Grendel

Name: Grendel

AKA: Mighty War-Spirit, The Horrible Stranger, Monster of Evil

Location: The Moors, The King's Hall: Heorot

Novel: Beowulf

Author: Unknown (Anglo-Saxon origin)



Natural History:
Said to be the child of Cain and Grendel's Mother, Grendel is thought to be a demon. Envious of the Daneman's joy, Grendel has been terrorizing the great mead-hall, Heorot.

After the sun would sink, revealing darkness, Grendel would visit the hall while the Danemen slept. Finding pleasure in his raids, Grendel would grab thirty warriors and drag them to his lair where he would devour them. Returning night after night, Grendel would break into the hall, causing chaos and killing the warriors in their sleep. For twelve winters King Hrothgar suffered under the cruel malice that was Grendel.

The monster, Grendel, not only killed the warriors, but made no distinction as to who he killed. Elderly and young alike all were harassed by his evil deeds, trapping and tricking them every night in his mist-covered moor-fens. Having heard of the monsters rampages, Beowulf sailed to King Hrothgar's aide. After hearing of the attack's Beowulf decides to fight the monster unarmed since that is how Grendel fights. After a great celebration of Beowulf's boast to defeat Grendel, the Danes and geats fall asleep in the great hall, all except Beowulf, waiting for the attack.

With bitter fury Grendel ripped the doors off the great hall and strode furiously in. Staring at the sleeping warriors, the monster deliberates as Beowulf looked on in suspense. Grendel grabbed a Danesman, tore him open, bit into bone, and drank the blood, swallowing the rest in mouthfuls. Ready to grab Beowulf next, Grendel reach out, but Beowulf grappled with the monster. Both equally angry at being matched by the other in strength, they fought in the great hall.

Weapons would not work against Grendel as he bore a charmed life and no weapon could harm him. Beowulf fought hand-to-hand combat with the monster, waking the others and decimating the mead-hall. Having woken the other warriors, they helped Beowulf by tackling Grendel. Beowulf, determined to destory the creature grabbed Grendel's arm and tore at it. Sinew split at Grendel's shoulder and Beowulf ripped the monsters entire arm out of it's socket. Grendel's howl of agony echoed through the kingdom. With his defeat, Grendel retreated back to his mother's cave, waiting to die.

The arm of Grendel can be seen hung over the great hall of Heorot.

"...The monster of evil

Greedy and cruel tarried but little,

He drags off thirty of them, and devours them

Fell and frantic, and forced from their slumbers

Thirty of thanemen; thence he departed

Leaping and laughing, his lair to return to,

With surfeit of slaughter sallying homeward."

Zem

Name: Zem

AKA: Unknown

Location: Sqornshellous Zeta

Novel: Life, the Universe, and Everything

Author: Douglas Adams





Natural History:
Zem was a mattresses from the planet Sqornshellous Zeta in the Sqornshellous System.

No one really manufactures mattresses, so instead they are caught, slaughtered, dried out, shipped out and slept on. The mattresses do not seem to mind and all of them are called Zem. Mattresses are by nature large, friendly, pocket-sprung creatures that live quiet lives in the marshes of Sqornshellous Zeta.

There is a whole group of words that apply only to living mattresses that live in swamps and marshes of Sqornshellous Zeta. These words include: flollop, floopy, globber (a sound made when mattresses are feeling deeply moved by a story of personal tragedy),  vollue (for the meaning of this word buy a copy of Sqornshellous Swamptalk at any bookstore), voon, flurble, willomy, gup, glurry, flodge, quirrel, flur, glur, wurf, and lurgle. Etymologists are particularly fond of visiting Sqornshellous Zeta.

Mattresses rarely bother rearing themselves up. This takes a tremendous amount of energy and strength, and can only be done for a few seconds. There is not much to see except swamp for miles anyway.

One particular Zem, who was large and probably of high-quality, though of little brains, had once struck up a conversation with Marvin the Paranoid Android, who happened to be stuck on Sqornshellous Zeta after giving a poorly received speech during the opening of a bridge, which folded up and sank into the mire, taking all of those on the bridge with it, after Marvin plugged himself into the opening circuits. The conversation did not last long, as near the end a team of white robots took Marvin's leg and then came back to take Marvin. The poor mattress was left alone and almost lurgled in fear.

