What If These 12 Mythical Creatures Were Real Today？ ｜ Part 16

What if the monsters we call myths were once real, born from fear, hunger, or revenge? My name is Sam, and tonight you'll meet seven legends so disturbing they still haunt the world's oldest stories. By the end, you'll see how close ancient horror can come to truth. Dragons. Dragons appear everywhere, on coats of arms, carved into stone, even hanging above old taverns. In Europe, they were painted as terrifying beasts with wings and claws, but in East Asia, they were seen as long, flowing, almost serpent-like figures, bright with color, and symbols of power tied directly to emperors. In Chinese tradition, the dragon outranks all real animals. It is the only legendary figure in their zodiac. That alone speaks volumes. Through the centuries, tales spread of knights confronting monsters that breathed fire. One figure, Saint George, became immortalized for defeating such a beast. His name became so well-known, entire nations honored him with a feast day. But here is the puzzle. If dragons were only make-believe, why did so many cultures, far apart from each other, describe nearly the same creature? Even in scripture, the adversary is called a dragon. Is that chance, or something deeper? Some argue that people once lived in the shadow of dragon-like animals. They saw them, battled them, and passed those accounts down before the animals faded away. Others suggest the idea grew from fossils. Imagine uncovering a massive skull lined with razor-like teeth. What would you think it was? The word dragon may have been the most fitting. That explanation holds weight. In the region of Sichuan, China, locals spoke of dragon bones more than 2,000 years ago. They had no concept of dinosaurs, but they understood these remains belonged to no ordinary animal. Another theory is that dragons were inspired by rare, real creatures, such as the dragon snake or flying lizards. But if true dragons ever walked the earth, they likely disappeared with the dinosaurs. Kuchisaki Anna stands apart from most other monsters in folklore. In the stories told across Japan, she was once a stunningly beautiful woman, the beloved wife of a proud samurai. But her husband spent much of his life away at war, and loneliness slowly crept into her heart. Seeking comfort, she began secret affairs with other men in the town. When her husband learned of her betrayal, his anger consumed him. In a fit of rage, he slashed the corners of her mouth from ear to ear, leaving her horribly disfigured. She died from the wounds. But her story didn't end there. After death, she returned as a vengeful spirit. Forever marked by her husband's cruelty, she hides her mutilated face behind a mask or scarf, appearing to most as a graceful, ordinary young woman. But in her hand, she carries a pair of gleaming scissors, the same tool she now uses to choose her victims. If you ever cross her path, Kuchisaki Anna might stop you and ask one question. Am I beautiful? If you say no, she'll kill you instantly with those scissors. If you say yes, she'll lower her mask to reveal the ghastly wound stretching across her face. A gruesome, permanent smile. Then she'll ask again. Some say if you scream or hesitate, you meet the same fate. There are few ways to escape once you answer her question. Her beauty hides horror. But in Southeast Asia, another woman hides something worse. When night falls, her true form takes flight, originating from the folklore of Southeast Asia. The Krasue, sometimes spelled Krasue, is another horrifying spirit born from sin. Legends say that in life, she was a woman who committed terrible acts, from betrayal and violence to the smallest selfish deeds. Upon her death, her wickedness prevented her soul from finding peace. She was reborn as the Krasue, a creature that lives like a normal woman by day, but reveals its true form at night. When darkness falls, the Krasue's head detaches from her body and drifts into the night sky, trailing her glowing, exposed organs, heart, lungs, liver, stomach, and intestines, all dangling from her neck. In this monstrous form, she hunts for human flesh, often preying on newborns and pregnant women. Some stories say she feeds on blood or the unborn, drawn by their scent like a moth to flame. To protect themselves, people in rural villages place thorny branches or spiked fences around their homes, anything that could catch her dangling organs, and trap her before dawn. If her head cannot return to her body before sunrise, the sunlight will destroy her completely. If you were forced to face one of these first three, which would you choose, and why? Drop your answer below, I'm reading all of them. Let's continue with the Vatala. The Vatala are sinister spirits from ancient Hindu mythology. Said to dwell in graveyards and cremation grounds, they lack physical bodies of their own and must possess the corpses of the dead in