Mermaids, dragons, elves, Leprechaun, Asps and enumerable other mythical creatures lurk deep in the darkness that surrounds us, yet much more dangerous ones are embedded within our inner darkness waiting to be awakened and summoned to reality by a trigger of fear and an act of defiance.
Our journey starts from an ancient Phoenician city in the north of Lebanon, it’s named the city of Tripoli, and its previous name was Athar.
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The city of Tripoli was named so by the Greeks, the name derives from Greek language as in Tria Polis, or city of the three poles, due to its strategic role in ancient times where the three super powers of that period used to convene in a periodical summit to keep the peace pacts signed between them in that specific region. (Persians, Greeks, and Romans were most probably those super powers of the time). In fact it was regards to be the first recorded international city in human history.
The city is full of ancient ruins, citadels, mosques, and old bazaars, but above all, underneath the city lays several shallow and deep, muddy and damp tunnels, humid and suffocating with the smell of ancient mysteries and legends buried deep within its ruins.
Some of those tunnels spread from the famous citadel in Abu Samra to the port city of Mina some five kilometers away or so, connecting with another citadel called burj el sabi3, Or, the Lion’s tower.
It was there where I grew up into adolescence, grew I, learning of tell tales of ancient times in ancient worlds and mystical creatures, Saints and sages, demons and angels and an Asp.
A horrifying asp that reaped terror into the hearts and souls of those who fell victims under its spells, an asp often described by the locals as not of this world did really exist according to local city dwellers, which, some of them had seen in present life and are able to describe and pinpoint its probable location beneath the city.
This Asp had small horns, a small beard like chin hair, and small claws. They speak of its resemblance to a dog face like creature with big red hypnotic eyes that freeze its victim in split seconds. Several attempts were made to kill this creature, but none of them succeeded as one may envisage.
I searched for this Asp for years during my childhood and adolescence; I even went inside one of the tunnels that the asp was sighted in several decades ago. A very creepy and eerie feeling befell me while I was entering the tunnel. I could not continue due to lack of equipments and man power to dig my way through.
Years after that, while I was on a visit to the city, I heard of an incident taking place in that area and approximately five hundred meters away from that old tunnel location near the famous citadel of Tripoli in Abu Samra.
People reported hearing strange stridulating in the middle of the night, some even described it like sound of retreating waves on sea shores.
Out of sheer curiosity I went to investigate this incident. I asked the nearby neighbors to tell me what they heard and what they saw. Two of them claimed that they saw a huge snake coming out of the ruins nearby sizzling, slithering and stridulating, they tried to shoot it down, but they swore that they hit it and the bullets did not kill it, at the end of a five minutes confrontation with it, it retreated back to where it came from, underneath…
The locals claimed that this asp was one of the children of the old infamous Asp who used to be seen drinking from Abu Ali River which is located couple of hundred meters down from the citadel. The tale says that the tail of the old Asp was in the citadel while its head was at the river.
Years went by, and destiny brought me back to the city of Tripoli, when another weird story spread a previous dawn. In another ancient location full of underneath tunnels, called Al Khennaq, locals claimed they couldn’t sleep the night due to very strange, terrible and scary shrilling and yelping in what sounded like a big quarrel, underneath their homes.
The locals hurried to summon up the spiritualist and the recognized religious figures of the town to expel this horrible evil from underneath them. Several of the recognized authorities of mysticism attended in an attempt to investigate and confront the source of these strange and evil sounds, with no success.
Then out of the sudden just after dawn, the locals sighted a medium size strange looking serpent crossing the road, they hurried towards it hurdling and shouting carrying sticks and bricks and whatever they could find on their way towards it. They cornered it and started their arial attack bombarding it with all of what they’ve got. Until, three young men amongst the attackers succeeded in subduing the serpent and ending its life.
That same morning the story spread all over town, I went immediately to the area and started investigating this incident. I searched and found two of the three young men who killed the serpent. And I questioned them about what happened and asked them to detail to me what they experienced.
They both reported the eerie deafening sounds that previous night till dawn, and they claimed that while they were chasing that strange looking serpent across the road, couple of cars stampeded the serpent and when they did that, the car doors suddenly opened and closed by itself in a very violent and scary manner, that could not be explained by any of the eye witnesses at the site.
I asked them to take me to where they left the serpent corpse several hours earlier, and when we went there, there was nothing found, which added more bewildering to the already strange mystery foretold.
Please note that this is not a science fiction editorial or a tale from a story book. These things actually happen, and reports of mythical creatures are recorded all over the world, some even succeeded in documenting some pictures and video clips of such creatures. Most are fake but some seems to be genuine enough to be re considered for further future investigation.
We are very interested in research covering this area, especially anything related to Mermaids and Dragons in ancient Europe, and one specific legend of what they call in the Middle East the legend of the Forty Walies, or the Forty Sages.
We invite all of those interested in mythology to provide us with whatever information and references they may come up with related to the above.
Our aim is to improve the public awareness of the substance of mythology and its role in our human culture. Help us achieve our goals.
Adam El Masri
