Where mythical creatures dwell: scientists have created an actual map highlighting each one (video).
Scientists from Poland have created a map that illustrates where supernatural creatures from Polish folklore "reside" along the Polish-German border, reports IFLScience.
The map resembles Renaissance-era maps, featuring mythical beings such as devils, spirits, the Wild Hunt, gnomes, will-o'-the-wisps, giants, dragons, mermaids, ghosts, werewolves, and nightmares.
The publicly available map is part of a broader study aimed at exploring beings in the historical regions of Pomerania and Mecklenburg. To create this "supernatural" map, researchers examined 1,500 stories collected by ethnographers and folklorists in the 19th and 20th centuries. Of these, 600 tales were directly linked to specific landscape features in the region.
The researchers aimed to visually represent their findings. Thus, the narratives were transformed into visual data, which began appearing on maps and atlases even before the 20th century. These maps indicated places of special cultural significance, as well as the range of these phenomena.
"Images of the supernatural world have long been recognized as valuable for the intangible aspects of heritage, and their mapping has become an integral part of ethnographic work," the authors of the new map explain.
For this map, the team analyzed local stories about supernatural events linked to certain landscape points. Among these were unusual rocks associated with giants or hills believed to be gathering spots for witches.
"We decided to create a map that would combine various research data. In our map, we aimed to merge artistic and symbolic elements reminiscent of Renaissance maps," the researchers explain.
According to the authors, their map is a tribute to cartographers of the 17th and 18th centuries.
As a reminder, scientists have shared how real history influenced the "relationship" between vampires and garlic. Researchers suggest that this belief has a logical explanation related to actual diseases.