Real-world's folklore and myth's Golems.

[Clistenes]

I have been searching around in order to get a good hold of how the Golems from real life's folklore and myth were, and the general impression I have gotten is:

The most popular golems, such as Prage's Judah Loew ben Bezalel's Golem and Chelm's Elijah Ba'al Shem's Golem seemed to be super-humanly strong and durable animated clay statues (they wouldn't serve as good protectors if they weren't more powerful than regular human beings, would they?). They don't seem to become flesh and blood humans while active...

Ibn Gabirol's female wooden golem seemed to be life-sized animated and articulated wooden puppet doll, able to do housework and maybe provide sexual services... I am not sure if, while active, she looked and felt like a normal woman (the suspicions of she providing sexual services points to that being the case) or if she remained an articulated wooden puppet doll (if her body turned a real human woman's flesh and wood while active, she wouldn't need limbs made of several pieces of wood articulated with hinges each...).

The golems described in several religious texts (like Rabbi Isaiah Horwitz's Shenei Luhot Ha-Berit), like the women made by Jacob's sons as sexual slaves and the goats and calfs created from clay by certain rabbis as sacrifices and food, seem to be 100% flesh and blood...

Do you know of any other version? Was there any golem able to speak? What about similar creatures from other traditions and cultures?

Thank you very much in advance...

[Beleriphon]

Hephaestus create bronze servitor statues to help his forge. He also golden and silver lions and dogs at the entrance of the palace of Alkinoos that would attack intruders.

[Clistenes]

Hephaestus create bronze servitor statues to help his forge. He also golden and silver lions and dogs at the entrance of the palace of Alkinoos that would attack intruders.

True, but these were divine creations... I was thinking of mortal creations...

I thought of the egyptian ushabti and of the chinese mingqui funerary figures and statues, but I think these were supposed to have a presence in the spiritual world only.

There are other examples of golem-like creatures made by egyptian magicians like small wax figurine of a crocodile that becomes a real crocodile thanks to a spell, and a clay statue created by a deceased man to punish his still-living wife, but the crocodile sounds like something similar to "Summon Monster" rather than a permanent golem, and the clay man was created by a deceased soul already dwelling among the gods, so it can't be considered a mortal creation...

There is also the japanese Shikigami, but these are immaterial, spiritual creations...

[gkathellar]

Pygmalion is a classic example, and the page linked lists similar cases in Greek myth.

It’s worth noting that the Greek mythological conception of the gods allows for them as inseparable from the person they’re helping - the gods are personifications as much as actual characters.

[Brother Oni]

There is also the japanese Shikigami, but these are immaterial, spiritual creations...

I think you mean the tsukumogami, where an object attains a spirit, typically through surviving a long time (99 or 100 years, although that value shouldn't be taken too literally).

[Clistenes]

I think you mean the tsukumogami, where an object attains a spirit, typically through surviving a long time (99 or 100 years, although that value shouldn't be taken too literally).

No, they are different: The Tsukumogami comes to being on its own, and it's always a physical object. The Shikigami is created on purpose with magic, and it's an spirit (it can possess objets, animals and persons, though...).

[gkathellar]

No, they are different: The Tsukumogami comes to being on its own, and it's always a physical object. The Shikigami is created on purpose with magic, and it's an spirit (it can possess objets, animals and persons, though...).

That varies by depiction. Many portrayals of shikigami describe them as something more like a D&D wizard’s familiar - spirits or other supernatural beings bound in the service of an onmyoji or other magician.

[Imbalance]

By a looser definition, modern robots could be called golems. Once 3d printed organs become common and durable, you'll have your flesh-and-blood constructs.

[Prime32]

The Shikigami is created on purpose with magic, and it's an spirit (it can possess objets, animals and persons, though...).

That varies by depiction. Many portrayals of shikigami describe them as something more like a D&D wizard’s familiar - spirits or other supernatural beings bound in the service of an onmyoji or other magician.

