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The card positions represent:

1. How you feel about yourself now
2. What you most want at this moment
3. Your fears
4. What is going for you
5. What is going against you
6.The outcome according to your current situation or the question you asked

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If your question is vague or unformed, how can the cards give you clear answers or responses? If you approach the cards wanting an answer to a certain question, yet when you select the cards you are thinking of 50 other unrelated things, the answer you get will often not make sense.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mermane

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werewolf

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Grouping

Mythology

Other name(s)

Lycanthrope

In folklore, a werewolf (from Old English werwulf 'man-wolf'), or occasionally lycanthrope (from Ancient Greek , lukánthrōpos, 'wolf-human'), is an individual that can shapeshift into a wolf (or, especially in modern film, a therianthropic hybrid wolf-like creature), either purposely or after being placed under a curse or affliction (often a bite or the occasional scratch from another werewolf) with the transformations occurring on the night of a full moon. Early sources for belief in this ability or affliction, called lycanthropy, are Petronius (27-66) and Gervase of Tilbury (1150-1228).

The werewolf is a widespread concept in European folklore, existing in many variants, which are related by a common development of a Christian interpretation of underlying European folklore developed during the medieval period. From the early modern period, werewolf beliefs also spread to the New World with colonialism. Belief in werewolves developed in parallel to the belief in witches, in the course of the Late Middle Ages and the early modern period. Like the witchcraft trials as a whole, the trial of supposed werewolves emerged in what is now Switzerland (especially the Valais and Vaud) in the early 15th century and spread throughout Europe in the 16th, peaking in the 17th and subsiding by the 18th century.

The persecution of werewolves and the associated folklore is an integral part of the " witch-hunt" phenomenon, albeit a marginal one, accusations of lycanthropy being involved in only a small fraction of witchcraft trials. During the early period, accusations of lycanthropy (transformation into a wolf) were mixed with accusations of wolf-riding or wolf-charming. The case of Peter Stumpp (1589) led to a significant peak in both interest in and persecution of supposed werewolves, primarily in French-speaking and German-speaking Europe. The phenomenon persisted longest in Bavaria and Austria, with persecution of wolf-charmers recorded until well after 1650, the final cases taking place in the early 18th century in Carinthia and Styria.

After the end of the witch-trials, the werewolf became of interest in folklore studies and in the emerging Gothic horror genre; werewolf fiction as a genre has pre-modern precedents in medieval romances (e.g. Bisclavret and ) and developed in the 18th century out of the "semi-fictional" chapbook tradition. The trappings of horror literature in the 20th century became part of the horror and fantasy genre of modern popular culture.

The Modern English werewolf descends from the Old English werewulf, which is a cognate (linguistic sibling of the same origin) of Middle Dutch weerwolf, Middle Low German werwulf, Middle High German werwolf, and West Frisian waer-ûl(e). These terms are generally derived from a Proto-Germanic form reconstructed as *wira-wulfaz ('man-wolf'), itself from an earlier Pre-Germanic form * wiro-wulpos. An alternative reconstruction, * wazi-wulfaz ('wolf-clothed'), would bring the Germanic compound closer to the Slavic meaning, with other semantic parallels in Old Norse úlfheðnar ('wolf-skinned') and úlfheðinn ('wolf-coat'), Old Irish luchthonn ('wolf-skin'), and Sanskrit Vṛkājina ('Wolf-skin').

The Norse branch underwent taboo modifications, with Old Norse vargúlfr (only attested as a translation of Old French garwaf ~ garwal(f) from Marie's lay of Bisclavret) replacing * wiraz ('man') with vargr ('wolf, outlaw'), perhaps under the influence of the Old French expression leus warous ~ lous garous (modern loup-garou), which literally means 'wolf-werewolf'. The modern Norse forms varulv (Danish, Norwegian) and varulf (Swedish) were either borrowed from Middle Low German werwulf, or else derived from an unattested Old Norse *varulfr, posited as the regular descendant of Proto-Germanic * wira-wulfaz. An Old Frankish form *werwolf is inferred from the Middle Low German variant and was most likely borrowed into Old Norman garwa(l)f ~ garo(u)l, with regular Germanic- Romance correspondance w- / g- (cf. William / Guillaume, Wales / Galles, etc.).

The Proto-Slavic noun * vьlko-dlakь, meaning 'wolf-haired' (cf. * dlaka, 'animal hair, fur'), can be reconstructed from Serbian vukòdlak, Slovenian vołkodlȃk, and Czech vlkodlak, although formal variations in Slavic languages (* vьrdl(j)ak, * vьlkdolk, * vьlklak) and the late attestation of some forms pose difficulties in tracing the origin of the term. The Greek Vrykolakas and Romanian Vîrcolac, designating vampire-like creatures in Balkan folklores, were borrowed from Slavic languages. The same form is also found in other non-Slavic languages of the region, such as Albanian vurvolak and Turkish Bulgarian vьrkolak and Church Slavonic vurkolak may be interpreted as back-borrowings from Greek. The name (вурдалак; 'ghoul, revenant') first appeared in Russian poet Alexander Pushkin's work Pesni, published in 1835. The source of Pushkin's distinctive form remains debated in scholarship.

A Proto-Celtic noun * wiro-kū, meaning 'man-dog', has been reconstructed from Celtiberian uiroku, the Old Brittonic place-name Viroconium (< * wiroconion, 'place of man-dogs, i.e. werewolves'), the Old Irish noun ferchu ('male dog, fierce dog'), and the medieval personal names Guurci ( Old Welsh) and Gurki ( Old Breton). Wolves were metaphorically designated as 'dogs' in Celtic cultures.

The modern term lycanthropy comes from Ancient Greek lukanthrōpía (λυκανθρωπία), itself from lukánthrōpos (λυκάνθρωπος), meaning 'wolf-man'. Ancient writers used the term solely in the context of clinical lycanthropy, a condition in which the patient imagined himself to be a wolf. Modern writers later used lycanthrope as a synonym of werewolf, referring to a person who, according to medieval superstition, could assum the form of wolves.

Indo-European comparative mythology

The European motif of the devilish werewolf devouring human flesh harks back to a common development during the Middle Ages in the context of Christianity, although stories of humans turning into wolves take their roots in earlier pre-Christian beliefs.

Their underlying common origin can be traced back to Proto-Indo-European mythology, where lycanthropy is reconstructed as an aspect of the initiation of the warrior class, which may have included a cult focused on dogs and wolves identified with an age grade of young, unmarried warriors. The standard comparative overview of this aspect of Indo-European mythology is McCone (1987).

Classical antiquity

A few references to men changing into wolves are found in Ancient Greek literature and mythology. Herodotus, in his , wrote that the Neuri, a tribe he places to the north-east of Scythia, were all transformed into wolves once every year for several days, and then changed back to their human shape. This tale was also mentioned by Pomponius Mela.

In the second century BC, the Greek geographer Pausanias related the story of King Lycaon of Arcadia, who was transformed into a wolf because he had sacrificed a child in the altar of Zeus Lycaeus. In the version of the legend told by Ovid in his Metamorphoses, when Zeus visits Lycaon disguised as a common man, Lycaon wants to test if he is really a god. To that end, he kills a Molossian hostage and serve his entrails to Zeus. Disgusted, the god turns Lycaon into a wolf. However, in other accounts of the legend, like that of Apollodorus' Bibliotheca, Zeus blasts him and his sons with thunderbolts as punishment.

Pausanias also relates the story of an Arcadian man called Damarchus of Parrhasia, who was turned into a wolf after tasting the entrails of a human child sacrificed to Zeus Lycaeus. He was restored to human form 10 years later and went on to become an Olympic champion. This tale is also recounted by Pliny the Elder, who calls the man Demaenetus quoting Agriopas. According to Pausanias, this was not a one-off event, but that men have been transformed into wolves during the sacrifices to Zeus Lycaeus since the time of Lycaon. If they abstain of tasting human flesh while being wolves, they would be restored to human form nine years later, but if they don't abstain they will remain wolves forever.

Lykos (Λύκος) of Athens was a wolf-shaped herο, whose shrine stood by the jurycourt, and the first jurors were named after him.

Pliny the Elder likewise recounts another tale of lycanthropy. Quoting Euanthes, he mentions that in Arcadia, once a year a man was chosen by lot from the Anthus' clan. The chosen man was escorted to a marsh in the area, where he hung his clothes into an oak tree, swam across the marsh and transformed into a wolf, joining a pack for nine years. If during these nine years he refrained from tasting human flesh, he returned to the same marsh, swam back and recovered his previous human form, with nine years added to his appearance. Ovid also relates stories of men who roamed the woods of Arcadia in the form of wolves.

Virgil, in his poetic work , wrote about a man called Moeris, who used herbs and poisons picked in his native Pontus to turn himself into a wolf. In prose, the , written circa AD 60 by Gaius Petronius Arbiter, one of the characters, Niceros, tells a story at a banquet about a friend who turned into a wolf (chs. 61-62). He describes the incident as follows, "When I look for my buddy I see he'd stripped and piled his clothes by the roadside... He pees in a circle round his clothes and then, just like that, turns into a wolf!... after he turned into a wolf he started howling and then ran off into the woods."

Early Christian authors also mentioned werewolves. In The City of God, Augustine of Hippo gives an account similar to that found in Pliny the Elder. Augustine explains that "It is very generally believed that by certain witches spells men may be turned into wolves..." Physical metamorphosis was also mentioned in the Capitulatum Episcopi, attributed to the Council of Ancyra in the 4th century, which became the Church's doctrinal text in relation to magic, witches, and transformations such as those of werewolves. The Capitulatum Episcopi states that "Whoever believes that anything can be...transformed into another species or likeness, except by God Himself...is beyond doubt an infidel.'

In these works of Roman writers, werewolves often receive the name versipellis ("turnskin"). Augustine instead uses the phrase "in lupum fuisse mutatum" (changed into the form of a wolf) to describe the physical metamorphosis of werewolves, which is similar to phrases used in the medieval period.

Middle Ages

There is evidence of widespread belief in werewolves in medieval Europe. This evidence spans much of the Continent, as well as the British Isles. Werewolves were mentioned in Medieval law codes, such as that of King Cnut, whose Ecclesiastical Ordinances inform us that the codes aim to ensure that "...the madly audacious werewolf do not too widely devastate, nor bite too many of the spiritual flock." Liutprand of Cremona reports a rumor that Bajan, son of Simeon I of Bulgaria, could use magic to turn himself into a wolf. The works of Augustine of Hippo had a large influence on the development of Western Christianity, and were widely read by churchmen of the medieval period; and these churchmen occasionally discussed werewolves in their works. Famous examples include Gerald of Wales's Werewolves of Ossory, found in his Topographica Hibernica, and in Gervase of Tilbury's Otia Imperiala, both written for royal audiences.

Gervase reveals to the reader that belief in such transformations (he also mentions women turning into cats and into snakes) was widespread across Europe; he uses the phrase "que ita dinoscuntur" when discussing these metamorphoses, which translates to "it is known". Gervase, who was writing in Germany, also tells the reader that the transformation of men into wolves cannot be easily dismissed, for "...in England we have often seen men change into wolves" ("Vidimus enim frequenter in Anglia per lunationes homines in lupos mutari..."). Further evidence of the widespread belief in werewolves and other human-animal transformations can be seen in theological attacks made against such beliefs. Conrad of Hirsau, writing in the 11th century, forbids the reading of stories in which a person's reason is obscured following such a transformation. Conrad specifically refers to the tales of Ovid in his tract. Pseudo-Augustine, writing in the 12th century, follows Augustine of Hippo's argument that no physical transformation can be made by any but God, stating that "...the body corporeally [cannot], be changed into the material limbs of any animal.'

Marie de France's poem Bisclavret (c. 1200) is another example, in which the eponymous nobleman Bisclavret, for reasons not described, had to transform into a wolf every week. When his treacherous wife stole his clothing needed to restore his human form, he escaped the king's wolf hunt by imploring the king for mercy and accompanied the king thereafter. His behavior at court was gentle, until his wife and her new husband appeared at court, so much so that his hateful attack on the couple was deemed justly motivated, and the truth was revealed. This (a type of Breton sung-poem) follows many themes found within other werewolf tales - the removal of clothing and attempting to refrain from the consumption of human flesh can be found in Pliny the Elder, as well as in the second of Gervase of Tilbury's werewolf stories, about a werewolf by the name of Chaucevaire. Marie also reveals to us the existence of werewolf belief in Breton and Norman France, by telling us the Franco-Norman word for werewolf: garwulf, which, she explains, are common in that part of France, where "...many men turned into werewolves". Gervase also supports this terminology when he tells us that the French use the term " gerulfi" to describe what the English call "werewolves". and Biclarel are two anonymous lais that share the theme of a werewolf knight being betrayed by his wife.

The German word werwolf is recorded by Burchard von Worms in the 11th century, and by Bertold of Regensburg in the 13th, but is not recorded in all of medieval German poetry or fiction. While Baring-Gould argues that references to werewolves were also rare in England, presumably because whatever significance the "wolf-men" of Germanic paganism had carried, the associated beliefs and practices had been successfully repressed after Christianization (or if they persisted, they did so outside of the sphere of literacy available to us), we have sources other than those mentioned above. Such examples of werewolves in Ireland and the British Isles can be found in the work of the 9th century Welsh monk Nennius; female werewolves appear in the Irish work Tales of the Elders, from the 12th century; and Welsh werewolves in the 12th to 13th century work, Mabinogion.

Germanic pagan traditions associated with wolf-men persisted longest in the Scandinavian Viking Age. Harald I of Norway is known to have had a body of (wolf-coated [men]), which are mentioned in the Vatnsdœla, Haraldskvæði, and the Völsunga saga, and resemble some werewolf legends. The Úlfhednar were fighters similar to the berserkers, though they dressed in wolf hides rather than those of bears and were reputed to channel the spirits of these animals to enhance effectiveness in battle. These warriors were resistant to pain and killed viciously in battle, much like wild animals. Úlfhednar and berserkers are closely associated with the Norse god Odin.

The Scandinavian traditions of this period may have spread to Kievan Rus', giving rise to the Slavic "werewolf" tales. The 11th-century Belarusian Prince Vseslav of Polotsk was considered to have been a werewolf, capable of moving at superhuman speeds, as recounted in The Tale of Igor's Campaign:

Vseslav the prince judged men; as prince, he ruled towns; but at night he prowled in the guise of a wolf. From Kiev, prowling, he reached, before the cocks crew, Tmutorokan. The path of Great Sun, as a wolf, prowling, he crossed. For him in Polotsk they rang for matins early at St. Sophia the bells; but he heard the ringing in Kiev.

The situation as described during the medieval period gives rise to the dual form of werewolf folklore in Early Modern Europe. On one hand the "Germanic" werewolf, which becomes associated with the witchcraft panic, and on the other hand the "Slavic" werewolf or , which becomes associated with the concept of the revenant or "vampire". The "eastern" werewolf-vampire is found in the folklore of Central and Eastern Europe, including Hungary, Romania and the Balkans, while the "western" werewolf-sorcerer is found in France, German-speaking Europe and in the Baltic.

Being a werewolf was a common accusation in witch trials throughout their history, and it featured even in the Valais witch trials, one of the earliest such trials altogether, in the first half of the 15th century. Likewise, in the Vaud (Switzerland), child-eating werewolves were reported as early as 1448.[citation needed ]

In 1539, Martin Luther used the form to describe a hypothetical ruler worse than a tyrant who must be resisted.

Early modern history

There were numerous reports of werewolf attacks - and consequent court trials - in 16th-century France. In some of the cases there was clear evidence against the accused of murder and cannibalism, but no association with wolves. In other cases people have been terrified by such creatures, such as that of Gilles Garnier in Dole in 1573, who was convicted of being a werewolf.[citation needed ]

A peak of attention to lycanthropy came in the late 16th to early 17th century, as part of the European witch-hunts. A number of treatises on werewolves were written in France during 1595 and 1615. Werewolves were sighted in 1598 in Anjou, and a teenage werewolf was sentenced to life imprisonment in Bordeaux in 1603. Henry Boguet wrote a lengthy chapter about werewolves in 1602. In the Vaud, werewolves were convicted in 1602 and in 1624. A treatise by a Vaud pastor in 1653, however, argued that lycanthropy was purely an illusion. After this, the only further record from the Vaud dates to 1670: it is that of a boy who claimed he and his mother could change themselves into wolves, which was, however, not taken seriously. At the beginning of the 17th century witchcraft was prosecuted by James I of England, who regarded "warwoolfes" as victims of delusion induced by "a natural superabundance of melancholic". After 1650, belief in Lycanthropy had mostly disappeared from French-speaking Europe, as evidenced in Diderot's Encyclopedia, which attributed reports of lycanthropy to a "disorder of the brain", although there were continuing reports of extraordinary wolflike beasts but they were not considered to be werewolves. One such report concerned the Beast of Gévaudan which terrorized the general area of the former province of Gévaudan, now called Lozère, in south-central France; from the years 1764 to 1767, it killed upwards of 80 men, women, and children. The part of Europe which showed more vigorous interest in werewolves after 1650 was the Holy Roman Empire. At least nine works on lycanthropy were printed in Germany between 1649 and 1679. In the Austrian and Bavarian Alps, belief in werewolves persisted well into the 18th century. In any case, as late as in 1853, in Galicia, northwestern Spain, Manuel Blanco Romasanta was judged and condemned as the author of a number of murders, but he claimed to be not guilty because of his condition of lobishome, werewolf.

Until the 20th century, wolf attacks on humans were an occasional, but still widespread, feature of life in Europe. Some scholars have suggested that it was inevitable that wolves, being the most feared predators in Europe, were projected into the folklore of evil shapeshifters. This is said to be corroborated by the fact that areas devoid of wolves typically use different kinds of predator to fill the niche;werehyenas in Africa, weretigers in India, as well as werepumas (" runa uturuncu") and werejaguars (" yaguaraté-abá" or " tigre-capiango") in southern South America.

An idea is explored in Sabine Baring-Gould's work The Book of Werewolves is that werewolf legends may have been used to explain serial killings. Perhaps the most infamous example is the case of Peter Stumpp (executed in 1589), the German farmer, and alleged serial killer and cannibal, also known as the Werewolf of Bedburg.

