Several legendary creatures from a picture book for children between 1790 and 1822, by Friedrich Justin Bertuch – public domain image (used in Wikipedia “Legendary Creature”)

(13) LEGENDARY CREATURES

“Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!”

Except, you know, more like minotaurs and sphinxes and chimeras, oh my!

This special mention originates from the same source as my special mention in mythology books for A Dictionary of Fabulous Beasts – my love for one of the most fascinating aspects of mythology, its plethora of fabulous beasts or monsters, as reflected in the Wikipedia article for Legendary Creature (a title I obviously also used for this special mention) or the TV Tropes Index for Fictional Creatures and Our Monsters are Different (as well as its feature for Stock Monster Symbolism).

Obviously, I’ve already included a number of legendary creatures in previous special mention entries – notably Fairies, Dragons, Giants, Ghosts, Vampires and Lycanthropes, but arguably also Magic (extending to creatures created or summoned by magic) and Witchcraft (as for Magic but also extending to things like familiars, imps or even the witches themselves). They are arguably also encompassed by two special mentions subsequent to this one. This special mention is effectively for all the other legendary creatures (albeit some substantial overlap), including the really bizarre or weird ones (as encapsulated in the TV Tropes feature Our Monsters are Weird).

“A legendary creature is a type of extraordinary or supernatural being that is described in folklore (including myths and legends) and may be featured in historical accounts before modernity”.

Indeed, legendary creatures are so prolific that they exceed the capacity of any single top ten (although I’ll give it a try). The origins and classification or types of legendary creatures themselves could be the subject of their own top ten lists – as for fairies, even by broader classifications, let alone all the variations of individual types.

For origins, there’s legendary creatures as monstrous antagonists for heroes (in turn reflecting wild or chaotic forces in nature or other sources) and legendary creatures claimed in accounts of natural history as real animals – or alternatively (and my personal favorite), real animals thought to be mythical before they were confirmed or discovered as real such as the platypus. There’s legendary creatures as hybrid beasts, legendary creatures “based on real encounters or garbled accounts of travellers’ tales”, and legendary creatures as art or allegory.

As for classifications or types of legendary creatures, an interesting framework is that of the Wikipedia’s various lists of legendary creatures, particularly its list of legendary creatures by type – the various animal types (such as reptiles, serpents and worms overlapping with dragons) or plant types, artificial creatures, associations with body parts or abstract concepts, natural elements or time, natural or supernatural habitats, astronomical objects or even the Earth, humanoids, hybrids, shapeshifters, and undead.

RATING:

A-TIER (TOP TIER)