Carbuncle (legendary creature)

Carbuncle (Spanish: carbunclo, carbunco; Portuguese: carbúnculo) is a legendary species of small animal in South American folklore, specifically in Paraguay or the mining folklore of northern Chile.

The animal is said to have a red shining mirror, like hot glowing coal, on its head, thought to be a precious stone. The animal was called Añagpitán (emended spelling) in the Guarani language according to Barco Centenera who wrote an early record about pursuing the beast in Paraguay. There are other attestations for anhangapitã from the Tupi-Guranani speaking populations in Brazil.

To the colonial Spaniards and Portuguese, the creature was a realization of the medieval lore that a dragon or wyvern concealed a precious gem in its brain or body (cf. § Early accounts).

The English word carbuncle and the Spanish word carbunclo comes from the Latin carbunculus, meaning "little coal" (i.e. carbon). Carbunclo is used to refer to ruby because this gemstone's shine is said to resemble the glow of hot coal. However, it is garnet and not ruby that is said to have been the mineralogical identity of the so-called "carbuncle of the ancients".

In turn, the creature was named after the red gem. It was around the 1600s, Spanish conquistadors began to apply the name to a mysterious small animal they saw in South America.

In Spanish, the forms carbunclo, carbunco are attested, and rarely perhaps carbúnculo also. The term carbunclo/carbunco could also mean "firefly".

The creature may sometimes called farol (meaning "lantern"), though this might be considered a separate creature of the lore of the La Plata area in Argentina.

Descriptions of the carbuncle came mostly from 17th- to 19th-century Spanish language sources which remained untranslated, but an entry for "carbuncle" appeared in the English translated version of the Book of Imaginary Beings (1969) by Argentine author Jorge Luis Borges, even though the entry on this creature was unincluded in the original Spanish edition. Some later publication in Spanish, such as El Libro de la Mitología (1997/1998) by Chilean writer Renato Cárdenas.