Home›Mythical Creatures›Associated WithBrowse ByAssociated WithThis page groups mythical creatures by the idea or figure they symbolize. Wikipedia notes that "in Christian art, animals carried symbolic meanings, where, for example, the lamb symbolized Christ, a dove indicated the Holy Spirit, and the classical griffin represented a guardian of the dead." Browsing by associated-with lets a visitor find every creature carrying the same symbolic meaning.FactsLearn MoreAssociated WithSourcesComments (0)Reader Challenges (0)FactsStatusStanding as a Comparative CategoryWell-attestedA collectors' category rather than a comparative one. Michael Dylan Foster shows that Japanese yokai will not sit inside the English "monster" or "mythical creature", and the same holds for most of the traditions gathered here. 2OriginsWhose Classification This IsWell-attestedThe form-based classes are a comparative folklorist's device. Stith Thompson's Motif-Index (revised edition, 1955-58) sorts fabulous beings under B0-B99 by body-plan, as a finding aid for narrative motifs rather than a claim that the creatures belong together. 1StructureStructureWell-attestedGrouped by creature form - dragons, serpents, birds, hybrids, spirits, water-spirits and the rest - which is how comparative folklore indexes arrange fabulous beings, and not how any tradition arranged its own. 1Learn MoreBeings of Myth and the Bestiary This category gathers the creatures of myth, folklore and the bestiaries who are not gods: dragons, phoenixes, griffins, kitsune, thunderbirds, sea-serpents and the rest. Each entry records the culture the creature belongs to, the kind of being it is, and what the myths and older sources actually say about it. These are the fabulous inhabitants of the mythic world (guardians and monsters, messengers and shape-shifters, hybrids of human and beast), known from epic, folktale, heraldry and the medieval bestiaries, and from the parallel traditions of many other cultures.Parallels Without Merger Similar creatures appear across cultures in related but distinct forms (the winged serpent, the fire-bird, the human-headed lion), and the temptation is to merge them into a single archetype. The atlas resists that: it notes the parallels while keeping each tradition's creature its own, since a Chinese dragon and a European dragon, or a phoenix and a Chinese fenghuang, differ as much as they resemble. The entries stay with what the sources report rather than with later popular embellishment. The creatures group by kind (dragons, serpents, birds, hybrids, water-spirits and the rest), so a browser can move through the bestiary by type.Associated WithFilter Results31 entriesDomain / FunctionAllAgriculture and harvest (2)Childbirth (1)Commerce and wealth (1)Cosmic order and truth (4)Craft, metalwork and smithing (2)Creation and cosmogony (5)Dance and theatre (1)Death (4)Destruction and dissolution (1)Earth (3)Fate and time (2)Fertility and generation (2)Guide of the dead (2)Healing and medicine (1)Herds and pastoralism (1)Justice, law and oaths (6)Kingship and sovereignty (12)Love and desire (1)Magic and sorcery (5)Marriage and the household (1)Motherhood (1)Mountains (1)Music and poetry (2)Nature (1)Night and darkness (1)Primordial being (1)Prophecy and divination (3)Protection and guardianship (1)Rain and weather (2)Rivers, lakes and springs (2)Sea and ocean (2)Sky (2)Stars and planets (2)Storm and thunder (4)Sun (3)The underworld (3)Tutelary of a place or community (2)War and battle (4)Weaving and textile craft (1)Wind (2)Wisdom and counsel (6)Writing, scribes and learning (2)Era of Attestation End YearAll100 (7)391 (2)400 (7)1200 (2)1521 (2)2026 (7)Era of Attestation Start YearAll3200 BCE (1)2900 BCE (1)2600 BCE (5)2400 BCE (1)2100 BCE (1)1800 BCE (1)1500 BCE (5)1400 BCE (4)700 BCE (3)500 BCE (1)400 BCE (1)100 (2)711 (1)800 (1)947 (1)1200 (1)GenderAllCollective / plural, not a single figure (1)Female (8)Gender-fluid across the tradition (1)Male (21)HistoricityAllHistorically attested (1)Legendary: known from narrative tradition, not the historical record (12)Not a historical person: a divine or other-than-human being (18)Pantheon FamilyAllAesir (1)Vanir (1)Status Within the TraditionAllNot formally addressed by this tradition (3)The teaching of one school or lineage within the tradition (2)TheologyAllAnimist: persons and powers in land, water and living things (3)Debated (1)Monotheistic: one God (2)Polytheistic: many gods (25)Veneration TodayAllActively venerated in a living tradition (9)Historically attested; no continuous cult (21)No Cult Attested (1)Show ResultsBrowseCompareAnuAssociated With1 entryApolloAssociated With1 entryAthenaAssociated With1 entryCharonAssociated With1 entryEnkiAssociated With1 entryEnlilAssociated With2 entriesEreshkigalAssociated With1 entryFreyrAssociated With1 entryGaiaAssociated With1 entryHeraAssociated With2 entriesInannaAssociated With1 entryInariAssociated With1 entryIndraAssociated With1 entryLord YamaAssociated With1 entryMa'atAssociated With1 entryManidooAssociated With1 entryMardukAssociated With2 entriesNemesisAssociated With1 entryNinhursagAssociated With1 entryOdinAssociated With4 entriesPoseidonAssociated With2 entriesQuetzalcōātlAssociated With1 entryRaAssociated With1 entryShivaAssociated With1 entryShukraAssociated With1 entryTenjinAssociated With1 entryTezcatlipocaAssociated With1 entryUtuAssociated With1 entryVarunaAssociated With1 entryVishnuAssociated With2 entriesZeusAssociated With1 entrySources1. Motif-Index of Folk-Literature: A Classification of Narrative Elements in Folktales, Ballads, Myths, Fables, Mediaeval Romances, Exempla, Fabliaux, Jest-Books and Local Legendstier 1Stith Thompson, Indiana University Press, 1958B0-B99, Mythical Animals2. The Book of Yokai: Mysterious Creatures of Japanese Folkloretier 1Michael Dylan Foster, University of California Press, 2015the introduction, on the difficulty of the categoryDivinity Atlas Directory Prose, First Edition Category Descriptionstier 1Comments (0)No comments yet. Be the first to share a thought.Sign in to join the discussion.Reader Challenges (0)No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.