Essay On The Coloquium Monstrorum

I Ain’t Afraid of No Curse Throughout the Colloquium Monstrorum, I noticed connections between a few of the different monsters. Specifically, connections between the Baba Yaga, the Wendigo, the Werewolf, and Medusa. The monsters exhibit individual connections of female power, european origin, witchcraft, the devil, and cannibalism, but overall, they all share the common qualities of being cursed, their unattractiveness, and being human. While many monsters lectured about during the Colloquium Monstrorum display individual connections, these four expand beyond that and have overlapping and general connections, as well as individual ones. All of the monsters mentioned above exhibit unattractive appearances and the quality of being cursed. Baba Yaga and Medusa both started out as pretty girls who were cursed to a life of ugliness. Medusa, with her “gold hair, green eyes, and perfect skin” was cursed by Athena to have “serpents for hair, eyes that turned people to stone, and the body of a woman” (Medusa, lecture). Baba Yaga was “cursed when she was a pretty girl (to have) metal teeth, a broom, a big nose, warts, and bony fingers …show more content…
“The legend of the Wendigo originates from Native American culture” (Wendigo, written). The tribes it has been most affiliated with are all found in the Northern United States and Canada. Contrastly, Medusa, the Werewolf and Baba Yaga are all of European descent, found in Ancient Greece, Rome, and Russian/Slavic cultures. Additionally, the Werewolf, Wendigo, and Baba Yaga have cannibalistic tendencies. The Werewolf was said to “dig up corpses and eat babies,” (Werewolf, lecture) while the Wendigo is constantly “ravenous for human flesh” (Wendigo, written). Baba Yaga gruesomely “grinds up bones and eats children” for fun (Lyttle). In all three tales, cannibalism is found to be sinful and punishments are dictated specifically towards Werewolves and