Shadow

Serpent-bodied Enchantress · Seductress and Devourer in Greek Mythology

A monster of Greek myth, the upper body a beautiful woman and the lower body that of a great serpent. Once the beautiful queen of Libya and a lover of Zeus, she was driven by Hera's jealousy to the loss of all her children, and from her grief and rage was changed into a creature that, by night, steals and devours the children of other mothers (Diodorus Siculus, Library 20.41, 1st c. BCE). Hera further denied her sleep by cursing one of her eyes to remain forever open, and she carries her eyes out in a bowl when she leaves home (Plutarch, On Curiosity 2). Philostratus's Life of Apollonius of Tyana 4.25 (3rd c. CE) tells how a Lamia seduced the young Menippus, and was unmasked at the wedding feast by the philosopher Apollonius — the source which John Keats reworked in his poem Lamia (Lamia, Isabella, the Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems, Taylor & Hessey, 1820), turning her into a tragic figure of love and revealed truth.

Strix · Night Bird — Vampiric Bird of Ancient European Myth

A vampiric bird-creature of Roman and Greek myth, a nocturnal raptor that creeps into the bedrooms of sleeping infants to drink their blood and entrails. It is described variously as a witch transformed into a bird, or as a demon born in the shape of a bird. The most canonical account is Ovid's Fasti 6.131-168 (c. 8 CE), which depicts it as 'with a large head, staring eyes, a beak fit for plunder, grey feathers and curved talons', and describes the ritual of the goddess Carna with hawthorn branches that protected the newborn king Procas. Etymologically the figure is the direct ancestor of the later European vampire tradition — Romanian Strigoi, Italian strega 'witch', French stryge — all of which descend from the Latin strix.

King of Serpents in Medieval European Legend

The Basilisk (Greek basiliskos 'little king', Latin basiliscus) is the legendary serpent-king of Greco-Roman natural history and medieval European bestiaries. The first detailed description is in Pliny the Elder's Natural History VIII.33 (c. 77-79 CE), where the basilisk is a small serpent twelve fingers long (about 23 cm) inhabiting the deserts of Cyrene in North Africa, with a crown-shaped white mark on its head, whose hiss alone scatters all other snakes; whose gaze kills any creature that meets it; whose breath withers grass and shatters stone; and whose corpse is still venomous — Pliny relates an anecdote of a horseman who pierced one with a spear, only for the venom to travel up the shaft and kill rider and horse alike. From the twelfth century onward, English bestiaries such as the Aberdeen Bestiary and MS Bodley 764 reshaped the figure into a hybrid with the head, wings, and feet of a rooster and the tail of a snake, identifying it with the cockatrice. J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (1998) made the basilisk a canonical figure of modern fantasy.

Cerberus · Infernal Gatekeeper — Legendary triple-headed hound

The colossal three-headed hound of Greek myth, set at the gate of the underworld of Hades. In Hesiod's Theogony 310-318 (c. 700 BCE) he is the offspring of the great monsters Typhon and Echidna, sibling of the Hydra, the Chimera, and Orthos; Hesiod gives him fifty heads, but from Pindar and Stesichorus in the fifth century BCE the canonical three-headed form has been standard (Apollodorus, Library 2.5.12, 1st-2nd c. CE). His task is two-way: he prevents the dead from rising and the living from descending. The twelfth and last of the labours of Heracles was to bring Cerberus alive from the underworld; Virgil's Aeneid 6.417-425 (19 BCE) shows the Sibyl casting a honey-and-drugged cake to send the three heads at once to sleep, and Dante in Inferno 6.13-33 (c. 1308-1320) sets him as the warden of the gluttonous in the third circle of Hell. J. K. Rowling's three-headed Fluffy in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (Bloomsbury, 1997), who is sent to sleep by music, is a direct descendant of the same canonical motif.

Jiangshi · The Chinese Hopping Corpse — A Stiff, Leaping Corpse-Spirit

The Jiangshi (Chinese jiangshi, 'stiff corpse') is the Chinese corpse-yokai of an unburied dead body grown rigid and reanimated. The figure is defined by post-mortem rigor that holds its arms outstretched, by the canonical hopping motion in which it moves with both feet together, by the Qing-dynasty Manchu official's robe (magua) and round cap, and by its qi-draining (xi jing) nature: it absorbs the life-energy of the living through its breath. The etymology is jiang ('stiff') plus shi ('corpse'), so 'stiff corpse'. The figure entered formal Chinese literature in the late eighteenth century through Yuan Mei's Zibuyu (1788) and Ji Yun's Yuewei caotang biji (1789-1798), the Qing-era biji notation collections. The iconographic root is the Hunan Xiangxi corpse-walking custom (ganshi), in which a Daoist sorcerer was said to lead the bodies of those who died abroad home through the night using talismans. Lau Koon-wai's 1985 Hong Kong film Mr. Vampire, starring Lam Ching-ying, decisively fixed the modern hopping-jiangshi iconography and launched the Hong Kong jiangshi-film boom of 1985-1992.

Banshee · The Wailing Death-Herald — Lament of Celtic Lore

The Banshee (Irish Gaelic bean sí, Scottish Gaelic bean sìth, 'woman of the fairy mound') is the female spirit of Irish and Scottish Celtic tradition whose chilling wail at night foretells an imminent death in a particular family. She does not cause the death but mourns it in advance, an incarnation of grief itself. The word descends from Old Irish ben síde, with the English form banshee fixed in eighteenth-century usage. Anthropologists trace the figure to the Celtic keening tradition (caoineadh in Irish), in which women mourners wailed the dead at funerals; as the church suppressed keening, its social function was preserved in the supernatural banshee. Thomas Crofton Croker's Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland (1825) and W. B. Yeats's Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry (1888) made the banshee a central figure of the Celtic Revival, and Patricia Lysaght's Banshee: The Irish Death Messenger (1986) established the scholarly canon. Marvel Comics' X-Men hero Banshee (1967), Sylvanas Windrunner the Banshee Queen of World of Warcraft (2004), and the Cinemax television series Banshee (2013-2016) have kept the figure in modern popular culture.

Gumiho · Nine-Tailed Fox — The Bewitching Fox-Spirit of East Asia

The Gumiho (Korean Gumiho, 'nine-tailed fox') is the canonical Korean figure of the East Asian fox-spirit (yohou) tradition, the fox-monster that gains nine tails after living for a thousand years. The earliest textual origin is the Classic of Mountains and Seas (Shan Hai Jing), compiled in the Chinese Warring States period (fifth to third century BC), in which the Cheonggu region of the Southern Mountain Sutra is inhabited by a nine-tailed fox that 'resembles a fox but has nine tails, cries like a baby, and devours men'. In Korea, the gumiho first appears in the Kim Yu-shin entry of Book One of the Memorabilia of the Three Kingdoms (Samguk Yusa) compiled by Iryeon in 1281. In Japan, it settled into the Tamamo-no-Mae legend of the era of Emperor Toba (reigned 1107-1123). The novel of gods and demons Investiture of the Gods (Fengshen Yanyi) by Xu Zhonglin of late Ming China (composed late sixteenth to early seventeenth century), in which the consort Daji of the last Shang king Zhou is revealed as an incarnation of a thousand-year-old nine-tailed fox, established the decisive synthesis of the East Asian gumiho canon. Korean-specific features are (1) the gathering of vital essence by means of the fox-bead (hoeok), (2) the taboo motif that the fox becomes human if it conceals its identity for one hundred or one thousand days, (3) the consumption of human livers and vital essence, and (4) the canonical visual iconography of the Korean gumiho in KBS's Legends of the Hometown series (broadcast 1977-2009). The 2020 tvN drama Tale of the Nine-Tailed (starring Lee Dong-wook and Jo Bo-ah) globalised the twenty-first-century Korean gumiho iconography as K-content canon.

