• Question: is there a possibility that some myths about mystical animals are true and they are real?

    Asked by mayakatz to Betul, Bridget, Ceri-Wyn, Laurel, Maria on 17 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Ceri-Wyn Thomas

      Ceri-Wyn Thomas answered on 16 Jun 2010:

      Oh this has to be my favourite question. I’m a Harry Potter fan and I LOVE The Lord of The Rings and The Hobbit. I would dearly LOVE dragons to exist and I wouldn’t mind the odd elf or unicorn either. However, most mythical creatures find their roots in other real animals and usually reflect an aspect of a culture or represent something specific in a story. They’re very much human constructs. However- there was once a time when people thought dragons were real. There is a lot of dragon mythology in China and Europe. I wonder whether very early dinosaur bone discoveries were mistaken for dragons? Dinosaur bones were being found for thousands of years but the first ‘dinosaur’ wasn’t described in a Journal until the early 1800’s by William Buckland. Before then people didn’t really know what these gigantic bones were. China is FULL of dinosaur bones and a lot of our dragon culture has been borrowed from there.

      As for other creatures- well we can thank Greek mythology for most of those.

    • Photo: Bridget Waller

      Bridget Waller answered on 16 Jun 2010:

      Do you mean things like the Loch Ness Monster? Possibly…but the myths may also be explained by psychological factors (such as people wanting to believe, cultural habits, fear of the unknown etc.). Difficult to say – although I would never discount the possibility of new discoveries.

    • Photo: Maria Pawlowska

      Maria Pawlowska answered on 16 Jun 2010:

      Myths and stories sometime have a grain of truth in them and it’s possible that we may one day find things that we’ve heard of in stories.

    • Photo: Laurel Fogarty

      Laurel Fogarty answered on 17 Jun 2010:

      If you are thinking about creatures like the Loch Ness monster, it is always possible. We are always finding animals that we thought were extinct. One of our early relatives, the coelacanth was though to be extinct and was found alive and well off the coast of South Africa in the 1990s.

      If you are thinking more of vampires and werewolves then I think maybe not. Which is probably a good thing because if I remember correctly they are meant to live forever with superhuman strength and eat people…which is just unpleasant.

    • Photo: Betul Arslan

      Betul Arslan answered on 17 Jun 2010:

      I wish I could say yes, that would make world a lot fun but I don’t think so. I grew up thinking they are true, though. Secret of a happy childhood 🙂

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