasant of a lower class. In either case, the name is formed by the addition of nominal suffix -ach ("connected or involved with, belonging to, having").

In modern Gaelic, bodach simply means "old man", often used affectionately.

In the Echtra Condla, one "Boadach the Eternal" is king of Mag Mell. This name is derived from buadhach "victorious" and unrelated to botach in origin. However, the two names may have become associated by the early modern period, as Manannan is also named king of Mag Mell, and the bodach figure in Eachtra Bhodaigh an Chóta Lachtna (17th century) is in turn identified with Manannan.

*Buzdākos is the reconstructed Proto-Celtic form of Old Irish Botach and an element in the name of the Badacsony wine region in Hungary. The name dates back to at least 1000BC but is likely much older.

In modern Gaelic (Scottish and Irish) folklore, the bodach or "old man" becomes a type of bugbear, to the point of being identified with the devil.

In the early modern (16th or 17th century) tale Eachtra Bhodaigh an Chóta Lachtna, the bodach is identified with the Manannán mac Lir. This identification inspired Lady Gregory's tale "Manannan at Play" (Gods and Fighting Men, 1904), where Manannan makes an appearance in disguise as "a clown ... old striped clothes he had, and puddle water splashing in his shoes, and his sword sticking out naked behind him, and his ears through the old cloak that was over his head, and in his hand he had three spears of hollywood scorched and blackened."

In Scottish folklore the bodach comes down the chimney to kidnap naughty children, used as a cautionary tale or bogeyman figure to frighten children into good behaviour. A related being known as the Bodach Glas ("Dark Grey Man") is considered an omen of death.

[tiffbaxter]

Bodach

Redesign/update of an obscure old DnD monster for a client on Twitter.

[a-sketchy-a-day]

Today a thought suddenly came to me. 2 out of the 3 kids Bodach cared for so far have been trans, so of course the big doof would be the scariest dad giving out the warmest hugs at pride. And thus I felt inspired to draw him in a hoodie with a ridiculous moto.

And now with a bandanna, because I was inking before I realized I forgot.

[maddiethefashionista]

My beautiful Bodach. I love my Raven Shire who will kick wolves in the face if they get to close.

My little Bodie boy!

[thegothicalice]

Bodach for #inktober is an old man trickster in Scottish mythology.