Cabbalusa

Sailors tell of Cabbalusa, a lonely island somewhere in the far south of the Atlantean Ocean. It may once have been a genuine report of a distant land, but now even those who repeat the story do not believe it. It sounds like a second Ogygia: high cliffs above the sea, grassy meadows with running streams and clear pools, sea birds, small animals and soft breezes, a perfect refuge for tired sailors.

The legends say it is home to women of flawless beauty except for their lower legs, which are shaggy like a goat's and end in cloven hooves. With their bodies and their haunting songs they seduce any sailor who lands, so bewitching him that he never notices their goatish limbs, and a man who yields to one of these black-haired temptresses becomes her slave for life; many are said to live out their days as lovesick, witless thralls.

Some call the women witches in the service of an Empusa, a Greater Demon. Once a month, the story goes, one of the captive men is sacrificed to it in return for favors, usually the delivery of fresh men to the island, and sailors blame storms, navigation errors and other accidents at sea, such as along the Gondwanan coast, on the witches or their demon. Half-mad drifters in harbor taverns sometimes claim to have escaped, but few believe their tales of delight and terror.