Hair

He begins life outside human society entirely: covered in hair, running with the gazelles, eating grass, and freeing animals from hunters' traps, a wild man in the fullest sense rather than a beast or a monster.

The fachan of Irish and Scottish Highland tradition is built on the arithmetic of one: one hand protruding from the ridge of its chest, one leg from its haunch, one eye in the front of its face, and one tuft of hair on its head — of which the Gaelic teller says it were easier to pull a mountain up by the root than to bend that tuft.

The Fenodyree — also spelled Fenoderee — is a solitary household or farm spirit of Manx tradition, described as a huge man covered in shaggy black hair, with eyes that show through the fur, and possessed of far more than human strength.

Descriptions of their appearance vary, with some sources giving them serpent hair, foul odor, and bat-like wings, or the heads of dogs, emphasizing their role as something between hunting hounds and hags, relentless once set upon a guilty target.

In Greek mythology, Gorgons are women with snakes for hair.

Descriptions of her appearance vary somewhat between collections but converge on a consistent picture of hideousness: long, dishevelled, sometimes red or black hair, sunken and piercing eyes, a hooked or overlarge nose, blackened fang-like teeth, a crooked back, and disproportionately long, withered arms.

Iara is a water spirit of Brazilian folklore, most often placed in the rivers of the Amazon basin, where she is said to appear near dusk combing her long hair on a rock or gliding just beneath the surface.

Kakamora are small, hair-covered forest beings of Solomon Islands folklore, particularly attested around Makira, described as short in stature but possessed of strength far out of proportion to their size.

Their appearance is terrifying, typically featuring wild, unkempt hair, sharp claws, and eyes that burn with an otherworldly fury.

She is typically pictured as a small, disheveled old woman with a hunched back and unkempt hair, sometimes with chicken legs or other bird-like features, and in her swamp-dwelling form she is described as living among reeds and marsh grass, luring or misleading travelers.

Lamiak are typically associated with freshwater environments, making their homes near rivers, streams, and waterfalls, where they are said to comb their long, golden hair with golden combs.

The Leshy's hair and beard are composed of living vines and leaves, constantly shifting and changing with the seasons.

She is most commonly pictured as a mermaid, with a woman's upper body and a fish's tail, or in some tellings as a snake-charmer, often shown holding or entwined with large serpents; her long, flowing hair and light or fair complexion are recurrent details in visual depictions, particularly in the widely circulated chromolithograph imagery that spread across West Africa from the late 19th and early 20th centuries onward.

In Greek and Roman mythology, Medusa is the mortal Gorgon whose serpent hair and petrifying gaze made her the most famous monster of the Perseus myth.

Its body is typically described as muscular and covered in dark, fuzzy hair or feathers, reminiscent of a moth's body.

Her most particular recorded trait is an endowment the tellers evidently enjoyed — breasts so voluptuous she can throw them over her shoulder — and she is most often seen out on the water, combing her long curly hair.

Oni are demons or ogres in Japanese folklore, often depicted as large, fearsome creatures with wild hair and horns.

She is defined by her long black hair, white funeral shroud, and the cry of an infant that signals her approach.

She is most often described as a green- or grey-skinned, amphibious humanoid with long hair, sharp fingernails, and a distinctly human-like face, cold and slick to the touch, at home equally in the sea and on the rocky shore.

Accounts describe it as a squat, wizened old man with long, wiry hair, taloned hands tipped with claws, teeth like fangs, and eyes that burn with a fierce red light; it is said to wear iron boots and carry a pikestaff or similar weapon, and in some tellings it possesses unnatural strength despite its small stature.

She is typically depicted as a beautiful young woman with pale skin and long, flowing green or fair hair that remains perpetually wet, sometimes shown with a fish-like lower body in later Romantic-era art though earlier folk accounts more often describe her as human in form, unclothed, and haunting the banks and depths of her waters.

Sedna is most often described as a woman transformed into a being of the deep, her lower body merging into that of a great fish or sea mammal, and her long hair, which she cannot comb herself, drifting loose in the currents around her.

Its body, covered in coarse hair and adorned with intricate patterns, can grow to enormous proportions, sometimes rivaling the size of a small house.

Tupan is the old thunder power of the eastern Tupi-Guarani peoples of Brazil — the Tupinamba among them — and the descriptions give him an actual body rather than a principle: short-statured, man-shaped, the hair in waves.

The urisk of the Scottish Highlands is a solitary fairy shaped half like a man and half like a goat, with flowing yellow hair and — in the fond particularity of the tradition — a broad blue bonnet.

She is typically described as a beautiful young woman with long, flowing hair, often blonde or wearing a white gown, who dwells in forests, mountains, clouds, or near lakes, springs, and rivers.

In Yucatec Maya folklore, Xtabay is a seductive demon spirit who appears as a beautiful woman combing her long hair beneath a ceiba tree at night, luring men to their death.

Its body is typically covered in thick, coarse hair, ranging from dark brown to reddish hues, providing excellent camouflage in its natural habitat.

Yuki-onna is typically described as a tall, strikingly beautiful woman with long black hair and skin so pale it is nearly translucent or the color of snow itself, sometimes said to be effectively invisible against a snowy landscape except for her dark hair and eyes.