26 Myths That Might Have Originated Because People With Poor Eyesight Had No Access To Glasses, As Shared On Twitter
Some argue that there are normal question, and then there are stupid questions. Others say there are no stupid questions at all. I say there are questions that need to be asked, and then there are questions that nobody asked, but it’s nice there are discussions around it.
TikToker @ShowerThoughtsWMike pointed out that people often forget that there was once a time when glasses weren’t a thing, which potentially explains many historical myths and legends.
And this raises a good question—what is a myth that ended up being a result of poor eyesight? While we can’t say for sure, the internet sure as hell tried to speculate on the question, giving rise to a pretty fun Twitter thread.

Image Credits: ShowerThoughtsWMike
Check out some of the best, weirdest, and most thought-provoking myths people pointed out in the curated list below, and while you’re at it, why not vote, comment, and suggest your own myths that could’ve been due to someone sucking at using their visual organs.
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Seneca the Younger (4 BC – AD 65), is said to have read books by using a large glass bowl filled with water, which magnified the print. ..... In Venice around, AD 1000 they were manufacturing "reading stones" , a flat-bottom, convex glass sphere that was laid on top of the reading material, in effect a magnifying glass.,,,,,,,,The first wearable glasses were invented in Italy sometime between 1268 and 1300.
Apparently the first record of any sort of corrective lens being developed was in Ptolemy's Optics, which would peg the first formal research at some time around 120 to 170 CE (about 1900 to 1850 years ago). That said, yeah, I'm pretty sure people figured out that you could use convex semitransparent and transparent materials to improve vision a long time before that...
Using various things to magnify has been around since the Egyptians but the first glasses didn't show up until 13th century Italy and India (separate invention same time) and they were handheld (think of those opera glasses on a stick). These were still made by glassblowers so you couldn't really do the see with glasses thing - Still more of a magnifier but not bad if you're a jeweler needing to see your product.. During the late 1600s they finally started figuring out grinding lenses giving us the first telescopes, microscopes and monocles that truly focused. First pair of have what we think of glasses (over the ear frames, bridge connecting two lenses whose refraction was designed to clear each eye's vision independently) was a dude named Martin in the early 1700s. The next big thing was 4 lens glasses - you had a second lens on each side that you could move down like the optometrist does when doing the #1 or #2 thing. Ben Franklin did the next big thing by cutting the 4 lenses and making them two for the first bifocals.
Lady manatees have mammaries between their fore flippers, which could add to the effect.
Manatees can look very much like humans in the face, although I have never seen one that resembled a woman. Also I have never seen one on the rocks. So not sure what they were looking at with their terrible eyesight. Maybe a seal?
A sailor traveling from Jamaica on a frigate with a shipment of sugar goes past the Florida coast and sees a manateee. The captain is following the Royal Navy Convoy to Virginia to pick up ships carrying cotton before the whole convoy heads to England.
Load More Replies...Originally called a cameleopard. Camel - leopard. I mean, the leopard makes a kind of sense....
In Afrikaans it is called a Kameelperd (which is directly translated to Camel Horse)
Load More Replies...And crusaders travelling to the Mideast and see an animal in the distance. It is white, seems to have the head and body of a horse, the tail of a lion, the legs of a deer, and a single straight horn coming out of his forehead. If all they saw was a profile, or a single animal missing one, it would be credible to assume, but despite how quick and fast they are, an Arabian Oryx doesn't have a single horn. Yet these were featured on coats of arms for millenia as a symbol of purity......as a unicorn.
When I read this panel on the main page, I thought the thread was going to be about future archeologists misinterpreting the fossil record. There's comedy potential there, I think...
I think this is an excellent description of a very strange looking animal
I'm so glad I've finished my coffee, otherwise it would be all over my keyboard! I proper LOLed that.
Load More Replies...Think though: if you hadn't seen something like it before and a bunch of guys on horseback galloped past, horses head perhaps armoured and hard to recognise, and the men perhaps holding bows and arrows (looking at you Sagittarius), wouldn't it perhaps look like a bunch of half horse half man things with weapons galloped past? I'm just doing a for instance, this is hypothetical lol
How stupid do you have to believe ancient peoples were to believe that someone saw a guy riding a horse or a naked man walking a horse and decided that there's such a thing as a centaur? Honestly, this whole thread is primitivism, which is the formation of stereotypes about ancient peoples as less intelligent. They created myths and legends with fantastic, imaginative creatures just like we do.
