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Human fantasy knows no bounds. Where there was not enough knowledge, from time immemorial, he drew in his imagination the mystic, monsters and magical creatures.
The certainty that he acquired calmed, and the creatures received their own life, settling in myths and fairy tales, acquiring details, history and habits.
We have collected ten of the most famous magical creatures that a person’s fantasy gave birth to.
10 Doppelganger
The phenomenon of twins and doubles has always disturbed the minds of people. They were endowed with mystical abilities, overgrown with legends and conjectures.
This is how the doppelganger appeared – a double of a person, personifying his shadow side. Doppelganger appears as a concentration of fears, desires, vices that a person denies, separates from himself. Often a harbinger of the hero’s death.
This topic worried many writers and appears in the works of R. L. Stevenson, Hoffmann, Charles Dickens, Edgar Allan Poe, it also migrated to Russian literature in the works of Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky.
The image of a doppelganger is not alien to modern art, an example is the image of Venom in the Marvel universe.
9. Chimera
The chimera was first mentioned in Greek mythology and appears as a monster with a lion’s head, a goat’s body and a snake’s tail. And breathes fire to everything else.
She is mentioned in Homer’s Iliad and has one head, but a little later a goat’s head was added to the lion’s head, and a snake’s head began to decorate the tail. In this form, the chimera was captured in bronze sculpture of the 5th century.
The image of the chimera also moved to other cultures, and so they began to call monsters that have body parts of different animals.
8. Troll
Trolls come from Scandinavian myths. They are usually described as huge creatures that live in the mountains. Actually, they themselves often have a stone origin: with the sunrise, the trolls turn into a mountain. There are several rocks in Britain that are said to be real trolls.
But there are many more species of these creatures, and the description depends on the ethnic group. There are forest trolls who are no bigger than gnomes and live in caves. Some dwell in castles, others under bridges. Bridge trolls are sun-loving, money-loving (and charge tribute for crossing bridges), and partial to human women.
7. gnome
What do you imagine when you think of gnomes? Cute dwarfs in red caps? Or malevolent spirits from the forest path? Or mighty warriors with an ax in their hands?
Gnomes came from a European, mostly Germanic-Scandinavian ethnic group. These are underground inhabitants of short stature, strong, stocky, bearded, distinguished by diligence, bad temper and love of gold.
Gnomes are the personification of the earth element. Their image turned out to be so tenacious that it has survived to this day and has become an integral part of fairy tales and most fantasy works.
6. Elf
Elves are characters of German-Scandinavian and Celtic folklore. These are forest dwellers, who, as a rule, are depicted as bright, kind creatures. There are many varieties of elves, depending on the ethnic group.
In some stories they are winged frivolous creatures, in others they are airy and sad. Sometimes they are indistinguishable from fairies, and sometimes they are depicted as dark-skinned, insidious creatures that live underground.
William Shakespeare described elves as a small winged people, and this image also stuck.
Tolkien, on the other hand, who popularized the tall, beautiful, wise elves, ridiculed the tiny pixies and believed that he studied the elves and showed them as closest to Scandinavian and Celtic mythologies.
5. Fairy
So the Scandinavians and Celts called creatures of a mystical nature, leading a mysterious, secretive way of life. Initially, these were wingless spirits, glowing like angels, or vice versa, small, green, wrinkled. Fairies were called almost all magical creatures, most often vindictive and vicious.
With the advent of romanticism, in the 18-19 centuries, fairies acquired a fabulous image, attractive faces, wings and a light cheerful disposition. They settled in the forests, in the meadows among the flowers, they were still known as playful, but by no means malicious creatures.
4. Mermaid
Mermaids have Slavic roots. This is an embodied image of the spirit of water and earth, they guard fields, forests and reservoirs. In some legends, mermaids can be found in the field or near the ponds, they take the form of beautiful maidens, tickle to death and drag them into the water.
And the image of these creatures also differs: sometimes they are described as little girls with pale skin and green hair, then half-naked charms, then women with fish tails, or ugly women with shaggy heads.
There is no consensus about the origin of mermaids: in some fairy tales they are evil spirits, in others they are cursed wives, and thirdly, they are suicides and drowned men.
There are many versions of mermaids, almost every tribe had its own history of water spirits, but the image turned out to be so important in Slavic folklore that it has come down to our days and has widely taken root in art, literature, painting and cinema.
3. Werewolf
The werewolf is another popular character in legends. The idea of a man who is able to change his appearance to an animal has excited the minds of people since ancient times.
His image is found in almost every culture. Their werewolves were in Egypt, and among the Indians, and in Europe, and, of course, among the Slavs.
There are many versions of these creatures, but they can be conditionally divided into congenital and those who have become infected with lycanthropy, for example, from the bite of such a monster.
You can also separate werewolves who control their abilities, and those who turn into a beast against their will, at night and during the full moon.
In Slavic mythology, werewolves turned not only into beasts, but also into stone and wood. They were witches and unbaptized children, as well as victims of witchcraft.
According to scientists, the origins of the werewolf legends are a mental illness in which a person considers himself an animal, and hypertrichosis, a disease that causes abundant hair growth on the face and body. No wonder such people were mistaken for werewolves.
2. A vampire
They say that vampires do not age and can live forever, unless, of course, the perishability of being breaks them. And then they turn into hungry creatures without a glimmer of reason in their eyes.
It was believed that sinners, criminals, rapists, unbaptized people and suicides were at risk of becoming vampires. And vampire victims, of course.
The image of a creature that feeds on blood is characteristic of any culture. Mentions of such creatures are found in Babylonian and Sumerian demonology, in India, among European and Slavic tribes. And they all had their own traits and characteristics.
Vampires were credited with the fear of shrines and special types of wood, garlic and fire, and the Chinese were sure that it was worth putting a bag of rice in the way of the monster, and he would not resist the temptation to count all the grains.
It is easy to identify a vampire: in the grave he is fresh and ruddy, looks healthy, is afraid of the light and has sharp fangs. Scientists believe that there is a completely logical explanation for all these phenomena: indeed, at a certain stage of the decomposition of the body, the skin can turn pink, and photophobia is characteristic of some diseases.
1. The Dragon
A huge shadow that blocked the sun, the flapping of powerful wings that raise dust, a fiery breath that burns crops and houses – yes, we are talking about a dragon. A huge winged lizard, awesome and magnificent.
The image of this creature came to us from ancient times, its roots in old beliefs and fears. Dragons are found in both Asian and European legends.
In the 20th century, there was a real boom in interest in winged lizards, it was then that the image that we imagine began to take shape.
Rare fantasy works do without dragons, wise or conceited, noble or vengeful, intelligent or savage. Their image is immortalized in literature, cinema, sculpture and painting.