Monster vs Sprite (folklore)

A monster is often a type of grotesque creature, whose appearance frightens and whose powers of destruction threaten the human world's social or moral order. A monster can also be like a human, but in folklore, they are commonly portrayed as the lowest class, as mutants, deformed, supernatural, and otherworldly. Animal monsters are outside the moral order, but sometimes have their origin in some human violation of the moral law (e.g. in the Greek myth, Minos does not sacrifice to Poseidon the white bull which the god sent him, so as punishment Poseidon makes Minos' wife, Pasiphaë, fall in love with the bull. She copulates with the beast, and gives birth to the man with a bull's head, the Minotaur). Human monsters are those who by birth were never fully human (Medusa and her Gorgon sisters) or who through some supernatural or unnatural act lost their humanity (werewolves, Frankenstein's monster), and so who can no longer, or who never could, follow the moral law of human society. Monsters pre-date written history, and the academic study of the particular cultural notions expressed in a society's ideas of monsters is known as monstrophy.Monsters have appeared in literature and in feature-length films. Well-known monsters in fiction include Count Dracula, Frankenstein's monster, werewolves, mummies, and zombies.

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A sprite is a supernatural entity in European mythology. They are often depicted as fairy-like creatures or as an ethereal entity. The word sprite is derived from the Latin spiritus ("spirit"), via the French esprit. Variations on the term include spright and the Celtic spriggan. The term is chiefly used with regard to elves and fairies in European folklore, and in modern English is rarely used in reference to spirits.

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