Mythological and Folkloric Beings

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Word Menu > The Human Condition > Faith > Mythology and Folklore > Mythological and Folkloric Beings

Abominable Snowman - legendary creature living in high Himalayas; yeti
Achilles - greatest Greek hero of Trojan War, invulnerable to weapons except for one heel
Adapa - heroic fisherman son of Ea who preferred great knowledge to offer of immortality (Babylon)
Adonis - beautiful young man loved by Aphrodite, who symbolized the death of nature in fall and rebirth the following spring (Greece)
Aeneas - son of Aphrodite who led survivors of Troy west to found Rome
Aeon - personification of time (Greece)
Aesculapius - son of Apollo and the nymph Coronis, the first physician (Greece)
afreet - powerful evil demon or monster (Arabia)
Agamemnon - leader of the Greeks during siege of Troy
Aladdin - poor boy in Arabian Nights’ Entertainments who possessed magic lamp with jinn that would do his bidding
Ali Baba - poor woodcutter and hero of Arabian Nights’ Entertainments who opened a door by saying “open sesame” and found hidden treasure of the Forty Thieves
Amazons - single-breasted Scythian women warriors
amphisbaena - serpent having head at each end (Greece)
Antaeus - giant son of Poseidon and Gaea, ultimately crushed by Herakles (Greece)
Argus - hundred-eyed being who guarded Io, and whose eyes were transferred to peacock’s tail after death (Rome)
Arthur - semilegendary British king of Camelot during 6th century
Atlas - Titan bearing Earth and firmament on his shoulders (Greece and Rome)
Atropos - one of the Fates (Greece)
Azazel - Hebrew. evil spirit of wilderness to which scapegoat was released
Baba Yaga - female monster who feeds on children (Russia)
Babe the Blue Ox - legendary blue ox belonging to Paul Bunyan (United States)
banshee - female spirit who warns of death by wailing (Ireland and Scotland)
barghest - legendary doglike goblin that portends death or misfortune
basilisk - serpent with deadly breath and glance; cockatrice
behemoth - any creature of monstrous size and power
Beowulf - hero of medieval epic poem (Britain, 8th c.)
bogeyman - frightening, demonic figure of popular folklore
brownie - tiny, fanciful brown elf who does household chores at night
bugbear - goblin that devours disobedient children
bunyip - creature inhabiting swamps and lagoons in Aboriginal legend (Australia)
Calliope - chief muse; muse of epic heroic poetry (Greece)
Callisto - nymph loved by Zeus, changed into she-bear by Hera and then into Great Bear constellation (Greece)
Calypso - daughter of Atlas who held Odysseus captive on her island (Greece)
Cassandra - priestess daughter of King Priam of Troy whose prophecies were never believed (Greece)
Castor and Pollux - twin brothers of Helen who protect seagoers (Greece)
Cecrops - founder of Athens who had a snake’s tail (Greece)
centaur - half-horse, half-human monster
Cerberus - three-headed dog who guards entrance to underworld (Greece)
Chaos - representative of the void prior to creation of Earth (Greece)
Charybdis - woman turned into whirlpool by Zeus; companion to Scylla (Greece)
Chimera - flame-belching monster, part goat, part lion, and part dragon
Cinderella - fairytale heroine who escapes mistreatment by stepmother and stepsisters to marry prince (Europe)
Circe - evil woman who turned humans into swine (Greece)
Clio - muse of history (Greece)
Clotho - one of the Fates (Greece)
cockatrice - basilisk
colossus - giant human statue (Greece)
Cyclops - member of a family of one-eyed cannibal giants (Greece)
daemon - supernatural force, spirit for good or evil, in popular folklore
Daphne - nymph loved by Apollo and turned into laurel tree, whose branch Apollo wore on his head (Greece)
Delphic oracle - oracle of Apollo whose answers were enigmatic and ambiguous (Greece)
demigod - half divine, half human minor deity; deified mortal
demon - evil spirit, devil
deus otiosus - distant or retiring deity; authority or father figure
Don Juan - legendary, dissolute Spanish nobleman famous for his many seductions
dragon - reptilian monster, often with breath of fire
Dryad - forest nymph who protects trees (Greece)
dwarf - small, usu. misshapen and ugly creature with magic powers