Those are the same thing. "Shiki" = script/formula/etc. - it refers to both the force which enacts its creator's commands, and to the composite being created when that force is imbued into a vessel.

Cheap shiki are based on sheets of paper, which can often fold themselves into origami animals or generate a body of mana around themselves. More powerful shiki are created from living creatures, but they're also more risky for the caster since the original creature's ego is still present.

I think most of the modern depiction comes from the novel Teito Monogatari.

[Themrys]

There was this woman of Celtic mythology who was made from flowers and herbs, to serve some man as sex-slave ... I think she got other ideas and tragedy ensued. Poor girl. She was flesh and blood.

And then there's a myth from some German-speaking country (may be Austria or Switzerland) of men who made a woman from straw because they wanted a sex object. She came alive and killed them.

Thinking about it, there's loads and loads of stories where men want to make their own sex slave and think they want their sex slave to become an actual woman ... but then they're pissed off when she does.


The stories where a rabbi makes an artificial human from clay for some innocent purpose like protecting people or getting work done, seem to be in the minority compared to those other ones.
I honestly don't remember any non-clay golem made for an innocent purpose.

[Wraith]

Though I'm not sure that it quite fits your definition, I would think of something like the Terracotta Army that was buried in the tomb of Emperor Quin Shi Huang in the 3rd Century BCE.
The idea is similar to golem in the sense that these terracotta beings were fashioned in this life to act as guards and servants for the Emperor - albeit in the afterlife. Not that they would come to life (though there were fairy tales that they did this too) but that by creating them to be lifelike then that would be enough to give them a "soul" which could exist between worlds. They're not golem per say, but there are lots of parallels between the two.

Ancient Egyptian burial rites had similar beliefs - that someone should be buried with 'toy' versions of everything they would need in the afterlife, where they would magically become real and functional. This would include everything from slaves and guards to livestock and even pets; manufactured servants who would be lifelike enough to have a soul in imitation of life and thus exist elsewhere as manufactured servants.

More closely to your description, there's the Greek myth of Galatea. She was a statue carved in ivory by the king/artist Pygmalion that was so beautiful and lifelike that she was brought to actual life (flesh and blood) by the Goddess Aphrodite, and wed to her sculptor. Unlike the examples above, theirs was genuine romantic love and they had a happy life together.

Another Greek myth is of Talos, an enormous bronze automaton who protected Crete. If you have ever seen the cult classic movie Jason and the Argonauts, you'll recognise him as the giant green statue that is slain when Jason removes the nail from his ankle and the ichor drains out of his body.

From the Prose Edda: To assist their champion Hrungnir in his appointed duel with Thor, the giants of Jotunheim formed an artificial giant from clay and brought him to life by putting a mare's heart into his chest (as this is the largest heart they could find). Unfortunately the titanic creature - named Mökkurkalfi - was a coward, and was dispatched by Thor's servant Thjalfi with relative ease.

[Clistenes]

Those are the same thing. "Shiki" = script/formula/etc. - it refers to both the force which enacts its creator's commands, and to the composite being created when that force is imbued into a vessel.

Cheap shiki are based on sheets of paper, which can often fold themselves into origami animals or generate a body of mana around themselves. More powerful shiki are created from living creatures, but they're also more risky for the caster since the original creature's ego is still present.

I think most of the modern depiction comes from the novel Teito Monogatari.

Actually, I am interested in the old versions from folk tales and myths. Like, for example, the servants created by Abe no Seimei...

There was this woman of Celtic mythology who was made from flowers and herbs, to serve some man as sex-slave ... I think she got other ideas and tragedy ensued. Poor girl. She was flesh and blood.

That was Blodeuwedd, the wife of Lleu Llaw Gyffes. She wasn't a sex slave golem, but a 100% real woman.

