Jorge Luis Borges wrote and edited the Book of Imaginary Beings in 1957 as the original Spanish Manual de zoolgia fantastica, or Handbook of Fantastic Zoology, expanding it in 1967 and 1969 to the final El libro de los seres imaginarios. The English edition, created in collaboration with translator Norman Thomas de Giovanni, contains descriptions of 120 mythical beasts from folklore and literature. In the Preface, Borges states that the book is to be read 'as with all miscellanies...not...straight through...rather we would like the reader to dip into the pages at random, just as one plays with the shifting patterns of a kaleidoscope'; and that 'legends of men taking the shapes of animals' have been ommitted. Jorge Luis Borges (August 24, 1899 – June 14, 1986), was an Argentine writer who is considered one of the foremost Hispanic literary figures of the 20th century. ... Year 1957 (MCMLVII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1967 (MCMLXVII) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar (the link is to a full 1967 calendar). ... Year 1969 (MCMLXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1969 calendar). ... A legendary creature is a mythical or fantastic creature (often known as fabulous creatures in historical literature). ... Folklore is the body of expressive culture, including tales, music, dance, legends, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, customs, material culture, and so forth, common to a particular population, comprising the traditions (including oral traditions) of that culture, subculture, or group. ...

Creatures mentioned

• Á Bao A Qu - A creature that lives on the staircase of the Tower of Victory in Chitor. It may only move when a traveler climbs the staircase, and it follows close at the person's heels. Its form becomes more complete the closer it gets to the terrace at the tower's top. It can only achieve this ultimate form if the traveler has obtained Nirvana, otherwise it finds itself unable to continue.
• Abtu and Anet - Two identical fish that, according to Egyptian legend, swam in front of the prow of the sun god's ship on the lookout for danger.
• The Alicanto -
• The Amphisbaena - A two-headed snake, with one head being where its tail would normally be. It is venomous and, if chopped in half, its two parts can reunite.
• An Animal Imagined by Kafka - A kangaroo-like animal with a flat, human-like face and a very long tail.
• Singing Beast Imagined by C. S. Lewis - An animal that sits upon its haunches like a dog, but appears more like a horse. Its toes are camel-like, and, unable to produce its own milk, it raises its young by weaning them on the milk of other animals. It has an entrancing call that sounds almost like a glorious song.
• An Animal Imagined by Poe - A small, flat animal with pure white fur and bright red claws and teeth. Its head is feline, except for its canine-like ears.
• Animals in the Form of Spheres - At the time of its writing, some believed that planets and stars were actually living beings, and that the movement of the heavenly bodies was voluntary.
• Antelopes with Six Legs - According to Siberian myth, these six-legged antelopes were far too fast for human beings to catch. A divine huntsman, Tunk-poj, cut off the animal's rear-most legs to make the animal easier for humans to hunt.
• The Ass with Three Legs - This massive creature is said to stand in the middle of the ocean. It has three legs, six eyes, nine mouths, and one golden horn.
• Axehandle Hound
• Bahamut - A huge, measureless fish which is often used to describe the spaces between heaven, earth, and hell.
• Baldanders - Also known as Soon-Another's, these creatures can assume many shapes. It appears to have a human head and torso, the tail of a fish, the leg of a goat, and the wings and claws of a bird.
• The Banshee - The "woman of the fairies" does not have a distinct shape, but is instead described by her keening wails.
• The Barometz - This "animal" is actually a plant in the shape of a lamb with golden fleece.
• The Basilisk - The basilisk's appearance has changed over the ages, but it is most often considered a chicken-like serpent with anywhere from four to eight legs. It is extremely venomous, and its gaze can turn anyone into stone.
• Behemoth - A massive creature that is often likened to an elephant or hippopotamus.
• The Brownies - Small brown colored men that often visit homes while the inhabitants are asleep to perform various chores.
• Burak - A horse-like creature with long ears and the wings and tail of a peacock. It may also have a man's face.
