page_title: Hippogriff
section_title: Early references
hierarchical_section_title: Hippogriff / Early references
caption_attribution_description: illustration of Ludovico Ariosto’s “Orlando Furioso”.
context_page_description: In Ancient Greek folklore, the hippogriff, or sometimes spelled hippogryph, is a legendary creature which has the front half of an eagle and the hind half of a horse.
  Though sometimes depicted during the Classical Era and during the rule of the Merovingians, it was used by Ludovico Ariosto in his Orlando Furioso, at the beginning of the 16th century. Within the poem, the hippogriff is a steed born of a mare and a griffin—it is extremely fast and is presented as being able to fly around the world and to the Moon. It is ridden by magicians and the wandering knight Ruggiero, who, from the creature's back, frees the beautiful Angelica. Astolfo also borrows the hippogriff from Bradamante to go search for Roland's wits.
  Sometimes depicted on coats of arms, the hippogriff became a subject of visual art in the 19th century, when it was often drawn by Gustave Doré.
context_section_description: The hippogriff is a symbol of the Greek god Apollo, either through his connection to the Muses or as god of the sun. Buonarotti is stated to have believed that the worship of Apollo, and with him the symbol of the hippogriff, came to the Greeks from cultures to the east.
  Of the heraldic representations of the hippogriff, Arthur Charles Fox-Davies states that hybrid fantastical creatures' depictions are "ugly, inartistic, and unnecessary. Their representation leaves one with a disappointed feeling of crudity of draughtsmanship." John Vinycomb states that the hippogriff is not used in the British heraldic tradition.
  Ludovico Ariosto's poem, Orlando furioso (1516) contains description (canto IV):
  XVIII
  
  No fiction wrought magic lore,
  
  But natural was the steed the wizard pressed;
  
  For him a filly to griffin bore;
  
  Hight hippogryph. In wings and beak and crest,
  
  Formed like his sire, as in the feet before;
  
  But like the mare, his dam, in all the rest.
  
  Such on Riphaean hills, though rarely found,
  
  Are bred, beyond the frozen ocean's bound.
  XIX
  
  Drawn by enchantment from his distant lair,
  
  The wizard thought but how to tame the foal;
  
  And, in a month, instructed him to bear
  
  Saddle and bit, and gallop to the goal;
  
  And execute on earth or in mid air,
  
  All shifts of manege, course and caracole;
  
  He with such labour wrought.  This only real,
  
  Where all the rest was hollow and ideal.
  According to Thomas Bulfinch's Legends of Charlemagne:
  Like a griffin, it has the head of an eagle, claws armed with talons, and wings covered with feathers, the rest of its body being that of a horse. This strange animal is called a Hippogriff. The hippogriff is said to be an evil spirit resting and possessing its soul in that of a horse and griffon.
caption: Hippogriff, illustration by Gustave Doré for Orlando furioso.
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