Talk:Legendary creature/Archive 1

message: Best not to call legendary creatures "fictional." As article notes, some turn out to be real. Also, it's arguablly not NPOV - some people do believe in unicorns. Snowspinner
i have some questions related to Burma myth.
* At Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, there's this birdy, beasty, and godly gargoyles:
 http://xahlee.org/Periodic_dosage_dir/las_vegas/mandalayluxor.html
is this based on some Burma lore, or just some random design?
if lore, who or what are they? (reference appreciated)
thanks.
Xah P0lyglut 16:40, 2004 May 3 (UTC)
Shouldn't angels count as legendary creatures too?
I was thinking the same. --Eleassar777 07:19, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Unsorted text

message: The Argentinian Legendary Creatures were added in the wrong area with really bad grammar.  I wasn't sure that they actually should have been on this page at all, but I wasn't sure what to do with them.  So, I just cleaned it up the best I could.  If someone else has a better idea of where they belong, feel free to put them there - thanks.  Nortonew 21:39, 14 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I put them at Legendary creatures of the Argentine Northwest region. Strange addition, I must say; but I found the works quoted, so it is verifiable and seemingly notable. --Salleman 19:01, 30 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Argentinian Legendary Creatures 

message: "llama dragons pick their noses as they are also homosexual" was put in page.  I'll take it out if nobody minds. -66.204.73.130
"Some creatures, such as the boob monster or the harry dick have their origin in traditional mythology" was put on here I'm changing it back to the article from 29 October 2008, if noone minds -jake  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.13.58.143 (talk) 21:47, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Obvious Vandalism 

message: I've mentioned this on another page. The image of the welsh flag depicts a Griffen, not a Dragon.
Is there any way to change the caption? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Tachikoma22 (talk • contribs) 01:55, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I changed it now, but you can change the caption yourself by editing the article (just go to the article and click on "Edit this page") and find the correct image tag. There you can change the caption. - Wintran (talk) 08:27, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Not a dragon! 

message: We need one for legendary creatures. Anyone want to do it? Otherwise I'll have to try myself... Funkynusayri 09:23, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Infobox template anyone? 

message: I am going to remove the passage: "The Liger is another mythical creature. Worshiped by the Jews, the Liger was known for eating the limbs of Romans, hence why it was praised by people of Jewish faith." because it seems like vandalism and I can't find a legitimate source for it anywhere.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.99.5.102 (talk) 22:15, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vandalism and/or antisemitism 

message: Is there a source for the Magura-Schendel? I haven't heard of it, and a search doesnt provide much more than it says here. COuld it be vandalism? 98.109.128.158 (talk) 03:45, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Citation for Magura-Schendel 

message: Should space aliens really be in the Modern Creatures' list of famous examples? The odds are astronomically high that aliens do not exist somewhere in the Universe. 
Perhaps this should say 'alien visitors' instead and link to the 'Alien Visitation' page which deals with claimed sightings rather than 'Extraterrestrial Life' which deals with the notion of alien life in general? Ƒϰɑϯє (talk) 10:12, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  'Space Aliens' 

message: This is an NPOV issue so I have raised it at WP:NPOVN#Legendary creature and the inclusion of deities such as God and Allah. Dougweller (talk) 06:35, 24 March 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: We need to differentiate between legitimate efforts to improve this article and mass vandalism and edit warring from new IP editors who came here because the page was mentioned on the Reddit atheism subreddit. This page will be semi-protected as soon as an admin gets to the request, and in the meantime I have restored the page to the old revision, as edited by Addbot at 19:48, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

text: Usually restoring the last stable version before the attack of the IP editors is a good idea, but looking more carefully, that version was awful. Thanks for undoing my change. (Note to self: next time, smoke crack after editing Wikipedia...) --Guy Macon (talk) 09:10, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

text: The references provided in the disputed edits (; ; the quote, "I think it can be well argued as a matter of principle that, just as 'biography is about chaps', so mythology is about gods.") are inadequate to justify the inclusion of deities as they do not explicitly discuss deities as legendary creatures; in fact, none of them even mention the word "creature". The inclusion of deities as a form of legendary creature based on those references relies on editorial inference (in other words, original research). Multiple editors have objected to your additions to the article; in my opinion, you should establish consensus here on the talk page before adding them to the article. --Muchness (talk) 08:28, 24 March 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Don't be silly. A creature is simply an animate being. A legendary creature is an animate mythological being. And mythology is about gods, meaning mythological beings. Check the other references, they discuss this as well. Myths are "stories about divine beings", in order words mythical creatures. This isn't original research at all, it's simply terminology. They are explicitly mentioned, because it says "mythology is about gods". "god" is the singular of "gods", so that reference is explicitly mentioning gods. The reason why so many random IPs are removing it without bothering to discuss it on the talkpage is because they find it offensive. But that is not a valid criterion for removal. This idea that some supernatural characters in myths are not legendary creatures is silly. What are they then? Is Zeus a legendary creature? How about Poseidon? Nix? Hydra? Yahweh? Allah? Ahura Mazda? Baha? Great Spirit? The correct answer is that all of these are legendary creatures. Just because some people find it offensive that their particular god is considered a legendary creature is not grounds for exclusion from an article.--JasonMacker (talk) 09:00, 24 March 2013 (UTC)
replies: text:  Once again, even ignoring the amounts of OR you need to justify yourself and ignoring the fact that you are using Wikipedia to push your agenda in clear violation of multiple policies and guidelines, the same WP:OFFENSE that you yourself cited tells you not only that offense is a valid criterion for removal but that it is in fact necessary to remove offensive content unless the removal of such leaves the article less informative, relevant, or accurate (which it doesn't) and there is no equally suitable alternative available (and the original list was equally or moreso suitable).  Take your dogma war elsewhere. -- Masterzora (talk) 09:39, 24 March 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Now at NPOVN

