Manticore

Imagine you’re an ancient Persian, exploring the continent. You’re moving through a jungle, and you catch sight of something that strikes terror to your very core. A creature with the body of a lion, a lethal tail - and a face uncannily like yours.

You’ve just met the manticore. You’ll be lucky to survive the encounter.

That tail? Some accounts say it’s like a scorpion’s, with a lethal stinger on the end. Others say it’s covered in quills, like a porcupine, and they can be fired like arrows with deadly accuracy.

You could run. But it’s built like a lion, so how far do you think you’d get?

And even if you could run like Usain Bolt, some stories say they also had wings - huge, bat-like wings that could carry them into the sky, covering the distance faster than you could hope to run.

And if they get you?

They have three rows of deadly teeth. They eat their prey whole, bones and all, leaving nothing behind. You would never be seen or heard from again.

Your only hope is that you can run faster than the person you’re with, so while the manticore is busy chomping down on your friend, you can get away.

Terrifying right?

I mean, okay, sure - scholars believe that the manticore came from exaggerated reports after encountering tigers in the jungles of India - a cat bigger and stranger than any the Persians had encountered before.

But where’s the fun in that?

Now, Pliny the Elder reported that they often hung out with another legendary beast, the crocotta, and like that creature, the manticore - or “mantichora” as he called it - could mimic human speech. But he also said it lived in Africa - Aethiopia, to be precise - and its voice sounded like a panpipe mixed with a trumpet, so maybe he’d just had a little too much wine.

Mind you, he was copying Aristotle’s natural history, and we know the version he used contained misspellings, so it wasn’t Aristotle’s best work.

It’s generally accepted that the manticore is from India, not Africa, despite the leonine body and whatever Pliny the Elder had to say on the matter.

Since the Persians first reported it, manticores have been included in bestiaries, featuring prominently in the famous medieval bestiaries, and were believed to be an actual creature as late as 1607, when it was described, along with a crocotta, in Edward Topsell’s natural histories, among others.

They were much harder to find, though.

If you’ve read my books, you’ll know why: by then, manticores were hanging out in the Slipworld, with the other monsters. Safe and sound.

And if you’ve read my books, you’ll also know that manticores aren’t terrifying if you aren’t trying to hurt them. There’s one that appears in my books that’s really very sweet.

Don’t believe me? Pick up a copy of Blood in the Ferns, and you’ll see. 😘