"We express our being by creating," wrote Rollo May in his seminal work on emotions and vulnerability in the creative process.

Jorge Luis Borges (August 24, 1899 – June 14, 1986) was an exceptional being. It is only fitting he stalked and collected other exceptional beings. The Book of Imaginary Beings is an absolute pleasure to read because it was a pleasure for Borges to create.   Passion projects like The Book of Imaginary Beings that involve the impossible obtaining and ordering of erudition lead to exceptional books.   
Stephen Fry's introduction to poetry (and his mythology compendium, which I'll add soon), Gertrude Jekyll's rearranging of flowers in the garden, Murakami's love letter to running, and anything written by Robert Macfarlane, the world's foremost writer on the rivet connecting landscape and humanity, are all high on my list.

[Preface to the 1957 Edition]

A small child is taken to the zoo for the first time. This child may be any one of us, we have been this child and have forgotten about it. [...] He sees for the first time the bewildering variety of the animal kingdom, how can we explain this everyday [sic] and yet mysterious event?

[Preface to the 1967 Edition]

A book of this kind is unavoidably incomplete; each new edition forms the basis of future editions, which themselves may grow endlessly.

[Preface to the 1969 Edition]

As we all know, there is a kind of lazy pleasure in useless and out-of-the-way erudition. The compilation and translation of this volume has given us a great deal of such pleasure; we hope the reader will share something of the fun we felt when ransacking the bookshelves.

In assembling these beings, by summing the universe, Borges becomes that delighted child at the zoo, enamored and engaged. What environmentalist Rachel Carson called a state of wonder.

Some creatures in The Book of Imaginary Beings are wildly known—like the dragon or fairies   Known as "Faeries" in Scotland and Ireland, these are similar creatures to the Pixies who existed in the aged superstition of Devonshire, England. Small, harmless beings, born of fairies but seemingly less troublesome. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, born and raised in Devon, gave us this wonderful "Song of the Pixies"  
"When fades the moon to shadowy-pale,And scuds the cloud before the gale,Ere the Morn, all gem-bedight,Hath streak'd the East with rosy light,We sip the furze-flower's fragrant dewsClad in robes of rainbow hues:Or sport amid the shooting gleamsTo the tune of distant-tinkling teams,While lusty Labour scouting sorrow,Bids the Dame a glad good-morningWho jogs the accustomed road along,And paces cheery to her cheering song." —others are highly specific and seem to be included at Borges' pleasure.   Borges thought deeply about Franz Kafka and considered him a creative genius limited by his metaphorical vision of life.  
"Perhaps the strength of Kafka may be in his lack of complexity. Kafka has no characters. Kafka is closer to poetry really. He works with metaphors and types as opposed to characters."   
Kafka is a still point around which modern philosophical and literature discussions turn because he was so unique, wrote heavily psychological work, and then died so young. Read Elias Canetti's analysis of how Kafka's life affected his art.

An Animal Imagined by Kafka

It is the animal with the big tail, a tail many yards long and like a fox's brush. How I should like to get my hands on this tail sometime, but it is impossible; the animal is constantly moving about, the tail is constantly being flung this way, and that. The animal resembles a kangaroo, but not as to the face. [...] Sometimes I have the feeling that the animal is trying to tame me.

One of Borges' interviewers remarked that, above all, Borges was truthful. Honest. It is evident in Borges' writing; he uses humor, not guile.

Jorge Luis Borges in 1976. Photograph by Annemarie Heinrich. 

And yet, this wonderfully truthful man was fascinated with mythology. With things created and imagined. And he gave tremendous irrational power to rational things, like reflections in mirrors.

The Double

Suggested or stimulated by reflections in mirrors and in water and by twins, the idea of the Double is common to many countries. It is likely that sentences such as A friend is another self by Pythagoras or the Platonic Know thyself were inspired by it. In Germany this Double is called a Doppleganger, which means 'double walker'. In Scotland there is the fetch, which comes to fetch a man to bring him to his death; there is also the Scottish word wraith for an apparition thought to be seen by a person in his exact image just before death. To meet oneself is, therefore, ominous.

 Fairy door, Oxfordshire. "The Fairies are the most numerous, the most beautiful, and the most memorable of the minor supernatural beings."

In The Book of Imaginary Beings, Borges gives us unadorned evidence of how connected our cultures, languages, and methods of thought are, apart from time, geography, and even communication.

Hochigan

Ages ago, a certain South African bushman, Hochigan, hated animals, which at the time were endowed with speech. On day he disappeared, stealing their special gifts. From then on, animals have never spoken again. Descartes tells us that monkeys could speak if they wished to, but they prefer to keep silent so they won't be made to work. In 1907, the Argentine writer Lugones published a story about a chimpanzee who was taught how to speak and died under the strain of the effort.

Myths and dreams are created to make sense of the nonsensical, to somehow put into being things that simply don't exist but should. Borges' beloved collection is not about imaginary beings, although they abound; it is about the people and cultures who created and celebrated them.

Kodama, the Yokai meaning "tree spirit" and occasionally "echo." Illustration by Japanese artist Shinonome Kijin for The Book of Yokai.

Accompany this bestiary with a gathering of yokai, mythological creatures that have existed and evolved for centuries in Japan, or Kawanabe Kyōsai's illustrated A Book of Demons.

Haokah, the Thunder God

Among the Dakota Sioux, Haokah used the wind as sticks to beat the thunder drum. His horned head also marked him as a hunting god. He wept when he was happy and laughed in his sadness; heat made him shiver and cold made him sweat.

Human invention is a wondrous thing. May our rich imaginations grow endlessly, in lockstep with the scribes who take note.

I'll close with this gentle suggestion from the author.

The Book of Imaginary Beings is not meant to be read straight through; rather, we should like the reader to dip into these pages at random, just as one plays with the shifting patterns of a kaleidoscope.