1)Leviathan
Leviathan (/lᵻˈvaɪ.əθən/; Hebrew: לִוְיָתָן, Modern Livyatan, Tiberian Liwyāṯān) is a sea monster referenced in the Hebrew Bible, especially in the Book of Job.
The Leviathan of the Book of Job is a reflex of the older Canaanite Lotan, a primeval monster defeated by the god Hadad. Parallels to the role of Mesopotamian Tiamat defeated by Marduk have long been drawn in comparative mythology, as have been wider comparisons to dragon and world serpent narratives such as Indra slaying Vrtra or Thor slaying Jörmungandr.But Leviathan in the Hebrew Bible already figures as a metaphor for a powerful enemy, notably Babylon (Isaiah 27:1), and also more pragmatically of large aquatic creatures, such as the crocodile, and later came to be used as a term for "great whale" as well as of sea monsters in general.
2)Kraken
The Kraken (/ˈkrɑːkən/)is a legendary sea monster of giant size that is said to dwell off the coasts of Norway and Greenland. A number of authors over the years have postulated that the legend originated from sightings of giant squids that may grow to 12–15 meters (40–50 feet) in length, despite the fact that the creature in the original tales was not described as having tentacles and more closely resembled a whale or crab. The sheer size and fearsome appearance attributed to the kraken have made it a common ocean-dwelling monster in various fictional works. It was first described by the Dane Erik Pontoppidan in 1752–3.
The Lernaean Hydra or Hydra of Lerna (Greek: Λερναῖα Ὕδρα, Lernaîa Hýdra), more often known simply as the Hydra, was a serpentine water monster in Greek and Roman mythology. Its lair was the lake of Lerna in the Argolid, which was also the site of the myth of the Danaids. Lerna was reputed to be an entrance to the Underworld and archaeology has established it as a sacred site older than Mycenaean Argos. In the canonical Hydra myth, the monster is killed by Heracles, more often known as Hercules, using sword and fire, as the second of his Twelve Labors.
According to Hesiod, the Hydra was the offspring of Typhon and Echidna. It possessed many heads, the exact number of which varies according to the source. Later versions of the Hydra story add a regeneration feature to the monster: for every head chopped off, the Hydra would regrow a couple of heads.
The Hydra had poisonous breath and blood so virulent that even its scent was deadly.
4)Dragons
A dragon is a legendary creature, typically scaled or fire-spewing and with serpentine, reptilian or avian traits, that features in the myths of many cultures around world. The two most well-known cultural traditions of dragon are
5)Medusa
In Greek mythology Medusa (/məˈdjuːzə, məˈdʒuː-, -sə/, US /məˈduː-/; Μέδουσα "guardian, protectress") was a monster, a Gorgon, generally described as a winged human female with living venomous snakes in place of hair. Gazers upon her hideous face would turn to stone. Most sources describe her as the daughter of Phorcys and Ceto, though the author Hyginus makes her the daughter of Gorgon and Ceto.According to Hesiod and Aeschylus, she lived and died on an island named Sarpedon, somewhere near Cisthene. The 2nd-century BCE novelist Dionysios Skytobrachion puts her somewhere in Libya, where Herodotus had said the Berbers originated her myth, as part of their religion.
Medusa was beheaded by the hero Perseus, who thereafter used her head, which retained its ability to turn onlookers to stone, as a weapon until he gave it to the goddess Athena to place on her shield. In classical antiquity the image of the head of Medusa appeared in the evil-averting device known as the Gorgoneion.
6)Mermaids/Sirens
A mermaid is a mythical creature with the upper body of a woman and the lower body of a fish.
7)Werewolf
A werewolf (from Old English: wer, "man"), man-wolf, Wolf Man, or lycanthrope (Greek: λυκάνθρωπος, lykánthropos: λύκος, lykos, "wolf", and ἄνθρωπος, anthrōpos, "human") is a mythological or folkloric human with the ability to shapeshift into a wolf or a therianthropic hybrid wolf-like creature, either purposely or after being placed under a curse or affliction (e.g. via a bite or scratch from another werewolf). Early sources for belief in lycanthropy are Petronius (27–66) and Gervase of Tilbury (1150–1228).