dybbuk - dead person’s evil spirit that invades living person (Jewish folklore)
dying god - autumnal figure symbolizing harvest and decline of cosmic cycle of time
earth mother - female deity symbolizing life or fertility
Echo - mountain nymph who could only repeat others’ last words, spurned in love by Narcissus (Greece)
Eight Immortals - holy men who have attained immortality (Taoism)
elf - mountain fairy, seen by moonlight
Enkidu - quasihuman creature aiding Gilgamesh in quest (Bablyonia)
Erato - muse of love poetry (Greece)
Eumenides - the Furies (Greece)
Euterpe - muse of music (Greece)
Fafnir - dragon slain by Sigurd (Scandinavia)
fairy - small, supernatural being with magic powers; fay
familiar spirit - supernatural servant of priest or magician, often represented as an animal
Fates - three sisters who spin, weave, and cut the thread of life: Atropos, Clotho, and Lachesis (Greece and Rome)
faun - sylvan demigod (Rome)
Faust - character in medieval legend who sold his soul to the devil for knowledge and power
fay - fairy
fiend - evil spirit
Furies - three snake-haired female torturers of the damned (Greece and Rome)
Galahad - noblest and purest of knights of the Round Table, who gained the Holy Grail
Ganymede - cupbearer of Zeus (Greece)
genie - spirit in human form summoned to carry out one’s wishes
genius - tutelary spirit attending a person throughout life; (pl.) genii
genius loci - Latin. guardian spirit of a single location
ghost - spirit of dead person
ghoul - evil being that feeds on corpses
giant - huge and monstrously formed creature, enemy of gods and people (Scandinavia and Greece)
Gigantes - huge monsters, children of Gaea, who were defeated by Olympian gods (Greece)
Gilgamesh - hero of Sumerian and Babylonian epics
gnome - dwarfish creature who lives underground
goblin - demon of popular folklore in the form of a grotesque, often malicious sprite
golem - figure artificially constructed in human form and endowed with life (Jewish folklore)
Gorgons - three hideous monsters in the form of winged sisters with power to turn person viewing them to stone (Greece)
Graces - three daughters of Zeus attendant on Aphrodite, embodying beauty and charm (Greece)
gremlin - type of elf, usu. mischievous troublemaker said to be responsible for minor malfunctions
Grendel - half-human monster slain by Beowulf
griffin - monster that is half eagle and half lion
Guinevere - King Arthur’s wife
hamadryad - nymph who is spirit of a particular tree
Harpy - winged, ravenous, half-woman monster that robs its victims of food (Greece)
Hecatoncheires - hundred-armed, fifty-headed sons of Uranus and Gaea (Greece)
Helen - Greek queen whose abduction instigated the Trojan War
hellhound - watchdog of the underworld
Herakles - Hercules (Greece)
Hercules - son of Jupiter and greatest hero, who performed twelve labors (Rome)
Hermaphroditus - son of Hermes and Aphrodite, united with a nymph to form one body with sexual characteristics of both genders (Greece)
hero - mythic person whose story is told in epic tale of adventure or struggle
hippocampus - creature who is half horse and half dolphin
hippogriff - griffin with horse’s body
hobbit - small, furry creature who lives in burrow in the earth
hobgoblin - mischievous goblin or sprite, esp. Puck
Houyhnhnm - one of a race of horses endowed with reason in Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels
Hydra - nine-headed serpent whose heads grew back as they were cut off, slain by Hercules (Greece)
Hyperion - one of the Titans, son of Uranus and father of Helios, Selene, and Eos
Icarus - son of Daedalus who flew too near the sun, melting his wax and feather wings and causing him to fall into the sea (Greece)
incubus - evil demon that has sex with women while they sleep
Iris - messenger of God in multihued robe representing rainbow (Greece)
Izanagi and Izanami - creators of Japanese islands who emerged from chaos and were progenitors of later gods (Japan)
Jack Frost - personification of cold and frost (U.S.)
Jason - leader of the Argonauts who retrieved the Golden Fleece (Greece)
jinn - spirit capable of appearing in human or animal form (Arabia)
John Henry - legendary black railroad worker who outdrove steam drill (U.S., 19th c.)
