Mythical races - real basis for the myth

As I play through a once-popular fantasy RPG for the PC, and the character meets all of these popular mythical races (dwarves, elves, lizard-men, etc), I often get to thinking... what are the factual basis for such mythical races. These races have existed in human mythology for centuries, and have remained popular themes in our imaginations.

Could the elves really have been a pygmy race of humans, or possibly related to the "hobbits" recently found on an island (off of the South Asia coast, if I'm not mistaken)?

Are dwarves just based in the very real human condition of dwarfism, and, over time, evolved legends about an entire race of short, stocky, hearty humanoid creatures?

What about some of the stranger races?

Lizard men? Could this be an actual reference to an alien species that may have once been more willing to be seen on earth? Could it be a reference to a descendant of the dinosaurs that ultimately evolved to be more humanoid in appearance?

What about the whole Cthulu mythos? Do or did powerful, interdimensional squid-men actually once exist, or at least visit the planet? There is the theory that these "squid-men" are actually the Annunaki (or the mythical race from the planet Nibiru, which make up the basis for Sumerian gods - Sumer is where the basis for the Cthulu mythos came from, if I'm not mistaken). Personally, I'm not sure how much water it really holds, though in a universe of infinite possibility, anything is possible.

What about devils and demons (which exist in just about every religion, not just Christianity)? Is there a factual basis for them? The bones of dinosaurs that were discovered by ancient man, perhaps? Were they just stories made up to scare people into being more religious?

I don't want to limit this discussion to just the mythical creatures I've listed here, but would like to open the discussion to all mythical creatures. This has long been a curiosity of mine, and I'd like to hear everyone else's thoughts on this topic. I'll be posting some of my more researched ideas later, after hearing a few thoughts on this.

I too believe anything is possible, however, the Cthulu mythos was the creation of H.P. Lovecraft, it has no basis in reality, it all came from his imagination. You won't find any reference to it anywhere before his writings. I'm a big Lovecraft fan. You will hear things about it from other fiction writers after him as some of them adopted his mythologies, which in my opinion shows his genius. His ability to create such a believable world. If I am wrong though please correct me. I do know that in his later writing career he did pull ideas from occult texts, but it is my understanding that the Cthulu mythos is his creation.

Vas

I believe that older races once dwelt on Earth. There are too many coincidental connections between different parts of the world and religions.

What you said about the Lizard men showing themselves more is true too. In the 'olden days' (lol) people were generally more accepting of something like that (I'm talking pre-Major-Christian-Influence which probably signified their hiding). A lizard man could show you some advanced doohickey and you would think he was from a different country.

As Christianity rose societies changed and became more criticising of differences, especially those of the green scaly kind. This could have led to demon mythology. Nowadays a lizard man would be screamed at, fled from and attacked before being dissected. Of course they wanna hide!

Hobbits may still be around as their last sighting (according to a village) was around a century ago.

Read the early stuff in the bible. It mentions some aliens in the old testement. Like the origins. I can't remember what they entailed, but I remember being confused about it when I read it.

I doubt interdimensional squid men existed but the others especially the dwarves seem plausible because if an ancient dictator rounded up all the small people and put them in to colonies then they would continue to reproduce with those genes and therfore creating in essence a new specis (spelling) which is what Darwin said about His finches and Tortisoises. it's called Speciation, if the different races on the Earth (Human Races) had'nt started moving about in the 15th century then today White People probably would not be able to produce offspring with any other race.

Isn't it rather a large leap to go from elf and dwarf legends based on real, and observable occurrences in nature to lizard men being extraterrestrials and the work of Lovecraft being an account of history, despite his own words on the matter? This is an interesting topic, but adding in this ancient astronaut business is going to derail the conversation. Stick to what we can see in nature with our own eyes and leave the aliens out of it. They are no more apparently real then the Elves of Alfheim or the Seven Dwarves. Isn't it more likely that descriptions of lizard men and other monstrous races like ogres, trolls and the like, were derived from observing individuals with various deformities, or even as a kind of demonizing of a competitive tribe, you know, saying they're ugly, and savage and stupid to the point that the oral tradition develops them into literal monsters? There are skin conditions that make those who suffer from them look like lizard people.

The reason so many people want to read Lovecraft as a true story is because he was such a skilled writer. By his own account, he deliberately constructed his stories in the form of a hoax, presenting details of information from various sources in order to present the story in a manner that felt convincing to a reader and helped them suspend their disbelief. This is what makes his work so frightening. He was a masterful storyteller.


