I still have the power! The darting of yesterday’s day two brought me to The Novel Approach reviews for Stop Two on the Undone blog tour – click, friend, and enter!
Guest Post and Giveaway: The Undone Blog Tour With Belinda Burke.
Tag Archives: magical creatures
Author Belinda Burke on Sweet Dreams, Mythology and “Undone” (tour and guest post)
As I have the power, I gather for you in one place the many posts I have written, as I dart from place to place and day to day along my blog tour! Here, originally at “Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words”, is Stop One on the Undone blog tour!
Author Belinda Burke on Sweet Dreams, Mythology and “Undone” (tour and guest post).
Ninth Entry: The Gancanagh
Out of the woods, he comes as if he knew that we were there. Dark haired, dark eyed, the sound of his voice is a song that comes faint over the shallows. Only the music carries, not the words, but that is more than enough to begin tying down the enchantment.
He is gancanagh, love-talker, and the sweet of his words can imperil as much as the sweet of his skin. He walks the edge of the water, slow steps that signal his readiness to stop, to wait – for the slightest reason, or no reason. It is the beginning of his game. Already the women among us are turning to him, lifting their eyes, their hands, fingers curled as if they could touch the softness of his hair from where they stand.
The beasts and beings that do not belong to the human world are dangerous monsters, most of them, but this one is dangerous because he is not a monster. Because he is beautiful – because, as long as he stands smiling, it is easy to believe he could be tame.
The air turns sweet, beguiling dust moving in motes golden as honey. The taste of it flows like wine on the currents of the breeze. He stares at us, and then at one among us, and the woman who has caught his eye is still as a statue despite the deck rocking beneath her, despite the whipped up surface of the sea.
We turn away from the shore, before the sugar in the air overcomes her – before it addicts her, turns the core of her being to nothing more than a seeker after that dust. He watches, and the sound of his laughter follows us.
He watches, and she watches back, as we sail away toward the dusk.
~~~~
Gancanagh References
Gancanagh Wiki
Love Talk
Have a suggestion for a creature that belongs in the Bestiary? Leave it in the comments!
Love Talk
In the process of researching types of sidhe to play with in the Eight Kingdoms, I’ve encountered loads of interesting and obnoxious beings. Currently the ones I’m having the most fun with are the gancanagh – love talkers, it means, male fae who produce an irresistible attraction and addiction in mortals.
All it takes is one touch, and sometimes just to be in their presence for too long. Then a hapless human is infatuated, and doomed to be left heartbroken by their immortal lover when they grow bored and decide to move on to another mortal.
It’s difficult to find actual folklore about the gancanagh, as in legends with the specific names of people and places. When you look up faoladh, for instance, you’ll find dozens of references to the wolves of Ossory, the curse of Saint Patrick, and so on and so on (there will be so on, just wait ‘til I get ranting on in the next post). Gancanagh, though….my grandmother used to warn me that if a boy was too good to be true, he probably was, and might be gancanagh – but she never had any stories to tell about them, the way she did about the Wild Hunt or the ways to escape the sidhe if you were trapped. (Eat no food, drink no drink, remember the charm of nine and pray!)
Having grown older and done the research, of course, I now wonder if maybe the stories just aren’t recorded or as well known because they’d have to be awfully raunchy. Let’s be honest here – what we’re talking about is a fae with all the cunning and beauty of the sidhe, but the intentions of an incubus (at least where it counts.) Not exactly bedtime-story-gee-thanks-grandma material!
The interesting part for me was the differences that make the gancanagh unique, rather than the things that are obviously similar, to other such seductive immortal beings. The gancanagh not only seek out mortals to seduce, but the ones they find have no choice but to give in. Touching one of them just once – a kiss, a caress, to hold their hand – is enough to invoke the ultimate addiction. Their skin secretes a substance described variously as a golden dust, or powder (pixie dust, anyone?), which completely ensnares any mortal unfortunate to come into contact with it.
Unfortunate, because while the gancanagh are supposedly fantastic lovers, the mythology suggests that any other kind of addiction would be nothing compared to this. Deprived of the gancanagh after the fae grows bored, the mortal who has been touched by a gancanagh will suffer the most terrible withdrawal.
They may go mad, accuse friends, family, or strangers of stealing their sidhe lover, attack those they’ve accused or even murder them. Those afflicted might also suffer from a less violent lovesickness, refuse to eat or drink, or wander the woods searching for their lost lover – but in the end, most simply die from the withdrawal itself.
If you want to know more about gancanagh, the best way is probably to see one in action. Check out Undone, and the exclusive excerpts at each stop of my Blog Tour!
Eighth Entry: The Redcap
The castle should be empty, but as we pass through open doors, the sound of iron-shod feet confronts us, pattering madly. We came wondering, but not, perhaps, believing – now, we know the story to be true. It is the Redcap, haunt and horror, too fast to escape and so we do not move.
We stay together, watchful, wary, and when the sun sets, hear the screams and run together, but we know what the creature will do. The sound of feet, the sound of mad, dark laughter – we watch, from a distance, wishing to inspire no more death, as he bends over a body.
An old, small man he seems, but armed with a long iron pike that he grips in talons fiercer than a predator bird’s. His feet beat against the ground while he stands, one then the other, heel then toe. His cap is in his hand, and he drains blood with it, the red invisible in the dark. He hums, but the melody is nothing human.
Having been witness to the horror, we retreat, but slowly. If the blood begins to dry, he’ll seek another victim. If we run, we might go far, but never fast enough.
Better not to be noticed. Better to hold our breaths.
~~~~
Cockatrice References
Redcap Wiki
Redcaps at Mysterious Britain
Image Credit: JB Monge
Have a suggestion for a creature that belongs in the Bestiary? Leave it in the comments!
