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Dragons, rusalkas, and demons, ohio my! Mythological creatures and entities abound successful literature, and galore authors contiguous are showing these age-old beasts successful caller and breathtaking ways. This station is not an exhaustive bestiary, arsenic that would instrumentality ages. Rather, this is simply a database of 20 mythological creatures that excited my ain imaginativeness connected mythologies, and whose works I anticipation you’ll enjoy.
I besides chose to see a database of creatures and entities you mightiness not usually pick. Some readers whitethorn glimpse astatine this database and exclaim, “how precise situation you” for missing creatures from fashionable books oregon series. To that I say: Yes, I know. I did that connected purpose.
It is my extremity to present creatures and books that you tin observe and stock with newfound glee.
Defining “Mythological” Creatures
To begin, Merriam-Webster defined “mythological” arsenic “of oregon relating to mythology oregon myths: dealt with successful mythology.” Its 2nd explanation besides states “lacking factual ground oregon humanities validity.”
Going disconnected of the supra definition, I privation to see mythological creatures that person a ground oregon inspiration in mythology. For example, dragons, sirens, and dryads person a ground successful English and Greek mythology. Demons, successful galore forms, travel from assorted mythologies astir the globe. Where the enactment is drawn, and however stark that line, is perfectly debatable, and I promote readers to statement this enactment and database their ain favorites connected societal media. Some of my choices tickle the edges of creatures based much successful fable than myth, but you beryllium the judge.
For the involvement of enactment and navigation, I chose to database creatures by sections based connected the creatures’ main elements: Land, Water, Air, Forest, and an underworld-themed section, which encompasses creatures and entities (some of them are spirits) who hail from underworlds, netherworlds, and the grey places successful between. I americium including books crossed genres, from phantasy romance to literary, successful hopes that you’ll each find thing to your fancy, oregon a caller genre to try. Additionally, for immoderate of my favourite titles, I’ve includes descriptions and passages successful quotations from the books themselves.
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Air Mythological Creatures
This is the largest section, and for bully reason. The astir notable mythological carnal is arguably dragons, and determination are examples featuring them successful literature. No, I americium not going to database Game of Thrones oregon Lord of the Rings due to the fact that those are a fixed (free your minds!). But you should besides cognize that dragons are not the lone creatures that maestro the skies.
His Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novik: The Dragon Temeraire
“…its assemblage was a pure, untinted achromatic from chemoreceptor to tail, and a suspiration of wonderment ran passim the unit arsenic it unfurled its large, six-spined wings similar a lady’s fan, the bottommost borderline dappled with oval markings successful grey and acheronian glowing blue.”
So describes the dragon Temeraire from Novik’s series. It follows Captain Will Laurence, whose beingness arsenic a oversea skipper is shattered erstwhile helium bonds with Temeraire, everlastingly duty-bound to alert successful the sky. This is simply a magnificent alternate past of the Napoleonic Wars.
Crown of Feathers by Nicki Pau Preto: Phoenixes
As I said, determination are much creatures than dragons that regularisation the skies. In Preto’s Crown of Feathers, Veronyka searches for the Phoenix Riders aft being betrayed by her sister but finds retired that girls aren’t allowed to ride. Veronyka disguises herself arsenic a lad to participate their ranks.
This bid was besides made into a comic connected Webtoon and has a play of episodes. The creation is amazing!
The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon: The Dragon Nayimathun
If you are looking for a publication astir dragons, and so a publication that is simply a feminist retelling of the story of Saint George and the Dragon, past this publication is for you. It contains galore dragons, but my favourite is the quality Tané’s Lacustrine dragon named Nayimathun. In the Ginura, dragons are revered arsenic gods, and to beryllium a dragon rider is the highest honor.
“Those eyes were blazing rings of fire, and that mouthful of teeth invited nary argument. Tané could not disobey a god. Her assemblage was a vas of water, and each h2o was theirs.”
When Women Were Dragons by Kelly Barnhill: Dragons
This publication is rife with rage that reflects the horrors women are facing contiguous successful this clip of upheaval and oppression connected assemblage autonomy. When Women Were Dragons takes spot successful the 1950s (which we look to beryllium returning to), wherever determination is simply a wide “dragoning,” successful which hundreds of thousands of mothers and housewives crook into dragons.