Mummy · The Bandaged Dead — A Cursed Corpse Guarding the Tomb

The Mummy (English mummy, from Persian mumiya 'bitumen') is the undead embalmed corpse, wrapped in linen bandages, that rises from the tomb to take vengeance and curse the living. Its iconographic prototype is the ancient Egyptian mummification practice and afterlife belief: the seventy-day funerary rite — extraction of the brain through the nostril, separation of the viscera into four canopic jars dedicated to the sons of Horus (Imsety, Hapy, Duamutef, Qebehsenuef), natron desiccation, linen wrapping with embedded Book of the Dead amulets — was canonised from the Old Kingdom (c. 3000 BC) and refined through the New Kingdom (1550-1295 BC). Herodotus described the procedure in detail in Histories Book II (c. 440 BC). The 1922 November discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun (c. 1341-1323 BC) in the Valley of the Kings by the British archaeologist Howard Carter, and the April 1923 death of his patron Lord Carnarvon, globalised the 'Curse of the Pharaohs' legend. Karl Freund's Universal horror film The Mummy (1932), with Boris Karloff as Imhotep, fixed the cinematic canon of the vengeful resurrected mummy.

Ghoul · The Corpse-Eater — A Desert Monster That Digs Up and Devours the Dead

The Ghoul (English ghoul, from Arabic ghul) is the corpse-eating monster and shape-shifting cannibal of the desert and graveyard, originating in pre-Islamic Bedouin Arabian folklore of the Jahiliyyah (before the sixth century), transmitted through the One Thousand and One Nights (Alf Laylah wa-Laylah, compiled in the ninth century), and established in Western horror canon from the eighteenth century onwards. The etymology lies in Arabic ghul, from the verb ghala ('to seize, to snatch'). In Arabian folklore, the ghoul is a malevolent variety of jinn that haunts the desert to lure and devour travellers, possessing the power to transform into human or animal form (particularly the hyena) and disinterring corpses from graves. Antoine Galland's French translation of the Arabian Nights (1704-1717), William Beckford's Gothic novel Vathek (1786), and Lord Byron's poem The Giaour (1813) introduced the ghoul to Western literature, and H. P. Lovecraft's short story Pickman's Model (1927) and The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath (1927) established the modern horror canon of the ghoul as a foundational race of the Cthulhu Mythos.

Oni · The Japanese Demon — A Horned, Hulking Man-Eating Ogre

The Oni (Japanese oni) is the gigantic and ferocious demon of Japanese tradition, the canonical iconographic figure of Japanese yokai distinguished by red or blue skin, horns on its head, sharp tusks, a tiger-skin loincloth (torainu fundoshi), and a wielded iron club, the kanabo. The etymology combines the Chinese ideogram 'gui' (the soul of the dead) with the Japanese indigenous root 'on' ('to hide'), per the canonical hypothesis of the eighteenth-century Japanese dictionary Wakun no Shiori compiled by Tanigawa Kotosuga. The iconographic origin is a composite of (1) the Chinese 'gui' belief, (2) the hell-wardens of Indian Buddhism (the ox-headed and horse-headed naraka-pala), and (3) the indigenous Japanese mountain-spirit belief. The most decisive Japanese text is the depiction of mountain spirits in the eighth-century Kojiki (712) and Nihon Shoki (720), and the canonical heroic narrative is the Shuten-doji story in the eleventh- and twelfth-century Konjaku Monogatarishu — in which Minamoto no Yorimitsu (948-1021) leads the Four Heavenly Kings including Watanabe no Tsuna to slay the oni Shuten-doji of Mount Oe in Tanba Province and present his head to the imperial court. The 2016-2020 Japanese manga Demon Slayer (Kimetsu no Yaiba) by Koyoharu Gotouge established the twenty-first-century global canon of oni iconography.

Lich · The Undying Mage — An Archmage Who Refused Death by Sealing the Soul

The Lich (English Lich) is the powerful mage who has become an undead by obsession with knowledge and power, sealing the soul in a vessel called a phylactery so that it revives as long as the vessel survives, and is the canonical iconographic figure of the apex of mage-undead. The etymology lies in the Old English lic ('corpse, body'), and the general 'corpse' sense that appears in the eighth-century Old English epic Beowulf was specified in later English literature as the mage-undead meaning. The iconographic origin includes Clark Ashton Smith's pulp fantasy short story The Empire of the Necromancers (1932) and the undead mage Thulsa Doom in Robert E. Howard's Kull series (1934), but the decisive canonisation was Gary Gygax's short article The Lich in The Strategic Review Vol. 2 No. 4 published by TSR in May 1976, and the addition of the lich to page 61 of the first edition AD&D Monster Manual of January 1977. In Gygax's 1978 adventure module Tomb of Horrors (S1), the appearance of the demilich Acererak — the canon that even if the body is destroyed, as long as the phylactery sealing the soul survives, the lich revives — established the decisive canon. The Lich King Arthas Menethil in Blizzard's World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King, released on 13 November 2008, settled the twenty-first-century global canon of the lich.

Wraith · The Vengeful Specter — A Dark Spirit That Lost Its Form, Leaving Only Hatred

The Wraith is an incorporeal undead spirit born from an intense grudge, hatred, or unfinished business, drifting as a shadowy or misty form after the loss of its body. The word first appears in English in 1513, in the Scottish translation of Virgil's Aeneid by Gavin Douglas, where it denotes a doppelganger-apparition signalling imminent or recent death. Through eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Scottish Gothic literature, especially Robert Burns and Sir Walter Scott, the wraith became established as a death-omen and avenging spirit of unfulfilled fate. J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings (1954-1955) decisively redefined the figure as the Nazgul or Ringwraiths, the nine human kings whose souls were drained by Sauron's rings of power, and the 1974 first edition of Dungeons and Dragons canonised the wraith as an incorporeal undead monster vulnerable only to enchanted weapons. The wraith now stands as the archetype of the cold-radiating, life-draining, mostly intangible undead across modern fantasy gaming, action RPGs, and horror fiction.

Onryo · The Japanese Vengeful Ghost — A Cursing Specter Returned in Grudge

The Onryo (Japanese onryo, 'vengeful spirit') is the Japanese vengeful ghost born of injustice and deep resentment, dealing calamity to the living. The kanji combine on ('grudge, resentment') with ryo ('spirit'), giving 'spirit of grudge'. The canonical iconography is a white shinishozoku (burial robe), tangled long black hair, pale face, and resentful eyes. The defining trait that distinguishes the onryo from other East Asian ghosts is that the curse spreads not only to those who wronged the spirit but to unrelated bystanders. The iconographic origin lies in the goryo cult of the ninth-century Heian period, in which the politically defeated dead returned as vengeful spirits causing natural disasters and plagues; the canonical case is the deification of Sugawara no Michizane (845-903), who returned as an onryo and was placated by the establishment of the Tenmangu shrine system. Tsuruya Nanboku IV's kabuki play Tokaido Yotsuya Kaidan (1825), featuring the female onryo Oiwa, fixed the visual canon, and the modern J-horror canon of Suzuki Koji's novel Ring (1991), Nakata Hideo's film Ring (1998), and Shimizu Takashi's Ju-on (2002) globalised the figure.