The werewolf is a widespread concept in European folklore, existing in many variants, which are related by a common development of a Christian interpretation of underlying European folklore developed during the medieval period. From the early modern period, werewolf beliefs also spread to the New World with colonialism. Belief in werewolves developed in parallel to the belief in witches, in the course of the Late Middle Ages and the Early Modern period. Like the witchcraft trials as a whole, the trial of supposed werewolves emerged in what is now Switzerland (especially the Valais and Vaud) in the early 15th century and spread throughout Europe in the 16th, peaking in the 17th and subsiding by the 18th century. The persecution of werewolves and the associated folklore is an integral part of the "witch-hunt" phenomenon, albeit a marginal one, accusations of werewolfery being involved in only a small fraction of witchcraft trials.During the early period, accusations of lycanthropy (transformation into a wolf) were mixed with accusations of wolf-riding or wolf-charming. The case of Peter Stumpp (1589) led to a significant peak in both interest in and persecution of supposed werewolves, primarily in French-speaking and German-speaking Europe. The phenomenon persisted longest in Bavaria and Austria, with persecution of wolf-charmers recorded until well after 1650, the final cases taking place in the early 18th century in Carinthia and Styria.
After the end of the witch-trials, the werewolf became of interest in folklore studies and in the emerging Gothic horror genre; werewolf fiction as a genre has pre-modern precedents in medieval romances (e.g. Bisclavret and Guillaume de Palerme) and developed in the 18th century out of the "semi-fictional" chap book tradition. The trappings of horror literature in the 20th century became part of the horror and fantasy genre of modern pop culture.
8)Vampire
A vampire is a being from folklore who subsists by feeding on the life essence (generally in the form of blood) of the living. In European folklore, vampires were undead beings that often visited loved ones and caused mischief or deaths in the neighbourhoods they inhabited when they were alive. They wore shrouds and were often described as bloated and of ruddy or dark countenance, markedly different from today's gaunt, pale vampire which dates from the early 19th century. Although vampiric entities have been recorded in most cultures, the term vampire was not popularised in the West until the early 18th century, after an influx of vampire superstition into Western Europe from areas where vampire legends were frequent, such as the Balkans and Eastern Europe, although local variants were also known by different names, such as shtriga in Albania, vrykolakas in Greece and strigoi in Romania. This increased level of vampire superstition in Europe led to mass hysteria and in some cases resulted in corpses actually being staked and people being accused of vampirism.
In modern times, however, the vampire is generally held to be a fictitious entity, although belief in similar vampiric creatures such as the chupacabra still persists in some cultures. Early folk belief in vampires has sometimes been ascribed to the ignorance of the body's process of decomposition after death and how people in pre-industrial societies tried to rationalise this, creating the figure of the vampire to explain the mysteries of death. Porphyria was also linked with legends of vampirism in 1985 and received much media exposure, but has since been largely discredited.
The charismatic and sophisticated vampire of modern fiction was born in 1819 with the publication of The Vampyre by John Polidori; the story was highly successful and arguably the most influential vampire work of the early 19th century. However, it is Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula which is remembered as the quintessential vampire novel and provided the basis of the modern vampire legend. The success of this book spawned a distinctive vampire genre, still popular in the 21st century, with books, films, and television shows. The vampire has since become a dominant figure in the horror genre.
9)Sphinx
A sphinx was a mythical monster, which had the head of a human and the body of a lion. Sphinxes also appeared in Egyptian mythology; the two cultures had tight links and had considerably influenced each other.
In Greek mythology, the sphinx was considered to be a woman. One sphinx was only considered to exist in Greek mythology; she was the daughter of Orthus, and either Echidna or Chimera. Apart from the human head and the body of the lion, she also had the wings of an eagle and the tail of a serpent. According to the myth, she dwelt outside the city of Thebes, and asked a riddle to all travellers, in order to let them pass. The riddle she asked is a famous one; which is the creature that has one voice, but has four feet in the morning, two feet in the afternoon, and three feet at night? Anyone who struggled to answer was eaten by the monster. However, Oedipus managed to answer correctly; he replied "the man", who crawls on all fours as a baby, walks on two as an adult, and needs a walking cane when old.
It seems that there was a second riddle following the first; "there are two sisters; one gives birth the the other, who in turn gives birth to the first. Who are they?" The correct answer is "day and night", two words that are both feminine in the Greek language. After Oedipus correctly answered both questions, the Sphinx killed herself, either by throwing herself off the rock on which she rested, or by devouring herself. This seems to be the literary way in which the ancient Greeks transitioned from the old religious practices, represented by the Sphinx, to the new ones and the establishment of the Olympian deities, represented by Oedipus.
