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55-493: The forest as a place of magic and danger is found among folklore wherever the natural state of wild land is forest: a forest is a location beyond which people normally travel, where strange things might occur, and strange people might live, the home of monsters , witches , and fairies . Peasants who seldom if ever traveled far from their villages could not conclusively say that it was impossible that an ogre could live an hour away. Hence, in fairy tales , Hansel and Gretel found

110-543: A cannibalistic witch in the forest; Vasilissa the Beautiful encountered Baba Yaga herself; Molly Whuppie and her sisters ran into a giant . It was in a forest that the king of The Grateful Prince lost his way, and rashly promised his child for aid, where the heroines, and their wicked stepsisters, of The Three Little Men in the Wood and The Enchanted Wreath met magical tests, and where Brother and Sister found

165-626: A carnival side-show worker who is turned into an electrically charged killer, able to dispatch victims merely by touching them, causing death by electrocution. There was also a variant of Dr. Frankenstein, the mad surgeon Dr. Gogol (played by Peter Lorre ), who transplanted hands that were reanimated with malevolent temperaments, in the film Mad Love . Werewolves were introduced in films during this period, and similar creatures were presented in Cat People . Mummies were cinematically depicted as fearsome monsters as well. As for giant creatures,

220-693: A comedic turn in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948). In the post–World War II era, however, giant monsters returned to the screen with a vigor that has been causally linked to the development of nuclear weapons . One early example occurred in the American film The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms , which was about a dinosaur that attacked a lighthouse. Subsequently, there were Japanese film depictions, ( Godzilla , Gamera ), British depictions ( Gorgo ), and even Danish depictions ( Reptilicus ), of giant monsters attacking cities. A recent depiction of

275-406: A cultural void; they have a literary and cultural heritage". In the religious context of ancient Greeks and Romans, monsters were seen as signs of "divine displeasure", and it was thought that birth defects were especially ominous, being "an unnatural event" or "a malfunctioning of nature". Monsters are not necessarily abominations however. The Roman historian Suetonius , for instance, describes

330-879: A forest that was enchanted specifically by the presence of Oberon and Titania , the fairy king and queen; like many forests in Shakespeare's works, it becomes a place of metamorphosis and resolution. Others of his plays, such as As You Like It , take place in a forest, which contains no enchantments but acts much as the forest of folklore. Often forests will be the home of dragons , dwarves , elves , fairies , nymphs , giants , gnomes , satyrs , goblins , orcs , trolls , dark elves , leprechauns , halflings , centaurs , half-elves , and unicorns . There may be trees that talk or with branches that will push people off their horses, thorny bushes which will open to let people in but close and leave people stuck inside, and other plants that move or turn into animals at night, or

385-408: A giant monster is depicted in J. J. Abrams 's Cloverfield , which was released in theaters 18 January 2008. The intriguing proximity of other planets brought the notion of extraterrestrial monsters to the big screen, some of which were huge in size (such as King Ghidorah and Gigan ), while others were of a more human scale. During this period, the fish -human monster Gill-man was developed in

440-455: A holdover from Proto-Indo-European religion and other belief systems, in which the divisions between "spirit," "monster," and "god" were less evident. The history of monsters in fiction is long. For instance, Grendel in the epic poem Beowulf is an archetypal monster: deformed, brutal, and with enormous strength, he raids a human settlement nightly to slay and feed on his victims. The modern literary monster has its roots in examples such as

495-471: A labyrinthine complexity. The significance of their encounters is often explained to the knights – particularly those searching for the Holy Grail – by hermits acting as wise old men – or women . Still, despite their perils and chances of error, such forests are places where the knights may become worthy and find the object of their quest ; one romance has a maiden urging Sir Lancelot on his quest for

550-471: A place of transformation. The German fairy tale has an unusual tendency to take place in the forest; even such neighboring countries as France or Italy are less like to have fairy tales situated in the forest. Even in folklore, forests can also be places of magical refuge. Snow White found refuge with dwarfs from her stepmother, The Girl Without Hands found a hut to stay in when she had been slandered to her husband, and Genevieve of Brabant found not only

605-467: A refuge from slander but a doe magically came to her aid. Even Brother and Sister hid in the forest after their stepmother turned the brother into a deer. At other times, the marvels they meet are beneficial. In the forest, the hero of a fairy tale can meet and have mercy on talking animals that aid him. The king in many variants of the ballad The Famous Flower of Serving-Men finds an enchanted hind that leads him astray uncanny, but it brings him to

