Monopod (creature)

{{Short description|Mythological humanoids with a single leg}} [[Image:Nuremberg chronicles - Strange People - Umbrella Foot (XIIr).jpg|thumb|Illustration from the ''Nuremberg Chronicle'', 1493]] thumb|upright=0.8|Sciapod protecting himself from the sun by the shade of his foot. In margin of "Heures à l'usage des Antonins", 15th century. Attributed to the "Maître du Prince de Piémont". [[Image:Sculpture.dialectique.cathedrale.Sens.png|thumb|upright=0.8|A stone image of a monopod (bottom), from the Cathédrale Saint-Étienne de Sens]] '''Monopods''' (also called '''sciapods, skiapods, skiapodes''') were mythological dwarf-like creatures with a single, large foot extending from a leg centred in the middle of their bodies. The names ''monopod'' and ''skiapod'' (σκιάποδες) are both Greek, respectively meaning "one-foot" and "shadow-foot".

==Ancient Greek and Roman literature ==

Monopods appear in Aristophanes' play ''The Birds'', first performed in 414 BC.<ref>Aristophanes. The Birds, ln. 1554</ref> They are described by Pliny the Elder in his ''Natural History'', where he reports travelers' stories from encounters or sightings of Monopods in India. Pliny remarks that they are first mentioned by Ctesias in his book ''Indika'' (India), a record of the view of Persians of India which only remains in fragments. Pliny describes Monopods like this:

{{quote|He [Ctesias] speaks also of another race of men, who are known as Monocoli, who have only one leg, but are able to leap with surprising agility. The same people are also called Sciapodae, because they are in the habit of lying on their backs, during the time of the extreme heat, and protect themselves from the sun by the shade of their feet.<ref>Pliny the Elder. Natural History VII:2</ref>}}

Philostratus mentions Skiapodes in his ''Life of Apollonius of Tyana'', which was cited by Eusebius in his ''Treatise Against Hierocles''. Apollonius of Tyana believes the Skiapodes live in India and Ethiopia, and asks the Indian sage Iarkhas about their existence.

St. Augustine (354–430) mentions the "Skiopodes" in ''The City of God'', Book 16, Chapter 8 entitled "Whether Certain Monstrous Races of Men Are Derived From the Stock of Adam or Noah's Sons",<ref>Augustine, [https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf102.iv.XVI.8.html Chapter 8. — Whether Certain Monstrous Races of Men Are Derived From the Stock of Adam or Noah's Sons]</ref> and mentions that it is uncertain whether such creatures exist.

==Ancient Chinese literature ==

The monopod (kuí 夔) is referred to in the Zhuangzi:

{{quote|The monopod envies the millipede; the millipede envies the snake; the snake envies the wind. […] The monopod said to the millipede, “I just go hippety-flopping on one foot, and am inferior to everyone. How do you manage those ten thousand feet of yours?” The millipede said, “It’s not like that. Haven’t you seen a man spit? He just hawks and—drops big as pearls! fine as mist! Mixing and falling! You can’t count them all! I just put my heavenly mechanism into motion. I don’t know how it works!” <ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=z663EAAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y |title=Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy |publisher=Hackett Publishing Company |author=Ivanhoe, P. J., & Van Norden, B. W. (translators) |year=2023 |page=259 |isbn=1647921090 }}</ref>}}

== Medieval literature ==

Reference to the legend continued into the Middle Ages, for example with Isidore of Seville in his ''Etymologiae'', where he writes:

{{quote|The race of Sciopodes are said to live in Ethiopia; they have only one leg, and are wonderfully speedy. The Greeks call them σκιαπόδες ("shade-footed ones") because when it is hot they lie on their backs on the ground and are shaded by the great size of their foot.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3ep502syZv8C |title=The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville |publisher=Cambridge University Press |author=Barney, Stephen A. et al (translators) |year=2006 |page=245 |isbn=9781139456166 }}</ref>}}

