A purely Greek creation, this winged horse was said, in mythology, to have been birthed from the blood of Medusa after she was beheaded by the hero Perseus. Later, at Corinth, the pegasus appeared to Bellerophon, and the Goddess Athena showed the man how to tame the winged steed. Mounted on the marvellous pegasus, Bellerophon confronted the fire-breathing monster Chimaera, which was part lion, goat, and serpent. The pegasus was later taken to Olympus and transformed into a constellation by Zeus. This creature, one of many formed by the fusion of human and animal features, is the mighty centaur.
Centaurs are apparently Greek in origin, residing in the rich area of ancient Thessaly.
They are recorded as fierce warriors with the torso, head, and arms of a man or woman, mounted on the four-legged body of a horse or, occasionally, some other hoofed animal. Much like the centaur, the satyr combined the qualities of the hoofed with the human. With the upper body of a man and the hind quarters of a goat, and quite often the goat s nubby horns as well, the Greco-Roman satyrs were minor deities of the woods and countryside. They were often celebrated for either their lewd orgies or their mischievous pranks. Far more grotesque a creation than either the centaur or the satyr was the creature known as the Harpiae, or Harpy.