message: I've managed to look at all of two of the references and at least part of the third. I don't see that any of the three supports the thesis that gods are legendary creatures. Bascom's oft-cited distinction between myth, legend, and folklore excludes gods from the latter two categories. The O'Flaherty quote is taken out of context, for she says further along on the same page, "Yet [the gods] are regarded by Hindus as a class of beings by definition totally different fron any other; they are symbols in a way that no human being, however 'archetypal his' life story, can ever be." I cannot read enough of the other citation to be absolutely sure of the direction it takes, but it also is largely devoted to distinguishing between myth, legend, and folklore (I presume along Bascom's lines).
The more telling problem in all of this is that the beings in this category are also often called "legendary beasts" or "mythological creatures". In legend and myth, they are non-human and non-divine; they are animals or sub-human figures. That's why they are creatures and not people or gods. The British folklore book isn't much interested in gods that I can see, and Flaherty makes a sharp distinction between gods and their creations. In Bascom's taxonomy of tales, the main issue is to split out legends from the other two categories; but one reads in vain for talk of either "beasts" or "creatures", though here and there he does talk about animals in passing. It seems to me that in his talk of gods, men, and animals, he treats this distinction as given; he does not, as far as I have read (and I'll admit not having read the whole paper systematically) address a category of legendary/mythological creatures outside the commonplace beasts.
None of these references says anything as plain as "gods are mythical/legendary creatures." there's a great deal of synthesis used to get to that point, which my reading of these references actually seems to argue against. The gods are a category unto themselves, and are not to be confused with cockatrices and trolls. Mangoe (talk) 12:42, 24 March 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: And ref 4 is to  which has used content from this article "Credit is due under the terms of this license that can reference both the New World Encyclopedia contributors and the selfless volunteer contributors of the Wikimedia Foundation." so it needs to go. Darkness Shines (talk) 13:22, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

text: it is not a question of who may or may not be offended. it is a question of the article representing the mainstream (primarily academic, but also popular) conception of "legendary creatures" and then also presenting other notable views in appropriate proportion. The question is, how to determine what those are. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 16:28, 24 March 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: the three references

message: The previous inclusion criteria for this article -- "A legendary creature is a mythological or folkloric creature." -- was unclear. Between legend, which distinguishes legends from fables and myths by requiring the legend stories to be about a life ("Legend originally denoting a story concerning the life of a saint") and creature, animal, especially a nonhuman, and reliable source common usage of the term "legendary creature", e.g., Professor Going After Legendary Creature, In pursuit of legendary creatures; Cryptozoology: Researchers devote their careers to discovering -- or rediscovering -- storied species from around the world, Americans begin expedition to find legendary creature, the following is an appropriate lead sentence for the article: 
-- Jreferee (talk) 13:17, 24 March 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: "Handed down by tradition from earlier times" removal  - The article on Bigfoot notes "Wildmen stories are found among the indigenous population of the Pacific Northwest" and the article on Nessie notes that it dates back to Saint Columba (6th century), so both of these are based on information handed down by tradition from earlier times. In any event, the article is about "legendary creature", not the broader "storied creature," so there needs to be some originating time element to the life story and the phrase "and are handed down by tradition from earlier times" seems reasonable. -- Jreferee (talk) 13:27, 24 March 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: as a temporary measure, but what we really need to do is determine what the least WP:ASTONISHing application of the term "legendary creature" refers to and create a lead sentence that reflects the majority of academics position, and then present the other views in appropriate proportion and refer readers to other Wikipedia articles which may better meet their information needs. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 13:32, 24 March 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Article scope

message: The article's scope right now has several problems:
* Defining legendary creatures explicitly as being animals. This ignores the issue that many legendary creatures are NOT animals, see for example List_of_fictional_plants and Liminal being.
* Not having sources that actually refer to "legendary creatures". Revamp entirely to include cryptids and deities, by moving the article to Mythical creature. Check out this, which explicitly states "What are mythical creatures?" and answers the question with "magical and menacing animals, monsters, spirits, and gods". This source allows us to have a completely sourced lead sentence, as such:
Mythical creatures or legendary beings are magical animals, monsters, spirits, and gods[1]... blah blah blah...
=====References=====
[1] Brenda Rosen, The Mythical Creatures Bible: The Definitive Guide to Legendary Beings, Published March 3, 2009, 
Just from ghits alone, "Mythical creature" and "Mythical creatures" get an order of magnitude more hits than "legendary creature" and "legendary creatures". I'm going to go ahead and put the template in this article's mainspace that makes it clear that I want to hear others' thoughts on this issue.--JasonMacker (talk) 20:44, 24 March 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rename article to "mythical creatures" so that we can avoid [[WP:SYNTH]] and [[WP:NOR]]. 

message: [1] Brenda Rosen, The Mythical Creatures Bible: The Definitive Guide to Legendary Beings, Published March 3, 2009, 
Just from ghits alone, "Mythical creature" and "Mythical creatures" get an order of magnitude more hits than "legendary creature" and "legendary creatures". I'm going to go ahead and put the template in this article's mainspace that makes it clear that I want to hear others' thoughts on this issue.--JasonMacker (talk) 20:44, 24 March 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: References