Vampire · The Bloodsucker — Night's Aristocrat Living Immortal on the Blood of the Living

The Vampire (English Vampire, Slavic Upir or Vampir) is the undead who is dead yet has not died, sustaining immortality by drinking the blood of the living, possessed of pale skin, fangs, and a seductive charisma, transforming into bat, mist, or wolf — the canonical iconographic figure that originated in Slavic Eastern-European folklore and was completed in nineteenth-century English literature. The etymology derives from the Slavic upir (East Slavic) and vapir (South Slavic), and the first English use of vampire appears in the 1734 London Journal travel magazine. The iconographic origin is the resurrected-corpse tradition of Slavic folklore and the eighteenth-century Eastern European Vampire Panic (1725-1755 in Habsburg-occupied Serbia and Hungary), of which the decisive cases are the 1725 Petar Blagojevic affair in Kisilova, Serbia, and the 1726-1732 Arnold Paole affair in Medvegja, Serbia — the Visum et Repertum, the official 1732 Latin report by the Austrian-Habsburg military surgeon Johann Flueckinger, is the decisive textual canon that registered the vampire as an official subject in European academia. The Vampyre by John William Polidori (1795-1821), published on 1 April 1819 in the British New Monthly Magazine — written at the Villa Diodati in Switzerland in 1816 at the suggestion of Lord Byron together with Mary Shelley (Frankenstein) — is the origin of the English-literary vampire canon, and Bram Stoker's (1847-1912) Dracula, published in Britain on 26 May 1897, completed the decisive canon of the elegant, aristocratic modern vampire iconography.

Zombie · The Reanimated Corpse — Mindless Man-Eating Hordes of the Dead

The Zombie is the reanimated corpse that has lost reason and self, hungering for the flesh and brains of the living. The word descends from West African Kongo zumbi or nzambi ('spirit, soul, god'), carried through the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Atlantic slave trade to the Caribbean, where it embedded itself in Haitian Vodou. In Vodou tradition, a bokor (sorcerer) drugs a living person into a state of apparent death, buries them, and then disinters and enslaves the soulless body. Victor Halperin's White Zombie (1932) introduced the figure to cinema, but it was George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead (1968) that decisively broke with the Vodou tradition and established the modern flesh-eating, mass-attacking corpse iconography. Dawn of the Dead (1978), Resident Evil (1996), 28 Days Later (2002), and The Walking Dead (comics 2003, AMC television 2010 onward) have made the zombie the central horror figure of the early twenty-first century.

Dullahan · The Headless Horseman — Ireland's Death-Bringing Envoy

The Dullahan (Irish Dullahan, English Dullahan) is the headless rider on a black horse holding his own severed head in one hand, the canonical iconographic figure of the death-collecting spirit and the executor of fate of Irish Celtic tradition. The etymology derives from the Irish dulachan or dubhlachan — both terms glossed as 'messenger of darkness' or 'headless one' — a vestige of the human-sacrifice belief of pre-Christian Celtic Ireland. The decisive scholarly canon is Thomas Crofton Croker's 1825 Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland, which established the canonical visual figure of the headless rider whose severed head emits light, and Lady Wilde's 1887 Ancient Legends, Mystic Charms, and Superstitions of Ireland (mother of Oscar Wilde, 1821-1896), which fixed the canonical behaviour pattern of the dullahan (calling a person's name causes their death; whipping with a human spine; doors opening of their own accord along the path; fear of gold). Washington Irving's November 1820 short story The Legend of Sleepy Hollow — in which a Hessian-mercenary headless rider haunts Sleepy Hollow in the New York Hudson Valley — decisively settled the dullahan iconography in Anglo-American literature, and Tim Burton's 1999 film Sleepy Hollow (starring Johnny Depp and Christopher Walken as the Headless Horseman) completed the modern cinematic canon.

Skeleton Warrior · Undead Soldier — A warrior risen from death and granted unlife

The Skeleton Warrior (English Skeleton Warrior, Latin Sceletus Bellator) is the warrior-type undead composed of the bones of the dead, summoned or resurrected by magic, curse, or black sorcery, who fights with sword, spear, shield, and armour, possessed of pure skeletal frame without flesh or soul — the decisive canonical iconographic undead figure of modern Western fantasy. The English skeleton derives from the Greek skeleton ('dried corpse'), through the Latin sceleton, settling in English in the sixteenth century, and is depicted as an instrumental being without original personality or will, faithfully obeying only the commands of the Necromancer. The mythical archetype is the Spartoi (Sparta, 'the Sown Ones') of Cadmus in ancient Greek mythology — armed warriors who grew from the ground when Cadmus, by the instruction of the goddess Athena, sowed the teeth of a dragon he had killed. The decisive modern canon is the famous scene in the 19 July 1963 British release of the film Jason and the Argonauts directed by Don Chaffey (1917-1990) — the four-and-a-half-minute scene of seven skeleton warriors in stop-motion animation by the British cinema special-effects master Ray Harryhausen (1920-2013) duelling with the Greek hero Jason — the decisive canon of modern skeleton-warrior iconography. The Skeleton monster of the 1974 tabletop RPG Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) by Gary Gygax (1938-2008), in the 1977 Monster Manual, established the canon of the modern fantasy RPG.

Tsukumogami · The Tool Yokai — A Spirit Dwelling in a Hundred-Year-Old Object

The Tsukumogami (Japanese tsukumogami, 'tool kami') is the Japanese object-yokai born when a household tool has been in use for nearly ninety-nine years and acquires a soul. The etymology lies in Japanese tsukumo (ninety-nine), the indigenous animist belief from the Heian period (794-1185) that any tool surviving ninety-nine years gains consciousness and emotion. The canonical iconography is the Hyakki Yagyo (Night Parade of a Hundred Demons) procession of personified umbrellas, paper lanterns, straw sandals, kettles, lutes, mallets of fortune, and biwa lutes, which acquire eyes, arms, and legs to march at night. The Muromachi-period scroll Tsukumogami-ki (c. late fifteenth century) and the sixteenth-century Hyakki Yagyo Emaki scrolls fixed the visual canon, and Toriyama Sekien's Edo-period Gazu Hyakki Yagyo series (from 1776) systematised nearly one hundred tsukumogami types in an encyclopaedic catalogue. The motif of carelessly discarded tools harbouring resentment and avenging themselves on the living settled the figure as the iconographic condensation of the distinctively Japanese mottainai ethic of frugality and respect for objects.

Dokkaebi · The Korean Goblin — A Capricious Spirit of Mischief and Wealth

The Dokkaebi (Korean Dokkaebi) is the representative spirit-yokai of Korean folklore, born when a spirit takes up residence in an old household tool or in a broom, pestle, or fire-poker that has been stained with human blood, and it is the decisive iconographic figure of Korean indigenous animism. The earliest text is the entry Tohwanyeo and Bihyeongnang in Book One of the Memorabilia of the Three Kingdoms (Samguk Yusa) compiled by Iryeon (1206-1289) in 1281: the soul of the late King Jinji of Silla (reigned 576-579) had carnal congress with the maiden Tohwanyeo and begat a son, Bihyeongnang, who commanded a band of dokkaebi spirits to build a bridge in one night. This narrative is the canonical Korean origin of the dokkaebi iconography. Canonical tools are the dokkaebi-bangmangi (wish-fulfilling magic club) and the dokkaebi-gamtu (cap of invisibility), and the dokkaebi loves buckwheat-jelly and rice-wine, enjoys wrestling and tricks, and honours promises and repayment. The 1942 study Researches on Korean Folktales by Son Jin-tae demonstrated that the dokkaebi, before being overlaid by the horned imagery of the Japanese oni during the colonial period, was originally a hornless humanoid figure. The 2016 tvN television drama Dokkaebi (Goblin), broadcast from December 2016 to January 2017, globalised the dokkaebi as a K-drama canon.