The young prince Lleu Llaw Gyffes was a bastard born out of wedlock, and his mother Arianrhod, who was passing for a virtuous maiden lost her status and reputation when she gave birth to him in the throne hall of the royal palace. Arianrhod ran away in shame, and her uncle, king Math, adopted the baby...

But Arianrhod hated Lleu Llaw Gyffes, blaming him for her loss of status, and cursed him several times (not to receive a name from nobody but her, not to marry a human woman...). King Math and prince Gwydion used deceit to trick Arianrhod into naming Lleu, and used magic to create a wife for him.

However, Blodeuwedd cheated on Lleu, and conspired with her lover to murder Lleu. Lleu was resurrected by Math and Gwydion and killed his wife's lover, and Math and Gwydion changed Blodeuwedd into a barn owl...

While Blodeuwedd's birth was unnatural, she was a normal woman in every way, not a magical automaton...

Though I'm not sure that it quite fits your definition, I would think of something like the Terracotta Army that was buried in the tomb of Emperor Quin Shi Huang in the 3rd Century BCE.
The idea is similar to golem in the sense that these terracotta beings were fashioned in this life to act as guards and servants for the Emperor - albeit in the afterlife. Not that they would come to life (though there were fairy tales that they did this too) but that by creating them to be lifelike then that would be enough to give them a "soul" which could exist between worlds. They're not golem per say, but there are lots of parallels between the two.

Ancient Egyptian burial rites had similar beliefs - that someone should be buried with 'toy' versions of everything they would need in the afterlife, where they would magically become real and functional. This would include everything from slaves and guards to livestock and even pets; manufactured servants who would be lifelike enough to have a soul in imitation of life and thus exist elsewhere as manufactured servants.

I have already mentioned those, the egyptian ushabti and of the chinese mingqui funerary figures and statues. I think these only were supposed to come to life in the afterlife, as soul-robots of sorts. What I was searching for were physical beings created by mortal magicians...

More closely to your description, there's the Greek myth of Galatea. She was a statue carved in ivory by the king/artist Pygmalion that was so beautiful and lifelike that she was brought to actual life (flesh and blood) by the Goddess Aphrodite, and wed to her sculptor. Unlike the examples above, theirs was genuine romantic love and they had a happy life together.

Another Greek myth is of Talos, an enormous bronze automaton who protected Crete. If you have ever seen the cult classic movie Jason and the Argonauts, you'll recognise him as the giant green statue that is slain when Jason removes the nail from his ankle and the ichor drains out of his body.

From the Prose Edda: To assist their champion Hrungnir in his appointed duel with Thor, the giants of Jotunheim formed an artificial giant from clay and brought him to life by putting a mare's heart into his chest (as this is the largest heart they could find). Unfortunately the titanic creature - named Mökkurkalfi - was a coward, and was dispatched by Thor's servant Thjalfi with relative ease.

Yep. Galatea has already been mentioned. But I was thinking of beings created by mortals...

I want to thank you people for all your answers again...

[Martin Greywolf]

What is a golem, anyway? What they are and do can change through time and place even in the same story - usual basis is Jewish tradition golem, but even that has variations and isn't exactly consistent. There's a Czech movie called Emperor's baker and baker's emperor, chock full of communist propaganda, that is essentially a sequel to the Prague golem story, and golem in it produces heat, of all things. This kind of appropriating of stories was and is rather common.

Strict definition of golem, animated construct given life by divine names, makes it exclusive to Jewish versions, but if you expand it to artificial life, you get a lot of stuff. Robots were originally inspired, at least subconciously, by Prague golem (Karel Capek was a Czech), and you can argue Frankenstein's creation being golems as well - they have no resemblance to people who "donated" parts.

Animated statues are rather ubiquitous, though how that change works changes, sometimes they act as simple robots without life, doing a task, sometimes they just straight up change into humans.