Jotun - any of a race of giants often in conflict with the gods (Scandinavia)
kelpie - horse-shaped water spirit (Scotland)
kobold - mischievous underground gnome (German folklore)
Kraken - legendary monster of northern seas (Scandinavia)
Kriss Kringle - Santa Claus
Lachesis - one of the Fates (Greece)
lamia - monster with head and breast of a woman and body of a serpent that allured children to suck their blood
Lancelot - greatest knight of King Arthur’s round table and lover of Queen Guinevere
Lares - household gods who are spirits of ancestors (Rome)
lemures - spirits of the dead (Rome)
leprechaun - dwarf or sprite; fairy and beneficent spirit (Ireland)
Leviathan - huge Biblical sea monster, either reptile or whale
Lilith - woman or phantom said to be former wife of Adam in Jewish folklore
little people - leprechauns, fairies, elves
Loch Ness monster - dinosaurlike creature reportedly seen emerging from waters of Loch Ness (Scotland)
Lorelei - siren or river spirit with fatal charm (Teutonic folkore)
loup-garou - French. werewolf
maenads - frenzied female followers of Bacchus or Dionysus (Greece and Rome)
manes - spirits of dead (Rome)
manitou - spirit that controls nature and is source of natural and supernatural power (Algonquian Indians)
manticore - monster with man’s head, lion’s body, and scorpion’s tail
Manu - primal ancestor (India)
Medusa - snake-haired woman monster beheaded by Perseus; one of the Gorgons (Greece)
Melpomene - muse of tragic drama (Greece)
Merlin - magician and seer of Arthurian legend
mermaid - creature with fatal charm who is half woman and half fish
Metis - first wife of Zeus, mother of Athena, and personification of prudence (Greece)
Midas - legendary Phrygian king whose touch turned objects to gold (Greece)
Midgard serpent - monster that grew to surround the entire world (Scandinavia)
Minotaur - bull-headed, human-torsoed, flesh-eating monster slain by Theseus (Greece)
Mnemosyne - mother of the muses and goddess of memory
Moirai - Fates (Greece)
monster - any of various legendary, mythical creatures, usu. hybrid of animal forms
Muses - nine daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne who inspire artists: Calliope (heroic poetry), Clio (history), Erato (love poetry), Euterpe (music and lyric poetry), Melpomene (tragedy), Polyhymnia (eloquence and sacred poetry), Terpsichore (dance), Thalia (comedy), Urania (astronomy)
naiad - freshwater nymph (Greece)
Narcissus - youth who loved his own reflection and was turned into a flower (Rome)
Nereid - sea nymph; Oceanid (Greece)
Nibelungs - race of dwarfs who possessed a treasure of Rhine gold that was captured by Siegfried (Teutonic)
Niobe - bereaved daughter of Tantalus who wept for her slain children even after being turned to stone (Greece)
nix - water spirit that lures its victims into its underwater home (German folklore)
nymph - semidivine spirit of natural region such as water, forest, mountains, or valleys (Greece)
Oceanid - Nereid
Oedipus - king who unwittingly killed his father and married his mother after solving Sphinx’s riddle (Greece)
ogre - hideous giant cannibal
oracle - intermediary between gods and man who answered questions at shrine (Greece)
orc - monster similar to an ogre
oread - mountain nymph (Greece)
Orpheus - lyre-playing musician who tried unsuccessfully to rescue his wife from Hades (Greece)
Pandora - original woman who opened forbidden box, bringing woes and evils to humanity (Greece)
Parsifal - knight who sought Holy Grail (Teutonic)
Paul Bunyan - giant lumberjack with a pet blue ox named Babe, reputed to have shaped the Rocky Mountains (U.S., 19th c.)
Pecos Bill - legendary cowboy who dug the Rio Grande River (U.S., 19th c.)
Pegasus - winged horse born of Medusa’s blood (Greece)
Penates - gods who serve as family household guardians (Rome)
Perseus - hero who slew Medusa (Greece)
Peter Pan - boy who never grew up in Sir James Barrie’s play
phantom - specter or apparition
phoenix - immortal bird that cremates itself every 500 years, then emerges reborn from ashes (Greece)
Pied Piper - legendary folk hero who led people by entrancing them by playing his flute (Germany)
pixie - fairy, said to be spirit of dead child
poltergeist - noisy ghost
Polyhymnia - muse of eloquence (Greece)
preta - wandering or disturbed ghost (India)
Prometheus - hero who stole fire from gods for mankind and was punished by Zeus (Greece)
Proteus - sea god who assumed different shapes (Greece)
Psyche - beautiful mortal loved by Eros (Greece)
Puck - mischievous sprite of English folklore; Robin Goodfellow
Python - dragon who guarded chasm at Delphi, slain by Apollo (Greece)
Queen Mab - playful fairy of English folklore who controlled dreams
Rama - hero of the epic tale Ramayana and perfect, devoted Hindu (India)
Ravana - giant ten-faced demon (India)
Remus - twin brother of Romulus (Rome)
Rip Van Winkle - man who slept twenty years and awakened to a changed world, from story by Washington Irving (U.S., 19th c.)
