nbk2000
December 25th, 2003, 02:16 AM
Most people are familar with the word "Grinch", being associated with a codgerly green-furred creature that lives in a cave and hates christmas, but that, in the end, comes to love it after being taught the spirit of giving.
Awwwww....touching story...but that's not what a Grinch really is.
Virtually no one knows it, but the author of the Dr. Suess books was a student of old english mythology at Harvard, and that mythology was an inspiration for many of his stories.
The word "Grinch" is actually a contraction of old galech, "Grin 'ach", meaning "Smiling Demon".
While the exact nature of the Grinch isn't known with certainty, it's possible to infer from the large amount of stories in irish and scottish folklore, the countries from which the Grinch seems to have originated from, certain aspects of its behavior.
The green fur commonly mentioned in folklore is likely an evolutionary adaptation to the grassy hills of that region, allowing the Grinch to blend in with it's surroundings. Whether the Grinch's fur is actually green, or a symbiotic coating of green moss as is found in some species of sloths, or whether it is fur at all, is unknown.
From the association of the Grinch with christmas, as well as common references to how the Grinch is only seen during nighttime hours, would imply that the Grinch is a nocturnal creature.
Given how the winter solstice, the longest night of the year, is only a week away from christmas, the association with christmas becomes obvious, as any nocturnal creature would be most frequently active during this time.
Also, unlike the Grinch from the Dr. Suess stories, the Grinch in galech folklore was a decidedly unpleasant creature to encounter, as it was a predator.
Many stories about the Grinch ended with relatives, arriving late for christmas, finding the entire family as piles of bones contained within the sack of their intact skins, hidden around the house in various dark places, such as closets and underneath beds. This is also likely the orgin of such common folklore sayings as "Skeleton in the closet" and "Monsters under the bed".
Some people in old times had come close to the Grinch and survived to pass on what they had seen, as the Grinch apparently only attacks when it is alone with its victim, rather than when in a group as is common during family holidays.
From these few reports, it would seem that the Grinch has the ability to mimic it's previous victims appearance. This would appear impossible, requiring some kind of mimicing ability.
However, when you consider how the skins of victims have been found totally intact, head to toe, the reason for this is obvious...the Grinch takes the skin of its prey as its own.
It would appear that since the bones are still inside the skin, and not expelled, that the Grinch doesn't have a rigid skeleton of it's own, but rather a invertibrate body that allows it to flow into the space left behind inside of the skin once the organs and flesh are devoured.
The people who encountered the Grinch in its disguised form always noticed how the Grinch never spoke words, only imitating the sounds of those around it, such as laughter. This is entirely possible since parrots can imitate even speech, though something as complex as speech is beyond the capability of non-human lifeforms.
Given all these clues, the following scenario would seem plausible to explain these stories:
People would travel by carriage from the city to their family homes in the country for christmas. When they inevitably stopped at some point to relieve themselves, one of the party would be attacked and assimilated by the Grinch, which would assume their appearance.
The Grinch, seeking further prey, would then travel with the others, perhaps laughing when others laughed, but otherwise being silent. This would simply be passed off as a bad mood.
Upon arrival at the home, the Grinch would then simply wait until someone left the safety of the group, whereupon they would be attacked and assimilated, the discarded skin of the previous victim being hidden in a dark place where it'd likely not be quickly discovered, such places being under the bed or a closet.
The newly assimilated Grinch would then return to the group to watch for another opportunity to attack.
The cycle would repeat itself until either the last person was consumed, no doubt wondering where everyone else went to, or the last few people realized something was terribly wrong, at which point the Grinch would either flee (shedding it's disguise) and disappear into the surrounding wilderness, or attack the last few remaining victims and finishing them off.
While no Grinch has ever been found, probably because of it's highly evolved camouflage and unexpected nature, there are a few interesting possibilities that come to mind.
My personal theory is that the Grinch was a highly evolved form of slime mold. Being amorphous, slime mold would be able to flow into the voids of a hollowed-out corpse. This would also explain the green color noted by the few eyewitness accounts that have been attributed to fur.
As a mold, it would be highly vulnerable to damage, so as a predator it would have to attack its prey using stealth to ambush it, minimizing risk to its fragile body.
