60 Fun Facts About Mythical Creatures

Which mythical creature is the national animal of Scotland?

Two of them supported the royal arms of the King of Scots, and the beast is still on the UK coat of arms today.

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

Fawkes in the Harry Potter books is Dumbledore's phoenix; the Chinese fenghuang is a separate creature that gets translated with the same word.

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

His mother was Loki, who had shape-shifted into a mare to distract a stallion building the walls of Asgard.

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

Theseus found his way back out with a ball of thread given to him by King Minos's daughter Ariadne.

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

Capturing him was the last of Heracles' twelve labours; he is usually given three heads and a serpent for a tail.

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

Perseus used the severed head as a weapon before giving it to Athena for her shield.

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

The 1958 footprints that launched the modern craze turned out to have been made with carved wooden feet, revealed by the prankster's family in 2002.

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

The nickname dates from the 1921 British Everest reconnaissance expedition; the Tibetan word combines 'rocky place' and 'bear'.

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

Christian Spurling, stepson of a big-game hunter humiliated by the Daily Mail, admitted the model was his; most researchers have accepted the confession since 1994.

A werewolf is also known by what Greek-derived term meaning 'wolf-human'?

Full moons and infectious bites are mostly a movie invention; the earliest sources for the belief are Petronius in the 1st century and Gervase of Tilbury.

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

It was actually beaten to print by fellow Irish author Sheridan Le Fanu's Carmilla in 1872, and by John Polidori's The Vampyre in 1819.

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

Under the Ming and Qing dynasties the five-clawed version was reserved for the emperor alone.

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

Before the 20th century he was generally said to wear red, not green.

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

The root of the Norwegian word 'krake' means a malformed, crooked tree, which suits a mass of tentacles.

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

He complained that they were not as beautiful as painted, having rather masculine faces.

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

So-called alicorn was prized as an antidote to poison and sold for many times its weight in gold.

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

Since classical antiquity griffins were said to guard the gold deposits of Central Asia against the one-eyed Arimaspians.

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

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

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

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

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

His father was Poseidon in his role as horse-god; his brother Chrysaor was born in the same moment.

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

The link may come from real accounts of mongooses killing cobras; the name means 'little king' in Greek.

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

Medieval writers scarcely distinguished it from the basilisk, and both were said to kill with a look.

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

Oedipus finally solved it; the Great Sphinx of Giza, by contrast, is a benign guardian probably carved with the face of the pharaoh Khafre.

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

They were said to live in the mountains of Thessaly and were called the Ixionidae, 'sons of Ixion'.

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

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

A wyvern differs from a classic dragon mainly in having how many legs?

In heraldry it is rarely fire-breathing, unlike other dragons, and it turns up as a mascot for many schools and sports teams.

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

It appears in Orlando Furioso as a pairing everyone considered impossible; an English translation of 1591 called it a 'Griffith horse'.

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

Fenrir is a child of Loki and is fated to kill Odin at Ragnarök before being slain by Odin's son Víðarr.

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

Its letting go of the tail is one of the signs that Ragnarök has begun; it is Loki's middle child by the giantess Angrboða.

The kelpie of Scottish folklore is a shape-shifting spirit that usually takes the form of which animal?

Some accounts say it keeps its hooves even in human form; two 30-metre steel Kelpies were completed at Falkirk in 2013.

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

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

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

The name means 'woman of the fairy mound', after the ancient tumuli that dot the Irish countryside.

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

Spill the water from its head-dish and the kappa becomes severely weakened; they are also said to love sumo wrestling.

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

The older a kitsune gets, the greater its magical powers; it is classed as a type of yōkai.

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

A golem is animated by writing 'emet' (truth) on its forehead; erasing the first letter leaves 'met', dead, and stops it.

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

Investigators of later sightings in Texas and northern Mexico found the 'creatures' were coyotes and dogs with severe mange.

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

Wildlife biologists suggested a sandhill crane; John Keel's 1975 book tied the sightings to the Silver Bridge collapse that killed 46 people, and Richard Gere starred in the 2002 film.

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

Real rabbits infected with the Shope papilloma virus grow horn-like tumours, which may explain the older tales of horned hares.

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

Psychiatry once listed 'wendigo psychosis', a culture-bound craving for human flesh, as a disorder.

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

Lightning comes from the flash of its eyes, which it hurls at creatures of the underworld.

The swamp-lurking bunyip comes from the Aboriginal mythology of which continent's south-east?

The word comes from the Wemba-Wemba or Wergaia language of Victoria and is usually translated today as 'devil' or 'evil spirit'.

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

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

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

India uses him too: the Indian Army's Guards Brigade carries Garuda on its insignia.

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

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

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

Serpent-shaped nāga deities are prominent in Hindu iconography and in the first book of the Mahābhārata.

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

Its monarchs are styled Druk Gyalpo, the Thunder Dragon Kings.

The 1589 Peter Stumpp trial led to peak werewolf persecution mainly in which part of Europe?

Lycanthropy accusations were a small, odd corner of the wider witch-hunt phenomenon.

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

It grew out of the same 1816 Lake Geneva ghost-story contest that produced Frankenstein.

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

The earliest 'monster' report is in Adomnán's 7th-century Life of St Columba, describing an encounter said to have happened in 565 AD.

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

Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Howard-Bury led the expedition and chronicled it in a book the same year.

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

The family of his coworker Ray Wallace produced the wooden feet from his basement in 2002.

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

Sigurd kills the dragon by digging a pit on its path to its drinking spring and stabbing it from below.

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

The legend may be referenced as early as the sixth century, but its first full account is an eleventh-century Georgian text.

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

Diodorus Siculus recounted that, ashamed of a child born of an affair, she abandoned it; Mesopotamian seals show fish-tailed mermen far earlier.

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

It had been shown in London twenty years earlier; an investigator traced its manufacture to a Japanese fisherman.

Romania's vampire-like strigoi takes its name from a word cognate with Italian strega, meaning what?

Other local names include the shtriga in Albania and the vrykolakas in Greece.

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

Unicorns appear in Greek natural history rather than mythology; Ctesias gathered his information while living in Persia.

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

The pair claimed they stumbled on the creature while filming a Bigfoot docudrama on October 20, 1967.

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

Adomnán wrote the account about a century after the events, setting the encounter in the River Ness rather than the loch.

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

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