Page 89 - Encyclopedia of the Unusual and Unexplained Vol. 3

Mysterious Creatures 69

attacks of a nocturnal predator known as a soon a part of the teachings of all major faiths
therianthrope, a human-animal hybrid such as and cultures. But while culture, magic, and
a werewolf, “werebear,” “werelion,” or a “were- religion had amassed thousands of years of
something.” Such creatures were painted by prohibitions concerning the shedding of
Stone Age artists more than 10,000 years ago blood, what could be more repulsive to the
and represent some of the world’s oldest cave human psyche than the hybrid half-human,
art—and they probably precipitated some of half-animal monsters bite the throats and
the world’s first nightmares. drink the blood of men, women, and chil-
dren? Vampires rose from their dank graves by
Some time in those fierce and frightening
prehistoric years when every day was a struggle night to sustain their spark of life through the
for survival for the primitive hunter-gatherers drinking of blood. Werewolves devoured the
there came the realization that the flowing of a flesh and blood of their victims by night or
victim’s vital fluid after a fatal attack from a day. How could people defend themselves
cave bear’s claws and jaws was connected with against these blood-hungry creatures when
the release of the life force itself. Blood became they also had the ability to shapeshift into
sacred. Once the association was made bats, wolves, and luminous fogs? And then
between blood and the life force, a large num- there were the supernatural beings, such as
ber of magical and religious rituals became the incubus and the succubus, who were
centered around the shedding of blood, and more interested in seizing human souls than
thousands of members of ancient priesthoods in sucking human blood.
have raised chalices filled with the dark, holy
elixir of life over thousands of altars stained
with both animal and human blood.
THERIANTHROPES, a human-animal
As respect for the spiritual quality of
human life evolved, the sacrifice of men, hybrid, were painted by Stone Age artists more than
women, and children was considered forbid- 10,000 years ago.
den. And while in less civilized times the
drinking of an animal’s vital fluid had been
deemed an appropriate way in which to absorb
the strength or virility of the lion, the bear, or It is difficult for those living in the mod-
the boar, religious law now admonished ern world to imagine the night terrors of our
against both the drinking of animal blood and ancestors as they prepared to face the
the eating of meat from which the blood had demon- and monster-riddled world after sun-
not been thoroughly drained. down. Today, vampires, werewolves, and
creatures of the dark have become the sub-
The Old Testament book of Leviticus jects of entertainment, scary movies, and
(17:14) acknowledges that blood is “the life of thrilling television programs that bring relief
all flesh, the blood of it is the life thereof,” but from the tensions of the real world of home-
the children of Israel are instructed that they work, peer acceptance, work-related stress,
“shall not eat of the blood of no manner of taxes, and providing for one’s children. Yet
flesh; for the life of all flesh is the blood there- there seems within each human being a
of: whosoever eateth it shall be cut off.” desire to be frightened—safely frightened,
Again, in Deuteronomy 12:20–24, the Lord that is—by those dormant memories of those
warns, “…thou mayest eat flesh, whatsoever demon-infested nights when the creatures
thy soul lusteth after…Only be sure that thou waited in the shadows to seize their victims.
eat not the blood: for the blood is the life; and As one watches the late-night creature fea-
thou mayest not eat the life with the flesh. ture on television and hears that strange
Thou shalt not eat [blood]; thou shalt pourest sound outside the window, the thought pops
it upon the earth as water.”
uneasily into the mind that all things are
Similar warnings against the ingesting of possible—even those things that everyone
blood for religious or health reasons were knows cannot possibly exist.

The Gale Enc y clopedia of the Unusu al and Unexplained