World mythology is full of fantastic kingdoms and realms that exist alongside our own. Many of them are said to have entrances in the real world, meaning that it’s possible to at least stand on the doorstep of some pretty amazing places. Now, if only we knew the passwords to open those doors . . .

10The Fairy Kingdom

Knockma Woods is located in the western wilds of Ireland, and it’s associated with a couple of major legends. The legendary warrior queen Maeve is said to be buried in a cairn on Knockma Hill, and the hill itself is supposedly the entrance to one of Ireland’s fairy kingdoms. Ruled by Finnbheara (or Finvarra), the Fairy King of Connacht, the kingdom is said to exist just beyond one of the many stone circles and fairy rings that dot the hill.

According to legend, Finvarra once abducted the beautiful bride of an Irish lord and carried her back to his kingdom. The lord followed Finvarra and his bride to the hill and ordered his men to start digging, but every night as the men slept, their work was repaired by Finvarra’s fairies. To keep them from repairing the entrance, the lord threw salt over the hill and eventually dug his way into the kingdom to retrieve his wife.

Finvarra is also mentioned in family legends of the 18th and 19th centuries, said to protect the nearby Castle Hacket, keep the family wine cellars stocked, and ensure their horses’ victories in whatever race they entered. Knockma isn’t just a place of legend, either: Archaeological excavations have found a number of Neolithic sites in the woods, and cairns on the hill date back to around 6000–7000 B.C.

9The River Styx

The River Styx is the primary entrance to the Greek netherworld. It’s said to flow around the realm of Hades seven times, and its water is corrosive, poisonous, and deadly. The river was rumored to ultimately flow between two massive silver pillars, guarded by the nymph for whom the river was named. It’s also reportedly real, and its deadly waters are now thought to be what killed one of the greatest leaders in world history.

According to legend, the waters of the River Styx functioned as something of a polygraph test for the gods when Zeus forced them to drink it. If they were lying, they would lose their voices and the ability to move for a year. These symptoms are eerily similar to those suffered by Alexander the Great before his premature death due to an unidentified sudden illness in 323 B.C. The Greek leader suffered stabbing pains in his internal organs and joints, high fever, and voice loss before he slipped into a coma.

Those symptoms are also very similar to those experienced by a person who has ingested calicheamicin, a toxin produced by bacteria found in limestone, which is found in high concentrations in the Mavroneri River. Also known as Black Water, the river flows out of the Peloponnesian mountains and has long been thought to be the real-world entrance to the River Styx. Ancient tradition states that the water was so corrosive and so deadly, like its mythical counterpart, that the only things it couldn’t dissolve were a boat and raft made from horse hooves.

If the theory about Alexander the Great is true, it suggests that he died not from malaria or typhoid, as previously suspected, but that he was poisoned by someone who had taken water from the mythical River Styx.

8The Lost City Of Z

The Lost City of Z is a mythological city nestled in the wilds of South America. Supposedly, it was a massive, advanced civilization strangely inspired by ancient Greek cities and full of treasure and riches. According to the writings of a 16th-century friar, it was populated by white natives and female warriors. As far as mythical cities go, this one didn’t seem too unlikely. There were huge, unexplored areas of South America that were so deep and dense that there wasn’t really any way of knowing what was buried in the jungle.

One of the most famous people to go in search of the city—and disappear in the process—was Colonel Percy Fawcett. The colonel, who kept his intended route a secret to keep rival explorers from beating him to the mythical city, vanished in the Amazonian jungle in 1925. His expedition and disappearance are shrouded in mystery, and his cryptic writings and deliberately misleading coordinates offer few answers. One theory that some researchers have adopted is that the famed explorer wasn’t actually going into the jungle to find his lost city but to found a new one based on the worship of his young son, who accompanied him on the trek.

While these theories are far-fetched, the one thing that isn’t as far-fetched as it sounds is the city itself. Modern satellite imaging has captured what Fawcett was looking for, not far from where he said it should be. Fawcett believed that the entrance to the mythical city was somewhere in Amazonian Basin between the Xingu and Tapajos tributaries of the Amazon River, and more than 200 earthen structures stretching along the Brazilian border of Bolivia suggest that there was something to the theory. It’s been estimated that some of the structures date back to A.D. 200, while others originated as recently as the 13th century. The entrance to Fawcett’s massive, glittering city appears to be just a little farther southwest from where he was last seen.

Before this new information was uncovered, it was long thought that the Amazonian jungle wasn’t capable of supporting widespread agriculture, much less a giant city of these proportions. However, estimates suggest that the city was once home to somewhere around 60,000 people. The city isn’t just small buildings, either—some of their monuments are larger than the Egyptian pyramids.

7Shambhala

Shambhala is perhaps better known in the Western world as the fictional paradise it inspired, Shangri-la. According to Buddhist tradition, Shambhala is a hidden kingdom where Buddhist values and traditions rule. The utopian realm is also home to the Great Warrior Gesar, who leads hordes of the righteous who will eventually ride into the human world to combat our demons.

Many accounts of visiting Shambhala have been published. It’s said that Shambhala can be entered from long-forgotten outposts established by Alexander the Great, Russia’s Belukha, Afghanistan’s Sufi Sarmoun settlement and ancient city of Balkh, the border of Tibet in the Himalayas, and the Sutlej Valley in India. Heinrich Himmler was convinced that Shambhala was home to an Aryan race like the one the Nazis wanted to create and orchestrated seven expeditions to find it.

Entering Shambhala is more difficult than it seems, though. According to the Dalai Lama, the entrance will not appear to you until you’ve attained a state of purity on par with the mystical city. Many people believe that means the entrance is not a physical location but a state of mind, which means that all of the above entrances could be real.

6Yomi No Kune

Yomi No Kune is a part of Japanese mythology that predates the widespread belief in Buddhism. According to the myth, all of creation was the product of a god named Izanagi and his goddess sister-wife, Izanami. After Izanami died giving birth to fire, her heartbroken husband journeyed to the underworld to retrieve her.

In striking similarity to other myths, the determined husband discovered a dark and gloomy place where souls who retain their mortal bodies are condemned to rot for all eternity. Izanagi was forbidden to look at his wife until they reached the surface, but like his many mythological counterparts, he caught a glimpse of her rotting, maggot-ridden body. Enraged that he dared to look at her in that condition, Izanami sent ghoulish demons to chase him back into the underworld forever, but he escaped and sealed the entrance to Yomi No Kune with a giant boulder. In response, Izanami promised to take 1,000 lives to the underworld every day, and Izanagi promised to make 1,005 new ones.

Today, visitors to the Matsue area of Japan can visit the boulder that Izanagi is said to have used to seal off the underworld. Yomotsu Hirasaka, the official name for the entrance, is allegedly located behind one of the boulders near the Iya Shrine. It’s not clear exactly which boulder hides the entrance, which might be for the best. Izanami’s grave is also nearby, along with a shrine to her.

5Xibalba

At the height of its power, the Mayan Empire sprawled across Mexico and Central America, and its people’s belief in the otherworld was powerful. Their final resting place was Xibalba, which could only be entered by the dead and only after the soul faced a series of challenges, from crossing rivers of scorpions and pus to passing swarms of bats to following a dog that could see in the dark.

As we’ve mentioned before, there are several different entrances to Xibalba, and researchers have recently uncovered another one in the Yucatan Peninsula. The underground and partially underwater ruins are a massive maze of caverns that contain some grim indicators of what the Maya thought waited at the end.

Archaeologists have uncovered 11 different temples in the caves, along with evidence of human sacrifice. There are a number of artifacts that were left as offerings to the dead, including pottery, stone carvings, and ceramics. Archaeologists excavating the caves have also found massive stone columns and structures that were built underwater, a testament to the time, effort, and dedication it took to create the shrine. While it’s not clear whether the myth of Xibalba was constructed around the discovery of the caves or if the caves reinforced the myth, it’s certain that the two were connected.

4The Gates Of Guinee

According to voodoo tradition, the Gates of Guinee have something to do with the passage of the spirit from life into death. Since the traditions of voodoo vary wildly, so do descriptions of the gates. In the voodoo of New Orleans, the guinee are spirits that exist in the afterlife who are often consulted as one is passing from one life to the next. The Gates of Guinee are portals into that afterlife, comprised of seven gates. It takes seven days to pass through all of the gates, and if the spirit fails, they may return to Earth as a zombie.

Some voodoo practitioners believe that the seven gates are located in seven different cemeteries in New Orleans, although the exact location and numerical order of the gates is a closely guarded secret. Clues have allegedly been spread throughout the city and its cemeteries, left for those who are knowledgeable enough to decipher them, often taking the form of voodoo deities’ sigils.

The gates are supposedly the easiest to find and open around holidays like Mardi Gras and All Saints’ Day, but finding them is only the beginning of the problem. Gates have to be approached and opened in the correct order, and each one has a guardian who requires a suitable offering. Opening the gates in the wrong order or displeasing the guardians is said to allow angry, dangerous spirits to leave the otherworld and enter ours.

3The Garden Of Hesperides

According to Greek mythology, Gaia gave Hera a wedding gift of trees that bore golden apples, which were kept in the Garden of Hesperides for safekeeping. Hercules was tasked with stealing one of the apples as his eleventh labor, which he accomplished by taking the place of Atlas and holding up the Earth while the Titan fetched one of the golden fruits.

The entrance to the gardens was said to be located in modern-day Lixus, a coastal city in Morocco. Once a bustling Roman port, the walls and buildings of Lixus are now ruins. They include the remains of one of the city’s biggest industries, the manufacture of paste made from fermented fish guts. The location of the gardens is mentioned in a nautical text dating back to Hellenistic Greece, but other locations have also been proposed for the gardens, including Cyrene and one of the islands off the coast of Libya.

2Newgrange

Newgrange is a massive tomb that was built in Ireland’s Boyne Valley more than 5,000 years ago. It’s not only an impressive display of astronomical know-how but also one of the entrances to the Celtic otherworld. According to Celtic mythology, the gods traveled back and forth between the earthly realm and their own worlds through properly prepared and sanctified mounds like Newgrange.

