Dragons began life as snakes, but natural historians gradually began describing them in more fantastical ways.

The poet adopted a "Pythagorean" diet, which eliminated meat, and wrote that vegetarians would "no longer pine under the lethargy of ennui."

The Roman sewer, the Cloaca Maxima, was presided over by a goddess whose shrine stood near the Forum.

How the Brothers Grimm went hunting for fairytales, accidentally changed the course of historical linguistics, and kickstarted a new field of scholarship in folklore.

In general, a vampire is a malicious spirit or soul of the deceased who is not confined to the grave. Where did the idea come from?

In the University of Texas library, our writer found a previously unknown audiotape of an interview with a woman who'd been born into slavery.