Legend Of The Hodag
"This photograph became the popular Hodag Capture postcard during the 1920s. According to the August 7, 1952 issue of the Rhinelander Daily News, this picture was taken in 1899."

"The Hodag is a fictional animal that is part of the folklore of the American state of Wisconsin. Its history and acknowledgement are mainly focused around the city of Rhinelander in northern Wisconsin.

Legends of the Black Hodag were told earlier in the 19th century among the lumberjacks of the area. According to these, the hodag had risen from the ashes of an ox, in some legends it was Paul Bunyan's ox, Babe, which was burned for seven years to cleanse its soul of the profanity hurled at it by lumberjacks and its master. The soul of the ox emerged from the ashes exuding a foul odor. The Hodag bears a slight physical resemblance to the Ojibwa legend of Mishepishu, but the latter is larger, has additional features, and a different origin. The hodag reportedly ate white bulldogs, but only on a single Sunday in a month." - quote taken from Wikipedia.

" Eugene Shepard's first published drawing of the Hodag appeard in the October 28, 1893 issue of Rhinelander's weekly paper, the New North."


Quotes and images taken from the Hodag Press website, with more information on the origins of this strange beast. The following pictures of the Hodag were found on flickr.


Statue found in Rhinelander Wisconsin.

- From the Rhinelander WI Logging Museum, flickr source, another pic here.

- flickr source

Another Hodag at the Logging Museum in Rhinelander Wisconsin , flickr source.

Fearsome Creatures of the Lumberwoods

"As the animal travels through the brush-covered country it elongates its legs from time to time, thus shoving itself up above the brush for purposes of observation. If it sights game within a range of ten rods it takes aim with its snout and tilts itself until the right elevation is obtained, then with astonishing force blows a sun dried quid of clay, knocking its victim senseless. (A supply of these quids is always carried in the left jaw.) The tripodero then contracts its legs and bores its way through the brush to its victim, where it stays until the last bone is cracked and eaten."

"The hugag is a hudge animal of the Lake States. Its range
includes western Wisconsin, northern Minnesota, and a territory extending indefinitely northward in the Canadian wilds toward Hudson Bay. In size the hugag may be compared to the moose, and in form it somewhat resembles that animal. Very noticeable, however, are its jointless legs, which compel the animal to remain on its feet, and its long upper lip, which prevents it from grazing."



In the spring of 1906 there appeared suddenly in the Coast Ranges of California an uncanny animal from the region of the Isthmus. It is not a large beast, but what it lacks in size it makes up in meanness of disposition. None of the lumber jacks who have met a whintosser on trail or tote road care to have the experience repeated. The Central American whintosser is always looking for trouble or making it. In fact the beast seems to be constructed for the purpose of passing through unusual experiences. Its head is fastened to its body by a swivel neck; so is its short, tampering tail ; and both can be spun around at the rate of a hundred revolutions a minute. The body is long and triangular, with three complete sets of legs; this is a great convenience in an earthquake country, since the animal is not disturbed by any convulsions of the earth. If the floor suddenly becomes the ceiling it does not matter, for the whintosser is always there with the legs. The only successful way of killing the beast is to poke it into a flume pipe so that all its feet strike the surface, when it immediately starts to walk in three different directions at once and tears itself apart."

The above illustrations and text can be found on the official website for the book as written by William T. Cox and illustrated by Coert Du Bois in 1910.

Icon of the Last Judgment At The Church Of St. Dionysios
Yet another Hell Mouth.

Hans Memling - Details of Last Judgment Triptych, 1467




Images found in this collection of Hans Memling paintings on flickr. Full composition of the Hell panel can be seen here. The entire triptych composition can be seen here.

Lazarus, Patron Saint of Leprosy
Does anyone know who painted this?

Ars Moriendi, The Art Of Dying
Master of the Blumenrahmen After Master ES - Temptation In Faith, Engraving with hand-colouring, 1450-1470

"Ars moriendi ("The Art of Dying") is the name of two related Latin texts dating from about 1415 and 1450 which offer advice on the protocols and procedures of a good death and on how to "die well", according to Christian precepts of the late Middle Ages. It was written within the historical context of the effects of the macabre horrors of the Black Death 60 years earlier and consequent social upheavals of the 15th century. It was very popular, translated into most West European languages, and was the first in a western literary tradition of guides to death and dying.

There was originally a "long version" and then a later "short version" containing eleven woodcut pictures as instructive images which could be easily explained and memorized." - quote taken from article at Wikipedia.

Master of the Blumenrahmen After Master ES - Suggestion of humbleness against haughtiness, Engraving with hand-colouring, 1450-1470

Master of the Blumenrahmen After Master ES - Temptation Through Haughtiness, Engraving with hand-colouring, 1450-1470

Master of the Blumenrahmen After Master ES - Temptation Through Despair, Engraving with hand-colouring, 1450-1470

Master of the Blumenrahmen After Master ES - Temptation Through Avarice, Engraving with hand-colouring, 1450-1470

Master MZ, engraving 1500-1510
"The triumph over all temptations at the moment of death; a monk at the bedside with a candle; the man's soul welcomed by a group of angels; Christ on the Cross with the Virgin, St John and a large group of saints at upper left; devils making last, desperate efforts to claim the soul; from a series of illustrations to an unidentified Ars Moriendi edition."

Master MZ, engraving 1500-1510
"Vanity, the fifth temptation; the Virgin, Christ and God looking on as devils bring crowns to the deathbed; from a series of illustrations to an unidentified Ars Moriendi edition."

