Bestiary
A medieval bestiary is a wonderful thing to behold. From the fertile imagination of homo mediaevalis, desperately using bird flight-pattern divination to seek a better age than the one he found himself in (auspicium melioris aevi, as they say), came glorious pictures of creatures that never existed or overly creative pictures of real creatures.
One of my readers requested that I provide a little guide to differentiating between Gryphons, Wyverns and Torchbearers. Well, let's assume that the rest of my readers have no ideas or preconceptions about Atlantean education. Then the task is simple, and I shall do it the easy way first.
The gryphon and the wyvern are etymologically related according to some accounts. This is because as in many word-pairs (such as 'guard' and 'ward', 'guardian' and 'warden', 'Guillaume' and 'William', 'guile' and 'wile') it is obvious that the Norman 'gu' and the Saxon 'w' are somewhat interchangeable. However, a closer inspection of the two shows significant differences.
It is more likely that 'gryphon' comes from Greek grypos, or 'hook-nosed', 'beaky'. It was a term used for the birdlike guardian spirits of the East, which in various accounts ranged from tiny brazen birds with very sharp beaks and teeth(!) to huge winged sphinx-like monsters like those depicted in Assyrian statuary. Eventually, it was linked to creatures which were eagle from chest up and lion from torso down, with the nasty habit of eating horses. The Atlantean gryphon however seems to have lost its way; it is a two-headed eagle (Aquila imperialis Rafflesii) rather than a true gryphon. That being so, it is often seen as a greedy, grasping, ambitious carrion-eater which looks both ways so that it might eat everything; not for nothing did the imperial monarchies of Austria and Russia adopt a two-headed eagle for their dubious heraldry.
The wyvern, however, has a less auspicious origin. It's quite likely that 'wyvern' comes from various Western European languages (e.g. OFr guivre which, as hinted at above, became Saxon wivre, plural wivren) which distorted the original Latin vipera, which is a particularly nasty snake. However, that perspective is slightly short-sighted. The Latin vipera comes from viviparere, a word that survives almost unchanged as English 'viviparous' — 'bringing forth live young' (as opposed to hatching them from eggs as an eagle would, I suppose). The wyvern's offspring are therefore a lot more lively than the eagle's.
But what really is a a wyvern? Well, most heralds agree that a wyvern refers to a beast that has two clawed feet and a dragon's body and wings. The details may vary; a fair number of these wyverns have the barbed tail that indicates serpentine (and poisonous) character. It is quite clear that the creature depicted here, for example, is indeed a wyvern by definition and cannot be a gryphon, since the nether parts are draconian and not leonine.
Where do torchbearers come into this mess? Well, it would seem that in modern Atlantis, there are those who use a logo that depicts a Promethean flame; that is, it is a flame that indicates knowledge — in the case of this logo, by associating the flame with what looks like a book.
The Promethean myth is intimately associated with flying beasts of all mythological kinds, as well as the myths of knowledge. More than five years ago, I posted this, if you wish to know more.
Within the modern Atlantean context, however, it might be of interest for me to quote a fable that a wise man, once a Power of the Torchbearers, told to a mixed group of educators one fine day in the Educators' Guild:
Once upon a time, there were three young men standing on the Hill of Tin. One was a Wyvern, one was a Gryphon, and one was a Torchbearer.
They were told by the Thunderer to find a way from the top of the Hill to the bottom without using wings or fire, thus blazing (haha) a trail for others to follow. It was interesting to see what transpired once the echoes of the thunder had died away.
The Gryphon (or at least, the two-headed eagle masquerading as one) looked left and right, forward and back, up and down, East and West. It then quartered the terrain visually, calculated the optimal path, and started down. Since he had already calculated the path, all he needed to do was proceed relentlessly to the end.
The Wyvern, a well-rounded but slightly odd character like all of his ilk, tucked his wings and tail around him, ignored the obstacles, and rolled downhill, reaching the bottom first. He had yielded completely to Newton's Laws except when he got stuck, at which point he thrashed around randomly with his wings and tail until he got unstuck.
The Thunderer rewarded him with the right to do whatever he wanted, but with no further support. The Gryphon, who arrived (as usual) slightly later than that, was promised full support as long as he stuck to the Thunderer's rules. The Torchbearer also got to do what he wanted, for he never reached the bottom of the Hill and the Thunderer gave up on him.
At this point, we all expressed curiosity as to why the Torchbearer never got to the bottom. The wise man told us, "Torchbearers are very bright, but they often cannot see further than their own flames. Worse, since they are very square, they can't roll down the hill at all."
We had a good laugh. Shortly thereafter, the wise man transferred and is now a Power at the Artisans' School that has just got a new campus downtown.
I'll just end with an interesting little factoid. If you take a good look at the Atlantean priesthoods, you'll find that the majority of the priests are either Gryphons or Torchbearers. However, the number that get promoted to archpriests is disproportionately biased in favour of Wyverns. This is especially true in the priesthoods that control money and education, since these were once the domains of the Gnome, that ancient and talented Wyvern who was the Thunderer's alter ego.