Thought to be the entrance to a magnificent feasting hall for the so-called Lords of Light, Newgrange was said to lead to a land where no one ever died, aged, or grew sick. There was an infinite supply of food and drink as well as magical trees that continuously bore fruit. The oldest mythology surrounding Newgrange makes it the otherworldly home of the personification of the Boyne River and home to a well that was the source of all wisdom in the world. Trees near the well dropped their nuts into the water, which released the knowledge they contained into the human realm.

The next inhabitant of the otherworld associated with Newgrange was the Dagda, one of the oldest of the Irish gods, who is associated with knowledge, the Sun, and the sky. His son, Oengus, is closely tied to Newgrange, being born after a single day that was extended by the power of the mound to last nine months. Later, Oengus tricked the Dagda into giving him the portal tomb, which he is said to guard to this day.

1The Scholomance

The Scholomance is a mythical school whose existence was only passed down through Romanian folklore until it was recorded by an English author named Emily Gerard. According to Gerard, the Scholomance accepts 10 pupils at a time, who were taught by the devil himself. They learned all of his spells and tricks, including communicating with animals and controlling the weather. After the curriculum was completed, only nine students were released. The last one was kept by the devil as payment for the class, who sent him away to an infinitely deep lake where he lived until the devil needed him to make more thunderbolts.

Gerard’s version of Scholomance is slightly different from the traditional Romanian one, which is chalked up to a mistranslation. In Romanian folklore, it’s called the Solomanari, and it’s located in a world that exists parallel to our own. After reading Gerard’s work, Bram Stoker used the idea of the Scholomance in Dracula to explain how Dracula’s family learned their demonic skills.

The lake where the devil’s dragon-riding aide sleeps and the school where he teaches is said to be high in the Carpathian Mountains near Hermanstadt, which is allegedly plagued by daily thunderstorms. Those looking for the lake will know they’ve found it when they see the cairns that line the shores of the lake, markers where hapless travelers were struck down by the devil’s bolts.

+Luilekkerland

Luilekkerland, otherwise known as Cockaigne, was a utopian mythological city. Those fortunate enough to gain entry would find everything they could possibly want, especially when it came to food. Wall were made of great slabs of bacon, roofs of tarts and pancakes, and fences of sausages. Wine ran in all of the fountains, the rivers flowed with milk instead of water, and trees in Luilekkerland bore meat pies and fruit tarts instead of pinecones. Even the weather was made of food: Snow was made of sugar, and hail rained down in the form of sugared almonds. You could also literally make money in your sleep.

Unlike many mythical places, Luilekkerland wasn’t accessible only to those who were particularly good and righteous—you just had to be extremely hungry. In order to get there, you were told to head to North Hommelen, a city near northern France, and look for the gallows. The entrance, a massive mountain of porridge, would be unmistakable. Those who seek the city must eat their way through the mountain to get there, so a big appetite is required.

Stories of mythical creatures are never in short supply. According to common folklore, most have ridiculous features and characteristics that may make it impossible to believe in their existence. The fact that we often lack verifiable evidence to prove they are real does not make their situation any better.

However, as we are about to find out, many of these supposedly mythical creatures actually existed and some are still around today. Now, you may be thinking, if they are really around, why do we not have pictures? We actually do. It is just that we mistake them for some other creature.

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10 Mermaids

 

Tales of mermaids, a race of half-human and half-fish hybrids that live in the ocean are a common sailor’s tale.

Surprisingly, many of those stories are actually real even though they may be exaggerated. Mermaids exist. Christopher Columbus even spotted three during his first trip to America. He described them as “not so beautiful as they are said to be, for their faces had some masculine traits”.

Wait, what? Masculine? But mermaids are almost always female, aren’t they?

Well, the creatures we call mermaids are actually manatees and their closely related cousins, dugongs. Both animals are called sea cows because of their huge size. They are the largest aquatic herbivores in the world. Sailors mistook them for mermaids because of their unique human and fish-like characteristics.

A fully-grown sea cow is about six feet long, which is around the height of an adult human. They have five human finger-like bones on their flippers and can turn their necks and stand in shallow waters like a human. Put in their fish-like rears that sometimes stick out of the water and you have a mermaid.

9 Kraken

 

The kraken is probably the most fearsome sea monster ever imagined. According to sailors of old, it is a huge, octopus-like creature with a fondness for sinking ships and eating its crew. Legend says the kraken attacked and sank ships with its strong arms. If it was unsuccessful, it started swimming in circles until it created a whirlpool that sunk the ship.

Is the kraken real? Yes, it is.

The so-called kraken is actually the giant squid, which is huge (as the “giant” in the name already hints) but considerably smaller and less violent than sailors claimed. There are no accounts that it ever attacked or sank a ship or is even powerful enough to sink one.

The kraken moved from folklore to reality when the remains of a giant squid was found on a shore in Denmark in 1853. Curiously, the giant squid is as elusive as the legend it inspired. It lives so deep underwater that we have limited information about it.

However, we know it has the largest eyes of all living creatures, grows up to 18 meters and is frequently hunted by sperm whales for food. The weaker giant squid generally flees when confronted by a whale. However, it sometimes fights back when cornered and it is not unusual to find sperm whales with scars left from their battles with giant squids.

8 Dragons

 

Dragons are probably the most common mythical creatures out there. Their looks vary but the most common descriptions indicate they had reptile-like bodies, bat-like wings and sharp claws. Lest we forget, they also breathed fire out of their mouths.

Why do dragons have such varied description and why do many unrelated cultures attest to their existence?

It is because the real dragons had varied looks and lived in different parts of the world. Long after they were gone, their remains turned into fossils, which natives found and used to describe what they looked like. Some were huge and others were not. Some had sharp claws, some had bat-like wings and some may have had reptile-like bodies. However, none breathed fire from their mouths.

Lastly, we do not call them dragons but dinosaurs. Yes, dinosaurs are the origin of the dragon myth. Many cultures, particularly ancient China where tales of dragons abound, came up with dragons after finding fossils of dinosaurs.

7 Pouakai

 

Maori folklore tells of the existence of a giant flying bird with a fondness for snatching humans off the ground and carrying them away for consumption. They called the bird pouakai, which means “old glutton” in English. As Frederick Richardson Fuller, a taxidermist at Canterbury museum later found out in 1871, that bird really existed.

The haast eagle, as it is now known, was the largest eagle to ever roam the earth. Its wings alone reached three meters and its primary prey was the larger (and extinct) moa bird, which weighed between 100 and 250 kilograms. We humans weigh considerably less, so the bird may have really hunted us.

The haast eagle and moa evolved independently of humans. This means the eagle may have confused the first humans to land on New Zealand with the moa since the humans probably wore clothes made out of feathers. On the other hand, it may not have cared at all and just added us to the menu.

6 Roc

 

If you thought the haast eagle was deadly, the roc is worse. It is a haast eagle on steroids. If a haast eagle could pick up a human, a roc would pick up a community. No one said it did but we are just trying to provide some perspective. However, there are claims the roc could lift a fully-grown elephant off the ground.

Sailors of old claimed the roc lived on an island just off the coast of Africa. In reality, the supposed roc is actually the aepyornis aka the elephant bird. It weighed half a ton and grew up to 10 feet, making it the largest bird to ever exist. Like the roc, it lived on Madagascar, an island just off the coast of Africa.

However, the aepyornis could not lift an elephant into the sky because it was flightless. Besides, there are no elephants in Madagascar and the bird, despite its huge size, is much smaller than an elephant. The elephant bird existed at the time rumors of the roc first appeared 900 years ago but went extinct in the 1500s. Humans may have hunted it into extinction.

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5 Unicorns

 

The unicorn is a mythical horse with a single horn in the middle of its head. Are they real? Yes, they were but they were not what you think.

Unicorns were not horses but rhinoceroses, that is, if the extinct Siberian unicorn is really the origin of the unicorn myth. Like the unicorn it may have inspired, the Siberian unicorn walked on four legs and had a huge horn in the middle of its head.

However, unlike the unicorn, the rhino was bigger, stronger and probably meaner. For perspective, it weighed four tons. You would not want to be around that thing.

The Siberian unicorn lived in Eurasia until it went extinct around 39,000 years ago. Fortunately for the humans that were around at the time, it was a herbivore and preferred munching down on shrubs. However, like today’s rhinos, it may have been very aggressive towards unlucky humans that strayed too close.

4 Griffins

 

The griffin is another hybrid mythical creature. According to myth, they have the faces, wings and front legs of an eagle and the rear, tail and hind legs of a lion. They flew too, which makes them one creature early humans would have given a wide berth, if they existed that is.

Talking of existence, griffins really existed but that was before the first humans appeared. They were actually a kind of dinosaur called the protoceratops. Like the griffin, the protoceratops walked on four legs and had a beak but did not have a wing.

But at a time when people had little knowledge of dinosaurs and only birds were believed to have beaks, it is no surprise that people claimed it had wings. Whatever had a beak should have a wing, shouldn’t it? Besides, the creature had long shoulder blades that were easily mistaken for wings.

3 Sea serpent

 

The sea serpent is another ferocious creature believed to patrol the ocean. Seafarers of old told elaborate stories of its existence so much that it became folklore. The creature, as you may have guessed from its name, is a supposedly monstrous fish-snake hybrid. Like the kraken, the sea serpent really exists even though its features and stories are heavily exaggerated.

For a start, the supposed sea serpent is actually an oarfish, which really looks like a fish-snake hybrid. But that is where their similarities end. The oarfish is much smaller even though it is considerably long for a fish. It reaches up to 30 feet in length, making it the longest bony fish in existence.

Unfortunately, we know little about the oarfish because it lives deep underwater. However, we know it neither feeds on humans nor fishes but on small marine creatures like crustaceans and krill. It was officially discovered in 1772, centuries after the legend it inspired first appeared.

