Tongue

Figures that bear it

A model judged each figure against its own description, one term at a time. Is: the figure is, or is partly, this thing. Bears: it carries the thing or is marked by it. What a figure does is filed under motifs and powers. Open "why" for the sentence the judgement rests on.

• Chōchinobake bears Japanese folklore
  why

  It can extend its tongue to lick those who pass by, causing them a sudden, disorienting chill.

• Kasa-obake bears Japanese folklore
  why

  Originating from Japanese folklore, the Kasa-obake appears as a sentient, one-eyed umbrella with a long, lolling tongue.

• Krampus bears Germanic folklore
  why

  Krampus is typically depicted as a large, hairy, demonic figure with the cloven hooves and curling horns of a goat, a long pointed tongue lolling from his mouth, and a chain-draped body hung with bells.

• Kulshedra bears Albanian folklore
  why

  The serpent form called bolla — the name survives among the kulshedra's own variations — has faceted silver eyes, four legs, a long snaky body, and small wings; with the years it matures into the kulshedra proper, growing horns and nine tongues, its wings enlarging, and gaining the breath of fire.

• Manananggal bears Philippine folklore
  why

  Using an elongated, thread-like tongue, it can pierce through the roofs of houses to reach its victims.

• Medusa bears Greek mythology
  why

  Archaic Greek art shows her with a broad grinning face, tusks, a lolling tongue, and a round staring visage meant to ward off evil, a type known as the Gorgoneion; later Classical and Hellenistic art, and especially Ovid, softens her into a beautiful woman with serpentine hair, emphasizing tragedy over grotesquerie.

• Mušḫuššu bears Mesopotamian mythology
  why

  The reliefs show a slender, serpentine body covered in scales, a long neck and tail, hind legs like a bird of prey's talons, forelegs more feline or leonine in form, and a horned head with a forked or serpent-like tongue.

• Tenjōname bears Japanese folklore
  why

  Tenjōname, literally "ceiling-licker," is a yōkai of the Japanese Edo period depicted as a tall, gaunt, faintly humanoid figure with an extraordinarily long tongue, shown clinging to or reaching along the ceiling of an old building.