Chinese mythology merely fantastic types of the bestiary sort. Sometimes the dragon is considered part of this category, related to it, or the ruler of all the swimming and crawling folk. This may include the giant marine turtle or tortoise Ao, the Bashe snake reputed to swallow elephants, a nine-headed snake monster reminiscent of the hydra known as Xiangliu, and the White Serpent from the novel "Legend of the White Snake". Various birds are found in Chinese mythology, some of them obviously based on real birds, other ones obviously not, and some in-between. The Crane is an example of a real type
Sacred trees and groves in Germanic paganism and mythology term for a sacred place was . The Proto-Germanic masculine noun , which developed into Old Frankish ('holy grove'), similarly either developed from, or is otherwise connected to, Gaulish , Latin and Old Irish 'holiness'. Another Proto-Germanic masculine noun, or , has given rise to words with a variety of meanings in various Germanic languages, including Anglo-Saxon , 'meadow', Middle Low German , 'bush', and Old High German , , 'grove, copse, bush'; it is cognate with Latin , 'sacred grove'. Scandinavian placenames occur with the name of a deity compounded with , 'grove', or , 'wood'. Sacred trees and