Rough Notes:

The ancient origins of the legendary griffin

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The griffin is a legendary creature with the head and wings of an eagle, and the body, tail, and hind legs of a lion. As the eagle was considered the ‘king of the birds’, and the lion the ‘king of the beasts’, the griffin was perceived as a powerful and majestic creature.  During the Persian Empire, the griffin was seen as a protector from evil, witchcraft, and slander.

Although the griffin is often seen in medieval heraldry, its origins stretch further back in time. For instance, the ancient Greek historian Herodotus wrote

“But in the north of Europe there is by far the most gold. In this matter again I cannot say with assurance how the gold is produced, but it is said that one-eyed men called Arimaspians steal it from griffins. But I do not believe this, that there are one-eyed men who have a nature otherwise the same as other men. The most outlying lands, though, as they enclose and wholly surround all the rest of the world, are likely to have those things which we think the finest and the rarest.”  (Herodotus, The Histories , 3.116)

While griffins are most common in the art and mythology of Ancient Greece, there is evidence of representations of griffins in ancient Persia and ancient Egypt dating back to as early as the 4 thmillennium BC.  On the island of Crete in Greece, archaeologists have uncovered depictions of griffins in frescoes in the ‘Throne Room’ of the Bronze Age Palace of Knossos dating back to the 15 th century BC.

Griffin fresco in the "Throne Room", Palace of Knossos, Crete

 
 

 
 

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Griffin fresco in the "Throne Room", Palace of Knossos, Crete. Credit: Wikipedia

Interestingly, there are various hybrid creatures that are similar to the griffin. For instance, the Lamassu was an Assyrian mythical creature that had the head of a man, a body of a lion or bull, and the wings of an eagle.

Lamassu

The Lamassu, a human-headed winged bull. University of Chicago Oriental Institute. Neo-Assyrian Period, c. 721-705 BCE. Credit: Wikipedia

Further to the east, a part-man, part-bird creature, the Garuda, served as a mount for the Hindu god Vishnu. Perhaps the fascination with such hybrid creatures is due to the fact that it allows people to combine the best characteristics of two or more creatures into one ’super creature’, allowing meaningful symbolism to be attached to them.

Hindu god Vishnu with the Garuda

Hindu god Vishnu with the Garuda. Image source .

This may hold true for the griffin in the Middle Ages. In European legend of this period, it was believed that griffins mated for life, and that when one partner died, the other would live the rest of his/her without seeking another partner (perhaps due to the fact that there weren’t many griffins around). This has led to claims that the griffin was used by the Church as a symbol against re-marriage. It is unclear, however, whether this was the actual belief, or just a modern interpretation.

Although the griffin might seem like a creature conjured from the imagination of mankind, there might actually be some truth to this creature. One theory suggests that the griffin was brought to Europe by traders travelling along the Silk Road from the Gobi Desert in Mongolia. In this desert, the fossils of a dinosaur called the Protoceratops can be found. As these bones, especially the skull, which has a bird-like beak, were exposed on the desert floor, ancient observers may have interpreted them as proof that such a hybrid creature once lived in the desert. Yet, it has been shown that stories of the griffin have been around even before the Silk Road was developed. Perhaps it was stories about the griffin that made the traders interpret the fossils of the Protoceratops as that of the legendary creature.

Regardless of its origins, the griffin has been part of human culture for a very long time and persists today, as seen in various school emblems, mascots, and even popular literature. It is likely that the griffin and other hybrid mythical creatures will continue to play a role in mankind’s imagination for a long time to come.

Featured image: An artist’s representation of a griffin. Image source.

By Ḏḥwty

References

Atsma, A. J., 2011. Grypes. [Online]
Available at: http://www.theoi.com/Thaumasios/Grypes.html

Buffalo Architecture and History, 2009. Illustrated Dictionary of Egyptian Mythology. [Online]
Available at: http://buffaloah.com/a/archsty/egypt/illus/illus.html

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2013. Griffin. [Online]
Available at: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/246060/griffin

Herodotus, The Histories ,

[Godley, A. D. (trans.), 1920. Herodotus’ The Histories . Cambridge: Harvard University Press.]

Mythology Wiki, 2014. Griffin. [Online]
Available at: http://mythology.wikia.com/wiki/Griffin

Wikipedia, 2014. Griffin. [Online]
Available at: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/246060/griffin

Gargoyles: Demons in the Sky or Grotesque Guardian Angels?