Nue · Chimera — Legendary Japanese Monster

The Nue (Japanese Nue) is the canonical iconographic figure of the Heian-period Japanese chimeric yokai, possessed of the face of a monkey, the body of a raccoon dog (tanuki) or wildcat, the legs of a tiger, and the tail of a snake — one of the most mysterious composite yokai of Japanese legend. The name derives from the archaic Japanese name of the indigenous bird White's thrush (Zoothera dauma, in Japanese tora-tsugumi), whose sad and uncanny cry, when heard, is said in the canon to portend disaster — the canonical bird of the Onmyodo (Yin-Yang Way) belief of the Heian Imperial court. The iconographic origin is the Onmyodo belief of the Heian period (794-1185) and the canonised gunki-mono (military-tale) tradition of the late twelfth century. The decisive textual source is the chapter Nue in Book 4 of the early thirteenth-century Heike Monogatari (Tale of the Heike), the decisive canon of Japanese gunki-mono: in the spring of 1153 a black cloud appeared every dawn over the Heian-kyo Imperial Court from the eastern mountains and disturbed the sleep of Emperor Konoe (reigned 1139-1155), causing his illness; Minamoto no Yorimasa (1104-1180), the greatest archer of the Heian period, shot the nue down from within the black cloud — the decisive textual canon of the Nue legend. The 1779 yokai catalogue Konjaku Gazu Zoku Hyakki by Toriyama Sekien (1712-1788) established the visual canon of the Nue.

Ghost · The Wandering Spirit — A Soul Bound to the World by Attachment and Unfinished Story

The Ghost (English Ghost, Latin Spectrum) is the soul of the dead that, due to lingering attachment, grudge, or unresolved circumstance, cannot proceed to the afterworld and remains in this world, the canonical iconographic figure of universal worldwide post-mortem belief: transparent or translucent in form, bound to a specific place (haunted houses, old houses), and manifesting through the Poltergeist (German for 'noisy spirit'), cold draught, apparition, sound, and weeping. The English ghost derives from Old English gaast (soul, spirit), and the iconographic origin spans the gidim of Mesopotamia, the akh of ancient Egypt, the psyche and eidolon of ancient Greece, the lar (guardian spirit) and lemur of ancient Rome — universally from the post-mortem soul belief of every civilisation. The decisive Western textual canon is Letter 27 of Book 7 of the Epistulae of Pliny the Younger (61-113 CE) of the late first century CE — in which the Greek philosopher Athenodorus (74 BCE - 7 CE) encounters in a haunted Athens house an old man's ghost rattling chains, and excavates his burial place to grant him post-mortem rest — the decisive Western canon of the first haunted-house ghost story. The ghost of Hamlet's father in William Shakespeare's (1564-1616) tragedy Hamlet (1599-1601) established the English-literary ghost canon, and the Marley and three Spirits of Past, Present, and Future in Charles Dickens's (1812-1870) novella A Christmas Carol (published 19 December 1843) are the decisive work of the Victorian ghost canon.

Revenant · The Vengeful Returned — A Corpse Risen From the Grave for One Purpose

The Revenant (English revenant, from Latin revenans, 'the one returning') is a corpse that has risen from its grave on its own under the drive of intense vengeance or unresolved purpose, the medieval European iconographic figure of a self-aware undead retaining a distinct ego and a single purpose. The etymology lies in the Latin revenans, the present participle of the verb revenire ('to return'), which became the canonical term in eleventh- and twelfth-century Latin chronicles for the corpse that comes back from the grave to torment the village. The decisive textual source is the Historia Rerum Anglicarum (History of English Affairs) by the twelfth-century English chronicler William of Newburgh (c. 1136-1198), whose Book V chapters 22-24 record detailed cases of revenants in Buckinghamshire, Berwick, and Anant in northern England, establishing the decisive medieval European canon. Contemporary works such as Walter Map's De Nugis Curialium (Courtiers' Trifles, c. 1180) and the figure of Glam in the Saga of Grettir (Grettis Saga, thirteenth to fourteenth century) form the Northern-European revenant canon. Gary Gygax's first-edition Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual (1977) systematised the revenant as a self-aware undead obsessed with a single object of vengeance, and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's 2015 film The Revenant (starring Leonardo DiCaprio, winner of the Academy Award for Best Director) established the twenty-first-century cinematic canon of the figure.

Cheonyeo-gwisin · The Grudge-Bound Maiden Ghost — A Korean Spirit Wandering With Unresolved Han

The Cheonyeo-gwisin (Korean Cheonyeo-gwisin, 'maiden ghost') is the avenging spirit of a woman who has died unmarried, harbouring han (resentful sorrow), the canonical iconographic figure of Korean horror identified by a white mourning robe (sobok), long, untied black hair, and a pale bloodless face. Also called sonkaksi (the wife who has been lost), the term is composed of the Sino-Korean characters for cheonyeo (maiden) and gwisin (ghost). The iconographic origin lies in the combination of the Confucian conjugal worldview and Korean shamanism (musok) of the Joseon period (1392-1910): the belief that the wandering soul of an unmarried woman roams the nine springs (gucheon), and the doctrine of haewon (the resolution of grievance) by which the wandering spirit attains nirvana only when its han is resolved. The decisive literary canon is the late-Joseon classical Chinese novel The Story of Janghwa and Hongnyeon (Janghwa Hongnyeon-jeon) of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries — in which the sisters Janghwa and Hongnyeon of Cheolsan in Pyeongan Province are falsely accused by their stepmother, die unjustly, become Cheonyeo-gwisin, and appeal to the new magistrate Jeong Dong-u, who resolves their grievance — establishing the decisive canon of Cheonyeo-gwisin iconography. The 1977 KBS television anthology series Legends of the Hometown (Jeonseol-ui Gohyang) established the canonical Korean horror television, and Park Ki-hyung's 1998 film Whispering Corridors (Yeogo Goedam) and Kim Jee-woon's 2003 film A Tale of Two Sisters (Janghwa, Hongnyeon, starring Im Soo-jung and Moon Geun-young) settled the twenty-first-century global canon of Korean horror Cheonyeo-gwisin iconography.

Wight · The Barrow Dead — A Cursed Corpse Guarding the Tomb's Treasure

The Wight (English Wight, the barrow-dwelling variant being the Barrow-wight) is the graveyard undead in which a corpse buried in a barrow or burial mound has risen by reason of obsession with treasure and curse, and is the canonical iconographic figure of the self-aware corpse-form undead, in contrast to the incorporeal wraith. The etymology lies in the Old English wiht ('creature, being'), and the general 'being' sense that appears in the eighth-century Old English epic Beowulf was later specified as the graveyard-undead meaning. The iconographic origin is the draugr ('walking corpse') and haugbui ('mound-dweller') of the thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Icelandic family sagas, and the decisive English-literary canon is the Barrow-wight that appears in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Fellowship of the Ring (Allen and Unwin, July 1954), Book One Chapter 8 'Fog on the Barrow-Downs', in which Frodo and the hobbits are captured by a Barrow-wight in the Barrow-downs east of the Old Forest and are to be buried with grave-goods but are rescued by Tom Bombadil's song. Gary Gygax's first edition AD&D Monster Manual of January 1977 added the wight as the undead canon of modern fantasy role-playing games, with the energy-draining ability by which the slain becomes a new wight.

