Posts Tagged ‘legends’

Humanoid Creatures of the Supernatural Realm

Humanoid Creatures of the Supernatural Realm

Ancient mythology and legends are filled with countless beings that are not mortal or are not seen under normal circumstances in everyday places. To properly describe these creatures of myth, scribes and storytellers brought in descriptions of animals that lived in the immediate area to create a type of hybrid animal that the average person would be able to imagine even if he or she had not come into contact with it or the realm of the supernatural. However, these old stories are full of creatures and beasts that are remarkably human-like—in both appearance and intelligence. The mythical beings that resemble humans have a special name in that they are considered “humanoid.” The nature of the human aspect could vary. Many popular forms (particularly in the legends of classic cultures like the Greeks) would merely split the difference between a creature and a human where the creature would have the head and torso of a human but the bottom half of a particular animal. Other cultures would keep the primary structure of a human body (a single head with two arms followed by two legs to walk upon) but change the skin coloring, amount of hair, or basic proportional sizes of the body parts. Their human attributes made them mystical on a whole different level than other hybrid beasts.

Urban Legends that are More Like Urban Facts

Urban Legends that are More Like Urban Facts

An urban legend is what one could call a modern folk tale.  It is not quite old enough story to be considered a folk tale so we call them urban legends.  Most of these legends are based on small fragments of fact with little to no truth to them, but there are a handful of urban legends that have their entire basis in reality.  Take these examples:

The 5 Scariest Urban Legends

The 5 Scariest Urban Legends

The Urban Legend can have its lineage traced all the way back to the earliest form of storytelling, when terrifying tales were traded around fires, either as a warning or for mere entertainment. The Urban Legend is a contemporary legend, a modern form of folklore or mythology which reflects the era’s fears or trepidations. While originally, like the original talks of folklore, they were passed around by word of mouth, modern technology has seen the distribution of tales taken on by the new forms of communication and media. The latest of these being used are the chain-email and the use of various social networking sites, which have been able to add an extra fear dynamic in the added clause that if the note is not forwarded to a certain number of people, some form of paranormal revenge will befall the ill-fated reader.