• The Calchona
• The Carbuncle - This extremely elusive creature is so rarely seen that few have any idea of what it looks like. All seem to suggest that the Carbuncle has some sort of jewel on its head.
• The Catoblepas - Described as a black buffalo with a hog's head, this creature's head is so heavy that it constantly hangs low to the ground. It is also believed that, like the basilisk, looking into its eyes will kill you instantly.
• The Celestial Horse
• The Celestial Stag - No one has ever seen a Celestial Stag. They live in underground mines, searching for the light of day. They will attempt to bribe, speak to, and even torture miners in their quest to reach the surface, where they turn into a deadly liquid form.
• The Centaur - A well-known beast with the torso of a man and the hindquarters of a horse. Most are portrayed as savage beasts, but others can be well learned in many arts.
• Cerberus - A three-headed dog known to guard the gates of Hell.
• The Cheshire Cat - A rather mischievous cat with a large, grinning face. It can also make itself invisible, leaving behind only its disembodied smile.
• The Chimera - Although it may have several different forms, the chimera is most often described as a three-headed beast. Sprouting from its back is the head of a goat, a lion's head at its front, and a snake's head as its tail.
• The Chinese Dragon - Compared to the Western Dragon, this dragon is considered divine and holy. It is often seen with antler-like horns and protrusions running along its spine. The Chinese dragon is often pictured with a pearl: the source of its power.
• The Chinese Fox - These foxes appear like average foxes, but may sometimes be seen standing on their hind legs to walk. They presumably live about a thousand years, and are bad omens for their mischievous ways. They are known to shapeshift and are able to see into the future.
• The Chinese Phoenix - Two basic creatures are described as a symbol of eternal love: the male Feng and the female Huang. They are described as very beautiful birds similar to a peacock, have three legs, and live in the sun.
• The Chonchon
• Ch'ou-T'i
• Chronos or Heracles - This dragon-like creature is often known by two names. Like the chimera, it is made of three heads: a bull's head at its front, a god's head at its middle, and a lion's head at its rear.
• Ch'uan-T'ou
• An Insect Imagined by C. S. Lewis- A strange, jointed insect consisting of a cylindrical body and many thin legs.
• The Crocotta and the Leucrocotta - The crocotta is described as a hybrid of a dog and a wolf, and may be able to imitate the voice of a person. The leucrocotta is similar, but described as an antelope and hyena hybrid.
• A Crossbreed - An animal described by Kafka in 'Description of a Struggle' that is half cat and half lamb. Its fur is woolly and soft, yet it has a cat's face and claws. It does not make any sounds, and refuses to chase after rats.
• Dopplegänger - Also known as the Double, the Dopplegänger is best described as a man's exact counterpart.
• The Eastern Dragon - Quite similar to the Chinese dragon of the same region, the Eastern dragon takes roughly the same form, but may be lacking wings. The pearl is also the source of its power, and they can make themselves invisible if they so wish.
• The Eater of the Dead - Most commonly associated with Egyptian myth, the Eater attends to the "wicked". It is described as having the head of a crocodile, the midsection of a lion, and the hindquarters of a hippo.
• The Eight-Forked Serpent - A massive serpent with eight heads and eight tails. Its eyes are a deep red, and trees are said to grow along its back.
• The Elephant That Foretold the Birth of the Buddha - A white elephant with six tusks that appeared in a dream to, as its namesake suggests, foretell the birth of Buddha.
• The Eloi and the Morlocks - In the future, it is suggested that humans evolve (or devolve) into two distinct species. The Eloi are thin and fragile artisans, living on fruits. The Morlocks are blind laborers, living underground and rising to the surface on moonless nights to feed on the Eloi.
• Elves - Little is known about the actual appearance of elves, but they seem to be very small people. They are known for causing all sorts of mischief, such as tangling hair and stealing cattle.
• An Experimental Account of What Was Known, Seen, and Met by Mrs. Jane Lead in London in 1694 - A mysterious creature that lives in the world of Bliss. Allegedly, all sounds, sights, and smells to this creature are divine.