“Does a angiosperm retrieve its beingness arsenic a seed? Does a phoenix callback itself arsenic it burns anew? You volition not spot maine again. I shall beryllium but a shadiness streaking crossed the entity — fleeting, speeding, and utterly gone.”
This volition cheque your container for dragons, I committedness you.
Tehanu by Ursula K. Le Guin: The Dragon Kalessin
Dragons play a large relation successful the full Earthsea series, but Tehanu is 1 of Le Guin’s champion works, and 1 of my favourite books ever. I felt the country wherever the dragon Kalessin brings Ged backmost to Tenar was particularly powerful. Ged, astride his back, is unresponsive, and the large dragon allows Tenar to equine his enarthrosis to instrumentality him. Tenar beholds this immense creature:
“The dragon looked away, westward, implicit the sea. It twitched its agelong assemblage with a clink and clash of robust scales, past abruptly opened its wings, crouched, and leapt consecutive retired from the cliff onto the wind. The dragging process scored the sandstone arsenic it passed.”
Tower of Dawn by Sarah J. Maas: Ruks
More elephantine birds!
Having work the Throne of Glass series, I really recovered Tower of Dawn to beryllium the champion successful the series. It was a bully reprieve from the strength of the different quality arcs, shedding airy connected a caller onshore and array of characters. One of the champion parts of Tower of Dawn are the ruks, elephantine eagle-like, gold-feathered birds that that rukhin thrust on. The rukhin are the arial calvary for the khagans, the rulers of the confederate continent. The flights and battles with these loyal birds were a blast to read. If you’ve deed your quota for dragon books, decidedly instrumentality a dive into this one. Please note: It mightiness beryllium harder to navigate this publication without speechmaking the anterior books successful the series.
Forest Mythological Creatures
Forests are an important situation to galore mythological creatures. Forests are old. Wise. They’ve been done it. And there’s thing astir a dense wood, heavy with foliage, mysterious and alive, that is fantastic to work about. In immoderate cases, the wood/forest is simply a quality successful itself, and I’ll see an illustration of that below.
Silver successful the Wood by Emily Tesh: Bramble the Dryad
Emily Tesh’s superb novella is 1 of my favourite books of each time. It follows Tobias, bound to the wood of Greenhollow, and Henry Silver, the young and handsome caller proprietor of Greenhollow Hall. Greenhollow is afloat of mythological creatures, particularly dryads, 1 of whom is named Bramble. She’s a curious, thorny, yet loyal dryad and I would work tomes of her making her angry, blunt observations.
“He saw the shadows settee implicit the level arsenic Bramble took up defender each astir the place, calling up blackthorn and acheronian holly connected each side, planting herself by the doorway successful a menacing tangle. Well, determination went Tobias’s rootlike garden.”
The Devourers by Indra Das: Werewolves
This is specified a beautiful, atmospheric book, and each country describing the werewolves hunting, being successful the forest, made maine drunk with imagination. It follows prof Alok, who meets a alien and allows the alien to archer him a story. This publication is astir stories arsenic overmuch arsenic it is astir werewolves.
“I deliberation of what he’s asked maine to think. Of antheral and wolf, antheral and animal, antheral and pistillate and animal, twisted together, fur and bones and soma and claws and teeth, glowing eyes and arched spines, quality tegument peeling and tearing to spill retired flea-bitten fur, a wide of memories from lit and movie and story and art.”
For the Wolf by Hannah Whitten: The Wood
Forests are almighty places successful mythology with trees arsenic as almighty symbols. And determination are immoderate books wherever the wood itself becomes a character, arsenic it does successful Whitten’s epic tale. It follows Red, the second-born princess successful a onshore wherever the second-born indispensable beryllium sacrificed to the Wolf successful the Wood. Red feels powerfulness wrong herself, a transportation to the Wood, arsenic heavy arsenic ungraded and greenery successful her blood. This a amusive read, having everything from enactment to romance. The Wood produces different monstrous, mythological creatures (angry trees!).
If you similar bask this book, the sequel, For the Throne, has adjacent much monsters and myth-making to onslaught your fancy.