2 Yeti

 

The Himalaya people of Nepal and China have traditionally talked about the existence of a big and hairy six-foot tall creature they call the Yeti. The existence of this mythical and elusive creature only became widespread knowledge in 1921 when some British explorers claimed to have found its footprints while climbing the Everest.

The explorers said their local guides called them “metoh-kangmi” (“man-bear snow-man”). However, Henry Newman, the journalist who interviewed the group, mistranslated “metoh” as “filthy” instead of “man-bear”. He later changed filthy to abominable because it sounded better. That was how the Yeti got its more common name, the Abominable snowman.

The name, the Abominable snowman, may make you mistake the Yeti for a race of undiscovered and uncivilized humans. However, if we went back to its correct Himalaya name, the “man-bear snow-man”, we would quickly realize we are dealing with a human-sized bear that lives in the snowy region.

The Yeti is actually the Himalayan brown and black bears, two real subspecies of bears that live in the Himalayas. Like the Yeti, both bears are big, hairy and brown (or black in the case of the black bear). DNA tests have proven that most of the hair, skin, teeth, fur and feces that supposedly belong to the Yeti actually belong to these bears.

1 Gorillai

 

Sometime between the 5th and 6th centuries B.C., an explorer from ancient Carthage called Hanno the Navigator discovered a tribe of hairy and “rude people” while navigating the coasts of West Africa. In his reports, Hanno wrote that the tribe had more males than females who he referred to as “hairy women” and called gorillai.

Hanno’s party chased the tribe but they all fled. The males were considerably faster and quickly climbed the cliffs from where they threw stones at his team. The females were slower and his team managed to capture three. However, they fought back aggressively, forcing Hanno and his men to kill and skin them. He took their skins back to Carthage.

The creatures became folklore since no westerner saw them again until an American missionary called T.S. Savage, rediscovered them in 1847. They were not humans but apes. Or to be more precise, they are the apes we now call gorillas. Savage named the new creatures “Troglodytes gorilla” in keeping with Hanno’s gorillai.

To be clear, there is some debate over whether Hanno saw gorillas or some other species of apes. Nonetheless, Savage’s “Troglodytes gorilla” was later renamed “Gorilla gorilla” while the animal itself was called gorilla.

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Before it was revealed that the Cottingley Fairies were just cardboard cut-outs, people were mesmerized by these delicate little creatures who were seemingly stumbled upon by two young girls who presented five photographs they claimed to have taken of the fairies.

There is something awe-inspiring about creatures of myth, whether it be their sheer size, their magical powers or simply their beauty. Mythical creatures and monsters are woven into the fabric of our modern-day lives; just think of the elves in Iceland and the ever-elusive Nessie supposedly roaming the waters of Loch Ness in Scotland.
Not to mention the massive creature that roams the deep of the oceans …

10 Sea serpent of Gaelic folklore

… No, not that one.

While most people have likely heard a thing or two about the much-feared Kraken of yore, many may never have heard or read about the sea serpent straight out of Scottish Gaelic folklore: Cirein-cròin.

This humongous sea monster lived alongside dinosaurs and could eat a total of 7 whales in one day. Cirein-cròin behaved in a devious manner by transforming itself into a small silver fish and allowing local fishermen to catch it. As soon as it was on board their boat, Cirein-cròin would change back into its usual form and devour everyone and everything within reach.

Some versions of the tale says that Cirein-cròin wasn’t a sea serpent but a large land-based dinosaur that hunted other creatures and humans both on land and in the ocean.

9 Mortal handmaidens turned evil

Mermaids are commonly depicted as aquatic creatures, half fish, half human, both beautiful and terrifying, both full of compassion and murderous.

This is because before mermaids took over the legends with their beauty and magic, there were sirens. Sirens were said to have taken the form of a combination of a woman and a bird, which meant they had large human heads, bird feathers and feet covered in scales. They sang enchanting songs to lure sailors and mariners which drew them into approaching the sirens, after which the creatures got into their boats and killed them.

These bird-women were said to have inhabited a remote Greek island, and a popular legend has it that before they acquired their half-and-half forms, they were handmaidens to the goddess Persephone. After Hades kidnapped Persephone, the handmaidens were given golden wings by Demeter to help search for her. But since Persephone was being held in the underworld, the maidens were unsuccessful in their search efforts. Demeter became enraged at their failure, banned them to the Greek island and cursed them.

The curse meant they would remain in half-bird form until someone passed their island without stopping first. They were also fated to die if a human heard them sing and survived. When Odysseus passed their island without incident, the sirens hurled themselves into the ocean in defeat.

8 The beast that devoured humans whole

Persian and Greek mythology speaks of a creature similar in looks to the Egyptian sphinx, with the head of a human, the body of a lion and a tail made up of spines filled with venom. Some versions of the legend of the manticore depicts it with the tail of a scorpion. The manticore was said to be invincible and able to kill and devour every animal in the jungle, with the exception of elephants, using its three rows of teeth. Much like a siren, the manticore had a beautiful voice with which it lured its human victims to their deaths. It swallowed humans whole after paralysing them with poisonous spikes shot from its tail.

In modern times, the manticore can found in the popular game, Dungeons & Dragons, in which it appears with added dragon wings (or bat wings). The beast was first introduced to the game in 1974.

7 Gargoyles and grotesques

Gargoyles, those terrifying-looking creatures squatting on the corners of many old European buildings, were popular in Gothic architecture between the 12th and 16th century as spouts that allow water to drain away from buildings. They were so popular, in fact, that they were even added to cathedral roofs.

But, of course, gargoyles and their decorative counterparts, grotesques, have their own place in mythology as well. They were believed to have been made of animated stone which gave them the ability to come to life when darkness fell. Some also believed that these fantastical monsters guarded the buildings they sat on and frightened evil spirits away. Others, however, feared the gargoyles and believed that they could be possessed by demons and as such used for sinister purposes.

During the 19th century, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in the US, fully embraced Gothic architecture and to this day the city sports over twenty authentic gargoyles and hundreds of grotesques.

6 Deep water transport

While the hippocampus is a brain structure found in the temporal lobe, it is also the name of the mythical seahorse said to have pulled along the chariot of Poseidon, the Greek god of the sea. The hippocampus is depicted as having the upper body of a horse and lower body of a fish, wings protruding from its sides and said to appear in both fresh water and salt water, with its fin-mane and fin-hooves helping it to swim.

Hippocamps are described in mythology as having a personality like that of horses found on land and forming close relationships with both mermen and sea elves. When attacked, the hippocamps use their teeth and tails to fend off their attacker, but then swim away to avoid further fighting. Legend also has it that hippocamps only return to the ocean surface when their food source, seaweed, is in short supply in the deeper waters. They don’t require air to live and must stay under water or they will die.

5 Wild asses as large as horses

Unicorns make for cute outfits, cakes, and memes, but this mythical creature is a lot more than just a chubby white horse with a rainbow-colored mane and tail. The first written description of a unicorn came from a Greek doctor named Ctesias who travelled through Persia in the 4th century. He wrote of ‘wild asses as large as horses’ with white bodies, red heads and blue eyes. The wild asses also had horns on their foreheads that were about a foot and a half in length. Ctesias further wrote that the animals were faster and stronger than any other creature.

The lure of the unicorn remained throughout the centuries, with Scotland even naming the beast their national animal. Unicorns are mentioned in the Bible nine times, in the books of Numbers, Deuteronomy, Job, Psalms and Isaiah, although many take exception to the translation of the Hebrew word re’em to unicorn, as they believe the word referred to an ox or rhinoceros instead.

This belief has been somewhat backed up by the discovery of a skull fossil in Kazakhstan in 2016. The skull belonged to “Elasmotherium sibiricum” or a ‘real-life unicorn’ that lived around thirty thousand years ago and resembled a rhino. Also known as the Siberian unicorn, the creature had longer legs than a traditional rhino, a horse-like gait, and a massive horn on its nose. Experts also believe that the Siberian unicorn may have lived at the same time as modern humans.

4 Monster that causes storms

The most well-known mythical monsters of Africa are the Popobawa, the Mokele-mbembe and perhaps most infamous of all, the Tokoloshe. But have you ever heard of the Inkanyamba?

In KwaZulu Natal, on the Umgeni River, lie the majestic Howick Falls. The pool at the bottom of the waterfall is home to the Inkanyamba, according to legend. This creature, a giant serpent with fins on its horse-like head, is said to have a terrible temper that causes seasonal storms in the summer time. Only traditional healers (sangomas) are brave enough to approach the falls and are the only ones who can do so safely. Once they stand in front of the falls, they offer prayers and sacrifices to the Inkanyamba and ancestral spirits. The Xhosas in the area believe that the Inkanyamba transforms into a tornado once every year and whirls off in search of its mate.

In 1998, residents in the surrounding area tearfully blamed the Inkanyamba for the violent storm that cost thousands their homes.

3 Gnomes for good luck

It’s not uncommon to see gnome figurines decorating gardens, as these mythical beings are said to be good-luck charms, able to enrich soil and causing anything that is planted in it to flourish. People have placed gnomes in their gardens since the early 1800s, starting in Germany and soon the tradition spread to England. By the 1870s, mass production of clay garden gnomes was in full swing, but it was just about wiped out with the start of WWI and then WWII. By the 1960s, plastic gnomes were manufactured but they were nowhere near as popular as their predecessors.

Gnomes, according to legend, lived underground and guarded golden treasure. They could be found all over Europe including Spain, England, Denmark, and Norway but under different names. Sometimes they are called goblins or dwarves because of their depiction as small, deformed ‘old men.’ Gnomes have been tasked with protecting the elements of air, fire, water, and earth from humans. They are said to be sensitive to sunlight and will turn to stone if exposed to it for too long. A gnome’s advice is to be taken to heart as it is claimed it could make rich anyone who listened to it.

In recent times, gnome-napping has become somewhat of a thing. It involves ‘kidnapping’ a garden gnome from any given garden and taking it on an adventure that includes a lot of picture-taking and then sending the photos to its owner.

