Welcome to The Manticore

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 interested in what monsters can teach us about our minds, our identities, and how we relate to the more-than-human world. This is a place to keep following those paths, into new territories.

Expect short essays, reflections, curiosities, and important news.

I’ll be migrating selected posts from my older blog that some of you might follow (also The Manticore) here, and retiring that old beast. First up, a piece on the unicorn — once a ferocious and pugnacious horned monster, then a horned guardian of purity, and now commonly seen as glittery emoji icon. It asks: what do such evolutions show us about our cultural shifts? Why is it important to pay attention to the careers of such fanciful creatures?

If you’re curious, you can subscribe to updates here, or just drop by when you feel like exploring something interdisciplinary and unusual - folklore, mythology, natural history, and the monsters that connect them. I will only ever send extremely occasional emails, so don't worry about being spammed.

Thank you for visiting, and watch out for the claws.

— Natalie