The point of this gallery is mistakes are still made when you can't see things clearly. It is flat out saying very smart people make mistakes when they have bad information. People still argue about the fuzzy bigfoot film. The centaur wasn't made up out of thin air. Someone saw something. Many cultures have stories of chimeric creatures (minotaurs, mermaids, naga, Sphinx, Horus, Ganesha) so this isn't primativism. It was people trying to explain what they saw like the sun being a ball carried by a dung beetle, Apollo's chariot, etc.
Load More Replies...Even easier than that. The dude's fully dressed but his horse is drinking water and you're blind so you don't see the horses neck/head through the lilac bush.
i- you have officially crushed my dreams 😃
It's probably a dragonfly since they have more resemblance to fairies (wings, way of flying, rounded head, and long tail)
My little brother and I have a joke about Captain Obvious, and his sidekick, Generic Man (who has since retired and become an accountant named Kyle.)
Load More Replies...Anyone is a son of Zeus who has two arms, two legs and two eyes since this is a slightly above average number. This would be in keeping with Zeus's character as he is portrayed in mythology.
Anyone is a son of Zeus.... because of his... hobbies. ♡
Load More Replies...Pretty much all mythological and religious mysticism, miracles, and magical sights can easily be chalked up to the ignorance of the time period and/or bad eye-sight.
Me, without glasses, approaching exitedly to a unicorn (read: rhyno) here, here, you cute chubby horsey. Let's take a ride.
*Rhino's* also, expand on the 'fire breathing dragons' malarkey will you - do you mean Spitting Cobras or Komodo Dragons ? Half arsed, badly spelled answers like yours do nothing to help, understand or enlighten the discussion.
I think a lizard that spits acid and burns is probably just as cool as a fire-breathing dragon though.
The unicorn was in fact an Arabian Oryx seen from a great distance in profile. It had "the legs of a deer, the tail of a lion and the head and body of a horse." The Brits kept it's image as a symbol of purity (Arabian Oryxs are white).
Fun fact: Medusa was created to address r@pe and how women had no power to protect themselves or do anything to punish their attacker. She was turned into a gorgon by athena to protect to her
I thought she was punished by Athena? Poseidon was the one that raped her (or "seduced", some say) and Athena was angry because Medusa was one of her priestesses and had taken a vow of chastity. Considering that Athena gave Perseus the reflective shield to help him kill Medusa, I'm not sure if she was really on Medusa's side.
Load More Replies...dude with anxiety froze because he made eye contact with curly hair lady. boom, medusa
It just takes one poorly communicated description: Person A - “There was a mighty steed in the field, and I did look, and lo, there were wings upon it.” Person B - “My dude, wings? Whatchu been smoking?” Person A - “’T’was a bird, you dolt. My description was as clear as the clearest river water.” Person C - *walked away before they heard the second part*
A chatty redhead that just wants you to take your damn shoes off
Burning bushes are a fact, the amount of oils in the leaves and evaporating around them makes them self-ignite on a hot day. Forgot the name tho.
Fires often ignite a keystone desert shrub, the fire-intolerant creosote bush, Larrea tridentata (DC.) Coville. Ignition of Larrea is likely catalyzed by fuels produced by native plants that grow beneath the shrubs. ... Once burning, these dead branches ignite living branches in the upper portions of the shrub.
Load More Replies...You can also get one if you don't use protection.
Load More Replies...The burning bush is real. What is wrong with the story is that you can't stand barefooted in the hot desert.
The bible just omits the "Hooh!" "Heeh!" every half-second.
Load More Replies...They're there to scare the bejeesus out of the sea cats.
Load More Replies...Fun fact: A dork is a whales penis. So when you call someone a dork. You're really calling them a whales penis or a whale d i c k. Lol.
If I can forgive Carl Linnaeus and his contemporaries for the atrociously inconsistent naming schemes they used for New World animals, I can forgive a little Greek fisherman for thinking a whale dong is a monster.
not true, there were block and tackle used 2000 years ago which are basicly hand powered cranes
Load More Replies...As someone with a -11 prescription I feel personally attacked by this person using -4.25 to indicate terrible eyesight.
