Mythical creatures entirely myth, or do you think some may have been based in reality

[Mr Slugger]

Didn't really know where this should go, so I figured religion probably fit this best. Years ago I used to write scifi/fantasy, and one of the subjects I liked is coming up with real ways to explain mythical creatures in a real way, even though some were still not really real. Like for instance Golems were machines that people created because they had a better understanding of tech, but people thought they were magic. Obviously still scifi/fantasy, but sounded better than making a clay statue come to life.

But looking at more realistic things. Do you think that some may have really been things that existed? Whether by being real or by being a freak of nature.

Like for instance Giants I think definitely existed. They probably weren't 9- 10 feet tall, but I think when normal people are under 5 feet and someone is born and ends up growing to be 7-8 feet tall then you're a giant to smaller people. And hobbits, dwarfs existed. I mean they exist today as well, but I'm sure back in medieval times they were thought to be different, and probably ended up having to hang with their own kind. But those are the simple ones. Leviathans were known to attack boats on the open sea. But could they have been giant squids, that were just attacking boats before modern boats with propellers, and people on board that had weapons that could kill a squid? Maybe they were more aggressive in the past? Or unicorns maybe were some sort of weird one horned deer that people saw?

I mean there's some, like say a minotaur if they existed at all they were a group of warriors that ran around with bull's head on their heads or something.

Your thoughts?

[Rapscallion]

The myth of centaurs are generally believed to be the reaction of people to the first cavalry, if memory serves.

Some things, though, such as the pick-n-mix creatures (hippogryph etc) were pretty much an attempt by one storyteller to outdo the creature created by another one, or at least that's my suspicion.;

Rapscallion

[BroomJockey]

Personally, I'd love it if say, dragons had been based on reality. They're one of those creatures that keeps showing up in different cultures, though changed between. They always seem to be large flying lizards, however, despite other differences. That'd point to at least some base creature out there. Maybe a distant cousin of dinosaurs, or some such. However, I think that while many creatures do have some base creature that was probably a genetic freak accident, or was half-glimpsed and then shaped, twisted, and grew through the telling, the physical reality would resemble nothing of the stories.

[lordlundar]

Little of column A little of Column B. Like most legends, mythical creatures have a grain of truth in them, but has been blown out of the original proportions by storytellers. Considering that almost all the stories in that time period came from minstrels and vocal storytellers as opposed to written word, the story is never the same every time, and is often embellished to garner attention.

Take the Dragon for example. originally, they were quadruped, land based giant lizards. Now I'm willing to bet that the size was embellished to make the heroes exploits more fantastic. (a 30 foot lizard being more impressive than a 1 foot lizard) Over time, Size simply was insufficient (of course by this time, they could be compared to small mountains) so the wings and fire breathing were added on, as was a semblance of intelligence (to make them malevolent as opposed to simply bestial) and even those were the grandfather stories to the current representations.

So basically, yes they did exist, though most likely not as fantastical creatures and certainly not what you would expect if you saw one.:)

[Nyoibo]

And of course if someone found a fossil skull centuries ago what else would they think but monster or dragon.

[joe hx]

when people tell stories, even when they're trying to be truthful, they tend to exaggerate. in each retelling of the story, especially when it goes from person to person to even another person, exaggeration increases.

example: customers who have been waiting "an hour" when in fact it's only been five minutes. sometimes I think they honestly believe it's been an hour

so, in each retelling of a hunting story, the creatures become even larger, more dangerous, and exotic. hell, I guess it's like catching "the big one" when you're fishing

[Lady_Foxfire]

An article in Muse Magazine (a science and arts magazine for kids that I had a subscription to when i was a kid) suggested that the concept of cyclopes could have been a result of someone seeing an elephant skull without knowing what an actual elephant looked like (like if one had been washed across the Mediterranean). They might have mistaken the trunk-hole for a single giant eye socket, and interpreted the actual eye sockets on the side of the skull as ear holes.

[Lace Neil Singer]

There was a story in England (it's in one of my books, so I don't have a link, sorry) where a tale was told of a dragon coming out of a local stream, killing several sheep and then vanishing into a nearby weir. It was described as having a large body, a long mouth filled with sharp teeth, a long tail and four stumpy legs.

Sound familiar? It should; a crocodile that had been given to the King of England at the time had escaped from its pen and this is where it ended up. However, the villagers hadn't ever clapped eyes on a crocodile before so they naturally thought of a dragon.

Mermaids came from sailors who caught sight of manatees rising above the waves with their babies in their flippers. Sailors who must have been at the rum in order to see a fat heavy manatee as a beautiful mermaid with flowing locks. XD So called unicorn horns were sold for a lot of money; they were actually narwhal horns. Ibexes were also mistaken for unicorns. Lycanthropy makes people think they can change into wolves.

