History InterspeciesRomance / MythologyAndReligion

** 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.

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

* 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.
* It's quite common in East Asian culture in general for men in myths to end up marrying fox-spirits or 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.

** There's also the sectarian interpretation of the ForbiddenFruit that Eve ate of being a forbidden sexual act between the serpent (who at that point according to that interpretation was not yet made to "go about on his belly" like a common snake) and Eve herself, which resulted in Cain, her first child, being of the "serpent seed" race that supposedly survived unto the day of Jesus Christ and became the Jews, whom Jesus in John chapter 6 had denounced as "children of the devil."

** One version of this says that the RealLife flag was a standard Harald Hardrada had left with a friend of his in Scotland before going to his fate at Stamford Bridge. This story is interesting enough in its own right though not quite as much as the idea that it was a gift from a fey-lover. Whatever the orgin, the real Fairy Flag still hangs in the Macleods' ancestral castle; it is real enough even if fairies are not.

** 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 randomly 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.

* 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.

** They also describe camelopards/cameleopards (giraffes) as being the result of a camel and a leopard mating. [[ArtisticLicenseBiology Make of that what you will.]]

* One Chief of the Macleod clan according to legend fell in love with a Fey. After twenty years she grew lonely for FairyLand. She left him with a half-fey child. Later she heard the child crying and came back to lay a magic blanket on him. This magic blanket became the Fairy Flag that could give the Macleods fey-help three times when called upon (as might be expected, this was in [[ProudWarriorRace Highlanders Favorite Sport]]). Photos of it were taken into battle by Macleods in WorldWarII. As the allies won maybe the [[FridgeLogic Wee Folk were doing their job right]].

* 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.

*** The real life phenomenon "hybrid vigor" gives this an element of FridgeLogic.

* OlderThanFeudalism: A special mention to Zeus/Jupiter in [[GreekMythology Greek]] and Roman mythology: not only is he an unfaithful god who seduces human women, he takes the appearance of various animals (swan, bull (!), a [[HaveAGayOldTime shower of gold]], etc.) to do so.

* To avoid paying for the construction of [[NorseMythology Asgard]] (by triggering a late completion clause), Loki [[VoluntaryShapeshifting turned into]] [[GenderBender a mare]] in heat so the builder's horse would run off. He gave birth to Sleipnir, the eight-legged horse of Odin, who carries the honored dead to Valhalla. Loki's ''other'' animal children include the great wolf Fenrir and the Midgard Serpent, destined to kill Odin and Thor respectively.

** It should be noted that in just all stories, the children of these pairings are always noted to be superior to normal human children - more intelligent, physically perfect, prodigies, magic abilities inherited from parents etc. Unlike many other religions, interspecies pairings were considered far more beneficial than stigmatizing.

* Some interpretations of Genesis 6:4, which reads- "The Nephilim were in the earth in those days, and also after that, when God's sons came in to men's daughters. They bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown." Some suggest the "sons of God" imply possibly fallen angels. Others suggest it refers to irresponsible attitude of the human leadership.

* Some interpretations of Genesis 6:4, which reads- "The Nephilim were in the earth in those days, and also after that, when God's sons came in to men's daughters. They bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown." Some suggest the "sons of God" imply possibly fallen angels. Others suggest it refers to men.

* One Chief of the Macleod clan according to legend fell in love with a Fey. After twenty years she grew lonely for FairyLand. She left him with a half-fey child. Later she heard the child crying and came back to lay a magic blanket on him. This magic blanket became the Fairy Flag could give the Macleods fey-help three times when called upon (as might be expected, this was in [[ProudWarriorRace Highlanders Favorite Sport]]). Photos of it were taken into battle by Macleods in WorldWarII. As the allies won maybe the [[FridgeLogic Wee Folk were doing their job right]].

** One version of this says that the RealLife flag was a standard Harald Hardrada had left with a friend of his in Scotland before going to his fate at Stamford Bridge. This story is interesting enough in its own right though not quite as much as the idea that it was a gift from a fey-lover. Whatever the orgin, the real Fairy Flag still hangs in the Macleods' ancestral castle; it is real enough even if fairies are not.

