Creature Feature: The Gulon

OK, folks, this next one is not for the faint of heart. If nothing else, you’ll get an idea how deeply juvenile my sense of humor can be!

Today’s creature is the Gulon, a monster with rather disgusting habits found in the folklore of Sweden.

It is described as looking somewhere between a lion and a hyena with a fox’s tail and long, razor-sharp claws. It lives mainly on carrion. If that’s not disgusting enough, wait’ll you hear about its eating habits.

Its general modus operandi is to eat until it is painfully full, body swollen and distended. The only way it can, er, ease its pain is to find two trees that grow close together. It squeezes itself between the narrow gap, thus forcing out the buildup of gases from its body and enabling it to feed again.

Yeah, that’s right. It eats until it’s bloated. Then it makes itself fart in order to keep eating.

Though its flesh is never eaten (jeez, I wonder why?), its blood was said to have aphrodisiac properties and was sometimes served, mixed with honey, at weddings.

Yum.

Sources:
- Elemental Encyclopedia of Magical Creatures, by John and Caitlin Matthews
- Wikipedia.com