Asian cultures

Common Turkic folklore holds a different, reverential light to the werewolf legends in that Turkic Central Asian shamans after performing long and arduous rites would voluntarily be able to transform into the humanoid "Kurtadam" (literally meaning Wolfman). Since the wolf was the totemic ancestor animal of the Turkic peoples, they would be respectful of any shaman who was in such a form.

Lycanthropy as a medical condition

Some modern researchers have tried to explain the reports of werewolf behaviour with recognised medical conditions. Dr Lee Illis of Guy's Hospital in London wrote a paper in 1963 entitled On Porphyria and the Aetiology of Werewolves, in which he argues that historical accounts on werewolves could have in fact been referring to victims of congenital porphyria, stating how the symptoms of photosensitivity, reddish teeth and psychosis could have been grounds for accusing a sufferer of being a werewolf. This is however argued against by Woodward, who points out how mythological werewolves were almost invariably portrayed as resembling true wolves, and that their human forms were rarely physically conspicuous as porphyria victims. Others have pointed out the possibility of historical werewolves having been sufferers of hypertrichosis, a hereditary condition manifesting itself in excessive hair growth. However, Woodward dismissed the possibility, as the rarity of the disease ruled it out from happening on a large scale, as werewolf cases were in medieval Europe.

People suffering from Down syndrome have been suggested by some scholars to have been possible originators of werewolf myths. Woodward suggested rabies as the origin of werewolf beliefs, claiming remarkable similarities between the symptoms of that disease and some of the legends. Woodward focused on the idea that being bitten by a werewolf could result in the victim turning into one, which suggested the idea of a transmittable disease like rabies. However, the idea that lycanthropy could be transmitted in this way is not part of the original myths and legends and only appears in relatively recent beliefs. Lycanthropy can also be met with as the main content of a delusion, for example, the case of a woman has been reported who during episodes of acute psychosis complained of becoming four different species of animals.

Folk beliefs

Characteristics

The beliefs classed together under lycanthropy are far from uniform, and the term is somewhat capriciously applied. The transformation may be temporary or permanent; the were-animal may be the man himself metamorphosed; may be his double whose activity leaves the real man to all appearance unchanged; may be his soul, which goes forth seeking whomever it may devour, leaving its body in a state of trance; or it may be no more than the messenger of the human being, a real animal or a familiar spirit, whose intimate connection with its owner is shown by the fact that any injury to it is believed, by a phenomenon known as repercussion, to cause a corresponding injury to the human being.

Werewolves were said in European folklore to bear tell-tale physical traits even in their human form. These included the meeting of both eyebrows at the bridge of the nose, curved fingernails, low-set ears and a swinging stride. One method of identifying a werewolf in its human form was to cut the flesh of the accused, under the pretense that fur would be seen within the wound. A Russian superstition recalls a werewolf can be recognized by bristles under the tongue. The appearance of a werewolf in its animal form varies from culture to culture, though it is most commonly portrayed as being indistinguishable from ordinary wolves save for the fact that it has no tail (a trait thought characteristic of witches in animal form), is often larger, and retains human eyes and a voice. According to some Swedish accounts, the werewolf could be distinguished from a regular wolf by the fact that it would run on three legs, stretching the fourth one backwards to look like a tail. After returning to their human forms, werewolves are usually documented as becoming weak, debilitated and undergoing painful nervous depression. One universally reviled trait in medieval Europe was the werewolf's habit of devouring recently buried corpses, a trait that is documented extensively, particularly in the Annales Medico-psychologiques in the 19th century.

Becoming a werewolf

Various methods for becoming a werewolf have been reported, one of the simplest being the removal of clothing and putting on a belt made of wolfskin, probably as a substitute for the assumption of an entire animal skin (which also is frequently described). In other cases, the body is rubbed with a magic salve. Drinking rainwater out of the footprint of the animal in question or from certain enchanted streams were also considered effectual modes of accomplishing metamorphosis. The 16th-century Swedish writer Olaus Magnus says that the Livonian werewolves were initiated by draining a cup of specially prepared beer and repeating a set formula. Ralston in his Songs of the Russian People gives the form of incantation still familiar in Russia. In Italy, France and Germany, it was said that a man or woman could turn into a werewolf if he or she, on a certain Wednesday or Friday, slept outside on a summer night with the full moon shining directly on his or her face.

In other cases, the transformation was supposedly accomplished by Satanic allegiance for the most loathsome ends, often for the sake of sating a craving for human flesh. "The werewolves", writes Richard Verstegan ( Restitution of Decayed Intelligence, 1628),

are certayne sorcerers, who having annoynted their bodies with an ointment which they make by the instinct of the devil, and putting on a certayne inchaunted girdle, does not only unto the view of others seem as wolves, but to their own thinking have both the shape and nature of wolves, so long as they wear the said girdle. And they do dispose themselves as very wolves, in worrying and killing, and most of humane creatures.

The phenomenon of repercussion, the power of animal metamorphosis, or of sending out a familiar, real or spiritual, as a messenger, and the supernormal powers conferred by association with such a familiar, are also attributed to the magician, male and female, all the world over; and witch superstitions are closely parallel to, if not identical with, lycanthropic beliefs, the occasional involuntary character of lycanthropy being almost the sole distinguishing feature. In another direction the phenomenon of repercussion is asserted to manifest itself in connection with the bush-soul of the West African and the of Central America; but though there is no line of demarcation to be drawn on logical grounds, the assumed power of the magician and the intimate association of the bush-soul or the nagual with a human being are not termed lycanthropy.

The curse of lycanthropy was also considered by some scholars as being a divine punishment. Werewolf literature shows many examples of God or saints allegedly cursing those who invoked their wrath with lycanthropy. Such is the case of Lycaon, who was turned into a wolf by Zeus as punishment for slaughtering one of his own sons and serving his remains to the gods as a dinner. Those who were excommunicated by the Roman Catholic Church were also said to become werewolves.

The power of transforming others into wild beasts was attributed not only to malignant sorcerers, but to Christian saints as well. Omnes angeli, boni et Mali, ex virtute naturali habent potestatem transmutandi corpora nostra ("All angels, good and bad, have the power of transmutating our bodies") was the dictum of St. Thomas Aquinas. St. Patrick was said to have transformed the Welsh King Vereticus into a wolf; Natalis supposedly cursed an illustrious Irish family whose members were each doomed to be a wolf for seven years. In other tales the divine agency is even more direct, while in Russia, again, men supposedly became werewolves when incurring the wrath of the Devil.

A notable exception to the association of Lycanthropy and the Devil, comes from a rare and lesser known account of an 80-year-old man named Thiess. In 1692, in Jürgensburg, Livonia, Thiess testified under oath that he and other werewolves were the Hounds of God. He claimed they were warriors who descended into hell to battle witches and demons. Their efforts ensured that the Devil and his minions did not carry off the grain from local failed crops down to hell. Thiess was ultimately sentenced to ten lashes for idolatry and superstitious belief.

Various methods have existed for removing the werewolf form. In antiquity, the Ancient Greeks and Romans believed in the power of exhaustion in curing people of lycanthropy. The victim would be subjected to long periods of physical activity in the hope of being purged of the malady. This practice stemmed from the fact that many alleged werewolves would be left feeling weak and debilitated after committing depredations.

In medieval Europe, traditionally, there are three methods one can use to cure a victim of lycanthropy; medicinally (usually via the use of wolfsbane), surgically, or by exorcism. However, many of the cures advocated by medieval medical practitioners proved fatal to the patients. A Sicilian belief of Arabic origin holds that a werewolf can be cured of its ailment by striking it on the forehead or scalp with a knife. Another belief from the same culture involves the piercing of the werewolf's hands with nails. Sometimes, less extreme methods were used. In the German lowland of Schleswig-Holstein, a werewolf could be cured if one were to simply address it three times by its Christian name, while one Danish belief holds that merely scolding a werewolf will cure it. Conversion to Christianity is also a common method of removing lycanthropy in the medieval period; a devotion to St. Hubert has also been cited as both cure for and protection from lycanthropes.

Connection to revenants

Before the end of the 19th century, the Greeks believed that the corpses of werewolves, if not destroyed, would return to life in the form of wolves or hyenas which prowled battlefields, drinking the blood of dying soldiers. In the same vein, in some rural areas of Germany, Poland and Northern France, it was once believed that people who died in mortal sin came back to life as blood-drinking wolves. These "undead" werewolves would return to their human corpse form at daylight. They were dealt with by decapitation with a spade and exorcism by the parish priest. The head would then be thrown into a stream, where the weight of its sins was thought to weigh it down. Sometimes, the same methods used to dispose of ordinary vampires would be used. The vampire was also linked to the werewolf in East European countries, particularly Bulgaria, Serbia and Slovenia. In Serbia, the werewolf and vampire are known collectively as vulkodlak.

Hungary and Balkans

In Hungarian folklore, the werewolves used to live specially in the region of Transdanubia, and it was thought that the ability to change into a wolf was obtained in the infant age, after the suffering of abuse by the parents or by a curse. At the age of seven the boy or the girl leaves the house, goes hunting by night and can change to a person or wolf whenever he wants. The curse can also be obtained when in the adulthood the person passed three times through an arch made of a Birch with the help of a wild rose's spine.

The werewolves were known to exterminate all kind of farm animals, especially sheep. The transformation usually occurred during the winter solstice, Easter and a full moon. Later in the 17th and 18th century, the trials in Hungary not only were conducted against witches, but against werewolves too, and many records exist creating connections between both kinds. Also the vampires and werewolves are closely related in Hungary, being both feared in the antiquity.

Among the South Slavs, and also among the ethnic Kashubian people in present-day northern Poland, there was the belief that if a child was born with hair, a birthmark or a caul on their head, they were supposed to possess shapeshifting abilities. Though capable of turning into any animal they wished, it was commonly believed that such people preferred to turn into a wolf.

Serbian vukodlaks traditionally had the habit of congregating annually in the winter months, when they would strip off their wolf skins and hang them from trees. They would then get a hold of another vulkodlak's skin and burn it, releasing from its curse the vukodlak from whom the skin came.

According to Armenian lore, there are women who, in consequence of deadly sins, are condemned to spend seven years in wolf form. In a typical account, a condemned woman is visited by a wolfskin-toting spirit, who orders her to wear the skin, which causes her to acquire frightful cravings for human flesh soon after. With her better nature overcome, the she-wolf devours each of her own children, then her relatives' children in order of relationship, and finally the children of strangers. She wanders only at night, with doors and locks springing open at her approach. When morning arrives, she reverts to human form and removes her wolfskin. The transformation is generally said to be involuntary, but there are alternate versions involving voluntary metamorphosis, where the women can transform at will.

Americas and Caribbean

The Naskapis believed that the caribou afterlife is guarded by giant wolves which kill careless hunters venturing too near. The Navajo people feared witches in wolf's clothing called "Mai-cob". Woodward thought that these beliefs were due to the Norse colonization of the Americas. When the European colonization of the Americas occurred, the pioneers brought their own werewolf folklore with them and were later influenced by the lore of their neighbouring colonies and those of the Natives. Belief in the loup-garou present in Canada (thence Acadiana[citation needed ]), the Upper and Lower Peninsulas of Michigan and upstate New York, originates from French folklore influenced by Native American stories on the Wendigo. In Mexico, there is a belief in a creature called the . In Haiti, there is a superstition that werewolf spirits known locally as Jé-rouge (red eyes) can possess the bodies of unwitting persons and nightly transform them into cannibalistic lupine creatures. The Haitian jé-rouges typically try to trick mothers into giving away their children voluntarily by waking them at night and asking their permission to take their child, to which the disoriented mother may either reply yes or no. The Haitian jé-rouges differ from traditional European werewolves by their habit of actively trying to spread their lycanthropic condition to others, much like vampires.

Modern reception

Werewolf fiction

Most modern fiction describes werewolves as vulnerable to silver weapons and highly resistant to other injuries. This feature appears in German folklore of the 19th century. The claim that the Beast of Gévaudan, an 18th-century wolf or wolflike creature, was shot by a silver bullet appears to have been introduced by novelists retelling the story from 1935 onwards and not in earlier versions. English folklore, prior to 1865, showed shapeshifters to be vulnerable to silver. "...till the publican shot a silver button over their heads when they were instantly transformed into two ill-favoured old ladies..." c. 1640 the city of Greifswald, Germany was infested by werewolves. "A clever lad suggested that they gather all their silver buttons, goblets, belt buckles, and so forth, and melt them down into bullets for their muskets and pistols. ... this time they slaughtered the creatures and rid Greifswald of the lycanthropes."

The 1897 novel and the short story " Dracula's Guest", both written by Bram Stoker, drew on earlier mythologies of werewolves and similar legendary demons and "was to voice the anxieties of an age", and the "fears of late Victorian patriarchy". In "Dracula's Guest," a band of military horsemen coming to the aid of the protagonist chase off Dracula, depicted as a great wolf stating the only way to kill it is by a "Sacred Bullet". This is also mentioned in the main novel Dracula as well. Count Dracula stated in the novel that legends of werewolves originated from his Szekely racial bloodline, who himself is also depicted with the ability to shapeshift into a wolf at will during the night but is unable to do so during the day except at noon.

The 1928 novel The Wolf's Bride: A Tale from Estonia, written by the Finnish author Aino Kallas, tells story of the forester Priidik's wife Aalo living in Hiiumaa in the 17th century, who became a werewolf under the influence of a malevolent forest spirit, also known as Diabolus Sylvarum.

The first feature film to use an anthropomorphic werewolf was Werewolf of London in 1935. The main werewolf of this film is a dapper London scientist who retains some of his style and most of his human features after his transformation, as lead actor Henry Hull was unwilling to spend long hours being made up by makeup artist Jack Pierce. Universal Studios drew on a Balkan tale of a plant associated with lycanthropy as there was no literary work to draw upon, unlike the case with vampires. There is no reference to silver nor other aspects of werewolf lore such as cannibalism.

A more tragic character is Lawrence Talbot, played by Lon Chaney Jr. in 1941's The Wolf Man. With Pierce's makeup more elaborate this time, the movie catapulted the werewolf into public consciousness. Sympathetic portrayals are few but notable, such as the comedic but tortured protagonist David Naughton in An American Werewolf in London, and a less anguished and more confident and charismatic Jack Nicholson in the 1994 film . Over time, the depiction of werewolves has gone from fully malevolent to even heroic creatures, such as in the Underworld and series, as well as , Dance in the Vampire Bund, Rosario + Vampire, and various other movies, anime, manga, and comic books.

Other werewolves are decidedly more willful and malevolent, such as those in the novel The Howling and its subsequent sequels and film adaptations. The form a werewolf assumes was generally anthropomorphic in early films such as The Wolf Man and Werewolf of London, but a larger and powerful wolf in many later films.

Werewolves are often depicted as immune to damage caused by ordinary weapons, being vulnerable only to silver objects, such as a silver-tipped cane, bullet or blade; this attribute was first adopted cinematically in The Wolf Man. This negative reaction to silver is sometimes so strong that the mere touch of the metal on a werewolf's skin will cause burns. Current-day werewolf fiction almost exclusively involves lycanthropy being either a hereditary condition or being transmitted like an infectious disease by the bite of another werewolf. In some fiction, the power of the werewolf extends to human form, such as invulnerability to conventional injury due to their healing factor, superhuman speed and strength and falling on their feet from high falls. Also aggressiveness and animalistic urges may be intensified and more difficult to control (hunger, sexual arousal). Usually in these cases the abilities are diminished in human form. In other fiction it can be cured by medicine men or antidotes.

Along with the vulnerability to the silver bullet, the full moon being the cause of the transformation only became part of the depiction of werewolves on a widespread basis in the twentieth century. The first movie to feature the transformative effect of the full moon was Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man in 1943.

The video game The Quarry greatly altered the transformation process of the werewolf. In the game, a character infected by a werewolf will eventually transform instantly into a werewolf as their body seems to explode. At the end of the full moon night, they will revert to their human form in a similar manner.

Werewolves are typically envisioned as "working-class" monsters, often being low in socio-economic status, although they can represent a variety of social classes and at times were seen as a way of representing "aristocratic decadence" during 19th century horror literature.

Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany used Werwolf, as the mythical creature's name is spelled in German, in 1942-43 as the codename for one of Hitler's headquarters. In the war's final days, the Nazi "Operation Werwolf" aimed at creating a commando force that would operate behind enemy lines as the Allies advanced through Germany itself.

Two fictional depictions of "Operation Werwolf" - the US television series and the 2012 novel Wolf Hunter by J. L. Benét - mix the two meanings of "Werwolf" by depicting the 1945 diehard Nazi commandos as being actual werewolves.

1. Oxford English Dictionary 2021, s.v. werewolf, n.

2. ^ Balinisteanu, Tudor (2016). "Romanian Folklore and Literary Representations of Vampires". Folklore. 127 (2): 150-172. doi:10.1080/0015587X.2016.1155358. ISSN 0015-587X. S2CID 148481574.

3. ^ Kim R. McCone, "Hund, Wolf, und Krieger bei den Indogermanen" in W. Meid (ed.), Studien zum indogermanischen Wortschatz, Innsbruck, 1987, 101-154

4. ^ Pomponius Mela (1998). "2.14". Description of the world. De chorographia.English. University of Michigan Press. ISBN 978-0472107735.

5. ^ Ménard, Philippe (1984). "Les histoires de loup-garou au moyen-âge". Symposium in honorem prof. M. de Riquer (in French). Barcelona UP. pp. 209-238.

6. ^ Modestin, Georg (2005). "Von den hexen, so in Wallis verbrant wurdent" Eine wieder entdeckte Handschrift mit dem Bericht des Chronisten Hans Fründ über eine Hexenverfolgung im Wallis (1428)" (PDF). doc.rero.ch. pp. 407-408.

7. ^ Cynthia Grant Schonberger (January-March 1979). "Luther and the Justification of Resistance to Legitimate Authority". Journal of the History of Ideas. University of Pennsylvania Press. 40 (1): 3-20. doi:10.2307/2709257. JSTOR 2709257. S2CID 55409226.; as specified in Luther's Collected Works, 39(ii) 41-42

8. ^ Hoyt, Nelly S.; Cassierer, Thomas, trans. (1965). The Encyclopedia: Selections: Diderot, d'Alembert and a Society of Men of Letters. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill.

9. ^ "Is the fear of wolves justified? A Fennoscandian perspective" (PDF). Acta Zoologica Lituanica, 2003, Volumen 13, Numerus 1. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2008-03-07.

