#roman folklore

[rainbowprisimatic]

Zombies, vampires, werewolves, and fae are exhaustingly overrated. Give me stories about Blemmyes!!

Blemmyes's are creatures with origins in the Roman Empire. These strange beings are described as having no heads and with their faces on their torsos! There are actually two different types of Blemmyes that are described in ancient texts - one with eyes on its chest where the rest of the face is, and one with eyes on its shoulders away from where the rest of the face is. They are known to inhabit remote areas in the world.

The Blemmyes occupied a considerable region in what is modern day Sudan. There were several important cities such as Faras, Kalabsha, Ballana, and Aniba. All were fortified with walls and towers of a mixture of Egyptian, Hellenic, Roman, and Nubian elements. Kalabsha would serve as the capital of the Blemmyes. The Blemmyes culture was also influenced by the Meroitic culture, and their religion was centered in the temples of Kalabsha and Philae.

The former edifice was a huge local architectural masterpiece, where a solar, lion-like divinity named  Mandulis was worshipped. Philae was a place of mass pilgrimage, with temples to Isis, Mandulis, and Anhur. It was where the Roman Emperors Augustus and Trajan made many contributions with new temples, plazas, and monumental works. Both Blemmye inscriptions in Greek and records from Greeks and Romans refer to the Blemmyes as having βασιλισκοι and βασιλῆς, which terms usually refer to kings. Because of this, the Blemmyes are often described as having had a kingdom. Some historians are skeptical: László Török writes that "the term should not be interpreted narrowly, it is doubtful that there ever existed one centralised Blemmyan kingdom; more likely there were several tribal 'states' developing towards some sort of hierarchical unity".

Blemmye writings mention various royal officials who seemed to be arranged in a hierarchy. Beneath the kings were phylarchs, who were chiefs of separate tribes. Other officials include sub-chiefs, court officials, and scribes. The Blemmyes kings had the power to levy taxes and grant exemptions as well as authority over the territory.

[briefbestiary]

Blemmyae, the headless folk. They're pretty much just normal people outside of the fact that their faces are on the front of their torsos.

[cryptids-of-the-world]

The Caladrius is a white bird found in Roman mythology. The Caladrius is described as a white bird that had the power to heal sick people. The Caladrius was recorded in medieval bestiaries to absorb the sickness from a person and then release it to make the person and itself better and it is said that if you are sick and a Caladrius looks directly at you, you will live however if it looks away, you will die.

[laurasimonsdaughter]

Have you done a question on werewolf transformations yet? If not, I’ll be the one to ask. Are there multiple ways of becoming a werewolf or is it just the painful agonising change that exists.

I’ve never talked about this specifically, but it’s linked to the werewolf categories I touched upon before.

The painful, gruesome transformation you refer to is generally linked to werewolves who do not want to be a werewolf and were usually forcefully turned into one, either by being bitten or cursed. This certainly has a basis in folkore, the earliest recorded example is probably the transformation of the king Lycaon, who was turned into a wolf by Zeus as punishment. In Ovid’s Metamorphoses (8 AD) this is described in quite gruesome detail and it was not a pleasant experience. Many folktales that describe cursed werewolves do this “suffering transformation” thing and it’s the one that we see most often in modern media, especially when it comes to werewolves that look/act like monsters.

Voluntary werewolves are often different though. Their transformation is more magical than physical, whether it happens with a ritual, through moonlight, or because they put on a magical garment, and is usually described as less painful. In Petronius’ Satyricon (60′s AD) it is recorded that a man performs a ritual in the moonlight and promptly turns into a wolf without much horror at all. It is the observer that is terrified, not the werewolf. In modern media these “easy transformations” are usually reserved for the werewolves that look more like actual wolves and less like monsters. Often they were also born a werewolf, instead of forcibly turned.

The happy medium between these two is one where the transformation is something you have to learn how to deal with, something that gets easier over time once you’re used to it and once you know how to handle it. That particular type of transformation is more recent, I think, and probably comes with wanting to have werewolves as complex protagonists. You know, they have to suffer, but they should be able to overcome that suffering in time, otherwise what’s the point?

[atmaflare]

Mithras, Heroic god of light

The god worshiped by the Roman cult of the Mithraic mysteries, a mystery religion that was practiced in the Roman Empire from about the 1st to the 4th century CE. To the Romans, the mysteries were regarded as having originated from Persian or Zoroastrian sources and then brought to Rome as some sort of exotic religion, and in fact, a god/being named Mithras does exist in both Zoroastrian and Vedic mythologies as bringers of light and order, but they bear little resemblance to the Roman god in many aspects including depictions, stories, rituals and so on. Mithras is characterized mainly by sculptures and structures dedicated to the god found by archeologists, but without any written record detailing the mysteries having been found to this day, almost nothing is known for sure about any of it, and lots of speculation, educated guesses and misinformation runs rampant about the god even among scholars. Among the sculptures found, three of them are pretty well known, the first one, depicting the god slaying a bull as a sacrifice under the watch of the gods Sol and Luna, the second one depicting him having a celebratory banquet with Sol over the bull's hide, and the last one depicting his birth, emerging as a fully grown adult completely naked from a chunk of rock. His temples, little private underground chambers called "Mithraeum" were rich with symbols of the sun, moon, star and zodiacal signs, leading many to believe that the religion had strong astrological connotations. Mithra himself was portrayed as a young man dressed in typical Anatolian clothing, with a Phrygian cap, usually holding a knife or a torch, and with a cape emblazoned with the stars on the inside. To join the cult you had to be initiated in it through some connections and by passing some tests. Only men were allowed to join, with the cult being especially popular among the Roman military. It's early secretive origins were also very similar to the early days of Christianity in the Roman Empire at the same time, with both religions, along with many others, competing to claim December 25th as a day of celebration to their own gods. This and some other facts has lead some scholars to claim the two religions were actually early rivals, although many dismiss this as too big of a stretch to make.

Original post: [here]

[briefbestiary]

Those without mouths, well sustained by scents of the world.