About the Monster Blog
Exploring something different
If you’re as bored as I am with well-worn horror mythology (looking at you, vampires and werewolves), this is the blog for you. Each post covers a creature, haunting, or place you have (or at I have) never heard of—the weirder the better.
Launched in 2015, the blog has to date visited over 81 different monsters from around the world. In learning about them, we can learn a lot about ourselves: about how creative we can be, and about how we keep coming back to the same fears again and again and again.
FAQs
Is all this made up?
Nope. None of the “facts” in the posts are made up—at least not by me. I do a fair amount of research for each one, cross-referencing accounts and digging into historical documents where possible. Usually these will conflict (say what? Conflicting accounts in urban legends?!), but I try to call out where they do. I also note any pedestrian explanations for the phenomena attributed to the featured monster.
Links to sources can be found in the posts themselves. They are not necessarily sources that would have been approved by my high school teachers (this blog is practically sponsored by Wikipedia), but with a lot of these oral or internet legends, no other sources exist.
Do you take requests?
I’m always excited to learn about a bizarre-o cryptid, haunting, or legend, so if you have them, feel free to share. That being said, I do not (nay, cannot) write about everything. Some monsters are not a good fit. Often, myths are either a) so well-known that I don’t think my take would add anything (like the wendigo) or b) so small that they can be covered in a couple of sentences, which is too narrow a scope for what I am trying to do here.
TL;DR: It’s tricky. But try me and you may get lucky.
Why do you do these things?
Because I like research and love horror. As I mention above, the monsters we dream up reveal a lot about ourselves and how similar we are across both cultures and time. It’s fascinating stuff, and gives me free licence to go deep down internet rabbit holes every few weeks.
Besides, you really don’t want me trying to blog about recipes or DIY face masks or whatever. Trust me.
Banner photo by Dima Pechurin on Unsplash.