Legendary creature

Mythical creatures are creatures whose appearance is dominated by the imagination of the people and their existence has not been proven. It is about human beings, animals, spirits or mixed nature ( chimeras ), which play an important role in the fairy tale, in the fable, in mythology and in heraldry, such as the Minotaur, Cyclops, or Centaur.

Most mythical creatures are now considered fantasy of the people of their time. Nevertheless, many have their origin in the real world: So you go, for example, assume that in earlier times sailors have reinterpreted manatees mermaids or nymphs and mammoth bones that were found randomly assigned to a giant. In a few cases, a regional " mythical beast " in the more recent research has turned out even as a real animal. Examples of this are the okapi in the Congo region, the Moa and the tuatara in New Zealand and finally the Saola in Vietnam.

In the princely Wunderkammer, which originated in the 16th century, took rarities and mythical creatures have a special place. For example, Conrad Gesner drew dragons and unicorns vorkämen truly in the Alps. Thus, the richness of God's nature should be shown.

The belief in mythical creatures is far from over, as evidenced by regularly published reports of sightings of Bigfoot, the Mothman or the Loch Ness monster.