The griffin or grype is a legendary creature present in several ancient cultures. It is imagined and represented with the body of an eagle (head, wings and talons) grafted on the back of a lion (abdomen, legs and tail), and equipped with horse ears. With sometimes variants, the griffin will always keep the recognizable particularity of being hieracocephalic.
| General Information | |
|---|---|
| Name | Griffin |
| Alternative Name | Grype |
| Origin | Scythian and Greek mythology, Arabian and Asian folklore |
| Appearance | Hybrid mythical animal Head and wings of an eagle, horse ears, mohawk of scales |
| Association | Symbolizes the rule over two realms, the earth and the sky |
| Close | Hippogriff |
| First mention | Bronze Age |
The Griffin in history
The griffin in antiquity
The griffin appears in Elam at the end of the fourth millennium BC and in Egypt around 3000 BC, with a lion’s body, an eagle’s head and wings. Throughout ancient history, this primary form continues to be nuanced by various iconographic contributions, particularly in Mesopotamian, Greek and Roman cultures.
The griffin is often associated with local deities and heroes (Gilgamesh, Seth, Egyptian kings, Apollo, Dionysus, Eros or Nemesis),
- pulling chariots (the harness of the Mesopotamian god of Storms, Eros, Artemis, Dionysus, or Malakbêl of Palmyra),
- to carry figures on his back (the Mesopotamian female deity exhibiting snakes in his hands, Dionysus, Apollo and sometimes a Nereid, as well as the deceased),
- participate in hunting scenes, fight heroes, warriors and enemies (including especially the Arimaspes and Amazons),
- attack wild animals, common or fantastic (Sphinxes, Scylla, centaurs and newts),
- stand in front of a congener on either side of an element (the oriental tree of life and palmette replaced in Roman art by a candelabra, a vase, a lyre or a tripod of Apollo),
- drink or finally link oneself to the funerary cult (as a psychopomp animal or as guardian of the world of the dead).
In Greece, Herodotus mentions griffins several times briefly in his Inquiry, without describing them. In Book III, he records a tradition according to which griffins live near important gold deposits in northern Europe; the people of the Arimaspes, men who have only one eye, must fight these griffins to snatch their gold. Herodotus, in this passage, refuses to believe that the Arimaspes have only one eye and does not explicitly pronounce on griffins. In Book IV, he mentions the griffins in the same role when he reports the journey that Aristaeus of Proconnese claims to have made in the North and that he relates in his epic poem, The Arimaspea.
In Italy, Pliny the Elder evokes what Herodotus and Aristaeus of Proconneus say about Arimaspes and Griffins in book 7 of his Natural History. Also, in book 10, he says of this animal that it has a terrible hooked beak and that it inhabits Ethiopia.
The griffin in the Middle Ages
The griffin integrates without difficulty the world of the Middle Ages. It is indeed considered a real animal belonging to the genus of birds, and no one seems to doubt its existence. Also, it is found very early in art and Christian literature. It then spread to all forms of art and Western regions, was the subject of many scholarly commentaries in medieval bestiaries and encyclopedias, and even traveled through several literary works of fiction. Let us mention, among others, the commentary of Isidore of Seville in his Etymologies, which finds repercussions throughout the Middle Ages. Another bestiary that evokes this creature in the second or fourth century AD. is the Physiologus, anonymous. The griffin also appears in some versions of the Roman d’Alexandre. The griffin benefits only from a reduced symbolism.
Towards the end of the Middle Ages, the griffin was used in a coat of arms. There are many badges decorated with heads, or complete bodies representing the griffin. Armundal, Baron of Navarre, added these sentences: “Good instance, my kingdom and my home, must be proud of the protector it owes itself.”
It is also engraved by Martin Schongauer and Albrecht Dürer.
The Griffin is mentioned in several travel accounts. This is the case of Marco Polo in his Devisement du Monde, written in 1298. He evokes by hearsay Africa, speaking in particular of islands around “Madaigascar” (transcription of “Mogadishu” in Somalia). In addition, he explains that we can see a ruc, a legendary animal that he compares to the griffin. He takes the opportunity to describe the latter:
“[the] griffin, which is a four-legged animal, though it has feathers. He is in all things like a lion, except that he has the look of an eagle; but those who had seen these rucs constantly assured that they had nothing in common with all the other animals, and that they had only two feet like the other birds.”
Jean de Mandeville recounts the account of his alleged trip to Asia in the Book of the Wonders of the World (written between 1355 and 1357). In chapter XXIX, he evokes the country of Bacharia in Asia, where griffins are particularly numerous:
“In that country be many griffins, more plenty than in any other country. Some men say that they have the body upward as an eagle and beneath as a lion; and truly they say sooth, that they be of that shape. But one griffin hath the body more great and is more strong than eight lions, of such lions as be on this half, and more great and stronger than a hundred eagles such as we have amongst us.
For one griffin there will bear, flying to his nest, a great horse, if he may find him at the point, or two oxen yoked together as they go at the plough. For he hath his talons so long and so large and great upon his feet, as though they were horns of great oxen or of bugles or of kine, so that men make cups of them to drink of. And of their ribs and of the pens of their wings, men make bows, full strong, to shoot with arrows and quarrels”.