2 Ogres that torment the living

Ogres don’t exactly look like Shrek. Or at all like Shrek. In mythology they are described as being extremely large, with even larger heads that sprout abundant hair, off-colored skin and a strong appetite for humans, especially children. Ogres have appeared as characters in many fairytales. For instance, the witch in Hansel and Gretel is presumed to be a female ogre (ogress) because she eats children. The wolf in Little Red Riding Hood also resembles an ogre.

In Japan, ogres are called oni and portrayed as having sharp claws and two horns protruding from their heads. Some have an odd number of fingers, toes or eyes and their skin can take on any color, but they commonly appear as blue, black, brown, white and particularly red. Oni are said to be born after evil humans die and end up in one of the Buddhist Hells. There they are transformed into oni and become servants of the ruler of Hell. Part of their job is to crush the bones and peel the skin off wicked humans. When a human is too evil to be redeemed, he is transformed into an oni on Earth and remains there to terrorize those around him who are still alive.

1 The forming of the Milky Way

There are a lot of truly fascinating Maori legends about mythical beings. These include the tale of the god of weather, Tawhirimatea who sent his children, the four winds and clouds, to cause devastation on Earth, as well as the story of Taniwhas, which are reptile-like creatures that sometimes take on the form of sharks and whales and lurk in rivers and other bodies of water.

Then there is Mangaroa, the shark placed high up in the sky by the demigod Maui to look after the Maori tribes on Earth from its vantage point in the ‘sea of the sky.’ Another legend says that the sea in the heavens, better known as the Milky Way, was formed when the god Kiho-tumu formed a ship and sailed across the sky. The ship, named The Long Shark, protects the Maoris and they believe that the dark parts of the Milky Way represent the Long Shark travelling through it, while the white patches are from the waves it creates as it sails through the sea in the sky.

Legends of mythical monsters and creatures have sent chills down spines for hundreds of years. So intertwined have these stories become with everyday life that tragic incidents are sometimes blamed on these legendary creatures. For instance, the deaths of nine skiers on Dyatlov Pass were, for a long time, thought to be the handiwork of abominable snowmen living in the northern Urals. Likewise, when two young girls tried to stab their friend to death in a forest in Wisconsin, they blamed the mythical Slender Man, claiming they had been forced to commit the crime to prevent Slender Man from harming their families.

On this list are more devastating incidents that have, to some extent at least, been blamed on creatures of folklore.

Related: 10 Bizarre Legal Actions Regarding Mythical Creatures

10 Bigfoot Kidnapping

Ever since the infamous Gimlin footage made headlines in 1967, there has been a horde of Bigfoot sightings in the U.S. despite experts dismissing the entire concept as being either a hoax or simply ludicrous.

In 1987, things took a turn for the tragic when 16-year-old Theresa Ann Bier apparently decided to skip school and go Bigfoot hunting in the Sierra Nevada mountains in California on June 1. Accompanying her was 43-year-old Russell Welch, who returned from the outing alone. Theresa was reported missing, and when authorities inevitably questioned Russell, he claimed that he last saw the teenager on June 2, after they’d both encountered Bigfoot and she chased after it. According to Russell, Bigfoot had abducted Theresa. He also changed his story several times, adding more and more details to it.

Not believing the story for one second, police arrested Russell Welch on June 11th but had to release him when no sufficient evidence against him could be found. A thorough search that included sniffer dogs in the area where Theresa was last seen yielded no success other than discovering what was believed to be her purse and scraps of her clothing.

To date, no one has been prosecuted for her disappearance, and her fate remains a mystery.^[1]

9 Mermaid Drowning

In December 2013, 12-year-old Siyabonga Masango left his home to play soccer with his friends. A while later, the heat led to the boys deciding to go swimming in a tributary of the Sabie River in Mpumalanga, South Africa.

A man washing his car nearby saw Siyabonga being pulled into the water and rushed over to help. Unfortunately, they couldn’t see or find him inside the water. Police divers searched for two weeks but also couldn’t locate the boy, believing that he had drowned after being attacked by a crocodile.

Siyabonga’s family was not convinced, believing instead that a mermaid had taken their son but that he would be “released”’ in time to go to school. The family also performed rituals to ensure that this would be the case. Siyabonga was never found, however, and his ultimate fate remains unknown.^[2]

8 Ghostly Vengeance

In June 2018, two men in the Thai village of Tambon Dong Yai in Nakhon Ratchasima’s Phimai district died in their sleep. Concerned residents set off to the local medium to hold a rite and call up spirits for an explanation. According to the medium, the ghost of a widow told her that she wanted to kill four men in the village, and as she’d already taken the lives of two, two more would soon follow.

Upon hearing this, several villagers hung a red shirt in front of their homes, hoping that it would keep the ghost away. Some even added a note stating that there were no men in their house, only pets.

Apparently, no other men suffered the same fate as the first two after the red shirts were displayed outside houses.^[3]

7 Alien Abduction

The disappearance of Amelia Earhart spawned a slew of conspiracy theories even after the Navy officially concluded that Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan had most likely run out of fuel, after which they crashed into the Pacific Ocean and drowned.

These theories ranged from Earhart and Noonan landing on Nikumaroro and living as castaways until they died, being taken prisoner by the Japanese, or that they were eaten by coconut crabs after crashing somewhere near Howland Island.

Naturally, there would also be a far stranger theory in the mix, with some believing that Earhart was taken by aliens on the day she was to land on Howland Island and sent to a wormhole where she was left in suspended animation.

A version of this theory was included in the popular anthology horror series, American Horror Story, in which a character claims to be Amelia Earhart and makes contact with aliens.^[4]

6 Demonic Murder

Demons and evil forces are prominently featured in folklore, mythology, fiction, occultism, and religion. Going hand-in-hand with these stories are tales of demon possession and exorcism. In modern times, many crimes have been blamed on demons and evil creatures.

In 2016, Aljar Swartz admitted killing and beheading 15-year-old Lee Adams and burying her head in his backyard in Cape Town, South Africa. It was only after his trial, and after psychiatrists and psychologists found him mentally stable, that Swartz’s lawyer suddenly announced that his client was demon-possessed and requested for an exorcism to take place in Swartz’s prison cell where he was awaiting sentencing.

The lawyer also insisted on getting a retired Methodist minister to perform the exorcism after Swartz allegedly told him that a demon in the form of a black lizard appeared to him in his cell and tormented him. Swartz also said that the lizard would crawl into his chest and “control” him. The lawyer argued that his client was a “vessel” and “instrument in the hand of the devil” and could not be held accountable for Lee’s murder.

The court eventually found that Swartz murdered Lee Adams for the purpose of selling her head to a sangoma—a practitioner of herbal medicine, divination, and counseling in some traditional South African societies. He was sentenced to 22 years in prison.^[5]

5 By Order of the Vampire Queen

In 2002, 22-year-old Allan Menzies murdered his 21-year-old friend, Thomas McKendrick. Menzies then ate part of his head, drank his blood, and buried him in a shallow grave. During his murder trial, Menzies stated that Akasha, the “Vampire Queen” in the film The Queen of the Damned, had repeatedly instructed him to kill his friend. He also said that he’d watched the film more than 100 times and that Akasha told him if he murdered people, she would reward him by turning him into an immortal.

Menzies further said that he’d made up his mind to kill McKendrick after McKendrick insulted Akasha. He also believed that he was indeed a vampire after the murder and said he didn’t really “feel anything” after McKendrick died.

Menzies was handed a life sentence for the crime in 2003 but was found dead in his prison cell in 2004. It is believed that he committed suicide.^[6]

4 Monster Behind the Mystery

Originating from Norwegian folklore, the Kraken is one of the most feared mythologic beasts. Legend has it that the monster was so big that sailors would often mistake it for an island and try to land on it, only to be dragged to a watery grave. Respected zoologist Carl Von Linné listed the Kraken as a real creature in Systema Naturae. Many believe that such a monster truly existed after Ichthyosaur bones were found in a pattern similar to how octopuses place bones when they’re done with their meal.

Colliding with another mystery, the Kraken has been blamed for the mysterious disappearances of boats and planes in the Bermuda Triangle. Some believe that a super-intelligent Kraken lurks in the depths of the triangle and “feeds” on ships and aircraft.

The Kraken has even been blamed for the Mary Celeste disappearance, even though the legendary ship vanished in a completely different part of the sea.^[7]

3 Quota of Lives

The Higginson Highway in Chatsworth, Durban, South Africa, is notorious for fatal accidents. Here, rocks are often hurled at cars from overhead bridges, after which injured motorists are robbed of their belongings. At other times, drivers lose control of their vehicles and veer off the highway, rolling down the embankment. Sometimes head-on collisions lead to tragic deaths.

Many of these accidents have been attributed to the highway’s resident ghost, aptly named Highway Sheila. Being the restless spirit that she is, it is believed that Sheila has a “quota of lives” to fulfill each year, and she achieves this goal by appearing in the middle of the road, causing drivers to swerve, leading to often-fatal accidents.

Recently, a young Metro police officer and his family were traveling home late at night on the Higginson Highway when he almost hit a woman in white standing in the middle of the lane. They were all terrified by the incident but believed that God had saved them from harm.^[8]

2 Wendigo Psychosis

Filling several pages of Algonquian books on legendary creatures, tales of the Wendigo describe the creature as a humanoid cannibal with antlers who feasts on human flesh to survive harsh and cold climates. Legend has it that the first-ever Wendigo was a hunter who got lost in the wild during winter and was driven to cannibalism to survive. This saw him morph into a Wendigo, doomed to roam the forest in search of more victims.

In the 1800s, a Cree man named Swift Runner slowly became addicted to alcohol, got fired from his job as a guide for the North West Mounted Police, and became increasingly violent as time passed. In 1878, Swift Runner led his wife, six children, mother-in-law, and brother into the woods, killed them, and ate them.

