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Tikoloshe
Near Water Sources and Human Dwellings
Danger Level: 6/10
By Elizabeth Stein for Mythos Atlas. About the author. Editorial notes are grounded in the site's cited sources and can be challenged through the contact page.
Abilities
InvisibilitySize ManipulationDream InvasionCurse Carrying
Lore & Legend
The Short Spirit under the Bed
Among Zulu and Xhosa speakers the tokoloshe / tikoloshe is a small water-linked being witches send to harm, or a household nuisance kept at bay by raising the bed on bricks. The record is oral and mission-era ethnography, not an epic.
Invisibility via a pebble or water is a common motif. The notices stay southern African; they are not a pan-continental demon.
Primary Sources
“Zulu and Xhosa oral accounts, as recorded by ethnographers, describe the tokoloshe as a small malevolent being associated with water and witchcraft, kept off by raising the sleeping platform.”