10. ^ Facundo Quiroga, "The Tiger of the Argentine Prairies" and the Legend of the "runa uturuncu". Archived 2017-08-16 at the Wayback Machine (in Spanish)

11. ^ The Legend of the runa uturuncu in the Mythology of the Latin-American Guerilla. Archived 2011-07-11 at the Wayback Machine (in Spanish)

12. ^ The Guaraní Myth about the Origin of Human Language and the Tiger-men. (in Spanish)

13. ^ Steiger, Brad (2011). The Werewolf Book: The Encyclopedia of Shape-Shifting Beings. Visible Ink Press. p. 267. ISBN 978-1578593675.

14. Bennett, Aaron. "So, You Want to be a Werewolf?" Fate. Vol. 55, no. 6, Issue 627. July 2002.

15. Gershenson, Daniel. ^ Apollo the Wolf-God. (Journal of Indo-European Studies, Monograph, 8.) McLean, Virginia: Institute for the Study of Man, 1991, ISBN 0-941694-38-0 pp. 136-137.

16. Szabó, György. Mitológiai kislexikon, I-II, Budapest: Merényi Könyvkiadó (év nélkül) Mitólogiai kislexikon.^ [ISBN missing ]

17. ^ The Fables of Mkhitar Gosh (New York, 1987), translated with an introduction by R. Bedrosian, edited by Elise Antreassian and illustrated by Anahid Janjigian[ISBN missing ]

18. ^ Stoker, Brett. Dracula's Guest (PDF). p. 11. "A wolf - and yet not a wolf!" ... "No use trying for him without the sacred bullet," a third remarked

19. ^ Stoker, Bram. "Ch 3, Johnathon Harker's Journal". Dracula (PDF). p. 42. 'We Szekelys have a right to be proud, for in our veins flows the blood of many brave races who fought as the lion fights, for lordship. Here, in the whirlpool of European races, the Ugric tribe bore down from Iceland the fighting spirit which Thor and Wodin gave them, which their Berserkers displayed to such fell intent on the seaboards of Europe, aye, and of Asia and Africa too, till the peoples thought that the werewolves themselves had come.

20. ^ Stoker, Bram. "Ch 18, Mina Harker's Journal". Dracula (PDF). His power ceases, as does that all of all evil things, at the coming of the day. Only at certain times can he have limited freedom. If he be not at the place whither he is bound, he can only change himself at noon or exact sunrise or sunset.

21. Chantal Bourgault Du Coudray, ^ The Curse of the Werewolf : Fantasy, Horror and the Beast Within. London: I.B. Tauris, 2006. ISBN 978-1429462655 (pp. 112, 169)

22. Clemens, p. 120.

23. ^ Boissoneault, Lorraine. "The Nazi Werewolves Who Terrorized Allied Soldiers at the End of WWII". Smithsonian Magazine. The Smithsonian.

References

Secondary sources

Primary sources

Wolfeshusius, Johannes Fridericus. De Lycanthropia: An vere illi, ut fama est, luporum & aliarum bestiarum formis induantur. Problema philosophicum pro sententia Joan. Bodini ... adversus dissentaneas aliquorum opiniones noviter assertum... Leipzig: Typis Abrahami Lambergi, 1591. (In Latin; microfilm held by the United States National Library of Medicine)

Prieur, Claude. Dialogue de la Lycanthropie: Ou transformation d'hommes en loups, vulgairement dits loups-garous, et si telle se peut faire. Louvain: J. Maes & P. Zangre, 1596.

Bourquelot and Jean de Nynauld, De la Lycanthropie, Transformation et Extase des Sorciers (Paris, 1615).

Summers, Montague, The Werewolf London: K. Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1933. (1st edition, reissued 1934 New York: E. P. Dutton; 1966 New Hyde Park, N.Y.: University Books; 1973 Secaucus, N.J.: Citadel Press; 2003 Mineola, N.Y.: Dover, with new title The Werewolf in Lore and Legend). ISBN 0-7661-3210-2

Further reading

Baring-Gould, Sabine (1865). The Book of Werewolves: Being an Account of a Terrible Superstition. London: Smith, Elder & Co. Google Books

Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, 4, ii. and iii.

Hertz, Der Werwolf (Stuttgart, 1862)

Leubuscher, Über die Wehrwölfe (1850)

Sconduto, Leslie A. Metamorphoses of the werewolf: a literary study from antiquity through the Renaissance.

Stewart, Caroline Taylor (1909). The origin of the werewolf superstition. University of Missouri Studies. ISBN 978-0524023778.

Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). . Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.

External links

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Grouping Mythology Other name(s) Lycanthrope In folklore, a werewolf (from Old English werwulf 'man-wolf'), or occasionally lycanthrope (from Ancient Greek , lukánthrōpos, 'wolf-human'), is an individual that can shapeshift into a wolf (or, especially in modern film, a therianthropic hybrid wolf-like creature), either purposely or after being placed under a curse or affliction (often a bite or the occasional scratch from another werewolf) with the transformations occurring on the night of a full moon.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_(mythology)

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The phoenix is an immortal bird associated with Greek mythology (with analogs in many cultures) that cyclically regenerates or is otherwise born again. Associated with the sun, a phoenix obtains new life by rising from the ashes of its predecessor. Some legends say it dies in a show of flames and combustion, others that it simply dies and decomposes before being born again. In the Motif-Index of Folk-Literature, a tool used by folklorists, the phoenix is classified as motif B32.

The origin of the phoenix has been attributed to Ancient Egypt by Herodotus and later 19th-century scholars, but other scholars think the Egyptian texts may have been influenced by classical folklore. Over time the phoenix motif spread and gained a variety of new associations; Herodotus, Lucan, Pliny the Elder, Pope Clement I, Lactantius, Ovid, and Isidore of Seville are among those who have contributed to the retelling and transmission of the phoenix motif. Over time, extending beyond its origins, the phoenix could variously "symbolize renewal in general as well as the sun, time, the Empire, metempsychosis, consecration, resurrection, life in the heavenly Paradise, Christ, Mary, virginity, the exceptional man, and certain aspects of Christian life". Some scholars have claimed that the poem De ave phoenice may present the mythological phoenix motif as a symbol of Christ's resurrection.

The modern English word phoenix entered the English language from Latin, later reinforced by French. The word first entered the English language by way of a borrowing of Latin phoenīx into Old English ( fenix). This borrowing was later reinforced by French influence, which had also borrowed the Latin noun. In time, the word developed specialized use in the English language: For example, the term could refer to an "excellent person" (12th century), a variety of heraldic emblem (15th century), and the name of a constellation (17th century).

The Latin word comes from Greek phoinīx. The Greek word is first attested in the Mycenaean Greek po-ni-ke, which probably meant ' griffin', though it might have meant 'palm tree'. That word is probably a borrowing from a West Semitic word for madder, a red dye made from Rubia tinctorum. The word Phoenician appears to be from the same root, meaning 'those who work with red dyes'. So phoenix may mean 'the Phoenician bird' or 'the purplish-red bird'.

Exterior to the Linear B mention above from Mycenaean Greece, the earliest clear mention of the phoenix in ancient Greek literature occurs in a fragment of the Precepts of Chiron, attributed to 6th century BC Greek poet Hesiod. In the fragment, the wise centaur Chiron tells a young hero Achilles the following,[clarification needed ] describing the phoenix's lifetime as 972 times the length of a long-lived human's:

A chattering crow lives now nine generations of aged men,
but a stag's life is four time a crow's,
and a raven's life makes three stags old,
while the phoenix outlives nine ravens,
but we, the rich-haired Nymphs
daughters of Zeus the aegis-holder,
outlive ten phoenixes.

Classical discourse on the subject of the phoenix attributes a potential origin of the phoenix to Ancient Egypt. Herodotus, writing in the 5th century BC, provides the following account of the phoenix:

[The Egyptians] have also another sacred bird called the phoenix which I myself have never seen, except in pictures. Indeed it is a great rarity, even in Egypt, only coming there (according to the accounts of the people of Heliopolis) once in five hundred years, when the old phoenix dies. Its size and appearance, if it is like the pictures, are as follow: The plumage is partly red, partly golden, while the general make and size are almost exactly that of the eagle. They tell a story of what this bird does, which does not seem to me to be credible: that he comes all the way from Arabia, and brings the parent bird, all plastered over with myrrh, to the temple of the Sun, and there buries the body. In order to bring him, they say, he first forms a ball of myrrh as big as he finds that he can carry; then he hollows out the ball and puts his parent inside, after which he covers over the opening with fresh myrrh, and the ball is then of exactly the same weight as at first; so he brings it to Egypt, plastered over as I have said, and deposits it in the temple of the Sun. Such is the story they tell of the doings of this bird.

In the 19th century, scholastic suspicions appeared to be confirmed by the discovery that Egyptians in Heliopolis had venerated the Bennu, a solar bird similar in some respects to the Greek phoenix. However, the Egyptian sources regarding the bennu are often problematic and open to a variety of interpretations. Some of these sources may have actually been influenced by Greek notions of the phoenix, rather than the other way around.

The phoenix is sometimes pictured in ancient and medieval literature and medieval art as endowed with a halo, which emphasizes the bird's connection with the Sun. In the oldest images of phoenixes on record these nimbuses often have seven rays, like Helios (the Greek personification of the Sun). Pliny the Elder also describes the bird as having a crest of feathers on its head, and Ezekiel the Dramatist compared it to a rooster.

The phoenix came to be associated with specific colors over time. Although the phoenix was generally believed to be colorful and vibrant, sources provide no clear consensus about its coloration. Tacitus says that its color made it stand out from all other birds. Some said that the bird had peacock-like coloring, and Herodotus's claim of the Phoenix being red and yellow is popular in many versions of the story on record. Ezekiel the Tragedian declared that the phoenix had red legs and striking yellow eyes, but Lactantius said that its eyes were blue like sapphires and that its legs were covered in yellow-gold scales with rose-colored talons.

Herodotus, Pliny, Solinus, and Philostratus describe the phoenix as similar in size to an eagle, but Lactantius and Ezekiel the Dramatist both claim that the phoenix was larger, with Lactantius declaring that it was even larger than an ostrich.

aquilae narratur magnitudine, auri fulgore circa colla, cetero purpureus, caeruleam roseis caudam pinnis distinguentibus, cristis fauces, caputque plumeo apice honestante.

The story is that it is as large as an eagle, and has a gleam of gold round its neck and all the rest of it is purple, but the tail blue picked out with rosecoloured feathers and the throat picked out with tufts, and a feathered crest adorning its head.

- Pliny the Elder," Naturalis historia", X: 2

-translated by Harris Rackham, 1940, LCL: 353, pp. 292-294

According to Claudian's poem "The Phoenix",

arcanum radiant oculi iubar. igneus ora
cingit honos. rutilo cognatum vertice sidus
attollit cristatus apex tenebrasque serena
luce secat. Tyrio pinguntur crura veneno.
antevolant Zephyros pinnae, quas caerulus ambit
flore color sparsoque super ditescit in auro.

A mysterious fire flashes from its eye,
and a flaming aureole enriches its head. Its crest
shines with the sun's own light and shatters the
darkness with its calm brilliance. Its legs are of Tyrian
purple; swifter than those of the Zephyrs are its wings
of flower-like blue dappled with rich gold.

- Claudian," Phoenix", ll. 17-22

-translated by Henry Maurice Platnauer, 1922, LCL: 136, pp. 224-225

According to Pliny the Elder, a senator Manilius ( Marcus Manilius ?) had written that the phoenix appeared at the end of each Great Year, which he took to have occurred "in the consulship of Gnaeus Cornelius and Publius Licinius", that is, in 96 BC. Another of Pliny's sources, Cornelius Valerianus, is cited for an appearance of the phoenix in 36 AD "in the consulship of Quintus Plautius and Sextus Papinius". Pliny states that a purported phoenix seen in Egypt in 47 AD was brought to the capital and exhibited in the Comitium in time for the 800th anniversary of the foundation of Rome by Romulus, though he added that "nobody would doubt that this phoenix was a fabrication".

In time, the motif and concept of the phoenix extended from its origins in ancient Greek folklore. For example, the classical motif of the phoenix continues into the Gnostic manuscript On the Origin of the World from the Nag Hammadi Library collection in Egypt generally dated to the 4th century:

Thus when Sophia Zoe saw that the rulers of darkness had laid a curse upon her counterparts, she was indignant. And coming out of the first heaven with full power, she chased those rulers out of their heavens and cast them into the sinful world, so that there they should dwell, in the form of evil spirits upon the earth.
[...], so that in their world it might pass the thousand years in paradise-a soul-endowed living creature called "phoenix". It kills itself and brings itself back to life as a witness to the judgement against them, for they did wrong to Adam and his race, unto the consummation of the age. There are [...] three men, and also his posterities, unto the consummation of the world: the spirit-endowed of eternity, and the soul-endowed, and the earthly. Likewise, there are three phoenixes in paradise-the first is immortal, the second lives 1,000 years; as for the third, it is written in the sacred book that it is consumed. So, too, there are three baptisms-the first is spiritual, the second is by fire, the third is by water. Just as the phoenix appears as a witness concerning the angels, so the case of the water hydri in Egypt, which has been a witness to those going down into the baptism of a true man. The two bulls in Egypt posses a mystery, the Sun and the Moon, being a witness to Sabaoth: namely, that over them Sophia received the universe; from the day that she made the Sun and Moon, she put a seal upon her heaven, unto eternity. And the worm that has been born out of the phoenix is a human being as well. It is written concerning it, "the just man will blossom like a phoenix". And the phoenix first appears in a living state, and dies, and rises again, being a sign of what has become apparent at the consummation of the age.

The anonymous 10th century Old English Exeter Book contains an anonymous 677-line 9th-century alliterative poem consisting of a paraphrase and abbreviation of Lactantius, followed by an explication of the Phoenix as an allegory for the resurrection of Christ.

Þisses fugles gecynd fela gelices
bi þam gecornum Cristes þegnum;
beacnað in burgum hu hi beorhtne gefean
þurh Fæder fultum on þar frecnan tid
healdaþ under heofonum & him heanna blæd
in þam uplican eðle gestrynaþ.

This bird's nature is much like
to the chosen servants of Christ;
pointeth out to men how they bright joy
through the Father's aid in this perilous time
may under heaven possess, and exalted happiness
in the celestial country may gain.

In the 14th century, Italian poet Dante Alighieri refers to the phoenix in Canto XXIV:

Così per li gran savi si confessa
che la fenice more e poi rinasce,
quando al cinquecentesimo anno appressa;

erba né biado in sua vita non pasce,
ma sol d'incenso lagrime e d'amomo,
e nardo e mirra son l'ultime fasce.

Even thus by the great sages 'tis confessed
The phoenix dies, and then is born again,
When it approaches its five-hundredth year;

On herb or grain it feeds not in its life,
But only on tears of incense and amomum,
And nard and myrrh are its last winding-sheet.

-In the original Italian

-In English translation

In the 17th-century play by English playwrights William Shakespeare and John Fletcher, Archbishop Cranmer says in Act V, Scene v in reference to Elizabeth (who was to become Queen Elizabeth I):

... Nor shall this peace sleep with her; but as when
The bird of wonder dies, the maiden phoenix,
Her ashes new create another heir
As great in admiration as herself;
So shall she leave her blessedness to one,
When heaven shall call her from this cloud of darkness,
Who from the sacred ashes of her honour
Shall star-like rise as great in fame as she was,
And so stand fix'd ...

In the 19th-century novel Sartor Resartus by Thomas Carlyle, Diogenes Teufelsdröckh remarks on the "burning of a World-Phoenix" and the "Palingenesia, or Newbirth of Society" from its ashes:

When the Phoenix is fanning her funeral pyre, will there not be sparks flying! Alas, some millions of men, and among them such as a Napoleon, have already been licked into that high-eddying Flame, and like moths consumed there. Still also have we to fear that incautious beards will get singed.
For the rest, in what year of grace such Phoenix-cremation will be completed, you need not ask. The law of Perseverance is among the deepest in man: by nature he hates change; seldom will he quit his old house till it has actually fallen about his ears. Thus have I seen Solemnities linger as Ceremonies, sacred Symbols as idle Pageants, to the extent of three hundred years and more after all life and sacredness had evaporated out of them. And then, finally, what time the Phoenix Death-Birth itself will require, depends on unseen contingencies.-Meanwhile, would Destiny offer Mankind, that after, say two centuries of convulsion and conflagration, more or less vivid, the fire-creation should be accomplished, and we to find ourselves again in a Living Society, and no longer fighting but working,-were it not perhaps prudent in Mankind to strike the bargain?

Phoenixes are present and relatively common in European heraldry, which developed during the High Middle Ages. They most often appear as crests, and more rarely as charges. The heraldic phoenix is depicted as the head, chest and wings of an eagle rising from a fire; the entire creature is never depicted.

In the modern era, the phoenix motif continues to see use in a variety of contexts. Elon University's sports teams became known as the Phoenix in 2000, stemming from the college's fire and subsequent recovery in 1923. University trustees at the time announced their intentions to make Elon "rise from the ashes".

Swarthmore College's newspaper has been named "The Phoenix" since the college's fire in 1881; the phoenix bird was considered emblematic of the college's rebirth from its ashes. More recently, "Phineas the Phoenix" has become the official mascot of Swarthmore College, with a dancing student inside a costume of plush plumage.

The flag of San Francisco features a phoenix in its center, often thought to be symbolic of the city's rebuilding following the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. However, the phoenix had been a civic symbol of San Francisco at least since 1852, when it featured on the first official seal of the city.

The club crest of Coventry City Football Club features a phoenix rising from the flames, in recognition of how the City of Coventry was rebuilt after being destroyed by the Nazi German Luftwaffe during the Blitz bombing campaigns of World War II.

Coventry University use a phoenix rising from the flames as their emblem, tying in with the city they are based, and the same reason Coventry City Football Club carry a phoenix on their club crest.

Portland, Maine's city seal depicts a phoenix rising from ashes, a reference to recovery from four devastating fires.

In Eiichiro Oda's manga , a character nicknamed as Marco the Phoenix ate the Tori Tori no Mi, Model: Phoenix, a devil fruit that gave Marco phoenix powers. The powers include but are not limited to immense regenerative healing properties through the blue fire, transforming into a phoenix or phoenix/human hybrid at will, and being able to warm others through the helpful flames. He can choose whether to heal or harm with his blue flames.

