GIBBERING MOUTHER

GIBBERING MOUTHER

"The gibbering mouther is an amoeboid-like form of life, composed of all mouths and eyes."

Gary Gygax, Monster Manual II

BEHOLDER

BEHOLDER

"The beholder (eye tyrant, sphere of many eyes) is most frequently found underground, although it infrequently will lair in desolate wildernesses. The globular body of this monster is supported by levitation and it floats slowly about as it wills. Atop the sphere are 10 eyestalks, while in the central area re a great eleventh eye and a large mouth filled with pointed teeth."

Gary Gygax, Monster Manual I

OTYUGH

OTYUGH

"The otyugh has a sensory organ stalk and two tentacle arms which protrude from its hideous body. The eyes are always thrust above the offal the creature lairs under, and this prevents surprise. Its tentacles have sharp ridges and are used to deliver smashing blows to prey."

Gary Gygax, Monster Manual I

MYCONID

MYCONID

"The myconids, or fungus men, resemble walking toadstools in humanoid form."

Gary Gygaxy, Monster Manual II

GRELL

GRELL

"The appearance of this dreadful creature is fearsome indeed - a body like a giant exposed brain approximately 5' in diameter and with a frontal beak, below which trail ten 6' long tentacles. The beast 'flies' by a levitation process, small inflections of the tentacles controlling horizontal movement."

Don Turnbull ed., Fiend Folio

FROGHEMOTH

 

FROGHEMOTH

"Huge and weird, froghemoths are found only where there are large swamps or relatively shallow bodies of fresh water containing large life forms that serve as prey."

"Movement in water is fairly rapid, the webbed rear feet kicking tothrust the monster forward. In marsh or swamp, a froghemoth moves by lying on its belly and sliding along, propelled by rear legsand tentacles."

Gary Gygax, Monster Manual II

VEILCHENMEISTER DEMON

VEILCHENMEISTER DEMON
"To ward off the approaching, horned devil, he supports his patriarchal cross on a Bible and makes a sign of blessing with his right hand."
Würth Collection

*This demon is inspired by the painting St. Anthony Retable (1500-1515) by Zürcher Veilchenmeister

DE VOS DEMON

DE VOS DEMON

"In the background we can see several episodes from the lives of St. Antony the Hermit and St. Paul, such as their miraculous feeding by the raven, their conversation with an architect concerning the building of a monastery (which is also visible in the centre of a forest), the burial of St. Paul, and the kidnapping of St. Antony by demons."

WGA

*This demon is inspired by the painting The Temptation Of St. Anthony (1594) by Maarten De Vos

BOSCH DEMON

BOSCH DEMON

"On the inner faces of its panels, the triptych shows three stages in the hagiography of St. Anthony, tempted and seduced by demons until he finds the path to salvation through the life of a hermit."

Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga

*This demon is inspired by the painting The Temptations of St. Anthony (1500) by Hieronymus Bosch

BRUEGHEL DEMON

BRUEGHEL DEMON

"He is totally absorbed in his reading and meditations, under a crude wooden cabin, and he sees himself surrounded by a great number of evil monsters where we can see the most horrendous symbiosis of mammals, birds, reptiles and fish, with threatening attitudes or making horrific sounds and howls. All these evil satanic figures are symbols of the Deadly Sins and thus, represent sloth, gluttony, wrath, greed, pride, envy and especially, lust."

Museo Nacional De Escultura

*This demon is inspired by the painting The Temptation of Saint Anthony (1625) by Jan Brueghel the Elder; a similar demon also appears in the painting The Underworld by an unknown member of Brueghel's circle.

VAN OOSTSANEN DEMON

VAN OOSTSANEN DEMON

"Fearing the outcome of a battle, Saul, kin of the Israelites, consulted the fortune-telling witch of Endor. The prophecy came true: Saul lost the battle, but shortly before he was to be killed, he threw himself on his sword. His suicide is a warning against witchcraft. In the foreground is a Witches' Sabbath: the fortune-teller sits within a chalk circle, surrounded by other witches, satrys, and imaginary figures."

The Rijks Museum

*This demon is inspired by the painting Saul And The Witch Of Endor (1472-77) by Jacob Conelisz van Oostsanen

BOUTS DEMON

BOUTS DEMON

"For instance, in the lower right-hand corner, a reptilian creature grasps a sinner by the head."