10)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.
Leviathan (/lᵻˈvaɪ.əθən/; Hebrew: לִוְיָתָן, Modern Livyatan, Tiberian Liwyāṯān) is a sea monster referenced in the Hebrew Bible, especially in the Book of Job.
The Leviathan of the Book of Job is a reflex of the older Canaanite Lotan, a primeval monster defeated by the god Hadad. Parallels to the role of Mesopotamian Tiamat defeated by Marduk have long been drawn in comparative mythology, as have been wider comparisons to dragon and world serpent narratives such as Indra slaying Vrtra or Thor slaying Jörmungandr.But Leviathan in the Hebrew Bible already figures as a metaphor for a powerful enemy, notably Babylon (Isaiah 27:1), and also more pragmatically of large aquatic creatures, such as the crocodile, and later came to be used as a term for "great whale" as well as of sea monsters in general.
2)Kraken
The Kraken (/ˈkrɑːkən/)is a legendary sea monster of giant size that is said to dwell off the coasts of Norway and Greenland. A number of authors over the years have postulated that the legend originated from sightings of giant squids that may grow to 12–15 meters (40–50 feet) in length, despite the fact that the creature in the original tales was not described as having tentacles and more closely resembled a whale or crab. The sheer size and fearsome appearance attributed to the kraken have made it a common ocean-dwelling monster in various fictional works. It was first described by the Dane Erik Pontoppidan in 1752–3.
3)Lernaean Hydra
According to Hesiod, the Hydra was the offspring of Typhon and Echidna. It possessed many heads, the exact number of which varies according to the source. Later versions of the Hydra story add a regeneration feature to the monster: for every head chopped off, the Hydra would regrow a couple of heads.
The Hydra had poisonous breath and blood so virulent that even its scent was deadly.
4)Dragons
A dragon is a legendary creature, typically scaled or fire-spewing and with serpentine, reptilian or avian traits, that features in the myths of many cultures around world. The two most well-known cultural traditions of dragon are
- The European dragon, derived from European folk traditions and ultimately related to Balkans and Western Asian mythologies. Most are depicted as reptilian creatures with animal-level intelligence, and are uniquely six-limbed (four legs and a separate set of wings).
- The Chinese dragon, with counterparts in Japan (namely the Japanese dragon), Korea and other East Asian and South Asian countries.Most are depicted as serpentine creatures with above-average intelligence, and are quadrupeds (four legs and wingless).
5)Medusa
In Greek mythology Medusa (/məˈdjuːzə, məˈdʒuː-, -sə/, US /məˈduː-/; Μέδουσα "guardian, protectress") was a monster, a Gorgon, generally described as a winged human female with living venomous snakes in place of hair. Gazers upon her hideous face would turn to stone. Most sources describe her as the daughter of Phorcys and Ceto, though the author Hyginus makes her the daughter of Gorgon and Ceto.According to Hesiod and Aeschylus, she lived and died on an island named Sarpedon, somewhere near Cisthene. The 2nd-century BCE novelist Dionysios Skytobrachion puts her somewhere in Libya, where Herodotus had said the Berbers originated her myth, as part of their religion.
Medusa was beheaded by the hero Perseus, who thereafter used her head, which retained its ability to turn onlookers to stone, as a weapon until he gave it to the goddess Athena to place on her shield. In classical antiquity the image of the head of Medusa appeared in the evil-averting device known as the Gorgoneion.
6)Mermaids/Sirens
A mermaid is a mythical creature with the upper body of a woman and the lower body of a fish.
7)Werewolf
A werewolf (from Old English: wer, "man"), man-wolf, Wolf Man, or lycanthrope (Greek: λυκάνθρωπος, lykánthropos: λύκος, lykos, "wolf", and ἄνθρωπος, anthrōpos, "human") is a mythological or folkloric human with the ability to shapeshift into a wolf or a therianthropic hybrid wolf-like creature, either purposely or after being placed under a curse or affliction (e.g. via a bite or scratch from another werewolf). Early sources for belief in lycanthropy are Petronius (27–66) and Gervase of Tilbury (1150–1228).
