Seanan McGuire (seanan_mcguire) wrote,
Seanan McGuire
seanan_mcguire
  • Mood: silly
  • Music: Ludo, "The Horror of Our Love."

From A to Z in the InCryptid Alphabet: G.

G is for GORGONS.

There are three types of gorgon. The lesser gorgon, best known for apologizing profusely when their hair bites someone; the Pliny's gorgon, larger in size and stronger in venom; and the greater gorgon, on whose back are many legends built. Most of them end with half the parties dead, and the other half turned to stone. Sometimes becoming a legend isn't exactly the best outcome you can hope for.

Carol is a lesser gorgon living in Manhattan. She likes sappy romances, exotic ice creams, and long walks in the reptile house at the local zoo. Her hobbies include bartending (she's working toward getting her license), antiquing, and collecting humorous salt and pepper shakers. She's been registered with several online dating sites for the last five years, trying to filter through the unspoken cues and secret codes to find a lesser gorgon male who might be interested in a romantic dinner next to the zoo's Burmese python enclosure. So far, she's found several snake enthusiasts, a few individuals with unexpected fetishes, and one Pliny's gorgon, whose hair didn't get along with hers. It's hard to be a mythological creature and have a healthy dating life in the modern age.

Gorgon hair insists on live feeding, which can get quite expensive, especially for the greater gorgons. Their hair can get big enough to eat rabbits.

No gorgon has ever taken human complaints about "bad hair days" even a little bit seriously.
Tags: discount armageddon, folklore is awesome, incryptid
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  • 40 comments

slothman

February 14 2012, 20:05:17 UTC 5 years ago

So each snake has its own digestive tract? There must be some interesting plumbing inside a gorgon’s head, or a pressing need to make sure the hair’s diet leads to extremely reliable regularity. How venomous is a lesser gorgon’s hair?

archangelbeth

February 14 2012, 23:35:37 UTC 5 years ago

Because medical trivia is a hobby, the sudden idea of "digestive tract for gorgon hair" is making me terribly curious. Perhaps it slowly digests -- and is extra acidic! -- so that no bones are left, and the nourishment leeches out into the rest of the body. Perhaps it goes to goop (bones and all) and meshes down around the neck, so that it feeds into the central stomach. (Look, cows burp up their food from one stomach to re-chew it and send it to the next; this would be no more gross, and might even be less-so, if one assumes it meshes below the taste buds.)

Or perhaps, owl-like, the snakes eventually barf up the undigestible bits (while there rest is simply diffused into the body). ...sorta like cats who catch mice and play The Godfather games on your pillow.

No matter which, it does strike me that gorgons might tend to be very cerebral, since they get so much extra nourishment around the brain-area? Extra oxy, too, if the snakes breathe. ...I wonder if a gorgon could submerge and hold her breath, but let her snakes breathe for her?

slothman

February 15 2012, 00:03:11 UTC 5 years ago

I don’t think there are any species that digest so completely that they have no excreta; I think the owl-pellet hypothesis is most workable. Having all those little channels available to clog up could lead to some very nasty problems (though that might account for the cranky dispositions of legendary gorgons).

With gorgons out there as a cryptid, that points to at least some cryptids being created, rather than evolved; having a need to separately feed the snakes and the human face would be a disadvantage. Doing full genome sequencing on a gorgon might have very interesting results!