5 Things We Thought Were Legendary But Really Existed

 From the moment a story is old and poorly documented, as soon as it has been told by word of mouth for centuries with the logical distortion that one can imagine, it gets lost in a gray area between reality and legend and behind the screen of the fantastic often hides a very simple reality. This in no way detracts from the beauty of these tales which shape history and the imagination, still influence the reality of things today and sometimes turn out to be truer than they seem

1. The beast of Gévaudan

The legend: Between 1764 and 1767, a monstrous beast attacked cattles and men in Gévaudan. Those who had seen her described a bloodthirsty monster and the press made it their cabbages, too happy to hold on to what was to become the first national news item. Despite the arrival of royal emissaries and the village battles, the beast seems invulnerable, until a hunter, Chastel, kills a gigantic wolf. But what was it really?

The reality: The beast of Gévaudan really existed, in the sense that there were indeed a hundred men and women killed in Lozère during the period. But current experts agree that this beast was probably a very large wolf, in an area where wolves were rife at the time. The supposed invulnerability of the beast is probably to be attributed to the great imprecision of the hunting weapons used at the time. Another possible thesis is that of the lost exotic animal: it is not impossible that a hyena could have escaped from the royal reserves to reach Lozère. In any case, the beast did exist.

2. There have been several Atlantis:

The legend: There was once another continent, Atlantis, whose riches and wonders would have irrigated all of our current civilizations. But of this continent, now submerged, nothing remains, if not the promise, one day, to find its underwater ruins

The reality: Several " Atlantids" have existed since the tectonic movements of the earth' s surface as well as the changes in temperature have led to significant marine displacements, covering- this is not uncommon even today- sometimes islands, sometimes larger areas. It is almost certain, for example, that there was once a huge continent located in the Pacific and that scientists call Zealandia. This continent, now submerged, still gives a glimpse of part of its territory (New Zealand and New Caledonia). It is estimated that the continent' s crust collapsed during Australia' s detachment 80 million years ago. But at the time, monkeys hardly existed.

3. Frog rains exist:

The legend: If you bother God too much, it could rain frogs on your face. The kind of tall tales that we tell children (and obviously Christians) to have peace

Reality: It can rain frogs (as well as other animals ). But the phenomenon is rare: it has never been observed by modern climatologists. However, many serious stories existed on all continents. It is believed to be a meteorological phenomenon consisting in the aspiration of small animals then rejected in one and the same place.

4. The Loch Ness monster is said to be a big eel 

The legend: Is it really necessary to recall the legend of the Loch Ness monster?

The reality: A recent study of the biodiversity of the Scottish lake collected DNA samples from animals living there. And the researchers discovered an astonishing concentration of DNA from eels, which could suggest that people are not crazy: simply, what they mistook for the terrible tentacle of a terrible monster was actually a species. large (very large) eel.

5. In general, history is made up of legendary creatures that we end up identifying

The legend: Unicorns, ape- men and other chimeras have always punctuated the travel stories of explorers on their return. From there to believe in the existence of such creatures in remote regions?

Kraken.

Reality: Between exaggeration and distortion, these chimerical descriptions often reflect a misinterpretation of reality. It took several centuries for the descriptions of unicorns to be associated with the rhinoceros; also a long time so that one assimilates the kraken to the giant squid. Longer still to understand that gorillas were not the hairy and gigantic men that the stories liked to describe. There is an entire branch devoted to this subject, cryptozoology. Its ambition is to bring the testimonies into a reality.