magical creatures.

Unicorn

None of the hunters managed to take the unicorn alive.

With a blow of its horn, a unicorn is able to kill an elephant. Only the king of animals, the lion, was considered a worthy rival of the unicorn.

Ancient and medieval sources report that on the Hindustan Peninsula there are very fast-footed wild donkeys with white hair, a purple-red head, blue eyes, with a sharp horn on the forehead, white at the base, red at the end, and completely black in the middle. According to another description, the unicorn has a body similar to a horse, a head like a deer, legs like an elephant, and a tail like a boar.

If a unicorn's horn is cut in half, it will reveal the figure of a man or a rider on horseback.

The unicorn has gained considerable popularity, becoming a permanent inhabitant of European bestiaries and heraldic reference books.

In the Middle Ages, the opinion was established that a virgin could catch a unicorn. According to one of the descriptions, the virgin serves as bait when hunting for a unicorn: "They put a girl in front of him, and he jumps into the bosom of the girl, and the girl lovingly hugs him and takes him to the royal palace." Driven by sensuality, the unicorn forgets its ferocity and becomes the prey of hunters.

This plant borders on the animal kingdom, for when it is uprooted it cries out; this cry can drive those who hear it crazy. Our distant ancestors were struck by the similarity of the mandrake root with a human figure.

Pythagoras calls him "anthropomorphic", and the ancient Roman agronomist Lucius Columella calls him half-human. The white mandrake is the "male" and the black one is the "female". Mandrake pickers draw three circles around the plant with a sword and must look only to the west. The smell of its leaves is so strong that it makes people dumb. Whoever uproots the mandrake will face terrible disasters. It is recommended to use a specially trained dog to extract the mandrake. Pulling out the plant, the animal dies.

Mandrake leaves are used to make drugs, witchcraft and laxatives.

Alrauna - the so-called mandrake in the Middle Ages. It was believed that it especially willingly grows at the foot of the gallows. According to some sources, the mandrake root is able to come to life. Such a man is called Alraun. The impudent Alraun with a terrible character was described in his short story “Little Tsakhes” by the 19th-century German romantic writer Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann.

In the medieval mythology of the Scandinavians, the norns are the same as the parks in the mythology of ancient Greek. Snorri Sturluson, researcher early XIII century, streamlining the chaotic mythology of the peoples northern Europe, reports that there are three main norns.

Their names are Past, Present and Future.

Three Norn maidens are sitting at the source under the world tree Yggdrasil, which is the whole Universe.

They inexorably spin the thread of human destiny.

Creating monumental statues, stone pyramids and mummies, the Egyptians sought to gain eternity. Exactly at Ancient Egypt the myth of the immortal resurgent bird arose. This tradition was adopted by the ancient Greeks and Romans, and later became the property of the entire Western European culture.

The “father of history” Herodotus wrote: “There is a sacred bird, which I saw only painted, and its name is Phoenix. It is rare to see her live, so rare that, if you believe the inhabitants of Heliopolis, she flies to Egypt once every five hundred years, namely, when her father dies. If in size and shape it is as described, then its appearance and become very reminiscent of an eagle, and its feathers are partly golden, partly red. So many miracles are told about her that, although, in my opinion, they are not very trustworthy, I must write about them. In order to transfer the body of his father from Arabia to the Temple of the Sun, the Phoenix bird resorts to next way: first of all, she sculpts an egg from myrrh, such that she has enough strength to carry it, and therefore, while sculpting it, she constantly tries by weight whether she can cope with it. Then she scoops out the middle of it until the recess contains the body of her father, which she fixes there with lumps of myrrh, filling the cavity with them until the weight of the egg, together with the corpse, equals the weight when it was solid. Then, having closed up the hole, he puts the egg on his back and flies with it to Egypt to the Temple of the Sun. This is what they say about this bird.

Judging by the legends, the life of the Phoenix is ​​one thousand four hundred and sixty one years (Tacitus "Annals"). According to other sources, the life of the Phoenix is ​​defined as twelve thousand nine hundred ninety-four ordinary years. The ancients believed that after this huge astronomical cycle world history will be repeated in all details, for the influences of the planets will be repeated. Thus, the Phoenix becomes, as it were, a symbol or image of the entire Universe. This process had no beginning and will have no end.

In the 4th century AD, the Phoenix was first described as an immortal bird, reborn from the ashes, the heir of itself and the witness of many centuries.

The myth of the Phoenix is ​​one of the most widespread in European culture.

