The Wyvern
(Saxon, Wivere, a serpent) said to represent a flying serpent, an imaginary creature resembling the dragon, but having only two legs, which are like an eagle’s, and a serpent-like tail, barbed, sometimes represented nowed after the manner of serpents. It is figured on one of the standards in the Bayeux tapestry (see Dragon, [p. 86]). It is erroneously termed a dragon by some writers, though perhaps they may both be classed together. Old heralds say of these imaginary monsters that they are emblems of pestilence, and are represented as strong and fierce animals covered with invulnerable mail, and fitly typify viciousness and envy. In armory they are properly applied to tyranny or the overthrow of a vicious enemy.
| A Wyrvern, wings endorsed, tail nowed. | Wyvern from the Garter plate of Sir John Gray, 1436 A.D. |
Occasionally a wyvern is borne with the tail nowed and without wings.
Lindworm.—It is not usual to say a wyvern “without wings” or “without legs,” but sans wings or sans legs, as the case may be. A dragon or wyvern sans wings is termed a lindworm. (See [page 80].)
Wyvern, or Lindworm.
(German version.)
Argent, a wyvern, wings endorsed gules, are the arms of Drake, of Ashe, Devon (Bart.), 1600.
The town of Leicester has for crest a wyvern, wings expanded, sans legs, strewed with wounds, gules.
Argent on a bend sable, between two lions rampant of the last, a wyvern volant in bend of the field, langued gules, Ruddings.
Two wyverns, wings endorsed and emitting flames, are the supporters of Viscount Arbuthnot.
The arms of the King of Portugal are supported by two wyverns erect on their tails or, each holding a banner, the crest is a demi-wyvern out of a ducal coronet.
Guivre.—The wyvern or serpent in the arms of the Visconti, Lords of Milan, argent a guivre d’azure couronnée d’or, issante de gules (Guivre is represented as a serpent or wingless dragon sans feet, with a child’s body issuing from its mouth), is said to commemorate the victory of a lord of that house over a fiery dragon or guivre which inhabited a cavern under the church of St. Denis in that place. “It is hardly possible,” says Miss Millington, “not to think that the story of the dragon as well as its adoption in the coat-of-arms bears allusion rather to the dragon of paganism, expelled from the city, as it might seem, by the church built upon the site of the cave, in which too, by the rite of Holy Baptism, children especially were delivered from the power of Satan. Indeed, the innumerable legends of saints who have fought and overcome dragons sufficiently prove the symbolic light in which that creature was anciently viewed.” (See also Serpent Biscia, [p. 117].)
| Wyvern, wings displayed. (Early example.) | Wyvern, wings depressed. |
The Chimera
Chimera, from
a Greek coin.
An imaginary fire-breathing monster of great swiftness and strength, invented by the ancient Greek poets. Though mentioned by heraldic authorities, it is not met with in British coat armour; it is described as having the head, mane and legs of a lion, the body of a goat, and the tail of a dragon. From this creature the term “chimerical” is applied to all such figures as have no other existence but in the imagination. It is represented upon the coins of Sycion during the Achæan League.
The origin of the story of the chimera is ascribed to a mountain in Lycia which had a volcano on its top and nourished lions; the middle part afforded pasture for goats, and the bottom was infested with serpents; according to Hesiod it had three heads, that of a lion, a goat, and a dragon. Bellerophon destroyed the monster by raising himself in the air on his winged steed Pegasus, and shooting it with his arrows.
“Amid the troops, and like the leading god,
High o’er the rest in arms the graceful Turnus rode;
A triple pile of plumes his crest adorned,
On which with belching flames chimera burned:
The more the kindled combat rises higher,
The more with fury burns the blazing fire.”
Virgil, Æneid, Book vii.
Phillip II. of Spain, after his marriage with Queen Mary of England, assumed as a device, Bellerophon fighting with the chimera, and the motto, “Hinc vigilo,” the monster being intended by him for a type of England’s heresies which he waited his time to destroy.
The family of Fada of Verona have for arms: Gules a winged chimera argent, the head and breasts carnation (or proper), and the wings and feet of an eagle. The illustration, however, has the head and breasts of a woman, and eagle’s wings and feet, and makes it a different creature entirely, and should more properly be blazoned harpy.
The Lion-Dragon
is compounded of the forepart of a lion conjoined to the hinder part of a dragon.
Or, a lion-dragon gules armed, langued and crowned of the first, is the Bretigni family.
Party per chevron gules and or, three lion-dragons ducally crowned and countercharged.—Easton.
The Gorgon
Reference has already been made to the gorgon in a quotation from Milton. The name now denotes anything unusually hideous. In classic story there were three gorgons, with serpents on their heads instead of hair. Medusa was the chief of the three, and the only one that was mortal. So hideous was her face that whoever set eyes on it was instantly turned to stone. She was slain by Perseus, and her head placed upon the shield of Minerva (termed the Ægis of Minerva). Homer, in the “Odyssey,” Book xi. thus alludes to the dread creature:
“Lest Gorgon rising from the infernal lakes
With horrors armed, and curls of hissing snakes,
Should fix me stiffened at the monstrous sight,
A stony image in eternal night.”
And Shakespeare, in Macbeth, Act ii. sc. 3, uses the name to picture, in a word, the horrible discovery of the murdered Duncan:
“Approach the chamber, and destroy your sight
With a new gorgon.”