Demonic ogres and ogre mages

In folklore and anthropology, an ogre is any man-eating giant. They are not a race: any giant who eats men may be labelled an ogre. Folklore and fairy tales have never distinguished them as a distinct race. Based on tales like Puss in Boots, D&D bestiaries introduced the "ogre mage" and later spun it off into an entire family of "oni" very loosely based on Japanese folklore. As would be expected, the writers often misunderstood the original myths.

Of ogres and orknies

Ogres and orcs are standard monsters in fantasy gaming, drawing from their depictions in Tolkien's Middle Earth and European fairy tales. The etymology of orc and ogre is a bit more complicated than that, however.

Orcus

The words ogre and orc descend from the word Orcus. Orcus was a Greco-Etruscan god of the underworld, whose name literally translates to "oath." He punished perjurers and accompanied the goddess Dike ("justice"). His appearance changed dramatically over time.

In D&D, the name Orcus is applied to a demon prince of the undead. Not only is he infamous for employing the undead, he is even rumored to have created them in the first place.

Orcs and orknies

The word orc, as used by Tolkien, descends from Old English compounds orcþyrs and orcneas (plural). The  morpheme þyrs means "monster, demon, giant," and the morpheme -neas means "corpse." The morpheme orc has additionally been speculated related to orca, thus meaning "sea monster."

However, nobody is sure of the exact meanings. The orcneas have been various translated as "evil spirits," "demon corpses," "devil corpses," etc. I suppose that, if you were making a pun on the various etymologies, it could be translated as "sea devil" or "sea corpse."

C.S. Lewis' The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe mentions "orknies" (singular is apparently “orkny”) as one of the monstrous races that joins the White Witch's army. This is clearly an Anglicization of orcneas! This should not be surprisingly, as Lewis and Tolkien were friends.

Ogres and orchi

Another descendant of Orcus is the Italian orco (plural orchi), translating to "ogre, orc." The orchi of fairy tales were hairy beasts, quite unlike the ugly human portrayals of ogres. It is here that the two general archetypes of "brute" and "lord" appear. Strange as it may seem, the enchanted prince in Beauty and the Beast is an example of the latter.

©2008 EricCanete

The word ogre has several derivatives created by adding suffixes. An ogress is "a female ogre," an ogret or ogrillon is "a young or small ogre," ogrette is a synonym for ogress or ogret, ogrish or ogry means "resembling or pertaining to an ogre," ogrishly means "like an ogre," and ogrism means "the character or manners of an ogre."

You might notice that D&D used the name ogrillon for a hybrid of orc and ogre. It is actually a loanword from French that refers to the child of an ogre. So I suppose that the D&D monster's context would be true if taken literally.

Comparative mythology

In anthropology and comparative mythology circles, the word "ogre" is used to refer to any man-eating giant in folklore. It includes European ogres, Arabic ghouls, Persian divs, Algonquin baykok and wendigo, Japanese oni, Indian rakshasa, etc. This is completely different from the D&D usage, obviously.

I noticed a few interesting parallels between different ogre myths:

• Orcus is a god of the underworld. The orknies are (potentially) demonic corpses. The Athabaskan wechuge and Japanese oni are demons of the underworld that visit Earth to eat humans. The oni are subjects of Enma, the great king of hell.
• Orcus is a god of oaths who punishes perjurers, yet his namesake refers to cannibal giants. The Algonquin wendigo sometimes arises as a result of someone being cursed for breaking the taboo against cannibalism.

I feel inspired to devise my own mythos that references all of these. Maybe something like Pellatarran orcs? Eh, I can always figure it out later!

Black spirit, basket ogress, and wechuge

During my research I came across bestiary entries for an ogre named Black Tamanous ("black spirit"), sometimes shortened to simply Tamanous ("spirit"). The name refers also to a supposed cannibal cult patronized by that ogre and to an annual winter ceremony or potlach held by them.