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660-608: A sly goblin ), while others may be docile but prone to becoming angry or hungry, thus needing to be tamed and taught to resist savage urges, or killed if they cannot be handled or controlled successfully. Monsters pre-date written history , and the academic study of the particular cultural notions expressed in a society's ideas of monsters is known as monstrophy . Monsters have appeared in literature and in feature-length films. Well-known monsters in fiction include Count Dracula , Frankenstein's monster , werewolves , vampires , demons , mummies , and zombies . Monster derives from

715-527: A snake's absence of legs or a bird's ability to fly as monstrous, as both are "against nature". Nonetheless, the negative connotations of the word quickly established themselves, and by the playwright and philosopher Seneca 's time, the word had extended into its philosophical meaning, "a visual and horrific revelation of the truth". In spite of this, mythological monsters such as the Hydra and Medusa are not natural beings, but divine entities. This seems to be

770-466: A strange or grotesque appearance that causes terror and fear , often in humans. Monsters usually resemble bizarre , deformed, otherworldly and/or mutated animals or entirely unique creatures of varying sizes , but may also take a human form, such as mutants , ghosts , spirits , zombies , or cannibals , among other things. They may or may not have supernatural powers, but are usually capable of killing or causing some form of destruction, threatening

825-402: A talking bird that reveals to him a murder and that a servant of his is actually a woman, whom the king then marries. It is in the forest that the dwarf of Rumpelstiltskin and the fairy of Whuppity Stoorie reveal their true names and therefore the heroines of those tales have a way to free themselves. In Schippeitaro , the cats reveal their fear of the dog Schippeitaro when the hero of

880-426: Is Dungeons & Dragons . In some other games, such as Undertale and Deltarune , "Monsters" (which are usually NPCs) refer to strange beings that are either undead , robots , humanoids or mythical creatures that share similarities with human beings. Hercynian Forest The Hercynian Forest was an ancient and dense forest that stretched across Western Central Europe, from Northeastern France to

935-613: Is a Middle High German word meaning "mountain forest." Also, the Old High German name Fergunna apparently refers to the Ore Mountains and Virgundia (cf. modern Virngrund forest) to a range between Ansbach and Ellwangen . Hercyne was the classical name (modern Libadia) of a small rapid stream in Boeotia that issued from two springs near Lebadea , modern Livadeia, and emptied into Lake Copais . The name

990-548: Is a catch-all term for hostile characters that are fought by the player. Sentient fictional races are usually not referred to as monsters. At other times, the term can carry a neutral connotation, such as in the Pokémon franchise, where it is used to refer to cute fictional creatures that resemble real-world animals. Characters in games may refer to all of such creatures as "monsters". Another role playing game that has many different fantasy creatures (monsters and dragons alike),

1045-711: Is believed that before the Boii the Hercuniates tribe inhabited the area, later migrating to Pannonia in Illyria . By the middle of the first century BC, the Hercuniates were a minor tribe that was located along a narrow band of Celtic settlement close to the Danube , on the western side of the river a little way west of modern Budapest . Their name comes from an ancient proto-Indo-European word for an oak . The tribe

1100-712: Is cited dozens of times in several classical authors, but most of the references are non-definitive, e.g., the Hercynian Forest is Pomponius Mela 's silvis ac paludibus invia , "trackless forest and swamps" (Mela, De Chorographia , iii.29), as the author is assuming the reader would know where the forest is. The earliest reference is in Aristotle 's ( Meteorologica ). He refers to the Arkýnia (or Orkýnios ) mountains of Europe, but tells us only that, remarkably in his experience, rivers flow north from there. During

1155-429: Is indefinitely more than sixty days' march. The region fascinated him, even the old tales of unicorns (which may have represented reindeer ). Caesar's references to moose and aurochs and of elk without joints which leaned against trees to sleep in the endless forests of Germania, were probably later interpolations in his Commentaries . Caesar's name for the forest is the one most used: Hercynia Silva . Pliny

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1210-456: Is referred to by Pliny and Ptolemy as a civitas peregrina , a wandering tribe that had travelled to Pannonia from foreign parts. Little else is known of them save that they were issuing their own coins by the second century BC. By AD 40 the tribe was eventually subdued by Rome. Monks sent out from Niederaltaich Abbey (founded in the eighth century) brought under cultivation for the first time great forested areas of Lower Bavaria as far as

