Griffin

The griffin (also spelled gryphon, gryphen, griffon or gryphin) is a legendary creature with the body of a lion and the head of an eagle with the addition of prominent ears. The female has the wings of an eagle. The griffin is generally represented with four legs, wings and a beak, with eagle-like talons in place of a lion's forelegs and equine ears jutting from its skull. Some writers describe the tail as a serpent. See the entry European dragon for a 19th century painting of St George and the dragon, showing a dragon very like a classically-conceived griffin.

Related Topics:
Legendary creature - Lion - Eagle - Talon - Equine - Skull - European dragon - 19th century - St George

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Classical and heraldic griffons are male and female. A so-called "male" griffin, called a keythong in a single 15th-century English heraldic manuscript, is an anomaly that belongs strictly to a late phase of English heraldry: see below.

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