According to Encyclopedia of Giants and Humanoids in Myth, Legend and Folklore by Theresa Bane:

Black Tamanous (tah-mah-no-us)
Variations: Dzunkwa, Tsonokwa, Tsonoqoa
A cannibalistic monster from the mythology of the the Pacific Northwest Indians of North America, the terrifying Black Tamanous ("black spirit") would hunt for humans in the wilderness. When the Great Transformer cleansed the earth of all the evil GIANTS he somehow managed to miss Black Tamanous, leaving him to continue to plague the people.
Source: Rose, Giants, Monsters, and Dragons, 51; Underhill, Indians of the Pacific Northwest, 189

According to The Element Encyclopedia of Magical Creatures by John and Caitlin Matthews:

Among the peoples of the North Pacific coast of America, Black Tamanous was the cannibal spirit who was overlooked when the Great Transformer rid the Earth of all the gigantic primordial beings which were responsible for bringing evil. Black Tamanous continued to stalk the Earth, bringing terror as it sought to gobble up people. He was the leader of the Cannibal Society among the Kwakiutl tribe. They met every year during the winter season to observe the ceremonial eating of human flesh.

This story seems simple enough, but further research revealed that it was far more complicated than it seemed. I could find few sources and none that I can confirm are firsthand accounts, so the information I have is sparse and suspect at best. The black spirit appears indelibly marked with a terrible history of racism, colonialism, appropriation, and blood libel.

The "cannibal society" was named Black Tamanous or Hamatsa (sometimes translated as "dog eaters" and "cannibal dancers") and the sources I consulted claimed that these were real, at least during the late 19th century and early 20th century. It was a secret society or fraternity among some Pacific Northwest tribes (the Black Tamanous being Klallam and the Hamatsa being Kwakiutl). It required high dues and feasts, so it was only joined by rich men’s sons. They were reputed to hold black masses where they blackened their faces and ate dogs alive in an orgy of cannibalism. Supposedly they performed such rites in order to influence demons against their foes. (Compare the hellfire clubs seen in Victorian England.) Given the tribes' unwillingness to discuss this issue with outsiders, and the history of colonial governments banning them from practicing their own religions, the veracity of these statements is questionable and it sounds like a case of blood libel. (Compare the "wendigo psychosis" historically used to oppress Algonquin tribes.)

Other more recent sources explain that the Kwakiutl Hamatsa or “cannibal dance” was far more benign in nature. Meat is Murder! by Mikita Brottman explains that the cannibal dance was intended to sublimate such harmful urges, not release them! The Taking and Displaying of Human Body Parts as Trophies by Amerindians, by Richard J. Chacon and David H. Dye, explains that the cannibal dances were purely symbolic. The masked dancers would play-act the ogre Baxbakwalanuxsiae (“man eater at the mouth of the River”, often shortened to Man Eater), a monster comprised of gnawing mouths, and its raptor-masked companions as they decapitated victim roles and consumed carved heads and trophy skulls. This is comparable to, for example, the masked morality plays of the Korè cult of the Bambara people in Mali that were intended to scare viewers into good behavior by displaying the reviled habits of hyenas.

Some tabletop role-playing games took the cannibal cult idea seriously and ran with it. Shadowrun depicts the Tamanous as a human trafficking organization run by supernatural cannibals like ghouls. Chill depicts both the black spirit and the cult it patronizes, and invents additional details not found in the original myth: the black spirit may assume human form, leaves black tarry footprints, and specifically eats cannibals. Given the paucity of information on the myths, online gaming sites have produced increasingly distorted depictions while mistakenly assuming this is true to the original myths.

Possible descent?

