Mythological creatures are more than just make-believe. They are a glimpse into how our ancestors once saw the world and of the fears that filled their imaginations when they heard something go bump in the night.

Every culture has their own monster and each one tells its own story about what haunts or scares us. Mythological creatures are in essence the manifestations of our biggest fears.

The stories our ancestors left behind about the heroes who conquered mythological creatures weren’t just stories, they were insights into how we wished to take some control over an ancient world that was often overwhelming or overpowering.

We have not changed much since the superstitions of our ancestors. We’re still thrilled at the idea of these ancient monsters and at the heroes who defeated them. Some of the mythological creatures on this list and their horrifying legends are ones you’ll know well; others may be new horrors you’ve never imagined.

Mythological Creatures: Wendigo

A group of Jesuit missionaries in 1661 went to the land of the Algonquins, a tribe of Native American’s that lived along the forest regions of the Ottawa River. A group of the Jesuits had already traveled to the land of the Algonquins but had fallen strangely ill.

The Jesuits coming to replace and support their sickened brethren had heard that things had gone wrong at the mission – but what they found when they got there was worse than they could have ever imagined. As they wrote:

“Those poor men … were seized with an ailment [that] makes them so ravenous for human flesh that they pounce upon women, children, and even upon men, like veritable werewolves, and devour them voraciously, without being able to appease or glut their appetite — ever seeking fresh prey, and the more greedily the more they eat.”

The missionaries they’d come to replace had turned into cannibals. It was unimaginable to the brothers in Christ but the Algonquin tribe knew this horror all too well.

These men had been possessed by one of the mythological creatures known as the Wendigo.

Wendigos were said to be man-eating monsters that roamed the land near the Great Lakes. Their bodies were emaciated, their ribs stuck out through their thin, pale skin, and their eyes were sunk deep down into their sockets. They looked like men who had died of starvation, walking through the world after a week of decomposing in the grave.

A Wendigo’s appetite could never be filled. It would attack other men and eat their flesh, but every bite would just make them larger and hungrier, until they were massive, flesh-starved giants towering over the trees.

These missionaries, the Algonquin tribe insisted, had turned into Wendigos and started killing their fellow men. It was something that had happened before, usually during famines in a cold winter. And it was something the tribe had learned to prepare for. They would hold great festivals where they would dance and chant, trying to keep this mythological creature away.

Most likely, the men had just gone mad with hunger and turned to cannibalism. But the idea of these mythological creatures must have almost been a comfort to the Algonquins. It was a way to make sense of moments when hunger would drive good and decent men into doing the unthinkable.