I have a -4.25 prescription and a dude on a horse is just a moving blob
Nah that wasn't someone without their glasses that was me the one time I was tripping. Meanwhile my friend was chatting up a different one.
I think it is a gorilla but I dont have my glasses on so maybe not
Load More Replies...Ones a bear and the other a guy in a gorilla suite. Can't tell with out me glasses.
Actually Missing 411 and Mr. Ballen have stories of first encounters of something like the pic on the right
TIL belugas are even creepier than I thought lol. Thanks for teaching me something new
Load More Replies..."Aye, she's a bit chubby but I like 'em that way! Better to snog a wench can keep ye warm!" (Belugas were more likely the mermaids) belugaknee...137fa6.jpg
maybe they saw some being eaten by a shark legs first and thought that was a mermaid
Historical paintings show that the conception of beautiful women was more manatee like than today. The introduction of the corset in the 19th century started the long trend toward the anorexic look of the last few decades.
Or Glynis Johns (if you've ever seen "Miranda", that other 1940s mermaid comedy.;-))
Load More Replies...Biblically accurate angels is how I know that the ancient world 100% had and used mind-altering substances.
Japan didn't invent the large weird nut-shaped boat with a girl inside it yet.
Load More Replies...I doubt she'd like you if you're screaming at her, saying she's a witch. 🤔
Load More Replies...This isn't far from the truth. Rye grain is occasionally infected with the ergot fungus, which causes hallucinations.
Well he’s been a horse..so I guess a dragon’s not that difficult?
Load More Replies...I always just figured some ancient bloke found a pterodactyl skeleton and was like, “it’s a dragon!!!”
With the number of dinosaur fossils found in China it is quite likely that the dragon was an explanation for all those strange huge bones that turned up from time to time.
Load More Replies...There is pretty strong evidence that the Chinese dragon originated as Sauropod dinosaurs. Those are the gigantic ones with the really long necks, spines, and tails. The oldest archeological evidence of the Chinese dragons are found in the same part of China that is one of the best fossil beds for finding those dinosaurs now. A Huanghetitan (lpng necked dinosaur) was found after a flash flood revealed the bones literally within visual distance of an excavation of a Yangshao (~5000BC) village.
The Qilin as explained to me by my parents, aunties - all of Chinatown (yes. I'm Chinese.) - was essentially the Chinese equivalent of a Unicorn. (hence the hooves, you can even see it in the image for this entry). Head ended up being dragon-like probably because the mish-mash animal had some 'body parts' that were crossovers with Chinese Dragons. Where I am they usually call it "Kirin" instead of Qilin (same thing, different dialects/phonetic usage) I just think they liked mishmashing animals.
Kinda looks like those old illustrations of the Arthurian questing beast
Also migraines sometimes makes people see "auras". You see someone that seems to be shining with a supernatural light and suddenly you're "punished" with extreme pain for "laying your mortal eyes upon divinity".
So I don't have constant headaches but see divinity! Ha!
Load More Replies...I was surprised at that too. As a kid on Fourth of July we'd get theses glasses that put rainbows on lights. They're most effective on those light rays. In fact it seems like they wouldn't work if you don't see them.
Load More Replies...Well, before glasses there weren't that many sources of really bright light though.
I get it from bonfires at night too. It's about the difference between the light source and the background lighting
Load More Replies...Taking social distancing to the max… had to go into the afterlife to get far enough.
The history of the "Far Away Man" can only be told by the light of the silvery moon. So, beware.
Mountain lions scream like a woman when in heat. It is terrifying if you don't know what it is.
So do foxes when they're mating. Deer do a lot of yelling too.
Load More Replies...I get behind this one. What people think is bigfoot, etc.? No. No. Sorry, no. And again, no. *sigh*
Loons! For anyone who's never heard a loon, it can be quite startling for them. Altho, movies have been using loon calls for years, even in locations where loons don't inhabit.
When it starts to pound trees with logs and througnhing folders maybe its something else.
Listen to the scream of a Irish screech howl and you know where the legend of the banshee came from. They are 7-10 inches tall and can be heard 3/4 mile away. This goes to series of recordings. WARNING - SCARY AS **** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ywq8luxcnE
Prophets and such could have been people with awful eyesight seeing some things blend a little
Alcohol was surely also present. Mixed with undernutrition, low level of some vitamins and minerals, local hallucinogen of choice, desire to one-upmanship competing prophet, plain craziness (I won the election), showing off, and inbreeding genetics. Well, the same reasons people fantasize today.