The word tamanous (or cognates thereof) apparently appears in the languages of several Pacific Northwest tribes, including the Chinook, Klallam, and Kwakiutl. When transliterated into the Latin alphabet, spelling variations (or possibly conjugations) include tamahnous, taman’awas, tamanamus, tamánawas, and tamanoüs. It is typically translated as "spirit," but its exact meaning is broader due to the various contexts in which it appears. It is used as a noun for spiritual beings (including totems, guardian angels, and demons) and spiritual workings (spiritual power, divine medicine, healing acts), an adjective for objects that house spirits and medicine men who deal with spirits, and a verb for the act of influencing spirits. It may refer to various religious practices such as sacred rites, hobbies, dances, potlatch, and winter ceremonials. The most disturbing context in which I found the word was in accounts of the Pacific Northwest tribes being banned from practicing their own religions, although I suppose I should not be surprised.

Basket ogress

The names Dzunkwa Tsonokwa, and Tsonoqoa seem to be a conflation with another Pacific Northwest monster, the basket ogress. She is an ogress who carries a basket in which she places children she captures, and serves a similar role to the fairy tale hags in European stories. Such stories of cannibal women are found among many tribes along the Northwest Coast. (Cannibal hags appear to be a really old trope, like 30,000 years old!)

The sources I consulted did not explain if this reference was a mistake made by anthropologists or if the basket ogress and the black spirit are indeed the same. I personally suspect that "black tamanous" refers to any evil spirit and anthropologists simply confused this usage.

Compare Wechuge

The sparse origin of the black spirit as a survivor of the transition from primordial to historical times is similar to that of the wechuge found in Athabaskan stories. According to Dunne-za legend, in ancient times the world was the domain of giant animals that preyed upon humans. A hero arose and, with the help of watchful gods, he drove the monsters away into the underworld. However, he proved negligent and some of the monsters managed to escape the purge. They survived in a greatly reduced form, but no less evil and hungry for human flesh. They hide in the underworld just next to humanity, awaiting any opportunity to wreak havoc.

If I did not know any better, I would think these were different accounts of the same story. Given that both tales of the black spirit and the wechuge originate from the Pacific Northwest, I cannot help but wonder if the two tales share some common inspiration. If "black spirit" was simply a generic term as I suspect it is, then it makes sense that the wechuge would be referred to one. Given the lack of firsthand accounts, I strongly suspect that the sources I consulted conflated stories from different tribes that were not related.

(On another note, this backstory loosely resembles that of the Great Old Ones in the Lovecraft mythos. This backstory loosely resembles the beast giants of Norse myth too, which inspired Tolkien's Shadowfax and ultimately Moorcock's beast lords. I just thought that was interesting trivia to note.)

The Athabaskan peoples live in the Pacific Northwest and perhaps had contact with the Algonquin peoples in proximity, so wechuge may be a cognate of wendigo. Because of course it would be! Why would I expect otherwise? When discussing depictions of First Nations culture in Euro-American popular culture, you cannot walk two feet without hitting the wendigo.

Contrast Wendigo

Obviously, the cannibalism aspect has invited comparison to the wendigo of Algonquin belief. The two stories come from different tribes and are not related. The First Nations people were not a homogeneous monolith, so depicting cannibal demons from different tribes (or invented wholesale) together and as enemies risks promoting false stereotypes about real living cultures. In my opinion, if you are going to take a monster from another culture and mutilate it until it is no longer recognizable, then you should change the name to something else and not pretend it is related to the culture that inspired you. Especially not if the original story is blood libel, as it is with the black tamanous and wendigo psychosis.

Did we learn nothing from Stephanie Meyer and J.K. Rowling? (Please do not cheat by keeping the name but sanitizing all connection to the original culture, such as by setting the story in a D&D campaign setting unrelated to Earth. Looking at you, Paizo.)

Conclusion

While my research leaves much to be desired, I think I was able to get the gist of things. The black spirit and its cult appears to be an amalgamation of stories from different tribes, blood libel against tribal practices, and the inventions of game writers. While I do not see myself reproducing these details in full, the idea of a satanic cult that worships an ancient cannibal monster and is opposed by a troupe of exorcists does have its appeal. Even before I heard of the black spirits, I was familiar with the idea from watching Butcher's Block and Mordeo.

