Mythic Creatures: Dragons, Unicorns & Mermaids

Overview

I was about just verging into adolescence when my parents took me to Loch Ness. It was painful attempting to keep up that despondent, outsider teen thing when all I could think about was what if we actually saw her. Nessie, I mean. She didn't pop up but I did get an excellent oversized pencil from the souvenir stand, commemorating that moment of awkwardness (braces) and magical thinking (water monster oft depicted in suburban gardens using car tyres cut in half). I threw away the shackles of being too-cool-for-quetzalcoatls after that, and fell headlong into a fantasy bent. The sphinx, the griffin, that most phallic of fantastical creatures the unicorn, and, given the local landscape, the bunyip all became worthy of my bookshelf.

I'm thankful, then, that the American History of Natural History focussed their brainy attentions on the topic and pulled together a traveling exhibition that traces the foundations of these lurking legends. Mythic Creatures: Dragons, Unicorns & Mermaids has now come to Sydney's very own Australian Maritime Museum, just in time to pique holiday interest in things that go bump in the night and in the daylight too. The exhibition looks at ways in which humans have been inspired by nature and folktales to bring chupacabras and yetis to our cynically spellbound attention.

Mythic Creatures has a hefty holiday program for the taking, where kids can explore wild things and their ways, including a (night at the) museum sleepover. Full information is available online.

Image: Mermaid rescued Collection Canadian Museum of Civilization