1265-626: The Białowieża Forest . Hercynian has a Proto-Celtic derivation, from ɸerkuniā , later erkunia . Julius Pokorny lists Hercynian as being derived from * perkʷu- "oak" (compare quercus ). He further identifies the name as Celtic . Proto-Celtic regularly loses initial *p preceding a vowel, hence the earliest attestations in Greek as Ἀρκόνια ( Aristotle , the e~a interchange common in Celtic names), later Ὀρκύνιος ( Ptolemy , with

1320-748: The Bohemian Forest and the Sudetes . In present-day Czech Republic and southern Poland , it joined the forested Carpathians . The Mittelgebirge seem to correspond more or less to a stretch of the Hercynian mountains. Many present-day smaller forests were also included like the Bienwald and the Haguenau Forest . The Hercynian Forest maybe extended northwest to the Veluwe and east to

1375-662: The Carpathian Mountains , including most of Southern Germany , though its boundaries are a matter of debate. It formed the northern boundary of that part of Europe known to writers of Antiquity. The ancient sources are equivocal about how far east it extended. Many agree that the Black Forest , which extended east from the Rhine valley, formed the western side of the Hercynian, except, for example, Lucius of Tongeren . According to him, it included many massifs west of

1430-569: The Golem , werewolves and vampires . The film Siegfried featured a dragon that consisted of stop-motion animated models, as in RKO 's King Kong , the first giant monster film of the sound era. Universal Studios specialized in monsters, with Bela Lugosi 's reprisal of his stage role, Dracula , and Boris Karloff playing Frankenstein's monster . The studio also made several lesser films, such as Man-Made Monster , starring Lon Chaney Jr. as

1485-899: The Hercynian Forest , in Germania, as an enchanted place; though most references in their works are to geography, Julius Caesar mentioned unicorns said to live there, and Pliny the Elder , birds with feathers that glowed. The figure of an enchanted forest was taken up into chivalric romances ; the knight-errant would wander in a trackless forest in search of adventure. As in the fairy tales, he could easily find marvels that would be disbelieved closer to home. John Milton wrote in Paradise Regained (Bk ii. 359) of "Fairy damsels met in forest wide / By knights of Logres, or of Lyones," and such ladies could be not only magical aid to

1540-559: The Latin monstrum , itself derived ultimately from the verb moneo ("to remind, warn, instruct, or foretell"), and denotes anything "strange or singular, contrary to the usual course of nature, by which the gods give notice of evil," "a strange, unnatural, hideous person, animal, or thing," or any "monstrous or unusual thing, circumstance, or adventure." In the words of Tina Marie Boyer, assistant professor of medieval German literature at Wake Forest University , "monsters do not emerge out of

1595-698: The Rhine . Across the Rhine to the west extended the Silva Carbonaria , the forest of the Ardennes and the forest of the Vosges . All these old-growth forests of antiquity represented the original post-glacial temperate broadleaf forest ecosystem of Europe. Relict tracts of this once-continuous forest exist with many local names: the Black Forest , the Ardennes , the Bavarian Forest ,

1650-1526: The Vosges , the Eifel , the Jura Mountains , the Swabian Jura , the Franconian Jura , the Polish Jura , the Palatinate Forest , the Teutoburg Forest , the Argonne Forest , the Morvan , the Langres plateau , the Odenwald , the Spessart , the Rhön , the Thuringian Forest , the Harz , the Rauhe Alb , the Steigerwald , the Fichtel Mountains , the Ore Mountains , the Giant Mountains ,

1705-577: The o unexplained) and Ἑρκύνιος δρυμός ( Strabo ). The latter form first appears in Latin as Hercynia in Julius Caesar , inheriting the aspiration and the letter y from a Greek source. The Germanic forms appear with an f for *p by Grimm's Law , perhaps indicating an early borrowing from Celtic before it lost the initial consonant: Gothic faírguni = "mountain, mountain range", Old English firgen = "mountain, mountain-woodland". Still

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1760-512: The "Dolopathos" variant of the Swan Children , a lord finds a mysterious woman – clearly a swan maiden or fairy – in an enchanted forest and marries her. Genevieve of Brabant , having rebuffed a would-be lover and found herself accused of adultery by him, escaped to the forest. This forest could easily bewilder the knights. Despite many references to its pathlessness, the forest repeatedly confronts knights with forks and crossroads, of

