Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of
Speaker 1: My Heart Radio. Hi, my name is Robert Lamb and
Speaker 1: this is the Monster Fact, a short form series from
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind, focusing in on mythical creatures,
Speaker 1: ideas and monsters in time. The gleam of my scarlet
Speaker 1: hair mingles with the reflection of the great sands. I
Speaker 1: breathe through my nostrils. The terror of solitudes. I spit
Speaker 1: forth plague. I devour armies when they venture into the desert.
Speaker 1: My claws are twisted like screws, my teeth shaped like saws,
Speaker 1: and my curving tail bristles with darts, which I cast
Speaker 1: to right and left, before and behind. See see These
Speaker 1: are the words of the Manticore, as related in Gustave
Speaker 1: Flaubert's eighteen seventy four dramatic poem The Temptation of Saint Anthony.
Speaker 1: The monster itself, however, is no mere French literary creation.
Speaker 1: It emerges from the pages and dreamscapes of antiquity and beyond.
Speaker 1: By virtue of its depictions and mythic riddles. The sphinx
Speaker 1: tends to enjoy far greater fame among fantastic lion human hybrids,
Speaker 1: but the manticore is even more fabulous in form. While
Speaker 1: it does possess the body of a lion and the
Speaker 1: head of a man, it also boasts a tale of
Speaker 1: fans spikes that may be launched at its adversaries like
Speaker 1: venomous missiles. The monster's face makes it even more chimerical,
Speaker 1: not perfectly human, but colored a deep red and possessing
Speaker 1: a cavernous maw full of interlocking teeth that Pliny the
Speaker 1: Elder compared to those of a comb. The Roman Pliny
Speaker 1: was fighting the work of earlier Greek physician Cetasius, who
Speaker 1: would have lived in Anatolia now part of Turkey during
Speaker 1: the fifth century b c. E. He also states that
Speaker 1: the creature's cry is like that of a flute and
Speaker 1: a trumpet combined, and that above all else, it craves
Speaker 1: the taste of human flesh. While the manticors popularity in
Speaker 1: Western traditions and in the Christian Church would span centuries,
Speaker 1: the creature's origins seemed to date back to ancient Mesopotamia,
Speaker 1: perhaps as a distortion of the Persian mard cora, meaning
Speaker 1: man slayer. Noted scholar Dorothea McEwen also pointed to some
Speaker 1: of the similarities between the manticore and the Ethiopian Sebitat,
Speaker 1: a human headed lion with serpents for tales. It lacks
Speaker 1: only the teeth in its resemblance to the manticor, and
Speaker 1: to be sure, plenty points to Ethiopian origins for the
Speaker 1: Manticor as well. However, many sources speak of the manticore
Speaker 1: as a creature of ultimate Persian origins, but the manticore
Speaker 1: itself seems rather unconcerned with such distinctions. All human beings
Speaker 1: are equal in its eyes, creatures worthy of mockery, hunting,
Speaker 1: and ravenous consumption. Thanks to my son Sebastian for suggesting
Speaker 1: this episode as he was reading through the Dungeons and
Speaker 1: Dragons fifth Edition Monster Manual with me and had some
Speaker 1: questions about this fabulous creature. Tune into additional episodes of
Speaker 1: The Monster Fact each week. As always. You can email
Speaker 1: us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is a production of I
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