59 Fun Facts About Mythical Creatures

Which mythical creature is the national animal of Scotland?

The unicorn is Scotland's national animal. Unicorns supported the royal arms of the King of Scots before the 1603 Union of the Crowns, and a unicorn is one of the supporters of the UK royal arms.

A phoenix is a legendary bird that is reborn from what?

The phoenix is reborn from the ashes of its predecessor: in the classical legend the aged bird burns on a pyre of spices and a new phoenix rises from the ashes, a cycle Harry Potter's Fawkes repeats.

Odin's horse Sleipnir is unusual for having how many legs?

Sleipnir has eight legs. Loki, shape-shifted into a mare to lure the stallion Svaðilfari away from building Asgard's wall, later bore the eight-legged foal and gave it to Odin.

The Minotaur of Greek myth lived at the centre of the Labyrinth on which island?

The Labyrinth stood at Knossos on Crete, built by Daedalus for King Minos; Theseus escaped it with the ball of thread Ariadne gave him.

Cerberus, the multi-headed dog of Greek myth, guards the gates of what place?

Cerberus guards the gates of the underworld, Hades' realm, letting the dead in but never out; fetching him was the last of Heracles' twelve labours.

In Greek myth, anyone who looked at the Gorgon slain by Perseus was turned into what?

The Gorgon's gaze turned anyone who met it to stone; Perseus avoided it by watching her reflection in his polished shield, then used the severed head to petrify his enemies.

The Sasquatch, or Bigfoot, is said to inhabit forests in which part of North America in particular?

Bigfoot, or Sasquatch, belongs to the forests of the Pacific Northwest: 'Sasquatch' anglicises the Halkomelem word sásq'ets, and the name 'Bigfoot' was coined in 1958 by a California newspaper reporting giant tracks found by a road crew.

The Yeti of the Himalayas is better known in Western pop culture by what nickname?

The Abominable Snowman is the Western nickname for the Yeti, coined in 1921 when journalist Henry Newman loosely translated the Sherpa term 'metoh-kangmi' reported by a British Himalayan expedition.

The Loch Ness Monster's 1934 'surgeon's photograph' was a hoax built around what?

The 'surgeon's photograph' showed a toy submarine fitted with a sculpted head and neck; Christian Spurling, stepson of big-game hunter Marmaduke Wetherell, confessed to building the model in 1993.

Bram Stoker's Dracula, the quintessential vampire novel, was published in what year?

Dracula was published in May 1897 by Archibald Constable and Company in London; Stoker, business manager of Henry Irving's Lyceum Theatre, had begun his notes for the novel in 1890.

The Chinese dragon, unlike its fire-breathing European cousin, is traditionally a deity of what?

Chinese dragons are benevolent water spirits that bring rain: the Dragon Kings of the four seas were prayed to for rainfall, and dragon dances were performed to end droughts.

A leprechaun is traditionally depicted as which kind of craftsman, with a hidden pot of gold?

The leprechaun is a solitary fairy shoemaker, traditionally heard tapping away at a single shoe, and before the 20th century he was usually described in a red coat rather than green.

The kraken of Norwegian legend is thought to have been inspired by sightings of what real animal?

The kraken is generally traced to the giant squid (Architeuthis), which can reach around 13 metres; the Norwegian 'krake' means a twisted or malformed thing, apt for a tangle of tentacles.

What is Columbus believed to have actually seen when he reported three 'mermaids' off Hispaniola in 1493?

Columbus's three 'mermaids' of January 1493 were almost certainly manatees, the sea cows whose order is named Sirenia after the sirens; he wrote that they were not as beautiful as painted and had masculine faces.

Which Danish physician proved in 1638 that 'alicorns' sold as unicorn horns were narwhal tusks?

Ole Worm, a Copenhagen physician and collector, showed in 1638 that so-called alicorns were narwhal tusks; alicorn had been prized as a poison antidote worth many times its weight in gold.

The griffin combines the body of a lion with the head and wings of which bird?

The griffin has an eagle's head and wings on a lion's body; Herodotus and Aristeas placed griffins guarding gold in the far north beyond Scythia against the one-eyed Arimaspians.

The Chimera was a fire-breathing lion with a snake tail and the head of which animal rising from its back?

Its name means 'she-goat' in Greek; the hero Bellerophon killed it from the back of the winged horse Pegasus.

For every head cut off the Lernaean Hydra, how many grew back in the best-known versions of the story?

Heracles' nephew Iolaus cauterised each stump with fire, and the Greek expression 'cutting off a hydra' came to mean an endless task.

The winged horse Pegasus sprang from the blood of which figure when she was beheaded by Perseus?

Pegasus sprang from Medusa's neck when Perseus beheaded her, together with the giant Chrysaor; their father was Poseidon, who had lain with Medusa in Athena's temple.

Per Pliny the Elder, the basilisk's one fatal weakness was the odour of which animal?

Pliny wrote that the basilisk, deadly to everything else, is killed by the stench of the weasel, which hunters throw into its hole; the name means 'little king' in Greek.

