10 mythical creatures that have real prototypes

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Fear and superstition can turn anyone and anything into monsters.

1. Mermaid

Myth. Mermaids are known to everyone. They are half beautiful women, half fish. They can be both evil and quite peaceful.

Strictly speaking, one should distinguish between mermaids and "sea maidens". The first are Slavic, have legs and can tickle unlucky travelers to death. Obtained from drowned women. The second are foreign mermaids, women with fish tails. Perhaps because of Andersen's translation of The Little Mermaid, these concepts are confused.

And they also endow these creatures with a beautiful voice with which they lure sailors into their nets. Obviously, this trait went to the mermaids from the Greek sirens. Those with fish had nothing in common and were half birds.

Reality. There are reasons 1.

2. Believe that mermaids with fish tails appeared in the mass consciousness because of the stories of sailors. They mistook for them from afar various animals - seals, dugongs and manatees.

After many months of sailing, anything looks like a beautiful woman. Even a walrus.

Mentions of mermaids are found in "Natural History" by Pliny the Elder. He cites the stories of the inhabitants of the coast of Gaul, who saw the "sea maidens" washed ashore. It seems that if they took a closer look at them, they would be disappointed.

2. Kraken

Myth. The Kraken is a legendary monster from the stories of fishermen in Norway and Greenland. This is a huge mollusk, capable of dragging an entire ship to the bottom.

The northerners have a common expression "to fish with the kraken." It is believed that this monster spews a huge amount of semi-digested excrement. And whole schools of fish follow him, eating up the products of his vital activity.

Reality. Giant squids are real. True, the fear of the sailors, whose "eyes are large", slightly exaggerated their size. The largest specimens of this species reach 13 m in length and weigh about 275 kg. The squid can overturn a small boat, mistaking it for prey, but the ships are not able to sink.

3. Jackalop

Myth. In the folklore of many peoples of the world, there is a horned hare, he is also a dzhekalop (English jackalope from jackrabbit - "hare" and antelope - "antelope") or rabbit. Some scientists even recognized its existence as quite probable. For example, in his Encyclopedic Paintings, naturalist Pierre Joseph Bonnaterre describes the Jackalopa as a real animal.

The Germans generally called this creature a Volpertinger and endowed it with fangs and wings. And they also came up with a beer under that name.

Reality. Most likely, the myths about horned rabbits appeared because of hares infected with a special kind of rabbit papillomavirus. It provokes the appearance of disgusting growths on the head of animals.

And a similar virus sometimes infects giraffes, making them look very, very ugly - although they themselves don't seem to care. Better not google it. However, it is not necessary.

4. Cyclops

Myth. Cyclops in ancient Greek mythology are one-eyed giants who eat humans. For example, the son of the sea god Poseidon Polyphemus tried to devour Odysseus's crew of sailors. But the latter gave the giant a drink, and then deprived him of his eye.

Reality. Paleontologist Otenio Abel in 1914 suggested that the myth of the cyclops was born when people saw the skulls of dwarf elephants. In the middle, they had a hole that was provided for attaching the trunk. To people uninformed in elephant anatomy, it might seem that this is the skull of a one-eyed giant.

5. Succubus and incubus

Myth. Succubus and incubus are lecherous demons who seek sexual relations with humans. As a rule, such a novel does not end with anything good.

A succubus, having assumed the form of a beautiful girl, comes to men at night. The incubus, in the form of a handsome young man, visits women. From the latter, you can get pregnant and give birth to someone very bad.

If the victim realizes that a demon is in front of her, he sends nightmares and helplessness to her. And she uses force, no longer trying to pretend to be seductive.

Reality. Sleep paralysis is quite common. At least 40% of people have experienced it at least once. And when you have a bad dream and are awake at the same time, it is very easy to imagine that someone is strangling or torturing you.

Scientists believe that it is sleep paralysis in combination with hypnagonism that hallucinations that occur during the transition from sleep to wakefulness gave rise to stories about evil spirits, incubi, succubi, maras and brownies that attack you in your sleep. Add to this the phenomenon of wet dreams, and at the same time the frightening and exciting image of the demon is ready.

6. Charybdis

Myth. Charybdis is a monster from the Odyssey, which created a mighty whirlpool and sucked entire ships into its mouth. Next to her was the rock on which Scylla lived - a creature with six dog's heads on long necks.

