Words of the Month - Collective Monsters

        Collective nouns - the “official” words used for groups of animals - range from the everyday, such as a herd of elephants or a flock of geese, to the distinctly unusual, such as a nye of pheasants or a clowder of cats.  You can see my previous post on these terms of venery for a little background and a number of other examples.  But what about when the animals themselves are… unusual?  Perhaps the argument might be made that it’s rare enough to see one unicorn, so that we hardly need a word for a large number of them together.  Nevertheless, writers of fantasy routinely imagine herds, flocks, nyes, and clowders of mythical magical monsters, and we clearly need words for them.
        When devising new nouns of assembly, it’s worth reminding ourselves of the sources of our old ones.  Generally speaking these words are based on characteristics of the animal they describe: sound, appearance, behavior, or habitat.  Or they may include a comment or moral judgement on the perceived worth of the creature.  And finally, there are terms that have come about through errors which have stuck, which we can ignore for purposes of devising our own terms!  (But if you want a couple of examples, check out the school of fish and the feamyng of ferrets.)
        My list today includes the suggestions of a number of other wordsmiths as well as my own, and I’ve indicated authors in the footnotes.  That’s how scholarly I am.  (If there's no listed author that means it’s my version.)  Also, although I mostly included on this list only the terms I like, sometimes I’ve included proposals from several people for comparison.  Throughout the list I’ve put my favorites in bold.
   a threatening of dragons - I can’t remember where I saw this given (heck, is it possible I made it up myself?), but I liked it enough to use it as the title of one of my books!  Jacqueline K. Ogburn suggests a dignity of dragons, while Karl Shuker would have a conflagration of dragons.  I’ve also seen a flight of dragons in various fantasy works.
   a hoard of griffins (KS), but I suggest that this, too, would work for dragons
   a flurry of yetis (JO) or an avalanche of yetis (KS)
   a grace of unicorns (JO) or a marvel of unicorns (from An Exaltation of Larks)
   a splash of mermaids (JO)
   a chord of sirens (JO) or a somnolence of sirens (KS) or a medley of sirens
   a menace of manticores (KS)
   a shock of Mongolian death worms (KS)
   a shriek of mandrakes (KS)
   a squadron of rocs (KS)
   a storm of thunderbirds (Curt Gleason)
   a flutter of Mothmen (Ian James Kidd)
   an awakening of kraken (KS) or an unleashing of kraken
   a foliation of Green Men (KS) or a thicket of Green Men
   a furnace of salamanders (KS) or a kindling of salamanders

   an assembly of chimaeras
   a corps of zombies
   a club of ogres
   a slew of vampires
   a riddle of sphinx (JO)
        Give it a try.  What collective terms can you devise?  What creatures do you think especially need them?  Let’s hear your ideas!

Sources: A Dignity of Dragons: Collective Nouns for Magical Beasts by Jacqueline K. Ogburn, 2010;

An Undulation of Sea Serpents, blog post by Karl Shuker, and including terms by Gleason and Kidd, 2021.

[Pictures: A menace of manticores, assorted illuminations from 9 bestiaries, first quarter of 13th century through 1566;

An assembly of chimaeras, photoshop fun with Chimaera of Arezzo, woodcut depicting the famous Etruscan bronze sculpture, from Monstrorum historia by Ulisse Aldrovandi, 1642 (original image from AMS Historica of the University of Bologna).]