Appleseed by Matt Bell: Chapman the Faun
What’s truly peculiar astir Matt Bell’s Appleseed is it tackles and interrogates American mythology. Of course, the United States of America is simply a babe successful examination to different countries and mythologies, but Bell tackles this one, bouncing from hundreds of years into America’s past, to a aboriginal dystopia wherever clime alteration has ravaged the Earth. The opening introduces 2 brothers, 1 of whom is the faun Chapman:
“Chapman is 1 of a kind; he’ll physique nary location nor works immoderate garden, helium accepts he’ll person nary woman and rise nary children, not similar this, not arsenic a taxon of one, fractional chaotic and fractional man, unsocial successful the satellite but for his quality brother.”
Mongrels by Stephen Graham Jones: Werewolves
Let’s bring immoderate gritty, fearfulness to the table! Stephen Graham Jones is the king of fearfulness and this coming-of-age communicative is worthy the read. It follows a lad who lives with his aunt and uncle arsenic they navigate a satellite successful the successful between. Society doesn’t privation them; doesn’t recognize them. This is simply a meaty, brutal instrumentality connected werewolves and those who unrecorded successful a world, oppressed and misunderstood.
Land Mythological Creatures
This conception includes creatures from environments different than the forest, specified arsenic deserts, plains, oregon adjacent municipality metropolises. Of course, immoderate of the beneath could beryllium argued arsenic wood creatures, since they mightiness delve into the forest, but I recovered it easier to signifier it this way.
Under the Pendulum Sun by Jeannette Ng: The Fae
I americium lone including 1 fae illustration connected purpose, bash not hatred me! The fae are rife successful literature, and it would instrumentality a full station and a gigantic database of examples to adjacent scratch the aboveground of the past and beingness of fae. But I wanted to showcase an assortment of creatures. However, the fae cannot beryllium ignored and neither tin Ng’s portrayal of Arcadia, the onshore of the magical, temptuous and creepy fae. Catherine Helstone goes to Arcadia to question retired her missing brother, who went to the lands successful an effort to person the fae to Christianity. What Catherine finds is the gothic manor of Gethsemane and thoughts she’d been trying to hide her full life. The fae are described arsenic otherworldy and regal, and the Masquerade shot is simply a creepy feast for the senses.
“The alien withe goldfish-tail hairsbreadth plucked a shining grape from the ivy. She held it successful her gloved hand, twisting it to drawback the light. I could spot present the scars down her limb and crossed her shoulder. Enochian scarred into her flesh.”
A Curse of Queens by Amanda Bouchet: The Minotaur
Fantasy romance is simply a treasure trove for uncovering mythological creatures. Romance authors cognize erstwhile champion to usage creatures for their conflict, plot, and romance, and Curse of Queens pulls retired each the stops successful this regard. Amanda Bouchet’s Kingmaker Chronicle bid is heavy inspired by Greek mythology and each the characters and creatures who reside there. In the latest standalone summation to the series, the main characters Jocasta and Flynn conscionable the Minotaur connected their mode to find a mode to interruption a curse. This minotaur is portrayed on the lines of astir of the stories — arsenic bloodthirsty combatant — and an epic conflict ensues to get past him.
Moon Witch, Spider King by Marlon James: The Witch Sogolon
If you’re funny successful delving into an epic phantasy bid with brutality and grit that, I think, outdoes Game of Thrones, past look nary further than Marlon James’s The Dark Star trilogy. Moon Witch, Spider King is the 2nd publication successful the trilogy, and follows Sogolon, who is the adversary to Tracker successful publication one. Sogolon is simply a mythical fig that transcends what we’ve seen connected this list. This is simply a pistillate who transforms into a witch implicit galore trials and abuses, turning into this almighty being that controls the upwind (not wind). Who you thought the quality was successful publication 1 volition beryllium turned connected its head.
There are galore characters successful the Dark Star trilogy that are mythical creatures. Marlon James’s trilogy has been called the “African Game of Thrones” for bully reason. This Man Booker Prize victor writes 1 hellhole of a book.
The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker: The Golem
The Golem and the Jinni is simply a wondrous caller of past fiction, fantasy, and people mythology. It’s astir Chava, a golem made from clay by a antheral who practices unsafe Kabbalistic magic. Chava finds herself successful New York City, her maestro having perished astatine sea, and meets Ahmad, a jinni made of occurrence from the Syrian Desert. Together they person to navigate who and what they are successful 1899 New York. This is simply a rich, beauteous novel, and if you similar this book, you should cheque retired Wecker’s sequel The Hidden Palace.
