Re: Naming Mythical creatures

Hallo!

On Sun, 16 Jan 2005 04:32:25 -0800,
"B. Garcia" <madyaas@...> wrote:

> I'm a little curious on how those of you who've gotten far enough for
> your cultures' mythologies on naming various deities, spirit types,
> monsters, and mythical creatures?
>
> I've been trying to figure out how to go about it for the Saalangal,
> and I've looked to Tagalog for inspiration, but not much luck. I
> assume originally creature names would usually have some sort of
> meaning behind them (such as the recent example here - werewolf), So,
> how did you all go about giving names to the various creatures in your
> concultures' mythologies?
I don't have Old Albic words for spirits and mythological creatures
yet, with the exception of _goña_, which refers to some sort of
evil spirit (actually taken from Tolkien's _Book of Lost Tales_,
where "gongs" are some race of evil creatures).  However, some
contours of the Old Albic demonology have already begun to take
shape.

There is a single creator-God, who first created the greater and
lesser spirits.  Some of these spirits assisted the Creator in the
creation of the world and entered it.  The mightiest of these
spirits rebelled against the One and became the Adversary
who turned some of the lesser spirits to evil.
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.

The lesser spirits were originally called into the world to guard
it, but their attitude to the world was a playful one because their
existence was not tied to the fate of the world, and they failed
in their mission.  Hence, the One created the human race, whose
purpose is to love the world, protect and enrich it by creating
beautiful things.  The lesser spirits thus always felt it to be
difficult to cope with humans.  Some try to compensate for their
failure by helping humans fulfill their Purpose, but some of the
more wicked ones try to foil them whenever they can, and the
Adversary has drawn many of them onto his side.

Now it is at me to find out the Old Albic words for all that...

Greetings,

Jörg.

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