Mysterious Monsters

Wise & Wide is a 6-level English reading program that consists of 60 books and each level is
systematically divided by Lexile Ⓡ measures. The Lexile Ⓡ Framework for Reading is the most popular reading measuring system in American formal education curriculums and many English programs.
Over 20 out of 50 states in the U.S. mark Lexile Ⓡ measures directly on students’ final report cards and over 300 well-known publishers adopt and use Lexile Ⓡ measures.
Experience many kinds of readings written by professional writers from the U.S. and England. They used interesting topics that were carefully chosen after analyzing elementary curriculums from around the world including Korea, the U.S., England, and Australia among many others.

Before Reading

Beings created by humans’ fear and imagination
Do the Dokkaebi with horns, a flying fire breathing dragon and the little mermaid under the sea really exist in the world? These mysterious monsters and fairies that often appear in old stories are mostly created by humans’ imagination rather than existing in reality. In the old days, science was not as developed as now, so people created fairies with mysterious powers in order to explain phenomena that people could not understand. Besides, people created stories about bizarre monsters because they loved mysteries. You will find out about unique and interesting cultures all over the world when you learn about the many strange monsters and fairies in different countries.

Summary

In the old days, the Chinese believed that the “eclipse” took place because a dragon ate the sun. In addition, the Japanese believed that the dragon spat poison on people passing by and killed them. In England, people believed that the dragon only ate girls. Like this, dragons often appear in old stories in both Eastern and Western cultures, but as in these stories the appearance and characteristics of dragons differ among the various cultures.
While people believed that there was a dragon in the sky, they also believed that there were a huge sea serpent, the Kraken shaped like a giant squid, and Scylla, which lured ships passing by and ate sailors on the sea.
Besides, old stories that Dokkaebi appear in are passed down in Korea and there are the Minotaur that had the body of a man and the head of a bull and the Siren that had the upper body of a woman and the lower body of a fish in ancient Greek mythology. Let’s learn about these creatures to find out which one is the strangest and the most interesting.