Seventh Entry: The Cockatrice
In the wilderness, impossible things are sometimes born that make their way into the world of man – yet it is also the case that occasionally the opposite is true. We have met such a beast, and survived to speak of it – the wizard’s dragon, the sorcerer’s apprentice.
If the morning is quiet in farm country, and there is no crowing of roosters to welcome the oncoming dawn, be wary of walking alone. Perhaps one is near you, slaying those whose signal is as a death cry – small creatures turned to stone will tell the tale. The rock in the shape of a rodent may once have been a living mouse.
Bird-footed, bird-faced, born from an egg a toad has hatched, the cockatrice bears a deadly venom and even to be perceived by it is death. In its glare is a swinging scythe – like Medusa, broken beauty of the ancient world, all that look directly upon it turn to stone.
We see it from above, safe in our watchful silence, perusing the reflection of his horror and mystery in still waters. The creature itself avoids its own gaze, drinks slowly with a tongue like a lizard’s. When the beast rattles his tails and disappears into the brush, we breathe easy again.
~~~~
Cockatrice References
Cockatrice Wiki
Cocktrice at the Encylopedia Britannica
Image Credit: Jivu
Have a suggestion for a creature that belongs in the Bestiary? Leave it in the comments!
Sixth Entry: The Roc
The great bird of the east comes down to the coast at sunset. It is an eagle, and yet its wingspan clouds the sky, colors the surface of the water with shadow. It is the screaming of the storm and the sound of its beating wings is all but the whirlwind.
Men on the boat that it approaches scream in all the tongues of men the region knows, but there is no saving them – already, every other boat but ours flees for the horizon, away from the dark arch of those wings, the glare of the great golden eyes.
It comes fast – a glut of terror as the bird bolts down its meal of men. There is a new pitch to the screams – then there is silence. Strewn across the ebb of the tide, the wreckage of a single sail turns bloody in the current, wrapped around its mast. Broken spars heave, and one breathless body with them, riding the swell of the bosom of the sea.
The great wing-beats return then, a sound like a hurricane, and our boat is pushed back, back, skidding across the surface of the ocean. The golden eyes scan the surface of the water, but the bird has had its fill. With a screech it rises back into the sky, disappears in the direction from whence it came.
~~~~
Roc References
Roc Wiki
General Information
The Roc at Ancient Worlds
Image Credit: GENZOMAN
Have a suggestion for a creature that belongs in the Bestiary? Leave it in the comments!
Fifth Entry: The Bakunawa
From the depths of the sea, he comes, fury in his flailing tail and all the ocean whipped to froth around him. We have come to witness his arising, the seeking of his wrath toward the sky.
He is the dark of the night compelling, a rising serpent on wings of storm who opens his mouth for the moon. A little at a time, the wide maw captures the curve of the lunar disc, turns bright to blackness.
A bowl of darkness in which the stars intensify, the sky glares for a moment, empty. Then the silence of the night gives way to clamor – banging – drums – a cacophony that comes from the islands behind us and drives against the dark.
As the noise grows, so does the light. A little at a time, the dragon disgorges the moon and descends into the sea. He will sleep until he grows hungry again.
The people will be waiting.
~~~~
Bakunawa References
Bakunawa Wiki
Seventh Moon Project
Image Credit: Gpotious
Have a suggestion for a creature that belongs in the Bestiary? Leave it in the comments!
Fourth Entry: The Mermaid
“I didn’t mean to hurt you –”
The skin of the sailor in her arms is blue with silence. Blue silence, blue eyes, blue, endless, entrancing, the captive perjury of the sea, the dark eternity of broken promises; blue, but her hair is as black as the deepest grotto and entangling as the swaying, twisting weeds.
“I was just so lonely –”
Her own eyes are green; green shadow, yellow in them, the hue of deadly venom. She carries piercing deadliness with her in those eyes, the lively flicker of the deep, the shimmer that comes from sun on scales.
“So lonely!”
No movement. Silence; lapping of the surface water in the silence, too omnipresent to be noise. Like atmospheric weight. She lashes out at him, drags him under; pale arms, gray-shadowed beneath the surface of the water, long fingers, long nails, long tail –
Merflesh.
She speaks and now, below the surface, we cannot hear her, only see her moving lips. She gets no answer. The last stream of bubbles went up from his cold lips long ago. She turns away angry, flounces like a spurned queen back to the surface. The cove is calm, but her presence roughs the water into roiling. She sees our ship, and at the railing she sees us staring out to sea.
She calls to us, and we know it is time to leave. She sings, as the ship is turning, and we listen but we do not turn back.
We do not answer.
We do not speak.
~~~~
Mermaid References
Mermaid Wiki
Mermaids at Northstar Gallery
Image Credit: Serena-Kenobi
Have a suggestion for a creature that belongs in the Bestiary? Leave it in the comments!
Third Entry: The Yuki-onna
We came upon her in the snow, crouched in a field empty of all things but the white glare of the moon on the ice. Her hair was darkness cut out of the night, darkness out of the heart of a cave, and her skin and her robe were as white as the reflected night.
She called to us, but we did not dare go closer. In the frigid air her words showed no breath, and her red lips were the color of spilled blood, not paint. When the sun came up, she became like icy mist, turned to smoke and faded from our sight.
We left her behind, and turned our faces to the southern wind.
~~~~
Yuki Onna References
Yuki Onna Wiki
A Story of Yuki Onna from Musashi Province
General Information
Image Credit: rennerei
Have a suggestion for a creature that belongs in the Bestiary? Leave it in the comments!
Belinda Burke, Author 