The Hereford Mappa Mundi, drawn c. 1300, shows a sciapod on one side of the world,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://cartographic-images.net/Cartographic_Images/226_The_Hereford_Mappamundi.html |title=The Hereford Mappamundi |access-date=14 June 2014}}</ref> as does a world map drawn by Beatus of Liébana (c. 730 – c. 800).<ref>Beato del Burgo de Osma (c. 750–800). ''Hereford Mappa Mundi.'' Folios 34v-35.</ref>

=== Einfœtingr of Canada ===

A race of the "One-Legged",<ref name="eiriks_saga-kunz-tr"/> or the "Uniped" ({{langx|non|einfœtingr}})<ref name="steensby"/><ref name="eiriks_saga-beamish-tr"/> was allegedly encountered by Thorfinn Karlsefni and his group of Icelandic settlers in North America in the early 11th century, according to ''Eiríks saga rauða'' (''Saga of Erik the Red'').{{Refn|group="lower-alpha"|It was also noted by C. C. Rafn that ''Rímbegla'' (end of 12th century, published 1780) mentions a population of Unipeds (''einfœtingjar'') dwelling in Bláland in Aethiopia.<ref>{{harvp|Beamish|1841|p=100}}, note *, ''apud'' Rafn, Carl Christian (1837) [https://books.google.com/books?id=OY-ad-UakxcC&pg=PA158 p. 158]</ref>}} The presence of "''unipedes maritimi''" in Greenland was marked on Claudius Clavus's map dated 1427.<ref>{{harvp|Steensby|1918|p=195}}, note 2''apud'' Storm, Gustav (1887) [https://books.google.com/books?id=hpEuAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA317 p. 317]</ref>

According to the saga, Karlsefni Thorvald Eiriksson and others assembled a search party for Thorhall, and sailed around Kjalarnes and then south. After sailing for a long time, while moored on the south side of a west-flowing river, they were shot at by a one-footed man (''einfœtingr''), and Thorvald died from an arrow wound.<ref name="eiriks_saga-kunz-tr"/>

The saga goes on to relate that the party went northward and approached what they guessed to be Einfœtingaland ("Land of the One-Legged" or "Country of the Unipeds").<ref name="eiriks_saga-kunz-tr"/><ref name="eiriks_saga-beamish-tr"/>

== Origin == According to Carl A. P. Ruck, the Monopods' cited existence in India refers to the Vedic Aja Ekapad ("Not-born Single-foot"), an epithet for Soma. Since Soma is a botanical deity the single foot would represent the stem of an entheogenic plant or fungus.<ref>{{cite journal | url=https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0378-8741%2881%2990034-9 | doi=10.1016/0378-8741(81)90034-9 | title=Mushrooms and philosophers | date=1981 | last1=Ruck | first1=Carl A.P. | journal=Journal of Ethnopharmacology | volume=4 | issue=2 | pages=179–205 | pmid=7031377 | url-access=subscription }}</ref>

John of Marignolli (1338–1353) provides another explanation of these creatures. Quote from his travels from India:<ref>{{Cite book|title=Cathay and the way thither: being a collection of medieval notices of China VOL. II|last=Yule |first=Sir Henry|publisher=The Hakluyt Society|year=1913|location=London|pages=257}}</ref> {{Quote|text=The truth is that no such people do exist as nations, though there may be an individual monster here and there. Nor is there any people at all such as has been invented, who have but one foot which they use to shade themselves withal. But as all the Indians commonly go naked, they are in the habit of carrying a thing like a little tent-roof on a cane handle, which they open out at will as a protection against sun or rain. This they call a chatyr; I brought one to Florence with me. And this it is which the poets have converted into a foot.|sign=Giovanni de' Marignolli|source=}}

In a 2025 article, Karl Brandt proposed that the legend of the Monopod may have been inspired by the remains of thresher sharks with the elongated caudal fin resembling a single giant foot. The long-held belief, dating at least as far back as Pliny the Elder's ''Natural History'', that every land animal had a counterpart in the sea, and vice versa, may have contributed to the legend.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Brandt |first=Karl|title=The Hammer and the Headless |journal=The Historians Magazine |date=October 2025|issue=25 |page=37}}</ref>

== Fiction ==

===''Chronicles of Narnia''=== C. S. Lewis features monopods in the book ''The Voyage of the Dawn Treader'', a part of his children's series ''The Chronicles of Narnia''.

