Most of the creatures in modern fantasy are older than the books they appear in. The dragon on a paperback cover has ancestors in Babylonian myth and medieval bestiaries. The kelpie in a cozy fantasy comes from Scottish lochs. Knowing where a creature comes from is the quickest way to use it well, because the old stories already tell you what it wants, what it fears and why people told tales about it.

This list gathers 60 creatures, grouped by kind. Each has a one-line origin and a note on what it brings to a story. It is not exhaustive (no list of the world’s monsters could be), but it covers the creatures readers meet most often and a good number they should meet more.

For peoples rather than beasts, such as elves, dwarves and orcs, see our separate guide to fantasy races.

Dragons and serpents

  1. Dragon. Great reptiles, winged or wingless, appear in myths across Europe and Asia. European dragons, from the Greek drakōn, are usually hoarders and destroyers to be slain; Chinese lóng are wise, water-linked and lucky. Most fantasy dragons borrow from both. Naming one? Try our dragon name generator.
  2. Wyvern. A two-legged dragon with wings for forelimbs, mainly a creature of English heraldry. Writers use it as the dragon’s smaller, more animal cousin.
  3. Wyrm. From Old English wyrm, “serpent”. A limbless or nearly limbless dragon, like the one that kills Beowulf.
  4. Basilisk. In Pliny the Elder’s Natural History (first century), a small serpent whose glance and breath kill. Later writers made it larger and gave it a crown. A good monster for stories about looking.
  5. Cockatrice. A medieval relative of the basilisk, hatched by a toad from a cockerel’s egg. Half bird, half serpent, deadly to look upon.
  6. Hydra. The many-headed water serpent of Lerna that Heracles fought. Cut off one head and two grow back, which makes it the perfect image of a problem that worsens when attacked.
  7. Jörmungandr. The Midgard Serpent of Norse myth, so long it encircles the world and bites its own tail. Its release signals Ragnarök.
  8. Leviathan. The sea monster of the Hebrew Bible, from the Book of Job and the Psalms. Later a byword for anything vast and untameable.
  9. Naga. Serpent beings of Hindu and Buddhist tradition, often semi-divine guardians of water and treasure, sometimes half human.
  10. Amphisbaena. A serpent with a head at each end, from Greek and Roman writers. A fine creature for a world that likes riddles.

Winged beasts and birds

  1. Griffin. Lion’s body, eagle’s head and wings. Known from ancient Near Eastern and Greek art, where griffins guard gold. Symbol of vigilance and nobility.
  2. Hippogriff. Half griffin, half horse. Popularised by Ludovico Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso (1516), where it was meant to seem almost impossible, since griffins hate horses.
  3. Pegasus. The winged horse of Greek myth, born from Medusa’s blood and tamed by Bellerophon. In fantasy the name covers any winged horse.
  4. Phoenix. A bird that dies in flame and is reborn from its ashes, described by Herodotus and many later writers. The obvious symbol of renewal, which is exactly why it rewards a twist.
  5. Roc. The giant bird of Arabic and Persian tales that can carry off elephants. Sinbad meets one in One Thousand and One Nights.
  6. Simurgh. A wise, benevolent bird of Persian myth that raises the hero Zal in the Shahnameh. Older and kinder than the roc.
  7. Harpy. In Greek myth, winged spirits who snatch things away, later imagined as birds with women’s faces. Good for stories about theft and punishment.
  8. Thunderbird. A great supernatural bird in the traditions of many Indigenous peoples of North America, whose wingbeats make thunder. A living sacred figure, so treat it with the respect you would give any religion’s beings rather than as a generic monster.
  9. Fenghuang. The Chinese “phoenix”, a bird of harmony and virtue that appears in times of peace. Paired with the dragon as a symbol of empress and emperor.

Hybrids and monsters of the classical world

  1. Chimera. Lion, goat and serpent in one fire-breathing body, killed by Bellerophon. The word now means any impossible combination.
  2. Manticore. A Persian man-eater described by the Greek writer Ctesias: a lion’s body, a human face, and a tail that shoots spines. A good apex predator for a desert.
  3. Sphinx. The Egyptian sphinx is a guardian with a pharaoh’s head; the Greek sphinx is a winged woman-lion who asks riddles and devours those who fail.
  4. Minotaur. Half man, half bull, kept in the Labyrinth of Crete. A monster that is also a prisoner, which writers have used to great effect.
  5. Centaur. Half human, half horse, from Greek myth. Usually wild and violent, with Chiron as the famous wise exception.
  6. Cerberus. The multi-headed hound guarding the underworld. Fantasy borrows it for any beast set to watch a threshold.
  7. Gorgon. Medusa and her sisters, whose gaze turns people to stone. Medusa was the only mortal one.
  8. Kraken. A colossal sea monster of Scandinavian sailors’ tales, probably inspired by sightings of giant squid.

Water spirits

  1. Kelpie. A shape-shifting water horse of Scottish lochs. It lets travellers mount, then drags them under. Its skin is sticky, so riders cannot let go.
  2. Nuckelavee. An Orkney horror: a skinless horse with a rider fused to its back, bringer of plague and blight. One of the most frightening creatures in British folklore and almost unused in fiction.
  3. Selkie. Seals who can shed their skins and walk as humans, from the Northern Isles of Scotland and Ireland. Their stories are about stolen skins and divided homes.
  4. Mermaid / merfolk. Half-human, half-fish people of the sea, found in many cultures. Older tales make them dangerous; Hans Christian Andersen’s 1837 story made them tragic.
  5. Rusalka. In Slavic folklore, the restless spirit of a drowned young woman who haunts rivers and lures people in.
  6. Kappa. A Japanese river creature with a water-filled dish on its head. Polite to a fault: bow to it, it bows back, spills the water and loses its strength.
  7. Bunyip. A creature said to lurk in Australian billabongs and swamps, from Aboriginal Australian traditions. Accounts of its shape differ widely.
  8. Taniwha. In Māori tradition, powerful beings of rivers, the sea and caves, sometimes protectors of a people and sometimes dangerous.