Police found broken hollowed-out bones in the woods as well as a pot of human fat and arrested Swift Runner. He told police that he had been possessed by a Wendigo, which led to him committing the massacre.

No one believed him and Swift Runner was found guilty, sentenced to death, and executed in December 1879.^[9]

1 Lurking Leviathan

Described in Caribbean folklore as a 75-foot half-dragon, half-octopus, the lusca is a sea monster said to inhabit the waters surrounding Andros island in the Bahamas. Some versions of the tale say that the creature sports the head and torso of a shark and the lower body of an octopus.

One theory has it that the lusca, or lurking Leviathan as it’s sometimes called, is the ghost of a woman who drowned and was turned into a beast. Another says that a lusca is a mermaid or siren put on Earth by nymphs to lure sailors to their death.

The TV show, River Monsters, aired an episode dedicated to the lusca monster, which explores the possibility that the creature could be responsible for the disappearance of a number of swimmers exploring the blue holes surrounding Andros. The missing people include 38-year-old Liu Guandong, Wesley Bell, and 72-year-old John William Batchelor. Batchelor’s boat has been found, but he remains missing.^[10]

From Ancient Egypt to the Classical era to the Renaissance and the Age of Discovery, non-heteronormativity has long been a fact of nature. But only recently has sexual and gender conformity been so rejected by the mainstream; the earliest societies didn’t have to. As annoying as “wokeness” can be, it’s only undoing the work of the Hebrews — begun in the seventh century BC, and carried on by late Romans and the Holy Roman Empire. Before them, things were quite different. 

In any case, there’s nothing marginal about these 10 figures; you just didn’t know they were queer. 

10. Hercules

According to Plutarch, the legendary alpha had sex with innumerable men, including Jason, Adonis, and Hermes’ son Abderus. He even slept with Eurystheus, the mythical king for whom he performed the 12 Labors (which another lover, Iolaos, watched).

He had female lovers too, of course, like his first wife Megara (of Disney fame) — but, depending on the myth, he either killed her or gave her to Iolaos. There was also Omphale, Queen of Lydia, who he stayed with for three years — but only as her slave, and dressed as a woman. He even deflowered all 50 of King Thespios’s daughters (49 in a single night), but that was only at their father’s request.

That Hercules was gay is no revelation, it’s just at odds with the stereotype. For thousands of years, the homosexual demigod has cavorted with satyrs, wrestled with “snakes”, and, in one famous statue, had his dick grabbed by the warrior Diomedes. Now he’s set to appear as Marvel’s first gay superhero in The Eternals.

9. Hatshepsut

By Hatshepsut’s day, the species had forgotten its communal, matrilineal origins. Centralized patriarchy based on surplus production, trade, and male inheritance was now the established norm. This is why, when Hatshepsut’s father Thutmose I died, it was her two-year-old nephew who replaced him. It took Hatshepsut seven years as the toddler’s regent to prove herself worthy of the crown — and even then she had to man up.

Throughout her 20-year reign, “his Majesty” Hatshepsut was identified as a king not a queen. In statues, reliefs, and other depictions, her breasts were downplayed, her torso was androgynous, and her chin was corrected with a beard (a manly symbol of the pharaoh in general).

Interestingly, though, Hatshepsut’s sex was never completely erased — far from it. For one thing, the name Hatshepsut literally means “foremost of noblewomen”. She was also referred to as “the King herself”, presumably by choice. More likely she (or they) was what we define as non-binary. This was the view of German physician Magnus Hirschfield who, in 1914, saw Hatshepsut as a 3,000-year-old example of what he termed “sexual intermediacy”.

8. Achilles

In Madeline Miller’s viral bestseller The Song of Achilles, the hero is in love with Patroclus. But, as the author noted herself, this isn’t a new idea. Scholars have long wondered about Achilles’ sexuality. Centuries after his original appearance in Homer’s Iliad, Greeks such as Plato saw Achilles as Patroclus’s eromenos — that is, the young man’s adolescent lover. But this was just more acceptable to Greek sensibilities. In Miller’s novel, as in the Achilleid by the Roman poet Statius, as well as the Iliad itself, the two men are about the same age.

And while they weren’t explicitly presented as lovers in the Iliad, we can see where people got the idea. Achilles and Patroclus are inseparable. Achilles sings to him; they share a tent; and when Patroclus dies in battle Achilles is stricken, overcome with a vengeful fury against Hector, the man who “has slain him whom I loved so dearly”. Achilles also keeps Patroclus’s washed and dressed corpse in his tent. When he finally decides to burn the body, he puts a lock of his hair in its hands. Then, in Homer’s Odyssey, we’re told Achilles’s ashes were mixed with Patroclus’s.

Female lovers do appear in the tales, but Achilles never gets married. There’s even a hint of transgenderism — or transvestitism at least: as a youth he lived and dressed as a girl at the court of Lycomedes in Scyros.

7. Joan of Arc

Joan of Arc (pronouns he, him) isn’t the only transgender ever canonized by the Pope. Hilarion, Marinos, Smaragdos, Athanasios, and others were all assigned female at birth. Despite dying for his gender, though — at the hands of the Catholic Church, no less — Joan is the only one misgendered today.

In life he had short black hair and only ever dressed as a man, yet almost every depiction brings out his feminine features. Some of the best known paintings are completely imagined, portraying Joan in skirts, dresses, or feminized armor with long, strawberry blonde hair and sexualized make-up. The Suffragettes, likewise, seized on the knight as a symbol of the “womanly warrior”, evoking Joan in their fight for the vote (never mind that Joan was a monarchist).

In fact, he’s been used and abused in death just as much as in life. After leading a 10,000-strong army and ending the Hundred Years War (aged just 17), he was betrayed by the Frenchman he put on the throne. Apparently, the restored French nobility saw their young peasant savior, a popular military strategist, as an existential threat. So when the English captured Joan, they refused to pay a ransom, leaving the teenager to the mercy of the English king Henry VI. Being a heteronormative sort (despite his descent from the queer king Richard I), Henry denounced Joan’s cross-dressing and threw him to the Catholics.

At first, the Inquisition’s threat of the stake was enough for Joan to relent. But the “merciful” alternative was worse: life in a dungeon in women’s clothes on a diet of bread and water. Within days he returned to male dress. Defeated, the Inquisition sentenced him to death, urged on by the University of Paris, saying to Joan: “time and again you have relapsed, as a dog that returns to its vomit”. 

It wasn’t until the 20th century that his immolators made him a saint — reluctantly, cynically, under pressure from rebelling French Catholics, and even then they made him a woman.

6. Shakespeare

In 2020, researchers analyzing Shakespeare’s sonnets concluded the bard was bisexual. Having arranged his love songs into the order they were written, the scholars — two world renowned authorities on the playwright — were left in no doubt on this point. The sexual content of the sonnets “addressed to a male subject,” they said, shows he had affairs with men as well as women during his 34-year marriage to Anne Hathaway. 

In Sonnet 52, for instance, Shakespeare urges his male lover “To make some special instant special-blest,/By new unfolding his imprison’d pride” (an Elizabethan euphemism for “erection”). The men Shakespeare lusted after are mostly referred to as “Fair Lord” or “Fair Youth”, but other pet names do appear. In Sonnet 20, there’s the “master-mistress of my passion”; in Sonnet 26, the “Lord of my love”. There’s also plenty of gay, bisexual, and gender-bending characters in his plays. 

Another prominent Shakespeare scholar, however, Brian Vickers, says we can’t infer anything about the playwright’s sexuality from his creative literary works. In other words, separate the art from the artist. But, as Stanley Wells (one of the researchers on the sonnet study) points out, we know Shakespeare was writing about himself because he left us obvious clues. In Sonnet 135, for example, he puns on his first name Will 13 times. Besides, as Shakespeare scholar Arthur Freeman, puts it: “Why on earth would Shakespeare choose so often to impersonate a pathetically ageing, balding, lame and vulnerable bisexual suitor” unless it was “both genuine and cathartic?” After all, gay sex was illegal in England. He couldn’t have been more out of the closet without getting thrown in jail.

5. Zeus

Is God queer? Of course he is! In the Iliad, Zeus is so captivated by the young shepherd Ganymede that he swoops down to steal him away. Known as ‘The Rape of Ganymede’, this mythical scene appears in mosaics, frescoes, pottery, and sculptures from the classical world to the Renaissance.

In Roman versions, Jupiter appears as an eagle grasping the young Phrygian in his talons. As the poet Ovid put it, the king of the gods “snatched away the shepherd of Ilium, who even now … supplies [Jupiter, aka] Jove with nectar, to the annoyance of Juno [Jove’s wife].”

According to some, the abduction wasn’t sexual but purely spiritual in nature. Ganymede’s ascent, they said, represents the journey of the soul. This was clearly a stretch — but it was how gay Renaissance painters got away with their tender depictions. Michelangelo, for example, aged 57, gave a drawing of the scene to his 17-year-old lover Tommaso. By the eighteenth century, the pretense had been dropped; ‘The Rape of Ganymede’ was fully restored as a symbol of homosexuality and “Ganymede” became a name for male prostitutes.

4. Da Vinci

Da Vinci left few details about his personal life. He’d learned the importance of privacy. At the age of 23, amid a government crackdown, he was accused of having sex with a man. It’s unclear whether the artist was jailed but he seems to have turned in on himself (even though homosexuality was so common in Florence that “Florenzer” was slang for “gay man”).

All we really know of Leonardo’s private life comes from gossip and clues. Several decades after his death, for instance, the artist Gian Paolo Lomazzo imagined a meeting between da Vinci and the Greek sculptor Phidias, in which Phidias asks da Vinci about his young male assistant: “Did you perhaps play with him that ‘backside game’ that Florentines love so much?”, to which da Vinci enthuses that he did. Even da Vinci’s own notes (probed by Freud among others) suggest a love triangle with two male assistants: Salaí (“Little Devil”) and Master Francesco — both of whom were models for his paintings. It’s actually the subject of an opera. 