The fate of Zem was unknown, though someone is probably sleeping comfortably on him right now.

"You should be more mattresslike. We live quiet retired lives in the swamp, where we are content to flollop and vollue and regard the wetness in a fairly floopy manner." -Zem

Ancalagon

Name: Ancalagon

AKA: Ancalagon the Black

Location: Angband

Novel: The Silmarillion

Author: J.R.R. Tolkien





Natural History:
Ancalagon was the greatest of the winged dragons of Morgoth.

Morgoth used this new breed of winged dragons, which had not yet been seen before, as a last desperate assault during the War of Wrath during the First Age.

Ancalagon, the mightiest of those dragons, had a fire that nothing could withstand, and wings that could put a shadow over the land for miles.

Death befell Ancalagon after a day and night of battle. He fell from the sky upon the towers of Thangorodrim, which broke into ruin.

"It has been said that dragon-fire could melt and consume the Rings of Power, but there is not now any dragon left on earth in which the old fire is hot enough; nor was there ever any dragon, not even Ancalagon the Black, who could have harmed the One Ring, the Ruling Ring, for that was made by Sauron himself." -Gandalf

Mooncalf

Name: Mooncalf

AKA: Unknown

Location: Moon

Novel: The First Men in the Moon

Author: H.G. Wells





Natural History:
The mooncalf was an enormous beast, about 24 feet high and almost 200 feet long. Its sides rose and fell with its labored breathing. It appeared to have no feet, but instead rolled along the ground, creasing its leathery skin and dragging itself forward.

Mooncalves can emit a loud bellowing sound while browsing the unusual fauna of the moon. They were noisy eaters and appeared to relish the act of eating. Selenites herded them out during the day, when the moon was not frozen over and tolerable to living creatures.

The Selenites used the mooncalves as a type of cattle.

"They seemed monsters of mere fatness, clumsy and overwhelmed to a degree that would make a Smithfield ox seem a model of agility."

Moon

Ungoliant

Name: Ungoliant

AKA: Unknown

Location: Avathar

Novel: The Silmarillion

Author: J.R.R. Tolkien




Natural History:
No one knows whence she came. Some say she descended from the darkness when the world was new. She took the shape of a spider in monstrous form and lived alone, far from the people's of Middle-earth.

She had an immense hunger. She hungered for light and hated it. She had no master, for she desired to be mistress of her own lust, taking all things to herself to feed her emptiness.

She made her home in the cleft of the mountains, sucking up all the light she could find and spinning it into dark nets of strangling gloom and black webs so no light could come to her abode. She was able to spin Unlight, a cloak of darkness in which things seemed to be no more and which eyes could not pierce, for it was void.

She assisted Melkor, he promising her whatever she lusted for, in seeking vengeance on the Valar. On the green of Ezellohar, the Unlight of Ungoliant rose up to the roots of the trees of the Valar, Telperion and Laureli, the first sources of light in Arda. Melkor smote each tree to its core and Ungoliant sucked up the sap that came forth. The poison of death that was in her withered the trees until they died. Her thirst and hunger was great, and going to the Wells of Varda, drained them dry. She belched forth black vapors as she drank, and swelled to an immense size and hideous shape, that frightened even Melkor.

Ungoliant and Melkor traveled to Angband. Though Melkor feared Ungoliant and tried to elude her, he knew that she would not leave his side until his promise was fulfilled. She requested the Silmarils, but Morgoth (Melkor) would not have it and kept them tight in his clutch. The immense cloud of darkness grew and she tried to strangle Morgoth with her webs. His cries called forth the Balrogs, who assailed Ungoliant with their whips, then freed Morgoth and drove off Ungoliant.

Ungoliant fled, covering herself in black vapors, to Nan Dungortheb, the Valley of Dreadful Death. There she hid, devouring and breeding with the other foul creatures of spider form that dwelt there. Her offspring remained there, weaving their hideous webs, while she moved south, away from the people's of Middle-earth.

"Of the fate of Ungoliant no tales tale. Yet some have said that she ended long ago, when in her utter famine she devoured herself at last."