The real European cryptid.
this post was submitted on 28 Mar 2024
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With teeth that go Ffffttt!
"ER--JUST---LOOKATTHE BOOOONES!!"
Is it behind the bunny?
Well, that's no ordinary rabbit! That's the most foul, cruel, and bad-tempered rodent you ever set eyes on!
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Great meme but does anyone have the original image without the text? This picture fucken rules, it’s like a turn based battle from the best rpg ever
https://imgflip.com/memegenerator/513551843/You-Shall-Not-Pass
It's a common meme template
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Someone hasn't been playing, watching or reading The Witcher..
There's a difference between mythological creatures and modern cryptids, but I also don't know what has the French bothered these days.
Something about fairies in Ireland and Iceland and that's it.
Icelandic folklore doesn't have fairies, we have elves.
Also there's some very disturbing Icelandic cryptids, like Jólakötturinn, a giant cat that eats children on Christmas, and Nykur, a backward-hoofed horse that hypnotizes you to ride it and then it walks you into the sea.
I'm pretty sure "mythological creatures" is a subcategory of cryptids, or the other way around.
Either way, the meme didn’t say "modern" and I'm pretty sure the rich tradition of terrifying east- and central European cryptids extends well into modernity lol
Like every European village has it's own weirdly specific cryptid of sorts, they go extinct all the time.
Some are weirdly eldritch horrory, but most are just things that kill people, usually attracted by specific (positive or negative) actions or events.
I think one is just a floating bloody (unspecific) tigh. No additional explanation. Poor thing prob popped into existence and promptly got captured by SCP foundation before even doing anything.
Is the difference that Europe's population density is so high it's obvious centaurs aren't real, because we'd have found them by now?
Yeah duuuh, that's not Europe! That's Western Asia!
Someone doesn't know Europe
What? Europe has vampires, and werewolves, and trolls, and Grendel, and sirens, and Medusa, and the kraken, and all kinds of scary shit. What do we have, Big Foot?
We have skinwalkers and wendigo which are kind of like vampires and werewolves if they were also addicted to crack cocaine.
LOL!
That thing that's always crying because it's so ugly? Either way, asia has a guy with an eye coming out his anus do they win.
I think it's just a matter of timing and development. Europeans had the same or similar legends a thousand years ago. Indigenous cultures here in North America have the same folklore but we are more closer to it than our European friends.
I'm Indigenous Canadian in northern Ontario. My first language is Ojibway/Cree and for the first ten years of my life, I was surrounded by my culture and history from my Elders and other traditional people.
Sure it was all stories of how characters saved humanity, how humanity saved itself and all those saviour / hero type story lines. They were fun stories .... but over half of those old tales are just messed up freakish stories of death, destruction, fear and horror. The characters of the land, the water, the sky, the gods, the talking animals, good spirits and bad spirits are portrayed as equally good and equally bad. They are seen as more human and they are capable of doing enormous good or conducting terrible evil.
It's a lot like Greek mythology or Scandinavian mythology .... there is superstition, belief and godlike power to everything ... but the beings of other worlds and realms can be as good, holy, wholesome, loving and just as we want them to be .... but they are also just as flawed, stupid, jealous, angry, violent and terrible as we are.
I still spend a lot of time alone on the land at my wilderness cottage and as much as I like it out there .... there are times when it does scare the shit out of me. A quiet still silent bright summer day alone with no other people around can at times be just as frightening as a lonely dark autumn night. Sometimes when you know you are alone out there .... you can't help but feel like someone is watching you.
That and we are fairly well accostumated to any european cryptid (which is a modern concept) to the point of seeing them as a regular character in tales and legends, games and rpg alike. But, to tell you the truth, the original stories of those creatures were scary. Now we think of witches in a more positive light, a witch in a folk tale is one of the most dangerous entities out there. Werewolves...vampires were not fictional either.