Salaí was a working class troublemaker who, despite his crude manners (stealing from guests, eating too much, etc.), stayed with da Vinci for 25 years, from 10 to 35 years old. The Milanese noble Master Francesco joined them halfway through this time aged around 13 or 14. For years the three went everywhere together until, eventually, Salaí left them in France. There may have been a falling out as he wasn’t there at da Vinci’s bedside when he died in 1519; also, Francesco inherited his master’s works while Salaí got only half a vineyard.

3. Caesar

Throughout his life, Julius Caesar was nicknamed the “Queen of Bithynia”. Apparently, at the age of 20 he had sex with Nicomedes IV. He’d only been sent there to secure the king’s help in the Roman army’s siege against Lesbos. But Caesar was so dazzled by the oriental court that he stayed on longer than expected. He also returned to the king just days after leaving, further adding fuel to the rumors.

Of course, bisexuality was normal for the Romans — but it was shameful for a man to be the bottom. Hence the young Caesar’s sexcapades were often brought up by his numerous political rivals. To list just a few: his co-consul Bibulus routinely referred to him as Bithynicam reginam in edicts; the poet Licinius Calvus mocked him in verses; and the politician Memmius publicly accused him of having served as the eastern king’s “cupbearer”. In fact, even his own soldiers jeered him for it.

But Cicero gave the most scathing remarks. A homosexual himself, he wrote a lurid account of Caesar being led to the bedchamber, where, on a golden couch arrayed in purple, “the virginity of the one sprung from Venus was lost in Bithynia.” Another time, in the Senate, while Caesar listed duties to the king, Cicero cried out: “No more of that, pray, for it is well known what he gave you, and what you gave him in turn.”

2. Paul

Was the founder of Christianity a closeted homosexual? Though he’s often portrayed as a gay-bashing misogynist, there seems to have been more to the man — like a passion for equality unusual for his time. In Galatians 3:28, for instance, he wrote: “In Christ there is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free man, neither male nor female. In Christ, all of these are one.” Unlike Christ’s brother James, Paul envisioned an all-embracing faith extending far beyond conservative Judaism.

He was also raised in Bithynia, part of ancient Greece, where same-sex love was more free (and where Caesar was “Queen” to Nicomedes). Tellingly, a wife is never mentioned and, despite revisionists grasping at straws, Paul himself said he was single. He seems to have withdrawn into the exclusively male company of Timothy, Silas, and Luke.

According to Bishop John Shelby Spong (the author of Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism and a twice-married straight man himself), Paul was probably a “self-loathing and repressed gay male.” After all, it’s clear he was conflicted, but it’s never clear why. What, for instance, was the “thorn in his flesh”? And why, in his own words, was he such a “wretched man”?  For Spong, it was Paul’s desire for sex with men that prompted such outbursts as this. “Nothing else,” said the bishop, “could account for Paul’s self-judging rhetoric, his negative feeling toward his own body and his sense of being controlled by something he had no power to change.” 

1. Jesus

Jesus being gay explains a lot, not least why “praying the gay away” doesn’t work. While there’s no direct confirmation in scripture, neither is there any he was straight. There’s actually more to suggest he was gay. 

First, there’s his “friendship” with John — who, in John’s own words, was the “disciple whom Jesus loved” (John 13:23). At the Last Supper, he leant “on Jesus’ bosom” in his “inner tunic”. He was also the only one of the twelve disciples present at Christ’s crucifixion, supporting Mary, who, according to Jesus’s dying wishes, would now become John’s mother. 

Such a reading isn’t new. All the way back in the Middle Ages, the queer saint Aelred of Rievaulx considered their relationship a “marriage”. Also, the presumably gay King James I (of King James Bible fame) defended his own “friendship” with the Earl of Buckingham by citing Christ’s “friendship” with John. Frederick the Great, meanwhile, the gay King of Prussia, called John Jesus’s “Ganymede” (after the Zeus myth outlined above). 

Second, Jesus was an unmarried rabbi. This was unusual, extremely unusual, even indecent. It remains so today. According to scripture, rabbis are practically obliged to get married — to “be fruitful and multiply”. So even if Jesus wasn’t homosexual, he was, by definition, queer: he challenged the hetero norms of his day.

Third, Jesus had no problem healing the young male lover of a Roman centurion. There’s also the mysterious episode in the Gospel of Mark where he “initiates” a young naked boy.

Critics of the idea that Jesus was gay will point to his romance with Mary Magdalene. But this, according to (heterosexual) Anglican priest Paul Oestreicher, is “the stuff of fiction, based on no biblical evidence”. Others say Jesus was beyond such things, “devoid of sexuality” — but, according to the Church itself, this amounts to a heresy: it suggests that Christ wasn’t human.

In the end it doesn’t really matter — except for the countless queer people burned in his name, beaten to death, or shamed by a Church that would shun its own prophet; Jesus’s own words remain the same either way.

Mythical creatures have always been part of our history books. Some are even thought to exist at present, lurking in the shadows and trying to be discreet as it exists together with humans. Some are believed to be fictional, some a relative of an extinct species. No matter how we view these creatures, the truth remains that the fascination we have for them remains to be as eager as it was in the past.

Today these creatures seem to be an impractical imagination of a particular civilization or person, but at one time some of them were believed to be real. However, there is no evidence to prove their existence which is why they are now considered mythical.

In this list we are considering the most famous mythical creatures originating from different cultures and societies, whether they are known for their beauty, ferocity or magical powers. Some of the creatures from different cultures have similar traits but their names are different so, we decided to combine them to diversify the list. Here are 12 most popular mythical creatures:

Top 12 popular mythical creatures that may have actually existed.

12. Amazons

Amazons are often depicted as female warriors living in the deep heart of the forest without the presence of men. They are believed to be man-haters as well but would capture a few every now and then to continue their lineage.

They are often described as trained archers, can climb and move from trees to trees and are very skilled in the art of fighting. However, their extinction were never explained concretely in history books and stories.

See Also: 10 Legendary Greek Mythological Creatures.

11. Berserkers

Berserkers are believed to be savaged warriors that have lost all their humanity. They are killing machines that shows no mercy, some even say that this is because they have already lost their souls. However, in Norse mythology, they are considered as body guards to royal and noble courts.

They are described as bare-chested warrior, others depict them wearing wolf or bear skins. They are often portrayed as villains and would constantly rape and murder villages that they capture. In history, berserkers served as guards of the Norwegian King Haralad I Fairhair in 872-930.

See Also: 10 Weird Prehistoric Creatures That Can Spook You.

10. Kraken/Leviathan

Kraken is a giant squid octopus like creature with unstoppable aggression, while Leviathan is Ridgeling seven headed monster famed for his spectacular size. But seas are unsafe with either of these monsters around. Nobody knows whether they are real or fictional but they are some of the angriest monsters that roam the oceans, at least according to the stories about them.

The Kraken was popularized as Alice’s greates foe in the story ‘Alice in Wonderland’. However, in the late 13th century, the Kraken is believes to be synonymous with the Hafgulfa, one of the two massive sea-monsters roaming in the waters of the Greenland Sea.

The creature is believed to lack the capabilities of production explaining their small numbers. However, due to their massive size and ferociousness, its life spans as long as several millenniums swallowing men, ships, whales and everything within its reach.

9. Composite Species

Human body on horse legs, a bull’s head on human body and lion’s body with human face there are countless composite species from different cultures around the globe. Even Chimera which combines lion, dragon and goat can be classified in this category.

Some species have more positive reputation than others like horseman and Pegasus while some represent evilness like Chimera. Under composite species there are a number of popular mythical creatures.

8. Phoenix

Originating from Greek mythology this colorful bird was adopted as the symbol of early Christianity. A Phoenix lives a long life and dies in the show of flame and combustion only to reborn from the ashes of its predecessor and start a new eternal life.

Some text show that Phoenix could live up to 1400 years before rebirth. It is one of the most popular creature that can be found in many literature texts including in the J. R. Rowling’s Harry Potter novels.

7. Unicorn

The beast that resemble the horse but with a pointed horn projecting from its forehead, this legendary animal is among the most popular mythical creatures. They represent purity and gracefulness and they can only be captured by a virgin. Some believe that unicorn may have existed but were driven to extinction perhaps because their horns were set to have medicinal properties. But there’s not a solid evidence for this theory.

The unicorn, as well all grew knowing is a legendary horse with wings that gives it the capabilities to fly. It is considered as one of the most antique beasts in stories with a large, spiraling and pointed horn that is projected from its forehead.

It is completely wild and is often a symbol of grace and purity. Many believed that it can only be captured by a virgin. The horns are considered very valuable with the capabilities to make poisoned water potable and heal various sicknesses.

See Also: 10 Interesting Creatures from Japanese Folklore.

6. Mermaids/Sirens and Fairies

One thing is common in these creatures that they are the seducers of the legend. These aquatic creatures having upper body of female human and lower body of fish along with their distant relative Sirens in Greek mythology are the sailor’s nightmare. They make any sailor fall in love with them by using their beauty and melodious singing. Mermaids are the most popular subject in various arts, literature and films.

Despite having the numerous historic accounts on their existence even those by Christopher Columbus during exploration of Caribbean, there is no evidence that mermaids exist anywhere outside folklore.

The fairfolk are believed to be protectors and harnessers of the power of nature. They live deep in the forest where they protect the wilderness from people trying to exhaust nature’s reserves and treasures. Fairies are believed to spend considerable time with man, taking the form of a human blending in and trying to go unnoticed as they live among them.

See Also: 10 Hybridized Humanoids Types in Mythology.

5. Werewolf

They are the folkloric humans with the ability to shape shift into a wolf or wolf-like figure. If you are bitten or even scratched by them you’ll be painfully transformed into one of these shapes shifting wolfman. In a popular English version of this tale said that wolf-man only transform on the full moon and they are immune to any kind of weapon except for those made by silver. Werewolf ranked third in our list of popular mythical creatures.

