We are at the letter W today for the AtoZ Challenge. Whew! We're down to the final letters on for this challenge. Yes! For the Under the Sea Myths & Legends, I thought about many different myths such as another type of Water Sprites and other types of whales but then decided to post about a fictional creature who embodies the idea of myth.
J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy series The Lord of the Ring took the concept of myth with it's fictional Middle-earth world of creatures, places, and beings and created an epic tale that felt mysterious, ancient and a tad real at times. This series is a masterpiece on how a fictional story can create the illusion of lore and legends.
The sea monster, Watcher of the Water appears in The Fellowship of the Ring, where he's lives in a lake near the entrance to the dwarf-realm Moria. The description of the creature is a monstrous underwater beast with mass amounts of tentacles and a head that could be comparable to that of a spider. He has razor sharp teeth and his tentacles can slice it's prey dead. That's the general appearance of the monster, but usually, when it came to Tolkien, he could take a creature like an octopus and revamp it into something that could devour a Kraken.
I found this in-depth character review of the Watcher of the Water. It's incredibly entertaining and I highly recommend it if you're a fantasy-geek like me.
In this video, it references one of Gandolf's famous quotes about the unknown darkness that lurks deep within the Moria mountain and on Middle-Earth. In The Fellowship of the Ring, Gandolf says, "There are older and fouler things than Orcs in the deep places of the world." When I think about the sea and the vast amounts of creatures burrowed deep--both known and unknown, I can't help but wonder the very same thing. I suspect Tolkien thought the same thing.
That's it for the letter W. If you missed yesterday, check out another Slavic lore creature called Vodyanoy.
1 comment:
I remember that thing and I've always thought the same thing about the sea. So much of it is still unexplored. Who knows what's down there?!
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