The wee folk of heath and glenn. I won't name them more specifically because to do so is to cement a particular impression of their purpose and meaning in storytelling. If I say elf or pixie to an anglophone, it has a very different meaning/impression/tone than when I say duende to a hispanophone. Regardless of what a person's culture calls them, how they are seen, physically represented, etc., what intrigues me about them from a storytelling aspect is the cultural investment we place in the idea that hidden in the woods and meadows are a different kind of people, a people who have chosen a different path to the ours, one made of different choices and idea of what is important.
They go by many names depending on culture. Elf, leprechaun, duende, pixie, sprite, dryad, naiad, etc. Again, I was trying to avoid any particular invocation, and rather embracing them as a larger conceptual paradigm.
understood. which would you say gets your most vote out of all of these. and what are your thought on the Griffin?
I don't know that I could say. I don't have an investment in any of them in particular. I'm more intrigued by their purpose and use as archetypes, what they tell us about the people making use of them in stories. Again, not the kind of thing I invest in on such a specific level. What would a griffin be in a story, what would it represent? That's what I would want to know. If it's just a cool-looking animal for the hero to ride, then *shrug*...
I was just referring to the mythical creature Plato spoke about in his epic fantasy, The Republic Of course, that's a bit wacky. Alright, when it comes to orthodox mystical creatures it's gotta be elves, pixies and gnomes.
I was researching for an underwater short horror story and stumbled across the Dobhar-chú, a giant half-dog, half-fish. Since then, it's been my favorite because I imagine a giant dog just doggy-paddling after a ship and licking it so hard that it capsizes.
