Greek Mythology creatures

Lancelot · 02-09-2006, 02:54 AM

I think the Greek mythology is so fin to read about, there is so much too know, so many legends, so many creatures, i'll give some info of some of them

The Centaur often painted with a bow like this picture shows
[img src="http://www.equinenet.org/heroes/centstag.gif" border="0" alt="IPB Image" /]

The Centaur, as you can see, i half-man half-horse. Where did the idea of Centaurs come from?* The early Greeks did not have horses, but their northern neighbors in Thessaly did and they were the first cowboys, sort of, and they worshipped the horse as their totem. So, it is thought that the Thessalians first pictured themselves as half horse and half man, and created the idea. And then the Greeks took the idea as they learned to use horses, and possibly when they first saw the Thessalians riding, they thought of them as half horse and half man.

There is one famous centaur, Chiron, and he was one of the most honest centaurs. he was the son of Kronos, so he was immortal but he could feel pain. he was wise and the teacher of many great heroes who learned these arts from him, heroes like Achilleus, Kastor, Theseus, Hercules, Odysseus, and many others.

But once as he tried to stop a fight between Hercules and some centaurs, he got hit by a poisined arrow, shot by mistake from Hercule, he never meant to hit his old teacher. Chiron never died from the injurys, but he felt the pain, so he asked Zeus to make him mortal, so Zeus transfered Chiron's immortality to Prometheus, the founder of mankind, and the wise Chiron died. He was the first who grouped the stars into constellations and taught men how to read them. One of his students was Jason, the leader of the Argonauts. To guide them on their voyage on the Argo, Chiron made a picture of himself and placed it in the sky. This is Alpha Centauri, closest star to the Sun, about four light-years away.

And this is the unicorn, often painted like this
[img src="http://www.equinenet.org/heroes/uni20w.gif" border="0" alt="IPB Image" /]

Most people don't know that there are lots of different kinds of unicorns. There are Unicorns with long, silky beards and cloven hooves. Some of these have been alive the longest of all Unicorns in the world, maybe a thousand years or more, and they have heavy, long horns that make them move with their well muscled necks arched from the weight of the horn. Yet they can lift their heads high and run like the wind when they want to.

There are Unicorns that look exactly like Arabian horses except for their slender horns. These are the desert Unicorns, and they are swift and untiring. Some of them are fairly old, several hundred years or more, but they keep their youthful appearance.

The rare donkey Unicorn has ears longer than its horn! These shaggy little Unicorns have long, white coats almost like polar bears. Their voice is sweeter than the regular donkey's voice, but it's just as loud. It sounds a little like a bugle.

And ofcourse the Pegasus :)

[img src="http://www.the-wood.com/photos/patterns/animal/pegasus-03.jpg" border="0" alt="IPB Image" /]
In Greek mythology, when Perseus cut off the Medusa's head, the blood sinking into the earth produced the winged horse Pegasus. There was a famous pegasus that Bellerophon rode on when he fought away the chimera (The Chimaera, a fire-breathing monster who had the fore part of a lion and the hind part a dragon )

After the conquest of the Chimaera, Bellerophon fought many monsters, but with the aid of Pegasus he defeated them all.

sweet_treat · 02-09-2006, 01:39 PM

Pegasus is Hercules' horse...right!

Lancelot · 02-10-2006, 12:26 AM

One of the Pegasus, yes :)

Micca5683 · 02-10-2006, 07:29 AM

yes reading greek mytholigy is fun,

Lancelot · 02-11-2006, 02:26 AM

Another thing, Unicorn IS NOT a greek mythology, its in the english/celt myth

sweet_treat · 02-11-2006, 10:48 AM

ooooh! cool!

Micca5683 · 02-15-2006, 10:36 AM

you are right there a unicorn is not greek mytholigy, it is english but what i want to know is how do people say all of this is myth how does anyone know that they ain't real???

sweet_treat · 02-15-2006, 02:29 PM

its NOT ALL ppl hu say it aint real...ppl believe tht wht they havent seen aint true...so they call it a myth

Micca5683 · 02-16-2006, 03:03 AM

oh sorry i meant most ppl, I do not dismiss things that I haven't found proof to, things I find prof about I either say it is or is not real depending on what type of proof it is, possitive or negative, positive is proof of something excisting and of course everyone should know that negative is agianst it excisting.

Janeway · 10-07-2006, 11:53 PM

Back to the unicorn thing. Unicorns actually originated, as a myth, in China. They believed that a magical creature called a Ki-lin that would bring luck to an emperor if the ki-lin visited the court. Ki-lins were sacred, and not to be harmed.
And yes, I am a nerd, I know.