Death Knight · The Knight of Death — A Specter-Warrior of Cursed Blade and Black Magic

The Death Knight (English Death Knight) is the warrior-undead at the apex of modern fantasy iconography, the corpse-knight that rises after death under the broken oath of its lifetime or under a binding curse; if the lich is the apex of mage-undead, the death knight is the apex of warrior-undead. The iconographic origin lies in the medieval European Arthurian tradition of the fallen knight — Mordred in Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur (1485) — and the supernatural figure of the Green Knight in the late-fourteenth-century alliterative poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, but the decisive canonisation was Gary Gygax's addition of the Death Knight to his AD&D Monster Manual II in July 1983. The canonical popular figure of the death knight is Lord Soth, a fallen Knight of Solamnia introduced in Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman's 1984 D&D Dragonlance novel Dragons of Autumn Twilight, and the 2002 Blizzard Entertainment video game Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, in which the human prince Arthas Menethil falls to become the Death Knight of the Lich King Ner'zhul, established the decisive twenty-first-century canon. The November 2008 expansion World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King introduced the Death Knight as the first playable hero class in WoW, completing the gaming canon.

Gremlin · The Machine-Breaking Yokai — A Prankster of the Modern Technological Age

The Gremlin (English Gremlin) is the small and cunning twentieth-century modern yokai that secretly damages machines and devices, the canonical iconographic figure of the newest form of yokai born of industrial-technological civilisation. The etymology is uncertain, but it originated in the military slang of the pilots and mechanics of the Royal Air Force (RAF) of Britain in the 1920s, first appearing in print in the British aviation magazine The Aeroplane in April 1929, and settled during the two World Wars as the unseen entity blamed for the inexplicable mechanical failures of RAF aircraft. The decisive source is the first children's book by the Norwegian-born British RAF pilot Roald Dahl (1916-1990), The Gremlins, published in April 1943 — Disney's first illustrated children's book, with illustrations by Walt Disney himself and produced by Disney — which established the popular canon of the gremlin iconography. The 11 October 1963 CBS Twilight Zone Season 5 episode Nightmare at 20,000 Feet, starring William Shatner, in which a gremlin appears on the wing of an airliner, established the American television canon, and the 8 June 1984 Joe Dante film Gremlins (screenplay by Chris Columbus, produced by Steven Spielberg) completed the decisive popular canon of twenty-first-century gremlin iconography.

Azrael· Angel of Death Reaper of Souls

Azrael (Hebrew Azra'el, Arabic Azra'il) is the angel of death in Jewish and Islamic traditions — the decisive canon — derived from the Hebrew azra ('help') + el ('God') meaning 'God helps (God helps)' — the decisive canonical vocabulary. Aliases — Malak al-Mawt (Malak al-Mawt, Arabic 'angel of death'), Izra'il, Azra'il, and the reaper-angel — are the decisive canonical vocabulary. The decisive textual canon is the decisive origin canon of Azrael in 3 Enoch (3 Enoch, Sefer Hekhalot) of c. 5th-6th century CE, and the decisive canon of Qur'an (Qur'an) 32:11 of the 7th century CE — 'Say: the angel of death (Malak al-Mawt) put in charge of you will surely take your souls; then to your Lord shall you be returned'. The decisive canon as one of the four archangels of Islam (Mikail, Jibril, Israfil, Azrael), and the decisive canon of Muslim tradition that he appears veiled in 70,000 veils when taking souls. The decisive 20th-century comics canon of the black cat Azrael (Azrael) of the wizard Gargamel (Gargamel) in the comic Smurfs (Les Schtroumpfs) by the Belgian Peyo (Peyo, real name Pierre Culliford) from 1958.

Lucifer · Bearer of Light — Fallen Archangel, Prince of Pride

Lucifer (Latin Lucifer — 'light-bringer', Hebrew Heylel — 'morning star') is the most famous fallen angel in Christian tradition — the decisive canon — and the Prince of Pride (Pride, Superbia) of the Seven Deadly Sins — originally God's most glorious archangel, who fell from heaven due to pride in seeking to make himself equal to God and became the King of Hell — the decisive canonical iconographic figure. Aliases — Satan (Satan), Morning Star (Morning Star, Lucifer), Heylel ben Shahar (Heylel ben Shahar), Helel (Helel), the fallen archangel, the King of Hell — are the decisive canonical vocabulary. The decisive Old Testament canon is the decisive origin canon of Isaiah (Isaiah) 14:12-15 of c. 6th century BCE — 'How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer (Heylel ben Shahar), son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations'. The decisive literary canon is the decisive canon of Dante Alighieri's (Dante Alighieri) Divine Comedy (Divina Commedia) Inferno (Inferno) Canto 34 of c. 1308-1320 — the giant with three faces and six wings frozen up to his chest in the ice of Cocytus (Cocytus) — and John Milton's (John Milton) Paradise Lost (Paradise Lost) of 1667 — Lucifer as the tragic hero of free will.

Satan · The Adversary — Prince of Wrath, Accuser of Humanity

Satan (Hebrew Satan, Greek Satanas, Latin Satanas, Aramaic Satana) is the supreme demon of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition — the decisive canon, the decisive canonical vocabulary derived from the Hebrew 'satan' meaning 'adversary' or 'accuser'. The aliases Diabolos (Greek 'slanderer'), devil, Lucifer ('light-bearer'), Belial, Beelzebub, Iblis (Islamic Satan), old serpent, great dragon, and prince of darkness are the decisive canonical vocabulary. The decisive textual canon is the decisive origin canon of Job (Job) chapters 1:6-12 and 2:1-7 of c. 6th-4th century BCE — the adversary (the-satan, with the definite article) who tested Job (Job) in the heavenly court — and the decisive canon of Zechariah (Zechariah) 3:1-2 of c. 6th-5th century BCE — Satan accusing Joshua (Joshua). The decisive canon of the 40-day temptation of Jesus Christ in the wilderness in Matthew (Matthew) 4:1-11 and Luke (Luke) 4:1-13 of the 1st century CE, the decisive canon of the heavenly war in Revelation (Revelation) 12:7-9 in which the great dragon Satan was cast down by the archangel Michael, and the decisive canon of the thousand-year binding and the final eternal lake of fire in 20:1-3 and 20:10.

Belphegor · Prince of Sloth — He Who Ruins Humanity Through Laziness

Belphegor (Latin Belphegor, English Belphegor) is the demon of Judeo-Christian tradition — the decisive canon — and the Prince of Sloth (Sloth, Acedia) — one of the Seven Deadly Sins — derived from the Hebrew Baal-Peor (Baal-Peor, 'Lord of Peor') — the decisive canonical vocabulary — the decisive canonical iconographic figure of the Moabite god of the Old Testament era personified from the Judeo-Christian perspective. Aliases — Baal-Peor (Baal-Peor), Belfagor (Belfagor), Balphegor (Balphegor), Prince of Sloth — are the decisive canonical vocabulary. The decisive Old Testament canon is the decisive origin canon of Numbers (Numbers) 25:1-9 of c. 6th-4th century BCE — 'And Israel abode in Shittim, and the people began to commit whoredom with the daughters of Moab. And they called the people unto the sacrifices of their gods: and the people did eat, and bowed down to their gods. And Israel joined himself unto Baal-Peor (Baal-Peor): and the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel'. The decisive satirical literary canon is the decisive canon of Novella di Belfagor Arcidiavolo (Novella di Belfagor Arcidiavolo) by the Italian Niccolò Machiavelli (Niccolò Machiavelli) of 1518.

Bael · First of Solomon's 72 Spirits — King of the East

Bael (Latin Bael, English Bael, Hebrew Baal — 'lord') is the 1st of the 72 demons in Book 1 Ars Goetia (Ars Goetia) of the 17th-century grimoire — the decisive canon — The Lesser Key of Solomon (Lemegeton Clavicula Salomonis) — and the King of the East (King of the East), commanding 66 legions (legions) of demons — the decisive canonical iconographic figure. The etymological origin is the decisive origin canon of Baal (Baal, son of El), the Canaanite and Phoenician god of fertility, thunder, and war, in the Ugaritic Baal Cycle (Ugaritic Baal Cycle, KTU 1.1-1.6) of c. 13th century BCE — the decisive canonical vocabulary degraded by the later Judeo-Christian tradition to a foreign idol. Aliases — Baal (Baal), Baal Hadad (Baal Hadad), Baal-Zebub (Baal-Zebub), Baal-Peor (Baal-Peor), King of the East — are the decisive canonical vocabulary. The decisive Old Testament canon is the decisive canon of the confrontation between Elijah and the 450 prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel in 1 Kings (1 Kings) 18:17-40 of c. 6th-4th century BCE.

