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Tolkien complained that critics studiously overlooked the monsters at the centre of Beowulf. I wonder whether we have done something similar with the Odyssey. We ask where the monsters lived, what inspired them, or whether they were based on real places. These are interesting questions, but perhaps not the most important ones...

Part 5 of my Odyssey Monsters: Afterlives series, tracking their evolutions across art and literature. Previous posts: Polyphemus, The Laestrygonians, The Sirens, Scylla Ulysses and the Scylla, wood engraving, published 1880 The sister peril to Scylla that Odysseus faces is Charybdis. On the opposite side of the narrow strait through which he had to pass was a monstrous whirlpool that swallowed and regurgitated the sea three times a day. Faced with the choice between them, Ci

Part 4 of my Odyssey Monsters: Afterlives series, tracking their evolutions across art and literature. Previous posts: Polyphemus, The Laestrygonians, The Sirens | Next up: Charybdis Scylla. Detail from side A from a Boeotian red-figure bell-crater, 450–425 BC Scylla may not enjoy the fame of Medusa or the Minotaur, but her legacy survives in one familiar expression. The phrase ‘between Scylla and Charybdis’, means a choice between two equally dangerous alternatives. Sc

Part 3 of my Odyssey Monsters: Afterlives series, tracking their evolutions across art and literature. Previous posts: Polyphemus, The Laestrygonians | Next up: Scylla and Charybdis Ask someone to picture a siren and they’ll probably imagine a beautiful mermaid perched on a rock, combing her long tresses as she lures sailors to their doom. The Sirens of the Odyssey were something rather different, however. Homer didn’t actually describe the Sirens’ appearance at all, onl

Part 2 of my Odyssey Monsters: Afterlives series, tracking their evolutions across art and literature. Previous post: Polyphemus | Next posts: The Sirens, Scylla, Charybdis Illustration by John Flaxman for the Odyssey, 1810 Unlike other Odyssey monsters, the Laestrygonians remain unchanged and obscure. While Scylla, Polyphemus, and the Sirens have evolved in art and literature, the Laestrygonians have not. They are often overlooked in visual culture and textual tradition.

Part 1 of my Odyssey Monsters: Afterlives series, tracking their evolutions across art and literature. Next posts: The Laestrygonians, The Sirens, Scylla, Charybdis Odilon Redon, The Cyclops 1898–1914 Today, Polyphemus is known only as the gullible cannibal of Homer’s epic: the hulking Cyclops who trapped Odysseus in his cave and devoured his men, before being outwitted by the hero’s inventive use of sheep. One of the defining encounters of the Odyssey, it also makes Polyph

What if the Minotaur didn't have to be a monster? This is a reimagining of the Minotaur's story that I first wrote over a decade ago for the Douglas Adams Prize, which has evolved over the years.

For early modern Europeans, the unicorn was not just a creature of legend but a matter of fact. Its horn, or “alicorn,” was believed to cure all ailments and protect against poison. In reality, these miraculous substances often came from narwhals from the Arctic seas, which caused quite the marketing challenge when the connection started to come to light...

This is the story of how an unassuming bird on a small island off the coast of Africa became entangled with the first truly global corporation and came to symbolise capitalist greed.

An irreverent reworking of Medusa’s myth. I first wrote this over a decade ago and unearthed it while researching her story again.

Thoughts on writing for a disappearing nature: how monsters became my refuge from environmental loss.

Why do unicorns and mythical creatures still captivate us? This essay explores what monsters - from medieval bestiaries to modern pop culture - reveal about the disenchantment of the modern world and the needs of our imaginations. If you go hunting through the bestiaries of the Middle Ages and the encyclopaedic natural histories of the Renaissance and early Enlightenment, you’ll discover a cornucopia of fantastical beasts. Some are familiar, others seem utterly absurd: man

Welcome to The Manticore. Thank you for stepping into my virtual cabinet of curiosities. This blog — named after the chimerical mythical beast — is a space where I explore things that cross boundaries, don’t quite fit, and reveal our subconscious worlds: monsters, myths, and natural oddities. It’s where I write about the strange and the sacred, the uncanny and the unseen — and why these things still matter so much. If you’ve read my book, Enchanted Creatures, you’ll know I’m