Balladeer’s Blog resumes its examination of the macabre 1868 French language work The Songs of Maldoror. This time around our main character encounters a fellow supernatural being with a horrific origin story.
THE AMPHIBIOUS MAN
This 7th Stanza of the 4th Canto from The Songs of Maldoror finds Maldoror standing on a rocky outcropping along a seashore. It is sunset on a summer day and his preternatural senses have enabled him to spot a strange figure off in the distance. With his usual contempt for humanity Maldoror notices that none of the mere mortals in the vicinity have detected the strange being swimming in the sea.
The figure in question is a naked man with a mostly human body but short, stubby arms and legs plus webbed hands and feet. A huge dorsal fin protrudes from the amphibious man’s back and various schools of fish follow in his wake like he is their leader. The strange hybrid figure frolics with porpoises and outperforms them at leaping from the sea and diving spectacularly back into the water, resurfacing hundreds of meters away.
Three normal human beings have made the mistake of lingering too near Maldoror and commenting on how they cannot make out what the monstrous man sees in the far-off waves. Our vile protagonist grows annoyed at their slack-jawed incomprehension and – particularly perturbed at this open-mouthed confusion – kills them by breaking their jaws. He wrenches them apart so far that the three twitch for a time and then die, and Maldoror admires his handiwork, joking about how outrageously abnormal the corpses look with their jaws ripped open so widely. Continue reading
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