Hippogriff
A
Hippogriff is a
legendary creature, supposedly the offspring of a
griffin and a
mare.
Ludovico Ariosto's poem,
Orlando Furioso (
1516) contains an early description (canto IV):
:::XVIII:No empty fiction wrought by magic lore,:But natural was the steed the wizard pressed;:
For him a filly to griffin bore;:
Hight hippogryph. In wings and beak and crest,:Formed like his sire, as in the feet before;:But like the mare, his dam, in all the rest.:Such on Riphaean hills, though rarely found,:Are bred, beyond the frozen ocean's bound.
:::XIX:Drawn by enchantment from his distant lair,:The wizard thought but how to tame the foal;:And, in a month, instructed him to bear:Saddle and bit, and gallop to the goal;:And execute on earth or in mid air,:All shifts of manege, course and caracole;:He with such labour wrought. This only real,:Where all the rest was hollow and ideal.
According to
Thomas Bulfinch's
Legends of Charlemagne:
Like a
griffin, it has the head of an
eagle, claws armed with talons, and wings covered with feathers, the rest of its body being that of a
horse. This strange animal is called a Hippogriff.
The reason for its great rarity is that griffins despise horses, which they regard with the same feelings a dog has about a cat. It has been suggested this idea was strong enough in
medieval times to produce an expression, "to mate griffins with horses", which meant about the same as the modern expression, "When pigs fly". The hippogriff was therefore a symbol of impossibility and love. This was supposedly inspired by
Virgil's
Ecologues: ... mate Gryphons with mares, and
in the coming age shy deer and hounds together come to drink.., which would also be the source for the reputed medieval expression, if indeed it was one.
Among the animal combat themes in
Scythian gold adornments may be found griffins attacking horses.
The hippogriff seemed easier to tame than a griffin. In the few medieval legends when this fantastic creature makes an appearance, it is usually the pet of either a knight or a sorcerer. It makes an excellent steed, being able to fly as fast as lightning. The hippogriff is said to be an
omnivore, eating either plants or meat.
Another description of the Hippogriff can be found in
Arnold Sundgaard's poem,
The Hippogriff:
When Mare and Griffin meet and mate:Their offspring share a curious fate.:One half is Horse with hooves and tail,:The rest is Eagle, claws and nail.:As a Horse it likes to graze:In summer meadows doused in haze,:Yet as an Eagle it can fly:Above the clouds where dreams drift by.:With such a Beast I am enthralled,:The Hippogriff this beast is called.
Hippogriffs feature in:
*
Agesilan of Colchos, a sequel to
Amadis of Gaul, published in the
1530s.
*
The Worm Ouroboros by
Eric Rucker Eddison, 1922.
* Many
role-playing games . In the
Eberron campaign setting for
Dungeons & Dragons, the hippogriff is the heraldic beast of the dragonmarked
House Vadalis.
* Various books of
Piers Anthony's
Xanth series, most notably
Xap Hippogriff.
* The
Super Nintendo video game
Demon's Crest has a winged
miniboss referred to as a hippogriff.
* The
PC game series
Warcraft, as a flying combat unit of the
Night Elves in
Warcraft III and as player transportation in
World of Warcraft.
* Several books in the
Harry Potter series, as well as the film
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban included Hippogriffs like
Buckbeak who is owned by Hagrid and befriends Harry. The film
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire features
Jarvis Cocker singing a song called
Do the Hippogriff.
* The
video game Castlevania: Symphony of the Night for the
Sony PlayStation has hippogriffs as enemies.
* The
Lake George Monster, a hoax, was a hippogriff.
* In
Warhammer Fantasy Battles, the Hippogriff is a monstrous mount available to the army of
Bretonnia.The hippogriff also figures, rarely, as a
charge in
heraldry.
*
Thomas Bulfinch,
Legends of Charlemagne, 1863.
