the.com/hippogriff
the impossible child of two animals that legendarily wanted each other dead.
means A mythical winged creature with the front half of an eagle and the hind half of a horse, born of the unlikely union of a griffin and a mare.
from From the Italian *ippogrifo*, itself a fusion of Greek *hippos* ("horse") and the griffin — that eagle-lion hybrid of ancient legend. The beast was essentially invented as a literary device: the 16th-century Italian poet Ludovico Ariosto coined it in his epic *Orlando Furioso*, playing on an old proverb about the impossibility of mating a horse with a griffin (since griffins were said to hunt horses). To say something would happen "when griffins mate with mares" meant "never" — so Ariosto conjured the never-creature itself and put a hero on its back.
- origin
- Born from a horse and a griffin, sworn enemies
- latin proverb
- Symbolized impossibility, like crossing fire with water
- ariosto
- Made famous in 1516 epic Orlando Furioso
- griffin diet
- Griffins eat horses, making this union absurd
- true flight
- One of few mythical beasts that genuinely flew