Some were sometimes forgotten beasts that existed elsewhere, some were partially machine-like, others incorporeal and physical, and some were created out of the imagination and became real in the land of fantasy. For many centuries, many mythical beasts, what people imagined or thought were real, inhabited their world. The beasts of that fictional world were different. They settled on a separate planet similar to ours; that mythical world had all the same animals that resided on the land, air, and sea. But other beasts were very different and only inhabited the imaginary world. Some beasts were machine-like, with something like machine metal, gears, and electrical parts; they were almost like a clock, other parts resembled plants or rocks, but other machines were without physical substance; they were neither biological nor physical machines. Some of these beasts had hair like those of mammals, and scales of reptiles, with gel-like machine parts.

There were beast cities; imagine a beast the size of a large town that when it walked with power, there was fear; it was so large that the ground shook as it moved. It had other beasts living inside; the creature had become a home. The number of legs varied at different times as its form changed. Some of these giant beasts flew; they were shaped like saucers with people living within them as if they were part of their inner workings. Some beasts resembled mushrooms that were whole cities that floated in the air; their numbers were so large that they were called parasites of the sky.

Beasts that hung with legs from tree branches to get up into the sky swung rapidly, moving up as their bodies were filled with gas that gave them a lift. There were glass birds, tiny creatures that flew in circular motions around the trees of a very dense forest.

Some animals sprouted in the high atmosphere like plants; the creatures were anchored to the sky, drifting like giant island clouds. Sometimes their numbers covered large parts of the sky. Hunters sent ships into the air to gather them to eat; the techniques the hunters used resembled fishing, then stalking an animal on the ground. An island was the whole beast; as they reproduced, individual seeds grew similar to plant forms on the beast until they were ready to reach maturity in the sky as they became colonies.

When I created my mythical beasts, my imagination traveled in many possible crazy directions. I asked myself, what if they looked like this or the other way? Beasts were formed in my mind as I wondered what might be; they were fantasies, stories I’ve written.

Robert J. Matsunaga