Griffin
The griffin (also spelled gryphon, griffon or gryphin) is a legendary creature with the body of a lion, the head of an eagle and the ears of a horse or a donkey. The female has the wings of an eagle. The male has projecting spikes instead of wings and is less frequently depicted. The griffin is generally represented with four legs, wings and a beak, with eagle-like talons in place of a lion's forelegs and equine ears jutting from its skull. Some writers describe the tail as a serpent. In the Wikipedia entry European dragon, a 19th-century painting of St. George and the dragon shows a dragon very like a classically-conceived griffin.
It was said to build a nest, like an eagle. Instead of eggs, it lays agates. The animal was supposed to watch over gold mines and hidden treasures, and to be the enemy of the horse. It was consecrated to the Sun; and ancient painters represented the chariot of the Sun as drawn by griffins. The griffin was aa common feature of "animal style" Scythian gold; it was said to inhabit the Scythia steppes that reached from the modern Ukraine yp central Asia; there gold and precious stones were abundant; and when strangers approached to gather the stones, the creatures would leap on them and tear them to pieces. The Scythians used giant petrified bones found in this area as proof of the existence of griffins and to keep outsiders away from the gold and precious stones. It has recently been suggested that these "griffin bones" were actually dinosaur fossils, which are common in this part of the world. Adrienne Mayor, Fossil Hunters: Paleontology in Greek and Roman Times, has made tentative connections between the rich fossil beds around the Mediterranean and across the steppes to the Gobi Desert and the myths of griffins, centaurs and archaic giants originating in the classical world. Mayor, a classical folklorist, draws upon striking similarities that exist between the Protoceratops skulls of the steppes leading to the Gobi Desert, and the legends of the gold-hoarding griffin told by nomadic Scythians of the region; among the artistic evidence, the 6th century Greek vase on the book's cover is incontrovertible.
The griffin is often seen as a charge in heraldry; and in architectural decoration is usually represented as a four-footed beast with wings and the head of a leopard or tiger with horns, or with the head and beak of an eagle. The City of London marks its borough boundaries with griffins carrying their coat of arms. The griffin is the symbol of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and you can see bronze castings of them perched on each corner of museum's roof, protecting its collection.
Some large species of Old World vultures are called gryphons, including the griffon vulture (Gyps fulvus), as are some breeds of dog.
Referenced By
39 Gripen | Fictional national animals | Gripen | JAS-39 Gripen | John Mason School | List of fictional species | List of fictional species by type | Saab 39 Gripen | Saab Gripen | The Marvelous Land of Oz
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