On a related note, the mythic Pacific Northwest does sound like a nice setting for a game campaign. There are many different ways you can play around with devouring spirits without needlessly mutilating the original stories or conflating tribes as a monolith.

Merrow

The mythological merrow are Irish versions of the common merfolk. Their only noteworthy features are that the males are hideous, provoking females to woo human sailors instead, and always wear a magic hood that works similarly to a selkie's skin. If you steal their hood, they cannot return to the waves and you can extort them to marry you or something. Since the tales are limited to men stealing the hoods of merrow maids, it is unclear if merrow men have hoods as well.

3e merrow are simply aquatic ogres. This portrayal was carried into Pathfinder, which introduced freshwater and saltwater variations.

5e merrow are evil counterparts of standard merfolk, similar to the merrow (aka murdhuacha) in Changeling: The Dreaming. Or the deep merfolk in Pathfinder.

Speaking of which, Changeling: The Dreaming distinguishes between merfolk and merrow on the basis that the former are part vertebrate and the latter part invertebrate. I burrowed this idea in order to condense the merfolk races, as I mentioned in an earlier post.

Anyway, I think there is room for both versions of merrow and more. They might need renaming, such as to "aquatic ogre" and "dark merfolk" or something along those lines.

Links

• https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Merrow
• http://whitewolf.wikia.com/wiki/Murdhuacha
• http://dailybestiary.blogspot.com/2012/12/merrow.html

Lions and ogres

While doing research on ogres in anthropology and world mythology, I found something interesting.

A Kabyle creation story, as recounted in “Female Monsters in Kabyle Myths and Folktales: their Nature and Functions” by Sabrina Zerar, describes a wild cannibal couple becoming the first lion (izem) and first ogress or witch (teryel). The pairing here is a bit odd because you would expect the latter to become the first lioness (tizemt). So I did some research into the Berber languages and discovered some interesting bits of etymology.

Etymology of teryel

I have seen various transliterations of the word: the T may be spelled as t, ţ, ts, tt, or ţţ; the Y as i or y. Berber is a branch of the Afroasiatic language family, which derives words by affixing to a consonantal root. So I checked a dictionary to get my facts straight. The printed Dictionnaire kabyle-français by J.M. Dallet provides several roots for words meaning ogre or ogress: lɣul, lɣula from ƔL or ƔWL (probable cognate to Arabic ghoul); tteryel/ţţeryel from TRYL; awaɣzniw/waɣzen from WƔZN.

I could not trace the etymology further, but the initial t had me wondering. Berber languages generally indicate the feminine form of a word by adfixing t (e.g. t- + izem “lion” + -t produces tizemt “lioness”), so I checked if RYL was attested a valid root. The Dictionnaire kabyle-français only lists it as a type of currency, so no luck there.

The online Diccionari Amazic-Català lists three different roots written as RYL: RYL₁ “basket, coffin, cabbage”, RYL₂ “ogress, bad fairy; mandrake (mandragora autumnalis)”, and RYL₃ “ral (old currency); five cents coin”. Again, no luck.

The online Amawal - Le dictionnaire de la langue Amazighe lists two words, aryal and rayal, as synonyms for tiẓgi “forest.” (The printed Dictionnaire kabyle-français claims the latter derives from the root ZGW.) These two do seem inflections of a shared root RYL. Success!

Could teryel therefore be a compound of t- + aryal? I cannot confirm whether this is actually the correct etymology, but I think it makes sense. If the speaker was trying to indicate a woman who lived in the woods, then feminizing the word for forest seems logical.

Lion and lioness, ogre and ogress

Amawal lists several words and synonyms for ogres and ogresses: ameẓ (“to take, seize, hold; ogre”), amẓa (“ogre; ogress”), amẓiw (“monster; ogre”), hamẓa (“ogress”), lweḥc (“monster”), tamẓa (“ogress; spider”), tergu (“ogress”), waɣzen (“ogre”).

