Ghoul

For the death metal band, see Ghoul (band).

A ghoul is a monster from ancient Arabian folklore that dwells in burial grounds and other uninhabited places. The English word comes from the Arabic name for the creature: الغول ghūl, which literally means "demon". The ghul is a devilish type of jinn believed to be sired by Iblis.

The female form is given as "ghouleh" in Muhawi and Kanaana (see ref below). The plural is "ghilan".

Ghul is also the name for a desert-dwelling shapeshifting demon that can assume the guise of an animal, especially a hyena. It lures unwary travellers into the desert wastes to slay and devour them. The creature also preys on young children, robs graves, and eats the dead. Because of the latter habit, the word ghoul is sometimes used to refer to an ordinary human such as a grave robber, or to anyone who delights in the macabre. The word "ghoul" has also been used to describe cannibals such as Jeffrey Dahmer.. The term "ghoul" may also be used as slang, particularly in Ireland, to describe a person who acts in an odd and/or humorous manner.

The star Algol takes its name from this creature.

In Iran

In Iranian mythologies, Ghouls are creatures very similar to but larger than humans; usually they are less intelligent and not necessarily evil. Most Persian speakers use Ghul to describe large people (figuratively "giants"). This is not considered an insult.

Fictional representations

Ghouls and ghoul-like creatures have been portrayed in many instances in fiction, including a series of dark fantasy short stories by Brian McNaughton, a Michael Slade novel, "Ghoul", Larry Niven's "Ringworld" series, J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, The Chronicles of Narnia, the works of Caitlín R. Kiernan, Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake series, and Jim Butcher's The Dresden Files.

Literature

Morlocks are a fictional species of cannibalistic ghouls, created by H. G. Wells for his 1895 novel, The Time Machine. The Morlocks, as well as another supposed offshoot of humans, the Eloi, exist in the future world in the year 802,701 A.D. in The Time Machine.

Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula features a ghoulish character named Renfield. Under the vampire's influence, Renfield becomes his willing slave and develops a craving to eat living creatures in the hope of obtaining their life-force for himself. After being confined to an asylum, he considers eating a human hospital orderly, but finds he can only capture and consume flies, spiders, and the occasional bird.

In the fiction of H. P. Lovecraft, a ghoul is a member of a nocturnal subterranean race. Some ghouls were once human, but a diet of human corpses, and perhaps the tutelage of proper ghouls, mutated them into horrific bestial humanoids. In the short story "Pickman's Model" (1927), the first of Lovecraft's ghoul stories, they are unutterably terrible monsters; however, in his earlier novella The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath (1926), the ghouls are somewhat less disturbing, even comical at times, and both helpful and loyal to the protagonist. Richard Upton Pickman, a noteworthy Boston painter who disappeared mysteriously in "Pickman's Model", appears as a ghoul himself in Dream-Quest. Similar themes appear in "The Lurking Fear" (1922) and "The Rats in the Walls" (1924), both of which posit the existence of subterranean clans of degenerate, retrogressive cannibals or carrion-eating humans.

In modern and contemporary fiction, ghouls are often confused with other types of undead, usually the mindless varieties of zombies. Although modern fiction (post-1954), particularly 1954's I Am Legend, suggests that the latter beings share cannibalistic habits with ghouls, it is nonetheless generally believed that vampires and zombies prefer live prey.

In 1987, Brian McNaughton wrote a series of dark fantasy short stories in which these Lovecraftian ghouls are the protagonists. The stories, collectively published as Throne of Bones, were a critical success and the book went on to receive a World Fantasy Award for Best Collection.

In Michael Slade's novel Ghoul is a heavy metal rock band with possible connections to a series of grisly murders.

In Larry Niven's Ringworld series, the ghouls are a race that eats the dead of the other races that live on the ringworld. They have a fairly sophisticated (for a post-apocalyptic people) culture, and are the only race with a communication system that traverses the entire ringworld: heliographs.

In J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, ghouls are harmless creatures that live in the homes of wizards, making loud noises and occasionally groaning; a ghoul resides in the attic of the Weasley family's home as the family's pet. Context implies that in the Harry Potter universe, ghouls are closer to animals than beings. They are translated in some versions as vampire, yet they have nothing to do with vampires.

In The Chronicles of Narnia, ghouls are creatures that serve the White Witch. In the 2005 movie and videogame, they resemble pale orcs carrying spears.

In Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake series, graveyards became infested with ghouls when the blessing of the graveyard was used up; this was usually caused when too many zombies were raised or voodoo rituals of evil nature were performed in the graveyard. Though they were once human, they are like pack animals, and they are not very smart. They will only attack if a person is vulnerable. A ghoul will run from a healthy strong human being.

In Max Brooks' The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Undead, zombies are frequently referred to as ghouls.

In Jim Butcher's The Dresden Files, ghouls are much like they are in the classic mythologies. They are humanoid monsters that feed on human flesh, and seem to be able to disguise themselves as ordinary humans. These ghouls are intelligent, as opposed to being mindless and feral monsters.

In Monster in My Pocket #37, a ghoul shown carrying a shovel. When he appears in stage 2, the kitchen, in the video game, the shovel has become an axe. Ghilan is Monster in My Pocket #101, which appears to be a cluster of two of the shapeshifting sort of ghul.

In Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's St. Germain series, the ghoul is an undead being created through an ancient Egyptian ritual to act as a servant to a vampire. St. Germain comes across a dying slave and resurrects him as his faithful servant, Roger, who accompanies him through his adventures for the next 2,000 years. Roger is indistinguishable from humans except for his immortality and that his diet consists of raw meat.

Caitlín R. Kiernan has written a number of short stories and novels featuring ghouls (referred to as the ghul), including "The Dead and the Moonstruck" and "So Runs the World Away" (both from To Charles Fort, With Love, 2005) Low Red Moon, Murder of Angels, and Daughter of Hounds. Kiernan's ghouls exhibit a blend of human and canine traits, are highly intelligent, live in subterranean cities, possess magical powers, and feed on the flesh of human corpses. According to Daughter of Hounds, they seem to have an extraterrestrial origin. They are often referred to as "The Hounds of Cain."

In R.L. Stine's Attack of the Graveyard Ghouls, ghouls are depicted as noncorporeal green mists that were humans at one time, and are able to steal bodies.

In Ghoul by Brian Keene, the titular beast is described as a member of a long-lived species commanded by God to only eat cold, long dead flesh - a prohibition the Ghoul eventually breaks. The creature is described as nearly hairless, pale white, with taloned hands. The story begins shortly after it was unwittingly freed by the graveyard caretaker, who broke the pow-wow (folk magic) seal that had had kept the creature in a state of stasis. Excellent digger. Cannot tolerate sunlight.

In the webcomic Sluggy Freelance by Pete Abrams, the main protagonist Torg and his alien friend end up discovering a dimension of ghouls while escaping from the military. See the strip from March 28, 2007.

In the novel "Anubis" (2005) by the German author Wolfgang Hohlbein, Ghouls are jackal-headed, humanoid scavengers that steal human corpses from graveyards. They reproduce by abducting and raping human women and are actually the servants of much more powerful beings from the planets orbiting the star Canicula. The Ghouls live in large underground cities where time and space is somewhat beyond human perception. In one of the cities, which is situated in the vicinity of San Francisco, there is a gateway to Canicula in a huge black pyramid, which opens twice every human lifetime. The Ghouls living in the city fall into some kind of paralyzing stasis as long as the gate is open. In the book, one of the protagonists manages to blow up the gateway, resulting in an explosion that not only destroys the city of the Ghouls, but also causes the earthquake that hit SF at the beginning of the 20th century. The culture of the beings from Canicula predates any advanced civilization and inspired the architecture and the hieroglyphics of Ancient Egypt. The gods of Egypt where modeled after the jackal-headed Ghouls and other monstrous inhabitants of these underground cities. The whole book draws heavily upon the works of H.P. Lovecraft.

Movies and television

Although many screenplays have featured ghouls, the first major motion picture of this theme was the 1933 British film entitled The Ghoul. The actor Boris Karloff plays a dying Egyptologist who possesses an occult gem, known as The Eternal Light, which he believes will grant immortality if he is buried with it, and thereby able to present it to Anubis in the afterlife. Of course, his bickering covetous heirs and associates would rather keep the jewel for themselves. Karloff vows to rise from his grave and avenge himself against anyone who meddles with his plan, and he keeps this promise when one of his colleagues steals The Eternal Light after his death.

In 1968, George A. Romero's groundbreaking film Night of the Living Dead combined reanimated corpses (zombies) with cannibalistic monsters (ghouls), creating new film monsters more terrifying than either of their predecessors. The term "ghoul" was the one actually used in the film.

