SeeAsrai (#ulink_934f9a10-6009-569d-be16-629bc29f816c).
Askafroa
The “Wife of the Ash Tree” in Scandinavian and Teutonic folklore. The guardian of the ash tree, she was considered to be a pernicious spirit. Regional variations include the Danish Askefrue and the German Eschenfrau.
Askefrue
SeeAskafroa (#ulink_9de755a8-cb21-5b03-b8f9-99fc15908709).
Asojano Babaluaye
An orisha in Yoruba beliefs, a disfigured, pestilent outcast inspiring fear, a formidable presence inflicting plagues and disease, Asojano is a representation of all the world’s ills. In more modern times, his powers of destruction are tempered by an ability to heal and among other qualities he is a beneficient guardian of those suffering from AIDS.
Asrai
Asrai or ashrays are water fairies. In some accounts they appear as beautiful maidens, tall and lithe with translucent skin, although they are in fact hundreds of years old.
Two almost identical tales from Shropshire and Cheshire in England tell of a fisherman dredging up an asrai, which seems to plead to be set free, but its language is incomprehensible. In one tale, the fisherman binds the asrai, and the touch of its cold, wet hands burns him, marking him for life. In both stories, the fisherman covers the asrai with wet weeds while it lies moaning in the bottom of the boat, but its moans grow fainter, and by the time the fisherman has reached shore it has melted away, leaving only a pool of water behind.
Aughisky
Pronounced agh-iski, this is the Irish water horse. In the Scottish Highlands it is known as each uisge.
According to W. B. Yeats in Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry (1888), aughisky were once common. They would come out of the water and gallop across the sands or fields, particularly in November. If you could manage to saddle and bridle them, they made the finest horses. However, you had to ride them inland, for at the first glimpse of salt water they would gallop headlong into it, taking their rider deep into the sea to devour them. It was also said that untamed aughisky devoured cattle from the fields.
Aveline
In Andrew Lang’s story of the Princess Minon-Minette in The Pink Fairy Book (1897), Aveline is an industrious fairy godmother to the princess, unlike Girouette in the same tale, who carelessly neglects her prince’s upbringing. It is due to the ever-vigilant and ingenious magic of Aveline that the prince and princess survive and literally rise above their ordeals, finally finding each other once again as they float through the air.
Awd Goggie
In Yorkshire, England, children were warned to keep away from orchards for fear that Awd Goggie, a wicked sprite who protected woods and orchards, would “get them.”
See alsoAppletree Man (#ulink_c3abf985-e387-55ed-bb44-82b0eed17485), Nursery Bogies (#litres_trial_promo).
Aziza
This forest-dwelling African race of fairies is from the kingdom of Dahomey, in the present-day Republic of Benin. The Aziza are benevolent, providing help and magic to hunters. Playing a role similar to that of Prometheus in Greek mythology, they are said to have imparted practical or spiritual knowledge to humans, including the use of fire. Living in anthills and silk-cotton trees, they are usually described as being hairy little people.
Baba Yaga
In Slavic mythology Baba Yaga is an ambiguous supernatural entity, residing deep in the forest in a hut supported by giant, yellow chicken legs. The hut has no windows or visible entrance until the phrase “Turn your back to the forest, your front to me” is uttered, when it revolves to reveal the door. Surrounding the hut is a fence on which skulls are impaled.
In Russian folk tales Baba Yaga is described as an ugly and deformed old hag with a long nose, iron teeth, and bony legs, who takes delight in frightening, and possibly devouring, children. Her bed is the enormous oven in which she supposedly cooks the children and she travels in a mortar, steering this strange craft with a pestle and sweeping away all traces of her passage with a silver birch broom.
The ambiguous nature of Baba Yaga is emphasized in some tales in which her wise words and helpfulness are sought. She is also portrayed as one of three sisters, all bearing the name of Baba Yaga. An altogether mysterious and controversial being.
Babi Ngepet
A demon boar in Javanese folk tales who is the manifestation of a human involved in the practice of the black arts, specifically in seeking to become rich by purloining the goods of neighbors in the guise of a pig.
The superstition is still current, as is evident in a recent news report on an Indonesian website concerning the arrest of a pig in Jompang, East Java, on suspicion of it being a babi ngepet (sindonews.com (http://sindonews.com), June 2013). Discussion ensues on how to distinguish between a pig and an “imitation,” concluding that only by killing it can its identity become clear: if it transforms into another creature, it is certainly a babi ngepet.
Bacalou
A Loa, or Haitian Voodoo spirit, much to be feared.
Bäckahäst
A Scandinavian water creature manifesting as a beautiful white horse in folk tales. The comeliness of his appearance lures unsuspecting victims to jump onto his back and then, unable to escape, they are pitched into the nearest water to drown.
Badalisc
A mythical creature of the Lombardy region of northern Italy. The badalisc is a bad-tempered, gossipy monster with a large head and big mouth. Each year at Epiphany he is “captured,” with much drum-banging and a cast of traditional characters to accompany the procession. Afterward, he is led around the village and a speech is read out on his behalf in which the sins and misdemeanors of the locals are laid bare.
Badb
(Also badhbh.) A collective name for the three Irish goddesses of war—Nemen, Macha, and Morrigu—possessing magical powers to create confusion, stir fury, and bestow courage to aid their chosen victors in battle. In The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries by W. Y. Evans-Wentz (1911), the badb are described thus:
… this Irish war-goddess, the bodb or badb, considered of old to be one of the Tuatha De Danann, has survived to our own day in the fairy-lore of the chief Celtic countries. In Ireland the survival is best seen in the popular and still almost general belief among the peasantry that the fairies often exercise their magical powers under the form of royston-crows; and for this reason these birds are always greatly dreaded and avoided. The resting of one of them on a peasant’s cottage may signify many things, but often it means the death of one of the family or some great misfortune, the bird in such a case playing the part of a bean-sidhe [banshee].
Badhbh
SeeBadb (#ulink_b7b316ee-2127-582f-9dd3-178021653869).
Bakru
In South American tradition a bakru is a tiny, childlike creature formed from wood and flesh, with a very large head. Protected by its wooden body, and with no brain of its own, it is a spirit to be feared for its ruthlessness. In Suriname there are several varieties of bakru, one of which is created by evil magicians to bring harm and even death to its victims.
Ballybog
(Or peat fairy.) Protectors of the peat bogs in Ireland, these little creatures are extremely unprepossessing in appearance, with bulgy, no-neck bodies supported on spindly legs, a froglike mouth full of long, pointy teeth and, due to their location, unsurprisingly covered in mud.
Balor of the Evil Eye
SeeFomorians (#litres_trial_promo).
Bannik
In Slavic folklore the bannik is the spirit of the banya, or bathhouse, an entity to be treated with the utmost respect and caution due to his violent tendencies if he and his demonic friends are angered or offended.
Banshee
(Or Bean-Sidh.) An Irish omen of death in the form of a weeping, wailing spirit, described, in the seventeenth-century Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe, as “a woman in white … with red hair and pale and ghastly complexion: … to me her body looked more like a thick cloud than substance. I was so much frightened, that my hair stood on end, and my night clothes fell off …” Lady Fanshawe was recounting her experience while staying with an old Irish family.
Tales of the Scottish banshee depict the banshee as deformed. In Popular Tales of the West Highlands (4 vols, 1860–1862), J. F. Campbell describes an old mill that is haunted by a banshee:
She was sitting on a stone, quiet, and beautifully dressed in a green silk dress, the sleeves of which were curiously puffed from the wrists to the shoulder. Her long hair was yellow, like ripe corn; but on nearer view, she had no nose.