Jesus walked into a puddle and everyone was drunk.
Load More Replies...By acknowledging that he never walked on water in the first place?
Load More Replies...No he didn't. People just told the stories again and again until they became what they were.
Drugs, y'all. It was defo drugs. JC and his peeps just passing the pipe.
Was at the dinosaur exhibit once at a museum in the city and they had recently added a pterodactyl to the collection. I was looking up at it and thinking to myself that I’d probably hide if I saw something that big coming towards me, when a woman next to me says “Imagine that thing flying over you and taking a dump..” I actually imagined that for a couple of seconds and then cracked up laughing. I think I said you’d probably want to make sure you could swim..
Stop ruINING ALL THR MAGICAL THINGS I BELIEVED IN, OKAY? Like, DON'T TELL ME DRAGONS WITH THE BIG WINGS AND FIRE BREATH NEVER EXISTED. Although in all honesty I would make these mistakes without my glasses.
I don't even need glasses and I've sometimes mistaken a coat hanging in a weird place for a shadow person when I was tired/distracted enough.
Load More Replies...The Cyclops was created from ancient fossilized mammoth skulls, where the nose is, looks like one huge eye socket
I'm expecting future scientists to think it was actually a mamoswine's skull
Load More Replies...If there is ever a zombie invasion I know I won’t make it long. I am blind AF and either my contacts will dry up and fall out eventually or if I luckily am wearing my glasses they will eventually fall off or break. At this point I can’t even see a wall or a tree in front of me so I am toast. I think about this. Insert any apocalyptic scenario of your liking.
This brings up a point to counter this "theory", in ancient times, unless their had family to help them, death at a young age was the most likely fate of those with poor eyesight. Such people would not be wandering around alone in dangerous environments where they might "see" and report on something strange. Besides, everyone who knew them would know they had bad eyes and be unlikely to believe them.
Load More Replies...Egyptian mythology is pretty easy to explain: They were way into furries
A fair number of people were stoned from time to time. Ergot in Rye bread can give people skookum halucinations. There is a fellow who was made a saint for constantly battling demons. He is now thought to have been stoned on bad rye.
This is the only logical explanation for the batshit nonsense in the Grimm tales!
Load More Replies...In ancient China, it was believed that years of doing intricate embroidery led to loss of vision. No, it was presbyopia.
Doing acid when you're short sighted with no glasses is like you have a wall in front of your face.
Stop ruINING ALL THR MAGICAL THINGS I BELIEVED IN, OKAY? Like, DON'T TELL ME DRAGONS WITH THE BIG WINGS AND FIRE BREATH NEVER EXISTED. Although in all honesty I would make these mistakes without my glasses.
I don't even need glasses and I've sometimes mistaken a coat hanging in a weird place for a shadow person when I was tired/distracted enough.
Load More Replies...The Cyclops was created from ancient fossilized mammoth skulls, where the nose is, looks like one huge eye socket
I'm expecting future scientists to think it was actually a mamoswine's skull
Load More Replies...If there is ever a zombie invasion I know I won’t make it long. I am blind AF and either my contacts will dry up and fall out eventually or if I luckily am wearing my glasses they will eventually fall off or break. At this point I can’t even see a wall or a tree in front of me so I am toast. I think about this. Insert any apocalyptic scenario of your liking.
This brings up a point to counter this "theory", in ancient times, unless their had family to help them, death at a young age was the most likely fate of those with poor eyesight. Such people would not be wandering around alone in dangerous environments where they might "see" and report on something strange. Besides, everyone who knew them would know they had bad eyes and be unlikely to believe them.
Load More Replies...Egyptian mythology is pretty easy to explain: They were way into furries
A fair number of people were stoned from time to time. Ergot in Rye bread can give people skookum halucinations. There is a fellow who was made a saint for constantly battling demons. He is now thought to have been stoned on bad rye.
This is the only logical explanation for the batshit nonsense in the Grimm tales!
Load More Replies...In ancient China, it was believed that years of doing intricate embroidery led to loss of vision. No, it was presbyopia.
Doing acid when you're short sighted with no glasses is like you have a wall in front of your face.