Being a mold would also explain its nocturnal nature, as sunlight is lethal to molds. Caves, as mentioned in the childrens story, would be a perpetually dark enviroment in which a mold could thrive.
Mold also typically emit noxious odors. This would explain the "Stink, Stank, Stunk" line from the song about the Grinch. Though no mention is made by the eyewitnesses of there being any unusual odors present. Perhaps the odor was being contained by the bag of skin that the Grinch was wearing at the time.
Given the large number of sheep found in the region, it would seem likely that the frequent predation of the sheep could be at least partially explained by a predator other than wolves, a nearly extinct species in that region, a "wolf" that could literally dress in sheeps clothing (skin) and approach a flock without alarming it, picking off the stragglers while all the while living amoungst them.
It's a curious fact that there's almost as many pigs as sheep being raised there, yet there's no reports of consumtion of the pig flesh by a possible Grinch, perhaps because the Grinch considers them too unclean to eat, even though it apparently will kill swine for sport.
How the Grinch transferred its prey model from sheep to humans I'll leave as an exercise for the reader. ;)
If such an intelligent form of predatory slime mold existed, it would require an entirely new classification to describe it.
I would call the newly discovered mold Naturalus B. Killium, to descibe both it's natural (not man-made) orgin, as well as its predatory nature.
+++++++++++++++
Hope you like the above story. I had a horrible nightmare that had me waking up shaking and panting about the above kind of "Grinch", in just the kind of scenario I described, so I thought I'd share it with you. :)
Naturally, being a dream, I lived a whole night with the Grinch as it was picking off my dream family, until I was the only one left, at which point it pounced and started slithering down my throat! :eek: This is the point I woke up gasping. Turns out I had a pillow over my face (I live alone :p), which would explain the gasping part.
Imagine the Grinch as the shape-shifting creature from the movie "The Thing", your home as the antarctic base, and you've got an idea of what I was dreaming about.
I could make one hell of a "Tales from the Crypt" episode out of it, let me tell you, but I think someone would likely sue me if I did. ;)
Notice all the little references I made to "wolf in sheeps clothing", "hiding in plain sight", sheep and pigs, etc. Layers upon layers...
Awwwww....touching story...but that's not what a Grinch really is.
Virtually no one knows it, but the author of the Dr. Suess books was a student of old english mythology at Harvard, and that mythology was an inspiration for many of his stories.
The word "Grinch" is actually a contraction of old galech, "Grin 'ach", meaning "Smiling Demon".
While the exact nature of the Grinch isn't known with certainty, it's possible to infer from the large amount of stories in irish and scottish folklore, the countries from which the Grinch seems to have originated from, certain aspects of its behavior.
The green fur commonly mentioned in folklore is likely an evolutionary adaptation to the grassy hills of that region, allowing the Grinch to blend in with it's surroundings. Whether the Grinch's fur is actually green, or a symbiotic coating of green moss as is found in some species of sloths, or whether it is fur at all, is unknown.
From the association of the Grinch with christmas, as well as common references to how the Grinch is only seen during nighttime hours, would imply that the Grinch is a nocturnal creature.
Given how the winter solstice, the longest night of the year, is only a week away from christmas, the association with christmas becomes obvious, as any nocturnal creature would be most frequently active during this time.
Also, unlike the Grinch from the Dr. Suess stories, the Grinch in galech folklore was a decidedly unpleasant creature to encounter, as it was a predator.
Many stories about the Grinch ended with relatives, arriving late for christmas, finding the entire family as piles of bones contained within the sack of their intact skins, hidden around the house in various dark places, such as closets and underneath beds. This is also likely the orgin of such common folklore sayings as "Skeleton in the closet" and "Monsters under the bed".
Some people in old times had come close to the Grinch and survived to pass on what they had seen, as the Grinch apparently only attacks when it is alone with its victim, rather than when in a group as is common during family holidays.
From these few reports, it would seem that the Grinch has the ability to mimic it's previous victims appearance. This would appear impossible, requiring some kind of mimicing ability.
However, when you consider how the skins of victims have been found totally intact, head to toe, the reason for this is obvious...the Grinch takes the skin of its prey as its own.