• The Fairies - Fairies are described as beautiful, tiny people that like to meddle in the affairs of humans.
• Fastitocalon - A massive whale that many sailors often mistake for an island.
• Fauna of Mirrors - It was believed that another world existed behind all mirrors, inhabited by a wide amount of unknown and strange creatures. Luckily, our worlds are now cut off from one another.
• Garuda - This beast is the mount of the god Vishnu. It is half man and half vulture, with a white face, deep red wings, and a golden body.
• The Gillygaloo
• The Goofang
• Goofus Bird
• The Gnomes - Sprites of the earth and hills, gnomes are often shown as bearded dwarves, often with rough features. They often watch over treasure as well.
• The Golem - This creature was created for the purpose of doing menial chores, and was controlled by a magic tablet placed under its tongue. Normally apathetic and unaware, if uncontrolled the creature enters a wild frenzy.
• The Griffon - The griffin is best described as an eagle with the body of a lion, and it is very strong.
• Haniel, Kafziel, Azriel, and Aniel - Sometimes referred to as angels, these four beasts also possessed four faces: a man's, a lion's, an ox's, and an eagle's. They also possessed four wings.
• Haokah, the Thunder God - He appears as a man with large antlers, using the wind to beat his thunder drum.
• Harpies - Creatures with a vulture's body, a woman's face, and an insatiable hunger. They are described as having filthy genitalia and a foul smell about them.
• The Heavenly Cock - Also known as the Bird of Dawn, this Chinese rooster has three legs and crows three times a day, to signal dawn, noon, and dusk.
• The Hide
• Hidebehind
• The Hippogriff- A creature invented by Ludovico Ariosto in the 16th century in his epic Orlando Furioso, based on an expression of Virgil's denoting the impossible, 'to cross griffons with horses'; the griffon [see above] being a cross between a lion and an eagle believed by Virgil's commentator Servius to loathe horses.
• Hochigan- A long-ago bushman who stole the animals' gift of speech. Borges links this to Descartes' idea that monkeys stay silent to avoid having to work and to a story by Argentinian author Lugones about a chimpanzee killed by the strain of learning to talk.
• Hsiao
• Hsing-T'ien
• Hua-Fish
• The Huallepen
• Hui
• Humbaba- A giant in the Assyrian epic 'Gilgamesh' that guards muontain cedars, he is scaly, with vulture claws, lion paws, bull's horns and a tail and penis with snakes' heads at the ends. Men-scorpions from the poem, which guard the mountain Mashu, are also mentioned.
• The Hundred-Heads
• The Hydra of Lerna
• Ichthyocentaurs
• Jewish Demons
• The Jinn
• The Kami
• the Kilkenny Cats - These cats often fight with each other, devouring everything but the other's tail.
• A King of Fire and his Steed
• Kraken
• Kujata
• The Lamed Wufniks
• The Lamias
• Laudatores Temporis Acti
• The Lemures
• The Leveller
• Lilith
• The Lunar Hare
• The Mandrake
• The Manticore
• The Mermecolion
• The Minotaur
• The Monkey of the Inkpot
• The Monster Acheron
• The Mother of Tortoises
• Musical Serpent
• The Nagas
• The Nasnas
• The Norns
• The Nymphs
• The Odradek
• An Offspring of Leviathan
• Ocean Men
• One-Eyed Beings
• The Ouroboros
• The Panther
• The Pelican
• The Peryton
• The Phoenix
• Ping Feng
• Pinnacle Grouse
• The Pygmies
• Queer Arm People
• The Rain Bird
• The Remora
• Roperite
• The Rukh
• The Salamander
• The Satyrs
• Scylla
• The Sea Horse
• The Shaggy Beast of La Ferte-Bernard
• The Simurgh
• Sirens
• The Sow Harnessed with Chains and other Argentine Fauna
• The Sphinx
• The Squonk
• The Strong Toad
• Swedenborg's Angels
• Swedenborg's Devils
• The Sylphs
• Talos
• The T'ao T'ieh
• Teakettler
• Thermal Beings-
• Ti-chiang
• The Tigers of Annam
• The Trolls- Due to the arrival of Christianity in Scandanavia, pagan giants were diminished into small, malevolent, stupid, mountain-dwelling eleves. The Elder Edda states that the giants would cross Bifrost, a great rainbow, at the Twilight of the Gods, breaking it with their weight and so destroying the world. Trolls figure in Ibsen's Peer Gynt as 'nationalist' creatures that view their squalour as luxury and suggest putting out Peer Gynt's eyes so he can avoid seeing the ugliness he is confronted with.
