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
Thanks! Damn I’m ootl on memes these days. Now I just need an old school final fantasy battle menu template
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.
Those "elf houses" is actually a more recent thing we do for tourists. But according to folk belief, the elves live inside certain rocks and cliffs. Some road constructions have been derailed because an elf rock was in the way and the people were having none of that.
Well, obviously those aren't their real houses, they're above the hills, not under them.
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?
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.
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.
Hell, the word "vampire" came to English with news reports from the early 1700s about people in eastern Europe looking for vampires to kill.
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.
Laughs in Beast of Gevaudan and Tarrasque
Not all European cryptids are meek. Especially the French ones apparently.
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
I know all about Europe. It's that country over the sea with all the stars on their flag and the royalty.
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
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.
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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.
I'd say that cryptids are a modern iteration of the same phenomenon which used to be mythologic creatures.
... 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
From cryptidz:
A
Aatxe
Achlis
Afanc
Afonya
Aiatar
Air Rods
Aitvaras
Akerbeltz
Alderney Yellow Light
Alien Big Cats
Alien Octopoids
Alien Sightings of Croatia
Alien sightings of Portugal
Alien Sightings of Spain
Alien Sightings of Sweden
Allier River Monster
Almas
Amphisbaena
Arre River Monster
Arzamassian Monster
Avians
B
Baba Yaga
Banshee
Banyoles Monster
Bar Juchne
Bare-Fronted Hoodwink
Barghest
Barguest
Barmouth Monster
Barnacle Tree
Basajaun
Basilisk
Bat Beast of Kent
Bauk
Beast of Bevendean
Beast of Bodmin Moor
Beast of Brassknocker Hill
Beast of Dartmoor
Beast of Dean
Beast of Gevaudan
Beast of Ljig
Beast of Neamt
Beast Of Tenby
Beast of Tunbridge Wells
Behemoth
Belarussian Shore Muddler
Belorussian Sky Squid
Bergkonge
Biosbardo
Bird Beast of Var
Black Beast of Exmoor
Black Bird of Chernobyl
Black Goat-Man of Wittingau
Black Shuck
Bogeyman
Bonnacon
Bownessie
British Dragon
British Flying Rods
Brosno Dragon
Brownie
Bugbear
Bukavac
Buratsche-Al-Llgs
C
Calopus
Calygreyhound
Camacrusa
Canvey Island Monster
Centaurs
Classic Dragons (Western Cultures)
Cockatrice
Cocollona
Corfu Island Creature
Crimean Creature
Cumberland Spaceman (Solway Firth Spaceman)
Cussac Aliens
Cuélebre
Cyclops
Cynocephali
Cù-sìth
D
Dahu
Dalby Spook
Dard
Dark Faerie
Dobhar-chu
Domsten Blobs
Donestre
Doppelgänger
Dragon
Dragons of Rabka
Drekavac
Dutch Flying Jellyfish
Dwarves
E
Eachy
Elwetritsch
European Wildman
F
Fachen
Fear Liath Moor
Felixstowe Fire Demon
Fern Flower
Fish-man of Liérganes
Fiskerton Phantom
G
Galley-Trot
Gargouille
Gargoyle
Gensou Hyouhon Hakubutsukan
Germakochi
Getzko
Ghillie Dhu
Ghoul
Giant Catfish
Giant Goldfish
Giant of Castelnau
Giant Rat
Giglioli's Whale
Girona Gremlin
Girt Dog of Ennerdale
Gizotso
Gnome
Goatman
Goayr Heddagh
Goblins
Gog-Magog
Grampus
Great Auk
Greece
Greek dolphin
Gremlin
Griffins
Grindylow
Grotte Cosquer Animal
Gruagach
Gryttie
Gulon
H
Hat Man
Hebrides Blob
Hellhounds
Herensuge
High-Finned Sperm Whale
Hippocampus
Hippocerf
Homo Gardarensis
Horned Cats
Hrökkáll
Hungry Grass
I
Imap Umassoursua
J
Jaculus
Jimmy Squarefoot
Jure Grando
K
Kallikantzaros
Karakonjul
Kellas Cat
Kelpie
Kemza
Kinnula Humanoid
Knucker
Koskolteras rhombopterix
Kraken
Kędzierzyn-Koźle Undead
L
Lagarfljot Worm
Lake Ladoga Monster
Lake Van Monster
Lambton Worm
Lariosauro
Lavellan
Le Loyon
Leprechaun
Leshy
Leviathan
Lindworm
List of Jinn Types
Lizard Men
Lizzie
Loberno
Loch Awe Monster
Loch Ness Monster
Loch Oich Monster
Lou Carcolh
Lough Dubh monster
Lough Foyle monster
Lynx
M
Magician's Monster
Manticore
Marabbecca
Mari Lwyd
Marine Lion
Marked Hominids
Meeribiu
Meeting With Monsters (book)
Men in Black
Mermaids (Merfolks)
Mirygdy
Moddey Dhoo
Moha Moha
Moly
Mongitore's Monstrous Fish
Monster of Bor Lake
Monster of Gračanica Lake
Monster of Lake Fagua
Monster of Silver Lake
Monuca
Mora
Morag
Morgawr
Muc-sheilch
Muckie
Muladona
N
Nameless Thing of Berkeley Square
Nissi
Nixie
Nuckelavee
Nymph
Nyruk
O
Octo-squatch
Ogre
On the Map
Ophiotaurus
Oracular Trees
Oude Rode Ogen
Owlman
P
Pale Crawlers
Panther
Paparrasolla
Peluda
Peryton
Pesanta
Phantom Kangaroo
Pilou
Plant-Eating Crocodile
Po Orangutan
Polypus
Pomórnik
Porphyrios
Poskok
Prespan lake monster
Pérák
Q
Quickfoot
Quinotaur
R
Ramidreju
Raskovnik
Ratman of Southend
Redcap
Rephaite
Rijeka Reaper
Roc
Roch Ness Monster
Runan-shah
Russian Sirins
S
Sakhalin Island Sea Wolf
Salamander
Sam Harris
Sarmatian Sea Snail
Sea Monk
Seljordsormen
Shadow People
Shellycoat
Shore Laddie
Shug Monkey
Silphium
Sirens
Skeljaskrímsli
Skvader
Sky Serpents
Spaghetti tree
Sphinx
Spring-Heeled Jack
Storsjöodjuret
Strigoi
Stronsay Beast
Surrey Puma
Swan Maidens
Switzerland
T
Tarasque
Tatzelwurm
Teggie
Thames River Monster
The Merman
The Pig-Man of Cannock Chase
The Sandown Clown
Troll
U
UFO
Undead
Unicorn
Unknown Norwegian Creature
Urco
V
Vampire
Varberg Fortress Moat Monster
Vatnagedda
Ved
Vedi
Villaricos Horned Serpent
Vine of Sodom
Voronezh Aliens
Vorota Beast
W
Wanderlight
Werebear
Werehyena
Werewolf
Whale Eater
White Stag
Wild Haggis
Wolpertinger
Woodwose
Wulver
Wyrm
Wyvern
Y
Yale
Yggdrasil
Z
Zanfretta's Aliens
Zmeu
Ú
Útburður
Š
Šumske Dekle
I can only think of one NA cryptid that isn't just a different flavor of bigfoot, and that is the Dover Demon. Which I'm pretty sure was just made up by teenagers.
Mothman, Jersey Devil, Caddy, chupacabra, Igopogo, Manipogo, Winnepogo, and Champy all avoid being Bigfoot variants. I think wendigos and possibly wechuge toe the line.