There are lots of myth creatures who have very non mythical roots.

[Bloodsoul]

I recall mamoth/mastadon/elephant skulls being mistaken for the skulls of cyclopi, with the hole for the trunk being the single eye-socket?

[AFPheonix]

I don't know about the elephant thing, but it's possible that various women at different times gave birth to babies with cyclopia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclopia), giving rise to the myth as the story got told to other villages.

[Mr Slugger]

Yeah while rare I mean if someone gave birth to a baby with that condition, every if it didn't survive I'm sure it would have scared the shit out of medieval people.

And I think that's more where I was trying to go with this thread. I know about the elephant skulls, which is just imagination running while as to what it was. I'm talking more about like say if tree man was born in 1400AD that people might actually think he was a walking tree, and if the condition was say genetic and he passed it on to his tree son and tree daughter eventually you'd have a group of walking trees until the primitives got scared and killed the whole group.

[Nyoibo]

Sailors who must have been at the rum in order to see a fat heavy manatee as a beautiful mermaid with flowing locks.

Or just been at sea way too long.

[bunnyboy]

Oddly when you take a look at how dragons seem to be formed (as one show on one of those educational channels put it) it seems that they always seem to have our biggest fears or the things that awe us into submission in mind... serpent check, talons like birds of prey check, (eastern) a mane like a lion check.
basically they are the mythologized apex predators of the world and (at least in western cultures) the highest concentration of the chaos of the universe...

so real, no, maybe exaggerations, and sometimes, a bit of truth embellished by tale tellers over centuries.

[Flyndaran]

I don't know about the elephant thing, but it's possible that various women at different times gave birth to babies with cyclopia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclopia), giving rise to the myth as the story got told to other villages.

That defomity is far too rare to really have caused myth to spring up around it.
Elephant's strange skulls are most likely the reason for cyclopes and other giant myths. Ever seen such a skull? It really does look like a humanoid skull with a centrally located giant eye.

I've heard that unicorns came from rhinos. The earliest myths have them as giant and violent.

Dragons likely came from dinosaur bones and our innate fear of strange mixture animals. Flying lizards are pretty up there for demonic imagery.

The so called gilled deer of Laotion myth turned out to be a real tiny deer with weird nostril slits living within a stone's throw of civilization. Little mythical critters could still be out there.
My father claimed to have seen a sasquatch, but I just can't believe that such a giant primate exists where there is no fossil evidence at all.

[AdminAssistant]

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Yeah. I don't believe in absolutes or that we can ever possibly know all there is to know, especially when it comes to history and especially when it comes to antiquity.

[Flyndaran]

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Yeah. I don't believe in absolutes or that we can ever possibly know all there is to know, especially when it comes to history and especially when it comes to antiquity.

You may not know whether and how many apples I'm holding right now, but you darn well know that I'm not holding a living unicorn baby.

We may find "sea monsters", but we won't find SEA MONSTERS! Biology is amazing, but limited by physical laws that don't change for anyone.

[Red_Dazes]

You may not know whether and how many apples I'm holding right now, but you darn well know that I'm not holding a living unicorn baby.

We may find "sea monsters", but we won't find SEA MONSTERS! Biology is amazing, but limited by physical laws that don't change for anyone.

...Well you never know... if the physical laws don't change for anyone... than maybe somewhere someone IS holding a baby unicorn right now... it might just not be a UNICORN! As we think of it....

To follow the train of thought everyone has been heading towards I think that the Mythos and legends of old were mans way to explain things he could not other wise explain. Based of of things that were real to him, but that he had no words for properly. So over time the great lizard becomes the DRAGON and the elephant skull becomes some terrible giant who died... etc. Real and explainable things that got blown out of proportion because people couldn't figure out what they were looking at.


.... then again... I could be dead wrong and maybe the UNICORNS are all living under ground... or some crazy king has them captive in the SEA! *cookies for reference*

[AdminAssistant]

Physical laws don't change...but when we're discussing what was going on in the past, we can't know for sure. We can't know with 100% certainty that a species of horse with a horn on its head never existed. A lack of evidence is not proof of non-existence.

[Lace Neil Singer]

http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-truth-behind-5-real-monsters-that-fooled-the-internet/

Interesting read. Especially the whale skeleton.

[Mr Slugger]

But see the chupacabra is a good example of a real animal that has been turned into the myth. I mean it eats chickens, small animals, etc. But in reality, it's not exactly a wolf or a dog, it's some kind of hybrid with a skin condition. We know what it is because we can do DNA testing and stuff on it, but if you saw that 200 years ago I'm sure we'd be like WTF is that?