In the story, a tribe of foolish dwarves known as Duffers inhabit a small island near the edge of the Narnian world along with a magician named Coriakin, who has transformed them into monopods as a punishment. They have become so unhappy with their appearance that they have made themselves invisible. They are (re)discovered by explorers from the Narnian ship, the ''Dawn Treader'', which has landed on the island to rest and resupply, and at their request Lucy Pevensie makes them visible again. Through confusion between their old name, "Duffers", and their new name of "Monopods", they become known as the "Dufflepuds".<ref>{{cite book |title=The Voyage of the Dawn Treader |publisher=Puffin |author=Lewis, C.S. |author-link=C.S. Lewis |year=1965 |orig-year=1952 |pages=114–124, 139–147}}</ref>

According to Brian Sibley's book ''The Land of Narnia'', Lewis may have based their appearance on drawings from the ''Hereford Mappa Mundi''.

===''Baudolino''=== Umberto Eco in his novel ''Baudolino'' describes a sciapod named Gavagai. The name of the creature "Gavagai" is a reference to Quine's example of indeterminacy of translation.

===''The Name of the Rose''=== In Umberto Eco's novel ''The Name of the Rose'', the abbey's chapter house is decorated with carvings of "the inhabitants of unknown worlds," including "sciopods, who run swiftly on their single leg and when they want to take shelter from the sun stretch out and hold up their great foot like an umbrella."<ref>{{cite book |title=The Name of the Rose |publisher=Harcourt Brace and Company |author=Eco, Umberto |author-link=Umberto Eco |year=1994 |orig-year=1980 |pages=336–337}}</ref>

== Explanatory notes == {{notelist}}

==References== ;Citations {{reflist|30em|refs=

<ref name="eiriks_saga-kunz-tr">{{cite book|last=Kunz |first=Keneva (tr.)|author-link= |title=Eirik the Red's Saga (Ch. 11–12) |work=The Saga of Icelanders: A Selection |location=New York |publisher=Viking |year=2000 |url= |pages=671–672|isbn=9780670889907}} [https://books.google.com/books?id=vdfxwlfIBJsC&q=One-legged 2005 e-text edition]</ref>

<ref name="eiriks_saga-beamish-tr">{{cite book|editor-last=Beamish |editor-first=North Ludlow |editor-link=North Ludlow Beamish |chapter=Saga of Thorfinn Karlsefne |title=The Discovery of America by the Northmen: In the Tenth Century |location=London |publisher=T. and W. Boone |year=1841 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LeVCAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA101 |pages=100–102}}, after C. C. Rafn's edition.</ref>

<ref name="steensby">{{citation|last=Steensby |first=H. P. |author-link=Hans Peder Steensby |title=Norsemen´s Route to Wineland |journal=Meddelelser om Grønland |volume=56 |date=1918 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TtUdAQAAIAAJ&q=uniped |page=194-196}}; [https://ia902304.us.archive.org/13/items/meddelelseromgr561918denm/meddelelseromgr561918denm.pdf entire volume (pdf)]</ref> }}

==External links== {{Commons category|Sciapod}} * http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/monster_list.html * http://www.henry-davis.com/MAPS/EMwebpages/207.1mono.html * http://www.westgallerychurches.com/Suffolk/indexsflk.html * https://web.archive.org/web/20061205213734/http://www.kunst.no/mono/panot/utgivelser.htm

Category:Mythic humanoids Category:Fantasy creatures Category:Greek legendary creatures Category:Medieval European legendary creatures Category:Mythological peoples Category:Legendary tribes in classical historiography Category:Legendary creatures with absent body parts Category:Indian characters in Greek mythology Category:Ethiopian characters in Greek mythology