It would appear that since the bones are still inside the skin, and not expelled, that the Grinch doesn't have a rigid skeleton of it's own, but rather a invertibrate body that allows it to flow into the space left behind inside of the skin once the organs and flesh are devoured.
The people who encountered the Grinch in its disguised form always noticed how the Grinch never spoke words, only imitating the sounds of those around it, such as laughter. This is entirely possible since parrots can imitate even speech, though something as complex as speech is beyond the capability of non-human lifeforms.
Given all these clues, the following scenario would seem plausible to explain these stories:
People would travel by carriage from the city to their family homes in the country for christmas. When they inevitably stopped at some point to relieve themselves, one of the party would be attacked and assimilated by the Grinch, which would assume their appearance.
The Grinch, seeking further prey, would then travel with the others, perhaps laughing when others laughed, but otherwise being silent. This would simply be passed off as a bad mood.
Upon arrival at the home, the Grinch would then simply wait until someone left the safety of the group, whereupon they would be attacked and assimilated, the discarded skin of the previous victim being hidden in a dark place where it'd likely not be quickly discovered, such places being under the bed or a closet.
The newly assimilated Grinch would then return to the group to watch for another opportunity to attack.
The cycle would repeat itself until either the last person was consumed, no doubt wondering where everyone else went to, or the last few people realized something was terribly wrong, at which point the Grinch would either flee (shedding it's disguise) and disappear into the surrounding wilderness, or attack the last few remaining victims and finishing them off.
While no Grinch has ever been found, probably because of it's highly evolved camouflage and unexpected nature, there are a few interesting possibilities that come to mind.
My personal theory is that the Grinch was a highly evolved form of slime mold. Being amorphous, slime mold would be able to flow into the voids of a hollowed-out corpse. This would also explain the green color noted by the few eyewitness accounts that have been attributed to fur.
As a mold, it would be highly vulnerable to damage, so as a predator it would have to attack its prey using stealth to ambush it, minimizing risk to its fragile body.
Being a mold would also explain its nocturnal nature, as sunlight is lethal to molds. Caves, as mentioned in the childrens story, would be a perpetually dark enviroment in which a mold could thrive.
Mold also typically emit noxious odors. This would explain the "Stink, Stank, Stunk" line from the song about the Grinch. Though no mention is made by the eyewitnesses of there being any unusual odors present. Perhaps the odor was being contained by the bag of skin that the Grinch was wearing at the time.
Given the large number of sheep found in the region, it would seem likely that the frequent predation of the sheep could be at least partially explained by a predator other than wolves, a nearly extinct species in that region, a "wolf" that could literally dress in sheeps clothing (skin) and approach a flock without alarming it, picking off the stragglers while all the while living amoungst them.
It's a curious fact that there's almost as many pigs as sheep being raised there, yet there's no reports of consumtion of the pig flesh by a possible Grinch, perhaps because the Grinch considers them too unclean to eat, even though it apparently will kill swine for sport.
How the Grinch transferred its prey model from sheep to humans I'll leave as an exercise for the reader. ;)
If such an intelligent form of predatory slime mold existed, it would require an entirely new classification to describe it.
I would call the newly discovered mold Naturalus B. Killium, to descibe both it's natural (not man-made) orgin, as well as its predatory nature.
+++++++++++++++
Hope you like the above story. I had a horrible nightmare that had me waking up shaking and panting about the above kind of "Grinch", in just the kind of scenario I described, so I thought I'd share it with you. :)
Naturally, being a dream, I lived a whole night with the Grinch as it was picking off my dream family, until I was the only one left, at which point it pounced and started slithering down my throat! :eek: This is the point I woke up gasping. Turns out I had a pillow over my face (I live alone :p), which would explain the gasping part.
Imagine the Grinch as the shape-shifting creature from the movie "The Thing", your home as the antarctic base, and you've got an idea of what I was dreaming about.
I could make one hell of a "Tales from the Crypt" episode out of it, let me tell you, but I think someone would likely sue me if I did. ;)
Notice all the little references I made to "wolf in sheeps clothing", "hiding in plain sight", sheep and pigs, etc. Layers upon layers...