One of my readers requested that I provide a little guide to differentiating between Gryphons, Wyverns and Torchbearers. Well, let's assume that the rest of my readers have no ideas or preconceptions about Atlantean education. Then the task is simple, and I shall do it the easy way first.
The gryphon and the wyvern are etymologically related according to some accounts. This is because as in many word-pairs (such as 'guard' and 'ward', 'guardian' and 'warden', 'Guillaume' and 'William', 'guile' and 'wile') it is obvious that the Norman 'gu' and the Saxon 'w' are somewhat interchangeable. However, a closer inspection of the two shows significant differences.
It is more likely that 'gryphon' comes from Greek grypos, or 'hook-nosed', 'beaky'. It was a term used for the birdlike guardian spirits of the East, which in various accounts ranged from tiny brazen birds with very sharp beaks and teeth(!) to huge winged sphinx-like monsters like those depicted in Assyrian statuary. Eventually, it was linked to creatures which were eagle from chest up and lion from torso down, with the nasty habit of eating horses. The Atlantean gryphon however seems to have lost its way; it is a two-headed eagle (Aquila imperialis Rafflesii) rather than a true gryphon. That being so, it is often seen as a greedy, grasping, ambitious carrion-eater which looks both ways so that it might eat everything; not for nothing did the imperial monarchies of Austria and Russia adopt a two-headed eagle for their dubious heraldry.
The wyvern, however, has a less auspicious origin. It's quite likely that 'wyvern' comes from various Western European languages (e.g. OFr guivre which, as hinted at above, became Saxon wivre, plural wivren) which distorted the original Latin vipera, which is a particularly nasty snake. However, that perspective is slightly short-sighted. The Latin vipera comes from viviparere, a word that survives almost unchanged as English 'viviparous' — 'bringing forth live young' (as opposed to hatching them from eggs as an eagle would, I suppose). The wyvern's offspring are therefore a lot more lively than the eagle's.
But what really is a a wyvern? Well, most heralds agree that a wyvern refers to a beast that has two clawed feet and a dragon's body and wings. The details may vary; a fair number of these wyverns have the barbed tail that indicates serpentine (and poisonous) character. It is quite clear that the creature depicted here, for example, is indeed a wyvern by definition and cannot be a gryphon, since the nether parts are draconian and not leonine.
Where do torchbearers come into this mess? Well, it would seem that in modern Atlantis, there are those who use a logo that depicts a Promethean flame; that is, it is a flame that indicates knowledge — in the case of this logo, by associating the flame with what looks like a book.
The Promethean myth is intimately associated with flying beasts of all mythological kinds, as well as the myths of knowledge. More than five years ago, I posted this, if you wish to know more.
Within the modern Atlantean context, however, it might be of interest for me to quote a fable that a wise man, once a Power of the Torchbearers, told to a mixed group of educators one fine day in the Educators' Guild:
Once upon a time, there were three young men standing on the Hill of Tin. One was a Wyvern, one was a Gryphon, and one was a Torchbearer.
They were told by the Thunderer to find a way from the top of the Hill to the bottom without using wings or fire, thus blazing (haha) a trail for others to follow. It was interesting to see what transpired once the echoes of the thunder had died away.
The Gryphon (or at least, the two-headed eagle masquerading as one) looked left and right, forward and back, up and down, East and West. It then quartered the terrain visually, calculated the optimal path, and started down. Since he had already calculated the path, all he needed to do was proceed relentlessly to the end.
The Wyvern, a well-rounded but slightly odd character like all of his ilk, tucked his wings and tail around him, ignored the obstacles, and rolled downhill, reaching the bottom first. He had yielded completely to Newton's Laws except when he got stuck, at which point he thrashed around randomly with his wings and tail until he got unstuck.
The Thunderer rewarded him with the right to do whatever he wanted, but with no further support. The Gryphon, who arrived (as usual) slightly later than that, was promised full support as long as he stuck to the Thunderer's rules. The Torchbearer also got to do what he wanted, for he never reached the bottom of the Hill and the Thunderer gave up on him.
At this point, we all expressed curiosity as to why the Torchbearer never got to the bottom. The wise man told us, "Torchbearers are very bright, but they often cannot see further than their own flames. Worse, since they are very square, they can't roll down the hill at all."
We had a good laugh. Shortly thereafter, the wise man transferred and is now a Power at the Artisans' School that has just got a new campus downtown.
I'll just end with an interesting little factoid. If you take a good look at the Atlantean priesthoods, you'll find that the majority of the priests are either Gryphons or Torchbearers. However, the number that get promoted to archpriests is disproportionately biased in favour of Wyverns. This is especially true in the priesthoods that control money and education, since these were once the domains of the Gnome, that ancient and talented Wyvern who was the Thunderer's alter ego.
etched with acid at 1:31:00 am
1 Comments:
This is quite interesting to read
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