Werewolves are shape shifter believed to be half men, half wolves and were living among us. According to legends, these men were possessed by their animal spirits, the wolf, during in times of need and danger to protect their village. However, one chieftain had to avenge his tribe from another chief who has used the wolf power to bring terror to their lands.

He had to host the wolf spirit for a long period of time to the point that they could not separate man from the animal. This is believed to be the first werewolf, a man and his spirit wolf living in a single body.

4. Bigfoot/Yeti

Bigfoots are basically giant humans covered in hairs. They’re said to inhibit in forests mainly in Pacific northeast. Despite having photographic evidence scientists discount the existence of these monsters. They consider it to be a combination of folklore, mis-identification and hoax rather than a living animal, reason is the lack of physical evidence.

3. Vampires/ El Chupacabra/ Dracula

Vampires are some of the rare creatures that can be found in multiple cultures, though with different names. They are the undead popular mythical creatures that roam the country-sides and looking for a person to bite and suck all of the blood from their body. They are expert seducers and also have the ability to shape shift.

Dracula is a vampire, believed to have the powers to hypnotize men to be able to devour their blood. Believed to be immortals, vampires are commonly believed to be afraid of the sunlight and can be killed with a wooden stake to its heart. Due to its capabilities to drink blood, their youth remains even for hundreds of years. Vlad, the impaler is also one of the persons in history from whom Dracula originated.

2. Dragons

These legendary creatures with reptilian traits can be found in countless cultures around the globe but Asian and European versions are most popular. Asian dragons are usually shown with the body of huge lizard or snake with two pairs of lizard legs and are able to breathe fire from their mouth, while European dragons have an extra set of wings. In Asia they represent bravery and wisdom while European dragons are just the beasts to be slaved.

Dragons have always been a favorite and included in most folklores and enchanted stories. It has been depicted as a massive creature with wings or without that can fly in the skies and breathe fire.

Historical books depict dragons both as foes and allies. The present day Komodo dragon is believed to be a descendant of the mythical creatures minus the size, the flying prowess and the ability to breathe fire. It has been a favorite mythical legend included in books and movies, both in the past as well as now at present.

1. Loch Ness Monster

At number one in our list of popular mythical creatures is the Loch Ness Monster. She is not world’s only lake monster, she is also the most famous creature that inhibit in the Loch Ness, a lake in Scottish highlands.

There are limitless reports of sightings of Nessie since 6th century including the one in 1930s that sparked the craze among the explorers. But scientists constantly decline the existence of these creatures calling it a modern day myth and explain sightings as misidentified object, hoaxes and wishful thinking.

There are indeed several other terrifying mythical creatures out there. Whether they do exist or not, they remain as frightening creatures we all fear of spending the dark with.

FAQs: Most Popular Mythical Creatures

Mythical creatures are deeply rooted in folklore and mythology, and many serve as inspiration for blockbuster movies and beloved animated films. While many aspects of the history of these creatures are well known, some are less so. On this list are just some of these lesser-known facts about mythological creatures.

Related: 10 ‘Little People’ Myths From Around The World

10 Leprechauns Are a Protected Species

Leprechaun: otherwise known as a tiny bearded man dressed in green and in possession of a pot of gold that is hidden at the end of a rainbow. These solitary creatures are said to be fond of making shoes and playing tricks on humans. While they are prominently featured in Irish folklore and are thought to live in a colony in Ireland, there is also an official colony in Portland, Oregon.

Columnist Dick Fagan sought to beautify a very small concrete median that had previously housed a lamppost. So he planted some flowers in the dirt in the street in front of his office in Portland in 1948. He named it Mill Ends, after his column. To spread the word about his unofficial “park,” he claimed he had seen a leprechaun rooting around in the flowers one day. So he ran outside and caught the leprechaun, who then granted him a wish. Fagan wished for a new park, and the leprechaun gave him the flowery spot he had been caught in. “Mill Ends Park” was officially dedicated on March 17, 1948, and subsequently became known as the largest leprechaun colony outside Ireland.

Leprechauns are also protected under European Union Law and have been since 2009. The law aims to preserve an area in Louth, The Sliabh Foy Loop, for flora, fauna, and leprechauns. Those who lobbied for this law claim that there are only 236 leprechauns left in Ireland and that they are all living in the Louth area.^[1]

9 Household Staples Against Fairies

Speaking of fairies (leprechauns are part of the fairy family), they originated in English folklore. The earliest writings about these creatures came from Gervase of Tilbury, a 13th-century English scholar and canon lawyer. The fairies he wrote about were both good and evil, with the evil ones causing so much fear in Ireland that it was forbidden to refer to them by name.

Houses were built with fairy travels in mind, aligning front and back doors so they could be left open at night to let the fairies pass through. Those who believe in these magical beings believe that they live in a parallel universe called the “realm of the fey” and hide from humans because we invaded their land.

Fairies are also said to love sparkly things, so if you want to avoid having your precious items stolen, you should pour a circle of salt around them to protect them. Should you run into a fairy at night, just throw breadcrumbs at it and flee.^[2]

8 The Legend of Amarok

Inuit mythology tells the tale of a giant wolf or Amarok that devours any person who hunts alone at night. Several stories feature the Amarok, including the one that tells of the boy who called out to the lord of strength to increase his own physical strength. An Amarok appeared out of nowhere and struck the boy to the ground with its tail. As the boy fell, several small bones fell around him. Stunned, the boy realized that the bones came from his own body. The Amarok told the boy that these small bones were preventing his growth and ordered him to return every day to learn how to fight. After a few days, the boy had enough strength to overpower three large bears.

The Inuit people revere the wolf and see its existence and hunting abilities as a boost in their ongoing quest for food. They also believe the wolf to be essential in maintaining big game populations. Those who want their children to grow up to be good hunters place an anklet made of a wolf’s feet and lower leg muscle fibers around the infants’ ankle. This would ensure that when the child is old enough to start hunting, he would be blessed with the speed and endurance of a wolf.^[3]

7 Mermaid Tears

Mermaids were originally considered to be half woman, half bird, but the bird part was exchanged for half fish after a dispute with the Muses. Images of mermaids were painted during the Stone Age around 30,000 years ago. Over the centuries, they became associated with misfortune and death, especially for sailors who braved the open seas. Those who wanted extra protection would carry an aquamarine gemstone as it was said that aquamarine is made from mermaid tears and would protect seamen during voyages.

One of the earliest mermaid legends was born in Syria and centered around the fertility goddess, Atargatis. Often depicted in mermaid form, Atargatis is considered by many to be the “original” mermaid.

During medieval times, the hundreds of accounts of mermaid sightings resulted in the existence of mermaids being accepted as fact for many people.^[4]

6 The Superpowers of the Phoenix

According to legend, only one phoenix lived at a time, and each one lived for 500 years. As a phoenix’s time drew near, it would build a nest and set itself on fire. Before long, a new phoenix would rise from the ashes in its place.

The Greeks and Egyptians saw the phoenix as a symbol of the sun, with one myth saying that Apollo would stop both the sun and his chariot to listen to the magnificent bird’s dawn song. The bird also symbolized renewal and rebirth, and because it once lived in Paradise, it never truly died.

The phoenix was also believed to have several powers and abilities, including an incinerating touch that could render a human to ashes in mere seconds. They were super fast, with incredible strength as well as teleportation and shapeshifting abilities. Some believe that one phoenix still inhabits Earth at any given time, awaiting its inevitable death and rebirth.^[5]

5 Modern Jinn Tale

Jinn, also known as djinn or genie, are supernatural creatures found in Islamic mythology. These spirits also have the ability to shapeshift and are made of smokeless fire and air. Furthermore, they are considered to be dual dimensional and can live in both visible and invisible realms.

While Jinn are thought of mostly in the form of a genie, such as the wish-granting one seen in the movie Aladdin, they can also be used for protection. A modern story tells of a girl who had been bullied incessantly at her boarding school. During one such incident, the bully ripped a chain from the girl’s neck. Immediately the girl began speaking in a deep male voice while her body buckled and twisted. At the same time, the bully’s tongue swelled to the point where she struggled to breathe. It was only when teachers were called to the scene that things returned to normal.

Soon it was discovered that the bullied girl’s parents had gotten the chain their daughter was wearing from a shaman. The chain contained a jinn.^[6]

4 A Persistent Omen of Death

A banshee is yet another type of fairy found in Irish folklore. The infamous scream of a banshee is said to be an omen of death. Some even believe that every family in Ireland has its own banshee. Banshees are said to be spirits who appear in several forms, including a headless woman carrying a bowl of blood and an old woman with a veil covering her face. Once they become aware of someone looking at them, they vanish into a cloud of fog.

Some banshees are extremely angry because they hated their families while they were alive. In their disembodied state, their howls are said to mean that they are celebrating the imminent demise of a family member they hated. For this reason, they are among the most feared creatures in Ireland.

To this day, the belief in banshees remains strong. In 2018, Willy Good from Cork, Ireland, shared his chilling story. He heard a terrifying howl many years ago and initially thought it came from cats prowling around his house. However, the noise moved around his walls, and cats were nowhere to be found. It went on for 45 minutes and then abruptly stopped. Willy eventually forgot about it and went to bed.

The next morning he got the dreadful news that his neighbors—a father and daughter who didn’t live far from him—both died during the night. Willy was convinced then that more than one banshee had visited his house to warn him of the impending tragedy.^[7]

3 Unicorn Prevents a War

The unicorn is one of the most beloved mythical creatures in the world. They are usually portrayed with shining white fur and a multicolored horn and mane. The legendary creature is believed to possess magical abilities, and ancient cultures described it as a real animal. It was even included in natural history books at one point. Since the early days of the Church, the unicorn has also been adopted as a symbol of Christ and his invincible strength.

Legend has it that a unicorn was instrumental in Genghis Khan’s decision not to conquer India. Khan was on his way with his army when he came across a unicorn. The unicorn bowed down to him, and Khan saw this as a message from his deceased father and decided to turn his army back.^[8]

2 From Buggy Man to Boogeyman

It is thought that the legend of the boogeyman or bogeyman may have originated in Scotland. Still, it is somewhat of an impossible task to determine which countries may have related the first tales because the legend is so widespread.

