History InterspeciesRomance / MythologyAndReligion

* Medieval bestiaries described the leopard as the result of a lion mating with a "pard": a mythical big cat resembling (and possibly based on shoddy accounts of) a cheetah. This idea is where it's name came from, as "leo" is Latin for lion.

** The most bizarre one listed has to be the [[http://bestiary.ca/beasts/beast160.htm Leucrota,]] the offspring of a ''lioness'' and a ''hyena,'' ([[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crocotta or dog and wolf]]) that has a horse (or badger) head, a deer's hind quarters and cloven hooves, and is most known for it's CheshireCatGrin that spans from ear to ear with it's single ridge of bone (it lacks separated teeth). This... thing... [[NightmareFuel is supposedly the fastest thing alive, is the size of a donkey, and can mimic human speech to lure you to your death.]] One wonders what fantasy fiction would be like if this myth had survived to become a staple of fantasy, like unicorns and dragons did.

** The most bizarre one listed has to be the [[http://bestiary.ca/beasts/beast160.htm Leucrota,]] the offspring of a ''lioness'' and a ''hyena,'' ([[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crocotta or dog and wolf]]) that has a horse (or badger) head, a deer's hind quarters and cloven hooves, and is most known for it's CheshireCatGrin that spans from ear to ear with it's single ridge of bone (it lacks separated teeth). This...thing... [[NightmareFuel is supposedly the fastest thing alive, is the size of a donkey, and can mimic human speech to lure you to your death.]] One wonders what fantasy fiction would be like if this myth had survived to become a staple of fantasy, like unicorns and dragons did.

* In many myths, demons are unable to breed naturally, and must [[TakeAThirdOption instead mate with a human]], producing a demonic offspring. Hence the Incubi, Succubi, and various other HornyDevils.

* It's quite common in East Asian culture in general for men in myths to end up marrying fox-spirits ({{Kitsune}}), tree-spirits or even other ghosts. In one unusual case, a scholar in a Chinese folktale was visited in the night by the (human formed) spirit of a grasshopper, who he later saved from a spider.

* The Turkish origin myth had their forefathers being born from sex between a young warrior whose feet had been chopped off and a she-wolf that nursed him back to health.

* The Japanese seem to be most [[http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/japanlove.html fond]] of this trope, which could explain why this regularly appears ''all the time'' in their popular culture.

** The story of Madam White Snake involves a snake spirit taking the form of a beautiful woman who then falls in love and marries a human man. The human man eventually betrays her to a priest (who is himself a toad spirit), but not before they have a human son. Madam White Snake is imprisoned beneath a tower, but her son grows up and finally manages to free her, and she ascends to heaven.

** One origin story/myth is that of {{=PanHu=}}, the Dog King/God. The story goes that there was a king who was fighting a war with another. He gave an offer to anyone who could bring the head of his rival, in exchange for the hand of his daughter. His personal pet dog heard this and managed to kill and retrieve the rival king's head. With no choice but to fulfill his promise, the king gave his daughter's hand in marriage to the dog. The dog took the princess into the mountains, and told her to wait for him as he meditated in a cave blocked by a boulder (in some tales, a giant bell) in order to attain human form. The princess however, became worried after several days with no food and water or communication from her dog-husband, and opened the cave/bell prematurely, leading to her husband having the body of a man but the head of a dog. In some tales, he never attained human form but always had sentience. The two would eventually produce many children, who would then form the various tribes that live in those mountains and trace their heritage back to {{=PanHu=}}.