I can clearly remember when I first became interested in gargoyles. I must warn you, however, the beginning of this tale does not involve me standing beneath the grandiose flying buttresses of Notre Dame de Paris and experiencing some epiphany about monsters and our ongoing fascination with the Other, the grotesque and horror. The truth is less sophisticated than that, and slightly more embarrassing …

I was ten or eleven and parked in front of my television in Southern California hooked on a new animated series called Gargoyles (1994-97). A child of the 80s and 90s, I often fangirled over shows that featured a team of unusual heroes who fought the forces of evil, like ThunderCats (1985-9), SilverHawks (1986) and X-Men: The Animated Series (1992-97). Gargoyles was a natural choice in the Schraner household.

The series revolved around a clan of nocturnal creatures wrongly called gargoyles—more on that later—who transform into stone at sunrise and reawaken each night with sunset. The premise of the story is pretty simple: a thousand years ago in tenth-century Scotland a clan of gargoyles were betrayed and nearly wiped out by the humans they were sworn to protect. Those who survived were cursed to sleep in their stone forms until their castle rose high above the clouds. The curse is finally broken when billionaire, and sometimes-antagonist, David Xanatos relocates the castle and its petrified monstrosities to modern-day Manhattan. Now free and allowed to resume their evening activities, it’s only a matter of time before the clan adopts the unofficial role as the city’s newest, secret night-time protectors. Without going into further detail, the series was far from rainbows and sunshine with its monstrous protagonists and antiheroes, dark undertones and tendency for melodrama.

Looking back, the series was an early, watered-down introduction to the Gothic and horror, but over twenty years later I still find myself gazing up at these fantastical stone beasts perched high above me on towering skyscrapers in Manhattan, cathedrals and churches, universities, town halls and stately homes throughout the United States and Western Europe.

Who knew decorative waterspouts could be so fascinating? Yes, those snarling stone creatures who devour countless pedestrians with their terrifying gazes are actually glorified (although some might argue ghastly) drains.

The myth and legacy surrounding gargoyles, those ‘Nightmares in the Sky’ as the king of horror, Stephen King, affectionately calls them, is colourful and varied in art history and religious studies (4). There are many interpretations regarding their symbolic role in society, but their practical function as decorative gutters in architectural design is indisputable. Art historian, Janetta Rebold Benton, maintains in her monograph, Holy Terrors: Gargoyles on Medieval Buildings (1997), the concept of fancy drainage wasn’t entirely innovative when ‘[t]rue gargoyles’ appeared at the start of the twelfth century and grew in popularity during the Gothic period (11). Crafted to prevent masonry walls from eroding, unwanted rainwater is redirected from the roof of towering structures like cathedrals and university buildings through a trough carved into the back of the carved monster. The water is then thrown clear of the structure’s wall through its snarling, gaping mouth onto the street, and its pedestrians, below.

Gargoyles Notre Dame de Paris © Krzysztof Mizera

Gargoyles Notre Dame de Paris © Krzysztof Mizera (https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17301717)

In Europe there are various terms to describe these ‘architectural appendages’, for example, the Italian grónda sporgente describes its technical function as a ‘protruding gutter’ whereas the German Wasserspeier translates as ‘water spitter.’ My personal favourite, though, is the Dutch waterspuwer which means ‘water vomiter’, but it is the French gargouille, meaning ‘gullet’ or ‘throat’, which is the etymological source of the English word, gargoyle (8). The term has been diluted over the years and today gargoyle is often wrongly used as a generalisation for all monstrous sculptures, caricatures and fantastical creatures which appear on the exteriors of buildings. While many of these statues usually do share similar supernatural and animalistic features to gargoyles, they serve no real purpose beyond the decorative and are actually grotesques or chimeras. If we’re going to get technical, my beloved animated gargoyles fall into this latter classification of stone beasts, although I can sympathise with the producers’ decision to call the series Gargoyles instead of Grotesques.

Besides the etymological origin of the term, what’s fascinating about the appearance of these petrified monsters atop cathedrals and churches during the Gothic period is that these ornamental gutters were given deeply symbolic and spiritual significance. Benton discusses the mythical origin of the gargoyle’s name in her monograph. According to legend, a dragon known as La Gargouille resided in a cave near the River Seine in France. It was ‘described as having a long reptilian neck, a slender stout and jaws, heavy brows and membranous wings’ (11). It was a nasty beastie who was notorious for swallowing ships, breathing fire and spouting—or vomiting—so much water from its mouth it caused flooding in the area. The townspeople of nearby Rouen tried to appease La Gargouille by offering a victim every year and, for once, we’re given a reprieve from the usual tale involving the sacrifice of a virgin maiden. Instead, they presented criminals to La Gargouille, giving an altogether new meaning to the concept of capital punishment, but this did not placate the greedy beast.

La Gargouille De Rouen, Et Le Privilege De Saint Romain.

La Gargouille De Rouen, Et Le Privilege De Saint Romain. (Art and Picture Collection, The New York Public Library. (1885).)

