SKELETONS
The knee bone's connected to the pelvis/the pelvis is connected to the neckbone/and that's the word of the Lord
Erm, I think.
Amon -- Bloody Bones -- Bone Dragon -- Dead Head -- Demon Mage Hine -- Ghost -- Lich -- Shadow -- Skeleton -- Skuldier -- Skull -- Spectre -- Wraith
The idea of a live human skeleton, while being well-known in popular imagination, is surprisingly rare in mythology - I only know of two examples. One is the Eskimo legend of Ahkiyyini, a dancing fisherman whose bones were buried beside a river. His ghost appeared to some men who were overfishing the river, asking them to stop, but they refused. Ahkiyyini's skeleton then burst out the ground and banged its shoulder as if it were playing a drum. Shocked, his neighbours fell out the boat and drowned. The other is the story of the Japanese priest Ajari Joan, who, after commiting a sin, became a monster called an "okuma" and destroyed his temple. When he recovered he started to pray, and kept on doing so after he became a skeleton. The mountain where he was said to have prayed is still known as Hakkotsu-San, Skeleton Mountain.
IMAGES: A D&D skeleton -- 1494 woodcut of Death as a skeleton
There is a creature in Irish folklore called "rawhead and bloody bones", sometimes shortened to "bloody bones", which was created by parents as a bogeyman to scare children away from misbehaving. This may have been the inspiration for the name of FF's bloody bones, but this seems unlikely - there are few references in FF1 that are that obscure, and the Irish monster wasn't a skeleton, he was a dwarf who got "the bloody bones" part of his name from the fact that he was said to be found near the bones of the children that he'd eaten. It seems more likely that this creature was made a bloody skeleton to suggest that it still has some flesh on it, making it slightly more resilient than a bare skeleton.
IMAGES: A D&D skeleton -- 1494 woodcut of Death as a skeleton
Amongst skull legends, stories of screaming skulls are the best-known. Screaming skulls are one of the most peculiar aspects of British folklore. They are usually skulls that have been in a house for generations, sometimes they are of indeterminate origin, sometimes they once belonged to someone who didn't want to leave the house after they died, and made sure their heirs knew. Either way, they all have one aspect in common - after being taken outside the house, screams are heard until they're taken back. In some variations, poltergeist activity also occurs, and the removal of a skull found in Wardley Hall near Manchester is said to cause thunderstorms.
"Skulldier" is a combination of skull and soldier.
IMAGE: The screaming skull in Bettiscombe Manor
Back to...SKELETON
More often, myths use skeletons as symbols of death. Examples include the Aztec god Mictlantecuhtli, who was sometimes depicted as a skeleton, and also Medieval art that personified death as a skeleton with a scythe (the Grim Reaper).
More recently, the 1963 film Jason and the Argonauts had a scene where a group of skeletons came to life after the hydra's teeth are thrown on the ground (although, in the Greek myth this was based on, the "skeletons" were actually flesh and blood soldiers), and 1993's The Nightmare Before Christmas casts a skeleton named Jack as the king of Halloween.
BLOODY BONES
SKULL, DEAD HEAD, SKULDIER
INDIVIDUAL ENTRIES
BY GAME
GROUPS
