As you all should know, I have a fascination and interest in mythological creatures. They always amaze me to know that they are creatures made up and inspired by either a certain animal or completely from the imaginative mind. Mythology creatures and legends also play a major part in our history no matter how real or fake they were. So I will list a couple of well known and infamous mythical beasts and legends. Some old and some new.
The dragon is one of the most popular mythical beasts in all mythology. It is featured in so many traditions, stories, movies, and media. It even became a zodiac. The dragon is described to be a giant serpent with wings and a fiery breath that is incredibly lethal. But sometimes, it can have different and various powers and abilities. There are many alternate versions of different dragons, making them all unique and powerful. The dragon firstly originated in the earliest of time. In fact, the exact origins of the dragons are unknown and hard to pinpoint but there have been a few guesses such as the B.C and the early 13th century. Since then, it has become a symbol and popular beast throughout the years. Dragons still appear in today’s world through stories, games, shows or movies such as How to Train Your Dragon, Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, The Hobbit, Pokemon, Dungeons and Dragons, Wings of Fire, Game of Thrones, Disney, and a whole lot more. The dragon has also become a famous symbol in many Chinese traditions as it is believed they symbolize strength, wealth, power, and protection.
Just like the dragon, the unicorn is also an infamous symbol of mythology. It appeared in early Mesopotamian artworks near east 3000-1300 B.C. It had a body more similar to a cow than a horse. Other than that, it had everything the unicorn is known to have. It is also depicted that the unicorn possessed a longer horn than thought and may have also been depicted to have two horns in other stories. The unicorn is still strongly used today in architecture, media, and stories. It has even become a queer icon in the LGBTQ+ community.
The centaur is a creature originating from Greek mythology. The story of the centaur goes as this:
Nephele was a cloud made into the likeness of Hera, the goddess of marriage, women, and family, in a plot to trick Ixion, the king of the lapiths, into revealing his lust to Hera to Zeus, the god of sky and thunder. Ixion seduced Nephele and from that relationship, centaurs were created.
Although most centaurs seen are male, there are some showings of female centaurs but they are not mentioned in Greek literature and art. They do appear in later antiquity. Greek mythology associates the centaur Chiron with the zodiac sign, Sagittarius. The centaur symbolizes various things like untamable natures, barbarism, chaos, hypocrisy, cautionary metaphor and guardian spirits.
Cerberus is a three headed dog known as the Hound of Hades, god of the dead and king of the underworld. Cerberus guards the entrance to the underworld, preventing the living from entering the underworld and the dead from going back to the living. Cerberus is the offspring of Echidna, a monster who had half the body of a woman and half body of a snake, and Typhon, a monstrous serpentine monster. Cerberus is described as a three headed canine-like monster with the tail similar to a snake. Sometimes, Cerberus is depicted to have more than just three heads. Some stories depict him as having four, five, six or seven heads. But his job of guarding the underworld has not changed. Cerberus is also primarily known to have been captured by Hercules, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, and was shown to Eurystheus as commanded. Hercules soon returned Cerberus to Hades after getting praised and honored by the residents of Greece. Cerberus symbolizes the underworld, loyalty and vigilance, the inevitability of death, and natural order.
The manticore is an infamous mythical beast, described to have the body of a lion and the tail of a snake or scorpion. The head of the manticore is depicted as a lion’s or a human’s. In most versions, the manticore possesses bat-like wings but it was shown to have no wings in the earliest of its years.