Another type of golem is army in a bag version, I don't know if there's instances of it outside of former Slavic - Ottoman frontier, but the idea of bag or other container having soldiers (sometimes animated wepons) in it that perfectly obey the owner pops up from time to time. THese are perhaps closest to original Jewish golems, and perhaps even inspired by them.

There are also numerous "this statue of a king/lord/whoever will come to life in our hour of need", these tend to vary in details depending on the statue.

[Wraith]

Yep. Galatea has already been mentioned. But I was thinking of beings created by mortals...

I honestly don't know how I missed that, I'm sure I read the whole thread... sorry to those from whom I "stole" an example!

Okay, mortals building an artificial servant.... Dr.Frankenstein and his monster is pretty much the story of a man building a Flesh Golem, as are the Voodoun stories about creating zombies so long as you take them at face value of them being reanimated corpses and and ignore the 'scientific' method of using puffer-fish venom to brain damage living people.

Would you consider fraudulent examples? There's The Turk, advertised as an authentic chess-playing automaton? It's hardly myth or folklore, I suppose, but one could imagine it as an example of how "magical" golem began to evolve into "mechanical" ones as technology and society also started to move from one to the other? You could even say that the former are now somewhat 'old fashioned' and have been replaced by contemporary robots.

[Clistenes]

Would you consider fraudulent examples? There's The Turk, advertised as an authentic chess-playing automaton? It's hardly myth or folklore, I suppose, but one could imagine it as an example of how "magical" golem began to evolve into "mechanical" ones as technology and society also started to move from one to the other? You could even say that the former are now somewhat 'old fashioned' and have been replaced by contemporary robots.

I know about The Turk. A better example would be Juanelo Turriano's "Wooden Man".

Juanelo Turriano was a real master clockmaker, civil engineer and automaton-maker, but the reputation of his creations grew until making them almost autonomous robots...

[JeenLeen]

One of the new World of Darkness splats, Promethean, deals with various types of golems. I think there's a section in the front or back on mythic inspirations. You might find it an interesting read. Or just look it up on the WoD wiki or Wikipedia for a quick summary and maybe some info on inspiration.

I think most, if not all, the 'golem'-types mentioned in it have already been mentioned here, though.

[Beleriphon]

On Greek myth there's Talos. He's either another creation of Hephaestus, or the creation of a pre-human mortal race.

[RedWarlock]

There's also that the distinction between "mortal sorcerer" and "divine action" is a very thin one, more of a modern distinction. By that metric, the actual Golem of Prague is divine in origin, as it was animated by the name of God inscribed by a Rabbi, which sounds a lot like a D&D-style cleric in action. Mythological 'sorcerers' as often as not are just invoking gods, spirits, or other powers in their 'sorcery'.

[Bohandas]

Has anyone mentioned Pinnochio?

[Malphegor]

The gingerbread man is arguably one. (and his welsh counterpart, Yr Dyn Crempog, the pancake man. There’s a lot of variations, gingerbread somehow got popular)

Once there was a gingerbread biscuit, shaped like a man, Given life in an oven, cough cough metaphor for yeast rising symbolism with life growing kinda probably started off as a bread story,

and not wanting to get eaten (die), it flees, and lives a life running away from death in its many forms. Hungry children (hunger), wild animals (nature), vehicles (civilisation), toxic fumes and diseased meats (pollution and plague), the elderly (old age), and many more depending on the retelling.

But all things die, and soggy, haggard, and broken, the gingerbread man falls, and dies, picked apart by carrion, while the baker has long forgotten them, and has a new batch in the oven. And so it continues.

Accidental sentience in constructs is arguably golem-adjacent I feel.0

[Bohandas]

Okay, mortals building an artificial servant.... Dr.Frankenstein and his monster is pretty much the story of a man building a Flesh Golem,

The Rocky Horror Picture Show also tells a similar story

Those are the same thing. "Shiki" = script/formula/etc. - it refers to both the force which enacts its creator's commands, and to the composite being created when that force is imbued into a vessel.