Astaroth · 29th of Solomon's 72 Spirits — Great Duke

Astaroth (Latin Astaroth, English Astaroth) is the demon of the Great Duke rank, 29th of the 72 demons in Book 1 Ars Goetia (Ars Goetia) of the 17th-century grimoire — the decisive canon — The Lesser Key of Solomon (Lemegeton Clavicula Salomonis) — commanding 40 legions (legions) of demons — the decisive canonical iconographic figure. The etymological origin is the decisive canonical vocabulary of Ishtar (Ishtar, Akkadian), the Mesopotamian goddess of fertility, love, and war of c. 2000 BCE → Phoenician and Canaanite Astarte (Astarte) → the foreign goddess Ashtoreth (Ashtoreth) of the Old Testament → the male duke-demon of the 16th-17th century grimoires. Aliases — Ashtoreth (Ashtoreth), Astarte (Astarte), Ishtar (Ishtar), the Duke of liberal sciences — are the decisive canonical vocabulary. The decisive textual canon is the decisive origin canon of Astaroth in Pseudomonarchia Daemonum (Pseudomonarchia Daemonum) of Johann Weyer (Johann Weyer) of 1563, and the decisive canon of the 29th rank Great Duke of the 72 demons in Book 1 Ars Goetia of The Lesser Key of Solomon (Lemegeton Clavicula Salomonis) of the 17th century. The decisive 19th-century art canon of the Astaroth iconography on the wicked dragon in the Dictionnaire Infernal (Dictionnaire Infernal) of Collin de Plancy of 1818, and the decisive 21st-century global game canon of Astaroth (in the form of a golem wielding a giant axe) in the Soulcalibur (Soul Edge/Soulcalibur) series by Japanese Namco (Namco) from 1995.

Hades · Greek God of the Underworld — King of the Dead

Hades (Ancient Greek Haides, Latin Pluto) is the god of the underworld and king of the dead in Greek mythology — the decisive canon, the son of Kronos (Kronos) and Rhea (Rhea), the elder brother of Zeus (Zeus) and Poseidon (Poseidon), who does not belong to the 12 Olympian gods but holds equal power — the decisive canonical iconographic figure. The etymology of the Greek Haides is the decisive canonical vocabulary of 'unseen (a-idein, not-see)', and the alias Plouton (Plouton, 'god of wealth' — used to avoid speaking his true name) is the decisive canonical vocabulary. The decisive textual canon is the Theogony (Theogony) lines 453-491 of Hesiod (Hesiod) of c. 8th-7th century BCE — the decisive canon in which Kronos swallows his children — and lines 768-806 — the decisive canon of Hades's underworld realm — and the Iliad (Iliad) Book 15 lines 187-193 of Homer (Homer) of c. 8th century BCE — the decisive canon in which Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades, the three brothers, divided heaven, sea, and underworld by lot — and the Odyssey (Odyssey) Book 11 — the decisive canon of the Nekyia (Nekyia, evocation of the souls of the dead). The decisive canon of the Persephone (Persephone) abduction myth of the Homeric Hymns (Homeric Hymns) No. 2 Hymn to Demeter of c. 7th-6th century BCE, and the decisive canonical iconography of the mature male god clothed in darkness and dignity, hiding his appearance with the kynee (kynee) helmet, and commanding the guard dog Kerberos (Kerberos, 3-headed dog).

Mara · Buddhist Demon-King of Desire — Hinderer of Enlightenment

Mara (Sanskrit Māra, Pali Māra) is the demon king of Buddhist mythology — the decisive canon — derived from the Sanskrit 'Māra' meaning 'death, destruction' — the decisive canonical vocabulary — the lord of the sixth heaven of the desire realm (Kāmadhātu), Paranirmita-vaśavartin, who tempts humans with desire and illusion to obstruct liberation — the decisive canonical iconographic figure. Aliases — Māra (Māra), Demon King (Demon King), God of Death, Lord of the Desire Realm, Māra Pāpīyas (Māra Pāpīyas, Evil One) — are the decisive canonical vocabulary. The decisive textual canon is the decisive origin canon of the Padhāna Sutta (Padhāna Sutta) of the Pali Sutta Nipāta (Sutta Nipāta) of c. 5th-3rd century BCE — the Buddha defeating the trial of Māra and his three daughters under the Bodhi tree — and the decisive canon of Buddhacarita (Buddhacarita) Canto 13 by Aśvaghoṣa (Aśvaghoṣa) of the 2nd century CE.

Mammon · Demon of Wealth — Prince of Greed

Mammon (Aramaic Māmōnā mamona, Greek Mamōnas, Latin Mammona) is the demon of wealth and greed of the Christian tradition — the decisive canon, the decisive canonical iconographic figure — the decisive canon, derived from the Aramaic 'mamona' meaning 'wealth, money', originally a common noun but personified in the New Testament to become an idol opposed to God. The aliases Mamōnas, prince of riches, king of gold, and Archduke of 'Greed (Avaritia, Greed)' among the Seven Deadly Sins are the decisive canonical vocabulary. The decisive textual canon is the decisive origin canon of 'No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and Mammon (You cannot serve God and Mammon)' in Matthew (Matthew) 6:24 of the 1st century CE New Testament and the same verse in Luke (Luke) 16:13 and the 'mammon of unrighteousness (mammon of unrighteousness)' in 16:9-11. The decisive canon of the fallen angel who always gazed at the golden pavements even in heaven in Paradise Lost (Paradise Lost) Book 1 lines 678-688 of John Milton (John Milton) of 1667.

Odin · Allfather of Norse Myth — God of Wisdom, War, and Death

Odin (Old Norse Odin, Proto-Germanic Wodanaz, 'the one of frenzy, ecstasy, inspiration') is the decisive canonical chief god, the All-Father (Alfodr) of all gods and humans, and the god of wisdom, poetry, war, death, runes, and seidr magic of the Aesir (Aesir) in Norse mythology, and the decisive canonical iconographic figure as the grandson of the giant Buri (Buri), son of Borr (Borr) and Bestla (Bestla), who together with his brothers Vili (Vili) and Ve (Ve) killed the primordial giant Ymir (Ymir) and created the world from his body. The etymology is the decisive canonical vocabulary derived from the Old Norse Odin or Proto-Germanic Wodanaz ('frenzy, ecstasy, inspiration'), cognate with the English Wednesday (Old English Wodnesdaeg, 'Woden's day'), the German Mittwoch, and the Latin furor (frenzy). The decisive textual canon is the Prose Edda (Prose Edda) of c. 1220 of the early 13th-century Icelandic poet-historian Snorri Sturluson (Snorri Sturluson, 1179-1241) — chapters 6-9 (creation), 15 (Mimir's well), and 51 (Ragnarok) of Gylfaginning (Gylfaginning) — and the Voluspa (Voluspa), Havamal (Havamal) stanzas 138-141, Grimnismal (Grimnismal), and Vafthrudnismal (Vafthrudnismal) of the Poetic Edda (Poetic Edda) of the c. 1270 Codex Regius (Codex Regius) manuscript are the decisive poetic canon, and the decisive canonical iconography of sacrificing one eye to the well (Mimisbrunnr) of Mimir (Mimir) to gain cosmic wisdom, and hanging himself on Yggdrasil (Yggdrasill) for 9 days to learn the runes (runir).