[Flyndaran]

But see the chupacabra is a good example of a real animal that has been turned into the myth. I mean it eats chickens, small animals, etc. But in reality, it's not exactly a wolf or a dog, it's some kind of hybrid with a skin condition. We know what it is because we can do DNA testing and stuff on it, but if you saw that 200 years ago I'm sure we'd be like WTF is that?

The word you are looking for is coyote with skin condition.
Most myths are created out of whole cloth. Not everything has to have even a grain of truth.
Thunder may have suggested sky gods, but they still don't exist even a little.

Horses with horns never existed, and don't pull that not evidence of absence crap with me. That just shows a complete ignorance of the scientific method.

Real truth discovered from hard studied science will always beat ignorant wonder any day.

[AdminAssistant]

Horses with horns never existed, and don't pull that not evidence of absence crap with me. That just shows a complete ignorance of the scientific method.

Ah, so you have a time machine and can go back to study what the world was precisely like in antiquity?

As a historian, the very first thing I have to come to grips with is the fact that nothing is certain. All I can do is take the evidence that I have, and construct what likely happened. However, I also know that it's not 100%.

Practically everyone in the known world is taught that organized theatre began in the 6th-5th century BCE. However, it's entirely possible that a good deal of theatrical activity happened in Egypt before then. We just don't have enough evidence to back up that claim. Practically everyone is taught that a mostly uneducated actor and business man from Stratford-upon-Avon wrote the greatest dramatic poetry ever written in English. There is very little actual evidence to back up that claim, but because that has been what was always believed, people just tend to run with it. Fact is, we will likely never know when the exact first theatrical performance was or who really wrote the plays attributed to Shakespeare.

So, back to your point, since we don't have any fossil evidence of unicorns or dragons, we can say that it is likely that they never existed. However, we can't completely rule out the possibility.

[BroomJockey]

don't pull that not evidence of absence crap with me. That just shows a complete ignorance of the scientific method.

Real truth discovered from hard studied science will always beat ignorant wonder any day.

Err, I think you're the one ignorant of the scientific method, and some basic tenants of logic, as well. You cannot prove a negative. You can't point to the lack of evidence of something existing as proof it never existed. After all, it takes some fairly specific circumstances for fossils to be created. Science rarely if ever uses the word "impossible." Just "exceedingly unlikely." Your certainty flies in the face of scientific convention.

[Mr Slugger]

So, back to your point, since we don't have any fossil evidence of unicorns or dragons, we can say that it is likely that they never existed. However, we can't completely rule out the possibility.
I think though something like a dragon is just a crocodile blown out of proportion, and I think that most mythical creatures are blown out of proportion to an extent. But as I said in the first post some things like a leviathan the description pretty much fits a huge squid/octopus type thing. And we know there's huge squids, we're just not sure how big they get yet because they hide. And we know that some are aggressive. So the question would be could 300 years ago before modern machinery (which seems to scare most animals) could giant squids have attacked the boats of the time?

Then of course we've got the hobbits. Which they've found skeletons of very small full grown human like creatures. Of course some say that they are some kind of advanced primate, some say they are a kind of human, or a human with a deformity. The people of that region are much smaller than normal humans even to this day so one of the thoughts is that at one point there was a population of small humans there and they've advanced into the people that live there today. Now maybe they don't full fall into the hobbit category, but if these people did exist maybe they are the origin of hobbits?

[Flyndaran]

Err, I think you're the one ignorant of the scientific method, and some basic tenants of logic, as well. You cannot prove a negative. You can't point to the lack of evidence of something existing as proof it never existed. After all, it takes some fairly specific circumstances for fossils to be created. Science rarely if ever uses the word "impossible." Just "exceedingly unlikely." Your certainty flies in the face of scientific convention.

In a way we are both right. In science, you don't try to prove the negative, you try to prove the opposite positive, and if after enormous trial you can't, it is best to assume the negative stands.
Try to prove that unicorns existed within recorded history. If after enormous trial, you can't, then it is scientifically valid to assume that they never existed.
Yes, it will always remain vaguely possible, in that all things are technically possible, to say that they just magically avoided all detection, but that is not the most likely occurance.
If you believe that unicorns existed despite the completel lack of evidence, then you must believe things like smoking DOESN'T casue cancer, because it is technically possible that all those test subjects just happened to get cancer anyway. See how silly that is?