order to move among the living. Once they find a suitable vessel, they rise again and bring with them chaos and fear. These possessed forms are said to wander the night, tormenting the living by harming children, spreading madness, and even causing miscarriages. According to legend, Vatala are the restless souls of humans who never passed properly into the afterlife. Trapped between existence and oblivion, they lash out in bitterness. Only through proper burial rites can they be released from this limbo. Yet, instead of helping them move on, many sorcerers throughout history sought to capture these spirits for their own gain. Because Vatala exist outside the limits of time, they hold incredible knowledge of the and are said to understand the hearts of humans better than any living being. For those who can control them, they become powerful, if dangerous, servants. The Vatala haunt the dead, but in England, something older hunts the living. Her name is Black Anise. An ancient hag is said to dwell beneath a great oak tree in the countryside. Her skin was blue as ice and a single piercing eye gleamed in her wrinkled face. She lived in a cave. She had carved herself out of the rock with her long iron claws. On moonless nights, she hid among the branches of her oak, waiting for unwary children from nearby villages to wander too close. If no victims came to her, she would venture into the villages herself, reaching through open windows to snatch children straight from their beds. Back in her cave, she would use her sharp claws to flay the skin from their bodies, and sew their skins together to make clothing for herself. For generations, parents told their children the tale of Black Anise to keep them from wandering too far from home after dark. But belief in her wasn't entirely superstition. Houses in the area where she was said to live were often built with unusually small windows, a precaution meant to stop her from reaching inside. Even a man named John Hrish, known to be sensible and rational, wrote a full poem describing the creature in vivid detail, convinced that she truly existed. But evil doesn't end in the cold woods of England. Far to the tropics, another spirit waits, one born not from hunger, but from heartbreak. From Malay and Indonesian folklore comes the chilling tale of the Pontianak, the vengeful spirit of a woman who died during childbirth. In life, she was said to have been wronged or betrayed, and in death, her sorrow and Pontianak appears as a pale, strikingly beautiful woman, dressed in white, her long black hair cascading down to her waist. At first glance, she might seem harmless, even graceful, until you notice the faint scent of frangipani flowers drifting through the night air, a warning that she is near. Her beauty lures unsuspecting men closer. And only when it's too late does she reveal her true form, a ghastly figure with sunken eyes, sharp nails, and bloodstained teeth. She is said to attack those who wronged her in life, or anyone foolish enough to travel alone at night. The Pontianak tears open her victims with her clawed hands, devouring their organs or draining their blood. According to some stories, you can protect yourself by driving a nail into the base of her neck, which temporarily calms her spirit and returns her to a more human state. But such protection rarely lasts long. When the nail is removed, her fury awakens once more. Yet even her sorrow ends where the ocean begins. Out there, the darkness takes a different shape, one that doesn't need forgiveness. From the stormy seas of the Orkney Islands in Scotland comes one of the most horrifying creatures in Celtic legend, the Nuckelavee. This demon of the ocean is said to be a fusion of horse and man, with its grotesque human torso fused to the back of a massive, skinless horse. Its fleshless body reveals muscles, veins, and sinew glistening in the moonlight, and its breath is so foul that crops wither and livestock die wherever it passes. The Nuckelavee despises all living things and rides ashore when the seas are calm, spreading disease and ruin across the land. Its hatred for freshwater is its only weakness. Even a small stream can stop it in its tracks. Islanders long ago would avoid traveling near the coast at night, fearing to hear the sound of hooves echoing behind them, followed by the heavy stench of decay. According to legend, only one man ever survived an encounter with the Nuckelavee. He escaped by splashing across a shallow stream, where the creature halted in fury, unable to follow. It roared in rage before vanishing back into the sea, leaving behind nothing but a cloud of steam and the stench of rot. But death has many messengers, and not all of them come from the sea. Across the mist-covered hills of Ireland rides one of the most feared spirits in Celtic legend, the Dullahan. He appears on a black horse whose hooves strike sparks on the road, a headless