1815-562: The "Friendly Monster" is pervasive in pop-culture. Chewbacca , Elmo , and Shrek are notable examples of friendly "monsters". In the Monsters, Inc. franchise by Pixar , the monster characters scare (and later entertain) children in order to create energy for running machinery in their home world, while the furry monsters of The Muppets and Sesame Street live in harmony with animals and humans alike. Japanese culture also commonly features monsters which are benevolent or likable, with

1870-409: The "Hercynian ravine-land") patefecit . The isolated modern remnants of the Hercynian Forest identify its flora as a mixed one; Oscar Drude identified its Baltic elements associated with North Alpine flora, and North Atlantic species with circumpolar representatives. Similarly, Edward Gibbon noted the presence of reindeer—pseudo-Caesar's bos cervi figura —and elk —pseudo-Caesar's alces —in

1925-723: The Celtic and Germanic words could also be old relatives, or the Celtish word could be borrowed from Germanic. The assimilated *k erk u- would be regular in Italo-Celtic , and Pokorny associates the ethnonym Querquerni , found in Hispania in Galicia , which features an Italic-Venetic name. In fact, it is not directly associated to the Hercynian Forest's name. Proto-European * perkʷu- explains ɸerkuniā , later erkunia , with regular shift kʷ > ku that occurred before

1980-613: The Elder , in Natural History , places the eastern regions of the Hercynium jugum , the "Hercynian mountain chain", in Pannonia (present-day Hungary and Croatia ) and Dacia (present-day Romania ). He also gives us some dramaticised description of its composition, in which the close proximity of the forest trees causes competitive struggle among them ( inter se rixantes ). He mentions its gigantic oaks . But even he—if

2035-617: The Holy Grail, "which quickens with life and greenness like the forest." Dante Alighieri used this image in the opening of the Divine Comedy story Inferno , where he depicted his state as allegorically being lost in a dark wood. In the Renaissance, both Orlando Furioso and The Faerie Queene had knight-errants who traveled in the woods. In Jerusalem Delivered by Torquato Tasso (1581), enchantments placed on

2090-751: The assimilation *k erk u- . The name of the Hercynian Forest is also considered to be etymologically related to Lithuanian thunder god Perkūnas . He is also known as Pērkons in Latvian ; Perkūns or Perkunos in Old Prussian ; Parkuns in Yotvingian and Pārkiuņs in Latgalian . It is possible that the name of the Harz Mountains in Germany is derived from Hercynian, as Harz

2145-408: The big screen as they did in the late 1940s. Occasionally, monsters are depicted as friendly or misunderstood creatures. King Kong and Frankenstein's monster are two examples of misunderstood creatures. Frankenstein's monster is frequently depicted in this manner, in series and films such as Monster Squad and Van Helsing . The Hulk is an example of the "Monster as Hero" archetype. The theme of

2200-492: The cliffhanger of the first episode of the 1936 Flash Gordon serial did not use a costumed actor, instead using real-life lizards to depict a pair of battling dragons via use of camera perspective. However, the cliffhanger of the ninth episode of the same serial had a man in a rubber suit play the Fire Dragon, which picks up a doll representing Flash in its claws. The cinematic monster cycle eventually wore thin, having

2255-521: The film series Creature from the Black Lagoon . Britain's Hammer Film Productions brought color to the monster movies in the late 1950s. Around this time, the earlier Universal films were usually shown on American television by independent stations (rather than network stations) by using announcers with strange personas, who gained legions of young fans. Although they have since changed considerably, movie monsters did not entirely disappear from

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2310-599: The folkloric forest is an opportunity for the heroes of legend. Among the oldest of all recorded tales, the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh recounts how the heroes Gilgamesh and Enkidu traveled to the Cedar Forest to fight the monsters there and be the first to cut down its trees. In Norse myth and legend, Myrkviðr (or Mirkwood) was dark and dangerous forest that separated various lands; heroes and even gods had to traverse it with difficulty. Romans referred to

2365-631: The forest. The wild bull which the Romans named the urus was present also, and the European bison and the now-extinct aurochs , Bos primigenius . In the Roman sources, the Hercynian Forest was part of ethnographic Germania. There is an indication that this circumstance was fairly recent; that is, Posidonius states that the Boii , were once there (as well as in Bohemia which is named for them). It

2420-474: The knight, but ladies for courtly love . Huon of Bordeaux met the fairy king Oberon in the forest. Guillaume de Palerme hid there with the princess he loved, and found a werewolf who would aid him. In Valentine and Orson , the Queen is sent into exile and so forced to give birth in the woods; one child, taken by a bear, turns to a wild man of the woods , who later aids Valentine, his long-lost brother. In

