This page groups mythical creatures by the wider artistic and religious tradition that pictures them. Wikipedia notes that "in medieval art, animals, both real and mythical, played important roles." Browsing by tradition lets a visitor read every creature from one cultural tradition together.
Facts
Overview
What Defines This GroupingBeings whose body combines parts of two or more kinds - animal with animal, or animal with human - grouped by that composite form, which the comparative indexes treat as a class of its own. 2 Peoples and Traditions CoveredChinese: the qilin is an auspicious omen-beast whose appearance marks a sage's birth or a just reign - a sign of good government, not a monster. 3 Peoples and Traditions CoveredEgyptian: the sphinx is a royal image - a lion's body with a king's head - and the Greek Sphinx who questions Oedipus is a separate, later and female figure. 4 Peoples and Traditions CoveredGreek: centaur, chimaira, gorgon, sphinx and minotaur are distinct figures of Greek myth with separate stories, and are not variants of one composite type. 5 Peoples and Traditions CoveredPersian and Indian: the manticore reaches Europe as a traveller's report of India, from Ctesias and repeated by Pliny, and is a literary marvel rather than a figure of any cult. 6 Learn More
The Hybrid Creatures
This group gathers hybrid creatures, beings that combine the parts of two or more animals, or of animal and human, a form found throughout world mythology from the sphinx and griffin to countless composite guardians and monsters. The hybrid often expresses a mixing of powers or realms.
The browser will find the composite creatures the atlas gathers here. The entries describe each being's combined form and its mythological role.
Tradition
Sources
1. Divinity Atlas Directory Taxonomy, First Edition Category Tree
2. Motif-Index of Folk-Literature: A Classification of Narrative Elements in Folktales, Ballads, Myths, Fables, Mediaeval Romances, Exempla, Fabliaux, Jest-Books and Local Legends
Stith Thompson, Indiana University Press, 1958B0-B99, Mythical Animals
3. Encyclopedia of Religion
Mircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.), Macmillan Reference, 2005the entry on Chinese religion: omen animals and the qilinView the Source 4. The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt
Donald B. Redford (ed.), Oxford University Press, 2001the article on the sphinxView the Source 5. The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 4th edition
Simon Hornblower, Antony Spawforth and Esther Eidinow (eds.), Oxford University Press, 2012the entries on centaurs, the Chimaera, the Gorgons and the MinotaurView the Source 6. Naturalis Historia (Natural History)
Divinity Atlas Directory Prose, First Edition Category Descriptions
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