This page groups mythical creatures by the specific text that first records them. Wikipedia notes that creatures "such as the unicorn, were claimed in accounts of natural history by various scholars of antiquity." Browsing by attested-in lets a visitor see the specific work that first describes a given creature.
Facts
Overview
What Defines This GroupingGreat or wondrous birds, collected by body-form as the comparative folklore indexes collect them. Their functions in their own traditions differ completely. 2 Peoples and Traditions CoveredChinese: the fenghuang is an emblem of auspicious rule and of the empress. Translating it "phoenix" imports a death-and-rebirth-in-fire story that is no part of it. 3 Peoples and Traditions CoveredGreek and Egyptian: the phoenix enters Greek literature as a report about an Egyptian bird, which Herodotus says he knows only from pictures. 4 Peoples and Traditions CoveredHindu: Garuda is Vishnu's mount and the enemy of the nagas - a divine being who receives worship, not a fabulous animal of story. 5 Peoples and Traditions CoveredThe thunder beings belong to particular nations, in their own languages and their own terms - Basil Johnston writes of the Anishinaabe. "Thunderbird" is an English cover word across unrelated traditions, not the name of one being. 6 Learn More
The mythical birds
This group gathers mythical birds, the great and wondrous birds of world mythology, from the fire-reborn phoenix to the storm-bringing thunderbird and the vast birds of Persian and Indian legend. Birds often serve as messengers between earth and sky, or as emblems of renewal and the soul.
The browser will find the bird figures the atlas gathers. The entries describe each creature's form, powers and mythological role across the traditions that tell of it.
Attested In
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. Chinese Mythology: An Introduction
Anne Birrell, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993on the fenghuang and the mythical birdsView the Source 4. Histories
5. Encyclopedia of Hinduism
Denise Cush, Catherine Robinson and Michael York (eds.), Routledge, 2008the article on GarudaView the Source 6. The Manitous: The Spiritual World of the Ojibway
Basil Johnston, HarperCollins, 1995on Anishinaabe thunder-beingsView the Source Divinity Atlas Directory Prose, First Edition Category Descriptions
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