Wow, now all the non-humanoid creatures are turning up… we’ll end up with more species than you’d find in a large zoo.
Annotation to dragons: Like witches, this species comes with very different aspects depending on time and area. The poisonous, fire-breathing worms in Europe (and the modern time fairy tales) are evil by tradition, but in China and other asian countries they are symbols of good luck. (I remember reading about one dragon species or specimen who’s so gentle that he wouldn’t even tread on freshly growing grass.)
Their looks change a lot, too: Dragons in medieval times could have aspects of birds or snakes or some nasty enimal or from various animals. The modern time dragon
big lizard with large wings) is, AFAIK, heavily influenced by the first findings of fossilized dinosaurs.
Similar for unicorns: their looks changed a bit, and their character is dicy, too. In medieval times they were very wild, dangerous beasts, and the traditional method of capture employed a young maiden (read: virgin). She’d sit in the forrest where the unicorn lived, the unicorn would see her, be entranced and tamed by her beauty and purity, come closer, lay its head into her lap and fall asleep. At which point the noble knight could hack its head off.
And to complete Loke/Loki and the Mitgard snake, I’ll add some details one two my favorites: the Fenrir wolf and Hel.
To correct myself: the Mitgard snake Jörmundgandr, Fenrir and Hel are children of Loki.
Hel is a subterraen deity, queen of the dead, and her dwellings are impressively described:
“She has great possessions there; her walls are exceeding high and her gates great. Her hall is called Sleet-Cold; her dish, Hunger; Famine is her knife; Idler, her thrall; Sloven, her maidservant; Pit of Stumbling, her threshold, by which one enters; Disease, her bed; Gleaming Bale, her bed-hangings. She is half blue-black and half flesh-color (by which she is easily recognized), and very lowering and fierce”
Not a place for warriors, who’ll go to Valhalla (say hello to the valkyres, and keep in mind that they didn’t wear horned helms until Wagner). If you do something as tasteless as die in your bed, you go to Hel.
Now Fenrir… it took a lot of tricks, and one of Tyr’s hands to put chains on him. The gods convinced him that really they only were putting these chains on him to see if he was strong enough to break them, and to prove that all was fair play, one of them, Tyr, laid his hand into Frenrir’s mouth. Of course it wasn’t fair play: Fenrir couldn’t break the magical chains, the gods didn’t take them off him, and Tyr became the one-handed god. So for now Fenrir is bound, come Ragnarök, the final battle and end of the world, he’ll break the chains and devour Odin.
One last one because I like genderbending gods: During one of his tricks Loki turned into a beautiful white mare (it seemed like a good idea at the point) and promptly got impregnated by the grey stallion Svadilfari. The resulting offspring was Sleipnir, the eight-legged horse who became the steed of Odin.
@Mohegan:
The name Eulenspiegel translates into Owl Mirror. Since the stories about him are so old and since stories were often told in the form of songs ( => Bänkelsänger = ballad-mongers), there is a lot of medieval music concerning the character, and some contemporary, too. I think there could even be a ballet.
@ magnus:
Any specific reason for the info collection?