draca, m.n: a dragon; a serpent (can sometimes indicate the devil). (“drah-kah”)
Dragon and lion in the Macclesfield Psalter at The Fitzwilliam Museum. England (East Anglia), c. 1330.
draca
Category Archives: monsters
mōr-stapa
mōr-stapa, m.n: moor-stepper, traverser of the moors. (“mohr-stah-pah”)
Image of Grendel found here; artist unknown.
un-tȳdre
un-tȳdre, m.n: an evil growth, evil progeny, a monstrous birth. (“un-teed-reh”)
un-holda
un-holda, m.n: a fiend. (“un-hol-dah”)
Miniature of a dead man and the devil. The soul was believed to exit the body through the mouth, so the devil is positioning himself for a timely catch. From Justinian’s Digestum Vetus with glossa ordinaria. France, S. (Toulouse?), c. 1300 – c. 1310. British Library, MS Arundel 484, fol. 245r. [British Library]
pūcel
pūcel, m.n: a goblin or demon (like Shakespeare’s sprite called Puck in ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’. (“pook-el”)
hell-cniht
hell-cniht, m.n: an infernal servant, a devil as servant. (“hel-k-nit”)
Image from Bibliothèque nationale de France: Matfré Ermengau, Breviari d’amor et Lettre à sa soeur; Chansonnier occitan. France, 1301-1400.
draca
draca, m.n: a dragon; a serpent. (“drah-kah”)
Image from British Library Medieval Manuscripts blog: Elephant vs Dragon! From a bestiary, England, between 1236 and c. 1250: British Library, Harley MS 3244, f. 39v.
ellen-gǣst
ellen-gǣst, m.n: a bold or powerful spirit. (“el-len-gast”)
grund-wyrgen
grund-wyrgen, f.n: cursed creature of the deep. Grendel’s mother is a grund-wyrgen. (“groond-wihr-yen”)
Image: Grendel’s mother drags Beowulf to the bottom of the mere. Illustration by Henry Justice Ford in Andrew Lang’s The Red Book of Animal Stories (1899).
scucca
scucca, m.n: a devil, demon; Satan, Beelzebub. (“shuck-kah”)