Freddie Mercury of the rock band Queen drew a phoenix for the band's logo to represent the band's longevity.

In the popular novel Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, the phoenix heals the titular main character Harry Potter, and blinds a basilisk.

Scholars have observed analogues to the phoenix in a variety of cultures. These analogues include the Hindu (गरुड) and (भेरुण्ड), the Russian firebird (жар-птица), the Persian (سیمرغ), the Georgian paskunji, the Arabian (عنقاء), the Turkish Konrul, also called Zümrüdü Anka ("emerald anqa"), the Tibetan Me byi karmo, the Chinese (鳳凰) and Zhuque (朱雀), and the Japanese Hō-ō (鳳凰). These perceived analogues are sometimes included as part of the Motif-Index of Folk-Literature phoenix motif (B32).

Barnhart, Robert K (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, HarperCollins, ISBN 0-06-270084-7 .

Evelyn-White, Hugh G. Trans. 1920. Hesiod: The Homeric Hymns and Homerica. London: William Heinemann & New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons.[ISBN missing ]

Garry, Jane; El-Shamy, Hasan (2005), Archetypes and Motifs in Folklore and Literature, ME Sharpe, ISBN 978-0-76561260-1 .

Thompson, Stith (2001). Motif-Index of Folk-Literature: A Classification of Narrative Elements in Folk Tales, Ballads, Myths, Fables, Mediaeval Romances, Exempla, Fabliaux, Jest-Books, and Local Legends, Volume 1; Volume 6. Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0253340894

Van der Broek, R (1972), The Myth of the Phoenix, Seeger, I trans, EJ Brill.[ISBN missing ]

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The phoenix is an immortal bird associated with Greek mythology (with analogs in many cultures) that cyclically regenerates or is otherwise born again. Associated with the sun, a phoenix obtains new life by rising from the ashes of its predecessor.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manticore

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The manticore ( Early Middle Persian: Merthykhuwar; Modern Persian: Mardykhor) is a Persian legendary creature similar to the Egyptian sphinx that proliferated in western European medieval art as well. It has the head of a human, the body of a lion and a tail of venomous spines similar to porcupine quills, while other depictions have it with the tail of a scorpion. There are some accounts that the spines can be shot like arrows, thus making the manticore a lethal predator. It eats its victims whole, using its triple rows of teeth, and leaves no bones behind.

The mantyger is a creature of medieval invention, having the body of a heraldic tiger with mane, and the head of an old man, the tusks of a boar and with long spiral horns.[citation needed ] Some heraldic authorities make the horns more like those of an ox, and the hands and feet like those of a monkey.

Its name was "man-eater" (from early Middle Persian مارتیا mardya "man" (as in human) and خوار khowr- "to eat"). The English term "manticore" was borrowed from Latin mantichora, itself derived from the Greek rendering of the Persian name, μαρτιχόρα, martichora.

The Greeks also called it ἀνδροφάγος meaning "man-eater".

The Manticore myth was of Persian origin. It passed into European folklore first through a remark by Ctesias, a Greek physician at the Persian court of King Artaxerxes II in the fourth century BC, in his book Indica ("India"), which circulated among Greek writers on natural history but has survived only in fragments, or references by those other writers.

The Aelian in his work, "Characteristics of Animals", had a complete section dedicated to Manticore:

There is in India a wild beast, powerful, daring, as big as the largest lion, of a red colour like cinnabar, shaggy like a dog, and in the language of India it is called Martichoras. Its face however is not that of a wild beast but of a man, and it has three rows of teeth set in its upper jaw and three in the lower; these are exceedingly sharp and larger than the fangs of a hound. Its ears also resemble a man's, except that they are larger and shaggy; its eyes are blue-grey and they too are like a man's, but its feet and claws, you must know, are those of a lion. To the end of its tail is attached the sting of a scorpion, and this might be over a cubit in length; and the tail has stings at intervals on either side. But the tip of the tail gives a fatal sting to anyone who encounters it, and death is immediate. If one pursues the beast it lets fly its stings, like arrows, sideways, and it can shoot a great distance; and when it discharges its stings straight ahead it bends its tail back; if however it shoots in a backward direction, as the Sacae do, then it stretches its tail to its full extent. Any creature that the missile hits it kills; the elephant alone it does not kill. These stings which it shoots are a foot long and the thickness of a bulrush. Now Ctesias asserts (and he says that the Indians confirm his words) that in the places where those stings have been let fly others spring up, so that this evil produces a crop. And according to the same writer the Mantichore for choice devours human beings; indeed it will slaughter a great number; and it lies in wait not for a single man but would set upon two or even three men, and alone overcomes even that number. All other animals it defeats: the lion alone it can never bring down. That this creature takes special delight in gorging human flesh its very name testifies, for in the Greek language it means man-eater, and its name is derived from its activities. Like the stag it is extremely swift. Now the Indians hunt the young of these animals while they are still without stings in their tails, which they then crush with a stone to prevent them from growing stings. The sound of their voice is as near as possible that of a trumpet. Ctesias declares that he has actually seen this animal in Persia (it had been brought from India as a present to the Persian King) - if Ctesias is to be regarded as a sufficient authority on such matters. At any rate after hearing of the peculiarities of this animal, one must pay heed to the historian of Cnidos.

The Romanised Greek Pausanias, in his Description of Greece, recalled strange animals he had seen at Rome and commented:

The beast described by Ctesias in his Indian history, which he says is called martichoras by the Indians and "man-eater" [ androphagos] by the Greeks, I am inclined to think is the tiger. But that it has three rows of teeth along each jaw and spikes at the tip of its tail with which it defends itself at close quarters, while it hurls them like an archer's arrows at more distant enemies; all this is, I think, a false story that the Indians pass on from one to another owing to their excessive dread of the beast.

Pliny the Elder did not share Pausanias' skepticism. He followed Aristotle's natural history by including the martichoras - mistranscribed as manticorus in his copy of Aristotle - among his descriptions of animals in Naturalis Historia 8:30, c. 77 AD.

Later, in The Life of Apollonius of Tyana, Greek writer Flavius Philostratus (c. 170-247) wrote:

And inasmuch as the following conversation also has been recorded by Damis as having been held upon this occasion with regard to the mythological animals and fountains and men met with in India, I must not leave it out, for there is much to be gained by neither believing nor yet disbelieving everything. Accordingly Apollonius asked the question, whether there was there an animal called the man-eater ( martichoras); and Iarchas replied: "And what have you heard about the make of this animal? For it is probable that there is some account given of its shape." "There are," replied Apollonius, "tall stories current which I cannot believe; for they say that the creature has four feet, and that his head resembles that of a man, but that in size it is comparable to a lion; while the tail of this animal puts out hairs a cubit long and sharp as thorns, which it shoots like arrows at those who hunt it."

Pliny's book was widely enjoyed through the European Middle Ages, during which the manticore was sometimes described or illustrated in bestiaries. Through false etymology, it was sometimes assumed that the name was an amalgamation of man and . However, other sources regarded the mantyger as a different creature entirely. The mantyger was often depicted as having monkey-like feet, being apparently inspired by the baboon, and sometimes being represented with either tusks or short horns. There was further confusion as to whether the manticore should be identified with or distinguished from the satyral and the lampago.

Dante Alighieri, in his , depicted the mythical creature Geryon as a manticore, following Pliny's description.

The manticore or mantyger first appeared in English heraldry in c. 1470, as a badge of William Hastings, 1st Baron Hastings; and in the 16th century it was used as a badge by Robert Radcliffe, 1st Earl of Sussex, and by Sir Anthony Babyngton.

Edward Topsell, in 1607, described the manticore as:

bred among the Indians, having a treble rowe of teeth beneath and above, whose greatnesse, roughnesse, and feete are like a Lyons, his face and eares like unto a mans, his eies grey, and collour red, his taile like the taile of a Scorpion of the earth, armed with a sting, casting forth sharp pointed quills, his voice like the voice of a small trumpet or pipe, being in course as swift as a Hart; His wildnes such as can never be tamed, and his appetite is especially to the flesh of man. His body like the body of a Lyon, being very apt both to leape and to run, so as no distance or space doth hinder him, and I take it to bee the same Beast which calleth Marion, and Maricomorion, with her taile she woundeth her Hunters whether they come before her or behind her, and presently when the quils are cast forth, new ones grow up in their roome, wherewithal she overcommeth all the hunters: and although India be full of divers ravening beastes, yet none of them are stiled with a title of Andropophagi, that is to say, Men-eaters; except onely this Mantichora. When the Indians take a Whelp of this beast, they all to bruise the buttockes and taile thereof, that so it may never be fit to bring sharp quils, afterwards it is tamed without peril.

Randle Holme drew on this description in 1688, when he described the manticore (which he regarded as distinct from the mantyger) as having:

the face of a man, the mouth open to the ears with a treble row of teeth beneath and above; long neck, whose greatness, roughness, body and feet are like a Lyon: of a red colour, his tail like the tail of a Scorpion of the Earth, the end armed with a sting, casting forth sharp pointed quills.

The heraldic manticore influenced some Mannerist representations of the sin of Fraud, conceived as a monstrous chimera with a beautiful woman's face - for example, in Bronzino's allegory, " Venus, Cupid, Folly and Time" ( National Gallery, London), and more commonly in the decorative schemes called " grotteschi". From here it passed by way of Cesare Ripa's Iconologia into the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century French conception of a sphinx.

Gerald Brenan linked the manticore to the mantequero, a monster feeding on human fat in Andalusian folklore.

1. Flavius Philostratus, ^ The Life of Apollonius of Tyana, translated by F. C. Conybeare, volume I, book III. Chapter XLV, pp. 327-329.

2. (Subscription or ^ "manticore". Oxford English Dictionary (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press. September 2005. UK public library membership required.)

3. ^ Dante Alighieri; Grandgent, C. H (1933). La Divina commedia di Dante Alighieri (in Italian). Boston; New York: D.C. Heath and Co. OCLC 1026178. Dante's image was profoundly modified, however, by Pliny's description---followed by Solinus---of a strange beast called Mantichora (Historia Naturalis, VIII, 30) which has the face of a man, the body of a lion, and a tail ending in a sting like a scorpion's

4. ^ Holme, Randle (1688). The Academy of Armorie and Blazon. Chester. p. 212.; quoted in Dennys 1975, p. 115.

5. ^ Moffitt, John F. (1996). "An Exemplary Humanist Hybrid: Vasari's "Fraude" with Reference to Bronzino's "Sphinx"". Renaissance Quarterly. 49 (2): 303-333. doi:10.2307/2863160. JSTOR 2863160. traces the chimeric image of Fraud backwards from Bronzino.

6. ^ Al Sur de Granada, pages 190-193, Gerald Brenan, 1997, Fábula - Tusquets Editores. Originally South from Granada, 1957

Dennys, Rodney (1975). The Heraldic Imagination. London: Barrie & Jenkins.

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The manticore ( Early Middle Persian: Merthykhuwar; Modern Persian: Mardykhor) is a Persian legendary creature similar to the Egyptian sphinx that proliferated in western European medieval art as well. It has the head of a human, the body of a lion and a tail of venomous spines similar to porcupine quills, while other depictions have it with the tail of a scorpion.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dryad

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A dryad (; Greek: Δρυάδες, sing.: Δρυάς) is a tree nymph or tree spirit in Greek mythology. Drys signifies "oak" in Greek, and dryads are specifically the nymphs of oak trees, but the term has come to be used for tree nymphs in general, or human-tree hybrids in fantasy. They were normally considered to be very shy creatures except around the goddess Artemis, who was known to be a friend to most nymphs.

These were nymphs of the laurel trees.

The Maliades, Meliades or Epimelides were nymphs of apple and other fruit trees and the protectors of sheep. The Greek word melas-from which their name derives-means both apple and sheep. Hesperides, the guardians of the golden apples were regarded as these type of dryad.

Dryads, like all nymphs, were supernaturally long-lived and tied to their homes, but some were a step beyond most nymphs. These were the hamadryads who were an integral part of their trees, such that if the tree died, the hamadryad associated with it died as well. For these reasons, dryads and the Greek gods punished any mortals who harmed trees without first propitiating the tree-nymphs. (associated with Oak trees)

The dryads of the ash tree were called the Meliae. The Meliae sisters tended the infant Zeus in Rhea's Cretan cave. Gaea gave birth to the Meliae after being made fertile by the blood of castrated Uranus. The Caryatids were associated with walnut trees.

Some of the individual dryads or hamadryads are:

Dryads are mentioned in Milton's Paradise Lost, in the works of Coleridge, in Thackeray's novel The Virginians, and in Ezra Pound's Pisan Cantos, Canto LXXXIII. Keats addresses the nightingale as "light-winged Dryad of the trees", in his "Ode to a Nightingale". In the poetry of Donald Davidson they illustrate the themes of tradition and the importance of the past to the present. The poet Sylvia Plath uses them to symbolize nature in her poetry in "On the Difficulty of Conjuring up a Dryad" and "On the Plethora of Dryads".

The story "Dear Dryad" (1924) by Oliver Onions features a dryad influencing several romantic couples through history.

In Lev Grossman's The Magicians Trilogy, the character Julia becomes a dryad after having had her shade removed during her rape at the hands of Reynard the Fox. Her transformation accelerates when she visits Fillory in the company of the novel's other principals, and is complete when she and Quentin Coldwater visit Fillory's underworld.

Dryads appear in The Chronicles of Narnia book series by C. S. Lewis.

In the 2005 CG animated film Barbie: Fairytopia, there is a character named Dahlia who is a dryad.

In the 1940 short story "The Hardwood Pile" by L. Sprague de Camp, the antagonist is a sphendamniad, a dryad-like spirit whose tree has been made into lumber.

The fantasy novels of Thomas Burnett Swann frequently feature dryads, along with other mythological creatures, usually endangered by the advent of more "advanced" civilisations. Swann's story "The Dryad-tree" is set in contemporary Florida and features a woman's reaction to the knowledge that her new husband's garden contains a tree possessed by a jealous dryad. The story was adapted as a short film in 2017.

In Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, Frozen Throne, and Reforged, dryads are playable night elf characters.

Dryads are mentioned in Sword of Destiny from Andrzej Sapkowski's The Witcher books.

Dryad Lake in Antarctica is named after the nymphs.

The Dryad is a NPC in the 2d sandbox adventure game Terraria.

Dryads are featured in the trading card game Magic: the Gathering as a creature subtype on the plane of Theros.

In the 1497 book Hortus Sanitatis, Drius Sanitatis. Drius Sanitatis (Latin) : 一個健康的小精靈 (Chinese) Yīgè jiànkāng de xiǎo jīnglíng (A healthy elf) A sanus Dryadalis, recipes are given in a reagent books for what appears to be a "dryad" culture.[clarification needed ]

Dryad's Saddle is a mushroom found in North America, Australia, Asia, and Europe on dead trees, logs and stumps, so named because dryads could conceivably sit or ride on them.

Citations

Bibliography

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A dryad (; Greek: Δρυάδες, sing.: Δρυάς) is a tree nymph or tree spirit in Greek mythology. Drys signifies "oak" in Greek, and dryads are specifically the nymphs of oak trees, but the term has come to be used for tree nymphs in general, or human-tree hybrids in fantasy.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satyr#:~:text=In%20Greek%20mythology%2C%20a%20satyr%20(Greek%3A%20%CF%83%CE%AC%CF%84%CF%85%CF%81%CE%BF%CF%82%2C%20translit.&text=Satyrs%20were%20characterized%20by%20their,woodlands%2C%20mountains%2C%20and%20pastures.

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In Greek mythology, a satyr ( Greek: , sátyros, pronounced ), also known as a silenus or silenos ( Greek: seilēnós ), is a male nature spirit with ears and a tail resembling those of a horse, as well as a permanent, exaggerated erection. Early artistic representations sometimes include horse-like legs, but, by the sixth century BC, they were more often represented with human legs. Comically hideous, they have mane-like hair, bestial faces, and snub noses and are always shown naked. Satyrs were characterized by their ribaldry and were known as lovers of wine, music, dancing, and women. They were companions of the god Dionysus and were believed to inhabit remote locales, such as woodlands, mountains, and pastures. They often attempted to seduce or rape nymphs and mortal women alike, usually with little success. They are sometimes shown masturbating or engaging in bestiality.

In classical Athens, satyrs made up the chorus in a genre of play known as a " satyr play", which was a parody of tragedy and was known for its bawdy and obscene humor. The only complete surviving play of this genre is by Euripides, although a significant portion of Sophocles's has also survived. In mythology, the satyr Marsyas is said to have challenged the god Apollo to a musical contest and been flayed alive for his hubris. Though superficially ridiculous, satyrs were also thought to possess useful knowledge, if they could be coaxed into revealing it. The satyr Silenus was the tutor of the young Dionysus and a story from Ionia told of a silenos who gave sound advice when captured.

Over the course of Greek history, satyrs gradually became portrayed as more human and less bestial. They also began to acquire goat-like characteristics in some depictions as a result of conflation with the Pans, plural forms of the god Pan with the legs and horns of goats. The Romans identified satyrs with their native nature spirits, fauns. Eventually the distinction between the two was lost entirely. Since the Renaissance, satyrs have been most often represented with the legs and horns of goats. Representations of satyrs cavorting with nymphs have been common in western art, with many famous artists creating works on the theme. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, satyrs have generally lost much of their characteristic obscenity, becoming more tame and domestic figures. They commonly appear in works of fantasy and children's literature, in which they are most often referred to as "fauns".

The etymology of the term satyr ( Greek: σάτυρος, sátyros) is unclear, and several different etymologies have been proposed for it, including a possible Pre-Greek origin. Some scholars have linked the second part of name to the root of the Greek word θηρίον ( thēríon), meaning "wild animal". This proposal may be supported by the fact that Euripides at one point refers to satyrs as theres. Another proposed etymology derives the name from an ancient Peloponnesian word meaning "the full ones", alluding to their permanent state of sexual arousal. Eric Partridge suggested that the name may be related to the root sat-, meaning "to sow", which has also been proposed as the root of the name of the Roman god Saturn. Satyrs are usually indistinguishable from , whose iconography is virtually identical. According to Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, the name "satyr" is sometimes derogatorily applied to a "brutish or lustful man". The term satyriasis refers to a medical condition in males characterized by excessive sexual desire. It is the male equivalent of nymphomania.

