The book (or possibly book series) I am looking for (to the best of my memory) is a children’s collection of short stories involving myths or legends or fairy tales. I had the book in the early 90s and it may have been an older book. I believe some (or all) of the stories may have been foreign tales. I remember a story with a chimera. I also remember a story about a village and a small dragon/lizard type creature. I think he hid in wicker baskets along the streets possibly visiting a particular two story house. These two stories fascinated me as a child because the creatures were scary. I believe the other stories in the book may not have had monsters like this. I seem to also remember a story about a tree. possibly the moral of this story was one bad apple spoiling the bunch, or an apple not falling far from the tree. I seem to remember that most of these stories had a moral theme like this. I feel like the book had an older vibe like the Brothers Grimm or Hans Christian Anderson. There may have been pictures but the book was mostly words. Please let me know if i can provide any further detail. I don’t remember the name of the book but i seem to think it may have had the word MYTH in the title. I really hope you can help!!
Hi – I remember a series of fairy tale type books by Ruth Manning-Sanders where each book had a theme eg Giants or Witches and definitely had Brothers Grimm / older European feel to them. Perhaps this is what you are after?
maybe they were the timelife series, each book was a one word title like dragons, vampires, faeries. lots of color pictures and hard cover. I think sorcery was a purple hadcover, vampires was black…
Perhaps Enchanted Beasts by Sarah Hayes?
I’m also trying to find a book with stories about mythological creatures, though I’m not sure it’s the same one. I remember reading it in the late 1980s or early 1990s, and it definitely had a story about a cockatrice with a snake-like body. This was a picture book with lots of illustrations. There is a question about it on MetaFilter, here: https://ask.metafilter.com/322013/creepy-beady-eyes
Does any of this sound familiar?
I’m thinking this is Magical Animals by Carol Watson
This sounds like the series Scary Stories by Alvin Schwartz. They were all creepy urban legends including the one you mention about some animal that terrorized a town in Mexico.