if mythological creatures are just mythological then how...?

Question

if mythological creatures are just myth then how do people do detailed drawings etc unicorns leprechauns etc.. and stories about them if they're mythological?

Answer 1

Well its probably because people used to think they existed. People made up gods, mermaids. pegasus, to explain things that they couldn't find the answers too. like why is there a sun half the day because apollo pulls it out with his chariot everyday. Why was there lightning because Zues was mad. And mermaids were really manitees. When seamen got lost at sea and never returned it was because of a siren.

Answer 2

It is the imagination that is the creation, the drawing is just the representation! To make a story is to make magic, to be able to picture it in your mind is to receive magic. But it is the story, it is the imagination, that makes the images. When you accept the images on paper and the movies you are accepting some one else's imagination, and it can be beautiful. But if you read or are told the story your pictures in your head are far more true and accurate than somebody else's. When you were small did you really need a picture to know just how a beautiful princess should look, should dress, or should act and even sound like, or an evil short stocky troll. Know that you knew without the picture exactly how a handsome prince would look and behave. You could have described him right down to the toes of his boots, including the curls in his hair, the twinkle in his eyes,the firmness of his jaw, the grace and power of his movement, and the knowledge that he would never be just a tease but would treat you as a proper princess should be treated, and you would laugh and giggle forever and ever! EXCEPT for the evil old warty nosed witch who was determined to bring suffering to all the world, withering the pretty flowers, and making the chirping birds and the small furry animals hide in trembling fear, even now you can picture her, with her thin lips and crooked teeth, her dry raspy voice, her long claw like finger nails. Of course she has an evil side kick,...

And now it is your turn to draw these people and to tell the story so the little ones will say "How, but oh, how did you know, just how the unicorns and the dragons and the trolls and kobols looked. And where did you learn about the brave handsome young prince defeating them, and how he could not have done it without the help of the "Oh so pretty" and "Oh so very smart" princess... And maybe when you are old you will smile when you hear a certain question and it will be your turn to say, "it is the imagination, that is the creation".....

Answer 3

Like urban legends all of mythology has some fact to it . After a long period of time certain facts become obscured and are then replaced by fiction . A monster could have just been a poor disfigured hermit shunned by society (remember these were the same people that would drown a baby just because it was handicapped) and a unicorn could have been a cross breed or a sub-species of the horse .
Or if you prefer to leave the tangible aside maybe there once were such magical things as monsters and faeries but have since become extinct .

How man in general came up with a clear concept on how certain mythological creatures are supposed to look is beyond my knowledge , as for modern day artists they add what they believe looks right as they do with any image that exists solely in their mind.

Answer 4

Stories of these creatures go back a long way. Leprechauns, for instance, have a history in Ireland going back nearly as far as history itself. With so rich a history, many people have tried to imagine what these creatures look like, and you have the detailed drawings based on the stories. I have seen at least a dozen different concepts of what a Leprechaun looks like, and all are different. Same for dragons. Unicorns are easier, they are horses with horns. It's all in the history.

Answer 5

How does a sketch artist do a drawing of a criminal that he has never seen?

He has a detailed description of what the criminal looks like.

Somewhere in the text about these creatures can be found descriptions of what the creatures supposedly looked like. From those descriptions come the drawings.

Answer 6

Many mytholigical creatures do have a basis in reality . Granted most of them are genetic mutations . I have seen a unicorn , only it was a goat whose horns had grown together to form one horn .
As far as leprechauns , they are really just dwarves ,or little people . Vampires , there are actually people who drink the blood of humans .
Werewolves , are people who have uncontrollable hair growth .

Answer 7

Because they may not exist here on earth, but they may exist some where in physical reality perhaps on another planet or on some other level of existence. Human life is just a game in it self, the spirit ual relm is the true reality, so why couldn't those things exist somewhere.

Answer 8

The same way they can draw pictures of Superman and The Incredible Hulk. Just because you have a drawing doesn't make the subject real.

Answer 9

Some of them have meanings.

Apple = knowledge
Pelican = Jesus
Phoenix = Jesus
Unicorn = purity
etc. etc.

Answer 10

.I would guess that they read the story and from the description,they use there imagination to create the pictures..