The map of Mythical Creatures of Europe represents information on 213 mythical creatures of
68 types that are described in folk-lore of European countries. It is compiled from data collected
by MSc students in Cartography at Vilnius University in Lithuania in 2011, totalling
approximately 1200 man hours. Among numerous sources of information on mythical
creatures, this map and database are unique as they contain geographic references and
information on the living environment of so many creatures. Only the most reliable
information has been included in the informative and visually attractive wall map. The
project included planning, analysis of feasibility, data collection, veriﬁcation, generalisation
and ﬁltering, classiﬁcation of information on mythical creatures, building the GIS database,
analysis of data, and cartographic visualisation. The map described in this paper was
ﬁnalised in 2012 and designed with special focus on attractiveness for the user. The
reference scale of the printed map is 1:7,200,000 and contains an inset of Greece at scale
1:4,000,000. The size of the map image is 62.5

× 83 cm. It is complemented by textual

descriptions of each of 213 creatures. The relational database and exhaustive project
documentation are available for further updates and development.

Keywords: mythical creatures; supernatural creatures; legendary beasts; mythology; map;
cartography; Europe

Introduction

Supernatural creatures have existed within in folklore of all countries since ancient times. Most of
them are believed to reside in particular countries, areas or landscape habitats, thus forming
diverse ‘ecological’ communities that could be called mythobiocenoses. These can potentially
be analyzed geographically. As there are so many kinds of mythical creatures and so various
beliefs concerning their shape, character and habits, most of the reliable information sources
are dedicated to just one or several types of such beings, their deﬁnitions, cultural roots and
related folklore. The authors have not found references to publications devoted to a geographic
inventory or distribution analysis of mythical creatures in any European country or a region.
On the other hand, most of primary sources of information about particular creatures (e.g.,
legends, tales, songs, anecdotes) contain geographic references. Thus we see a gap in cultural
geography that could to some extent be ﬁlled by providing maps and geographic databases.
They would allow better understanding of the mythical landscape in a territory.

2013 Giedre˙ Beconyte˙

∗

Corresponding author. Email:

giedre.beconyte@gf.vu.lt

Journal of Maps, 2014
Vol. 10, No. 1, 53 – 60, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17445647.2013.867544

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The idea to create a map of mythical creatures (Main Map;

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/

17445647.2013.867544

) was initially inspired by the legend about Huang Di, the ‘Yellow

Emperor’ of China who encountered on top of a mountain near the Eastern Sea the ancient
beast Bai Ze, a wise and holy creature, capable of human speech. The emperor used its knowl-
edge for understanding and management of other supernatural creatures of the known world.
The beast dictated the characteristics of all the ‘11,520 types of demons, monsters, shapeshif-
ters, and peculiar spirits’ and put their names on a map (

Harper, 1985

). The drawings and

writings have been published in a fascinating book, believed to be written by the emperor
himself, the ‘Bai Ze Guide’. There is no evidence that the book or the map still exist.

We believed that modern information technologies would make such work much easier.

The authors have found thousands of scientiﬁc and popular information sources about mythi-
cal creatures. The ﬁrst analysis showed that only a small part of them are reliable; namely,
detailed studies in history and mythology of relatively small ethnographic areas, such as,
for example, Northern Lithuania, that refers to old, authentic narrative folk-lore. We started
developing a schema of the database for Lithuania and collecting information in spring of
2011. It soon became evident that such work, even completed at 1:250,000, would require
so many man hours, that a long-term project was needed. Instead, we decided to make a
pilot project at much smaller scale and larger territory that would be of interest to a much
wider audience.

The database of mythical creatures of the geographic territory of Europe has been compiled

mainly from cumulative sources and veriﬁed against other published sources in Lithuanian,
Czech, English, German, Latvian, Polish, Russian, Spanish and Ukrainian languages. The aim
of the project was to demonstrate the possibility and advantages of a geographic approach in
mythology and folk-lore studies.

The main tasks were:

to develop tentative typologies for geographic and some non-geographic characteristics of
mythical creatures;

to propose a versatile schema of a geographic database;

to collect reliable information of the most known mythical creatures in Europe into the
database;

to design an attractive wall map based on the collected data.

The targeted user groups are children of various ages and the general public. We do not claim

to have collected exhaustive, absolutely unbiased and precise information for the continent or rep-
resented it in the best way possible. The database and the map are rather a demonstration of feasi-
bility of the initiative than a ﬁnished project. We invite geographers and academic folklorists to
co-operate in developing the database and making the same style maps for smaller European
regions or individual countries.

Target area

Based on various sources we accepted a ‘malleable’ deﬁnition of a mythical creature as a super-
natural being that is or was believed to be a material creature residing in a particular territory on
Earth and described in folk-lore sources native to that territory.

