If a person is neither afraid of the darkness and the monsters under the bed, nor of the jungle and the mud at the bottom of the lake, then the person may never have had a childhood.
This is a sentence in the preface to the "Little Naturalist's Illustrated Catalogue of Mysterious Animals".
What scary legends did you hear in your childhood? When I was a child, the most I heard about demons and ghosts, and the one I was most afraid of was "ghosts", and I have been afraid until now.
When you were a child, people said you couldn't whistle at night; when someone tapped you on the shoulder at night, you couldn't turn back; when you got lost at night because the ghost hit the wall; the fox was human; the weasel caught your chicken, you had to endure, the weasel can't be offended...
These are all scary legends, and when I was a child, I believed in them, which led to the fact that I am now 30+ and I still feel scared at night.
Of course, in addition to these scary legends, there are also many beautiful legends. For example, there are fairies in the sky, Chang'e on the moon, stove fairies in the kitchen, a bridge made of magpies in the Milky Way, and dragons guarding us in the well in the village...
In addition to these word-of-mouth legends, film and television dramas also have great credit, such as nine-tailed foxes, cats with nine lives, dragons and so on.
When I grew up, I already knew that those were fake. But there will still be fear for the legend of fear, and the beautiful legend will still choose to believe.
The world of childhood was always full of fear and wonder, and the same was true of ancient societies that were seen as "human childhoods." Along with the ancients are gods and demons, mythical mysterious animals and terrifying monsters.
The legends we hear now are basically from ancient times. It may be because people at that time needed this "magical power", or to bring human awe, or to bring human hope. In fact, I think this is very good, there is awe and there is magic and beauty.
So, every time Xiao Xun asked me if I really had a dragon, I would say: Maybe, oh, it may hover above the nine heavens and guard us. I am willing to pass on these good and beautiful fairy tales forever.
In fact, not only we in China have a lot of transmission about "mysterious forces", but also abroad. Recently, I started a book called "The Mysterious Animal Atlas of the Little Naturalist", which introduces the secrets of these animals. For example, what do they eat? What does it look like? Where is life? And can we find the real ones from a scientific point of view?
In fact, there are many mysterious animals in myths and legends, if you really want to talk about it, you may not be able to finish a book, this book only contains 21 common mysterious animals, both domestic and foreign, including vampires, unicorns, Loch Ness monsters, dragons and so on. There are also some that we are not so familiar with, but also very magical, such as the scaffold monster, the Shamir worm, the snowman and so on.
Let me choose a few of the more interesting animals to briefly talk about:
1. Plant sheep
The ancient Greeks referred to the northern region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea as the "borders of the distant earth" and "wild wastelands", and they believed that there were months of cold winters, where people would hibernate, and some people would turn into wolves. And there are also many magical "plants" growing there, including the plant sheep.
Legend has it that the plant sheep feeds on the surrounding grass, its "fruit" looks like a lamb, the plant sheep will "bleed", has no muscles, and has something hair-like on the head, like "horns", and it is also said that the stem of the plant sheep grows right at its navel.
Not only European travelers have recorded the stories of these "little lambs" growing out of the ground, but also in the history books of China's Tang Dynasty, saying that they were found in the Country of Fuling, which is now the Mediterranean coast of West Asia.
No one ever suspected that these records were false, and until the end of the 18th century, there were still people looking for plant sheep, and even scientists classified "plant sheep" into ferns.
However, many researchers later believed that the plant sheep was actually cotton. After all, at that time in Europe, cotton was still a little-known plant.
So, do you believe in the existence of plant sheep? Or do you think that the plant sheep is actually cotton?
2. Long-haired fish
Have you ever seen a long-haired fish? In the autumn of 1924, on the coast of South Africa, a huge animal with white fur and an elephant's long nose was seen, and this animal fought killer whales in the sea for 3 hours.
Later, after lying on the shore for several days, the animal's carcass was swept away by the waves. According to local passers-by, the 15-meter-long corpse was covered with a layer of long white hairs, and its tail was similar to that of a lobster, but it had no head and only a long nose like an elephant.
To date, the Indian Ocean is the only place on Earth where people claim to have seen longhair fish.
However, most scientists later believed that the corpse was actually just a whale after death, the body began to decay, the body tissue and bone separated, the bone sank to the bottom of the body, fat and skin floated on the top, the connective tissue gradually decomposed, into a long and white fiber, which looked very similar to wool, and was called "a new species that had never been seen" by the locals.
So, do you agree with this explanation from scientists? Or do you think the ocean is so big, maybe there will be this magical creature in the depths of some sea?
3. Dragons
Dragons, this is a mysterious animal that each of our Chinese is familiar with. Since ancient times, the dragon has been our Chinese totem. Since we are so familiar with each other, and everyone has a clear understanding of the story and legend of the dragon, why should I take it out separately?
This is because it turns out that dragons do not only exist in Chinese legends, but also have legends about dragons in many parts of the world.
In ancient times, many people worshipped gods that could be transformed into dragon forms, such as the feathered serpent god in the Aztec civilization, the sun god Atum in ancient Egypt, the Serapis in ancient Greece, and so on. In many cultures, there are also many dragon elements, such as the dragon robes of ancient Chinese emperors, the walls of Bhutanese palaces, the dragon flags of the Roman Empire, and the shields and swords of European knights.
However, the oldest image of a dragon in the world comes from China, dating back 6,000 years.
Although many countries around the world have dragon legends, there is a difference between Chinese dragons and Western dragons:
Dragons in the West are mostly bad people and have always been an image that threatens the survival of mankind; chinese dragons are representatives of kindness and benevolence, and the people are not afraid of dragons, but worship dragons as gods.
The western dragon flew by wings; the Chinese dragon flew by magic.
Western dragons are carnivores, and some dragons devour humans; Chinese dragons are more like gods and goddesses, with little need to eat.
Is it a coincidence that so many countries around the world have imagined dragons? Some experts believe that human belief in dragons reflects the most primitive and deepest fear of human beings - snakes.
So, would you believe that there are dragons in this world? One day in the future, will we also dig up fossils of dragons?
In fact, I prefer to believe that our dragon has been guarding us above the Nine Heavens.
This kind of interesting mysterious animal, there are many more in the "Little Naturalist's Mysterious Animal Atlas", my original intention in starting this book was to let Xiao Xun understand these terrible and cute legends, but I did not expect that after he read it, he was afraid to go to the toilet.
I remembered the sentence on the cover again: If a person is neither afraid of the darkness and the monsters under the bed, nor of the jungle and the mud at the bottom of the lake, then the person may never have had a childhood.
Everyone grew up this way, in fact, it is very good, so that it is like a childhood worth remembering. There is faith, awe, fear, beauty and goodness in these stories, which are the most instinctive and primitive imaginations of human beings for the unknown. Although the last link of the mysterious animals introduced in the book is the "latest scientific discovery", it seems that the persuasiveness is not high, and Xiao Xun did not believe it after reading it, nor did I believe it.
Many times, myths and legends do not actually need us to find the truth, we only need to use such a book, in a picture and textual way to take children to understand, explore and think together, but also let children play an endless imagination, these things themselves are a very interesting thing.
Let us and our children carry on the stories together with the faith and reverence of myths and legends.