One of the most famous depictions of the boogeyman is a monster hiding under the bed in a child’s room. The boogeyman takes on different forms depending on the country: In England, it is a shadowy ghost; in Germany, it is a goblin; in Russia, it’s Baba Yaga; and in Mexico, it is La Llorona.

In the UK, it is believed that the boogeyman was once the “nickname” of the buggy men who were responsible for collecting the dead during the Black Plague. Because these buggy men were constantly in contact with dead people, they often contracted the disease and became emaciated and extremely pale. This appearance is what is thought to have led to them eventually being called boogeymen.^[9]

1 The Mystery of Dragons

Much like boogeymen, it is unclear where exactly the legends of dragons first emerged. What is known is that they had been described as early as the times of the ancient Greeks.

For thousands of years, people had no idea what the massive fossils meant that were occasionally being discovered around the world. Therefore, a connection was made to dragons instead of dinosaurs. Dragons were soon seen as villains that needed to be slain by brave fighters, and they were cast in the role of Satan by the Christian church. The fire-breathing mouth of a dragon was also believed to be the entrance to hell.

Medieval folklore included the tale of St. Margaret of Antioch, who was thrown in prison for her Christian beliefs. Legend has it that a dragon was lurking in the prison cell, and as soon as she entered it, the dragon swallowed her whole. God gave St. Margaret the power to burst through the dragon’s stomach, which led to her survival and the dragon’s death. St. Margaret eventually became the patron saint of childbirth.^[10]

Every culture in history has created its own bestiary of otherworldly and mythical creatures. And the deeper you get into mythology, the weirder the monsters are. From the giant to the tiny, the ethereal to the subterranean, the sagely to the fiendish, if you can imagine it, it most likely exists in lore. Except we have good reason to believe that people didn’t imagine them—at least not entirely. Many myths and cryptids have their basis in real-world animals, natural phenomena, and even other people. Here are ten such mythical creatures that mix unreality with at least a touch of reality.

10 Unicorns Are Wooly Rhinos

Unicorns are one of the most famous mythical animals; somehow, every two-year-old can name the magical, horned equines. They’ve also been around in various tales for 4,000 years across parts of Europe and Asia. One of the earliest examples of unicorns comes from the Greek historian Ctesias, who wrote of unicorns as animals native to Eastern Europe and the Middle East. Maybe it’s not a coincidence, then, that actual unicorns used to exist—in Eastern Europe and the Middle East.

Elasmotherium was an ancient genus of rhino whose most notable features were its shaggy covering of hair and its one long horn jutting straight out of its forehead. Further, compared to modern rhinos, its legs were longer and its teeth more horse-like. Early people who came across its skeleton, possibly well-preserved from its then-frigid habitat, would be perfectly logical in assuming that they had just found the remains of a horned horse, a unicorn.

9 The Hydra Was a Mutant Snake

Snakes and related reptiles like lizards and turtles are sometimes born with a condition known as polycephaly, which, as its name suggests, means having more than one head. Though almost any organism with a head can be born with the disorder, it is more common in snakes. It is even more common in warmer environments, like, for example, the Mediterranean heat of Greece.

If an ancient Greek were to find one of these multi-headed snakes, all it would take is a flair for the dramatic for that odd-looking reptile to become the terrifying Hydra. Were the Greeks known for their drama? Say, where does the word drama come from, anyhow?

8 Vampires Are Scientific Ignorance

Vampires are tricky myths because, unlike the simple horse-with-a-horn unicorns, vampires have a slew of different abilities, both natural and seemingly supernatural. It would seem hard to anchor them in real beings and phenomena. However, most of the vampire’s key traits are easily explained, almost always by medieval European ignorance.

Undeath? Coffins were exhumed with scratch marks on the inside lid for hundreds of years due to premature burial. Gauntness and fangs? Decomposition thins the body and recedes the gums, jutting the teeth out more than living sets. Aversion to sunlight? There are dozens of disorders that cause the symptom, like lupus, albinism, photophobia, and even concussions. Hyper aggression, hypersexuality, and association with wolves and bats? Rabies ticks a lot of vampiric boxes, which leads to the next point, namely that…

7 Werewolves Are Scientific Ignorance Too

Werewolves have become intrinsically linked with vampires in modern mythology, but the two have even deeper connections due to their overlapping origins.

Like vampires, rabies is a common theory for the animalistic behavior associated with werewolves and could actually come from a wolf bite. Porphyria is another common suggestion, as it often leads to aggression, aversion to light (even nocturnality), and even the combination of receding gums and reddened teeth—which together could look a lot like fangs. Then there is the condition known as werewolf syndrome, hypertrichosis, which causes hair to cover most of the body. As improbable as it would be for the two to cooccur, a person born with hypertrichosis who contracted rabies would be the spitting (and foaming) image of a werewolf.

6 Sirens and Mermaids Are Manatees

We’ve established that people in the middle ages were liable to misinterpret what they didn’t understand. But imagine how much worse these people would be after months at sea—hungry, thirsty, and particularly starved of the, ahem, opposite sex. That’s a big reason why modern mermaid myths exist.

Manatees, dugongs, seals, and sea lions are all near to a person’s size and all terminate in a large, broad, sideways-spanning tail. A sighting of one descending into the water with only tail raised would be an easy misinterpretation. It’s especially interesting that mermaids, despite being considered half-fish, seem to always be depicted with the same sideways-spanning tail that only aquatic mammals have.

5 Sea Serpents Are Giant Oarfish

The giant oarfish is terrifying—I mean, the longest bony fish in the world confirmed to reach 26 feet and reported to reach twice that amount. Its long, sinewy body is topped with an equally long webbed fin, and from its snakelike head dangle whisker-like tendrils. All of these are features of the generic sea serpent, and thus the connection is clear.

The earliest descriptions of sea serpents, often called sea worms, consistently include manes or fins on their heads and neck, just like the oarfish. Though oarfish are known to spend most of their time in the deep pelagic zone of the ocean, they make occasional sojourns up to the surface. Catching sight of their unparalleled length, with fin cresting the surface and chin tendrils trailing behind them, even today, might make anyone think for a second: sea monster.

4 Chupacabras Just Have Mites

Chupacabras, the goat-suckers of Mexican folklore, are fairly unique among modern cryptids in that supposed carcasses of the beasts turn up repeatedly. Unlike Loch Ness or the Mothman, supposed Chupacabras are available for study and inevitable debunking regularly. That’s why the real basis for Chupacabra sightings is pretty much set in stone: coyotes with mange and scabies.

Nearly every body turned in has been the same—a coyote or coywolf with a severe reaction to the mite Sarcoptes scabiei, common and relatively non-threatening to humans but rare and dangerous to coyotes. The mites cause mange and scabies, causing the coyotes’ hair to fall out, their skin to shrivel, and another interesting symptom. Mange debilitates the animal with fatigue and pain, forcing it to seek out easier prey, which often means livestock. Goatsucker, indeed.

3 Kappas Are Giant Salamanders

Kappas are river-dwelling imps from Japanese folklore. You may also know them from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III, which contains the dazzling dialogue from Michelangelo: “Kappa? Cappuccino?!” They are said to be the size of a dog or child. They’re dark, slimy, with webbed hands and feet, broad heads, and broad, almost turtle-like backs. Of course, this describes another creature that also makes its home in the rivers and ponds of Japan: the Japanese giant salamander.

The Japanese giant salamander takes the cake as one of the largest amphibians in the world, growing to more than five feet long and 60 pounds. It is truly an off-putting and startling sight for anyone. The vast majority of all amphibians in the world are restricted to under a foot in length. People believe that ancient Japanese fishermen and farmers would encounter the beasts rarely and misinterpret them as river demons, and I don’t blame them.

2 Cyclops Are Mammoths

The cyclops is one of Greek mythology’s most famous creatures, featuring prominently in its own chapter of the Odyssey. They are giants with the curious (and evolutionarily nonsensical) trait of having only one large, central eye. Though no living animal in the time of antiquity was likely to inspire the cyclops, one dead one very likely did.

Mammoths and mastodons, the extinct (for now…) relatives of elephants, were at one point ubiquitous. Though we tend to think of mammoths and mastodons as dwellers of the frozen north, the various species’ combined range includes just about the entire world, minus the most southern areas. And though we know them to have the two, sideways-facing eyes common to herbivores, their skulls have one large, central hole in the center front. It is a connection for the trunk, but anyone except modern biologists would see it and assume it was the socket of a large, lone, central eye.

And to ancient peoples with no knowledge of paleontology, the rest of the skeleton, almost certainly not fully articulated (because that’s very rare, despite what Jurassic Park claims), would be easily arranged to look like a giant, powerful, thick humanoid.

1 Bigfoot is Gigantopithecus 

Bigfoot, along with his numerous counterparts across the globe, is perhaps the most famous cryptid today. It, and we should really say they, are the poster children for cryptozoology groups and paranormal researchers. They’ve captured the hearts of millions, and part of the appeal is the credibility of their existence. Sure, most people don’t truly believe they exist but ask any primatologist (including myself, a former one), and they’ll give you a dozen reasons why they absolutely could. One of those reasons is that bigfoots truly did exist at one point not too long ago.

Gigantopithecus was an ape that went extinct around 300,000 years ago (or did it…), surviving well into the period in which it would have interacted with local humans. It is only known from jaw and teeth fragments, making size estimates imperfect, but it was, in any case, huge. Height estimates range from eight to twelve feet tall and weight estimates range from 600 to 1,200 pounds—150% to 300% the size of a silverback gorilla.

A likely member of the Ponginae subfamily alongside orangutans, it would likely have looked like a giant, thick, hairy ape-man. As it stomped through the forest, our ancestors truly did see their own bigfoot. If it, or a close relative, survived to modern times in the vast, unexplored forests of the world, perhaps the bigfoot myth is the bigfoot fact.