German legendary creatures

thumb|upright|1900s illustration of Saint Nicholas and Krampus visiting a child The Krampus () is a horned anthropomorphic figure who, in the Central and Eastern Alpine folkloric tradition, is said to accompany Saint Nicholas on visits to children during the night of 5 December (Krampusnacht; "Krampus Night"), immediately before the Feast of St. Nicholas on 6 December. In this tradition, Saint Nicholas rewards well-behaved children with small gifts, while Krampus punishes badly behaved ones with birch rods.

thumb|Mephistopheles by Paul Mathey, 1888 Mephistopheles ( , ), also known as Mephostophilis or Mephisto, is a demon featured in German folklore, originating as the chief devil in the Faust legend. He has since become a stock character appearing in other works of arts and popular culture. Mephistopheles never became an integral part of traditional magic.

thumb|upright=0.80|Dante Gabriel Rossetti, How They Met Themselves, watercolour, 1864

thumb|upright=1.15|Giovanni Lanfranco: Norandino and Lucina Discovered by the Ogre, [[oil on canvas, c. 1624]] An ogre (feminine: ogress) is a legendary monster depicted as a large, hideous, humanoid being that eats ordinary human beings, especially infants and children. Ogres frequently feature in mythology, folklore, and fiction throughout the world. They appear in many classic works of literature, and are most often associated in fairy tales and legend.

fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm

water sprite from European mythology

thumb|alt=kobold of Hildesheim|The kobold of Hildesheim

upright=1.2|thumbnail|Peruchty in , Kingdom of Bohemia, 1910 ' or ' ('Bertha'; ), also commonly known as '''''' () and other variations, was thought to be a goddess in Alpine paganism in the Upper German and also Austrian and Slovenian regions of the Alps. Her name may mean 'the bright one' or 'the bearer' (, from Proto-Germanic *berhtaz) and is probably related to the name , meaning 'the feast of the Epiphany'. Eugen Mogk provides an alternative etymology, attributing the origin of the name to the Old High German verb , meaning 'hidden' or 'covered'. The exact origin or time of origin is unkn

thumb|Bergstutz or Stollwurm In the folklore of the Alpine region of south-central Europe, the (), , or is a lizard-like creature, essentially a sort of dragon (see Germanic dragon), often described as having the face of a cat, with a serpent-like body which may be slender or stubby, with four short legs or two forelegs and no hindlegs, the latter a trait shared with many lindworms. Stories of essentially the same creature also exist in the folklore of South Sweden.

mythical figure common in western European legend

malicious entity in folklore

companion of Saint Nicholas in the folklore of Germany

The lindworm (worm meaning snake), also spelled lindwyrm or lindwurm, is a mythical creature in Northern, Western and Central European folklore that traditionally has the shape of a giant serpent monster which lives deep in the forest. It can be seen as a sort of dragon.

thumb|upright=1.2|The three Rhinemaidens at play in the waters of the Rhine. Illustration from Stories of the Wagner Opera by [[H. A. Guerber, 1905.]] The Rhinemaidens are the three nixies sisters (Rheintöchter or "Rhine daughters") who appear in Richard Wagner's opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen. Their individual names are Woglinde, Wellgunde and Flosshilde, although they are generally treated as a single entity and they act together accordingly. Of the 34 characters in the Ring cycle, they are the only ones who did not originate in the Old Norse Eddas. Wagner created his Rhinemaidens

thumb|A stuffed Wolpertinger on display in the Rheinfelder Beerhall, Zürich

thumb|Rübezahl (Rübenczal) as a tailed demon, first known depiction by Martin Helwig, 1561

nightmare creature originating in German folklore

medieval bronze sculpture in Brunswick, Germany

The Elbedritsch - also Elwetrittche, Ilwedritsch; in the plural Elwedritsche(n) - is an imaginary bird-like creature that is reported in southwest Germany (especially in the Palatinate and neighboring regions). The area of distribution is essentially congruent with the historical Palatinate. With emigrants, the belief in the existence of Elbedritsche also spread to Eastern Europe and North America (Pennsylvania) in the 18th century and to South America (Brazil) in the 19th century. The Elbedritsch is to be seen as a local variation on comparable imaginary creatures from other regions (cf. Wolp

thumb|280x280px|Statue depicting the Bahkauv in Aachen The Bahkauv is a mythical monster said to reside in Aachen, Germany. The creature has been featured in the folklore of both Aachen and the Rhineland. Often depicted as a deformed calf with fangs, the Bahkauv is commonly associated with drunken men.

Belsnickel (also known as Belschnickel, Belznickle, Belznickel, Pelznikel, Pelznickel, Bell Sniggle) is a crotchety, fur-clad Christmas gift-bringer figure in the folklore of the Palatinate region of southwestern Germany along the Rhine, the Saarland, and the Odenwald area of Baden-Württemberg. The figure is also preserved in Pennsylvania Dutch communities and Brazilian-German communities.

Alraune (German for ) is a novel by German novelist Hanns Heinz Ewers published in 1911. It is also the name of the female lead character. The book originally featured illustrations by Ilna Ewers-Wunderwald.

In German folklore, a Nachzehrer (, literally "after-consumer" (a creature that consumes from the afterlife) in German; also spelt Nachtzehrer, literally "night-consumer") is a type of Wiedergänger (revenant), which was believed to be able to drag the living after it into death, either through malice or through the desire to be closer to its loved ones through various means.

Baldanders or Soon-Different is a creature of Germanic literary myth that features protean properties.

thumb|A wiedergänger rises from its coffin. Copy from a 16th–century incunabulum now in the [[Bavarian State Library of Munich]] In German, the term Wiedergänger () is a term for a revenant and different ghost phenomena from different cultural areas, meaning "re-walker", or by extension, "one who walks again"; cognate to Scandinavian gjenganger ("again-walker"). The core of the wiedergänger myth is the concept of the deceased, who—often in the form of a physical phenomenon—return to the world of the living. They usually cause problems and frighten living people. They exist either to avenge som

South Tyrolean saga

thumb|Schrat as Carnival costume. The Schrat () or Schratt, also Schraz or Waldschrat (forest Schrat), is a rather diverse German and Slavic legendary creature with aspects of either a wood sprite, domestic sprite and/or a nightmare demon. In other languages it is further known as Skrat.

creatures of European folklore