Aleks Pluskowski, The Monstrous Middle Ages

In Dieric Bouts the Elder‘s Fall of the Damned (ca. 1470) (Figure 7), a motley crew of reptilian devils attack naked souls in a landscape so rocky it practically has teeth. Indeed, many of the damned are shown partially submerged into the earth; this is the endgame of their fall, which began when they were dropped here by flying devils (and were thus forced to repeat the devils‘ own prior fall from Heaven).

Marisa Mandaback, Holy Shit: Bosch’s Bluebird And The Junction Of The Scatological And The Eschatological In Late Medieval Art 

*This demon is inspired by the painting The Fall Of The Damned Into Hell (1450) by Dieric Bouts

MANDIJN DEMON

MANDIJN DEMON

"St. Anthony Abbot prays inside a hollow tree. He is attacked by monstrous creatures. They try to persuade him to lead a dissolute life. Through his staunch faith Anthony resisted temptation."

The Frans Hals Museum

*This demon is inspired by the painting The Temptation Of St. Anthony (1525-35) by Jan Mandijn

PACHER DEMON

PACHER DEMON

"In Michael Pacher’s 15th-century painting “The Devil Presenting St Augustine with the Book of Vices” we see a figure intended to disgust: unusually, he is green, but has cloven hooves, horns, red eyes, fangs and reptilian wings. For some reason, he also has a face on his bottom."

Ralph Jones, The Face We Give The Devil Is A Mirror Of Our Times

*This demon is inspired by the painting The Devil Presenting St. Augustine with the Book of Vices(1483) by Michael Pacher

BUONARROTI DEMON

BUONARROTI DEMON

"In addition, following a trip to the fish market, Michelangelo heightened the naturalism of Schongauer’s demons by painting silvery scales onto the spiny, fishlike monster in the upper left.

Kimball Art Museum

*This demon is inspired by the painting The Torment Of St. Anthony (1487) by Michelangelo Buonarroti which itself was inspired by the print Saint Anthony Tormented By Demons (1470-75) by Martin Schongauer

BELMONTE DEMON

BELMONTE DEMON 

"Instead of showing an individual body of the devil, we have a figure that is made up of all these different composite creatures and demons and they're biting each other and forming this anthropomorphized demon. We see bird heads are twisting here and there, we see bird talons, we see what look like god heads, we see reptilian creatures biting the arms of a body. We see all these different faces across this figure. And then what I can only describe as the hair which looks like some Dr. Seuss figure."

Dr. Lauren Kilroy-Ewbank & Dr. Steven Zucker, St. Michael Defeats The Devil In Renaissance Spain

*This demon is inspired by the painting St. Michael Defeating the Devil (1450-1500) by The Master Of Belmonte

MORSS PISCIS

MORSS PISCIS

"In 1635 the Spanish Jesuit Juan Eusebio Nieremberg published Historia Naturae Maxime Perigrinae, a collection of descriptions of exotic beasts, most from the Americas, and containing a woodcut of an animal he called morrs piscis, which had a head resembling that of a dog, with protruding tongue, a mane, forelegs with long hair and large claws, and a fish's tail."

Michael Allaby, Oceans: A Scientific History Of Oceans And Marine Life

SEA-HORSE

SEA-HORSE

"Many of the sea monster that appear on medieval maps are hybrids such as the sea don, the sea lion, and the sea pig, and the source of many of these creatures was the ancient and medieval theory that every land creature had its equivalent in the sea. Some Roman mosaics reflect this theory, showing hybrid creatures such as sea rams, sea lions, sea horses, and so on."

Chet Van Duzer, Monsters On Medieval And Renaissance Maps

AQUATIC BULL

AQUATIC BULL

"A single-horned aquatic bull from the twelfth-century painted ceiling in the Church Of St. Martin in Zillis, Switzerland."

Chet Van Duzer, Sea Monsters On Medieval And Renaissance Maps

AQUATIC ELEPHANT

AQUATIC ELEPHANT

"An aquatic elephant, probably intended for a walrus, from the twelfth-century painted ceiling in the church of St Martin in Zillis, Switzerland."

Chet Van Duzer, Sea Monsters On Medieval and Renaissance Maps

KRAKEN

KRAKEN

"There is a fish not yet mentioned which it is scarcely advisable to speak about on account of its size, which to most men will seem incredible. There are, moreover, but very few who can tell anything definite about it, inasmuch as it is rarely seen by men; for it almost never approaches the shore or appears where fishermen can see it, and I doubt that this sort of fish is very plentiful in the sea. In our language it is usually called the 'kraken'."

King's Mirror