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A legendary creature is a type of supernatural entity that is described in folklore (including and ), and may be featured in historical accounts before modernity, but has not been scientifically shown to exist.
In the classical era, monstrous creatures such as the Cyclops and the Minotaur appear in tales for the protagonist to destroy. Other creatures, such as the unicorn, were claimed in accounts of natural history by various scholars of antiquity. Some legendary creatures are hybrid beasts or Chimeras.
Some legendary creatures originated in traditional mythology and were believed to be real creatures—for example, , and unicorns. Others are based on real encounters or garbled accounts of travellers' tales, such as the Vegetable Lamb of Tartary, a sheeplike animal which supposedly grew tethered to the earth.
Some classical era creatures, such as the (horse/human) centaur, chimaera, Triton and the Pegasus, are found also in Indian art. Similarly, appear as winged lions in Indian art and the Piasa Bird of North America.
In medieval art, animals, both real and mythical, played important roles. These included decorative forms as in medieval jewellery, sometimes with their limbs intricately interlaced. Animal forms were used to add humor or majesty to objects. In Christian art, animals carried symbolic meanings, where for example the lamb symbolized Christ, a dove indicated the Holy Spirit, and the classical griffin represented a guardian of the dead. Medieval bestiaries included animals regardless of biological reality; the basilisk represented the devil, while the manticore symbolised temptation.
Another common legendary creature that served allegorical functions within the Middle Ages was the dragon. Dragons were identified with serpents, though their attributes were greatly intensified. The dragon was supposed to have been larger than all other animals. It was believed that the dragon had no harmful poison but was able to slay anything it embraced without any need for venom. Biblical scriptures speak of the dragon in reference to the devil, and they were used to denote sin in general during the Middle Ages. Dragons were said to have dwelled in places like Ethiopia and India, based on the idea that there was always heat present in these locations.
Physical detail was not the central focus of the artists depicting such animals, and medieval bestiaries were not conceived as biological categorizations. Creatures like the unicorn and griffin were not categorized in a separate "mythological" section in medieval bestiaries,Flores, Nona C., "The Mirror of Nature Distorted: The Medieval Artist's Dilemma in Depicting Animals". In The Medieval World of Nature. New York: Garland. 1993. as the symbolic implications were of primary importance. Animals we know to have existed were still presented with a fantastical approach. It seems the religious and moral implications of animals were far more significant than matching a physical likeness in these renderings. Nona C. Flores explains, "By the tenth century, artists were increasingly bound by allegorical interpretation, and abandoned naturalistic depictions."
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