This week’s beast from the depths of mythology and a book/movie series about wizards is none other than the Hippogriff. What inspired me to look into this majestically handsome creature was when I saw Buckbeak from Harry Potter. While I’m not the biggest fan of the movies or books (I bleed Star Wars), my wife is, and she watches them frequently. Buckbeak is a Hippogriff, and he lived with the infamous half-giant—Professor Rubeus Hagrid in the film: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. While Buckbeak grabbed my interest, I wondered if Hippogriff’s came from these stories, or if they have been around long before the books were written.

What is a Hippogriff, and Which Came First, the Buckbeak or the Hippogriff?

Hippogriffs are like a variation of the legendary creature, the Griffin. Griffin’s are beasts that are essentially half-eagle, half-lion. They have the head and wings of eagles, body and tail of a lion, and eagle talons for its front legs. The story is that a horse and a Griffin mated to create the Hippogriff. This creature has the front half of an eagle, and the lower half of a horse. It has wings, and front legs with talons for feet rather than hooves like its hind legs.

While this is all of course folktales and legends, it’s still fascinating because according to sources, Griffins regard horses as prey; yet at some point, they mated. “The reason for its great rarity is that Griffins regard horses as prey. It has been suggested this idea was strong enough in medieval times to produce an expression, ‘To mate Griffins with horses,’ which meant about the same as the modern expression, ‘When pigs fly.’ The Hippogriff was therefore a symbol of impossibility and love.”

The Hippogriff’s first appearance in the world was not in the wizard movies or books. It was originally created in 1516 by Italian poet, Ludovico Ariosto in his poem, Orlando Furioso. “It was not formed by magic, his fell steed, but born of a mare, quite naturally, though fathered by a griffin and, indeed, was winged as was its sire, quite splendidly. While the forelegs, beak, and crest agreed with that creature, though all else, equally, conformed to the mother; such are found midst Riphaean Hills, northern, and ice-bound. This ‘hippogriff’ he lured by incantation from its far land, and waited not, but sought to tame it.” I’ve hyperlinked the poem in case you’d like to see more of it, but this is the quote where the Hippogriff was born into mythology.

Aside from the world of Harry Potter, you can find Hippogriffs in the highly popular roleplaying game Dungeons and Dragons. I’m usually toeing the line between do they or don’t they exist when it comes to my pieces on fantastical beasts, but I can say with one hundred percent certainty the Hippogriff is completely made up. Mythical beings as they are, I find the art and images of them to be breathtaking. If they were real, and I was standing in front of one, I’d quote one of my favorite fictional bounty hunters and say, “I want to ride it.”