Magical Magic Creature Spotlight: Lethifold

[sweettalkeress.livejournal.com]

Lethifold

MOM Classification: XXXXX

The Lethifold is also known as the “Living Shroud,” since it tends to look like, well, a shroud. It lives in tropical climates (why are all the worst creatures in the tropics?) and at night goes around smothering victims and eating them alive.

And then we have a Creepypasta. Seriously. Rowling just plunks a Creepypasta into the middle of the entry, as if to make it longer. 

I am actually referring to an article in the middle of this description whereby a wizard recounts how he was attacked by a creature such as this while on vacation in Papua New Guinea, but fended it off with his Patronus. I just have to copy this story in full (oh, by the way, this is supposed to be taking place in the eighteenth century).

Near one o’clock in the morning, as I began at last to feel drowsy, I heard a soft rustling close by. Believing it to be nothing more than the leaves of the tree outside, I turned over in bed, with my back to the window, and caught sight of what appeared to be a shapeless black shadow sliding underneath my bedroom door. I lay motionless, trying sleepily to divine what was causing such a shadow in a room lit only by moonlight.

Undoubtedly my stillness led the Lethifold to believe that its potential victim was sleeping.

To my horror, the shadow began to creep up the bed, and I felt its slight weight upon me. It resembled nothing so much as a rippling black cape, the edges fluttering slightly as it slithered up the bed towards me. Paralyzed with fear, I felt its clammy touch upon my chin before I sat bolt upright.

The thing attempted to smother me, sliding inexorably up my face, over my mouth and nostrils, but still I struggled, feeling it wrapping its coldness about me all the while. Unable to cry  for assistance, I groped for my wand. Now dizzy as the thing sealed itself about my face, incapable of drawing breath, I concentrated with all my might upon the Stupefying Charm and then--as that failed to subdue the creature, though blasting a hole in my bedroom door--upon the Impediment Hex, which likewise availed me naught. Still struggling madly, I rolled sideways and fell heavily to the floor, now entirely wrapped in the Lethifold.

I knew that I was about to lose consciousness completely as I suffocated. Desperately, I mustered up my last reserve of energy. Pointing my wand away from myself and into the deadly folds of the creature, summoning the memory of the day I had been voted President of the local Gobstones Club, I performed the Patronus Charm.

Almost at once I felt fresh air upon my face. I looked up to see that deathly shadow being thrown into the air upon the horns of my Patronus. It flew across the room and slithered swiftly out of sight.

Rowling is then quick to point out that the Patronus is the only spell that repels a Lethifold, thus suggesting that it’s somehow related to Dementors. I can imagine magical-creature taxonomy to be a fascinating subject, but unfortunately not one Rowling could ever do justice to.

This article ends with a footnote about how people sometimes fake their deaths by Lethifold. One instance of this was when a wizard said it was killing him so he could run away from his family with a tavern wench, or something. Aren’t wizards just such wonderful people?

Comments

[kahran042]

I have a theory that Dementors are the result of crossbreeding boggarts and lethifolds, based on the powers of those two creatures.

[sweettalkeress.livejournal.com]

Though if that were the case, it begs the question why this creature can only be found in the tropics, since the other creatures seem to be able to exist worldwide.