** One version of this says that the RealLife flag was a standard Harald Hardrada had left with a friend of his in Scotland before going to his fate at Stamford Bridge. This story is interesting enough in it's own right though [[YourMileageMayVary perhaps]] not quite as much as the idea that it was a gift from a fey-lover. Whatever the orgin, the real Fairy Flag still hangs in the Macleods ancestral castle; it is real enough even if fairies are not.

* One Chief of the Macleod clan according to legend fell in love with a Fey. After twenty years she grew lonely for FairyLand. She left him with a half-fey child. Later she heard the child crying and came back to lay a magic blanket on him. This magic blanket became the Fairy Flag could give the Macleods fey-help three times when called upon (as might be expected, this was in [[ProudWarriorRace Highlanders Favorite Sport]]). Photos of it were taken into battle by Macleods in WorldWarII. As the allies won maybe the [[FridgeLogic Wee Folk were doing their job right]].

* One Chief of the Macleod clan according to legend fell in love with a Fey. After twenty years she grew lonely for FairyLand. She left him with a half-fey child. Latter she heard the child crying and came back to lay a magic blanket on him. This magic blanket became the Fairy Flag could give the Macleods fey-help three times when called upon(as might be expected, this was in [[ProudWarriorRace Highlanders Favorite Sport]]). Photos of it were taken into battle by Macleods in WorldWarII. As the allies won maybe the [[FridgeLogic Wee Folk were doing their job right]].

* One Chief of the Macleod clan according to legend fell in love with a Fey. After twenty years she grew lonely for FairyLand. She left him with a half-fey child. Latter she heard the child crying and came back to lay a magic blanket on him. This magic blanket became the Fairy Flag could give the Macleods fey-help three times when called upon(as might be expected, this was in [[ProudWarriorRace Highlanders Favorite Sport]]. Photos of it were taken into battle by Macleods in WorldWarII. As the allies won maybe the [[FridgeLogic Wee Folk were doing their job right]].

* It's quite common in East Asian culture in general for men in myths to end up marrying fox-spirits or 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.

* OlderThanFeudalism: A special mention to Zeus/Jupiter in Greek and Roman mythology: not only is he an unfaithful god who seduces human women, he takes the appearance of various animals (swan, bull (!), a [[HaveAGayOldTime shower of gold]], etc.) to do so.

* To avoid paying for the construction of Asgard (by triggering a late completion clause), Loki [[VoluntaryShapeshifting turned into]] [[GenderBender a mare]] in heat so the builder's horse would run off. He gave birth to Sleipnir, the eight-legged horse of Odin, who carries the honored dead to Valhalla. Loki's ''other'' animal children include the great wolf Fenrir and the Midgard Serpent, destined to kill Odin and Thor respectively.

* 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.

* In [[TheBible Genesis]] fallen angels descend to Earth and mate with human women, creating giants. There is an alternate interpretation for this; that the higher class merely took themselves too many lovers from the common folk with no strings attached.

* A special mention to Zeus/Jupiter in Greek and Roman mythology: not only is he an unfaithful god who seduces human women, he takes the appearance of various animals (swan, bull (!), a [[HaveAGayOldTime shower of gold]], etc.) to do so. OlderThanDirt.

** Centaurs.
** And Satyrs ... with behaviour as much as origins bringing this trope to bear on them and the centaurs.

* As mythology is full of stories about romance between supernatural beings and humans, this is OlderThanDirt.
** With a special mention to Zeus/Jupiter in Greek and Roman mythology: not only is he an unfaithful god who seduces human women, he takes the appearance of various animals (swan, bull (!), a [[HaveAGayOldTime shower of gold]], etc.) to do so.

* To avoid paying for the construction of Asgard (by triggering a late completion clause), Loki [[VoluntaryShapeshifting turned into]] [[GenderBender a mare]] in heat so the builder's horse would run off. He gave birth to Sleipnir, the eight-legged horse of Odin, who carries the honored dead to Valhalla. Loki's ''other'' animal children include the great wolf Fenrir and the Midgard Serpent, destined to kill Odin and Thor respectively.