According to legend a cockatrice hatches from a chicken's egg incubated by which animal?

Medieval bestiaries had the cockatrice hatch from a cock's egg incubated by a toad or snake; writers scarcely distinguished it from the basilisk, and both were said to kill with a glance.

The Sphinx of Greek myth killed and ate travellers who could not do what?

The Sphinx devoured travellers who could not answer her riddle; Oedipus solved it with the answer 'man', who crawls as a baby, walks upright, then leans on a stick, and the Sphinx hurled herself from her rock.

A centaur has the upper body of a human and the lower body of which animal?

A centaur is human above the waist and horse below, with four equine legs; the centaurs were said to live in the mountains of Thessaly and descend from Ixion and the cloud-nymph Nephele.

The manticore, a man-faced lion with a spiked tail, comes from the mythology of which ancient empire?

Its name means 'man-eater' in Old Persian; it was said to swallow victims whole, leaving no bones.

Which one-eyed giant did Odysseus blind with a sharpened stake in the Odyssey?

Polyphemus, a Cyclops and son of Poseidon, trapped Odysseus's crew in his cave; Odysseus got him drunk on wine, drove a heated stake into his eye and escaped clinging beneath his sheep.

Which Italian poet invented the hippogriff, born of a mare and a griffin, in the early 1500s?

Ludovico Ariosto introduced the hippogriff in Orlando Furioso (1516), where the wizard Atlante rides it and Ruggiero later tames it; Virgil had used the mating of griffins with mares as a proverb for impossibility.

In Norse myth, which god lost his right hand in the jaws of the wolf Fenrir when the gods bound him?

Týr placed his right hand in Fenrir's mouth as a pledge while the gods bound the wolf with the ribbon Gleipnir; when Fenrir found he could not break free, he bit the hand off.

Jörmungandr, the World Serpent of Norse myth, encircles the earth and does what?

Jörmungandr grew so large that it encircles Midgard and bites its own tail; when it lets go, Ragnarök begins. It is Loki's middle child by the giantess Angrboða, and Thor is fated to kill it.

In Scottish folklore, what does a kelpie do to anyone who climbs onto its back?

A kelpie's hide turns sticky once a rider mounts; it then drags them into the loch and drowns them, often devouring the body. A bridle slipped over its head was said to tame it.

Selkies of Northern Isles folklore change from seal to human by doing what?

Many tales have a man steal a selkie's skin to force her to marry him; she flees back to the sea the moment she finds it.

What does the wail of a banshee foretell in Irish folklore?

The banshee's keening foretells the death of a family member, traditionally in the old Irish families she attaches herself to; her name, bean sí, means 'woman of the fairy mound'.

The kappa of Japanese folklore carries water in a dish on its head and is especially fond of what food?

Kappa are so fond of cucumbers that cucumber sushi rolls are called kappamaki, and people once threw cucumbers into rivers to placate them; spilling the water from a kappa's head-dish leaves it weakened.

A kitsune, a shape-shifting spirit of Japanese folklore, takes the form of which animal?

Kitsune is simply the Japanese word for fox; fox spirits grow extra tails and greater magic with age, up to the nine-tailed kyūbi, and serve as messengers of the rice god Inari.

The most famous golem legend involves Rabbi Judah Loew, a 16th-century rabbi of which city?

Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel, the Maharal of Prague, is said to have shaped the golem from Vltava clay to protect the city's Jews; writing 'emet' (truth) on its forehead animated it, and erasing the first letter stopped it.

The chupacabra, whose name literally means 'goat-sucker', was first widely reported in 1995 where?

The first chupacabra reports came from Puerto Rico in 1995, when farmers found goats and other livestock drained of blood; later 'chupacabras' shot in Texas proved to be coyotes and dogs with severe mange.

The Mothman was reportedly seen in 1966-67 around Point Pleasant, in which US state?

Point Pleasant, West Virginia, reported the Mothman from November 1966; the sightings ended with the Silver Bridge collapse over the Ohio River in December 1967, which killed 46 people, and John Keel's 1975 book made the link famous.

The jackalope was popularised in the 1930s by taxidermist brothers in which US state?

Brothers Douglas and Ralph Herrick of Douglas, Wyoming, mounted the first jackalope in the 1930s; real rabbits infected with the Shope papilloma virus grow horn-like growths, which may explain older tales of horned hares.

The wendigo, a cannibal spirit with insatiable hunger, comes from which peoples' folklore?

The wendigo belongs to the folklore of Algonquian-speaking peoples such as the Ojibwe and Cree of the northern forests and Great Lakes; 'wendigo psychosis', a craving for human flesh, was once listed as a culture-bound syndrome.

In one Native American tradition, how does the thunderbird create thunder?

In many Native American traditions, such as those of the Lakota and Ojibwe, the thunderbird makes thunder by flapping its vast wings and lightning by blinking its eyes; it is a foe of water serpents.

The swamp-lurking bunyip belongs to the Indigenous folklore of which continent?

The bunyip haunts the swamps and billabongs of south-eastern Australia; the word comes from the Wemba-Wemba or Wergaia languages of Victoria and is usually translated as 'devil' or 'evil spirit'.