[MergedLoki]

Personally, I'd love it if say, dragons had been based on reality. They're one of those creatures that keeps showing up in different cultures, though changed between. They always seem to be large flying lizards, however, despite other differences. That'd point to at least some base creature out there. Maybe a distant cousin of dinosaurs, or some such. However, I think that while many creatures do have some base creature that was probably a genetic freak accident, or was half-glimpsed and then shaped, twisted, and grew through the telling, the physical reality would resemble nothing of the stories.

I watched a whole discovery channel special a few years back that actually gave a fairly logical reasoning that dragons HAD at one point exsisted and how they died out.

(basically an ice age and low numbers if i remember correctly... i saw it a good 6 years back now).

but it was very cool and interesting as it attempted to approach the topic from a totally fact/science based point of view.

and i'm sure SOME mythilogical creatures have a basis, somewhere in fact (albiet a twisted re-telling of story's etc.) and some are total hogwash and made up.

but that guy umm.. Oberon Zell Ravenheart 'created' a unicorn sometime in the 60's and/or 70's. (i don't remember how but there's pictures and it's been authenticated as real) basically bred a horse or pony or something selectively and yes this damn thing had a lump of bone growing from it's forehead so yes it looked like a unicorn. Now who's to say this couldn't haev just happened randomly in nature as mutations DO happen (it's why we evolve and change).

someone saw it had never seen anything LIKE it before decided 'omg this new and UNIQUE being must surely be magical' and bam. unicorn myth.

[Flyndaran]

...
but that guy umm.. Oberon Zell Ravenheart 'created' a unicorn sometime in the 60's and/or 70's. (i don't remember how but there's pictures and it's been authenticated as real) basically bred a horse or pony or something selectively and yes this damn thing had a lump of bone growing from it's forehead so yes it looked like a unicorn. Now who's to say this couldn't haev just happened randomly in nature as mutations DO happen (it's why we evolve and change).

someone saw it had never seen anything LIKE it before decided 'omg this new and UNIQUE being must surely be magical' and bam. unicorn myth.

Except that it's only more recent myths that have unicorns looking anything like a horse. The earliest descriptions are more akin to real world rhinos.

People have forced animals to do or be things unlike anything nature ever produced. Grasping at straws to make myths real is a bit kooky in my book.

But I do remember when the mythical gilled deer was found. Its nose has slit nostrils vaguely reminescent of gills. It is a very small deer, so it had a chance at hiding in the modern world in a very forested area.

How about the STD that sometimes afflicts animals such as rabbits. It causes horny growths around the head, that sometimes look like antlers.

I like speculation, but I prefer at least some real science in it to truly consider it plausable or likely.

[Mr Slugger]

but that guy umm.. Oberon Zell Ravenheart 'created' a unicorn sometime in the 60's and/or 70's. (i don't remember how but there's pictures and it's been authenticated as real) basically bred a horse or pony or something selectively and yes this damn thing had a lump of bone growing from it's forehead so yes it looked like a unicorn. Now who's to say this couldn't haev just happened randomly in nature as mutations DO happen (it's why we evolve and change).

someone saw it had never seen anything LIKE it before decided 'omg this new and UNIQUE being must surely be magical' and bam. unicorn myth.
Well I would say if I saw this http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/06/unicorns-are-re/ out in the woods a couple hundred years ago I would go unicorn too.

[gremcint]

An article in Muse Magazine (a science and arts magazine for kids that I had a subscription to when i was a kid) suggested that the concept of cyclopes could have been a result of someone seeing an elephant skull without knowing what an actual elephant looked like (like if one had been washed across the Mediterranean). They might have mistaken the trunk-hole for a single giant eye socket, and interpreted the actual eye sockets on the side of the skull as ear holes.

This is second hand from my sister who is a grad student currently writing a paper on homer, the original cyclops in Homer's story actually had two eyes.
But there are plenty of stories where there is only one. Just a random fact.


I know we're talking in reallife but in the show primeval where portals randomly open in time and space at one point they begin to theorize that mythological creatures could just be displaced prehistoric and futuristic creatures.

[Flyndaran]

I watched a whole discovery channel special a few years back that actually gave a fairly logical reasoning that dragons HAD at one point exsisted and how they died out.

....

Missed this post first time around.
That for ENTERTAINMENT only program was laughable in its pathetic attempt at scientific explanation.
It came up with a ludicrous hydrogen production for flight and fire.
Ludicrous, because of the ridiculous amount of energy required to make usable quantities, and the sheer volume required for buoyancy. It would have to have a hard to move hot air balloon sized ass to fly very very slowly.
Also. hydrogen burns with a faint blue tinge.

The discovery channel has a piss poor record for rational speculation.

[Savannah]

I've heard that unicorns came from rhinos. The earliest myths have them as giant and violent.