Robin Goodfellow - Puck
Robin Hood - legendary, benevolent folk hero outlaw (Britain)
roc - bird of enormous size and strength (Arabia)
Romulus - one of twin brothers raised by a wolf, founder of Rome
Rudra - father of storm gods who controls powers of nature (Vedic)
Rumpelstiltskin - dwarf who spins flax into gold in German folktale
salamander - mythical creature, esp. a reptile, thought to be able to live in fire
sandman - folkloric character who puts sand in the eyes of children to make them sleepy
Santa Claus - benevolent purveyor or gifts to children on Christmas Eve; Kriss Kringle
satyr - goat-footed demigod of forest and field, noted for lasciviousness
scapegoat - goat let loose on Yom Kippur after sins are laid on its head
Scheherezade - in Arabian Nights’ Entertainments, wife of sultan of India, who spared her life because she told such wondrous tales each night
Scylla - sea nymph who was transformed into sea monster, companion of Charybdis (Greece)
sea horse - creature who is half horse with fish tail
sea serpent - large marine animal resembling snake
sibyl - any woman who served as mouth piece of the gods in delivering prophecies and oracles
Siegfried - hero of the Nibelungenlied (Teutonic)
Sigurd - hero of the Volsunga Saga; counterpart of Siegfried in the Nibelungenlied (Scandinavia)
Silenus - forest spirit, sometimes called oldest of satyrs (Greece)
Sinbad - sea-voyaging adventurer of Arabian Nights’ Entertainments
Siren - singing sea nymph who charms sailors to their deaths (Greece)
Sisyphus - crafty murderer and thief condemned by Zeus to roll a stone up a slope so that each time he approached the top the stone escaped him and rolled down again (Greece)
Sleeping Beauty - fairy tale princess awakened from a prolonged, charmed sleep by the kiss of her true love
Sphinx - human-headed, winged lion and poser of enigmatic riddles (Greece)
spirit - supernatural being
sprite - spirit, esp. mischievous elf
stork - bird that is symbolic deliverer of new babies
succubus - female demon who has sex with men while they sleep
sylph - air spirit
Syrinx - mountain nymph who was transformed into the reed from which Pan made his panpipe
Tannhäuser - German lyric poet and hero of legend set in 13th c.
Tantalus - son of Zeus condemned in Tartarus to forever reach for unattainable fruit and water
Termagant - mythical deity in form of violent, dominating personage, believed by Medieval Christians to be worshipped by Muslims
Terpsichore - muse of dance (Greece)
Thalia - muse of comic and lyric poetry (Greece)
Theseus - hero who slew Minotaur (Greece)
Tiki - first man of Maori legend (Polynesia)
Titan - one of a race of giant deities, children of Uranus who held power under Cronus and were overthrown by the Olympian gods (Greece)
Tom Thumb - tiny hero of folk tales
tooth fairy - fairy who exchanges gift for baby tooth placed under pillow of child
trickster - god, hero, or personage who creates trouble and plays practical jokes in myth and legend
Triton - half fish, half man and son of Poseidon with power over waves (Greece)
troll - misshapen, woodland-dwelling dwarf or giant of limited intelligence (Scandinavia)
Typhon - hundred-headed giant who caused violent wind, killed by Zeus (Greece)
undine - female water spirit
unicorn - creature with horse’s body, lion’s tail, and single horn, representing purity and supernatural powers
Urania - muse of astronomy (Greece)
Valkyries - maidens who escort warriors to Valhalla (Teutonic and Norse folklore)
vampire - reanimated corpse who exists on blood of sleeping victims
vestal virgin - one of the virgins tending sacred fire of Vesta (Rome)
water nymph - semidivine marine creature
werewolf - man capable of transmogrifying into shape of a wolf who preys on human victims; wolfman
William Tell - rebellious hero of Swiss legend forced to shoot arrow through apple on his son’s head
windigo - evil spirit, cannibal demon (Native American folklore)
wolfman - werewolf
wood nymph - semidivine forest creature
world parents - cosmic couple who symbolize creation of human race, such as Adam and Eve
wyvern - two-legged, winged creature resembling dragon
xiphopagus - Siamese twin monster
yeti - Abominable Snowman
Ymir - first living creature and progenitor of giants, whose corpse formed earth, water, and heavens (Scandinavia)
zombie - reanimated corpse under spell of demon or deity