Baphomet · Goat-Headed Idol — Symbol of the Occult and Conspiracy

Baphomet (Latin Baphometh, English Baphomet) is the decisive canonical iconographic figure of the name of the idol that the Knights Templar (Knights Templar) were alleged to have worshipped at the trials of the late Middle Ages of the 14th century — the decisive canonical iconographic figure of an androgynous seated figure with a goat's head and a human body, with an inverted pentagram on the forehead, bat wings, and a torch. Aliases — Baphomet (Baphomet), Goat of Mendes, Sabbatic Goat, Goat-headed Idol, Symbol of Esotericism and Conspiracy — are the decisive canonical vocabulary. The decisive origin canon is the decisive origin canon of becoming famous after King Philip IV (Philip IV, 'the Fair') of France tortured the Templars on 13 October 1307 to extract confessions that they worshipped 'Baphomet' to destroy the Templars, and the decisive canon of the iconography of the 'Baphomet de Mendes' in Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie (Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie, published 1854-1856) of 1856 by the French occultist Eliphas Levi (Eliphas Levi, 1810-1875).

Abaddon· Angel of Destruction King of the Abyss

Abaddon (Hebrew Avaddon, Greek Apollyōn, Latin Abaddon) is the angel of destruction in the Judeo-Christian tradition — the decisive canon — derived from the Hebrew verb avad meaning 'to perish, destroy' — the decisive canonical iconographic figure of 'destruction (destruction)' and the Greek Apollyon (Apollyōn) meaning 'destroyer (destroyer)'. Aliases — Apollyon, Abaddon, King of the Abyss (Abyss), King of the Locust Swarm — are the decisive canonical vocabulary. The decisive textual canon is the decisive origin canon of Job (Job) 26:6, 28:22, and 31:12 of c. 6th-4th century BCE in which 'Abaddon' is personified as the grave or place of destruction, and the decisive canon of Proverbs (Proverbs) 15:11 and 27:20 and Psalm (Psalm) 88:11. The decisive New Testament canon is the decisive canon of Revelation (Revelation) 9:11 of the 1st century CE — 'And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit (angel of the bottomless pit), whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon'. The decisive 17th-century English-literary canon of Apollyon's combat with Christian in The Pilgrim's Progress (The Pilgrim's Progress) by John Bunyan (John Bunyan) of 1678.

Lilith · Witch of the Night — Adam's First Wife, Mother of Demons

Lilith (Hebrew Lilith, Latin Lilith) is the female demon of Jewish mythology — the decisive canon — and in some traditions, the 'first woman' formed by God from earth at the same time as Adam, not from his rib, but who, considering herself equal to Adam and refusing to submit to him, left Eden and then united with Satan (Samael) and gave birth to countless demons (Lilim) — the decisive canonical iconographic figure. Aliases — Lilitu (Lilitu, Mesopotamian), Mother of Lilim, Consort of Samael, Night Demoness, Adam's First Wife — are the decisive canonical vocabulary. The decisive Old Testament canon is the decisive origin canon of Isaiah (Isaiah) 34:14 of c. 6th century BCE — 'Lilith (Hebrew Lilith), the night creature dwelling with wild beasts'. The decisive Jewish apocryphal canon is the decisive canon of the Alphabet of Ben Sira (Alphabet of Ben Sira) of c. 8th-10th century — the myth of Adam's first wife — and the decisive Kabbalah canon is the decisive canon of Lilith as the consort of Samael (Samael) in the Zohar (Zohar) by Moses de León (Moses de León) of c. 1280.

Anubis · Egyptian God — Guardian of Death and Mummification

Anubis (Egyptian Anpu, Greek Anubis) is the underworld god of ancient Egyptian mythology — the decisive canon — who guides the souls of the dead and presides over the mummification (embalming) ritual — the decisive canonical iconographic figure with a jackal's head and a human body, black skin or fur. Aliases — Anpu (Anpu), Imy-ut (Imy-ut, 'He who is in the bandages'), Khenty-amentiu (Khenty-amentiu, 'Foremost of the Westerners'), Wepwawet (Wepwawet) — are the decisive canonical vocabulary. The decisive textual canon is the decisive origin canon of the Pyramid Texts (Pyramid Texts) of Pharaoh Unas (Unas) of Saqqara of the 5th Dynasty of Egypt of c. 2400-2300 BCE, and the decisive canon of Spell 125 of the Book of the Dead (Book of the Dead, Book of Coming Forth by Day) of the New Kingdom of Egypt of c. 1550 BCE. The decisive mythological canon is the decisive canon of the 'Weighing of the Heart' — the decisive canon in which Anubis brings the soul of the deceased to the Hall of Two Truths and weighs his heart against the feather of Maat (Ma'at, goddess of justice) on a scale.

Shiva · Hindu God of Destruction and Renewal — Cosmic Dancer

Shiva (Sanskrit Śiva, 'the auspicious one') is the god of destruction and regeneration of Hindu mythology — the decisive canon, one of the Trimūrti (Trimūrti) — the decisive canonical iconographic figure. The decisive textual canon is the Rudra (Rudra) hymns 1.43, 1.114, 2.33, and 7.46 of the storm god of the Rigveda (Rigveda) of c. 1500-1200 BCE — the decisive origin canon — and the Shvetashvatara Upanishad (Shvetashvatara Upanishad) 3.4-5 of c. 6th-4th century BCE — the decisive canon of the identification of Rudra and Shiva. The Mahabharata (Mahābhārata) Anushasana Parva 14.4 of c. 4th century BCE-4th century CE — the decisive canon of the Shiva Sahasranama (Shiva Sahasranama, 'Thousand Names of Shiva') — and the Shiva Purana (Śiva Purāṇa) of c. 800 CE — one of the 18 Mahapuranas (Mahāpurāṇa) — and the Natya Shastra (Nāṭya Śāstra) of Bharata Muni of c. 200 CE — the decisive canon of the Tandava (Tāṇḍava, cosmic dance) — and the Kumarasambhava (Kumārasambhava) of Kalidasa (Kālidāsa) of c. 5th century CE — the decisive canon of marriage to Parvati (Pārvatī).

八岐大蛇 · Eight-Headed Serpent of Japanese Myth

Yamata-no-Orochi ('eight-forked great serpent') is the most iconic many-headed dragon-serpent of Japanese myth, recorded in the early eighth century in the two foundational chronicles of the Japanese state: the 'Kojiki' (712) compiled by Ō no Yasumaro and the 'Nihon Shoki' (720) compiled under Prince Toneri. The serpent has eight heads and eight tails, and its body is so vast that it covers 'eight valleys and eight ridges, with cypress and cedar growing on its back and its belly always inflamed and bleeding'. It appears each year along the Hi no Kawa (today's Hii River) in the Izumo region (eastern Shimane prefecture) and demands one of the daughters of the old couple Ashinazuchi and Tenazuchi as tribute. After devouring seven of their eight daughters, it returns for the last, Kushinada-hime, when the storm-god Susanoo, banished from heaven, descends to Izumo. Susanoo prepares yashiori-no-sake (a wine brewed and refined eight times, sometimes called 'eight-fold wine'), pours it into eight large vats placed before eight gates so that each of Orochi's eight heads will drink from a separate vat, and waits until the eight heads are dead drunk. He then severs all eight heads and eight tails with the divine sword Totsuka-no-Tsurugi (a sword 'ten hand-spans long'). When one tail dulls his blade, he finds inside it another, finer sword — the Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi (also Ame-no-Murakumo-no-Tsurugi), one of the Three Sacred Treasures of the Japanese imperial house, today enshrined at Atsuta Shrine in Nagoya, Aichi prefecture.