The roc of Middle Eastern legend, from the tales of Sinbad, was said to be large enough to carry off which animal?

Marco Polo also reported it; the same story motif of a giant bird carrying an elephant appears in the Mahabharata for Garuda.

Garuda, Vishnu's mount, appears on the coats of arms of Indonesia and which other country?

Thailand's national emblem is the Garuda (Khrut), used on royal and state documents and as a symbol of the monarchy; Indonesia's emblem is the Garuda Pancasila.

After Zheng He's 15th-century voyages, the Chinese qilin became identified with which real African animal?

Zuo Zhuan credits Confucius himself with identifying a captured 'lin' in 481 BCE.

In Sanskrit, the word 'nāga' primarily refers to a snake, and most specifically to which species?

Monier-Williams's Sanskrit dictionary glosses nāga as a snake, especially Coluber naga, the Indian cobra (Naja naja); serpent-shaped nāga deities fill Hindu iconography and the first book of the Mahābhārata.

Which country is 'Land of the Thunder Dragon' in Dzongkha and puts the druk on its flag?

Bhutan calls itself Druk Yul, 'Land of the Thunder Dragon'; a white druk clutching jewels stretches across its flag, and its monarchs are styled Druk Gyalpo, 'Dragon King'.

Werewolf trials of the 16th and 17th centuries were concentrated in which part of Europe?

Werewolf trials clustered in French- and German-speaking lands: Franche-Comté, Burgundy, Lorraine, the Rhineland and Switzerland, where Peter Stumpp of Bedburg was broken on the wheel in 1589 amid the wider sorcery trials.

Which 1819 story by John Polidori created the charismatic, aristocratic vampire of modern fiction?

The Vampyre (1819) introduced the suave aristocratic vampire Lord Ruthven, modelled on Byron; it grew out of the 1816 Lake Geneva ghost-story contest that also produced Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.

A 2018 DNA survey of Loch Ness found no reptile DNA but abundant DNA from which animal?

Neil Gemmell's 2018 environmental-DNA survey of Loch Ness found no reptile, sturgeon or catfish DNA but a great deal from eels, leading Gemmell to suggest a giant eel as the least implausible explanation for sightings.

The Yeti's English nickname was coined in 1921 during a British reconnaissance expedition to which mountain?

The 1921 British reconnaissance of Everest, led by Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Howard-Bury, found large footprints on a high pass that the porters attributed to a wild man of the snows; a journalist's loose translation gave the creature its English nickname.

The 1958 footprints found by Jerry Crew that launched the Bigfoot craze were made with what?

After Ray Wallace, the contractor whose crew found the tracks, died in 2002, his family revealed the carved wooden feet he had used to stamp the prints around the logging site.

In the Völsunga saga, drinking which dragon's blood lets Sigurd understand the language of birds?

Fafnir, a dwarf turned dragon guarding Andvari's cursed gold, was stabbed from below by Sigurd from a pit dug on its path to water; tasting the dragon's blood let Sigurd understand the birds.

In the Golden Legend, Saint George's dragon pillaged the sheep of the town of Silene in which land?

The Golden Legend sets the tale at Silene in Libya, where the townsfolk fed the dragon sheep and then children until George speared it; the earliest known telling of the dragon episode is an eleventh-century Georgian text.

The mermaid-like goddess Derceto or Atargatis was worshipped in which ancient city?

Diodorus Siculus placed Derceto's cult at Ashkelon, where a lake by her temple held sacred fish and the goddess was shown with a fish's tail; ashamed of a child born of an affair, she threw herself into the lake.

In which year did P. T. Barnum exhibit the hoax 'Fiji mermaid' in America?

Barnum displayed the 'Feejee mermaid' in New York in 1842, renting it from Boston museum owner Moses Kimball; the monkey-and-fish creation had been exhibited in London in 1822 and was probably made in Japan.

The name of Romania's vampire-like strigoi derives from a word meaning what?

Strigoi comes from Romanian strigă, 'witch', a cognate of Italian strega and Latin striga; living strigoi were thought to be witches, while dead ones rose from the grave to drain the blood of the living.

Ancient Greek natural historians believed unicorns really lived in which distant land?

Ctesias, in his Indica (around 400 BCE), described a wild ass of India with a single horn of white, red and black, and Aristotle and Pliny repeated that the one-horned beast lived in India.

Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin shot their famous 1967 Bigfoot film at which Northern California site?

Patterson and Gimlin shot their roughly one-minute film on October 20, 1967, on a sandbar beside Bluff Creek in Six Rivers National Forest, where they claimed to have been making a Bigfoot docudrama.

A 7th-century life of which saint contains the earliest report of a monster near Loch Ness?

Adomnán's Life of St Columba, written around 700, tells how Columba in 565 drove off a 'water beast' in the River Ness by making the sign of the cross; the story is set in the river, not the loch.

The 1924 'Ape Canyon' clash between gold prospectors and 'ape-men' took place near which volcano?

The Oregonian's July 16, 1924 story about the encounter made national news.