Across the Green Grass Fields by Seanan McGuire: The Centaurs
What is simply a mythological database of creatures without including centaurs? Seanan McGuire’s Wayward Children bid is 1 of my favourite phantasy bid of each time. This is the bid we request to present to children astir identity, acceptance, and uncovering wherever we belong.
In this 6th summation to the portal phantasy series, Regan finds herself successful a analyzable person situation, and her parents besides uncover that she is intersex. Regan’s unmoored by her friends and finds a doorway to the Hooflands. Here, determination are centaurs, creatures that gallop crossed everlasting greenish fields.
Water Mythological Creatures
From sirens, to mermaids, to rusalkas, mythologies astir the satellite emotion to see creatures from the depths below. Mermaids are a fashionable given, truthful I’ve chosen a fewer examples that item immoderate lesser known, but arsenic amazing, mythological creatures.
The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden: The Rusalka
Arden writes perfectly decadent and almighty prose, and this publication is afloat of mythological creatures from Russian mythology. My favourite is the unsafe rusalka. The caller centers connected Vasya, the girl of a widowed person of a Russian colony settled heavy successful the woods. Vasya tin spot and interact with creatures from Russian myths, though nary 1 other successful the colony can, and they each fearfulness oregon hatred Vasya successful immoderate way. Vasya and the rusalka befriend 1 another, determination is simply a respect betwixt them, contempt the rusalka’s appetite for flesh.
All the Murmuring Bones by A.G. Slatter: The Kelpie
Like Arden, Slatter’s breadstuff and food (yes this is simply a motion to her Sourdough stories, I americium a immense fan, you should work them) is fairy tales and retellings. Many mythological and fairy communicative creatures marque an quality successful her books. The kelpie, though, is 1 of my favorites successful this book. The communicative follows Miren O’Malley arsenic she searches for a spot called Blackwater, a spot her parent escaped to aft abandoning Miren to her grandparents. Miren meets a kelpie on her journey, frees him from a curse, and helium is successful her debt. Miren besides makes the kelpie committedness not to devour her and to lone devour wicked radical successful the future.
“At past it’s done, and the kelpie stamps his hooves, pulls distant sharply and begins to dance, tossing his caput and moving sinuous arsenic a seal successful the water. I support clasp of the bridle, which feels disgusting and stinks.”
Mythological Creatures from Underworlds, Netherworlds, and the Afterlife
So galore mythologies are known for the gods and creatures that inhabit the worlds beyond our own. Cerberus guarding the underworld. Angels successful heaven. Here are a fewer creatures that are not bound by the elements similar the galore listed above.
A Master of Djinn by P. Djèli Clark: Sobek aka Ahmad (and truthful galore different characters and creatures)
I americium tempted to database each of Clark’s works successful this conception due to the fact that 1) he’s 1 of my favourite authors and I americium shameless, and 2) helium is capable to weave myths and mythological creatures into his narratives fluidly and with immense style. A Master of Djinn has an assortment of mythological creatures, and the Djinn are central. One of my favourite characters, though, is Ahmad, who believes himself to beryllium the chosen mortal of the Egyptian crocodile deity Sobek. Ahmad’s carnal quality becomes much crocodilian each clip Agent Fatma runs into him successful the story. He gets immoderate of the champion lines and images.
The Midnight Bargain by C.L. Polk: Nadi, Spirit of Chance
Polk builds a satellite of magic uniquely their ain successful The Midnight Bargain, pursuing the magician Beatrice arsenic she desperately seeks a mode to support her magic and freedom. If she marries, she’ll beryllium “collared,” her magic locked away. What gets the shot rolling successful this caller is Beatrice summoning the tone of chance, Nadi, who makes a bargain to assistance her find a grimoire successful speech for Beatrice’s archetypal kiss, who happens to beryllium with a antheral who she mightiness conscionable autumn for. Summoning Nadi is akin to summoning galore different demons and spirits successful mythology, and often follows the akin rules: you scratch my backmost and I’ll scratch yours.
“‘Nadi, tone of chance,’ she murmured, the sensation of strawberry connected her lips. ‘You are hungry, and I person sweets.'”
English (US) ·