Lost Girl, the popular Canadian supernatural television series, has captured the imagination of audiences worldwide, highlighting "fae" (magical creatures) from all over the world. As a fan of both the show and Filipino mythology, I couldn't help but notice the inclusion of various mythological creatures from Filipino folklore. In this post, we will talk about the creatures featured or mentioned in Lost Girl and explore my personal perspective on how well they were represented in the show.
Expect spoilers because let's face it, the show's been around for over a decade!
Season 1, Episode 6 – Food for Thought (Aswang)
In the episode, Lauren introduces Halima, an aswang, to Bo and Kenzi. Halima is having a medical emergency, and she has eaten something that has caused her to become ill and bleed from her eyes. The show explains that Aswang eat corpses and decaying flesh; and are able to eat corpses of even plague victims without getting sick, which is why it was alarming for Halima to be ill. Physically, the Aswang is portrayed as a normal human, albeit a bit disheveled in appearance.
Aswang, translated to "monster," is an umbrella term of vampire-like creatures or shape-shifting creatures, depending who you ask. Some people consider the aswang to be a specific creature such as the tiktik (with its long tongue, sucking out everything from the stomach of its victim) or the manananggal (who splits in half before flying to find its victim).
However, the Lost Girl episode focuses on a type of aswang who only feasts on corpses. These could be a different creature of Filipino mythology like the buso (a monstrous creature who preys on dead bodies).
Season 2, Episode 11 – Can’t See the Fae-Rest (Batibat)
In this episode, Kenzi and Bo attend a party in search of a fae who has been killing male socialites. They wrongly accuse a fae, Lita, who they believed to be the murderer and attend a party where she would attend. Kenzi is knocked out at the party, only remembering a special wood box. Eventually, they find out that Lita sold the victims wooden items made from a rare Balinese wood, and Lita had bought them from a house sprite, Heinz.
Maganda, who had appeared throughout the episode, shows up at the bar right around when Trick notices a Balinese walking stick Heinz left behind. She appears to kill them for her home, but is baited and trapped in order to reason with her. She is held in a cell, alongside pieces of her tree, to protect her and unknowing owners of her tree while it is reclaimed.
Batibat is attached to their home, a tree, and will become angry when their home is invaded or mistreated. In this case (and in the folklore), the tree is cut down and used to make other pieces. Batibat will migrate to whatever is left of their tree and will become vengeful to those living or inhabiting it. In the folklore, they would not allow their victims to sleep, or if they do, they will suffocate their victims and give them nightmares.
The show only stays true to the folklore in how the batibat is bound to its tree/home, but does not stay true to the way in which it kills its victims.
As an aside, Maganda means beautiful or good in Tagalog.
Season 3, Episode 10 – Delinquents (Tikbalang)
Bo and Kenzi pose as camp counselors when an unidentified fae kills a camper. This fae leads the campers running for their lives, with the only clue being the smell of burning hair. Eventually, they identify the fae - a tikbalang, who needs to be "smoked" out to be caught, then hair cut to lose their willpower. This works, and they return to Trick, but find out two things: tikbalang mark their prey with a caltrop and hunt in pairs. Bo and Kenzi call Dyson to get to Lauren's place and save Lauren from the other tikbalang.
To be honest, I barely recognized the Tikbalang's mention until I saw the captions and the show's reference to the Philippines. (It is pronounced Tick-bah-lahng, and does not rhyme with bang).
The Tikbalang in the show appears to be human who wears a swamp-suit to hide their identity. Some Philippine stories do mention that the Tikbalang can disguise themselves in order to gain someone's trust - of course, they are disguising themselves as human rather than as something else.
The show's mention of cutting its hair to remove its willpower probably comes from a belief that if a human is able to take a piece of Tikbalang's hair, they control it. The distinct smell of burning hair is also mentioned in the show, but we have not found a reference to this from any stories so far. There is also a mention of tikbalangs hunting in pairs; again, we have not found references to this, but there are definitely love stories of two Tikbalang (including a superstition that if the sun is shining while it's raining, Tikbalang are getting married).
Season 5, Episode 1 – Like Hell (Kapre) only mentioned