Master MZ, engravingh 1500-1510
"Despair, the second temptation; the deathbed surrounded by devils reminding the dying man of his sins, at left also a male and female figure; from a series of illustrations to an unidentified Ars Moriendi edition."

Most prints found at The British Museum online collection.

An article on Ars Moriendi can be viewed at the death reference website.

Additional woodcuts depicting scenes of the art of dying can be viewed here.

Lastly, you'll find an excellent article with numerous illustrations, two of which I've posted below, related to Ars moriendi in this post at BibliOdyssey.

Lubok, Russian Engravings/ Etchings/ Woodcuts
Satirical scene showing lenders as small devils.

""Yeruslan Lazarevich Kills the Sea Monster.

Yeruslan Lazarevich was riding along when he was attacked by the three-headed Monster Dragon King of the Sea. A terrible battle began between Yeruslan and the Dragon King and the strong and mighty hero cut off two of the monster's heads with his Damascene sword. The Dragon King begged Yeruslan to spare his life but the hero's heart flared up and the last head of the monster fell at the feet of his horse Whirlwind."

"The Horrifying and Terrifying Parable from the Mirror

A certain maiden concealed her foul sin of fornication from her spiritual father during confession and died with this sin. Her spiritual father began to pray to God and suddenly saw her sitting on a fiery dragon. On her eyes were huge toads, in her ears were arrows, great fire was burning in her mouth, vipers were sucking on her nipples, and the hounds of the inferno were biting her hands. And her spiritual father asked her: "Is it you, tell me?" And she told him: "It is I, your damned spiritual daughter. Do you see, father, these toads on my eyes are for shameless looking, the arrows in my ears for listening to devil's songs, the fire coming from my mouth for kissing, vipers sucking my nipples for adultery, the dogs biting my hands for embracing lovers. And what I am sitting on is the sin of fornication which I hid from you during my confession." And then she became invisible. Her spiritual father was terrified and told everybody about his horrifying vision."



"The forest monster caught in the spring.

The figure of the monster found in Spain by the soldiers wandering through the forest during the hunt and presented by them to the viceroy in Nice, who put it on a galliot loaded with silver and sailing to Spain, which arrived there without problems not long ago. And this monster is now being sent by galliot to Madrid and all the people in the city of Salamanca are admiring it, and the Spanish king ordered it to be baptized and converted to the Catholic faith. In the year 1721." - quote and image source.

Russian lubok describing a strange aquatic humanoid caught in Spain. Anonymous folk artist, 1739

"A copy [of the news] from the Spanish town of Vigo from the 6th of April. The fishermen of the village of Fustin (Enfesta?) caught a sea monster or the so-called water man and with great difficulty dragged him by force in the net ashore. This amazing and rarely seen monstrum or sea wonder is from head to foot about 6 feet tall. Its head resembles a stake and is so smooth that it does not have even one hair on the top, only at the bottom it has a beard with long strands. The skin on its head and on the whole body is black and in some places covered with thin hair. The neck of this water old man is extremely long and the body unusually long and thick but in many respects it resembles the human body. The forearms and arms are very short, the palms are quite short, while the fingers are very long and up to the first joint, like a goose's feet, they are grown together and from there they go like human fingers. Its extraordinarily long nails resemble animals' and even though this monstrosity has low hanging breasts, it is, by all indications, of masculine gender. Its loins are short and grown together to the knees, and the shins are not very long either, but they are separated. Even though its feet are quite similar to human, the large toes hang quite close to each other like duck's feet. On its heels it has fish's scales, and on the skin of its back at the very bottom a bone has grown. A fin sticking out from it is just like a woman's fan, about 12 inches long, and when it opens it reaches even more than 12 inches. This was excerpted from the printed St. Petersburg News, received on the 20th of May of this, 1739, year, and the above news were reported in the No. 41." - quote and image source.

"The lubki (sing. lubok), simple printed pictures colored by hand and often called broadsides, popular prints, folk prints, folk etchings, or folk engravings, are a vivid and fascinating page in the history of Russian culture. Folk prints were known in many other countries (in the Far East as early as the eighth century and in Western Europe from the fifteenth); in Russia they appeared in the middle of the seventeenth century and survived until the beginning of the twentieth.

The prints classified as informative and news-oriented introduced the public to unusual and amusing freaks, monsters, and natural phenomena in Russia and abroad; later, the prints described real historical events and portraits of important military leaders." - Read more about and see more of this Russian form of printed illustrations at the Lubok website.






And a few more above found while browsing the giant collection of Russian engravings at the NYPL online gallery.

Russian Monster From Inferno - Anonymous folk artist, XIXth century. Found in the Lubok collection at Wikimedia.

The Adventures Of Martin Le Malin




Click on the covers in this page to be taken to the scanned comic pages (in French) from each book.

More of the covers can be found here.

Le Cochon danseur (the dancing pig) 1907
Watch the short silent film the above clip was taken from here. The end is by far one of the most horrifying things I've seen this week.

Thanks to Eugene and the other who let me know the origins of this clip!

Cellphone From Hell
Really amazing effects, I'm sure whatever they used was simple, but it's really effective. If someone were to do a new Poltergeist movie this is the sort of thing I'd expect to see.

Fra Angelico - The Last Judgement 1432-1435


I mentioned this painting about a year and a half ago but I've since found some large details of the Hell scene that I thought I'd share.

Deutches Balladenbuch (volume 2) - 1852



"German ballades decorated with the woodcuts after drawings by Ehrhardt, von Oer, Plueddemann, Richter, Schurig." Both volumes on view in this collection at Coconino.

And it appears that Google Books has a copy you can download in pdf format at 14.4 megabytes here.