According to classicist Martin Litchfield West, satyrs and silenoi in Greek mythology are similar to a number of other entities appearing in other Indo-European mythologies, indicating that they probably go back, in some vague form, to Proto-Indo-European mythology. Like satyrs, these other Indo-European nature spirits are often human-animal hybrids, frequently bearing specifically equine or asinine features. Human-animal hybrids known as Kiṃpuruṣas or Kiṃnaras are mentioned in the , an Indian epic poem written in Sanskrit. According to Augustine of Hippo (354 - 430 AD) and others, the ancient Celts believed in , which were hairy demons believed to occasionally take human form and seduce mortal women. Later figures in Celtic folklore, including the Irish bocánach, the Scottish and , and the Manx goayr heddagh, are part human and part goat. The lexicographer Hesychius of Alexandria (fifth or sixth century AD) records that the Illyrians believed in satyr-like creatures called Deuadai. The Slavic also bears similarities to satyrs, since he is described as being covered in hair and having "goat's horns, ears, feet, and long clawlike fingernails."

Like satyrs, these similar creatures in other Indo-European mythologies are often also tricksters, mischief-makers, and dancers. The lešiy was believed to trick travelers into losing their way. The Armenian Pay(n) were a group of male spirits said to dance in the woods. In Germanic mythology, elves were also said to dance in woodland clearings and leave behind fairy rings. They were also thought to play pranks, steal horses, tie knots in people's hair, and steal children and replace them with changelings. West notes that satyrs, elves, and other nature spirits of this variety are a "motley crew" and that it is difficult to reconstruct a prototype behind them. Nonetheless, he concludes that "we can recognize recurrent traits" and that they can probably be traced back to the Proto-Indo-Europeans in some form.

On the other hand, a number of commentators have noted that satyrs are also similar to beings in the beliefs of ancient Near Eastern cultures. Various demons of the desert are mentioned in ancient Near Eastern texts, although the iconography of these beings is poorly-attested. Beings possibly similar to satyrs called are mentioned several times in the Hebrew Bible. Śĕ'îr was the standard Hebrew word for " he-goat", but it could also apparently sometimes refer to demons in the forms of goats. They were evidently subjects of veneration, because Leviticus 17:7 forbids Israelites from making sacrificial offerings to them and 2 Chronicles 11:15 mentions that a special cult was established for the śě'îrîm of Jeroboam I. Like satyrs, they were associated with desolate places and with some variety of dancing. Isaiah 13:21 predicts, in Karen L. Edwards's translation: "But wild animals [ ziim] will lie down there, and its houses will be full of howling creatures [ ohim]; there ostriches will live, and there goat-demons [ śĕ'îr] will dance." Similarly, Isaiah 34:14 declares: " [ ziim] shall meet with [ iim], goat-demons [ śĕ'îr] shall call to each other; there too [ lilit] shall repose and find a place to rest." Śě'îrîm were understood by at least some ancient commentators to be goat-like demons of the wilderness. In the Latin Vulgate translation of the Old Testament, śĕ'îr is translated as "", which also means "hairy". Jerome, the translator of the Vulgate, equated these figures with satyrs. Both satyrs and śě'îrîm have also been compared to the jinn of Pre-Islamic Arabia, who were envisioned as hairy demons in the forms of animals who could sometimes change into other forms, including human-like ones.

In archaic and classical Greek art, satyrs are shown with the ears and tails of horses. They walk upright on two legs, like human beings. They are usually shown with bestial faces, snub noses, and manelike hair. They are often bearded and balding. Like other Greek nature spirits, satyrs are always depicted nude. Sometimes they also have the legs of horses, but, in ancient art, including both vase paintings and in sculptures, satyrs are most often represented with human legs and feet.

Satyrs' genitals are always depicted as either erect or at least extremely large. Their erect phalli represent their association with wine and women, which were the two major aspects of their god Dionysus's domain. In some cases, satyrs are portrayed as very human-like, lacking manes or tails. As time progressed, this became the general trend, with satyrs losing aspects of their original bestial appearance over the course of Greek history and gradually becoming more and more human. In the most common depictions, satyrs are shown drinking wine, dancing, playing flutes, chasing nymphs, or consorting with Dionysus. They are also frequently shown masturbating or copulating with animals. In scenes from ceramic paintings depicting satyrs engaging in orgies, satyrs standing by and watching are often shown masturbating.

One of the earliest written sources for satyrs is the Catalogue of Women, which is attributed to the Boeotian poet Hesiod. Here satyrs are born alongside the nymphs and Kouretes and are described as "good-for-nothing, prankster Satyrs". Satyrs were widely seen as mischief-makers who routinely played tricks on people and interfered with their personal property. They had insatiable sexual appetites and often sought to seduce or ravish both nymphs and mortal women alike, though these attempts were not always successful. Satyrs almost always appear in artwork alongside female companions of some variety. These female companions may be clothed or nude, but the satyrs always treat them as mere sexual objects. A single elderly satyr named Silenus was believed to have been the tutor of Dionysus on Mount Nysa. After Dionysus grew to maturity, Silenus became one of his most devout followers, remaining perpetually drunk.

This image was reflected in the classical Athenian satyr play. Satyr plays were a genre of plays defined by the fact that their choruses were invariably made up of satyrs. These satyrs are always led by Silenus, who is their "father". According to Carl A. Shaw, the chorus of satyrs in a satyr play were "always trying to get a laugh with their animalistic, playfully rowdy, and, above all, sexual behavior." The satyrs play an important role in driving the plot of the production, without any of them actually being the lead role, which was always reserved for a god or tragic hero. Many satyr plays are named for the activity in which the chorus of satyrs engage during the production, such as Δικτυουλκοί ( Diktyoulkoí; Net-Haulers), Θεωροὶ ἢ Ἰσθμιασταί ( Theōroì ē Isthmiastaí; Spectators or Competitors at the Isthmian Games), and Ἰχνευταί ( Ichneutaí; Searchers). Like tragedies, but unlike comedies, satyr plays were set in the distant past and dealt with mythological subjects. The third or second-century BC philosopher Demetrius of Phalerum famously characterized the satiric genre in his treatise De Elocutione as the middle ground between tragedy and comedy: a "playful tragedy" (τραγῳδία παίζουσα, tragōdía paízdousa).

The only complete extant satyr play is Euripides's , which is a burlesque of a scene from the eighth-century BC epic poem, the , in which Odysseus is captured by the Cyclops Polyphemus in a cave. In the play, Polyphemus has captured a tribe of satyrs led by Silenus, who is described as their "Father", and forced them to work for him as his slaves. After Polyphemus captures Odysseus, Silenus attempts to play Odysseus and Polyphemus off each other for his own benefit, primarily by tricking them into giving him wine. As in the original scene, Odysseus manages to blind Polyphemus and escape. Approximately 450 lines, most of which are fragmentary, have survived of Sophocles's satyr play ( Tracking Satyrs). In the surviving portion of the play, the chorus of satyrs are described as "lying on the ground like hedgehogs in a bush, or like a monkey bending over to fart at someone." The character Cyllene scolds them: "All you [satyrs] do you do for the sake of fun!... Cease to expand your smooth phallus with delight. You should not make silly jokes and chatter, so that the gods will make you shed tears to make me laugh."

In Dionysius I of Syracuse's fragmentary satyr play Limos ( Starvation), Silenus attempts to give the hero Heracles an enema. A number of vase paintings depict scenes from satyr plays, including the Pronomos Vase, which depicts the entire cast of a victorious satyr play, dressed in costume, wearing shaggy leggings, erect phalli, and horse tails. The genre's reputation for crude humor is alluded to in other texts as well. In Aristophanes's comedy Thesmophoriazusae, the tragic poet Agathon declares that a dramatist must be able to adopt the of his characters in order to successfully portray them on stage. In lines 157-158, Euripides's unnamed relative retorts: "Well, let me know when you're writing satyr plays; I'll get behind you with my hard-on and show you how." This is the only extant reference to the genre of satyr plays from a work of ancient Greek comedy and, according to Shaw, it effectively characterizes satyr plays as "a genre of 'hard-ons.'"

In spite of their bawdy behavior, however, satyrs were still revered as semi-divine beings and companions of the god Dionysus. They were thought to possess their own kind of wisdom that was useful to humans if they could be convinced to share it. In Plato's , Alcibiades praises Socrates by comparing him to the famous satyr Marsyas. He resembles him physically, since he is balding and has a snub-nose, but Alcibiades contends that he resembles him mentally as well, because he is "insulting and abusive", in possession of irresistible charm, "erotically inclined to beautiful people", and "acts as if he knows nothing". Alcibiades concludes that Socrates's role as a philosopher is similar to that of the paternal satyr Silenus, because, at first, his questions seem ridiculous and laughable, but, upon closer inspection, they are revealed to be filled with much wisdom. One story, mentioned by Herodotus in his and in a fragment by Aristotle, recounts that King Midas once captured a silenus, who provided him with wise philosophical advice.

According to classicist William Hansen, although satyrs were popular in classical art, they rarely appear in surviving mythological accounts. Different classical sources present conflicting accounts of satyrs' origins. According to a fragment from the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women, satyrs are sons of the five granddaughters of Phoroneus and therefore siblings of the Oreads and the Kouretes. The satyr Marsyas, however, is described by mythographers as the son of either Olympos or Oiagros. Hansen observes that "there may be more than one way to produce a satyr, as there is to produce a Cyclops or a centaur." The classical Greeks recognized that satyrs obviously could not self-reproduce since there were no female satyrs, but they seem to have been unsure whether satyrs were mortal or immortal.

Rather than appearing en masse as in satyr-plays, when satyrs appear in myths it is usually in the form of a single, famous character. The comic playwright Melanippides of Melos ( c. 480-430 BC) tells the story in his lost comedy Marsyas of how, after inventing the , the goddess Athena looked in the mirror while she was playing it. She saw how blowing into it puffed up her cheeks and made her look silly, so she threw the aulos away and cursed it so that whoever picked it up would meet an awful death. The aulos was picked up by the satyr Marsyas, who challenged Apollo to a musical contest. They both agreed beforehand that whoever won would be allowed to do whatever he wanted to the loser. Marsyas played the aulos and Apollo played the lyre. Apollo turned his lyre upside-down and played it. He asked Marsyas to do the same with his instrument. Since he could not, Apollo was deemed to victor. Apollo hung Marsyas from a pine tree and flayed him alive to punish him for his hubris in daring to challenge one of the gods. Later, this story became accepted as canonical and the Athenian sculptor Myron created a group of bronze sculptures based on it, which was installed before the western front of the Parthenon in around 440 BC. Surviving retellings of the legend are found in the of Pseudo-Apollodorus, Pausanias's Guide to Greece, and the of Pseudo-Hyginus.

In a myth referenced in multiple classical texts, including the Bibliotheke of Pseudo-Apollodorus and the of Pseudo-Hyginus, a satyr from Argos once attempted to rape the nymph Amymone, but she called to the god Poseidon for help and he launched his trident at the satyr, knocking him to the ground. This myth may have originated from Aeschylus's lost satyr play Amymone. Scenes of one or more satyrs chasing Amymone became a common trope in Greek vase paintings starting in the late fifth century BC. Among the earliest depictions of the scene come from a bell krater in the style of the Peleus Painter from Syracuse (PEM 10, pl. 155) and a bell krater in the style of the Dinos Painter from Vienna (DM 7).

The names of the satyrs according to various vase paintings were: Babacchos, Briacchos, Dithyrambos, Demon, Dromis, Echon, Hedyoinos ("Sweet Wine"), Hybris ("Insolence"), Hedymeles, ("Sweet Song"), Komos ("Revelry"), Kissos ("Ivy"), Molkos, Oinos, Oreimachos, Simos ("Snub-nose"), Terpon and Tyrbas ("Rout").

The iconography of satyrs was gradually conflated with that of the Pans, plural forms of the god Pan, who were regularly depicted with the legs and horns of a goat. By the Hellenistic Period (323-31 BC), satyrs were beginning to sometimes be shown with goat-like features. Meanwhile, both satyrs and Pans also continued to be shown as more human and less bestial. Scenes of satyrs and centaurs were very popular during the Hellenistic Period. They often appear dancing or playing the aulos. The maenads that often accompany satyrs in Archaic and Classical representations are often replaced in Hellenistic portrayals with wood nymphs.

Artists also began to widely represent scenes of nymphs repelling the unwanted advances of amorous satyrs. Scenes of this variety were used to express the dark, beastly side of human sexuality at a remove by attributing that sexuality to satyrs, who were part human and part animal. In this way, satyrs became vehicles of a metaphor for a phenomenon extending far beyond the original narrative purposes in which they served during earlier periods of Greek history. Some variants on this theme represent a satyr being rebuffed by a hermaphrodite, who, from the satyr's perspective, appears to be a beautiful, young girl. These sculptures may have been intended as kind of sophisticated erotic joke.

The Athenian sculptor Praxiteles's statue Pouring Satyr represented the eponymous satyr as very human-like. The satyr was shown as very young, in line with Praxiteles's frequent agenda of representing deities and other figures as adolescents. This tendency is also attested in the descriptions of his sculptures of Dionysus and the Archer Eros written in the third or fourth century AD by the art critic Callistratus. The original statue is widely assumed to have depicted the satyr in the act of pouring an over his head into a cup, probably a . Antonio Corso describes the satyr in this sculpture as a "gentle youth" and "a precious and gentle being" with "soft and velvety" skin. The only hints at his "feral nature" were his ears, which were slightly pointed, and his small tail.

The shape of the sculpture was an S-shape, shown in three-quarter view. The satyr had short, boyish locks, derived from those of earlier Greek athletic sculpture. Although the original statue has been lost, a representation of the pouring satyr appears in a late classical relief sculpture from Athens and twenty-nine alleged "copies" of the statue from the time of the Roman Empire have also survived. Olga Palagia and J. J. Pollitt argue that, although the Pouring Satyr is widely accepted as a genuine work of Praxiteles, it may not have been a single work at all and the supposed "copies" of it may merely be Roman sculptures repeating the traditional Greek motif of pouring wine at .

The Romans identified satyrs with their own nature spirits, fauns. Although generally similar to satyrs, fauns differed in that they were usually seen as "shy, woodland creatures" rather than the drunk and boisterous satyrs of the classical Greeks. Also, fauns generally lacked the association Greek satyrs had with secret wisdom. Unlike classical Greek satyrs, fauns were unambiguously goat-like; they had the upper bodies of men, but the legs, hooves, tail, and horns of goats. The first-century BC Roman poet Lucretius mentions in his lengthy poem De rerum natura that people of his time believed in "goat-legged" ( capripedes) satyrs, along with nymphs who lived in the mountains and fauns who played rustic music on stringed instruments and pipes.

In Roman-era depictions, satyrs and fauns are both often associated with music and depicted playing the Pan pipes or syrinx. The poet Virgil, who flourished during the early years of the Roman Empire, recounts a story in his sixth about two boys who tied up the satyr Silenus while he was in a drunken stupor and forced him to sing them a song about the beginning of the universe. The first-century AD Roman poet Ovid makes Jupiter, the king of the gods, express worry that the viciousness of humans will leave fauns, nymphs, and satyrs without a place to live, so he gives them a home in the forests, woodlands, and mountains, where they will be safe. Ovid also retells the story of Marsyas's hubris. He describes a musical contest between Marsyas, playing the aulos, and the god Apollo, playing the lyre. Marsyas loses and Apollo flays him as punishment.

The Roman naturalist and encyclopedist Pliny the Elder conflated satyrs with gibbons, which he describes using the word satyrus, a Latinized form of the Greek satyros. He characterizes them as "a savage and wild people; distinct voice and speech they have none, but in steed thereof, they keep a horrible gnashing and hideous noise: rough they are and hairie all over their bodies, eies they have red like the houlets [owls] and toothed they be like dogs."

The second-century Greek Middle Platonist philosopher Plutarch records a legendary incident in his Life of Sulla, in which the soldiers of the Roman general Sulla are reported to have captured a satyr sleeping during a military campaign in Greece in 89 BC. Sulla's men brought the satyr to him and he attempted to interrogate it, but it spoke only in an unintelligible sound: a cross between the neighing of a horse and the bleating of a goat. The second-century Greek travel writer Pausanias reports having seen the tombs of deceased silenoi in Judaea and at Pergamon. Based on these sites, Pausanias concludes that silenoi must be mortal.

The third-century Greek biographer Philostratus records a legend in his Life of Apollonius of Tyana of how the ghost of an Aethiopian satyr was deeply enamored with the women from the local village and had killed two of them. Then, the philosopher Apollonius of Tyana set a trap for it with wine, knowing that, after drinking it, the ghost-satyr would fall asleep forever. The wine diminished from the container before the onlookers' eyes, but the ghost-satyr himself remained invisible. Once all the wine had vanished, the ghost-satyr fell asleep and never bothered the villagers again. Amira El-Zein notes similarities between this story and later Arabic accounts of jinn. The treatise Saturnalia by the fifth-century AD Roman poet Macrobius connects both the word satyr and the name to the Greek word for "penis". Macrobius explains that this is on account of satyrs' sexual lewdness. Macrobius also equates Dionysus and Apollo as the same deity and states that a festival in honor of Bacchus is held every year atop Mount Parnassus, at which many satyrs are often seen.

Starting in late antiquity, Christian writers began to portray satyrs and fauns as dark, evil, and demonic. Jerome ( c. 347 - 420 AD) described them as symbols of Satan on account of their lasciviousness. Despite this, however, satyrs were sometimes clearly distinguished from demons and sometimes even portrayed as noble. Because Christians believed that the distinction between humans and animals was spiritual rather than physical, it was thought that even a satyr could attain salvation. Isidore of Seville ( c. 560 - 636) records an anecdote later recounted in the Golden Legend, that Anthony the Great encountered a satyr in the desert who asked to pray with him to their common God. During the Early Middle Ages, features and characteristics of satyrs and the god Pan, who resembled a satyr, became absorbed into traditional Christian iconography of Satan.