Sometime around the year 600 a priest named Romanus arrived in Rouen and promised to deal with La Gargouille if the residents agreed to build a church in town and join his congregation. When they complied, he set off ‘with the annual convict and the items needed for an exorcism (bell, book, candle, and cross)’ (12). Legend states Romanus subdued the dragon with the sign of the cross and got his craft on by restraining the dragon with a leash made from his own robe before leading him back to town. Like all evil creatures, the dragon was burned at the stake and everything save for the head and neck, which could withstand the heat of the flames because, well, it’s a dragon, turned to ash. La Gargouille’s remnants were then mounted on the town wall and history was made when it became the model for stone gargoyles in the centuries to come (12).

Darlene Trew Crist also mentions this French tale in her monograph, American Gargoyles: Spirits in Stone (2001), but she explores a second legend about the origin of the gargoyle in Celtic history. The Celts were distinguished hunters and believed the heads of their prey were infused with magical abilities which ‘attract[ed] luck and repell[ed] evil’ (16). After the kill, the Celts supposedly harnessed this power by mounting the prey’s decapitated head on sticks and positioning the stakes in a circle around their homes. This practice eventually evolved and expanded to hanging the heads like trophies directly on the exteriors of buildings in their villages (16).

Interestingly, the first legend is steeped in the teachings of the Catholic church—a saint overpowering an evil monster is nothing we haven’t encountered before—whereas the second originates from pre-Christian pagan beliefs. Crist argues early Christians used the figure of the gargoyle to attract pagans to worship, and Benton does acknowledge the possibility that these stone monstrosities were ‘survivals’ of paganism which the Church incorporated into their ‘decoration for superstitious reasons’ and improved attendance numbers (23). Once absorbed, it was only a matter of time before the gargoyle was fully seized by the Church and adopted the role of protective ward. Folklorist Katherine Briggs maintains the gargoyle, along with church bells and the weathercock, has long been believed to be one of three known ‘defences against the Devil’ (20). This interpretation of the gargoyle as a ‘sort of sacred scarecrow’ subsequently inspired artists and authors to create truly grotesque creations to keep such evil away from holy places and protect the Church’s loyal parishioners (Benton 24). Some gargoyles, however, like the ones sitting atop Notre Dame de Paris take their roles as protector a step further than most and apparently keep an eye out for people drowning in the Seine (39).

But the line between good and evil is a fine one indeed and not everyone viewed these stone carvings, which feature an array of animals, humans and fantastical beasts, as grotesque guardian angels. Some argued these monstrous creations were merely stone demons—representations of ‘evil forces’ like sin and temptation—which skulked outside the safe confines of church and waited patiently for its next victim (24). Another interpretation along this vein suggests gargoyles were the embodiments of mortal ‘souls condemned for their sins’ and, while they were saved from damnation in hell, the cost of their transgressions is their eternal petrification atop a church they are no longer allowed to enter (25).

Regardless of their symbolic meaning, we need to remember that gargoyles were created during a period of mass illiteracy in Western Europe. They were both a form of entertainment and responsible for shaping the narrative of public behaviour. Towns and cities were, and still are, overrun with these nightmarish creations, forcing its inhabitants—forcing us—to question the relationship between sin and salvation, good and evil, reality and fantasy, fact and superstition, the visible and invisible each time we drop our head back and gaze up at them in the sky.

It’s no secret that our fascination with all things monstrous, the macabre and horror has not dissipated in the slightest throughout the ages—it’s part of the human condition and is precisely the reason why gargoyles have endured in popular culture today. Sculptors haven’t abandoned these beasts and new carvings still appear on modern buildings around the world. Moreover, gargoyles continue to make appearances in films and television—Stephen King speaks candidly in his essay for Nightmares in the Sky (1988) about his love of the made-for-TV film, Gargoyles (1972)—and Disney has recently announced they are producing a new live-action film of the cult animated series I fell in love with as a child. But I think it is their appearance in print culture, especially in comics like Batman wherein our antihero is often seen crouching in the shadows of Gotham’s fierce gargoyles, which draws upon the enduring allure of these stone creatures.

They’re always watching us, but the question still remains: Why?

References and Further Reading:

Benton, Janetta Rebold. Holy Terrors: Gargoyles on Medieval Buildings. New York, N.Y.: Abbeville Press, 1997. Print.

Briggs, Katherine. An Encyclopedia of Fairies: Hobgoblins, Brownies, Bogies, and Other Supernatural Creatures. New York, N.Y.: Pantheon Books. 1976. Print

Crist, Darlene Trew. American Gargoyles: Spirits in Stone. New York, N.Y.: Clarkson Potter 2001. Print.

King, Stephen. Nightmares in the Sky: Gargoyles and Grotesques. With photographs by f-stop Fitzgerald. New York, N.Y.: Viking Studio Books.