• Two Metaphysical Beings
• The Unicorn
• The Unicorn of China
• Upland Trout
• The Valkyries
• The Western Dragon
• Youwarkee- The half-bird half-woman heroine of the 1751 novel Peter Wilkins by Robert Paltock, who is one of the winged glumms that inhabit an Antarctic island. Peter Wilkins is a shipwrecked sailor who marries her and converts them to Christianity.
• The Zaratan

A Bao A Qu is a Malayan legend described in Jorge Luis Borges 1967 Book of Imaginary Beings. ... (Devanagari , Pali: Nibbāna निब्बान -- Chinese: 涅槃; Pinyin: nièpán, Japanese: nehan, Thai: Nibpan นิพพาน ), is a Sanskrit word from India that literally means extinction (as in a candle flame) and/or extinguishing (i. ... This article is about the mythical creature. ... The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket is Edgar Allan Poes only complete novel, published in 1838. ... An illustration of an axehandle hound. ... Bahamut (Arabic: ‎ BahamÅ«t) is a giant omnipotent being in Arabian mythology. ... The Banshee (IPA: ) is a creature in Irish mythology and known as Bean Nighe in Scottish mythology, the word being derived from the Old Irish ben síde, modern Irish bean sídhe or bean sí, fairy woman (bean, woman, and sidhe, being the tuiseal ginideach or possessive case of... Behemoth and Leviathan, an engraving by William Blake For other uses, see Behemoth (disambiguation). ... Carbuncle, originally spelt carbunkel, is the term given to a mythical beast reportedly sighted in the Americas by early Spanish conquistadors. ... The Centaur is a 1963 novel by John Updike, concerning George Caldwell, a 1940s schoolteacher who yearns to find some meaning in his life. ... Cerberus - Watercolour by William Blake In Greek mythology, Cerberus or Kerberos (Greek Κέρβερος, Kerberos, demon of the pit), was the hound of Hades—a monstrous three-headed dog (sometimes said to have 50 or 100 heads) with a snake for a tail and serpentine mane. ... The Cheshire cat as John Tenniel envisioned it in the 1866 publication The Cheshire Cat is a fictional cat appearing in Lewis Carrolls Alice in Wonderland. ... In Greek mythology, the Chimera (Greek Χίμαιρα (Chímaira); Latin Chimaera) is a monstrous creature made of the parts of multiple animals. ... The Chinese dragon, or Lóng (also spelled Loong,Long or Lung) in Chinese, is a mythical Chinese creature that also appears in other East Asian cultures, and is also sometimes called the Oriental (or Eastern) dragon in the West. ... nine-tailed fox, from the Qing edition of the Shan Hai Jing Huli jing (狐狸精 hÇ”lijÄ«ng) in Chinese mythology are fox spirits that are akin to European faeries or to the Japanese yōkai known as kitsune. ... Fenghuang sculpture, Nanning city, Guangxi, China. ... The Chonchon, which is a creature of the Mapuche mythology and later also it presents in the Chilean folk myth and in some zones of Argentina, has the shape of a human head; its ears, which are extremely large, serve as wings for its flight on moonless nights. ... A (help· info) is the ghostly double of a living person. ... Media:Example. ... For alternate meanings, see Lightning (disambiguation). ... The Fairies is an Australian television show based on two fairies: Harmony and Rhapsody. ... Fastitocalon is a poem by J.R.R. Tolkien about a beast of the same name. ... See the short story The Tain by British author China Mieville, now available in the collection Looking for Jake (2005), originally published as a limited edition novella (2002). ... Garuda according to Ida Made Tlaga, an 19th century Balinese artist. ... Vishnu (IAST , Devanagari , with honorific Shri Vishnu; , ), (also frequently referred to as Narayana) is the most popularly worshipped form of