Home›Mythical Creatures›TraditionBrowse ByTraditionThis 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.FactsLearn MoreTraditionSourcesComments (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.TraditionFilter Results35 entriesAdherents Today MaximumAll13,000 (1)121,962 (1)5,000,000 (1)14,800,000 (1)324,000,000 (1)1,200,000,000 (1)2,000,000,000 (1)2,300,000,000 (1)Adherents Today MinimumAll13,000 (1)111,691 (1)4,000,000 (1)14,800,000 (1)324,000,000 (1)1,200,000,000 (1)2,000,000,000 (1)2,300,000,000 (1)Basis of the Membership FigureAllChurch-Reported Rolls (2)Independent Survey (10)National Census (3)Scholarly or Demographic Estimate (7)Era of Decline End YearAll100 (1)400 (2)529 (1)550 (1)600 (1)680 (1)700 (1)1200 (2)1572 (1)1600 (1)1976 (2)Era of Decline Start YearAll100 BCE (2)300 (2)380 (3)597 (1)651 (1)863 (1)1000 (1)1521 (1)1533 (1)1966 (2)Era of Modern Revival End YearAll1471 (1)1990 (1)Era of Modern Revival Start YearAll1463 (1)1930 (1)Establishment StatusAllDeclared Not Established (1)Disestablished (2)Established (1)Varies by Province (4)How the Expectation Is EnforcedAllCodified Obligation With Consequences (1)Customary Norm (6)Obligation to Support, No Set Rate (1)Membership Figure As OfAll1990-01-01 (1)2001-01-01 (2)2002-01-01 (1)2004-01-01 (1)2005-01-01 (1)2006-01-01 (1)2008-01-01 (1)2010-01-01 (4)2011-01-01 (1)2011-01-27 (1)2011-12-19 (1)2012-01-01 (2)2012-12-18 (2)2013-01-01 (2)2014-01-01 (1)2015-01-01 (1)2016-01-01 (1)2016-12-31 (1)2017-01-01 (1)2018-01-01 (2)2020-01-01 (5)2021-01-01 (1)2021-05-12 (1)2025-01-01 (1)Origin Period End YearAll3000 BCE (2)1046 BCE (1)1000 BCE (1)700 BCE (2)600 BCE (1)500 BCE (2)479 BCE (1)400 BCE (3)100 BCE (1)50 (1)300 (1)632 (1)700 (1)712 (1)800 (1)988 (1)1300 (1)1428 (1)1438 (1)1800 (1)1954 (1)Origin Period Start YearAll-50,000 (1)3500 BCE (1)3300 BCE (1)2000 BCE (1)1600 BCE (1)1500 BCE (2)1400 BCE (1)1000 BCE (1)800 BCE (1)750 BCE (1)600 BCE (1)586 BCE (1)551 BCE (1)500 BCE (3)300 BCE (1)1 (1)30 (1)400 (1)500 (1)610 (1)1325 (1)1400 (1)1580 (1)1700 (1)1875 (1)1910 (1)1946 (1)Position on MarriageAllMarriage may licitly be polygynous (1)Position on SexualityAllSame-sex orientation or practice is held to bar full membership or participation (1)The body holds no single settled position; the question is actively and openly contested within it (2)Position on UsuryAllInterest is permitted but bound by ethical constraints against exploiting the poor (1)Interest of any kind on a loan is forbidden (1)Practice StatusAllClosed ceremonial knowledge, described but not reproduced (1)Discontinued as a state religion (9)Entered only through an initiated priesthood (1)Living, and in active revival (1)Living, and practised in varied local forms (8)Partly restricted: some elements are closed to outsiders (7)Standard Rate ExpectedAllTen percent. (1)Two and a half percent. (1)Status TodayAllHistorical; not practised continuously (12)Living tradition, practised today (21)Revived or reconstructed in the modern era (2)TheologyAllAncestor-centred (7)Animist: persons and powers in land, water and living things (3)Dualist: two opposed cosmic principles (1)Duotheistic: a divine pair (1)Emanationist: reality proceeds from an ineffable One (1)Henotheistic: a supreme being above served lesser divinities (3)Monistic: one ultimate reality behind all appearance (2)Monotheistic: one God (4)Non-theistic: no creator god is central (3)Panentheistic: the divine both within the world and beyond it (1)Polytheistic: many gods (19)Show ResultsBrowseCompareAncient Egyptian ReligionTradition5 entriesAncient Greek ReligionTradition21 entriesAnglo-Saxon PaganismTradition2 entriesAustralian Aboriginal ReligionTradition1 entryAztec ReligionTradition3 entriesBuddhismTradition7 entriesCeltic PaganismTradition9 entriesChinese Folk ReligionTradition10 entriesChristianityTradition8 entriesConfucianismTradition1 entryDiné (Navajo) ReligionTradition1 entryEtruscan ReligionTradition1 entryHaitian VodouTradition1 entryHermeticismTradition3 entriesHinduismTradition17 entriesInca ReligionTradition1 entryIslamTradition12 entriesJainismTradition1 entryJudaismTradition8 entriesLadin MythologyTradition1 entryMaya ReligionTradition1 entryMesopotamian ReligionTradition2 entriesNative American ReligionTradition2 entriesNorse PaganismTradition15 entriesPhilippine Indigenous Religion (Anitism)Tradition3 entriesPolynesian ReligionTradition1 entryRoman ReligionTradition4 entriesSardinian Folk TraditionTradition1 entryShintoTradition10 entriesSicilian Folk ReligionTradition1 entrySlavic Native Faith (Rodnovery)Tradition7 entriesVodun (West African)Tradition1 entryWiccaTradition1 entryZoroastrianismTradition5 entriesZulu Traditional ReligionTradition2 entriesSources1. 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.