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[00:00] Throughout history, people have believed in or told stories about fantastical creatures to teach lessons, explain the unknown, or entertain others. Many of these stories originated from accounts by travelers, interpretations of discovered animal bones, or representations of remarkable natural events. But over time, these creatures transitioned from stories to mythological staples embraced by everyday people, some of which are still shared today. Learn more about the origins of unicorns, dragons, and mermaids on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. This episode is sponsored by fastgrowingtrees.com. Spring is here, which means it's time to plant and landscape. If you want to make things easier on yourself, check out fastgrowingtrees.com. FastGrowing Trees is America's largest and most trusted online nursery, with thousands of trees and plants and over 2 million happy customers. 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Stock up now at drippdrop.com and use promo code EVERYTHING. Let's start the episode right off with one of the most iconic and beloved legendary creatures, the unicorn. Unicorns are usually depicted as stunning white horses with a spiral horn sticking out of their foreheads. The earliest historical connotation to unicorns may date back to the Indus Valley civilization between 3000 and 1300 BC. The connection remains uncertain as certain seals used by elites depict an animal resembling a horse with a single horn, although some scholars question whether this truly represents a unicorn. Though the animal depicted on clay seals appears to be a unicorn, there is debate over whether it actually represents the ancient Aurex. Whenever it is, it appeared on many elite and merchant seals, suggesting that it was culturally very important. The earliest written evidence of what we would consider a unicorn comes from the ancient Greeks in the 4th century BC. This account comes from the writer Tezas in his book Indica, which means India. In the book, he describes seeing wild horses of various colors running swiftly and with large horns. Despite the description, he was probably referring to a type of antelope, which he later describes in a similar way. The etymology of the word unicorn comes from Pliny the Elder, a Roman author in the 1st century. Pliny is best known for writing the Naturalis Historica, which is one of the world's earliest and largest encyclopedias. In this work, he compiled knowledge of botany, zoology, medicine, and other fields, making him one of the main scientific authorities for that period, despite his questionable accuracy. In the Naturalis Historica, Pliny writes about unicorns, which he calls monokeros, or one horn. The word he used to describe a unicorn are very different from how we view the creatures today, with Pliny stating that the creature had the head of a stag, tail of a boar, feet of an elephant, and the rest of the body looking like a horse, with of course one horn. Pliny is also credited with describing the personality traits of unicorns. Pliny portrays the creature as ferocious, a trait that made it almost impossible for anyone to catch. The unicorn was believed to live in India and became part of the Roman world's legend about that faraway region. Mentions of unicorns were also found in early Christian writings. This version of the unicorn more closely resembles the creature that we perceive it as today. Unicorns in Christianity can be traced back to a misinterpretation. The Hebrew word for ox was read as monocharos or unicorn in Greek. A Greek Christian text published in the second century, known as the Physiologist, helped formulate the modern perception and mythos behind the unicorn. In this work, the idea of the unicorn as a fierce and powerful creature was established, and it was added that the animal could be calmed by a maiden. This presented the creature as being more loving and docile to beings that they deemed to be pure. The idea of purity could manifest in several ways. The horn was considered to purify water, recalling the idea of holy water purifying sin. The characteristic led to the unicorn being associated with Jesus himself with unicorns often depicted alongside him in paintings. The perception of docility and grace was further perpetuated in medieval Europe. Unicorns were also put in tales of chivalry, where heroes and their lovers were compared with virgins and unicorns. During the Renaissance, unicorns symbolized loyalty, purity, and chastity. Belief in real unicorns lasted until the 18th century, with much of their mythology continuing to revolve around them as untamable pure creatures. They were portrayed as powerful beings and appeared in political spaces. As exploration around the world expanded and unicorns were never found, scientific consensus confirmed their non-existence. Still, unicorns' mythology and popularity persists until this day. Another well-known fantasy creature seen in numerous cultures is the dragon. It remains uncertain why so many cultures imagined large, scaly lizard creatures, though each culture developed their own unique characteristics and mythologies for their variation of the dragon. Because so many civilizations held beliefs about dragons, the idea that these creatures once existed persists among some people today. However, scientific explanations offer some insight into how dragon legends may have originated. The most common explanation for why so many cultures believed in dragons is the presence of dinosaur fossils. In ancient times, people likely stumbled across the bones of a giant lizard-like creature with skulls that resembled their idea of dragons. The origin of dragon myths may also have stemmed from impactful events, such as volcanic eruptions, comets or just general violence, which sparked stories about powerful creatures. Dragon-like creatures were first popularized in the Middle East and Mesopotamia. The most prominent dragon imagery was the Mushusu. The Mushusu was considered to be a strong protector if the creature was on your side, and could be a considerable foe if it wasn't. It was described as resembling a snake with a long tongue, scales and a venomous serpent-like head. However, it deviated from snakes in that the creature was described as having four legs. Mushusu was depicted in religious contexts often alongside the god Marduk, who was the god of justice and the supreme patron deity of Babylon. Because Mushusu is often depicted alongside Marduk, it's thought that Mesopotamian culture viewed the creature as a protector. Dragons and dragon-like creatures appeared throughout Persian history as well. Known as the Asdaha, the creature was said to live on land, in the air or the sea, have wings, and spewed fire from their mouths. Dragons have also been depicted in Chinese culture and mythology for the past 4,000 years. The Chinese viewed dragons positively, believing that they brought