God in Hinduism [1]. Within the Vaishnava tradition he is viewed as the Ultimate Reality or Supreme God (similarly to Shiva within Shaivism). ... The Golem is a novel written by Gustav Meyrink in 1914. ... Griffon is a roller coaster, announced on August 23, 2006, under construction at Busch Gardens Europe. ... In Greek mythology, Harpies (robbers) were first beautiful winged women: Hesiod (Theogony) calls them as two lovely-haired creatures. ... A hidebehind is a folkloric creature that a human may spot in the corner of their eye, but disappears upon further inspection. ... Ruggiero Rescuing Angelica by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres. ... Hsiao is a Japanese surname. ... Look up Hui in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... In Akkadian mythology Humbaba (Assyrian spelling) or Huwawa (Babylonian) was a monstrous giant who was also the guardian of the Cedar Forest where the gods lived. ... The term Kilkenny Cat refers to anyone who is a tenacious fighter. ... Pen and wash drawing by malacologist Pierre Denys de Montfort, 1801, from the descriptions of French sailors reportedly attacked by such a creature off the coast of Angola. ... Categories: Possible copyright violations ... The Tzadikim Nistarim or Lamed Vav Tzadikim referrs to 36 Righteous (or Saintly) people, a notion rooted within the more mystical dimensions of Judaism. ... It has been suggested that Lilith (Qliphoth) be merged into this article or section. ... The Mandrake, by Niccolò Machiavelli (written between 1512 and 1520 and first printed in 1524) is an acclaimed satirical play on the corruption of Italian society written whilst Machiavelli was in exile having plotted against the Medici. ... The Manticore is the second novel in Robertson Davies Deptford Trilogy. ... The Minotaur is a novel by British writer Ruth Rendell, written under the pseudonym Barbara Vine. ... The Norns spin the threads of fate at the foot of Yggdrasil, the tree of the world. ... For other uses of nymph see Nymph (disambiguation). ... An image drawn in 1478 by one Theodoros Pelecanos in an alchemical tract entitled Synosius. ... The phoenix from the Aberdeen Bestiary. ... Image from a Greek chalice depicting a satyr with a tail and erect penis, Euphronios, 510–500 BC, Athens In Greek mythology, satyrs (in Greek, Σάτυροι — Sátyroi) are young humans, possibly with horse ears, that roamed the woods and mountains, and were the companions of Pan and Dionysus. ... In Greek mythology, Scylla, or Skylla (Greek Σκύλλα) was a name shared by two characters, a female sea monster and a princess. ... In Greek mythology, the Sirens or Seirenes (Greek Σειρῆνας) were sea nymphs who lived on an island called Sirenum scopuli which was surrounded by cliffs and rocks. ... Winged Talos armed with a stone. ... Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... The Poetic Edda or Elder Edda is a term applied to two things. ... In Norse Mythology, Bifrost Bridge is the bridge leading from the realm of the mortals Midgård to the realm of the gods Asgård, which the gods travel daily to hold their councils under the shade of the tree Yggdrasil. ... Categories: Possible copyright violations ... Henrik Johan Ibsen (March 20, 1828–May 23, 1906) was an extremely influential Norwegian playwright who was largely responsible for the rise of the modern realistic drama. ... Peer Gynt is a play by the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. ... Peer Gynt is a play by the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. ... The Unicorn is the sophmore album of Irish folk music group The Irish Rovers. ...

External links

• Fantastic Zoology A graphical interpretation of the book