The requirements for a mythical creature to be included into the database were as follows:

(1) The creature must be mentioned in many authentic and sufﬁciently folk-lore plots, for

example, a devil, a fairy, a dragon;

G. Beconyte˙ et al.

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(2) It must be believed to reside in particular places on Earth, basically in the territory of resi-

dence of a corresponding ethnic group, and seen by local people;

(3) It must appear in identiﬁable shape(s) (shapeshifters were included).

The following types were not included in the map as they do not comply with the deﬁnition:

ﬁctional characters, only sporadically mentioned in some books and (or) legends;

ghosts and spirits, such as spook, phantom, ignis fatuus;

deities and demons, except semi-divine creatures that were believed to live on Earth and to
be encountered by people. For example, folk devils and imps are included, but not theolo-
gical demons;

fantastic beings created for a purpose (for example, a bogeyman invented by parents to
frighten children into compliant behaviour);

human characters, folks, ﬁgures with historical origins (such as Father Christmas or
legendary Arimaspi people in Scythia).

golems and homunculi.

Singular instances were described in the database but included in the map only in the case of

their historical signiﬁcance (like Minotaur) and/or being widely known outside their home area
(like the Loch Ness monster). The signiﬁcance of particular creatures was determined by the
authors based on popularity of the creature inside the country or culture and on the scale of
inclusion in various directories.

The database contains 274 records. Each of them describes a unique creature or a class of very

similar creatures, such as Slavic dragon, that is actually the term for several variations of an evil
dragon with three or nine heads and four extremities. Due to uncertainty of some information or
lack of information about the location only 213 creatures have been represented on the map. A
description of each can be found in textual tables by its unique number on the map. The database,
map and project information were initially prepared in Lithuanian and afterwards all texts were
translated into English.

Types and characteristics of the creatures

Typology is necessary before one begins collecting information on countless mythical beings in a
large territory. A system that would allow ﬁnding a precise place for a new creature based on its
main characteristics is in principle possible, however, there is such a great variety of character-
istics with so negligible differences, that the task of creating a perfect system is impossible. There-
fore an ‘ofﬁcial’ taxonomy of mythical creatures does not exist. The authors of various lists
simply choose one or more classiﬁcation criteria such as general shape (dragons, giants,
mermaids), habitat (water bodies, mountains, caves) or, rather often, the culture that the creature
belongs to. Most existing classiﬁcations appear superﬁcial, inconsistent (e.g.

http://www.

mythcreatures.co.uk

) or not sufﬁcient for our purposes. Others were too detailed or insufﬁciently

‘visual’. We therefore developed a new three-level classiﬁcation that meanwhile encompasses 213
concrete types and is based on appearance of creatures (

Figure 1

Anthropomorphic (generally human shaped creatures):

Giants;

Dwarfs;

Other (‘normal’ human size);

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Zoomorphic (creatures that resemble real animals):

Birds;

Wolves/dogs;

Other (horses, ﬁshes and several more subtypes; so far only a few of them have more
than one instance in the database);

Human and animal hybrid (creatures that combine human and animal features; no second-
level subtypes):

Hybrid animal (creatures that combine features of two or more real animals; no second-
level subtypes);

Dragons (creatures that are very similar to hybrid animals, mainly reptiles and birds, but
deserve a separate class due to their importance in folk-lore of practically all cultures);

Undeﬁned (creatures which appearance is variable or ambivalent, like Aitvaras, seen in
shape of a rooster, as a ﬁreball or invisible; werewolves belong to the corresponding
zoomorphic type).

There was some discussion concerning inclusion of mythical creatures (mainly single speci-

men) that are reported as extinct (dead, killed, transformed into inanimate objects etc.). After all,
most mythical species are culturally disappearing. Therefore all reliable records on extinct crea-
tures have been represented on the map.

Disposition towards people is an interesting characteristic, however it was not always easy to

determine. In cases where it was possible, it is represented in the map legend by a mask-like
symbol:

Malicious or harmful (e.g Slavic dragon);

Benevolent or useful (e.g. unicorn);

Ambivalent (e.g. witch);

Neutral (e.g. banshee).

In quite a few cases information on disposition, especially for more exotic beings, could not

be found. Several creatures are described differently depending of culture or country, for example
Slavic vila. Corresponding records in the table do not have a sign (

Figure 2

Environmental information is something that makes the database unique and much more geo-

graphic. About a half of creatures are described in folk-lore as residing in speciﬁc environmental
conditions (

Figure 3

). On the map, typical environment is represented by surrounding drawings of

trees, caves, three types of mountains and lakes.

Figure 1.

Distribution of mythical creatures by type.

G. Beconyte˙ et al.

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One more important characteristic is the frequency of occurrence:

Singular (e.g. Charybdis);

Rare (exists in particular small region, e.g. snoise in Iceland);

Frequent (exists in several countries within the limits of one culture, e.g. only in Slavonic
culture or in Celtic culture, e.g. vampire);

Common (widespread in the areas of various European cultures, e.g. hag).

