As you get at with the lumping vs. splitting idea, this touches on a much bigger issue, which is that one of the ways human beings make sense of the world is by putting things in categories, and that those categories can sometimes have very arbitrary boundaries.
Re: mythology, you can have different levels of this simultaneously existing. In Greek mythology, for instance, Scylla is a unique creature whereas centaurs are members of a species with common characteristics.
Much the same thing seems to have happened with many of the Fae, like Black Annis and Jenny Greenteeth. And many legendary dragons were singular monsters until modern fantasy and fantasy RPGs got their hands on them.
As you get at with the lumping vs. splitting idea, this touches on a much bigger issue, which is that one of the ways human beings make sense of the world is by putting things in categories, and that those categories can sometimes have very arbitrary boundaries.
Re: mythology, you can have different levels of this simultaneously existing. In Greek mythology, for instance, Scylla is a unique creature whereas centaurs are members of a species with common characteristics.
What's worse is that they can shift about. The phoenix was originally a unique creature. Now most consider it a species.
Much the same thing seems to have happened with many of the Fae, like Black Annis and Jenny Greenteeth. And many legendary dragons were singular monsters until modern fantasy and fantasy RPGs got their hands on them.
So very true. Pegasus when you could just say "winged horse."
I enjoy these so much, glad I randomly came across your substack :)
Glad you like them!