World Book Trivia Challenge Advanced--12/24--mythical Creatures

Banshee was an old woman in Irish legend. Her shrieks and wailings outside a house meant that there was to be a death inside. In earliest times, she was a fairy who protected the ruling family of a district. Later, her cries merely told of a coming death. She never mourned for obscure people.

In art, the centaur was portrayed with the upper body of a man and the lower body of a horse. Centaurs lived in Thessaly in northern Greece. Most of them were known for their violent, uncivilized behavior.

The horror novel Dracula (1897), by the Irish author Bram Stoker, is the most famous vampire story. The fictional character of Dracula is based on Vlad Tepes, a cruel prince from Walachia (now part of Romania). Vlad was nicknamed Dracula, which in Romanian means son of the devil or son of a dragon. However, Tepes was never associated with vampirism until Stoker used his name for his novel.

Mermaids would sit and comb their golden hair. A magic cap lay beside them. They would slip the cap on the head of the man they wanted and take him away with them. A human being could live in the sea by wearing the magic cap.

During the Middle Ages, stories about unicorns became increasingly popular. Many medieval paintings and tapestries featured images of these animals. Nobles purchased objects believed to be unicorn horns for extremely high prices. Most of these objects were the tusks of walruses or of unusual whales called narwhals.

Genie is a word often used in English for jinni (plural, jinn), a type of demon of Arabian mythology. According to Arab and Muslim tradition, the jinn are intelligent beings made of air or fire.

Chimera was a fire-breathing monster in Greek mythology. The name is also spelled Chimaera. The Chimera was the offspring of the monsters Typhon and Echidna. It had the head of a lion, the body of a goat, and the tail of a serpent.

Phoenix was a fabled bird in Greek mythology. Only one such bird existed at any time, and it was always male. It had brilliant gold and reddish-purple feathers, and was as large or larger than an eagle. According to some Greek writers, the phoenix lived exactly 500 years. Other writers believed its life cycle was as long as 12,954 years

Since then, several expeditions, including one sponsored by World Book in 1960, have searched for the creature. The explorers neither captured nor saw anything that might be the snowman. Scientists of the World Book expedition said the tracks may have been made by bears or other animals. They found that the sun often caused such tracks to melt into large footprints.

Fairies have many magic powers. The most important is the ability to make themselves invisible to people. They use this power to steal items that they need from people. However, some people possess fairy sight. They can see fairies as they move to and from their underground homes