In medieval alchemical symbolism, salamanders are the spirits of the element of fire. Fire is one of the four basic elements along with water, air and earth. If there are animals on earth and in water, there must be animals that live in fire. Such was the logic of medieval scholars.

Medieval theologians cited the Phoenix as proof of the resurrection in the flesh, and the salamander as an example that living bodies could exist in fire. In his book The City of God, Saint Augustine writes: “Why would I bring evidence here, if not to convince the incredulous that human bodies, endowed with soul and life, not only do not disintegrate and do not decompose after death, but their existence continues in the midst of torment eternal flame? Since it is not enough for unbelievers that we attribute this miracle to the omnipotence of the Almighty, they demand that we prove it by some example. And we can answer them that there really are animals, corruptible creatures, for they are mortal, who nevertheless live in fire.

In the 12th century, the so-called epistle of Protopresbyter John, King of Kings, became widespread in Europe. Byzantine Emperor. The message is a list of miracles. For example, it talks about miracle ants extracting gold from the earth, about a certain river of stones, about a sea of ​​sand where fish live, about a giant mirror showing everything that happens in the kingdom, about a scepter carved from a solid emerald, and about pebbles that make a person invisible. The message also says about the salamander: “In our area there is a worm called the salamander. Salamanders live in fire and make cocoons, which the ladies of the court then unwind and weave from threads of cloth and clothing. To clean these fabrics, they are not washed, but thrown into the fire.

The famous Marco Polo wrote: “The Salamander is not an animal, but a substance”, that is, a substance. Leonardo da Vinci read that salamanders feed on particles of fire, and in addition, fire helps them change their skin from time to time.

On one of the pages of his autobiographical book "Life", the master Benvenuto Cellini says that as a five-year-old boy he saw a creature resembling a lizard frolic in the fire. He told his father about it. He replied that it was a salamander, and beat him off so that the amazing vision, so rarely available to people, would be imprinted as firmly as possible in Benvenuto's memory.

Talos

The most terrifying creatures of fantasy are living creatures made of metal or stone. Let us recall the furious bull with copper legs and horns, belching fire, which Jason, with the help of the sorceress Medea, harnessed to the plow (“Argonautica”). A character comes to mind ancient Greek myth- a copper warrior forged by Hephaestus and set to guard the heavenly fire, which was subsequently kidnapped by Prometheus. A metal boar is also known, about which one of the sources says: “This living creature metal was forged in the forge of skilled dwarfs. They threw a pigskin into the fire and pulled out a golden boar that could travel by land, sea and air. No matter how dark the night, the path of this boar is always well lit.

In the same "Argonautics" by Apollonius of Rhodes, Talos is spoken of - a creature made of metal. Red-hot, this creature wrapped its arms around people and so killed them. According to another version, the metal creature still had a weak point: “Thawed, a bronze man, having beaten off blocks from a hard stone cliff, prevented them from tying the ship when they entered the harbor of Dikte. He was a breed of men of bronze, of ash wood, the last survivor of the sons of the gods. Chronos gave him to Europe, so that he would be the guardian of Crete and three times a day on his bronze legs bypassed the island. His entire body, all members were bronze and invulnerable. Only under one tendon on the ankle was a blood-red vein, and this vein, which contained his life and death, was covered with a thin skin. Because of this vulnerable spot, Taloe died: “he injured his ankle with a sharp piece of debris, and from there, like molten lead, ichor gushed ... Soon he froze, rising on a cliff.”

Trolls are considered the Scandinavian equivalent of fauns. Some, however, identify them with gnomes. There are a lot of trolls in Norway. They not only seduce and rape people, but in moments of rage they can inflict grievous bodily harm on them.

In the most ancient Scandinavian myths trolls are powerful giants, companions of the gods. Later, they turned into evil dwarfs - relatives of the gnomes. They live in mountain caves or secluded dilapidated huts. Some of the trolls have two or even three heads. According to legend Elder Edda when the Twilight of the Gods comes, the giants will climb into the sky, break the rainbow and destroy the world, And help them will be wolves, snakes and seemingly harmless trolls.

Inhabitant of ancient Russian legends. A close relative of the brownie, from which he differs in smaller growth (“no taller than a shoe”), great agility and big love to the home hearth.

Our distant ancestors often saw the Shulikun appearing in a cloud of soot from a cold furnace. Apparently, Russian folk magic has not preserved any special rituals associated with shulikun.

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Magical Creatures of the Harry Potter World