Are Gnolls Derived From Any Real Mythology?

[Stormonu]

Good grief, what a bit of Necromancy.

I’ll have to check my copy of The Book of the Weird when I get home. I think a lot of the nature of D&D creatures were drawn from that, including gnolls.

 

[billd91]

Quite a shot across the bow for a first post. Makes me suspicious.

 

[Stormonu]

I low key

This has me wondering if it was a typo or referring to a former poster.

 

[Nebulous]

A word you're not going to hear much - if ever - is cynocephaly. Dog-headed men of myth and legend. Not werewolves, but literally men with the head of dogs (I'll extrapolate and include hyenas). Despite having a name and a presence in myth, it's not something that's ever caught on in popular culture (aside from DnD gnolls maybe)

You can read more about it here.

Who are the mysterious dog-headed men of myth & legend?

From Anubis to the cynocephali, dog-headed men crop up in myths around the world. But who are they and what do they represent? Click here to find out.

www.icysedgwick.com

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

Let me guess, the ENWorld forums used to have a dark background?

 

[darjr]

Let me guess, the ENWorld forums used to have a dark background?

Still does!

 

[Nebulous]

Actually, when poking around online regarding this, hyenas have more in common - according to modern science - with CATS than dogs. Jesus. I don't understand that at all looking at the things, they seem dog-like.

 

[Charlaquin]

Actually, when poking around online regarding this, hyenas have more in common - according to modern science - with CATS than dogs. Jesus. I don't understand that at all looking at the things, they seem dog-like.

Yeah, they’re pretty distantly related to cats though. All modern carnivora are either caniforms or feliforms. Dogs (along with bears, raccoons, walruses and all sorts of other things) are caniforms, while cats (along with meerkats, mongoose, and a lot of other things) are feliforms. Hyenas happen to be feliforms that, through convergent evolution, ended up with a lot of traits that are typically more characteristic of caniformia.

 

[Nebulous]

Yeah, they’re pretty distantly related to cats though. All modern carnivora are either caniforms or feliforms. Dogs (along with bears, raccoons, walruses and all sorts of other things) are caniforms, while cats (along with meerkats, mongoose, and a lot of other things) are feliforms. Hyenas happen to be feliforms that, through convergent evolution, ended up with a lot of traits that are typically more characteristic of caniformia.

That is interesting and informative @Charlaquin! In relation to this thread question though....dog headed and cat headed persons from ancient myth? Are gnolls derived from real mythology? Actual HYENAS...I can't see a correlation, but if you go much deeper, there are animal man analogies.

 

[RealAlHazred]

Fun fact: Animal-headed men go way back. The Nuremberg Chronicle (1493), being a total history of the entire world (as far as the publisher understood it at the time) had a section on the strange people you could find elsewhere. Among them were the "Dog-Heads."

Even better, some depictions of Saint Christopher depict him with a dog's head, which may have been because of a mistranslation of "Canaanite" as "canine."

NOTE: All images in the public domain.