The werewolf is a widespread concept in European folklore, existing in many variants, which are related by a common development of a Christian interpretation of underlying European folklore developed during the medieval period. From the early modern period, werewolf beliefs also spread to the New World with colonialism. Belief in werewolves developed in parallel to the belief in witches, in the course of the Late Middle Ages and the Early Modern period. Like the witchcraft trials as a whole, the trial of supposed werewolves emerged in what is now Switzerland (especially the Valais and Vaud) in the early 15th century and spread throughout Europe in the 16th, peaking in the 17th and subsiding by the 18th century. The persecution of werewolves and the associated folklore is an integral part of the "witch-hunt" phenomenon, albeit a marginal one, accusations of werewolfery being involved in only a small fraction of witchcraft trials.During the early period, accusations of lycanthropy (transformation into a wolf) were mixed with accusations of wolf-riding or wolf-charming. The case of Peter Stumpp (1589) led to a significant peak in both interest in and persecution of supposed werewolves, primarily in French-speaking and German-speaking Europe. The phenomenon persisted longest in Bavaria and Austria, with persecution of wolf-charmers recorded until well after 1650, the final cases taking place in the early 18th century in Carinthia and Styria.
After the end of the witch-trials, the werewolf became of interest in folklore studies and in the emerging Gothic horror genre; werewolf fiction as a genre has pre-modern precedents in medieval romances (e.g. Bisclavret and Guillaume de Palerme) and developed in the 18th century out of the "semi-fictional" chap book tradition. The trappings of horror literature in the 20th century became part of the horror and fantasy genre of modern pop culture.
8)Vampire
A vampire is a being from folklore who subsists by feeding on the life essence (generally in the form of blood) of the living. In European folklore, vampires were undead beings that often visited loved ones and caused mischief or deaths in the neighbourhoods they inhabited when they were alive. They wore shrouds and were often described as bloated and of ruddy or dark countenance, markedly different from today's gaunt, pale vampire which dates from the early 19th century. Although vampiric entities have been recorded in most cultures, the term vampire was not popularised in the West until the early 18th century, after an influx of vampire superstition into Western Europe from areas where vampire legends were frequent, such as the Balkans and Eastern Europe, although local variants were also known by different names, such as shtriga in Albania, vrykolakas in Greece and strigoi in Romania. This increased level of vampire superstition in Europe led to mass hysteria and in some cases resulted in corpses actually being staked and people being accused of vampirism.
In modern times, however, the vampire is generally held to be a fictitious entity, although belief in similar vampiric creatures such as the chupacabra still persists in some cultures. Early folk belief in vampires has sometimes been ascribed to the ignorance of the body's process of decomposition after death and how people in pre-industrial societies tried to rationalise this, creating the figure of the vampire to explain the mysteries of death. Porphyria was also linked with legends of vampirism in 1985 and received much media exposure, but has since been largely discredited.
The charismatic and sophisticated vampire of modern fiction was born in 1819 with the publication of The Vampyre by John Polidori; the story was highly successful and arguably the most influential vampire work of the early 19th century. However, it is Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula which is remembered as the quintessential vampire novel and provided the basis of the modern vampire legend. The success of this book spawned a distinctive vampire genre, still popular in the 21st century, with books, films, and television shows. The vampire has since become a dominant figure in the horror genre.
9)Sphinx
A sphinx was a mythical monster, which had the head of a human and the body of a lion. Sphinxes also appeared in Egyptian mythology; the two cultures had tight links and had considerably influenced each other.
In Greek mythology, the sphinx was considered to be a woman. One sphinx was only considered to exist in Greek mythology; she was the daughter of Orthus, and either Echidna or Chimera. Apart from the human head and the body of the lion, she also had the wings of an eagle and the tail of a serpent. According to the myth, she dwelt outside the city of Thebes, and asked a riddle to all travellers, in order to let them pass. The riddle she asked is a famous one; which is the creature that has one voice, but has four feet in the morning, two feet in the afternoon, and three feet at night? Anyone who struggled to answer was eaten by the monster. However, Oedipus managed to answer correctly; he replied "the man", who crawls on all fours as a baby, walks on two as an adult, and needs a walking cane when old.
It seems that there was a second riddle following the first; "there are two sisters; one gives birth the the other, who in turn gives birth to the first. Who are they?" The correct answer is "day and night", two words that are both feminine in the Greek language. After Oedipus correctly answered both questions, the Sphinx killed herself, either by throwing herself off the rock on which she rested, or by devouring herself. This seems to be the literary way in which the ancient Greeks transitioned from the old religious practices, represented by the Sphinx, to the new ones and the establishment of the Olympian deities, represented by Oedipus.
10)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.
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