User:OppsieDaisy/Ghoul

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In ancient mesopetamia, there was a monster called 'Gallu' that could be regarded as one of the origins of the arabic ghoul Gallu was an Akkadian demon of the underworld responsible for the abduction of vegetation god Damuzi to the realm of death.

according to the prophet Muhammad, ghouls are demons or enchantresses of genies that hurt humans by eating or spoiling food to frightening travelers when they are in the wilderness.

other muslim scholars, like abī al-sheikh al-aşbahânī, describe the ghoul as a kind of female demon that was able to change its shape and appear to travelers in the wilderness to delude and harm.

the word ghoul entered the english tradition and was further identified as a grave robbing creature that feeds on dead bodies and children. In the west ghouls have no specific and have been described by Edgar Allen Poe as "neither man nor woman... neither brute nor human."

ghouls in fiction

Pickman's Model a H.P Lovecraft short story, a ghoul is a member of a subterranean race. Their adherence to an exclusive diet of dead human flesh mutated them into beastial humanoids able to carry on intelligent conversations with the living. H.P Lovecraft's Pickman's Model has ghouls set underground with ghoul tunnels that connect ancient human ruins with deep underworlds. H.P Lovecraft hints that the ghouls emerge in subway tunnels to eat on train wreck victims.

Ghouls also appear in the role-playing game "Dungeons and Dragons" as monstrous dead humans who smell like dead flesh. they eat the living and can paralyze their prey with touch.