Portion of a Pageant Car, with Heraldic Monsters. By Albert Dürer.
Of other imaginary animals the Griffin or Gryphon is probably the best known next to the unicorn, seeing that its name is that which is popularly applied to most non-natural beasts. Evidently derived from one of those creatures by which early eastern art expressed the conjunction of various attributes, it came, like many other monsters, to be implicitly believed in as an actual beast until a comparatively late date. Thus Gerard Leigh has something to say of griffins which “bear great enmity to man and horse, though the man be armed and on horseback yet they take the one with the other quite from the ground and carry them clean away. I think they are of great hugeness,” he goes on, “for I have a claw of one of their paws which should show them to be as big as two Lyons!” In another place Leigh refuses to believe something that he had heard because he “had not seen the proof thereof”!
The griffin is half eagle and half lion, the head forepart and wings being those of an eagle and the rest of the body with the hind legs and tail are leonine. The head of a griffin has ears, and these serve to distinguish it from that of an eagle when it is used alone.
A curious variety of griffin, borne by the Marquis of Ormonde, is wingless, has two horns on its head and groups of rays issuing from its body, and is termed a male-griffin, for some inscrutable reason. It should be noted that the term for a griffin in a rampant position is segreant, all other poses being described in the ordinary way.
The treatment of the composite animals naturally followed that of the creatures which entered into their composition, while the Dragons, more purely imaginary creatures, have suggestions of a snakelike character in their scales and annulations.
In continental heraldry the dragon has but one pair of legs and behind them the body diminishing into a snakelike tail, which sometimes terminates in a barbed end. This form we term a Wyvern, reserving the word dragon for the four-legged variety.
The conception of a dragon varied greatly, the prevailing characteristic in many instances being a hard scaliness somewhat suggestive of the Chinese and other oriental types. In other examples greater sinuosity and a more leathery texture is apparent, recalling to mind the idea of the “loathly worm” of some of the mediaeval dragon legends. As a symbol of evil, terrible but overcome, it is associated with St. George and with St. Michael, and also appears, with more personal allusion, in the well-known device of the Guelphic faction in their contest with the Ghibellines.
Arms of the City of London. Wallis. 1677.