Be Excellent To Each Other

I'm trying to think of all the mythical creatures that are based in reality (ie no Minotaurs etc) Looking at ancient myths from any culture, stuff like unicorns, vampires, fairies, giants etc)

List away.

Malc

Eh? You can have a vampire, but not a minotaur?

Gorgon.

Yeah, I don't get your criteria either Malc.

A vampire can be explained, a minotaur cannot.

Malc

And a unicorn? A Kraken?

Someone fucked a cow.

Explain a vampire to me.

A unicorn could be a horse, or a rhino or something like that.

Basically I'm after a list of creatures that could be explained by people exaggerating and embellishing what they saw.

Malc

Oh, right.

Mermaid - possibly a manatee (women from a few centuries back were uggo, then)

A man who is very strong, doesn't like the sun and craves something that they can only get from blood. and some sort of gum disease leading to more of the teeth being exposed.

Malc

One version I read (probably from Cracked.com) is that the shrinkage of skin after death exposes teeth and gives the impression of hair/nail growth. That might give peasents the concept of the undead.

Dwarfs - short, ill tempered folk that live in mines - explanation: The welsh.

Or goths.

Zombies - foul smelling, lurching slow moving creatures that strip flesh from bones - explanation: Cardiff city centre on a friday night.

Witches - strange old women who live by themselves with cats (and weakness for fornicating with Satan)

Werewolves, given that 'werewolf syndrome' is real enough.

Goblins - fouls smelling, beady eyed creatures that live underground in dank holes - Explanation: The Welsh.

[quote=Craster]Werewolves, given that 'werewolf syndrome' is real enough.[/quote]

See also: Wookies.

Trolls: Ugly, malformed beasts that live in dank caves - Explanation: (Yes, yes, we get it -Ed)

goths aren't strong

Will-o'-the-wisp - One common scientific explanation for such phenomena is that the oxidation of hydrogen phosphide and methane gases produced by the decay of organic material has been documented to cause glowing lights to appear in the air. Experiments, for example, done by the Italian chemists Luigi Garlaschelli and Paolo Boschetti, have replicated the lights by adding chemicals to the gases formed by rotting compounds.
In 1993, Professors Derr and Persinger put forward a theory that earth lights may be generated piezoelectrically under a tectonic strain. This theory suggests that the strains which move faults also causes heat in the rocks, vaporising the water in them. Rocks and soils containing piezoelectric elements such as quartz (or silicon) may also produce electricity, which is channeled up through soils via a column of vaporised water until it reaches the surface — somehow displaying itself in the form of earth lights. If correct, this explains why such lights can behave in an electrical and erratic – or even apparently intelligent – manner Persinger, M.A. (1993). Perceptual and Motor Skills. "Geophysical variables and behavior: LXXIV. Man-made fluid injections into the crust and reports of luminous phenomena (UFO Reports) - is the strain field an aseismically propagating hydrological pulse?". Derr, J.S. (1993). Perceptual and Motor Skills. "Seasonal hydrological load and regional luminous phenomena (UFO reports) within river systems: the Mississippi Valley test.".
Others explanations associate will-o'-the-wisps with bioluminescence (e.g. honey fungus). Barn owls are also known to have luminescent plumage with a very high albedo that can reflect enough light from other sources (for example, the moon) to generate the appearance of a will-o'-the-wisp. Hence the possibility of them floating around, reacting to other lights, etc.

Or the ghost of Kenneth Williams.

Loch Ness Monster - An Elephant

Sasquatch - Dave Lee Travis

Leprechauns - Babies

Changelings - the realisation that the cute bundle of joy you were so proud of when they were first born has hit the terrible twos.

The Lambton Wyrm - My pecker

Piss Ant - Myps

More importantly, what is the purpose of this exercise?

It's to help him sleep at night.

Gollum - last seen in Fleetwood, Lancs.

Naaaaaasty Hobbit!

There is actually a mental disorder called Capgras syndrome, which causes sufferers to believe that loved ones have been replaced by identical replicas. Could very well be the basis of the changeling myth.

Oh yeah, there's the Sleep Paralysis / demonic visitation thing too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis

I've experienced that (very suddenly in my early twenties) and it's not pleasant. Happened to me two nights in succession and never before or since. Apparently sleeping on one's back is the big risk factor (which I was doing, unusually for me, on both occasions.) I didn't see or feel anything but I sensed that something malevolent was creeping into the room just beyond my field of vision.

I once read that the Grim Reaper was the most common presence experienced in sleep paralysis, although it had been briefly usurped by Darth Vader in the 1980s.

There is a theory that the Minotaur myth sprang up from gladiatorial arenas vs. bulls - slaves would be put into the labyrinth versus a bull (or possibly a gladiator wearing a bulls head - very mythic)

Ancient greeks loved to explain wierd animals as 'chimeric' (mixture of known animals), so when they saw a new one they described it as a mix of two. For example the Giraffe was thought to be a Camel-leopard hybrid (the greek name 'Camelopardalis' literally means camel leopard)

For a more modern legend...
Chupacabra - the goat Sucker!

Never had it myself but I know MarkG has had it several times.

That wasn't sleep paralysis though. That was you slipping him a mickey and then molesting him in the middle of the night.

More Gobblin than Demon too.

A "universe" that I want to populate.

Malc

I've suffered from all sorts of weird lucid dreaming, sleep paralysis and exploding head syndrome stuff in the past. I didn't really know that they were actually medical conditions when I was a child - I just thought I was weird (which, in fairness, I was).

"Here Esquilax!"
\

Zombies - Voodoo & Shit

Ghosts - Bed sheets

Brummies - Rejected Hell Spawn

You ccould google 'cryptozoology' for some decent results.

That will take all the fun out though Meems.

Oh, I thought it might be for something important - though what I don't know If it is just for idle curiosity ignore the above

Malc wants his next child to be a unicorn.

No, it's for idle Malc.

Minotaurs can be explained easily -a huge, hulking great warrior bloke (or legion, even) who wore a bull's head for protection/magical power*/intimidating his enemies.

Harder to explain: Grendel, Cerberus, Michael Jackson.


*Like the Vikings used to wear the skin of animals to give them that animal's strength or speed or whatever. Or possibly that was the Picts.

I like this thread! I like stuff like this.

Here's a really good "real world fiction" about Vampires. In the form of a pretend presentation. It is acebest.

Technically not a goth, admittedly.