Shape-shifters and tricksters

  1. Kitsune. Japanese fox spirits that grow wiser and gain more tails with age, up to nine. They may be loyal guardians or seductive tricksters.
  2. Tanuki. The Japanese raccoon dog of folklore, a cheerful shape-shifter and prankster.
  3. Werewolf. A human who becomes a wolf, from European folklore and trial records. Fantasy uses it for the beast inside.
  4. Skin-walker. From Navajo tradition. This is a living belief that many Navajo people regard as not to be discussed lightly, and writers outside the culture are widely asked not to use it. Listed here so you know why to leave it alone.
  5. Púca. An Irish shape-shifter, often a dark horse or goat, that can bring good or bad luck. Shakespeare’s Puck is a distant cousin.

The fair folk and household spirits

  1. Brownie. A Scottish house spirit who does chores at night in return for small offerings, and leaves if given clothes.
  2. Boggart. A mischievous or malevolent house spirit of northern England. Naming it is said to make it worse.
  3. Redcap. A murderous goblin of the Scottish Borders who dyes his cap in the blood of travellers.
  4. Banshee. From the Irish bean sí, “woman of the fairy mound”, whose wail foretells a death in certain families.
  5. Domovoi. The Slavic household spirit who lives behind the stove and must be kept happy, or the household suffers.
  6. Leshy. The Slavic lord of the forest, who leads travellers astray and can be bargained with.
  7. Will-o’-the-wisp. Ghostly lights over marshes that lead travellers off the path, from English and wider European folklore. Probably marsh gas.
  8. Changeling. A fairy child left in place of a stolen human baby. One of the darkest ideas in European folklore, and a powerful one for stories about belonging.

Giants, trolls and the restless dead

  1. Troll. From Scandinavian folklore, large, slow, often stupid and sometimes turned to stone by daylight. Tolkien took the stone detail.
  2. Ogre. A man-eating giant of fairy tales, a word popularised by Charles Perrault’s fairy tales of 1697.
  3. Jötunn. The giants of Norse myth, rivals and kin of the gods, linked to frost, fire and the wild.
  4. Cyclops. One-eyed giants of Greek myth, from the smiths of the gods to Polyphemus, who traps Odysseus.
  5. Golem. In Jewish folklore, a figure of clay brought to life, most famously by Rabbi Judah Loew of Prague. A servant that may turn on its maker.
  6. Draugr. The walking dead of Norse sagas: swollen, strong and guarding their grave goods. Far more physical than a ghost.
  7. Ghoul. From the Arabic ghūl, a desert demon that eats the dead and lures travellers. Adopted into European horror in the 18th century.
  8. Wraith. A Scots word for a ghost or apparition. Tolkien’s Ringwraiths made it mean something hollowed out by power.
  9. Lich. From Old English līc, “corpse”. Modern fantasy, and especially Dungeons & Dragons, made it an undead sorcerer who has hidden their soul to escape death.

Gentle and holy beasts

  1. Unicorn. A horse (or goat-like beast) with a single horn, described by Greek writers as a real animal of India. In medieval Europe a symbol of purity that only a maiden could tame.
  2. Qilin. A hooved chimerical creature of Chinese myth, often with scales and a single horn, that appears at the birth or death of a great ruler and harms no living thing.
  3. Baku. A Japanese creature, partly derived from Chinese myth, that eats nightmares. A good companion for any story set in dreams.

How to use folklore creatures well

Keep the rule that makes the creature. A kelpie’s sticky hide, a kappa’s water dish, a vampire’s invitation. These rules are what made the stories memorable, and they give your hero a way to win that is not just a bigger sword.

Ask what the creature means. Folklore creatures usually stand for something people feared: drowning, a lost child, a winter famine. If you know what your creature means, you know which scenes it belongs in. Our worldbuilding guide shows how to tie creatures to the land they live in.

Respect living traditions. Some creatures on lists like this come from religions and cultures that are practised today. The thunderbird and the skin-walker are examples. Read about them from people within those cultures before you use them, and be prepared to choose something else.

Do not explain everything. A creature glimpsed is more frightening than one described in full. The best monster in The Book of Lost Things is barely seen at all. See our guide to the book.

Frequently asked questions

What is the most popular fantasy creature? The dragon, by a long way. It appears in the myths of almost every continent and dominates fantasy fiction, film and games.

What is the difference between a mythical creature and a fantasy creature? Mythical creatures come from myth and folklore: stories people told before modern fantasy existed. Fantasy creatures include those plus beings invented by authors, such as Tolkien’s Balrogs or the Shrike in Dan Simmons’s Hyperion. Most fantasy creatures have mythical ancestors.

What are some rare or unusual fantasy creatures? The nuckelavee (Orkney), the simurgh (Persia), the baku (Japan), the amphisbaena (Greece and Rome) and the draugr (Scandinavia) all appear far less often in fiction than their folklore deserves.

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