Cheap shiki are based on sheets of paper, which can often fold themselves into origami animals or generate a body of mana around themselves. More powerful shiki are created from living creatures, but they're also more risky for the caster since the original creature's ego is still present.

I think most of the modern depiction comes from the novel Teito Monogatari.

Your link is broken. It should be https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teito_Monogatari

[Berenger]

Another type of golem is army in a bag version, I don't know if there's instances of it outside of former Slavic - Ottoman frontier, but the idea of bag or other container having soldiers (sometimes animated wepons) in it that perfectly obey the owner pops up from time to time. THese are perhaps closest to original Jewish golems, and perhaps even inspired by them.

Grimm's "The Wishing-Table, the Gold-Ass, and the Cudgel in the Sack" has an animated cudgel that can be summoned from the sack. The spartoi of greek myth are dragon teeth that can be carried in a bag and become warriors when sown in the ground.

[Bohandas]

There's broom from the story of The Sorcerer's Apprentice, and the pestle from Lucian's story about Eucrates and Pancrates, which is sort of a precursor to the above

[DarkWhisper]

And then there's a myth from some German-speaking country (may be Austria or Switzerland) of men who made a woman from straw because they wanted a sex object. She came alive and killed them.

Sennentuntschi (link to the (Swiss) movie of the same name, based on the saga).

[Clistenes]

I have found a few more:

Daedalus created autonomous animated statues a lot like Hephaestus'

Medieval Legend said that Virgil (who was made into a magician, because of course a famous intellectual from Ancient Rome had to be a wizard!) created a talking stone head with prophetic powers (it would bite off the fingers of adulterous women) , a bronze statue able to predict threats to the Empire, another statue able to protect his house against Vesuvius' ashes and a "stone concubine".

Albertus Magnus was said to have created a talking head, and the Chinese Daoist book Liezi (列子) describes a moving, walking, singing automaton (however, both Albertus Magnus' invention and the chinese automaton seemed to be technological clockwork contraptions rather than magical creations...)

Sennentuntschi (link to the (Swiss) movie of the same name, based on the saga).

A have searched around for the original legend, and I can't find it... could it be that they made it up for the movie?

[DarkWhisper]

A have searched around for the original legend, and I can't find it... could it be that they made it for the movie?

There's little enough information to be found in German, but...

(Quick translation by me)

Sennentuntschi (German Wikipedia entry)

The Sennentuntschi, also Hausäli or Sennpoppa ("Alpine Herdsmann puppet"), is a saga motive found throughout the German-speaking region of the alps.

Spread and Content
The Wiesenboden is one of those alps, upon which the 'Sennentuntschi' is said to have appeared. The same saga, however, is being told in the Urserental and other regions of the Alps. Its spread reaches from the Bernese Alps, across Uri, Grisons, St Gallen uplands up to Liechtenstein, Voralberg, Tirol and Kärnten. Variants of the saga are common in Upper Valais, the Steiermark, and Upper Bavaria. Tuntschi or Toggel are creatures from sagas in these regions.

There are different versions of this saga, most with these central points: The lonely Alpine Herdsmen and shepherds high up on their alp create/assemble out of boredom - on the alp usually only men work - a female puppet. They feed it just for fun, talk to it and take it to bed. Shortly before the Alpabfahrt ('return to lowlands in August - September after spending spring & summer on the alp), the puppet comes alive and starts talking. It (she) takes revenge for the misdeed and godless act the Alpine Herdsmen performed on it (her). In one (version of the) saga, she forces a Herdsman to stay with it and removes his skin.

Source of the saga is probably the speculation about what's going on these secluded alps and with the Herdsmen during those summer months. The saga reminds of the ancient story of Pygmalion, where a self-created effigy of mankind gains its own existence, too. (...)

SRF.CH

(Image caption): The real Sennentuntschi: 1978 acquired from the last resident of the hamlet of Masciadon, community of Cauco.