luck and fortune to the region and symbolized legitimacy and leadership. Dragon bones in Chinese medical texts were perceived as natural objects that could cure various ailments. Scientists and historians are unsure of what these bones actually were, but the most likely explanation is that they were using fossilized remains of other creatures. The theory about the dragon bones was given credence following the evacuation of a dragon bone collection site in Beijing. When archaeologists reached the site, they found that the bones present belonged to homo erectus, not dragons. In the case of China, it is widely believed that the dragon tails were inspired by fossilized dinosaur bones. Fossils resembling traditional Chinese dragons have been found on the continent supporting this theory. In Europe, they also had stories that involved dragons. Dragon-adjacent creatures were mentioned in European culture from ancient Greek and Roman times. The story of St. George slaying a dragon is one that developed over time beginning around the 9th to 11th centuries. St. George himself died in the year 303. One of the best examples of the belief in dragons in Europe comes from Austria in the 13th century. The story behind this revolved around the city of Klangenfurt. In the tale, knights defeated a dragon that lived near Klangenfurt. This dragon had the head of a wolf, the tail of a snake, and the body of a bird. The story seemed credible when townspeople discovered a giant skull near the city. The uncovering of the massive skull seemed to confirm the local dragon myth. This subsequently influenced the depiction of the creature leading to statues that align more closely with contemporary representations of dragons. The skull was later examined and found to belong to the extinct woolly rhinoceros. But it served to perpetuate the existence of dragons for centuries. Not to be left out, the Americas also had dragon-related creatures. The Mayan, Aztec and Toltec civilizations all believed that a feathered serpent god created the world. Though this is fundamentally different from the previous dragons mentioned, it's interesting that these societies, though completely separate from the rest of the world, also believed in a dragon-like creature. The final mythical creature I'll be covering today is the mermaid. Mermaids are described as human-fish hybrids, often depicted with a human torso and a fish tail. The earliest recorded fish-human-hybrid creature appeared around 5000 BC., once again in Babylonian mythology. This was depicted in the god Oannes, who had the body of both man and fish. The earliest actual mermaid story comes from Assyria. The Assyrian deity was called Adergatus, a goddess of fertility and protector of the people. In the myth, Adergatus fell in love and married a shepherd, however, she was accidentally responsible for causing his death. In her sorrow, Adergatus fled to a lake to either reunite himself with him through drowning or to take the form of a fish to forget about him. However, Adergatus was so beautiful that she was unable to complete either task. Instead, she was transformed into having a fish-like tail from the waist down. Much of our modern mythology about mermaids comes from the ancient Greeks, especially from creatures that they called sirens. Part of the mythology behind the siren is that they lured men to their death through their voices. This is typically told as a warning to sailors and other people to avoid temptation. Though modern sirens are depicted similarly to mermaids, having the same half-fish, half-human figure, their original form looked far different. In Greek mythology, they were portrayed as half-human, half-bird creatures. Modern accounts paint them as gorgeous, alluring half-women. How the mythology behind sirens and mermaids mixed together isn't totally certain, but it's likely that the tales were mixed and combined with other stories of sea creatures over the years. The combination of different alluring female creatures at sea likely led to a change in how we viewed sirens' physical descriptions. Irish stories of mermaid-like creatures likely helped shape the current mythology surrounding them. The Irish told stories of sea fairies who lived in the water, though the male sea fairies were depicted far differently from our version of mermaids, the female counterpart is quite similar. The female sea fairies are portrayed as beautiful women with fish-tails. However, the female sea fairies share some commonality with sirens, as they were disgusted by their male counterparts and so used their voices to lure human men to them. The Celtic islands likely helped shift perceptions of mermaids towards the positive. Another mare creature the Celtics had was a selkie, a seal that came out of the water to shed its skin and turn into a human on shore. Selkies were portrayed as docile and sweet, a sharp contrast from the previously murderous fish folk. Belief in human-fish hybrids was prevalent across cultures worldwide, and it would be impossible to name and describe every creature that contributed to the modern mythology. However, there were reasons as to why so many societies came to this conclusion. To start, sailors perpetuated the myth. Sailors who were at sea for long periods of time would look over the side of the ship and likely saw glimpses of creatures that could resemble humans in the water. Potentially drunk or just extremely lonely, they imagined the creature, which was likely a manatee or something else, swimming gracefully in the water. Between the murky waters, lonely feelings, and potential inebriation, they convinced themselves that the creature was a beautiful woman rather than just a sea mammal. Accounts of mermaids have come from notable sailors like Christopher Columbus and the pirate Blackbeard, but many people believe that they were probably just witnessing manatees or dolphins. For as long as humans have told stories, we've filled the edges of the known world with mythical creatures. Unicorns symbolized purity, dragons embodied power, and mermaids represented the mystery of the sea. None of these creatures may have actually existed, yet all have lived quite real lives in our imagination, shaping art, legends and belief across the centuries. And in the end, these creatures tell us less about the world we inhabited, and far more about the world that we wanted to live in. The executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The associate producers are Austin Oetken and Cameron Kieffer. Research and writing for this episode was provided by Olivia Ash. My big thanks go to everyone who supports the show over on Patreon. Your support helps make this podcast possible. And I also want to remind everyone about the community groups on Facebook and Discord. This is where everything happens that's outside of the show. As always, if you leave a review on any major podcast app or in the above community groups, you too can have it read in the show.