This information is stored in the database, but is not represented on the map. Frequency of

general types is immediately perceived from the map whereas frequency of instances in most
cases is very difﬁcult to estimate.

Data and the database

The project is likely the ﬁrst attempt to collect and visualise spatial information (typologies, living
environment, diversity and distribution) about mythical beings. Diverse cumulative sources such
as encyclopaedias, monographs devoted to mythology of particular cultures (

;

), time periods (

) or types of creatures (

Enzler, 2012

;

Rose, 2001

) and publicly available

open-source materials from the Internet were the sources of information about mythical creatures
of Europe (due to large number of references, non-English publications and Internet sites are not
included). The authors analyzed over 100 Internet mythology sites in Czech, English, German,
Lithuanian, Polish, Russian and Spanish languages. Encyclopaedia Mythica. (

http://www.

pantheon.org/

) is just one example.

Data on mythical creatures and their characteristics have been collected using an evolutionary

approach. It means that the database was compiled as serial versions, starting from the draft

Figure 2.

Distribution of mythical creatures by disposition towards people.

Figure 3.

Distribution of mythical creatures by living environment.

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version which contained only names and location information for the creatures. Each newer
version was reviewed, corrected and complemented, often with the help of different specialists,
so that the full extent and structure of information (

Figure 4

) unfolded step by step. Such a

method works well when working with uncertain and vague thematic information.

The collected data were veriﬁed against several comprehensive printed sources (

;

;

;

). The reliability of collected information

was routinely checked by a person other than the one who collected the relevant data and
using as many different sources as possible.

Location data were especially important for the project. The main problem is that whilst some

creatures are spread widely across large areas, others reside in precisely identiﬁable locations.
Some geographic references are uncertain (e.g. Iceland); some vary in different sources, thus
making precision of geographic data variable from a large region (e.g. Western Russia) to
almost co-ordinate level (a particular small lake or rock). Information on geographic vagueness
was represented by a corresponding attribute in the database, but not shown on the current
version of the map. Due to high-concentration locations were generalised, especially in Central
and Northern Europe.

The ﬁnal version of the database contains 274 records of mythical creatures mainly within the

geographic boundaries of Europe, some spreading in neighbouring areas. Of these, 227 creatures
are represented on the map.

Cartographic design

The chosen object-oriented design approach helps to avoid errors in visualisation as it ensures that
the selected attributes are all represented on the map, and it makes the design and reviewing pro-
cesses more efﬁcient.

The drawings for 66 third-level subtypes and symbols of living environment were created

speciﬁcally for this project based on various available images, textual descriptions of creatures

Figure 4.

Database schema.

G. Beconyte˙ et al.

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and the imagination of authors. Symbols of mountains and hills of different height have also been
drawn manually as well as the forest areas.

Reference data have been generalised to match the scale of the map if printed on ISO A0

format (1:7,200,000). Due to the large quantity of thematic information, only country names,
boundaries, hydrography and forests are included on the map. Ethnic regions are represented
by different background colours.

Conclusion

The map of Mythical Creatures of Europe serves two purposes.

(1) It is likely the ﬁrst attempt of such scale to collect and visualise spatial information (typol-

ogies, habitats, diversity and distribution) about known mythical beings; it is a geo-
graphic inventory that may be of use for anyone interested in mythology and ethnology.

(2) The map as a piece of art, made attractive by combining old and modern cartographic

design elements, can raise people’s interest in folk-lore and leads to better understanding
of other cultures in Europe.

Diversity of information sources in seven European languages used to collect the information

and professionally collected geographic references makes the database reliable at the given scale.
It is unique in terms of structure and content. Very precise data on mythical creatures of a small
territory can be collected using the same database structure.

Software

The main data have been collected and maintained in a Microsoft Access database. ESRI ArcGIS 10.0 has
been used for building the GIS database of locations. Adobe Illustrator graphic design software has been
used for design of the cartographic symbols and for overall cartographic design. Microsoft Ofﬁce and
Google Documents have been used for project documentation and information sharing, and Microsoft
Project for project planning and management.

Acknowledgements

Thanks are due to members of the project team for collection and processing of data, project documentation
and useful suggestions concerning the map’s design, especially to exchange students Rico Beckert and
Michal Stransky and artists Anele˙ C

ˇ iru¯naite˙ and Jolanta Dzemydiene˙ who have designed several map

symbols. We thank the Centre for Cartography at Vilnius University for sharing its generalised GIS data
on hydrography, state boundaries and ethnic regions of Europe for this map.

References

Baring-Gould, S. (2010). Curious myths of the middle ages. Charleston: Nabu Press.
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kartograﬁja (Geodesy and Cartography), 35(3), 82 – 91.

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Document Outline

Abstract
1. Introduction
2. Target area
3. Types and characteristics of the creatures
4. Data and the database
5. Cartographic design
6. Conclusion
Software
Acknowledgements
References

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