Medieval storytellers in Western Europe also frequently conflated satyrs with wild men. Both satyrs and wild men were conceived as part human and part animal and both were believed to possess unrestrained sexual appetites. Stories of wild men during the Middle Ages often had an erotic tone and were primarily told orally by peasants, since the clergy officially disapproved of them. In this form, satyrs are sometimes described and represented in medieval bestiaries, where a satyr is often shown dressed in an animal skin, carrying a club and a serpent. In the Aberdeen Bestiary, the Ashmole Bestiary, and MS Harley 3244, a satyr is shown as a nude man holding a wand resembling a jester's club and leaning back, crossing his legs. Satyrs are sometimes juxtaposed with apes, which are characterized as "physically disgusting and akin to the Devil". In other cases, satyrs are usually shown nude, with enlarged phalli to emphasize their sexual nature. In the Second-Family Bestiary, the name "satyr" is used as the name of a species of ape, which is described as having a "very agreeable face, restless, however, in its twitching movements."

During the Renaissance, satyrs and fauns began to reappear in works of European art. During the Renaissance, no distinction was made between satyrs and fauns and both were usually given human and goat-like features in whatever proportion the artist deemed appropriate. A goat-legged satyr appears at the base of Michelangelo's statue (1497). Renaissance satyrs still sometimes appear in scenes of drunken revelry like those from antiquity, but they also sometimes appear in family scenes, alongside female and infant or child satyrs. This trend towards more familial, domestic satyrs may have resulted from conflation with wild men, who, especially in Renaissance depictions from Germany, were often portrayed as living relatively peaceful lives with their families in the wilderness. The most famous representation of a domestic satyr is Albrecht Dürer's 1505 engraving The Satyr's Family, which has been widely reproduced and imitated. This popular portrayal of satyrs and wild men may have also helped give rise to the later European concept of the noble savage.

Satyrs occupied a paradoxical, liminal space in Renaissance art, not only because they were part human and part beast, but also because they were both antique and natural. They were of classical origin, but had an iconographical canon of their own very different from the standard representations of gods and heroes. They could be used to embody what Stephen J. Campbell calls a "monstrous double" of the category in which human beings often placed themselves. It is in this aspect that satyrs appear in Jacopo de' Barbari's c. 1495 series of prints depicting satyrs and naked men in combat and in Piero di Cosimo's Stories of Primitive Man, inspired by Lucretius. Satyrs became seen as "pre-human", embodying all the traits of savagery and barbarism associated with animals, but in human-like bodies. Satyrs also became used to question early modern humanism in ways which some scholars have seen as similar to present-day posthumanism, as in Titian's Flaying of Marsyas ( c. 1570-1576). The Flaying of Marysas depicts the scene from Ovid's Metamorphoses in which the satyr Marysas is flayed alive. According to Campbell, the people performing the flaying are shown calmly absorbed in their task, while Marsyas himself even displays "an unlikely patience". The painting reflects a broad continuum between the divine and the bestial.

In the 1560 Geneva Bible, the word sa'ir in both of the instances in Isaiah is translated into English as "satyr". The 1611 King James Version follows this translation and likewise renders sa'ir as "satyr". Edwards states that the King James Version's translation of this phrase and others like it was intended to reduce the strangeness and unfamiliarity of the creatures described in the original Hebrew text by rendering them as names of familiar entities. Edmund Spenser refers to a group of woodland creatures as Satyrs in his epic poem The Faerie Queene. In Canto VI, Una is wandering through the forest when she stumbles upon a "troupe of Fauns and Satyrs far away Within the wood were dancing in a round." Although Satyrs are often negatively characterized in Greek and Roman mythology, the Satyrs in this poem are docile, helpful creatures. This is evident by the way they help protect Una from Sansloy. Sylvanus, the leader, and the rest of the Satyrs become enamored by Una's beauty and begin to worship her as if she is a deity. However, the Satyrs prove to be simple minded creatures because they begin to worship the donkey she was riding.[citation needed ]

In the seventeenth century, satyrs became identified with great apes. In 1699, the English anatomist Edward Tyson (1651-1708) published an account of his dissection of a creature which scholars have now identified as chimpanzee. In this account, Tyson argued that stories of satyrs, wild men, and other hybrid mythological creatures had all originated from the misidentification of apes or monkeys. The French materialist philosopher Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709-1751) included a section titled "On savage men, called Satyrs" in his Oeuvres philosophiques, in which he describes great apes, identifying them with both satyrs and wild men. Many early accounts of the orangutan describe the males as being sexually aggressive towards human women and towards females of its own species, much like classical Greek satyrs. The first scientific name given to this ape was Simia satyrus.

Relationships between satyrs and nymphs of this period are often portrayed as consensual. This trend is exemplified by the 1623 painting Satyr and Nymph by Gerard van Honthorst, which depicts a satisfied satyr and nymph lasciviously fondling each other after engaging in obviously consensual sex. Both are smiling and the nymph is showing her teeth, a sign commonly used by painters of the era to signify that the woman in question is of loose morals. The satyr's tongue is visible as the nymph playfully tugs on his goat beard and he strokes her chin. Even during this period, however, depictions of satyrs uncovering sleeping nymphs are still common, indicating that their traditional associations with rape and sexual violence had not been forgotten.

During the nineteenth century, satyrs and nymphs came to often function as a means of representing sexuality without offending Victorian moral sensibilities. In the novel The Marble Faun (1860) by the American author Nathaniel Hawthorne, the Italian count Donatello is described as bearing a remarkable resemblance to one of Praxiteles's marble satyr statues. Like the satyrs of Greek legend, Donatello has a carefree nature. His association with satyrs is further cemented by his intense sexual attraction to the American woman Miriam.

Satyrs and nymphs provided a classical pretext which allowed sexual depictions of them to be seen as objects of high art rather than mere pornography. The French emperor Napoleon III awarded the Academic painter Alexandre Cabanel the Legion of Honour, partly on account of his painting Nymph Abducted by a Faun. In 1873, another French Academicist William-Adolphe Bouguereau painted Nymphs and Satyr, which depicts four nude nymphs dancing around "an unusually submissive satyr", gently coaxing him into the water of a nearby stream. This painting was bought that same year by an American named John Wolfe, who displayed it publicly in a prominent location in the bar at the Hoffman House, a hotel he owned on Madison Square and Broadway. Despite its risqué subject, many women came to the bar to view the painting. The painting was soon mass reproduced on ceramic tiles, porcelain plates, and other luxury items in the United States.

In 1876, Stéphane Mallarmé wrote "The Afternoon of a Faun", a first-person narrative poem about a faun who attempts to kiss two beautiful nymphs while they are sleeping together. He accidentally wakes them up. Startled, they transform into white water birds and fly away, leaving the faun to play his pan pipes alone. Claude Debussy composed a symphonic poem Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune ( Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun), which was first performed in 1894.

The late nineteenth-century German Existentialist philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche was either unaware of or chose to ignore the fact that, in all the earliest representations, satyrs are depicted as horse-like. He accordingly defined a satyr as a "bearded" creature "who derived his name and attributes from the goat." Nietzsche excluded the horse-like satyrs of Greek tradition from his consideration entirely and argued that tragedy had originated from a chorus of men dressed up as satyrs or goats ( tragoi). Thus, Nietzsche held that tragedy had begun as a Dionysian activity. Nietzsche's rejection of the early evidence for horse-like satyrs was a mistake his critics severely excoriated him for. Nonetheless, he was the first modern scholar to recognize the full importance of satyrs in Greek culture and tradition, as Dionysian symbols of humanity's close ties to the animal kingdom. Like the Greeks, Nietzsche envisioned satyrs as essentially humans stripped down to their most basic and bestial instincts.

In 1908, the French painter Henri Matisse produced his own Nymph and Satyr painting in which the animal nature of the satyr is drastically minimized. The satyr is given human legs, but is exceptionally hairy. The seduction element is removed altogether; the satyr simply extends his arms towards the nymph, who lies on the ground, defeated. Penny Florence writes that the "generic scene displays little sensuality" and that the main factor distinguishing it is its tone, because "It does not seem convincing as a rape, despite the nymph's reluctance." In 1912, Vaslav Nijinsky choreographed Debussy's symphonic poem Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun as a ballet and danced in it as the lead role of the faun. The choreography of the ballet and Nijinsky's performance were both highly erotic and sexually charged, causing widespread scandal among upper-class Parisians. In the 1980 biographical film , directed by Herbert Ross, Nijinsky, who is played by George de la Peña, is portrayed as actually masturbating on stage in front of the entire live audience during the climax of the dance.

The 1917 Italian silent film Il Fauno, directed by Febo Mari, is about a statue of a faun who comes to life and falls in love with a female model. Fauns appear in the animated dramatization of Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 6 (1808) in the 1940 Disney animated film . Their goat-legs are portrayed as brightly colored, but their hooves are black. They play the Pan pipes and, like traditional satyrs and fauns, are portrayed as mischievous. One young faun plays hide-and-seek with a unicorn and imitates a statue of a faun atop a pedestal. Though the fauns are not portrayed as overtly sexual, they do assist the Cupids in pairing the centaurs into couples. A drunken Bacchus appears in the same scene.

A faun named Mr. Tumnus appears in the classic juvenile fantasy novel The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950) by C. S. Lewis. Mr. Tumnus has goat legs and horns, but also a tail long enough for him to carry it draped over his arm to prevent it from dragging in the snow. He is a domesticated figure who lacks the bawdiness and hypersexuality that characterized classical satyrs and fauns. Instead, Mr. Tumnus wears a scarf and carries an umbrella and lives in a cozy cave with a bookshelf with works such as The Life and Letters of Silenus, Nymphs and their Ways, and Is Man a Myth?. He entertains Lucy Pevensie, the first child to visit Narnia, hoping to put her to sleep so he can give her over to the White Witch, but his conscience stops him and he instead escorts her back home. Later, the children discover him missing from his home and, eventually, they discover that the White Witch has turned him to stone for his disobedience.

The satyr has appeared in all five editions of the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, having been introduced in 1976 in the earliest edition, in Supplement IV: Gods, Demi-Gods & Heroes (1976), then in the first edition of the Monster Manual (1977), where it is described as a sylvan woodland inhabitant primarily interested in sport such as frolicking, piping, and chasing wood nymphs. The life history of satyrs was further detailed in No. 155 (March 1990), in "The Ecology of the Satyr." The satyr was later detailed as a playable character race in The Complete Book of Humanoids (1993), and is later presented as a playable character race again in Player's Option: Skills & Powers (1995). The satyr appears in the Monster Manual for the 3.0 edition. Savage Species (2003) presented the satyr as both a race and a playable class. The satyr appears in the revised Monster Manual for version 3.5 and also appears in the Monster Manual for the 4th edition, and as a playable character race in the Heroes of the Feywild sourcebook (2011).

Matthew Barney's art video Drawing Restraint 7 (1993) includes two satyrs wrestling in the backseat of a moving limousine. A satyr named Grover Underwood appears in the young adult fantasy novel The Lightning Thief (2005) by American author Rick Riordan, as well as in subsequent novels in the series Percy Jackson & the Olympians. Though consistently referred to as a "satyr", Grover is described as having goat legs, pointed ears, and horns. Grover is not portrayed with the sexually obscene traits that characterized classical Greek satyrs. Instead, he is the loyal protector to the main character Percy Jackson, who is the son of a mortal woman and the god Poseidon.

Campbell, Stephen J. (2016), "Titian's Flaying of Marsyas", in Campana, Joseph; Maisano, Scott (eds.), Renaissance Posthumanism, New York City, New York: Fordham University Press, ISBN 978-0823269563

Hansen, William (2017), The Book of Greek & Roman Folktales, Legends & Myths, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, ISBN 9780691170152

Luta, Isabel (February 2017), "Nymphs and Nymphomania: Mythological Medicine and Classical Nudity in Nineteenth Century Britain", Journal of International Women's Studies, Amsterdam, Netherlands: Elsevier, 18 (3): 35-50

Ogden, Daniel (2013), Drakon: Dragon Myth and Serpent Cult in the Ancient Greek and Roman Worlds, Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-955732-5

Poehlmann, Egert (2017), "Aristotle on Music and Theatre (Politics VIII 6. 1340 b 20 - 1342 b 34; Poetics)", in Fountoulakis, Andreas; Markantonatos, Andreas; Vasilaros, Georgios (eds.), Theatre World: Critical Perspectives on Greek Tragedy and Comedy. Studies in Honour of Georgia Xanthakis-Karamenos, Berlin, Germany: Walter de Gruyter, ISBN 978-3-11-051896-2

Riggs, Don (2014), "Faun and Satyr", in Weinstock, Jeffrey Andrew (ed.), The Ashgate Encyclopedia of Literary and Cinematic Monsters, New York City, New York and London, England: Ashgate Publishing, pp. 233-236, ISBN 978-1-4094-2563-2

Scobey, David (2002), "Nymphs and Satyrs: Sex and the Bourgeois Public Sphere in Victorian New York", Winterthur Portfolio, Chicago, Illinois: The University of Chicago Press, 37 (1): 43-66, doi:10.1086/376342, JSTOR 10.1086/376342, S2CID 162136704

Slenders, Willeon (2015) [2012], "Sophocles's Ichneutae or How to Write a Satyr Play", A Companion to Sophocles, Malden, Massachusetts, Oxford, England, and Chichester, England: Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 155-168, ISBN 978-1-119-02553-5

Janowski, B. (1999), "Satyrs", in van der Toorn, Karel; Becking, Bob; van der Horst, Pieter Willem (eds.), Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible (second ed.), Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdman's Publishing Company, pp. 1381-1382, ISBN 978-0-8028-2491-2

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In Greek mythology, a satyr ( Greek: , sátyros , pronounced ), also known as a silenus or silenos ( Greek: seilēnós ), is a male nature spirit with ears and a tail resembling those of a horse, as well as a permanent, exaggerated erection.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegasus

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Grouping

Greek Mythology

Sub grouping

Mythical horse

Pegasus ( Greek: Πήγασος, Pḗgasos; Latin: Pegasus, Pegasos) is a mythical winged divine horse, and one of the most recognized creatures in Greek mythology. Usually depicted as pure white, Pegasus is the offspring of the Olympian god Poseidon. He was foaled by the Gorgon Medusa upon her death, when the hero Perseus decapitated her. Pegasus is the brother of Chrysaor and the uncle of Geryon.

Pegasus was caught by the Greek hero Bellerophon, near the fountain Peirene, with the help of Athena and Poseidon. Pegasus allowed Bellerophon to ride him in order to defeat the monstrous Chimera, which led to many other exploits. Bellerophon later fell from the winged horse's back while trying to reach Mount Olympus. Afterwards, Zeus transformed Pegasus into the eponymous constellation.

The poet Hesiod presents a folk etymology of the name Pegasus as derived from πηγή pēgē 'spring, well', referring to "the pegai of Okeanos, where he was born."

A proposed etymology of the name is Luwian pihassas 'lightning', and Pihassassi, a local Luwian- Hittite name in southern Cilicia of a weather god represented with thunder and lightning. The proponents of this etymology adduce Pegasus' role, reported as early as Hesiod, as the bringer of thunderbolts to Zeus. It was first suggested in 1952 and remains widely accepted, but Robin Lane Fox (2009) has criticized it as implausible.

Michael Brown, who has been studying ancient and medieval Greek poetry in the context of the Greek-North European dialogue, and has concluded from it that the word Pegasus is a pre-Celtic-PIE word, one which did not evolve into one of the numerous common names listed in both Greek and Western languages. This is discussed further in "Linguistics and Classical Theology," by William S. R. Miller, which is based on his work with Charles F. G. Osterhaus's analysis of the word and its relationships to Greek and Italian. The relationship of "Pegasus" to "Cyrillic" is discussed further in his Phrygian Monikers and the Naming of Greek Pronunciation "Cyrillic or Pene-Orthogyrin" and "Pegasus" as an Early Semitic construct.

According to legend, everywhere the winged horse struck his hoof to the earth, an inspiring water spring burst forth. One of these springs was upon the Muses' Mount Helicon, the Hippocrene ("horse spring"), opened, Antoninus Liberalis suggested, at the behest of Poseidon to prevent the mountain swelling with rapture at the song of the Muses; another was at Troezen. Hesiod relates how Pegasus was peacefully drinking from a spring when the hero Bellerophon captured him. Hesiod also says Pegasus carried thunderbolts for Zeus.

There are several versions of the birth of the winged stallion and his brother Chrysaor in the far distant place at the edge of Earth, Hesiod's "springs of Oceanus, which encircles the inhabited earth, where Perseus found Medusa:

One is that they sprang from the blood issuing from Medusa's neck as Perseus was beheading her, similar to the manner in which Athena was born from the head of Zeus. In another version, when Perseus beheaded Medusa, they were born of the Earth, fed by the Gorgon's blood. A variation of this story holds that they were formed from the mingling of Medusa's blood, pain and sea foam, implying that Poseidon had involvement in their making. The last version bears resemblance to Hesiod's account of the birth of Aphrodite from the foam created when Uranus's severed genitals were cast into the sea by Cronus.

Pegasus aided the hero Bellerophon in his fight against the Chimera. There are varying tales about how Bellerophon found Pegasus; the most common being that the hero was told by Polyeidos to sleep in the temple of Athena, where the goddess visited him in the night and presented him with a golden bridle. The next morning, still clutching the bridle, Bellerophon found Pegasus drinking at the Pierian spring, caught him and eventually tamed him.

Michaud's Biographie universelle relates that when Pegasus was born, he flew to where thunder and lightning are released. Then, according to certain versions of the myth, Athena tamed him and gave him to Perseus, who flew to Ethiopia to help Andromeda.

Pegasus and Athena left Bellerophon and continued to Olympus where he was stabled with Zeus' other steeds, and was given the task of carrying Zeus' thunderbolts, along with other members of his entourage, his attendants/ handmaidens/ shield bearers/ shieldmaidens, Astrape and Bronte. Because of his years of faithful service to Zeus, Pegasus was later honoured with transformation into a constellation. On the day of his catasterism, when Zeus transformed him into a constellation, a single feather fell to the earth near the city of Tarsus.

In heraldry

The pegasus became a common element in British heraldry, appearing chiefly as a supporter or a crest. Pegasi may also appear upon escutcheons, although this is rare. A pegasus rampant is featured on the arms of the Inner Temple, while those of the Richardson family contain a rare depiction of a pegasus sejant.

