Читать книгу The Element Encyclopedia of Magical Creatures: The Ultimate A–Z of Fantastic Beings from Myth and Magic - John Matthews - Страница 14

The extreme rationality of our time has led magical creatures to the very brink of extinction, engulfed in shoals of disbelief. Whenever such terrible times come round, there is usually a corresponding defence and rallying of forces. The magical creatures that once so occupied the imaginations of adult scholars of all ages, had become merely the stuff of children’s stories, suitable for infants and fanciful people of little intelligence. Just when it seemed that all magical creatures were ‘only imagination’, the very imagination that society so spurns came to the rescue. In literature and in film, magical and fabulous creatures began to flourish and spread once more. From the monster movies of Godzilla and King Kong through to Jurassic Park, from the horror films of the Wolf Man through to the zombies of Night of the Living Dead, and the successive school terms of Hogwarts where Harry Potter and friends learn more about griffins, dragons and the practicalities of dealing with pixies, mandrakes and serpents.

Are there yet more magical creatures about whom we as yet know nothing, animals and other beings that are still about to reveal themselves? If we look at the evidences of cryptozoology websites dedicated to sightings of unknown animals, we find many new creatures everyday, such as the Moth Man, the Chupacabras (Goatsucker) and many others whom we don’t yet rightly know. Not all the magical creatures were described by Pliny the Elder or the bestiaries of the Physiologus, nor are all species pinned down and classified by naturalists. Our evolutional history is still being written, as the Epilogue demonstrates; while in the realm of the imagination we have only to look at the species invented by the fertile mind of George Lucas in his Star Wars films to see how new creatures continue to appear.

Despite our sophistication and civilization, our electric light and concrete roads, not all creatures are domestic, friendly, tamed or under our control. When darkness falls, when the sidewalks fall into shadow, on the lonely roadside, in the mountain passes, rustling in the trees, bubbling mysteriously in the waters, other creatures lurk. Some we do not see, some we do not wish to be seen by, some make us hurry onwards.

We believe that life finds many forms and will seek its unfolding evolution in ways that we cannot yet dream. Despite its extent, this book is a work in progress, a report of magical creatures whose numbers increase and decrease on a daily basis. Those that we believe to be dead and gone are not really extinct – they merely slip sideways into the Otherworld to haunt our imaginations, choosing their moment of reappearance. New composites and creations have yet to appear, wondrous, fabulous, magical. As you close this book at the end of the day, laying your head upon your pillow, what magical creatures will dance out of the darkness to enter your dreams? For in our dreams and imaginations, there is no ‘extinct’ or ‘ yet-to-be’, only an eternal present where all creatures meet together.