Egyptian Cosmic Serpent of Darkness and Chaos

Apep, hellenised as Apophis, is the cosmic serpent of darkness, chaos and isfet (disorder) of ancient Egyptian religion, figured as a sand-coloured monstrous snake some thirty cubits (about sixteen metres) long. Every night, when the sun-god Ra sails the Mesektet boat through the Duat (the underworld), Apep attacks the vessel to prevent the dawn. Ra and his allies — the storm-god Set, the lioness goddess Bastet, the goddess of truth Maat, Mehit and Selket — overthrow him in a nightly battle, but he rises again the following night, an eternal cosmic war that the Egyptians said was the very reason to rejoice at each dawn. Solar and lunar eclipses, earthquakes, storms and floods were read as Apep's momentary victories. The fullest record survives in Chapters 17, 39 and 108 of the New Kingdom 'Book of the Dead' (papyri, c. 1550-1077 BCE) and on the ceiling reliefs of the tomb of Ramesses VI (KV9). Apep is the oldest attested instance of the cosmic-serpent type to which the Mesopotamian Tiamat, the Indo-Aryan Vritra, the Norse Jörmungandr and the Hebrew Leviathan all belong.

The Limbless Ancient Dragon

The wyrm (Old English wyrm, Old Norse ormr, Old High German wurm) is the legless, wingless serpent-dragon of Germanic and Norse mythology, the most archaic of the dragon forms and a distinct lineage from the later chromatic dragon and the heraldic wyvern. The word descends from the Proto-Indo-European root *wérmis ('worm, serpent'), cognate with Latin vermis and Sanskrit krmi, and the form is named 'wyrm' in the closing episode of the Old English 'Beowulf' (lines 2200-3182), where Beowulf slays the hoard-keeper that guards a treasure for fifty years before being woken by a stolen cup. The most famous example is Jǫrmungandr ('huge monster' or 'great staff'), the Midgard serpent who encircles the world and bites his own tail, recorded most fully in Snorri Sturluson's prose 'Edda' (Gylfaginning chapter thirty-four, c. 1220) and in the 'Sæmundar Edda'; he is fated to meet the thunder-god Thor at Ragnarǫk in a duel from which neither will return. English regional traditions multiply the figure: the Lambton Worm of Penshaw in County Durham (whose 1867 ballad records its slaying by Sir John Lambton on his return from the Crusades), the Lyminster Knucker of Sussex (slain by a Saxon knight), and the Sherborne Wyrm of Devon.

Goblin · The Cunning Little Folk — Raiders Who Live by Numbers and Guile

The goblin is the most pervasive 'small raiding humanoid' of modern Anglophone fantasy, descended from the spiteful little fairies of medieval European folklore and codified through three textual layers: the Victorian children's literature of Christina Rossetti's 'Goblin Market' (1862) and George MacDonald's 'The Princess and the Goblin' (Edinburgh, 1872), J.R.R. Tolkien's 'The Hobbit' (1937) — chapters four to six, the Goblins of the Misty Mountains — and the 1974 Dungeons & Dragons original boxed set by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. Goblins stand ninety to one hundred and twenty centimetres tall with wiry, sinewy bodies, oversized ears and noses, yellow-green or ashen skin, yellow eyes and sharp canines. They live in tribal warrens in caves, ruins and dark forests, surviving on traps, ambushes and raids. Their individual combat power is low — Challenge Rating 1/4 (7 hit points, AC 15) in the fifth-edition D&D Monster Manual (2014) — but their numbers, cunning and improvisation make them an enduring threat. Their alignment was fixed as Neutral Evil in the 1977 AD&D Monster Manual and remains so. The same lineage appears in the Greenskins of Warhammer Fantasy (from 1983), the Gringotts goblins of J.K. Rowling's 'Harry Potter' (1997 onward), the Kezan goblins of Blizzard's 'World of Warcraft' (2004 onward) and the post-colonial readings of R.F. Kuang's 'Babel' (2022).

Gnoll · The Hyena People — A Raiding Tribe Maddened by Hunger

The gnoll is a hyena-headed humanoid raider race introduced by Gary Gygax in the 1974 Dungeons & Dragons original boxed set and codified in the 1977 AD&D Monster Manual as a Chaotic Evil scavenger tribe (Challenge Rating 1/2) that worships the demon-prince of hunger and slaughter, Yeenoghu. The name was acknowledged by Gygax himself, in 'Strategic Review' issue six (1976) and in his 'Dragon Magazine' issue one hundred interview of 1985, as a borrowing from the 'gnole' of Lord Dunsany's short story 'How Nuth Would Have Practised His Art upon the Gnoles' in 'The Book of Wonder' (1912); the form is also commonly read as a portmanteau of 'gnome' and 'troll'. Gnolls stand two hundred and ten to two hundred and twenty centimetres tall, with the rough muscular build of a hominid, the head and brown-grey spotted coat of the spotted hyena (Crocuta crocuta), human-like clawed fingers and a chilling whooping laughter taken from the spotted hyena's territorial call. They live in nomadic packs of four to twelve in savannas, badlands and arid wastes, and obey a Gnoll Fang of Yeenoghu — a warrior touched by the demon-prince. The fifth-edition 'Volo's Guide to Monsters' (2016) makes the canon explicit: gnolls are not a naturally breeding species but the result of Yeenoghu's demon-ichor mutating spotted hyenas. The lineage is borrowed in the Gnoblars of Games Workshop's Warhammer Fantasy, the marogh of BioWare's 'Dragon Age: Inquisition' (2014) and the gnoll raiders of Black Isle's 'Baldur's Gate' series (from 1998).

Changeling · The Shapeshifting Race — Those Without a Fixed Face

A people without a fixed face, who can shift appearance at will and copy the form and voice of others to perfection — and who are, for that reason, never quite sure who they themselves are. They live as spies, actors, diplomats, and fugitives, slipping through the seams of society under borrowed skins. The figure grows from the Celtic and Germanic folk-tale of the changeling — a fae or troll child secretly substituted for a human infant — collected canonically in William Butler Yeats' Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry (Walter Scott Publishing, London, 1888); Keith Baker's Eberron Campaign Setting (Wizards of the Coast, 2004) and White Wolf's Changeling games made the modern player-race.

Dark Elf · Elves of Darkness — Intrigue and Black Magic of the Underworld

A subterranean branch of elvenkind with dark or grey skin, white or silver hair, and a cruel matriarchal society devoted to spider-goddesses or other gods of darkness. Schemers, assassins, and black magicians, they live deep beneath the world in stone cities. The figure descends from Old Norse svartálfar and dökkálfar in Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda (c. 1220), but the modern template was fixed by Gary Gygax's Drow in the AD&D Monster Manual (1977) and the module Vault of the Drow (1978), and elaborated by R. A. Salvatore's Drizzt Do'Urden saga (TSR, 1988–), Games Workshop's Druchii (1985), and Bethesda's Dunmer (Morrowind, 2002).

Tiefling · The Infernal-Blooded — Bearers of Hell's Lineage

A people in whom a distant ancestor mingled blood with a devil or fiendish lord, leaving the human shape marked by horns, a long tail, red or blue skin, and beast-like eyes. Tieflings carry an innate magical affinity along with resistance to fire and shadow, yet meet suspicion or open prejudice almost everywhere they go. Introduced by Dungeons & Dragons in MC8 Monstrous Compendium Outer Planes Appendix (TSR, 1991) and given a fixed home in Planescape (TSR, 1994), the name is a coinage from German 'tief' (deep) plus the suffix '-ling', a being whose blood reaches into the deepest hells.