Interesting; I've never heard that. I have heard that narwhal (http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/narwhal.html) tusks were misrepresented as unicorn horns. (Personally, I think narwhals themselves are cool enough, without mixing them up with unicorns!)

[lordlundar]

Missed this post first time around.
That for ENTERTAINMENT only program was laughable in its pathetic attempt at scientific explanation.
It came up with a ludicrous hydrogen production for flight and fire.
Ludicrous, because of the ridiculous amount of energy required to make usable quantities, and the sheer volume required for buoyancy. It would have to have a hard to move hot air balloon sized ass to fly very very slowly.
Also. hydrogen burns with a faint blue tinge.

The discovery channel has a piss poor record for rational speculation.

Then you obviously missed that throughout the ENTIRE show that they were saying that they were simply theories, not that anyone accepted them. Every single expert on the show said that it was simply a possibility, not a fact.

[Flyndaran]

Then you obviously missed that throughout the ENTIRE show that they were saying that they were simply theories, not that anyone accepted them. Every single expert on the show said that it was simply a possibility, not a fact.

It was an entertainment show with not a single fact in it. Did you really believe some part of it.
The Discovery channel sucks on numerous supposedly factual shows.

[lordlundar]

It was an entertainment show with not a single fact in it.

Oh no! Discovery doing a show for entertainment, say it isn't so! This travesty must be abolished! <waves bye bye to Mythbusters, Dirty Jobs, and 90% of the shows, to be replaced with monotone documentaries, and effectively shutting the network down>

Did you really believe some part of it.

Missed the point again. The experts on that show were asked that IF dragons exist, how could they function in a realistic setting. What was offered was THEORIES, not facts and all in fun, never having to be proven. That was the point of the show. Whether I believe anything in it isn't even REMOTELY relevant. But then again, you seem to think that theories are magic (http://www.fratching.com/showpost.php?p=34596&postcount=36), which shows your grasp of scientific process is minimal at best.

[Flyndaran]

...
Missed the point again. The experts on that show were asked that IF dragons exist, how could they function in a realistic setting. What was offered was THEORIES, not facts and all in fun, never having to be proven. That was the point of the show. Whether I believe anything in it isn't even REMOTELY relevant. But then again, you seem to think that theories are magic (http://www.fratching.com/showpost.php?p=34596&postcount=36), which shows your grasp of scientific process is minimal at best.

I would fire any scientist that offered the ludicrous "theories" on that show.
They suggested hydrogen for lift! That's absurd. Who ever heard of hot air balloon sized slow moving yet ever hungry dragons? Also, hydrogen, besides being disgustingly hard to store or manufacture, burns a faint blue. So you wouldn't get gouts of visible flame.
No there were simply too much bad science to believe that real scientists had anything to do with it. Then again, maybe they asked biologists chemistry questions, and physicists biology qeustions, and kept asking different ones until they got something they could animate.
Believing in a fantasy show with bad science is relavent to this overall discussion. We are writing about reality. Gullibility and ignorance about basic science is relavent.

[Slytovhand]

So Flyn, are you suggesting that the question "IF dragons were real, how would they have existed?" is completely outside the realms of science??

I would find that hard to believe.... I think it's actually a very good question.

Perhaps pointless, but still....

Whether their theories are even half-way accurate is a different matter, but I still think the questions are worth asking.

[Flyndaran]

So Flyn, are you suggesting that the question "IF dragons were real, how would they have existed?" is completely outside the realms of science??

I would find that hard to believe.... I think it's actually a very good question.

Perhaps pointless, but still....

Whether their theories are even half-way accurate is a different matter, but I still think the questions are worth asking.

Of course the question is interesting in a mental exercise way. Heck, I've done it for the gaming RPG GURPS in a few different ways.
I just felt so insulted with its lame attempts that I consider the whole Discovery's lineup of "What if?" programs to be completely non-scientific nonsense.

What do you want in a dragon? It's not as obvious as it sounds. Different cultures have different ideas.
In many, a simple giant wyrm would be a large snake like a legendary but plausible 30 foot anaconda. That's a monster in my book.
Is it a ferocious flying creature? The extinct pteranadons got up to a 40 foot wingspan if no more than man weight. They were slow gliding flyers, so if anything, that made a surprise attack stay at ground level. Very gothic hero stuff.
If it's fire breath, that's a bit harder. There are creatures that vomit gastric juices that would burn "like fire", or the every popular spitting cobra type venom which fits many legends of toxic "breath".
For mini-drake game purposes, I like an enzymatic luminescent spit that creates a flash when exposed to air. It isn't fire, but a light flash used to startle just long enough for the creature to take flight and get away.