World War II

During World War II, the silhouetted image of Bellerophon the warrior, mounted on the winged Pegasus, was adopted by the United Kingdom's newly raised parachute troops in 1941 as their upper sleeve insignia. The image clearly symbolized a warrior arriving at a battle by air, the same tactics used by paratroopers. The square upper-sleeve insignia comprised Bellerophon/Pegasus in light blue on a maroon background. One source suggests that the insignia was designed by famous English novelist Daphne du Maurier, who was wife of the commander of the 1st Airborne Division (and later the expanded British Airborne Forces), General Frederick "Boy" Browning. According to the British Army Website, the insignia was designed by the celebrated East Anglian painter Major Edward Seago in May 1942. The maroon background on the insignia was later used again by the Airborne Forces when they adopted the famous maroon beret in Summer 1942. The beret was the origin of the German nickname for British airborne troops, the Red Devils. Today's Parachute Regiment carries on the maroon beret tradition. The selection process for the elite Parachute Regiment is called Pegasus Company (often abbreviated to "P Company"). In 2015 it was announced that the units of 16 Air Assault Brigade would once again use the Pegasus insignia after a 15-year hiatus.

During the airborne phase of the Normandy invasion on the night of 5-6 June 1944, British 6th Airborne Division captured all its key objectives in advance of the seaborne assault, including the capture and holding at all costs of a vital bridge over the Caen Canal, near Ouistreham. In memory of their tenacity, the bridge has been known ever since as Pegasus Bridge.

The Tuscan National Liberation Committee during the German occupation of Italy also had a Pegasus as its emblem. The winged horse is still featured on the Tuscan flag and coat of arms.

In popular culture

The winged horse has provided an instantly recognizable corporate logo or emblem of inspiration. Ecuador launched its weather satellite, named Pegaso ( pronounced , Pegasus in Spanish), on 26 April 2013 but it was damaged by Russian space debris. Pegasus Airlines (Turkish: Pegasus Hava Taşımacılığı A.Ş.) is a low-cost airline headquartered in the Kurtköy area of Pendik, Istanbul, Turkey. Mobil Oil has had a Pegasus as its company logo since its affiliation with Magnolia Petroleum Company in the 1930s.

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Grouping Greek Mythology Sub grouping Mythical horse Pegasus ( Greek: Πήγασος, Pḗgasos; Latin: Pegasus, Pegasos) is a mythical winged divine horse, and one of the most recognized creatures in Greek mythology. Usually depicted as pure white, Pegasus is the offspring of the Olympian god Poseidon.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centaur#:~:text=A%20centaur%20(%2F%CB%88s%C9%9B,and%20legs%20of%20a%20horse.

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A centaur ( SEN-tor, SEN-tar; Ancient Greek: κένταυρος, kéntauros; Latin: centaurus), or occasionally hippocentaur, is a creature from Greek mythology with the upper body of a human and the lower body and legs of a horse.

Centaurs are thought of in many Greek myths as being as wild as untamed horses, and were said to have inhabited the region of Magnesia and Mount Pelion in Thessaly, the Foloi oak forest in Elis, and the Malean peninsula in southern Laconia. Centaurs are subsequently featured in Roman mythology, and were familiar figures in the medieval bestiary. They remain a staple of modern fantastic literature.

The Greek word kentauros is generally regarded as being of obscure origin. The etymology from ken + tauros, 'piercing bull', was a euhemerist suggestion in Palaephatus' rationalizing text on Greek mythology, On Incredible Tales (Περὶ ἀπίστων), which included mounted archers from a village called Nephele eliminating a herd of bulls that were the scourge of Ixion's kingdom. Another possible related etymology can be "bull-slayer".

The centaurs were usually said to have been born of Ixion and Nephele. As the story goes, Nephele was a cloud made into the likeness of Hera in a plot to trick Ixion into revealing his lust for Hera to Zeus. Ixion seduced Nephele and from that relationship centaurs were created. Another version, however, makes them children of Centaurus, a man who mated with the Magnesian mares. Centaurus was either himself the son of Ixion and Nephele (inserting an additional generation) or of Apollo and the nymph Stilbe. In the latter version of the story, Centaurus's twin brother was Lapithes, ancestor of the Lapiths.

Another tribe of centaurs was said to have lived on Cyprus. According to Nonnus, they were fathered by Zeus, who, in frustration after Aphrodite had eluded him, spilled his seed on the ground of that land. Unlike those of mainland Greece, the Cyprian centaurs were horned.

There were also the Lamian Pheres, twelve rustic daimones (spirits) of the Lamos river. They were set by Zeus to guard the infant Dionysos, protecting him from the machinations of Hera, but the enraged goddess transformed them into ox-horned Centaurs. The Lamian Pheres later accompanied Dionysos in his campaign against the Indians.

The centaur's half-human, half-horse composition has led many writers to treat them as liminal beings, caught between the two natures they embody in contrasting myths; they are both the embodiment of untamed nature, as in their battle with the Lapiths (their kin), and conversely, teachers like Chiron.[citation needed ]

The Centaurs are best known for their fight with the Lapiths who, according to one origin myth, would have been cousins to the centaurs. The battle, called the Centauromachy, was caused by the centaurs' attempt to carry off Hippodamia and the rest of the Lapith women on the day of Hippodamia's marriage to Pirithous, who was the king of the Lapithae and a son of Ixion. Theseus, a hero and founder of cities, who happened to be present, threw the balance in favour of the Lapiths by assisting Pirithous in the battle. The Centaurs were driven off or destroyed. Another Lapith hero, Caeneus, who was invulnerable to weapons, was beaten into the earth by Centaurs wielding rocks and the branches of trees. In her article "The Centaur: Its History and Meaning in Human Culture," Elizabeth Lawrence claims that the contests between the centaurs and the Lapiths typify the struggle between civilization and barbarism.

The Centauromachy is most famously portrayed in the Parthenon metopes by Phidias and in a Renaissance-era sculpture by Michelangelo.

Amycus, son of Ophion. He attended Pirithous' wedding and fought against the Lapiths. Amycus was killed by Pelates.[18]

Aphidas, killed by Phorbas in the fight at Pirithous' wedding.[21]

Chiron

Eurynomus, fought against the Lapiths at Pirithous' wedding. Killed by Dryas.[23]

Gryneus, fought against the Lapiths at Pirithous' wedding and was killed by Exadius.[37]

Hylaeus, tried to rape Atalanta but was shot by her (same thing happened to Rhoecus).[40][41]

Hylaeus, killed by Heracles under unknown circumstances.[42]

Hylaeus, followed Dionysus in his Indian campaign and was killed by Orontes, an Indian General.[43]

Pholus

Thereus, killed by Heracles when he tried to steal the wine of Pholus.[61]

The most common theory holds that the idea of centaurs came from the first reaction of a non-riding culture, as in the Minoan Aegean world, to nomads who were mounted on horses. The theory suggests that such riders would appear as half-man, half-animal. Bernal Díaz del Castillo reported that the Aztecs also had this misapprehension about Spanish cavalrymen. The Lapith tribe of Thessaly, who were the kinsmen of the Centaurs in myth, were described as the inventors of horse-riding by Greek writers. The Thessalian tribes also claimed their horse breeds were descended from the centaurs.

Robert Graves (relying on the work of Georges Dumézil, who argued for tracing the centaurs back to the Indian Gandharva), speculated that the centaurs were a dimly remembered, pre-Hellenic fraternal earth cult who had the horse as a totem. A similar theory was incorporated into Mary Renault's The Bull from the Sea.

Though female centaurs, called centaurides or centauresses, are not mentioned in early Greek literature and art, they do appear occasionally in later antiquity. A Macedonian mosaic of the 4th century BC is one of the earliest examples of the centauress in art. Ovid also mentions a centauress named Hylonome who committed suicide when her husband Cyllarus was killed in the war with the Lapiths.

The Kalibangan cylinder seal, dated to be around 2600-1900 BC, found at the site of Indus-Valley civilization shows a battle between men in the presence of centaur-like creatures. Other sources claim the creatures represented are actually half human and half tigers, later evolving into the Hindu Goddess of War. These seals are also evidence of Indus-Mesopotamia relations in the 3rd millennium BC.

In a popular legend associated with Pazhaya Sreekanteswaram Temple in Thiruvananthapuram, the curse of a saintly Brahmin transformed a handsome Yadava prince into a creature having a horse's body and the prince's head, arms, and torso in place of the head and neck of the horse.

Kinnaras, another half-man, half-horse mythical creature from Indian mythology, appeared in various ancient texts, arts, and sculptures from all around India. It is shown as a horse with the torso of a man where the horse's head would be, and is similar to a Greek centaur.

A centaur-like half-human, half-equine creature called appeared in Russian folk art and lubok prints of the 17th-19th centuries. Polkan is originally based on Pulicane, a half-dog from Andrea da Barberino's poem I Reali di Francia, which was once popular in the Slavonic world in prosaic translations.

The extensive Mycenaean pottery found at Ugarit included two fragmentary Mycenaean terracotta figures which have been tentatively identified as centaurs. This finding suggests a Bronze Age origin for these creatures of myth. A painted terracotta centaur was found in the "Hero's tomb" at Lefkandi, and by the Geometric period, centaurs figure among the first representational figures painted on Greek pottery. An often-published Geometric period bronze of a warrior face-to-face with a centaur is at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

In Greek art of the Archaic period, centaurs are depicted in three different forms. Some centaurs are depicted with a human torso attached to the body of a horse at the withers, where the horse's neck would be; this form, designated "Class A" by Professor Paul Baur, later became standard. "Class B" centaurs are depicted with a human body and legs joined at the waist to the hindquarters of a horse; in some cases centaurs of both Class A and Class B appear together. A third type, designated "Class C", depicts centaurs with human forelegs terminating in hooves. Baur describes this as an apparent development of Aeolic art, which never became particularly widespread. At a later period, paintings on some amphorae depict winged centaurs.

Centaurs were also frequently depicted in Roman art. One example is the pair of centaurs drawing the chariot of Constantine the Great and his family in the Great Cameo of Constantine ( circa AD 314-16), which embodies wholly pagan imagery, and contrasts sharply with the popular image of Constantine as the patron of early Christianity.

Centaurs preserved a Dionysian connection in the 12th-century Romanesque carved capitals of Mozac Abbey in the Auvergne. Other similar capitals depict harvesters, boys riding goats (a further Dionysiac theme), and griffins guarding the chalice that held the wine. Centaurs are also shown on a number of Pictish carved stones from north-east Scotland erected in the 8th-9th centuries AD (e.g., at Meigle, Perthshire). Though outside the limits of the Roman Empire, these depictions appear to be derived from Classical prototypes.

The John C. Hodges library at The University of Tennessee hosts a permanent exhibit of a "Centaur from Volos" in its library. The exhibit, made by sculptor Bill Willers by combining a study human skeleton with the skeleton of a Shetland pony, is entitled "Do you believe in Centaurs?". According to the exhibitors, it was meant to mislead students in order to make them more critically aware.

Centaurs are common in European heraldry, although more frequent in continental than in British arms. A centaur holding a bow is referred to as a sagittarius.

Jerome's version of the Life of St Anthony the Great, written by Athanasius of Alexandria about the hermit monk of Egypt, was widely disseminated in the Middle Ages; it relates Anthony's encounter with a centaur who challenged the saint, but was forced to admit that the old gods had been overthrown. The episode was often depicted in The Meeting of St Anthony Abbot and St Paul the Hermit by the painter Stefano di Giovanni, who was known as "Sassetta". Of the two episodic depictions of the hermit Anthony's travel to greet the hermit Paul, one is his encounter with the demonic figure of a centaur along the pathway in a wood.

Lucretius, in his first-century BC philosophical poem On the Nature of Things, denied the existence of centaurs based on their differing rate of growth. He states that at the age of three years, horses are in the prime of their life while humans at the same age are still little more than babies, making hybrid animals impossible.

Centaurs are among the creatures which 14th-century Italian poet Dante placed as guardians in his . In Canto XII, Dante and his guide Virgil meet a band led by Chiron and Pholus, guarding the bank of Phlegethon in the seventh circle of Hell, a river of boiling blood in which the violent against their neighbours are immersed, shooting arrows into any who move to a shallower spot than their allotted station. The two poets are treated with courtesy, and Nessus guides them to a ford. In Canto XXIV, in the eighth circle, in Bolgia 7, a ditch where thieves are confined, they meet but do not converse with Cacus (who is a giant in the ancient sources), wreathed in serpents and with a fire-breathing dragon on his shoulders, arriving to punish a sinner who has just cursed God. In his Purgatorio, an unseen spirit on the sixth terrace cites the centaurs ("the drunken double-breasted ones who fought Theseus") as examples of the sin of gluttony.

C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia series depicts centaurs as the wisest and noblest of creatures. Narnian Centaurs are gifted at stargazing, prophecy, healing, and warfare; a fierce and valiant race always faithful to the High King Aslan the Lion.

In J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, centaurs live in the Forbidden Forest close to Hogwarts, preferring to avoid contact with humans. They live in societies called herds and are skilled at archery, healing, and astrology, but like in the original myths, they are known to have some wild and barbarous tendencies.

With the exception of Chiron, the centaurs in Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson & the Olympians are seen as wild party-goers who use a lot of American slang. Chiron retains his mythological role as a trainer of heroes and is skilled in archery. In Riordan's subsequent series, Heroes of Olympus, another group of centaurs are depicted with more animalistic features (such as horns) and appear as villains, serving the Gigantes.

Philip Jose Farmer's World of Tiers series (1965) includes centaurs, called Half-Horses or Hoi Kentauroi. His creations address several of the metabolic problems of such creatures-how could the human mouth and nose intake sufficient air to sustain both itself and the horse body and, similarly, how could the human ingest sufficient food to sustain both parts.

Brandon Mull's Fablehaven series features centaurs that live in an area called Grunhold. The centaurs are portrayed as a proud, elitist group of beings that consider themselves superior to all other creatures. The fourth book also has a variation on the species called an Alcetaur, which is part man, part moose.

The myth of the centaur appears in John Updike's novel The Centaur. The author depicts a rural Pennsylvanian town as seen through the optics of the myth of the centaur. An unknown and marginalized local school teacher, just like the mythological Chiron did for Prometheus, gave up his life for the future of his son who had chosen to be an independent artist in New York.

A number of dates have been suggested over the years by centaur enthusiasts to celebrate the myth of the Centaur, the most recent claim being that May 14 is International Centaur Appreciation Day, and appears to be celebrated by some, however no official conclusion has been met.

Other hybrid creatures appear in Greek mythology, always with some liminal connection that links Hellenic culture with archaic or non-Hellenic cultures:

Also,

Additionally, , the name of several historically important Venetian vessels, was linked to a posited ox-centaur or βουκένταυρος (boukentauros) by fanciful and likely spurious folk-etymology.

1. For Collins English Dictionary: "sagittary." Collins English Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014. 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014. HarperCollins Publishers 1 Sep. 2019 ^ https://www.thefreedictionary.com/sagittary

2. ^ Scobie, Alex (1978). "The Origins of 'Centaurs'". Folklore. 89 (2): 142-147. doi:10.1080/0015587X.1978.9716101. Scobie quotes Nilsson, Martin P. (1955). Geschichte der griechischen Religion. Die Etymologie und die Deutung der Ursprungs sind unsicher und mögen auf sich beruhen

3. ^ Alexander Hislop, in his polemic The Two Babylons: Papal Worship Revealed to be the Worship of Nimrod and His Wife. (1853, revised 1858) theorized that the word is derived from the Semitic Kohen and "tor" (to go round) via phonetic shift the less prominent consonants being lost over time, with it developing into Khen Tor or Ken-Tor, and being transliterated phonetically into Ionian as Kentaur, but this is not accepted by any modern philologist.

4. ^ Nash, Harvey (June 1984). "The Centaur's Origin: A Psychological Perspective". The Classical World. 77 (5): 273-291. doi:10.2307/4349592. JSTOR 4349592.

5. ^ "CYPRIAN CENTAURS (Kentauroi Kyprioi) - Half-Horse Men of Greek Mythology". www.theoi.com.

6. ^ Lawrence, Elizabeth Atwood (1994). "The Centaur: Its History and Meaning in Human Culture". Journal of Popular Culture. 27 (4): 58. doi:10.1111/j.0022-3840.1994.2704_57.x.

7. Apollodorus, 3.9.2

8. Apollodorus, 2.5.4, 2.7.6; Diodorus Siculus, ^ Bibliotheca historica 4.36.3; Hyginus, Fabulae 31; Sophocles, Trachiniae 500 ff.; Strabo, Geographica 10.2.5; Valerius Flaccus, Argonautica 1.147

9. Diodorus Siculus, ^ Bibliotheca historica 4.12.3; Pausanias, Graeciae Descriptio 3.18.16

10. ^ Chase, Stuart. "Chapter IV: The Six Hundred". Mexico: A Study of Two Americas - via University of Virginia Hypertexts.

11. Art of the first cities : the third millennium B.C. from the Mediterranean to the Indus. Metropolitan Museum of Art. pp. 239-246.

12. ^ Ameri, Marta; Costello, Sarah Kielt; Jamison, Gregg; Scott, Sarah Jarmer (2018). Seals and Sealing in the Ancient World: Case Studies from the Near East, Egypt, the Aegean, and South Asia. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781108168694.

13. Devdutt Pattanaik, "Indian mythology : tales, symbols, and rituals from the heart of the Subcontinent" (Rochester, USA 2003) P.74: ^ ISBN 0-89281-870-0.

14. Ione Mylonas Shear, "Mycenaean Centaurs at Ugarit" ^ The Journal of Hellenic Studies (2002:147-153); but see the interpretation relating them to "abbreviated group" figures at the Bronze-Age sanctuary of Aphaia and elsewhere, presented by Korinna Pilafidis-Williams, "No Mycenaean Centaurs Yet", The Journal of Hellenic Studies 124 (2004), p. 165, which concludes "we had perhaps do best not to raise hopes of a continuity of images across the divide between the Bronze Age and the historical period."

15. Maria Cristina Biella and Enrico Giovanelli, ^ Il bestiario fantastico di età orientalizzante nella penisola italiana (Belfast, ME: Tangram, 2012), 172-78. ISBN 9788864580692; and J. Michael Padgett and William A. P. Childs, The Centaur's Smile: The Human Animal in Early Greek Art (Princeton University Press, 2003). ISBN 9780300101638

16. The Great Cameo of Constantine, formerly in the collection of ^ Peter Paul Rubens and now in the Geld en Bankmuseum, Utrecht, is illustrated, for instance, in Paul Stephenson, Constantine, Roman Emperor, Christian Victor, 2010:fig. 53.

17. ^ Anderson, Maggie (August 26, 2004). "Library hails centaur's 10th anniversary". 97 (7 or 8). Archived from the original on September 20, 2007.