2475-484: The like. Some stories have powerful sorcerers and witches , both good or evil living somewhere in the depths of the forest. The use of enchanted forests shaded into modern fantasy with no distinct breaking point, stemming from the very earliest fantasies. Monster A monster is a type of fictional creature found in horror , fantasy , science fiction , folklore , mythology and religion . They are very often depicted as dangerous and aggressive , with

2530-710: The man with a bull's head, the Minotaur ). Human monsters are those who by birth were never fully human ( Medusa and her Gorgon sisters) or who through some supernatural or unnatural act lost their humanity ( werewolves , Frankenstein's monster ), and so who can no longer, or who never could, follow the moral law of human society. Monsters may also be depicted as misunderstood and friendly creatures who frighten individuals away without wanting to, or may be so large, strong and clumsy that they cause unintentional damage or death. Some monsters in fiction are depicted as mischievous and boisterous but not necessarily threatening (such as

2585-558: The monster in Mary Shelley 's Frankenstein and the vampire in Bram Stoker 's Dracula . Monsters are a staple of fantasy fiction , horror fiction , and science fiction (where the monsters are often extraterrestrial in nature ). There also exists monster erotica , a subgenre of erotic fiction that involves monsters. During the age of silent films , monsters tended to be human-sized, e.g. Frankenstein's monster ,

2640-478: The most famous examples being the Pokémon franchise and the pioneering anime My Neighbor Totoro . The book series/webisodes/toy line of Monster High is another example. Monsters are commonly encountered in fantasy or role-playing games, as well as video games, as enemies for players to fight against. They may include aliens , legendary creatures , extra-dimensional entities or mutated versions of regular animals. Especially in role-playing games, "monster"

2695-456: The only forest near Jerusalem prevent the Crusaders from constructing siege engines for most of the epic poem , until they are broken by Rinaldo . While these works were being written, expanding geographical knowledge, and the decrease of woodland for farmland , meant the decrease of forests that could be presumed magical. In A Midsummer Night's Dream , William Shakespeare wrote of

2750-600: The passage in question is not an interpolated marginal gloss—is subject to the legends of the gloomy forest. He mentions unusual birds, which have feathers that "shine like fires at night". Medieval bestiaries named these birds the Ercinee . The impenetrable nature of the Hercynia Silva hindered the last concerted Roman foray into the forest, by Drusus , during 12..9 BCE: Florus asserts that Drusus invisum atque inaccessum in id tempus Hercynium saltum (Hercynia saltus,

2805-423: The social or moral order of the human world in the process. Animal monsters are outside the moral order, but sometimes have their origin in some human violation of the moral law (e.g. in the Greek myth , Minos does not sacrifice to Poseidon the white bull which the god sent him, so as punishment Poseidon makes Minos' wife, Pasiphaë , fall in love with the bull. She copulates with the beast, and gives birth to

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2860-501: The streams that their evil stepmother had enchanted. In Beauty and the Beast , Belle's father is lost in the forest when he finds the Beast's castle. The evil cat-spirits of Schippeitaro live in the forest. Indeed, in Grimm's Fairy Tales , the hero always goes into the forest. It is not itself enchanted, but it contains enchantments and, being outside normal human experience, acts as

2915-420: The tale spends the night in the forest. The creatures of the forest need not be magical to have much the same effect; Robin Hood and the Green Man , living in the greenwood, has affinities to the enchanted forest. Even in fairy tales, robbers may serve the roles of magical beings; in an Italian variant of Snow White , Bella Venezia , the heroine takes refuge not with dwarfs but with robbers. The danger of

2970-447: The territory of the present Czech Republic , and founded 120 settlements in the Bavarian Forest , as that stretch of the ancient forest came to be known. The forest is also mentioned in Hypnerotomachia Poliphili as the setting for the dream allegory of the work. The German journal Hercynia , published by the Universities and Landesbibliothek of Sachsen-Anhalt, pertains to ecology and environmental biology. Some geographers apply

3025-401: The time of Julius Caesar , this forest blocked the advance of the Roman legions into Germania . His few statements are the most definitive. In De Bello Gallico he says that the forest stretches along the Danube from the territory of the Helvetii (present-day Switzerland ) to Dacia (present-day Romania ). Its implied northern boundary is nine days' march, while its eastern boundary

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