Monstrum

If you've played Dungeons & Dragons, you know the formidable stats of the manticore.

Featured in tabletop RPGs, card games, books, animated movies, and shows, the manticore is a legend.

And how could it not be?

It's absolutely wild-looking and certainly scary.

(speaker) We're looking at the body of a lion.

We have the humanoid face, and then we have wings, which are usually either bat wings or the wings of a dragon.

Now, that forms the core of the creature, but on top of that, we are looking at a creature that is usually completely covered in spikes.

(host) But this contemporary version of the manticore is different from the original, and it's a very old creature going back to the fifth century BCE.

There's a lot of speculation about the origins of the manticore.

Is it a man-eating monster from Persian myth or simply a misidentified tiger?

Either way, the history of the manticore is as wild as the beast itself.

[majestic orchestral music] I'm Dr. Emily Zarka, and this is "Monstrum."

Pretty much everything you can read about the origins of the manticore points you towards Persian mythology, where it's known as a man-eater.

However, there are no reliable written sources from Persia to support this.

Instead, the first written account of the manticore dates to the fifth century BCE, when Greek historian and physician Ctesias wrote "Indica."

In the text, Ctesias records the Indian flora and fauna he heard about while serving in the royal court in Persia.

So keep in mind, he never went to India himself.

He describes a martichora as a freakish-looking beast that has the body of a hairy red lion, a human face with blue eyes, and human ears.

Three rows of sharp teeth fill its mouth, and it has a stinger at the tip of its thick, flexible tail that shoots stingers like a javelin.

This sting was said to be fatal to all but the elephant.

Ctesias claims he witnessed the king of Persia receive a martichora as a gift.

Could this be where the Persian origins of the manticore begin?

Perhaps.

Ctesias's take on animal-human hybrids seems a bit out there today, but it was common not only in ancient mythologies but in so-called nonfiction.

Since the majority of people didn't have the chance to see these wonders firsthand, when someone with authority claimed they existed, you were more inclined to believe them.

It's always been traditionally the way that we like to tell stories, you know?

From the Medusa to the Minotaur.

I mean, putting animal traits, and making them humanoid in some way has always been a great way to tell stories.

Fermin, AKA Mr. Rhexx, is exactly right.

We see this not just with manticores, but with all kinds of chimera-type creatures, like centaurs, mermaids, and nuckelavee.

Even though they seem wildly fantastical, the identity of the monster is reinforced through detailed descriptions of their appearance.

The legend lives on from one text to the next.

Famous Greek philosopher Aristotle's "History of Animals" includes Ctesias's manticore, despite the author's own note that the account might be untrustworthy.

He compares the tail to that of a scorpion that can shoot spines and says that the savage man-eater can run as fast as a deer.

In Israel, there's a chamber in the tomb system of Apollophanes dating to the Hellenistic period around the third century BCE, part of the Sidonian burial caves, that depicts a bearded human-headed lion with a long tail.

Sound familiar?

There's no obvious stinger or quill, but there do appear to be small dart-like lines above the creature's back, seemingly coming from the tail.

Professor of archeology and art Dr. Joshua J. Thomas argues that these lines could represent the quills the monster is said to shoot in later written texts.

This could suggest that Greek influence contributed to the monster's appearance alongside other mythical and real animals that decorate the tomb system.

Let's jump to the new millennium, to 1st century CE.

Roman natural philosopher Pliny's influential "Natural History" includes the manticore multiple times in his massive attempt to document all of the natural world.

He cites Ctesias's description of the creature, saying that "the three rows of teeth meet together like a comb."

He also states that "the mantichora of Ethiopia are capable of imitating human voices."

But not all ancient writers were sold on the existence of the manticore.

In the next century, Greek writer Pausanias proposed that Ctesias was actually talking about a tiger.

He theorizes the additional rows of teeth and stinger tail could have been a fabrication told to Ctesias by Indian traders to further emphasize the danger and exoticness of the real animal.

That didn't stop many people from believing manticores existed though, especially because they could now be seen.

In art, at least.

Colorful illustrations of the manticore start appearing in medieval bestiaries, a genre made popular in part because of the growing popularity of household pets.

Kind of ironic that a fictional animal became more popular because of the changing relationships between humans and real animals.

The oldest known image of the manticore appears in Bodleian 764 manuscript, an illustrated 13th-century bestiary.

The numerous rows of teeth set in a human face evokes a fear of cannibalism when depicted as eating human body parts.

It very zealously seeks human flesh and cannot be hindered by a barrier or space between its incredibly powerful leaps.

One purpose of medieval Latin bestiaries was religious.

They were meant to educate readers on Christian morality and ethics using allegory and symbolism.

Sometimes this meant including more violent animals, like the manticore, as comparisons to more gentle creatures.

As such, the manticore appears in churches as one of the animals of the world, like in the 13th-century mosaics of the Aosta Cathedral in Italy.

In the context of Christian tradition, the manticore's excessive hunger for human flesh might represent a lack of control seen as gluttonous and sinful.

But that wasn't the only interpretation.

More commonly, the manticore simply noted great danger to humans.

That's why the creature also appears on what is widely believed to be the oldest surviving medieval map.

Dating from around 1300, the Hereford World Map, or Mappa Mundi, shows the manticore with a bearded face wearing a crown.

It appears immediately to the right of the tiger.

The next great contribution to this monster's lore would appear in fiction: Dante Alighieri's famous 14th-century narrative poem, "Inferno."

