幻獣辞典（私家版）
[Header Image Credit] Simurgh in Persian mythology via Pinterest
My usual gibberish…
仮定
If I were authorized to add three more imaginary beings to
"El libro de los seres imaginarios" (Jorge Luis Borges)
⁉️💫
私家版
Such a bizarre question had better be dismissed, instead I would develop a privately printed edition.
To get straight to the conclusion, I would add the following three beings:
王蟲
めげゾウ
八咫烏
ヨゲンノトリ
I would not go down the path of including all Yōkai depicted by 水木しげる Shigeru Mizuki or those photographed by Charles Fréger.
（選外）ヨゲンノトリ Yogen-no-tori
I'm inclined to add Yogen-no-tori ヨゲンノトリ, which is deemed to be an imaginary being for B-side.
③ 八咫烏 Yatagarasu
八咫烏 Yatagarasu won't require any explanation for those born in the Land of the Rising Sun. Let me add a remark that Three-legged crow 三足烏 is common in mythologies in East Asia.
② めげゾウ Megezō
めげゾウ Megezō is a unique character that appears in Iblard イバラード by Naohisa Inoue 井上直久, a fantasy artist influenced by both the Surrealism and Impressionism movements. I don't have detailed information about Megezō, but it reveals its nature immediately through its appearance.
Image via Pinterest
① 王蟲 Ohmu
There's absolutely no need to explain the 王蟲 Ohmu. If you're unfamiliar, please read Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind.
追加したい候補、但し不適切…
Whilst it would be deemed inappropriate, If I were to choose some peculiar people or tribe in my biased opinion, I would nominate the following two:
Sama-Bajau: The following article is highly informative⬇️
Standing Baba (or Khareshwari, a Hindu who has vowed to stand, not sitting or lying down even to sleep): I learned this in "Shantaram" by Gregory David Roberts, an extremely interesting book, regardless of whether it is educationally appropriate or not🙄
幻獣辞典
"El libro de los seres imaginarios" (by Jorge Luis Borges) covers diverse array of imaginary beings across a broad spectrum.
While Harpy, Simurgh, Siren, Ouroboros, Unicorn, etc. are all expected to be described, it's particularly interesting to find the followings:
Laudatores Temporis Acti
This is a Latin phrase meaning "praisers of past times," describing people who idealize bygone eras. It is not necessarily exciting but strange…and that such a word was registered suggests it meant something unfathomable.
Those despicable individuals who seek to resurrect the Third Reich are beyond consideration and should not be equated with nostalgics❌
Odradek
For some reason, I had mistakenly remembered Odradek and Gnomus, which is the theme between 1st and 2nd Promenade in the piano suite "Pictures at an Exhibition" by Modest Mussorgsky, as being the same, though they are completely different😓
At first glance it looks like a flat star-shaped spool for thread, and indeed it does seem to have thread wound upon it; to be sure, they are only old, broken-off bits of thread, knotted and tangled together, of the most varied sorts and colors. But it is not only a spool, for a small wooden crossbar sticks out of the middle of the star, and another small rod is joined to that at a right angle. By means of this latter rod on one side and one of the points of the star on the other, the whole thing can stand upright as if on two legs.
一説によると、オドラデクという言葉はスラブ語系であり、その出自を根拠として語の成立が説明される。しかし他の説では、これはドイツ語から派生しており、スラブ語からは影響を受けただけだ、ということになっている。どちらの解釈も何やら頼りなげなのは、両方とも違っている証拠と考えてもよさそうで、何より、どちらの解釈に即して見ても、この言葉の意味は分明にならないのである。
もちろん、こんな詮索に首を突込む人間が出てくるのは、現実に、オドラデクなるものが存在していればこそである。それは一見したところ、扁平な星形の糸巻のように見え、また事実、糸が巻きつけてあるようでもある。…
解説より
The translator's afterword for this book is quite fascinating, which one can easily guess just by looking at the translator's name: 柳瀬尚紀💫
……
事実、ホルヘ・ルイス・ボルヘスの読者は少ない。あるタキトゥス読者の推定によると、それはヘミングウェイの一四〇四一分の一である。一四〇四一という数はアルゼンチンでは«número capicúa» と称され、それ自体が円環を成す吉兆の数である。彼自身、読者が少ないことを吉、幸福としている。それは作家にとってかけがえのない孤独を侵されないからであり、彼のいう「作家の身売り」が不可能となるからである。（日本の花柳界から出た語に「売れっ子」という言葉があり、これはすべての意味でボルヘスと正反対の作家をいう。）なお、十四という数は彼が取り憑かれているように思われる神秘的な数で、作品のなかにしばしば現われ、無限を象徴する。
……
この驚くほど充実した名をもつ怪物を神（もしくは神々）は怒り（もしくは恐れ）、彼を盲目とした。スフィンクスの謎を解いたオイディプス、名高い予言者テイレ―シアス、大詩人ホメロスやミルトン（四十四歳で両眼失明）、日本の「記憶の人」塙保己一（五歳で失明）、日本に帰化した唐の高僧鑑真、未来の書『フィネガンズ・ウェイク』のジョイス……これら一連の名前は、肉眼だけはたしかに使いものになるわれわれに一種の戦きを与えずにはおかない。
パンサーの宿敵が竜であるように、われわれの怪物ホルヘ・ルイス・ボルヘスの宿敵は鏡である。この鏡はダンテの四重の意味すべてにおいて解釈しうる。しかし端的にいえば、彼が鏡を恐れるのはおそらくそれが一切をたちどころに捕え、封じ込め、瞬時も解き放しはしないからであろう。半盲の彼が鏡を恐れるのは奇妙である。鏡を恐れるべきなのはむしろわれわれではあるまいか。なぜならわれわれはトゥンク＝ポクのいったように、「日毎に小さく虚弱になっている」。
¿Por qué demonios aparece aquí un «número capicúa»?
N.B. by Roshanak:【英】palindromic number, 【日】回文数
Wikipedia for capicúa (en español) contains the following image, which must tell something:
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en
14041 is certainly a palindromic number, but not prime: 14041 = 19 × 739.
However, the following palindromic numbers are prime:
On the other hand, 41041 = 7 × 11 × 13 × 41 is a very interesting number, called Carmichael number, and is the smallest one consisting of 4 distinct prime factors.
Computation of j(√−14) plays a crucial role in Kurt Heegner's proof of the Baker-Heegner-Stark theorem on imaginary quadratic fields of class number 1（虚二次体の類数問題）. For details, refer to the following book:
Primes of the Form x²+ny² (by David A. Cox)
インターネット妖怪図鑑
In a broad sense, the series of articles by 神北うらら様 can be considered a contemporary version of 幻獣辞典 of AI age⬇️
P.S. The following image (via Pinterest) is not identified as Simurgh, but an artwork by Ostad Mahmoud Farshschian, an Iranian painter and educator, a master of Persian miniature painting, who died on 9th August 2025🙏
He is one of my favorite artists. Here is one of his masterpiece✨⬇️
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