rider carrying his own decaying head beneath one arm. The mouth of that head is frozen in a monstrous grin, and its eyes, though severed from the body, see everything. Some say he uses the head as a lantern, its sickly glow lighting the way through the fog. Wherever the Dullahan rides, silence follows. Dogs stop barking, doors close, and even the wind seems to hold its breath. Villagers know what it means when they hear the thunder of hooves after midnight. Someone nearby is about to die. The Dullahan does not kill for pleasure. He rides only when death itself has chosen a name. Once that name is spoken from his rotting lips, the person has no escape. Their soul is claimed instantly. Every attempt to stop him fails. Locked doors, iron gates, holy water, none of it matters. The Dullahan can cross any boundary, appearing where he wishes and vanishing just as quickly. Only one thing can drive him away. Gold. Not much. A single coin will do. Perhaps because gold reflects light, and light is the one thing he cannot stand. Those who traveled Ireland's back roads at night once carried a gold piece for that reason alone, just in case they heard a horse approach through the fog. Unlike other spirits of vengeance, the Dullahan has no hatred, no hunger, no grief. He rides because it is his duty. He is death-given form, the final messenger who neither bargains nor waits. In some tales, he's said to be the cursed soul of an ancient executioner, doomed to ride forever and collect the lives he once condemned. In others, he's an omen, a reminder that no matter how fast you run, death always knows your name. And some claim that if you see him, you have only one chance. Drop to your knees and avert your eyes, because those who dare to look directly at the Dullahan are struck blind in that instant, not from malice, but because no living eyes were ever meant to meet the gaze of death itself. So if you ever find yourself walking down a lonely country road and the air suddenly grows still, if you hear distant hooves and see a faint light bobbing through the mist, don't wait to see who carries it, because once the Dullahan speaks, there's only silence left to answer. But some deaths don't end with silence. Some echo through eternity, carried on the sound of a mother's grief, in the valleys and riverbanks of Mexico. People still speak of La Llorona, the weeping woman. They say that on certain nights, when the moon hides behind clouds, you can hear her cries drifting across the water. Ay, mis hijos, oh my children. The voice rises and falls like the wind itself, half sorrow, half warning. According to legend, she was once a beautiful woman named Maria. She lived in a small village and fell deeply in love with a wealthy man from the city. They married and for a while, her life was filled with happiness. But as time passed, her husband grew distant, spending more time with other women than with her or their two children. Blinded by jealousy and despair, Maria's pain twisted into rage. In a moment she could never undo, she took her children to the river and drowned them. When she realized what she had done, her scream tore through the night. She ran along the banks, calling their names again and again, until she too sank beneath the water. But death offered no peace. Her spirit rose again, bound forever to the scene of her sin. Condemned to search for her lost children for all eternity, those who wander near rivers after dark claim to see her, a pale woman in a flowing white gown, her face hidden by long dripping hair. She moves slowly, weeping softly at first, then screaming when she finds she's alone once more. Some say she mistakes travelers for her children and drags them into the current. Others believe her cries are a warning that she takes only those who ignore them. Either way, her presence means one thing, the living have come too close to the dead. But there are older versions of the tale. In them, she isn't a single soul, but a curse that repeats itself. Every century, a new mother doomed to relive the same grief, to pay the same price. The river becomes her mirror, showing her again and again what she can never change. Fishermen speak of her appearing before storms, her tears mixing with the rain, as if heaven itself mourned beside her. And sometimes, when the wind carries her voice through distant streets, even those who don't believe still lock their doors and whisper prayers. Parents once told their children to stay away from rivers at night, not only to keep them safe, but to remind them of what guilt can do. Because La Llorona isn't just a ghost, she's regret made real, a spirit who will never forgive herself. And perhaps that's what makes her so terrifying. If you're still here, you've earned your place by the fire. Come back next time, what's waiting ahead makes this story look gentle. Thank you very much for watching, until next time, I'm Sam, and I am very smart.