18. Lucretius, ^ On the Nature of Things, book V, translated by William Ellery Leonard, 1916 (The Perseus Project.) Retrieved 27 July 2008.

19. ^ @ditherer_df (16 April 2013). "I've decided that today is International Centaur Day: Hands shall be known as Upper Hooves & Feet as Lower Hooves. #CentaurDay" (Tweet) - via Twitter.

Apollodorus, The Library with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921. ISBN 0-674-99135-4. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. Greek text available from the same website.

Diodorus Siculus, The Library of History translated by Charles Henry Oldfather. Twelve volumes. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1989. Vol. 3. Books 4.59-8. Online version at Bill Thayer's Web Site

Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca Historica. Vol 1-2. Immanel Bekker. Ludwig Dindorf. Friedrich Vogel. in aedibus B. G. Teubneri. Leipzig. 1888-1890. Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library.

Gaius Julius Hyginus, Fabulae from The Myths of Hyginus translated and edited by Mary Grant. University of Kansas Publications in Humanistic Studies. Online version at the Topos Text Project.

Gaius Valerius Flaccus, Argonautica translated by Mozley, J H. Loeb Classical Library Volume 286. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1928. Online version at theio.com.

Gaius Valerius Flaccus, Argonauticon. Otto Kramer. Leipzig. Teubner. 1913. Latin text available at the Perseus Digital Library.

Hesiod, Shield of Heracles from The Homeric Hymns and Homerica with an English Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White, Cambridge, MA.,Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1914. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. Greek text available from the same website.

Homer, The Odyssey with an English Translation by A.T. Murray, PH.D. in two volumes. Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1919. ISBN 978-0674995611. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. Greek text available from the same website.

Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus, Lives with an English Translation by Bernadotte Perrin. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. London. William Heinemann Ltd. 1914. 1. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. Greek text available from the same website.

Nonnus of Panopolis, Dionysiaca translated by William Henry Denham Rouse (1863-1950), from the Loeb Classical Library, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1940. Online version at the Topos Text Project.

Nonnus of Panopolis, Dionysiaca. 3 Vols. W.H.D. Rouse. Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1940-1942. Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library.

Pausanias, Description of Greece with an English Translation by W.H.S. Jones, Litt.D., and H.A. Ormerod, M.A., in 4 Volumes. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1918. ISBN 0-674-99328-4. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library

Pausanias, Graeciae Descriptio. 3 vols. Leipzig, Teubner. 1903. Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library.

Publius Ovidius Naso, Metamorphoses translated by Brookes More (1859-1942). Boston, Cornhill Publishing Co. 1922. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.

Publius Ovidius Naso, Metamorphoses. Hugo Magnus. Gotha (Germany). Friedr. Andr. Perthes. 1892. Latin text available at the Perseus Digital Library.

Publius Vergilius Maro, Aeneid. Theodore C. Williams. trans. Boston. Houghton Mifflin Co. 1910. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.

Publius Vergilius Maro, Bucolics, Aeneid, and Georgics. J. B. Greenough. Boston. Ginn & Co. 1900. Latin text available at the Perseus Digital Library.

Sextus Propertius, Elegies from Charm. Vincent Katz. trans. Los Angeles. Sun & Moon Press. 1995. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. Latin text available at the same website.

M. Grant and J. Hazel. Who's Who in Greek Mythology. David McKay & Co Inc, 1979.

Rose, Carol (2001). Giants, Monsters, and Dragons: An Encyclopedia of Folklore, Legend, and Myth. New York City: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. p. 72. ISBN 0-393-32211-4.

Homer's Odyssey, Book 21, 295ff

Harry Potter, books 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7.

The Chronicles of Narnia, book 2.

Percy Jackson & the Olympians, book 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5.

Frédérick S. Parker. Finding the Kingdom of the Centaurs.

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A centaur ( SEN-tor, SEN-tar ; Ancient Greek: κένταυρος, kéntauros; Latin: centaurus), or occasionally hippocentaur, is a creature from Greek mythology with the upper body of a human and the lower body and legs of a horse.

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The heroes are probably the best-known part of Greek mythology, but what makes a hero?

Having monsters to fight, that's what. Luckily for the heroes, the Ancient Greeks had the strangest, coolest, most terrifying creatures & monsters mythology had to offer ranging from Dragons, Giants, Demons and Ghosts, to multi-formed creatures such as the Sphinx, Minotaur, Centaurs, Manticores & Chimaera.

There were also many fabulous animals such as the Nemean Lion, golden-fleeced Ram and the winged horse Pegasus, not to mention the creatures of legend such as the Phoenix, the Griffin and Unicorns.

In this section, you'll learn interesting facts and information about the many creatures and monsters of ancient Greek mythology

Children of Typhon

Many of the great Greek monsters were descendants of Typhon, the most deadly monster of Greek mythology.

Typhon was the last son of Gaia, fathered by Tartarus, he was known as the "Father of All Monsters". Instead of a human head, a hundred dragon heads erupted from Typhon's neck and shoulders. His wife Echidna, half woman half snake, was likewise the "Mother of All Monsters."

Together, Echidna and Typhon raised some of the most well known monsters and creatures in all mythology.

Orthrus. A fearsome two-headed hound that lived with giants

Sphinx. A half human, half lion who would slay anybody who did not answer her riddles. When Oedipus was able to answer a riddle correctly, she jumped into the ocean in a fit of rage and drowned.

Nemean Lion. A gigantic lion with impenetrable skin that eventually became the star constellation Leo.

Cerberus. This well-known monster was a three-headed dog that guarded the entrance to Hades.

Ladon. A serpentine dragon (drakon) that guarded the golden apples in the Garden of the Hesperides.

Lernaean Hydra. An ancient serpent-like water monster with reptilian traits and many heads that multiplied if they were cut off.

Caucasian Eagle. An eagle that every day ate the liver of Prometheus.

Chimera. A monstrous fire-breathing hybrid creature with the body of a lion, the head of a goat, and a tail with a snake's head.

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List of Greek Mythological Creatures and Monsters * Facts & Information

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The heroes are probably the best-known part of Greek mythology, but what makes a hero? Having monsters to fight, that's what. Luckily for the heroes, the Ancient Greeks had the strangest, coolest, most terrifying creatures & monsters mythology had to offer ranging from Dragons, Giants, Demons and Ghosts, to multi-formed creatures such as the Sphinx, Minotaur, Centaurs, Manticores & Chimaera.

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1. Typhon

The "Father of all Monsters". Typhon was the last child of Gaia, fathered by Tartarus, and is considered the most powerful and deadliest of all creatures in Greek mythology. His appearance would be accompanied by a devastating storm and his true form was thus hard to be described accurately. Some say he had a human-like upper half and others that instead of one head he had a hundred dragon heads.

His bottom half consisted of gigantic viper coils which made a hissing noise. He had huge wings and fire flashed from his eyes. Typhon was a monster that even the Olympians were afraid of. His mate was Echidna (see below), with whom he fathered many famous monsters of Greek mythology. Together, they once attacked the Olympian Gods but lost. Zeus, the King of the Olympians, confronted Typhon by throwing 100 lightning bolts on him and trapped him under Mount Etna in Sicily.

2. Echidna

The "Mother of Monsters". Echidna was half a winged woman with glittering eyes and half a huge, scaly serpent. She had a seductive woman's face and a reptile's body. She was immortal and used to drag her victims to earth-shattered pits where she liked to devour them alive. She was living in a cave, deep down beneath the Earth. In Greek mythology, Echidna gave birth to many famous monsters that we encounter in Greek myths. As mentioned above, her mate was the monster Typhon. After their defeat by the Olympians and the banishment of Typhon, Echidna and her offspring lived on to challenge future heroes. Echidna, like other female monsters that had the upper body of a beautiful woman and the lower body of any sort of dragon, was part of the Dracaenae (female dragon monsters). Other well-known Dracaenae were Ceto and Scylla (see further below).

3. The Gorgons

The Gorgons were three deadly sisters whose hair was made of living, venomous snakes and they could turn anyone into stone just by looking into their eyes. The famous sisters were Stheno, Euryale and Medusa. Medusa is definitely the most famous and notorious among her kind. According to some accounts, she was not always a terrifying monster but a beautiful priestess at the Temple of Athena.

The God of the Seas, Poseidon, raped her and Athena punished her (since she couldn't punish Poseidon) by turning her into that ugly creature. The Greek hero Perseus killed Medusa and used her head as a weapon to turn his enemies into stone. He later gifted it to Athena, who placed the head of Medusa on her shield.

4. Sirens

The Sirens were poultry with a female head. They were living in the seas. Their power lay in their upper body appearance: they were beautiful, young women and had a charming voice when they sang. They used their singing to lure sailors who were passing by their island and slaughter them. The great hero Odysseus (Ulysses), clever as he was, sealed his sailors' ears with wax and bound himself to the mast of his ship, to enjoy himself the beautiful song of the Sirens, without getting in the temptation of following the seductive Sirens.

5. Scylla

According to Greek mythology, Scylla was the daughter of Forky and Kitos, once a beautiful Nymph that the god Poseidon longed for. The jealous Amphitrite, Poseidon's partner, turned her into a monster, poisoning her bathing water. She had a body of fish, a female upper torso and dog heads protruding from her neck. She haunted the rocks of a narrow strait opposite the whirlpool of another terrible monster, Charybdis (see below). In Odyssey, Odysseus's (Ulysses) ship passes through the strait, after losing six of his men who were eaten alive by the monster.

6. Charybdis

Charybdis is another terrifying female monster in Greek mythology. She is thought to be a daughter of Poseidon and Gaia. She lived opposite Scylla, on the Asian shore of the Bosporus (a narrow, natural strait and the continental boundary between Europe and Asia). Scylla inhabited the European shore. Charybdis looked like a huge whirlpool and at its bottom, her monstrous mouth with huge, sharp teeth were waiting to devour any ship and sailors on it. Like Scylla, Charybdis is also involved in the myths of Odysseus and the Argonauts, who passed through these straits with some loss.

7. Empusa

Empusa was a demonic female monster and belonged to the villainous cult circle of the goddess of the Underworld, Hekate. She was single-legged, she wore a bronze sandal (Hekate wore bronze sandals as well) and had donkey caps. During the night, she would leave the Underworld and ascend on the world of the living. Empusa could take all forms and appeared to women and children to cause terror. She could transform herself into a bitch, a cow, or a beautiful girl. She seduced travelers, drank their blood and ate their flesh. The only way for travelers to defend themselves was to slander her.

8. Harpies

The Harpies were anthropomorphic monsters in Greek mythology, with a bird's body and a woman's head. They 'nailed' the souls of the people and handed over the law-breakers to the Erinyes (Furies), the three goddesses of vengeance and retribution who punished men for crimes against the natural order. When a person suddenly disappeared from the Earth, it was said that he had been carried off by the harpies to the Underworld, the Kingdom of Hades and the dead. They were agents of punishment who abducted people and tortured them on their way to the Underworld. They were vicious, cruel and violent.

9. Lamia

Lamia was a beautiful queen who ruled Libya. She fell into the disadvantage of Hera because of her relationship with Zeus. The god of thunder loved her because she was beautiful and had children with her who were killed by Hera. Because of her sadness and madness, Lamia transformed herself into a child-devouring monster. Since then, she snatches the children of other mothers out of envy. She could take her eyes out and put them back in at will.

10. Sphinx

The Sphinx has a lion's body, bird's wings and a female head. She is a treacherous and merciless monster who kills and eats those who cannot answer her riddle. This deadly version of a sphinx appears in the myth and drama of Oedipus. This Sphinx was stopping passers-by out of the Greek city of Thebes and asked them to answer her riddle, otherwise she would eat them. The riddle was: "Which creature has one voice and yet becomes four-footed and two-footed and three-footed?" in the Greek tragic play by Sophocles, the mythical King Oedipus was the only one who answered the riddle and managed to finally kill the monster. The answer he gave was: "Man - who crawls on all fours as a baby, then walks on two feet as an adult, and then uses a walking stick in old age."

11. Giants

The Giants were beings enormous in size. According to Greek mythology, they were human-like but huge in stature and irresistible in strength. Their bodies were scaly and ended up in a lizard tail. They had thick hair and a long beard. Their hairy hands held long and shiny javelins. Although they were of divine origin, they were mortal. Following other accounts, the Giants were immortals as long as they walked on the ground where they were born. They are considered to have superhuman powers, enormous size and long life, while on the contrary, they lack ethics and imagination. A famous Giant was Argus, who served as a guard of Hera.

12. Chimera

Chimera was a three-headed beast: she had a lion's body and head, a tail that ended up in a snake's head, and in the middle of her back came a goat's neck and head. Daughter of Typhon and Echidna, she could breathe fire from her mouth, according to Homer and Hesiod. Bellerophon, the great hero in Greek mythology, was the one to kill this monster, with the help of the flying horse Pegasus.

13. Lernaean Hydra

The Lernaean Hydra was another child of Typhon and Echidna, a horrible sea monster with serpentine features and many - many - snake heads. Indeed, when someone cut off one head, two others sprouted in their place. She lived in Lerna, Argolida, and spent her time torturing the world and guarding a gate to the Underworld until Heracles (Hercules) was sent to kill her and saved the region from her. To solve the problem with her heads, he would burn the beheaded neck before the two new heads sprout.

14. Mares of Diomedes

The Mares of Diomedes, also called the Mares of Thrace, were a herd of man-eating horses in Greek mythology belonging to the giant Diomedes. The Mares, which were the terror of the region of Thrace, were kept tethered by iron chains to a bronze manger and were named Podargos (the swift), Lampon (the shining), Xanthos (the yellow) and Deinos (the terrible). Heracles (Hercules) defeated these monsters in his eight labor. He fed Diomedes, their master, to his own horses and while they were occupied with their human meal, Heracles found the opportunity to bind their mouths shut.

15. Cerberus

Cerberus was the famous three-headed dog, pet of Hades, the god of the Underworld. He was standing guard at the Gates of the Underworld, making sure that no dead soul would escape and no living man would enter the realm of the dead. Besides his three terrifying heads, he also had a serpent for a tail. Only two heroes managed to defeat this monster; Heracles (Hercules) and Orpheus. Heracles managed to defeat him with his strength while Orpheus made him fall asleep with his music. Cerberus was a child of Typhon and Echidna. He had a brother from the same parents, a two-headed dog called Orthrus.

16. Nemean Lion

In Greek mythology, the Nemean Lion, was a lion living in the Nemean region, scattering fear in the area. The lion had very tough skin that could not be pierced by a weapon. He was also the offspring of Typhon and Echidna (or Orthrus and Chimera according to some other accounts). This beast was eventually killed by Heracles (Hercules) in his first of the twelve labors. Since then, the great hero wears the head of the lion on his head.

17. Stymphalian birds

The Stymphalian Birds are man-eating birds with beaks of bronze, sharp metallic feathers they could launch at their victims, and poisonous dung. According to Greek mythology, these flying creatures were brought up by the god of war, Ares, or were pets of the goddess of the hunt, Artemis. They bred quickly and swarmed over the countryside, destroying crops and terrorizing the people. Heracles (Hercules) defeated these creatures in his sixth labor by shooting arrows tipped with poisonous blood from the slain monster Lernaean Hydra.

18. Erymanthian Boar

In Greek mythology, the Erymanthian Boar was a mythical creature that took the form of a shaggy tameless boar of vast weight and foaming jaws. It would sally from the thick-wooded cypress-bearing heights of Erymanthus to harry the groves of Arcady and abuse the land of Psophis. Heracles (Hercules) was once again the hero to defeat this monster too in his fourth labor. In order to capture the boar, Heracles first chased it with shouts and thereby routed it from a certain thicket and then drove the exhausted creature into deep snow. He then trapped it and bound it in chains.

19. Minotaur

The Minotaur was born when Poseidon decided to take revenge on King Minos of Crete for his disobedience; he denied sacrificing a beautiful white bull. The god made Minos' wife, Pasiphae, fell in love with the white male bull and sleep with him. From this union, a terrible child was born. A monster that looked like a man but had a bull's head and its strength. King Minos, not able to kill the monster and further displease Poseidon, commissioned a huge labyrinth at the basement of his palace. The great labyrinth, built by the great architect Daedalus and his son Icarus, served as a prison for the horrible creature. According to Greek mythology, the great hero Theseus entered the labyrinth and managed to kill the Minotaur and also find his way out.

20. Python

Python was a serpent monster, presided at the Delphic oracle, which existed in the cult center for its mother, Gaia. He was born by Gaia from the mud of the Flood of Deucalion with which Zeus ended the Golden Age. Python lived in a cave and protected the sanctuary of Gaia. According to Greek mythology, Apollo, a member of the Olympians' Pantheon - the 'new' gods - decided to build his sanctuary in Delphi. He fought and killed the Python and thus established the famous Oracle of Delphi, the sanctuary of which can still be visited today in Greece.

21. The Colchian dragon

The Colchian dragon in Greek mythology was a fire-breathing giant serpent that guarded the Golden Fleece. The Golden Fleece was the prize the Greek hero Jason and his crew of Argonauts were after. With the help of the witch Medea, Jason managed to overcome the guarding monster and take the Fleece. It was put to sleep by the witch and it was left alone or slain by the hero.

Dragons were common creatures in Greek mythology. Besides the Colchian dragon and Python, another famous monster was Ladon. This creature was a serpent-like dragon that twined and twisted around the tree in the Garden of the Hesperides, guarding the golden apples. According to one version of the myth, the monster was killed with a bow and arrow by Heracles when he came to collect the golden apples in his eleventh labor.
There are many myths and legends about all of the above mythological monsters and creatures. Despite their obscure origins, these mythical beings of ancient Greece have their place in our heart and we hope that this applies to you all now. See also:

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Greek Mythology Monsters: Full list and description

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The "Father of all Monsters". Typhon was the last child of Gaia, fathered by Tartarus, and is considered the most powerful and deadliest of all creatures in Greek mythology. His appearance would be accompanied by a devastating storm and his true form was thus hard to be described accurately.

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 body of myths originally told by the ancient Greeks, and a genre of Ancient Greek folklore.

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 body of myths originally told by the ancient Greeks, and a genre of Ancient Greek folklore.

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source : wiki

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set of stories about the gods, goddesses, heroes and rituals of Ancient Greeks.

Source: https://www.greekmythology.com/