Re: Naming Mythical creatures

Hallo!

On Thu, 20 Jan 2005 11:46:25 +0200,
Steg Belsky <draqonfayir@...> wrote:

> On Jan 20, 2005, at 8:21 AM, Roger Mills wrote:
> [quoting me --Jörg]
> >> The greater spirits are few in number and bear individual names.
> >> The lesser spirits are plentiful, and there are many kinds of them.
> >> The _gøñi_ (plural of _goña_) are one sort of those lesser spirits
> >> that turned to evil.  Another kind of evil beings are the "husks",
> >> beings with human body but no soul.
>
> > Greater/Lesser Spirits too. "Husks"-- what an interesting concept. I
> > haven't gotten to mythological creatures yet.
>
> Hmm, didn't notice this before.
> Are these "husks" recognizeable as such?
> If they look and act exactly (or mostly) like humans, it opens up the
> possibility of people accusing each other (or accusing the Other) of
> being husks and not humans... a kind of demonization that could be
> dangerous.
According to the tradition, Husks are very rare, the products of
*very* powerful magic.  They are also quite much like vampires
in showing an unsatiable hunger for human flesh and blood.
(Being not truly alive, they have to steal life from humans.)
So the likelihood of running into a Husk is very low, and at least
in classical, enlightened times, accusations of someone being a Husk
were rarely taken seriously, and only in cases of *very* evil
misdemeanour (e.g., mass murderers; Hitler would probably have been
suspected to be a Husk, for example).  In the last days of Albic
civilization, when the social structure was cracking from its
edges and society became more violent, such accusations became
more frequent, and several hotspurs instigated "Husk-hunts" against
their opponents (such hunts were illegal of course, and being an
ardent Husk-hunter was one of the surest ways of being suspected to
be a Husk...).

Greetings,

Jörg.