This week’s topic for Top Ten Tuesday (hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl) is “Halloween Freebie”.
Today also marks the start of Witch Week, hosted by Chris and Lizzie, and their theme for this year is…Cryptozoo, “all about legendary animals, fantastic beasts and literary monsters.” I thought this would make an interesting top ten, so I am listing below a selection of monstrous animals and mythological creatures, all of which have appeared in books I’ve read and reviewed on my blog.
Not all of these are traditionally associated with Halloween, but I don’t think you would want to meet any of them after dark!
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1. The Minotaur
Ariadne by Jennifer Saint
I’m starting my list with one of the most famous creatures from Greek mythology. The Minotaur has the head of a bull and the body of a man and is imprisoned in the Labyrinth of Knossos on the island of Crete. He appears in many novels and books of mythology, including Saint’s Ariadne, written from the perspectives of the Minotaur’s sisters, Ariadne and Phaedra.
2. Mari Lwyd
Silver on the Tree by Susan Cooper
This final novel in Cooper’s The Dark is Rising sequence features several beasts and monsters, including the afanc, a Welsh lake monster, and some very threatening black minks and polecats. Most terrifying of all is the skeleton horse known as the Mari Lwyd, another creature from Welsh folklore.
3. Medved
The Winternight trilogy by Katherine Arden
This is a wonderful fantasy trilogy set in medieval Russia and grounded in mythology, folklore and fairy tales. The novels feature several chyerts, or spirits, including the demonic Medved, who at one moment can appear to be a man, the next a bear.
Statue of Ox-Head in Taiwan
4. Ox-headed demons
The Ghost Bride by Yangsze Choo
The Ghost Bride is a very unusual historical fantasy novel in which a young Chinese woman receives a marriage proposal from a dead man, then enters the underworld to investigate his murder. Here she finds that the Chinese afterlife is populated with many ghosts, spirits and monsters, among them the sinister ox-headed demons, guardians of the underworld.
5. Tintaglia
The Realm of the Elderlings sequence by Robin Hobb
There are several dragons who appear throughout Robin Hobb’s sixteen-volume fantasy sequence, but for this list I have chosen Tintaglia, the blue female who is the first to hatch when dragons begin to return to the world during the Liveship Traders Trilogy. Like the other dragons in the series, Tintaglia is proud and unpredictable, and for the human characters she can be either an ally or a danger.
6. Jörmungandr
Ragnarok by A.S. Byatt
Another mythical being, this time from Norse mythology. Jörmungandr, also known as the World Serpent, encircles the Earth and bites its own tail. When it releases its tail, Ragnarök, the final battle of the world, will begin. Byatt’s novel is written from the perspective of a little girl who has been evacuated during World War II and relates the Norse myth to her own life in wartime Britain.
Illustration of Kikimora by Ivan Bilibin (1934)
7. Kikimora
The Witch and the Tsar by Olesya Salnikova Gilmore
Like the Katherine Arden books above, this one combines Russian history and folklore, this time telling the story of the witch, Baba Yaga. The kikimora, a secondary character in the novel, is a house spirit from Slavic mythology. She has a birdlike appearance and lives in a swamp, where she plagues the dreams of any human who falls asleep near her watery home.
8. The Leviathan
The Leviathan by Rosie Andrews
At first this appears to be a novel about a woman accused of witchcraft in the 17th century, but halfway through it develops into something quite different with tales of a fearsome snake-like sea monster. I loved the foreboding atmosphere of the earlier chapters and would have preferred the book to continue that way, but I know other readers enjoyed the second half a lot more than I did!
9. The Beast Folk
The Island of Doctor Moreau by HG Wells
Sometimes the most frightening monsters are those that could really exist. In Wells’ classic science fiction novel, a man is shipwrecked on an island inhabited by a scientist who has been experimenting on animals. Thankfully Wells doesn’t go into those experiments in too much detail, but the results are both sad and horrific.
10. Behemoth
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
This list wouldn’t be complete without Behemoth, the demonic, chess-playing, vodka-drinking black cat from Bulgakov’s Soviet classic. I loved this book and must read it again to see if I can pick up on some of the things I know I missed the first time!
What do you think of my list? Which other literary beasts and monsters would you include?
She Reads Novels 
A great list, Helen, with a few entries that I’d never heard of. I need to get back to K Arden’s trilogy, of which I’ve read only the first book. Thanks for posting this, and for the link to #WitchWeek2023!
I would definitely recommend continuing with the Arden trilogy. I thought each book was better than the one before.
Ooh, I love these sorts of books!
Here is my Top Ten Tuesday post.
I can recommend all of these books!
Such a clever list, Helen!
Thanks, Sandra! I enjoyed putting it together.
I enjoyed Ariadne, but haven’t read any others from your selection. Nor can I add to your Cryptozoo. Sorry. I don’t read much in the weird department.
I didn’t realise I read so many weird books either! I was surprised that I was able to come up with ten.
Gosh, you’ve read a lot of books you could add to your Cryptozoo.
I thought I might struggle to find ten, but I had read more than I expected.
The Ghost Bride sounds really good.
Here is our Top Ten Tuesday.
Yes, I enjoyed it, and Yangsze Choo’s other book, The Night Tiger.
Cryptozoology is the study of anime to believe to exist or believe to have gone extant but, may still be around. It an interesting topic to read about. I say there is a thin line between the more fantastical creatures of myth.
It’s a fascinating topic, and one I don’t really know enough about.
What an interesting topic idea! These are some creepy animals! Happy Halloween!
Thanks! I hope you had a good Halloween.
All of these creatures sound terrifying! I definitely would not want to meet them anywhere – not even in my nightmares.
Happy TTT!
Susan
http://www.blogginboutbooks.com
You really wouldn’t want to meet any of these, particularly not the Mari Lwyd!
A superb list, Helen, and I’m glad you included <i>The Island of Doctor Moreau</i> as that’s one title I’d half thought of discussing for this Witch Week. Pleased too to see you’d chosen Susan Cooper’s sinister Mari Lwyd entities because I’ve actually prepared a post (scheduled for midwinter, appropriately) about the Mari Lwyd as my final if belated discussion for Annabel’s The Dark is Rising Sequence readalong. I shall add this Halloween post to the links on the final Cryptozoo offering this week. 🙂
Thank you, Chris. I’ll look forward to your post on the Mari Lwyd!