The griffin in the Renaissance
On the fifth day of La Sepmaine, the Gascon poet Guillaume du Bartas described it as follows:
“[…] the Indois Griffon to the yeus estincelans,To the aquiline mouth, to the whitening wings,To the red breast, to the black back, to the
ravishing claws,Of which he
goes to war and by mounts and valleys
The lyons, the wild boars, the bears, and the horses:
Of which he searches plunderer the feconde poictrine
De nostre bisayeule,
and there in it forages
Maint rich gold ingot, for after floor,
His high nest raised on an aspre rock:
Of which he deffend, bold, against several weapons
The mines by his claw once started”.
Du Bartas follows the Ancients: Elian (4, 27), Pliny the Elder (7, 10), while in his time, Pierre Belon (Natural History of Birds) and André Thevet (Cosmography., 12, 6) consider this bird as a fabulous animal. The commentary on this passage by Pantaléon Thévenin reads in the headline: “Le Grifon. Thevet and Belon deny having any.”
The griffin in the modern era
The griffin was adopted in 1918 by the American Committee for Devastated Regions installed at the castle of Blérancourt, in the Aisne, to help the populations at the time of reconstruction.
In addition, the griffin was the symbol of the French airline Transports Aériennes Intercontinentaux (TAI), now part of Air France.
From 1985, the griffin became the emblem of cars manufactured by the Swedish company Saab as well as Scania trucks.
The British car manufacturer Vauxhall (Opel group – General Motors) also used the Griffon as a logo inspired by the heraldic emblem of an Anglo-Norman nobleman of the Middle Ages whose castle was so named.
Aviation has also abundantly capitalized on the image of the legendary winged beast. The Rolls-Royce company had named a powerful evolution (up to 2400 HP) of the Rolls-Royce Merlin engine intended to power the last versions of the legendary Spitfire fighter plane. On the other side of the Channel, the French manufacturer Nord-Aviation named Griffon an experimental aircraft (the Nord 1500) powered by a combined turbojet / stato engine. Very efficient in a straight line, he reached the record speed of Mach 2.19 piloted by André Turcat in February 1959 and was of great interest to the US Air Force… In fact, its speed is limited by the Wall of Heat which threatens to melt some areas of the wings conventionally made of aluminum alloy. The French Air Force will prefer the Dassault Mirage, simpler, and the prototype will end up at the Air Museum of Le Bourget
Anatole France, a French writer of the late nineteenth century, wrote in January 1865 a poem entitled The Wisdom of the Griffins.
Family
The opinicus and the hippogriff are in the same family as the griffin. The first is similar to him, except for his front legs which are those of the lion. The second is the result of an idyll between a griffin and a mare and has the body of a horse instead of that of a lion. The Garuda related to the phoenix being a hieracocephalic creature, some bestiaries agree that it is of the same family.
Interpretation
As part of the geomythological approach, historian and folklorist Adrienne Mayor suggests that the Scythian Steppe Griffin was imagined from protoceratops skeletons found in the Gobi Desert. The protoceratops shares several characteristics with the griffin, including a pointed beak, four legs, claws, large eyes, and a similar size. The possibility that protoceratops fossils have been observed in the past is enhanced by the stark contrast between the white color of the protoceratops bones and the reddish color of the Gobi Desert rocks.
Bibliography
- Maria Bisi, Il grifone. Storia di un motivo iconografico nell’ antico oriente mediterraneo, Rome, Centro di studi semitici, Istituto di Studi del vicino oriente universtà, 1965
- Christiane Delplace, Le Griffon: de l’archaïsme à l’époque impériale. Étude iconographique et essai d’interprétation symbolique, Brussels, Institut historique belge de Rome, 1980
- Lefebvre, Le Griffon dans l’art roman. Traditions littéraires et iconographiques, Université Libre de Bruxelles, 2004
In two volumes, unpublished
- Édouard Brasey, La Petite Encyclopédie du Merveilleux, Paris, Le Pré aux clercs, 14 September 2007, 432 (ISBN 978-2-84228-321-6)
Illustrated by Sandrine Gestin and Alain-Marc Friez
Griffin in art and culture
In literature
- In 1667, the English poet John Milton evokes a griffin in the second book of his epic poem Paradise Lost:
“[…] A griffin, in the desert, pursues with a winged race on the mountains or marshy valleys, the Arimaspian who subtly delights his watchful guard the preserved gold; thus the enemy eagerly continues his journey through the marshes, the precipices, the straits, through the rough, dense or rare elements; with his head, his hands, his wings, His feet, he swims, dives, fords, crawls, flies.”
- In 1874, Gustave Flaubert brought in a griffin in the seventh part of his prose poem The Temptation of Saint Anthony.
- In the Harry Potter series (1997 – 2007), one of the four houses of Hogwarts is called Gryffindor. In addition, the door to the office of the director, Albus Dumbledore, has a griffin-shaped knocker.
In comics
- The griffin is at the center of the plot of Asterix and the Griffin by Jean-Yves Ferri and Didier Conrad, published in 2021.
Griffin in video games
- Griffins are among the most powerful enemies in the video game Legendary.
References (sources)
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