The Real Sennentuntschi is Even More "Frightening" Than the Saga

As saga, the Sennentuntschi is haunting the whole region of the Alps. Now, in the Rhaetian museum in Chur, the only real Sennentuntschi can be seen: a wooden doll, that has been found more than 20 years ago in Grison's Calancatal - mysterious and eerie at the same time.

The puppet, which the Rhaetian museum in Chur 1986 has integrated into its collection, is hardly bigger than a toy. Nevertheless, it's appearance has an uncanny touch: "It's got explicitly represented genitals, real human hair on its head and an irritation fave with a widely opened mouth", says Andrea Kauer, director of the Rhetian museum. Explicitly represented genitals mens: Big breasts and exposed abdomen.

Sure is: The Doll was no toy

For that reason, the museum has, on the index card, which describes the puppet, also noted that the Herdsman used it as replacement wife / surrogate wife.

Whether that's really true isn't proven. Clear was only, that the puppet was no (child's) toy. That's why it is not only eerie but also mysterious, says Andrea Kauer.

Mysterious and eerie - this combination fascinates the museum's visitors. Hardly any object provokes that many reactions as the puppet: "It causes shivers, some can hardly stand the sight", says Kauer, "other are fascinated or feel compassion; some people feel that there's something terribly sad behind it [the puppet]".

More than 70 Sennentuntschi Sagas
Fascinated by the Sennentuntschi was also Stephan Kunz, director of the Grison's Art Museum in Chur. He had the idea for a Sennentuntsch special exhibition.

The Sennentuntschi-saga is wide-spread, he says. In Switzerland alone, 70 different stories about puppets that had been misused/abused by Alpine Herdsmen, suddenly came alive and then took revenge upon their tormentors are known.

((The rest is about the stage play and movie of the same name)).

[Bohandas]

I have found a few more:

Daedalus created autonomous animated statues a lot like Hephaestus'

Medieval Legend said that Virgil (who was made into a magician, because of course a famous intellectual from Ancient Rome had to be a wizard!) created a talking stone head with prophetic powers (it would bite off the fingers of adulterous women) , a bronze statue able to predict threats to the Empire, another statue able to protect his house against Vesuvius' ashes and a "stone concubine".

Albertus Magnus was said to have created a talking head, and the Chinese Daoist book Chinese describes a moving, walking, singing automaton (however, both Albertus Magnus' invention and the chinese automaton seemed to be technological clockwork contraptions rather than magical creations...)

On that note IIRC Leonardo DaVinci's notebooks included blueprints of animatronic figures

[Clistenes]

I found another golem-like creature, the Tupilaq...

[Kyutaru]

Ibn Gabirol's female wooden golem seemed to be life-sized animated and articulated wooden puppet doll, able to do housework and maybe provide sexual services... I am not sure if, while active, she looked and felt like a normal woman (the suspicions of she providing sexual services points to that being the case) or if she remained an articulated wooden puppet doll (if her body turned a real human woman's flesh and wood while active, she wouldn't need limbs made of several pieces of wood articulated with hinges each...).

I only know this because of Fate/Grand Order but Gabirol (aka Avicebron) was also working on his masterpiece golem, the Golem Keter Malkuth. I have no idea if it's actually a thing but he did write the Keter Malkuth poem and it's supposedly the lowest form of a Sephiroth so it has lots of spiritual connotation for the following reason:

"This golem is not meant to be invincible. Rather, it must be designed so that it can die through any kind of means. The golem I'm creating possesses life. Therefore, it will die. My golem is not a craft to simply move clay dolls. My golem is the creation of life… in other words, a copy of the original human, Adam."

Basically... an artificial man. The perfect golem.

[Eldan]

A have searched around for the original legend, and I can't find it... could it be that they made it up for the movie?

Definitely not, no. I remember having an audio version of it on casette tape as a kid in a collection of fairy tales, long before hte movie came out. It scared the **** out of me.