Best Mythical Creature

Every creature here is old enough that nobody owns it. That is the reason this bracket can exist at all, and it is also why the field looks the way it does.

Folklore monsters were built to explain things. Sirens explained why sailors went towards rocks. The kraken explained ships that never came back. Werewolves explained the parts of a person that other people could not account for. Dragons appear independently in cultures that had never met, which is either evidence of something interesting about human beings or evidence that large reptiles are simply frightening. The phoenix is the only entry that dies on schedule and comes back irritated about it.

Thirty-two creatures made the cut, and the question is which one is the definitive monster rather than which one would win a fight.

Modern fantasy has done a lot of damage to several entries here. Unicorns and dragons arrive carrying decades of merchandise, and it takes a round or two before people start voting for the older, meaner versions of them.