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
Nine maidens (mythology) the tradition of the Gallicenae; the Nine Maidens who lived on the Isle du Sein, latterly known as the Isle of the Druidesses. In Greek mythology, the Muses were originally thought to have been a whole series of different groups who, like their counterparts in Scotland, are associated with mountains and wells. Robert Graves in "The Greek Myths" drew attention to a similarity between groups of ecstatic Maenads and the cave painting form El Cogul Roca Dels Moros near Lerida in Catalonia which has nine women dancing round a spectacularly priapic male. In Kenya, the Kikuyu people claim descent from