This talk considers animals, who we think they are, and who they really are: gods or demons; friends or foe; familiars or pests; ‘were’ creatures and other shapeshifters. For millennia, we’ve been combining our image with other animals in our art, stories and spiritual beliefs, and looking to the natural world with awe and reverence, with envy and fear. Since prehistory, animals have pawed and slivered through our material culture, and probably through our stories, from the 40,000-year-old animal figurines found in Swabian Jura to the explosion of cave paintings that followed. In the ancient world, animals gave form to gods, guardians and monsters, from the monumental sphinxes and lamassu to the Potnia Theon (or Mistress of Beasts) and were frequently referenced in myths, sometimes as creatures to protect, at other times as monsters to slay.