The 1976 Turkish film 'Milk Brothers' (original story by H. Rahmi Gurpinar's 'Ghoul') is a masterpiece of Turkish comedy. Here, ghoul is a monster with extra power. Ghoul is a monster that was used to frighten little children in the old times, so here the ghoul is used to frighten not only little children, but as well big people.

The 1975 British film The Ghoul (unrelated to the Karloff vehicle) stars Peter Cushing as a defrocked missionary whose son has developed a taste for human flesh while travelling in India. As the son's mind and body degenerate, Cushing has several young people dispatched and prepared as food for his offspring, whom he keeps locked up in the attic.

The 1975 anthology film The Monster Club featured a segment about a village of ghouls stumbled upon by an unwary traveller (Stuart Whitman), who temporarily escapes the creatures with the help of one half-human girl, but he is recaptured when it turns out that the ghouls have representatives inhabiting our normal human world.

In the anime and manga series Hellsing, ghouls are zombie-like creatures that are created when a "chipped" (technological) vampire drains a victim to death, or, in the Manga, where a vampire drains the blood of someone who is not a virgin. If fatally wounded, they instantly crumble to dust. They are under the control of the vampire who bites them, eat human flesh, and are intelligent enough to use firearms. It is not rare to see a vampire amass a small army of Ghouls for offence and defence

In "Cannibal Flesh Riot," the 2006 film Directorial debut of Children's Book Author and illustrator Gris Grimly, two ancient Ghouls, Stash and Hub, prowl cemeteries by night digging up the decaying bodies of the deceased to feed on their rotting flesh.

"The Ghoul" is the stage name of Cleveland-area horror television host Ron Sweed.

The Batman comics-based franchise, including the 2005 movie, Batman Begins, has an antagonist named Rā's al-Ghūl, whose name derives from the original Arabic name for the star Algol in the constellation Perseus meaning "the monster's (i.e. Medusa's) head".

Gaming

Many games, as the tabletop wargame Warhammer, use the term "ghoul" to describe undead beings or other kinds of cannibalistic and degenerate humanoids.

In the game Warcraft 3 and its expansion, the ghoul is the main light infantry and lumber harvesting unit of the Undead Scourge race. This is the same as in World of Warcraft.

In the MMORPG games World of Warcraft,Tibia, Final Fantasy XI, RuneScape and Ragnarok Online ghouls are one of the NPC enemies in the game. In World of Warcraft they are a stage of undeath. They serve the Undead Scourge or Independant Necromancers Reanimated corpses or victims of the Scourge plague first become zombies, and them over time, the 'necromantic' magic used to reanimate them, corrupts the body elongating the fingers and pronouncing the eye sockets, jaw and joints. They are captured and exorcised by the Forsaken to return the personality and free-will to the ghoul.

Ghouls are featured in a multitude of varieties in the online game Kingdom of Loathing. They are deliberately misspelled Ghuol, as they live in the (also deliberately misspelled) Misspelled Cemetary, and are an obvious parody of traditional ideas of ghouls.

Other games have painted a more sympathetic portrait. In Shadowrun ghouls are victims of a mutating virus that transforms them into cannibals. Originally portrayed as monsters, subsequent supplements have featured ghoul activists arguing for their rights as a people. The Delta Green supplement for Call of Cthulhu presents a ghoul character whose unique abilities are exploited for forensic purposes.

In Soldat RPG mod "Hexer" you can summon ghouls for your protection.

A famous video game from the late 1980's was "Ghouls 'n Ghosts."

World of Darkness

Main article: Ghoul (World of Darkness)

In White Wolf's World of Darkness Ghouls are regular mortals fed with vampiric Vitae (blood) which develop a few minor supernatural powers (basically enhanced physical attributes). Usually they develop a strong loyalty and devotion to the first vampire to feed them blood regularly.

Diablo

Ghouls also appear in Blizzard North's Diablo, where they are a form of zombie.

See also

• Genie
• Halloween
• The Ghouls Punk Band
• "Ghouls" a song by The Horrorpops
• "Ghoul" a song by Mayhem
• "Ghoulina" a song by Nekromantix
• Ghoul a Death Metal band.
• Gravedigger
• Murderous Ghouls a record label currently supporting The Belidged a hip-hop duo from California consisting of members Pale Ale and FetzR County

Footnotes and references

• Muhawi, Ibrahim, and Sharif Kanaana. Speak, Bird, Speak Again: Palestinian Arab Folktales. Berkeley: University of California Press, c1989.