Lycodasous

If you’ve read my book Blood in the Ferns, you’ll remember a scene where Yip and Catch are in a spot of bother, and some very strange animals help them out.

The lycodasous.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: you’ve never heard of them. Where the heck did they come from?

They came from my brain. Born of a desperate moment where I wasn’t quite sure how to get my characters out of the trouble I’d gotten them into.

And if you want to know the really peculiar truth: I didn’t even do it on purpose. They just sort of… happened.

There I was, writing this scene. Panic was rising because I knew I needed a way to get them out, and my brain was stubbornly blank on the matter. I made a cup of tea, because that always helps.

Only it didn’t.

They were still trapped there, beneath the ferns.

I wrote their panic using the panic I felt myself - and then something odd happened.

Catch made a sound.

I don’t know why I made him do that. It was one of those moments when characters kind of take over and write themselves.

And the next thing I knew, the forest came alive.

Bark seemed to grow eyes, then jump from the trees and move faster than eyes could follow. Chirps and whistles sounded through the trees.

The danger passed.

And the lycodasous was born.

The wolves of the trees. Protectors of the forests. Found all over the world, wherever there is old growth and dense vegetation.

Their fur blends perfectly with whatever bark they happen to be resting on. Their limbs have adapted to arboreal life.

And most of the time, you’d never know they were there. Not until they open their eyes.

I suppose it’s fitting that a creature born almost by accident, hiding in the background until I suddenly noticed it, ended up being a creature whose whole existence is based on hiding in plain sight.

They communicate through chirps, whistles, trills and infrasound. They move like lightning through the trees.

And in the Slipworld, they become visible, glowing with brilliant, luminous colour. Because in the Slipworld, they don’t need to hide.

So where did the name come from?

(Yeah, I know you want to know!)

Well, the first half is easy: lyco is a prefix from the Greek lykos, meaning wolf. It’s the same place the word “lycanthropy” comes from.

For the second half, I stuck with Greek (which had the advantage of having that old-timey, mythological feel!) and found the word dásos, meaning “woodland”, “forest”, or “woods”. The genitive form, dásous, means “of the forest” or “of the woods”.

So Lycodasous means “wolves of the forest”.

The tree wolves.

And that’s exactly what they are.

Fun fact: Blood in the Ferns isn’t the only time the lycodasous make an appearance in the Slipworld universe!

They might be one of my favourite invented creatures.

What did you make of them?