In the story, Virgil and Dante ride a horrific monster that appears to have been inspired by the manticore.

Called Geryon, the creature is described as having the face of an honest man, a serpentine dragon-like body with intricate patterns, two lion's paws, and a pointed tail just like a scorpion's stinger.

According to the accompanying engraving, it also has bat-like wings.

This is a crucial new addition to manticore lore that probably sounds familiar to gamers out there.

Its ferocious and distinctive figure also made it a compelling choice for heraldry.

The first use of the monster in this way appears as a badge of William Hastings around 1483.

Other mantigers would follow.

Some 100 years later, Topsell's "The History of Four-Footed Beasts and Serpents" named the manticore as an untamable monster, at least when its tail is intact.

The popular "Cocker's English Dictionary" from 1715 does not dismiss the creature's existence but gives it a regular tail.

Other popular English dictionaries from this period have similar descriptions.

Variations of manticore, winged and wingless, continued throughout the 17th century, but by the 18th century, belief in the creature's real existence came increasingly into question.

An encyclopedia from the end of the century notes that the accounts of the terrible creature from ancient Greek and Roman authors were exaggerated or even just made up.

The author also says these man-eaters were likely larger hyenas who were described with more and more wonders until all shadow of truth was lost.

Manticore then faded into relative obscurity until the 20th century, when a return in popularity to bestiaries, or "fabulous beast books," brought the man-eater back into public conversation.

The 20th century made manticores, well, nice for a period of time, or at least nicer in fiction.

In the 1956 musical fable, "The Unicorn, the Gorgon, and the Manticore," all the creatures are misunderstood pets.

Robertson Davies' 1972 book, "The Manticore," has the manticore appearing in the main character's dreams as a manifestation of his persona in court-- so vicious, but in a different way.

In 1977, the manticore would be the protector of a kind wizard in Piers Anthony's "A Spell for Chameleon."

This manticore has dragon-like wings.

But by and large, the reason the manticore survives today is because of Dungeons & Dragons.

The tabletop fantasy role-playing game's "Monster Manual" solidified the manticore's appearance and lore.

So the manticore has been in Dungeons & Dragons since inception, since the very beginning.

And in this original edition, the manticore was described as having not just the humanoid face, but literally the face of a male human.

And in the second edition, they were very explicit, interestingly enough, that all manticores had this sort of old-person human face, flesh and hair, and everything.

And that included both males and females.

This is the first time manticores could be female, although they still had a bearded male face.

The spikes that were said to cover the manticore were unique as well.

They were made out of iron, is how it was explained, and how the creature basically needed to hunt humans.

Not necessarily because they did enjoy the taste of human flesh, but there was also this necessity where, if they didn't consume iron, these creatures would die.

Quite an interesting take on the original man-eating manticore of old.

Another major change-- Dungeons & Dragons made them smart.

(Fermin) Manticores are smart.

They're not as smart as humans, but they're smart enough to be able to speak.

They can reason, they can use logic, and they can strategize.

So this is a way for manticores to be able to fight without getting into danger.

And two, little bit laying on the first point here, manticores have not traditionally been good at fighting hand-to-hand close combat, especially against other monsters.

Smart, talking manticores are certainly a long way from the earlier tradition, but it makes their interactions with humans much more compelling.

They like to threaten you in order to give them what they want, which could be all manner of things.

It's usually food-related, 'cause these are creatures, of course, monsters that live in the wild.

But this has never been the type of creature where, when the hero encounters the monster, it just results in an immediate fight.

There's usually always a bargain.

There's a conversation, there's subversion, there's persuasion involved between these two entities.

The 1990s bring back more violent manticores, perhaps because of the popularity of D&D and Magic: The Gathering, where at this point they are decidedly monstrous foes.

In the TV series "Charmed," they are mentioned as vicious demons.

(character) "Manticores communicate in high-pitched cries and tend to travel in packs."

They would continue to be dangerous and deadly beasts in the 21st century, like in the "Witcher" video game series and Rick Riordan's "Percy Jackson" series.

While scholars today largely believe that the Ctesias's original manticore was likely inspired by the Indian tiger, they've become more than just a scary story to perhaps remind us of a real-life dangerous creature.

They now help us tell compelling stories, add narrative tension, and look pretty terrifying in the process.

(Fermin) They are just the avenue by which you can tell great stories.

The interesting thing is that you can make monsters into bloodthirsty, chaotic villains, and you can make a good story with that.

You can make them into smart conversationalists, political leaders, what have you.

This information is all just necessary for the Dungeon Master to be able to create those very important stories because ultimately, you know, people tend to enjoy a lot that immersion.

It's the details of a monster's lore that help make it feel real and cause our imaginations to go wild.

The continued presence of monsters like the manticore across thousands of years of history only adds to that narrative credibility.

Even when firmly rooted in fantasy as it is today, it's still a fun nod to the creativity of the human mind.

Before you go, have you seen the latest on the PBS Food Channel?

They've got lots of delicious new videos, including new episodes of "Pan Pals."

It's a show that asks the question, what if two people from different cultures swap dishes around a theme?

What type of noodles would they cook?

Just don't watch on an empty stomach.

There's a link in the description below.

Let them know "Monstrum" sent you.

Pausani... Oh.

"Geron.

"Geryon.

Garry-on.

Jeryon.

Gayron.

Geryon."

Why did I just say "chora" instead of "kora," like I've been doing the entire time?

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