This page groups mythical creatures by whether anyone has ever claimed they were real. Wikipedia defines a legendary creature as one that "may be featured in historical accounts before modernity, but has not been scientifically shown to exist." Browsing by historicity lets a visitor separate a creature once treated as a real animal from one always understood as symbolic.
Facts
Origins
Whose Classification This IsThe scheme is Paracelsus's: nymphs to water, sylphs to air, pygmies (gnomes) to earth and salamanders to fire, set out in the Liber de nymphis (written c. 1537, printed 1566). Later Western occultism took the four-fold order from there. 3Tradition: Paracelsus, Liber de Nymphis, Sylphis, Pygmaeis et Salamandris Overview
What Defines This GroupingBeings assigned one to each of the four classical elements. This is a specific Western esoteric scheme rather than a general folk belief: the four-fold order is Paracelsus's, and later occultism took it from him. 2Tradition: Paracelsus, Liber de Nymphis, Sylphis, Pygmaeis et Salamandris Learn More
The elemental spirits
This small group holds an elemental spirit, a being bound to one of the classical elements of earth, water, air or fire, a conception developed especially in Western esoteric tradition, where each element has its own order of spirits.
The browser will find the figure the atlas classes here. The entry describes its nature and its place in the tradition.
Historicity
Sources
1. Divinity Atlas Directory Taxonomy, First Edition Category Tree
2. Liber de Nymphis, Sylphis, Pygmaeis et Salamandris et de Caeteris Spiritibus
Paracelsus (Theophrastus von Hohenheim)On the four kinds of elemental being
3. The Secrets of Alchemy
Lawrence M. Principe, University of Chicago Press, 2013on the Paracelsian elementalsView the Source Divinity Atlas Directory Prose, First Edition Category Descriptions
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