Example:
Analysis on the skull discovered with a brick wedged in the mouth revealed that it once belonged to a woman between 61 and 71 years old. Although her exact story is likely never to be known, it was thought that she must have been believed to be a “Shroud Eater,” a type of vampire associated particularly with Germany and related territories.
The Shroud Eater is a different sort of vampire, not found biting the necks of voluptuous victims, but instead found still in their grave. Believed to>!!< be a sort of undead corpse, they were known for making hideous chewing sounds and were thought to cause death and destruction from a distance. There are several theories about how this particular myth came to be, but it seems to be particularly prevalent in times of plague or disease, when one death eventually leads to many more, often of friends and family members.
If you were a regular person in the late 1500's this would keep yoy awake at night. And it wasn't fiction than. But then again we took these old myths and got past their scare fators as they became simple ideas. Vampires are not scary today, they wear fancy clothes and take part of teen dramas. Or just become ancient aztec deities of fitness. Whatever we want them to be. But if you look at the quoted description, well, I wouln't want that thing. I'd rather fight a rake barehanded.
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I can't be the only one, so:
cryptid noun
Any creature that may or may not exist. Sightings of various cryptids have been reported, but their reality has not been proved.
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Laughs in Beast of Gevaudan and Tarrasque
Not all European cryptids are meek. Especially the French ones apparently.
Looks like there's some real beasts in there
Wait is the barbegazi skiing on his feet? Fuck yeah
Japanese folklore sounds more fun then both of these
They should make a religion out of that
Dude, we had fucking DRAGONS! Werewolfes, vampires, human eating gigant spiders, and dozen on other horrible creature infesting our forests FOR CENTURIES!!!
All you had before the boom of YouTube was a dude in an hairy furry costume walking in the woods.
Obviously this is all for the meme and I agree with you that Europe has a lot of famous myths and folklore but you are daft if you think North America only has Big Foot/Sasquatch before creepypasta. Let me name a few for you: Jersey Devil, Wendigo, Mothman, UFO aliens, Flatwoods Monster, Skinwalker. Almost every state in the US has a cryptid. We got the Native American folklore to derive from. Not even including Mexico's vast folklore and cryptids.
then we have nordic cryptids, which is rocks that look like people and just literal actual gnomes except EVEN SMALLER
US people know nothing about Europe, chapter < Unsigned Integer Overflow>.
I know all about Europe. It's that country over the sea with all the stars on their flag and the royalty.
Ok, yes, you pass.
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Europe even have cryptic outside mythology? Nessie doesn't count.
Werewolves, vampires, baba yaga, fae, bean sidhe, vättar, tomtar, will o the wisp, trolls, Näcken, sylphs, undines, changelings, sirens, cyclops, gorgons, demon boars galore, and loads more local legends
Italians
Terrifying
I heard once that they supposedly have to speak with their hands. Sounds horrific.
I'VE SEEN ONE ONCE, IT WAS TERRIFYING! IT WAS ALL "bibedi bobedi" AND WANTED ME TO EAT PIZZA!
Just wear pineapple around your neck, you'll be fine.
Unless the specific cryptid is attractive. Which they are. Then you will be the one chasing them around begging then to make you pizza. Its a weird power they have.
Dragons, basilisks, unicorns, fire breathing salamanders were part of the average folk beliefs in the European middle ages and Renaissance. For example, in the gorgeous Lady and the Unicorn tapisseries from ~1500 you can see in Paris.
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I'd say that cryptids are a modern iteration of the same phenomenon which used to be mythologic creatures.
Now they call it angels, demons and the book of Revelations
... I think the SCP is censuring the list. But I trust them, the memes told me that I do so.
Anyway, focusing on European cryptids - this seems like a good list with 321 entries & detained descriptions and up-to-date sightings. Tho it does feel fairly light on the outer parts, like Greek, English, Russian, Moroccan (the Spain part) pets, I mean cryptids: cryptidz.fandom.com/wiki/European_cryptids
This is a shorter list but does contain some additional entries: cryptozoologycryptids.fandom.com/wiki/European_Cryptids
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