Inspiration

Of how I met the ghūl swooping down on the desert bare and flat as a sheet.

I said to her, “We are both worn with exhaustion, brothers of travel, so leave my place to me!

She sprang at me, then my hand raised against her a polished Yemeni blade.

Then undismayed I struck her: she fell flat prostrated on her two hands and on her throatlatch.

She said, “Strike again!” I replied to her, “Calm down, mind your place! For I am indeed stout-hearted.”

I lay upon her [through the night] that in the morning I might see what had come to me.

Behold! Two eyes set in a hideous head, like the head of a split-tongued cat.

Legs like a deformed foetus, the back of a dog, clothes of haircloth or worn-out skins!

-- Poem by Ta’abbata Sharran - Late 6th century or early 7th century CE

Ideograms

Ghul-e Biyaban