Such monsters a common feature of Berber fairytales as they are in European. Although man-eating is typically implied, it is not always the case. The Veil of Silence by Djura told a story in which an old woman, who went mad after the loss of her son, was referred to as a “sorceress” (tseryel) by the other villagers.

There are two things to take note of from this list. Firstly, that hamẓa and tamẓa are the feminine of amẓa. Secondly, that ameẓ, amẓa, and amẓiw all derive from the the root MẒ. Marijn van Putten’s “An Aujila Berber Vocabulary” ascribes additional meanings to amẓa “ogre; strong, smart person; (rare) lion.” So at some point in time, the root MẒ related to lions.

This perhaps descends from the Proto-Berber root *MZ “to seize, grasp, catch hold of, collect, impound,” according to G. Marcy’s "Notes linguistiques: autour du periple d'Hannon." It may ultimately descend from the Proto-Afroasiatic *ʔam- “to seize, grasp,” or it could be related to the Ancient Egyptian root mꜣj “lion.”

As stated above the Kabyle word is izem, which Dallet lists as an inflection of the root ZM. The Berber languages have multiple words for lion with distinct etymologies. Putten’s “Nouns of the CVC and CC type in Berber” explains that the root ZM is only attested in the northern Berber languages. In several other Berber languages, the words for “lion” seemingly descend from the Proto-Berber root *ꞵʔʀ.

Could izem and amẓa be related? It seems fairly plausible to me that MẒ and ZM both descend from the root *MZ. Perhaps ZM descends from *MZ through metathesis, the transposition of the two adjacent consonants. In an amusing coincidence, metathesis resulted in the words ogre and orc splitting from their root Orcus.

Alright, now I have found a possible explanation for why a man-eating witch was presented as the wife of a lion rather than a lioness. Perhaps the Kabyle tale substituted the words for lion and lioness with slightly different synonyms over time and thereby shifted the meaning. There could have been any number of pairs: lion and lioness, amẓa and tamẓa, izem and tizemt, waɣzen and teryel, ogre and ogress.

That's not a wendigo! It's the wild hunt!

As I recounted in my last post on the wendigo, modern popular culture has twisted the wendigo from a carnivorous demon of cold with highly variable physical features to what can only be described as a "zombie were-deer." This is not the first time that the wendigo myth has been mutilated by settlers, and it is possible to trace the changes over the years in the media.

Variations of the American Ice Cannibal, aka Wendigo

The Wendigo monster as portrayed in Fiend Folio 3e and Pathfinder Bestiary 2 actually has almost nothing to do with the Wendigo of Algonquin folklore except for being a cannibal. The part about flying and lacking feet comes from an Algernon Blackwood short story and the horns originate from an illustration in the June 1944 edition of Famous Fantastic Mysteries.

Giants versus Ogres versus Trolls

In the dictionary, the words giant, ogre and troll are generally synonymous. A giant is "an imaginary or mythical being of human form but superhuman size." An ogre is "a man-eating giant." A troll is "a mythical, cave-dwelling being depicted in folklore as either a giant or a dwarf, typically having a very ugly appearance." If you did a little deeper you will find a surprisingly diverse mythology of giants all around the world. Greek giants have snakes for legs, trolls live under bridges, and so on.

Earthbound evils

While demons typically arise within the lower planes (and are largely trapped there), some people are so evil that their souls may become demons without ever leaving the material plane. Likewise, some terrestrial spirits may become so corrupt that they are twisted into demons. Some may build fleshy bodies for themselves or reincarnate within family lineages. These earthbound evils are commonly known by names like div, oni, rakshasa, and sahkil depending on the local culture. Pathfinder introduces all of these as new races of demons, but I prefer not to split hairs. The rakshasa and ogre mage in the MM are examples of such demons, but they come in many more varieties (see the PF bestiaries for ideas and then build them using the DMG guidelines).