Structure

Golem · Artificial Creature — A being made from inanimate materials

An artificial creature of the Jewish mystical Kabbalistic tradition, built from clay, stone, or metal and brought to motion by sacred letters or formulae. The Hebrew word golem first appears in Psalm 139:16, where it names an unformed substance; the earliest direct technical account is in the Kabbalistic Sefer Yetzirah (Book of Creation, c. 200-500 CE), and the twelfth-century German Hasidei Ashkenaz pietist Eleazar of Worms wrote the first detailed creation ritual in his Hilkhot Yetzirah. The most famous case is the Golem of Prague, attributed to Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel of Prague (1525-1609, known as the Maharal), who is said to have built a clay servant from the banks of the Vltava to defend his persecuted Jewish community; the legend was given its modern canonical form by Yudl Rosenberg's 1909 pseudepigraphic Niflaos Maharal. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818), Gustav Meyrink's Der Golem (Kurt Wolff Verlag, 1915), Karel Capek's R.U.R. (Aventinum, 1921) which coined the word 'robot', and the four-type Dungeons & Dragons golem (Clay, Stone, Iron, Flesh; TSR, 1977) are all direct descendants of the same template.

Gargoyle · Stone Monster — Legendary Protectors of Medieval Architecture

The gargoyle is a grotesque stone carving on the exterior walls of medieval European Gothic cathedrals and churches. The name derives from French 'gargouille' (throat). Their original function was highly practical — water spouts that ejected rainwater far from building walls to prevent erosion as water flowed down. But more than mere drainage, they were carved as fearsome beasts, demons, monstrous birds, and chimeras, simultaneously serving as protective talismans warding off evil spirits. The most famous examples are the gargoyles of Paris's Notre-Dame Cathedral (completed around 1240), which gained popular fame after Victor Hugo's 1831 novel The Hunchback of Notre-Dame. Decorative carvings without drainage function are technically called 'chimera' or 'grotesque' rather than gargoyle.