[edit on 8-1-2006 by Cicada]

[edit on 8-1-2006 by Cicada]

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A hoax ? Lizard men ? I have never seen one , therefore I truely cant dimiss as to wether or not other races ( other than our own )exsisted here on Earth , but didnt P.T. Barnum say " theres one born every minute " ? He fabricated the mermaid to draw curious paying crowds , and yet , there seems to be stories of mermaids being served on sandwhiches in other countires ( yuck ) and supposedly very small at that . Some children are born with "mermaid like bodies " ( human skin not scales ) and one little girl underwent surgery to seperate her legs in hopes that , with much more needed future surgeries , she will be able to have a normal life . With all that in mind , is it possible to NOT have yet seen it all ?? I wonder about this planet of ours , just what secrets has she yet to unveil , and wether or not our governments will allow us to read about them much less witness them ? In all honesty , do we really want to know it all , and if so , will it ever be enough ?

Realistically, I think most mythical and legendary creatures were written either as a personification of hard to handle human emotions, such as hatred and jealously, or extrapolations of the characters of outstanding people that did exist in a time when psychology etc was unknown, and explaining and passing the qualities of these people couldn't be done in any other way that would be widely conceived and understood. The reasons to pass the ideas on are obvious, at the basics to encourage the same morals, heroism, or adversion to such wickedness etc in your own people.

Saying that, for some reason I've always thought that a race of Dwarfs did exist at some point.

The lizard-men are probably just an modern adaptation of dragons, to make them more human like. In a game this is obvious, since dragons are hard to make but lizard-men are easy, lol!!!

Otherwise, most of the creatures can be found in ancient nordic mythology (which Lord Of The Rings is based on, which pretty much everything else is based on).

Which, although amazing in scope, I doubt has any realistic references to begin with.

[edit on 8-1-2006 by merka]

I have always believed that there were whole civilizations on earth before this one. They get to the point in their technology where they try to conquor the world and just about everyone is wiped out. The few people left would then tell wild stories to their children about what life was like "back then", the stories would grow into ledgends and mythology.
If the human population was the largest it stands to reason that they would try to wipe out the races that were different ie: lizard men, giants, centaurs, etc.

I'm not sure where I got this belief, but I remember thinking about it since I was quite young.
Ever read about the vitrified forts? I think they were in Scotland or somewhere around there.
The surface of the stone they were built from had been melted into glass. A wood fire wouldn't be hot enough to do that to stone.
A nuclear bomb maybe?
One major flaw in my theory is that we haven't found any remains of weird creatures........ Yet.

Maybe we haven't found any remains because a nuclear explosion wiped them out.
Maybe the races abandoned earth and moved on.
Maybe they live so far underground that we don't have a hope of finding them.

I don't think the ancient races were a personification of 'evil' emotions as people wouldn't be able to so vividly describe the appearance of these beings.
There would have to be at least one civilisation that came before us to have been the basis for our mythology. Who was it that helped the human race evolve in the abnormally short time it did? We would need teachers and guides to help our development.

Isnt chances much higher that a cause would be a meteor impact? I mean something exploding with the force of a nuclear bomb near your fort is bad enough, doesnt neccessarily have to be a nuclear bomb

[edit on 8-1-2006 by merka]

JackofBlades, I agree completely.

My mom told me this one:
The aliens come in their space ships and drop off different species and then observe them kinda like a zoo of sorts. Then maybe they drop off a couple different species to see how they might interact.
Could go a bunch of different ways with this one....

I like this topic

merka, which would have higher chances. A stone age atomic bomb or a comet? I think both have an equally low chance of happening.
Just tossing around some ideas to think about is all.

Your mom sounds cool Beer Guy!

As Beer just said I was just thinking of something devastating. Maybe it was a bomb, or meteor, or some kind of interstellar ship going nova.
Just hypothesising (oh yeah spelt right)

hmmm i support ya on this one... altho some races do leave me to wounder, and the lizerd man, i do agree that since theyve been through books of BC time, it is quite possible things such as hobbits, dwarves, elves, and meny others can exist... after all, men wernt first on the plannet were they?

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I find this all very intresting . I feel that maybe perhaps our ancestors were smarter than we gave them credit for . We , after all , assumed they were too stupid to build pyramids by themselves , and were too uneducated to perform high tech surgery without the instruments of today . Why must we assume we're smarter now than back then when quite frankly we cant figure out how they did it to begin with ? Through-out our history , we have many men and women who have proved themselves very genius in their time and our own . So why cant we assume as well that perhaps we were very very smart , but vein as well . I dont doubt that aliens visited earth for centuries , maybe they visited because they were impressed by our technological advancement of ancient times and were just amazed by it . Maybe they offered assistance , then again , maybe they didnt . Who knows , but still , why do we have to cut ourselves short so quickly ? Just a thought ....