Monsters in the museum

Greek mythology knew dragons and hellish mutants, and in the Middle Ages, monsters symbolized evil. People have always been fascinated by monsters and demons. In cultures all over the world, they embody that primary instinct: fear. Nuremburg's Germanisches Nationalmuseum shows how the fascination with monsters lives on even today in books, films and art.

Hercules, a Greek hero, was told to steal three "golden apples from the garden of the Hesperides." Eating them was supposed to lead to eternal youth. The precious apple tree was guarded by the dragon Ladon, said to have had a hundred heads. In this 16th-century painting, Hercules slays a creature that doesn't actually look terribly threatening.

Medusa was one of the most beautiful women in ancient Greece. Poseidon, the god of the sea, fell for her, too, and raped her in Athena's temple. Jealous Athena turned Medusa into a monster, her lovely tresses became writhing snakes. Anyone who ventured to look at her turned to stone - even after Athena's friend Perseus chopped off Medusa's head.

The Chimera is another figment of Greek mythology. The word actually means goat, but in the Iliad, Greek poet Homer talks about a monster in Chimaira that threatened men and beasts alike. It was a fire-breathing hybrid, with heads from a lion, a goat and a snake head. It took a ploy for Bellerophon, the hero, to finally defeat the Chimera.

Jason was the leader of the Argonauts who took their fast boat to search for legendary Golden Fleece, guarded by a huge dragon that never slept. The 18th-century painting by Christian Wilhelm Ernst Dietrich shows the hero pouring a sedative into the creature's eyes so he might have a chance to kill him with his sword.

In western legends and myths, dragons stand for chaos, evil and compulsiveness. It takes heros like Hercules, the ancient Germanic Siegfried and Saint Georg (above) to restore the order of things. In 19th-century children's literature, dragons are finally portrayed as friendly beings. In China, dragons have always been regarded as lucky.

Margaret of Antioch was a martyr. The Christian woman refused a powerful suitor and was tortured, but miraculously survived. During her imprisonment, the devil appeared to her in the form of a mighty dragon that wanted to devour her. She warded him off by making the sing of the cross.

The reformer Martin Luther was a thorn in the Catholic Church's side - and thus the object of many satirical paintings and drawings during the religious wars in Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries. Here, we see Luther astride a scary beast, riding straight to hell. Even back then, caricatures were used in both Catholic and Protestant propaganda.

The "Book of Miracles" gives us a glimpse of how people in the 16th century imagined the apocalypse. Pictured and chronicled are dragons and other monsters, fire raining from the skies, fanciful celestial signs, deluges, freaks, and other adversities pointing to the imminent apocalypse. The book was only discovered very recently.

The German silent movie "Nosferatu" hit the movie theaters in 1922, and it was an entirely new kind of horror for the audience that had lived through the terrors of World War I. It was about a sinister fantasy creature that lived in a castle in the Carpathian Mountains and spread fear in the region. With this spine-chilling film, director Murnau created the mother of all horror movies.