Tuesday, July 20, 2021

MONSTER MASHUPS #62

 In a story entitled "The Auction" in BORIS KARLOFF'S TALES OF MYSTERY #12, professional auctioneer Bentley is commissioned to preside over an auction at lonely Lochshire Castle. To his consternation, the items being auctioned are full of black magic associations, and the bidders appear to be nothing less than "the living dead."





Bentley identifies only two species of spectre, "ghouls" and "vampires," though there's no telling what the artist had in mind when he drew the above images of a colorfully clad dwarf and a bald guy with pointed ears. Vague as these "modern-day spectres of evil" are, there's just enough diversity there to judge them "allomythic."


However, the more interesting aspect of the story is the writer's catalogue of weird objects. Not everyone would deem "occult artifacts" to be "monsters" in their own right, but I would invoke the famed short story "The Monkey's Paw" as precedent. Bentley's evil auction-items mentions only one artifact that arises from traditional myth, a "Medusa shield" which is based on the aegis of Athena, a shield donned with Medusa's head. Other items include a hangman's rope, a pierced knight's helmet, and a black panther that may or may not be alive, all of which are apparently capable of being used for evil purposes. I've seen just two examples of "catalogues of famous weapons" in literature. One is the 12th century Welsh story "Kulwych and Olwen," in which King Arthur boasts of four great weapons, and the 17th-century allegory "Pilgrim's Progress," in which the protagonist enters an armory full of weapons from the Bible, such as Samson's jawbone-of-an-ass, et al. But "The Auction" might be the first mashup of monstrous artifacts.

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