Odysseus had to choose which of these adorable creatures to navigate. And the hero reasoned logically that it would be better to sacrifice six sailors than to lose the entire crew and ship to boot. He swam along the edge, past the habitat of Scylla. What she did not fail to take advantage of.

Reality. Six-headed dog-moth diplodocus has not been recorded in nature. So Scylla, apparently, is entirely an invention of Homer. But her friend Charybdis has a very obvious real prototype. And this is not some kind of animal, but a whirlpool - such phenomena occur in the sea when two opposite currents collide.

True, their power in fairy tales is exaggerated. A whirlpool can sink a small boat, but it will do nothing to a large ship. In the Strait of Messina, where, according to legend, Scylla and Charybdis lived, these phenomena are not uncommon. But they are not often dangerous.

7. Unicorn

Myth. Unicorns are beautiful and graceful horses with a horn sticking out in the middle of their forehead. In Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, they were considered real animals. In medieval Europe, unicorns symbolized holiness, and their horn could save from all poisons and bestow miraculous powers.

In the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm, the unicorn was an extremely vicious and aggressive monster - however, they generally had enough horrors there. These animals were also mentioned in Chinese legends - their horn was able to cure impotence. However, the Chinese can treat it with anything.

Reality. There are several hypotheses 1.

2. "News of the All-Union Geographical Society". Volume 77, Issue 1-2. about the origin of unicorns. Perhaps the culprit is the narwhal tusks that the Norwegians and Danes traded in. The gullible inhabitants of the southern countries took them for the horn of an amazing beast.

Well, the merchants were lying, probably: selling a part of the body of a sacred horse is much more profitable than the tusk of an ordinary representative of the toothed whale family.

The second option: the unicorn was invented when the Romans or Greeks found the remains of the skull of Elasmotherium. This is an ancient species of rhinoceros, whose horn protruded almost from the very forehead. True, the latter is not very similar to the mythical thin twisted horns: this contraption could perforate a mammoth from one end to the other. So, maybe it's for the best that these animals became extinct.

8. Griffins

Myth. The griffin is a winged creature with the head of an eagle and the body of a lion. The image appeared in Egypt and Persia, but it came there from the stories of miners from the gold deposits of Central Asia.

Griffins were mentioned by Pliny the Elder: supposedly, where they laid their eggs, there were gold nuggets. In medieval heraldry, this creature became a Christian symbol of divine power and a guardian of faith.

Reality. Folklorist and historian Adrienne Mayor put forward a very plausible hypothesis that the Greeks and the inhabitants of Central Asia took the fossilized skeletons of the protoceratops for the remains of griffins. These are dinosaurs with beaks and horny collars.

Their bodies were very similar to a hybrid of a bird and an animal. And you can even invent wings - after all, with them these creatures would look much more epic.

9. Basilisk

Myth. According to European mythology, a basilisk is a monster with the body and head of a rooster and a snake's tail. He spews poison and kills with a glance. It is believed that this creature can emerge from an egg that will be laid by a rooster and hatched by a toad. The worst enemy of the basilisk is a weasel that does not die when looking at it. And only she can defeat the monster.

Reality. Basilisk infiltrated the legends of superstitious medieval Europeans from stories about Egyptian cobras. They are also capable of attacking at a distance, spitting poison in the eyes of the victim. And the main danger for the cobra is the mongoose, which in further retellings was transformed into a weasel.

The legends of the 13th century tell how Alexander the Great allegedly defeats the basilisk by showing him a mirror. And this commander just conquered Egypt. And he most likely met cobras. Apparently, the memory of them was transformed over time so that the snake turned into a wild hybrid of a reptile and a bird, killing with a glance.

10. Bunyip

Myth. Bunyip is a mythical creature from the stories of Australian aborigines who lived in swamps and rivers. This word means "devil" or "spirit". Bunyip resembles a cross between an alligator and a platypus, about the size of a horse. It was his antics that the Australians explained the disappearances of people in the swamps.

Reality. In 1871, Dr. George Bennett of the Australian Museum linked the bunyip to the extinct marsupials that once lived in Australia, such as the diprotodon.

This creature lived in swamps and outwardly resembled a wombat, but it was a sprout from a rhinoceros. Despite the fact that diprotodon ate plants, he was surely scary in anger.

The animal became extinct 20-40 thousand years ago - much later than the ancestors of the Australian aborigines settled on this continent.

It is possible that the hunters and helped him with the extinction.

But the cultural memory of the enormous swamp beast was so strong that Australians have preserved the bunyip stories to this day.