Legendary being

A legendary, mythical, or mythological creature, traditionally called a fabulous beast or fabulous creature, is a fictitious, imaginary and often supernatural animal, often a hybrid, sometimes part human, whose existence has not or cannot be proved and that is described in legends, myths, mythology, fables, folklore, poetry, fairy tales, novels, or other fiction but also in historical accounts before history became a science.

On the other hand, many real animals from remote regions and ethnic groups from other continents were long considered legendary before more was known about them. For example, whales were considered as mythical or real and as frightening as dragons as recently as in the Middle Ages, including the belief that whales eject fire. Similarly, people and even historians freely invented, embellished, and recounted stories about people from other continents, which played a major role in the development of racism and many of which still play a strong role at least subconsciously in how people think about other ethnic groups. Even at the beginning of the Age of Discovery, Europeans believed fantastic stories about people in Asia that were hairy and had dog snouts and about people in Africa that were beautiful with crane necks or had only one eye or had been turned dark by the heat.

In the classical era, monstrous creatures such as the Cyclops and the Minotaur appear in heroic tales for the protagonist to destroy. Other creatures, such as the unicorn, were claimed in accounts of natural history by various scholars of antiquity. Some legendary creatures have their origin in traditional mythology and were believed to be real creatures, for example dragons, griffins, and unicorns. Others were based on real encounters, originating in garbled accounts of travelers' tales, such as the Vegetable Lamb of Tartary, which supposedly grew tethered to the earth.

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