Main Picture is anybody’s guess, the small one is one good for the season—-Edinburgh http://www.edinburghtourist.co.uk/halloween-edinburgh/  is spooky at night even when it’s not the season and the Witchery is fantastic:  http://www.thewitchery.com/   so next time you’re in Scotland.  Yesterday was work and more work and decorating the yard for the big day and so on and so forth…nothing exciting but I was ready to sleep when finally crawled into bed.    Honorable mention:  MEMORIES AND MARVELS  (Mt D again)    www.memoriesandmarvels.com

Basilisk:  Most often depicted as a reptile, the basilisk is reputed to be king of serpents. One of the most feared of all mythological beasts, a basilisk is said to have the power to cause death with a single glance. In this aspect it bears similarity to the Gorgons of Greek mythology.  http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Mythical_creature

Hey lass come here often?

Aatxe ([a.atʃe]) is a spirit in the folk mythology of the Basque people. His name is literally translated as “Young Bull”, and he is sometimes known as Etsai. He is a cave-dwelling spirit who adopts the form of a young red bull, but being a shapeshifter, sometimes takes the shape of a man. At night, more so in stormy weather, he arises from the hollow which is his lair. He attacks criminals and other malevolent people. He also protects people by making them stay home when danger is near.       https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aatxe

Bigfoot is of course the world’s marquee monster, having had pizzas and monster trucks named after it. Bigfoot is known not for what it is (since no one knows for certain what it is, or if it even exists), but what it supposedly leaves behind: large footprints. Bigfoot’s high profile is largely due to a short film taken in 1967 in Bluff Creek, Calif. This is the classic footage of Bigfoot, showing a furry, man-sized creature walking across a clearing.    http://www.livescience.com/11369-10-favorite-monsters.html

A werewolf, also known as a lycanthrope (from the Greek λυκάνθρωπος lykánthropos: λύκος, lykos, “wolf”, and ἄνθρωπος, anthrōpos, “man”), is a mythological or folkloric human with the ability to shapeshift into a wolf or a therianthropic hybrid wolf-like creature, either purposely or after being placed under a curse or affliction (e.g. via a bite or scratch from another werewolf).  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werewolf.       I particularly find it interesting that while shape shifting to all manner of creatures has long been part of the universal lore of mankind; it has been the wolf that seems to have settled itself on our specific psyche.

Of course there were books:  King’s Wolf Cycle http://www.amazon.com/Cycle-Werewolf-Signet-Stephen-King/dp/0451822196  but I think the werewolf was best and first brought to popular attention by Lon Chaney Jr. in a series of Universal pictures where he plays the tortured victim of a curse—the good man condemned by circumstance.   “Creighton Tull Chaney (February 10, 1906 – July 12, 1973), known by his stage name Lon Chaney, Jr., was an American actor known for playing Larry Talbot in the 1941 film The Wolf Man and its various crossovers, as well as portraying other monsters such as The Mummy, Frankenstein’s Monster, and Count Alucard (son of Dracula) in numerous horror films produced by Universal Studios”   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lon_Chaney,_Jr.

The werewolf like the vampire has  many incarnations from the strange creatures that live off the flesh of lost multitudes in New York City (Wolfen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfen_(film)) to being part of the plot in Twilight and Van Helsing http://www.vanhelsing.net/ (who also featured a strange Dracula among other graphic novel type viewings of the various creatures).  There is a shape shifter in True Blood http://www.hbo.com/true-blood (well more than one, but this is one of the original characters) but he turns into a dog (if  I remember right a beagle) which isn’t quite the same as the wolf persona.  But interestingly enough it is a creature, there is no name we remember,

The final legend we’re looking at is a reanimated corpse (well parts of several actually) that actually kinda has a name and even gets a bride (also a collection of parts. Frankenstein’s  legend isn’t old and in fact comes in fact entirely from a novel (which like Stoker’s book refuses to die).  It..”is a fictional character that first appeared in Mary Shelley‘s 1818 novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. …the creature is often referred to as “Frankenstein” after the creature’s creator Victor Frankenstein, but in Shelley’s novel the creature is nameless. …Frankenstein builds the creature in his laboratory through an ambiguous method consisting of chemistry and alchemy. Shelley describes the monster as 8-foot-tall (2.4 m), hideously ugly, but sensitive and emotional. The monster attempts to fit into human society, but is shunned, which leads him to seek revenge against his creator.”  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankenstein%27s_monster

Again we have the sensitive creature who has been changed from what he was, again against his will, and ends up being destroyed by the fickle finger of fate but while the werewolf was changed by a random attack by a mindlessly beast–also one supposes a victim–and changes back for long periods of time; the monster is purposely created, never named, forever trapped in a hideous, cadaver collection, which makes him perhaps the first antihero of as well as the hapless victim of modern technology—a sentiment from the original industrialization of the early 19th century that we still relate to today.

And the man who first brought him to our (or at least the more modern) generation was of course Boris Karloff.  “Along with fellow actors Lon Chaney, Bela Lugosi and Vincent Price, Boris Karloff is recognized as one of the true icons of horror cinema, and the actor most closely identified with the general public’s perception of the “monster” from the classic Mary Shelley book, “Frankenstein”. William Henry Pratt was born on November 23, 1887, in Camberwell, London, England, the son of Edward John Pratt Jr., the Deputy Commissioner of Customs Salt and Opium, Northern Division, Indian Salt Revenue Service, and his third wife, Eliza Sarah Millard.”  http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000472/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm

 Pukwudgie, a “small bipedal humanoid” that comes from Native American folklore and can reportedly transform into a walking porcupine     http://www.businessinsider.com/a-map-of-the-monsters-that-haunt-the-us-2015-1

 Dybbuk’s are your basic possessive spirit: ghosts or spirits that occupy people’s body against their will. They are often related to souls that need help moving on and, as such, figuring out exactly what the Dybbuk wants is the best way to exorcise it. This means listening to its problems and trying to appease it, like a slightly more articulate toddler, but in the body of someone you know.         http://www.shalomlife.com/news/20917/jewish-top-10s-mythological-creatures/