Irish mythology features a sly shape-shifter.
The Puca (Pooka) is mischievous, rather than truly evil, and can change into any shape it pleases.
It's fond of hanging around pubs late at night and waiting for drunks to come out. The Puca shifts into a horse shape and takes the drunk for a hair-raising ride around the countryside.
Who was the blood-sucking Abhartach?
In Irish lore, this creature was a revenant who rises from the dead to suck blood. He is killed several times and buried standing up.
But a Druid tells the hero how to make him stay dead: Kill him with a sword of yew, bury him upside down, ring the grave with thorns and put a great stone on top of it.
Children changed into nearly immortal birds?
In Irish mythology, Lir was the ruler of the Irish Sea and had four children with his first wife. After she died, he married her sister, who grew increasingly jealous of the children.
She changed them into swans and cursed them to be birds for 900 years.
In Irish mythology, the salmon holds the key to wisdom.
Druids said that the Salmon of Knowledge was created when the fish ate nuts from a magical hazel tree. It digested the nuts, and the knowledge of the world was given to it.
They also believed that whoever ate the salmon would be the wisest person in the world.
Who was the Norse goddess Skadi and why is she on skis?
Skadi is a goddess associated with skiing, bowhunting, winter and the mountains. Her first husband was a consolation prize from the gods because they'd killed her father.
Alas, that union didn't last.
Who was her second husband? Odin himself, and they had several children together.