5 Mythical Things That Actually Existed /Part II/

1. Scylla and Charybdis – On Odysseus’ voyage, he had to steer his ship through a narrow strait that had a monster close to either shore. On one side was Scylla, a multi-headed beast that plucked crew from the deck. On the other side was Charybdis, a sea monster that sucked ships to the depths using a whirlpool. Odysseus opted to sail nearby Scylla, thinking it would be better to lose a few men instead of the whole ship. The Straits of Messina run between Sicily and the Italian mainland. It is here that Scylla and Charybdis lived. Charybdis is an actual whirlpool minus the monster, and its current is weaker than the legends would have you believe. On the other side of the strait are rocky shoals believed to have inspired the heads of Scylla.
2. Berserkers – Berserkers aren’t just a character build from Skyrim, they first appeared in old Norse poems and were feared warriors in their day. But how did they obtain supernatural strength and invulnerability? Surely their legendary battle frenzies were not more than embellished stories? The stories were true. Berserkers achieved their frenzy by chasing a dragon of a different sort. They took intoxicating drugs before battle—most likely hallucinogens—that made them fearless, stronger and dull to pain and danger. Researchers have discovered that the drug bufotenine is capable of reproducing the berserk rage.
3. Tower of Babel – Unlike the Hanging Gardens, there is archaeological evidence at the dig-site of Babylon to support that Nebuchadnezzar II commissioned the Tower of Babel. Only it wasn’t a place of babbling gibberish that was destroyed by God. It was a ziggurat named Etemenanki, a temple to the god Marduk that was later destroyed by Alexander the Great. He wished to rebuild it in his image, but died before that could happen.
4. Moby Dick and Captain Ahab – Not only was Moby Dick inspired by an actual giant white sperm whale, but the real one was even worse than the one in the book. He was named Mocha Dick, perhaps because he lived near the island of Mocha. He came off victorious against a hundred whaling ships, sending some in splinters to the bottom of the sea. He also took on three whaling ships at once and won. Captain Ahab was also inspired by a man living around the same time as Mocha Dick. Captain Pollard didn’t seek revenge after his ship was wrecked by a whale, forcing him and his crew to resort to cannibalism to survive, but he did go back out to sea as the captain of a new ship . . . that also was sunk—this time by a storm.
5. Imoogi – Korean legends speak of I moogi—enormous pythons believed to be juvenile dragons. It is said that the Imoogi lived in water or caves, and had to survive for a thousand years before they could ascend to heaven and become true, fully-formed dragons. Although it existed in South America and not Korea, there was a python of such gigantic proportions that we might mistake it for a young dragon. The Titanoboa was roughly 46 feet (14 meters) in length and weighed over a ton. It constricted at a force of 400psi, which is like having 1.5 times the Brooklyn Bridge on top of you, and it could swallow a human without even showing a bulge. They went extinct long ago, but we like to think that they ascended to dragon-hood.