Come Fly with Me on Mythological Wings: Part Two

Mythology is full of strange winged creatures, some of them humanoid. If these creatures are not native to Earth, that is they are really real, not mythological, but extraterrestrial, is there anything really implausible at work here? There’s nothing implausible about wings – obviously – even when extrapolated to beings our size or larger. There are just three variables at work here, sheer oomph muscle power; the density of what you’re flying in; and gravity. With the right combination, all sort of flying creatures not native to Earth might be possible.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

WINGED HYBRID HUMANS AND HUMANOIDS:

*The trio of Greek Erinyes, more commonly called the Eumenides or Furies (Roman) were hags that had snakes for hair and wings too. They go by the names of Alecto, Megaira and Tsiphone.

*The Gorgons were a trio of rather ugly appearing Greek ladies with copper hands, large fangs, snakes for hair, oh, and gold wings. The most famous of the trio was Medusa, decapitated by the hero Perseus. Medusa was the only one of the three who was vulnerable. The other two Gorgons (Stheno and Euryale) were apparently immortal, or should that be translated as just having an extremely long natural lifespan compared to humans since nothing can be really immortal unless the Universe itself is infinite in duration.

*Harpies (quasi-vultures) were monstrous flying creatures, half-bird and half-woman with the heads and faces of girls with claw-like fingers. The trio were called Aello, Calaeno and Ocypete. They had rather unhygienic habits of fouling things via their extreme bad breath or by pooping on people’s food. Disgusting! 

*The Lamassu (or Shedu) were life-size winged lions or bulls respectively with human heads in ancient Mesopotamian or Assyrian mythology. They played the role of guardians.

*Sirens were bird-like creatures with girls’ faces and exquisite voices that any man would die for – and many did. Fortunately, they were outsmarted by two of ancient Greeks most noted heroes – Odysseus and Jason (of the Argonauts).  Odysseus did the trick by plugging his crew’s ears with wax while he himself was tightly strapped and bound to his ship’s mast and thus could not surrender even if he wanted to – which he did. Jason thwarted the Sirens via having one of his crew, Orpheus, sing louder and better than the Sirens – drowned them out as it were. Not so much fighting fire with fire, but fighting vocals with a vocal. There’s some dispute about the exact number of Sirens – it varies between two and five, but the standard tradition number is three – Parthenope, Leucosia and Ligeia. 

*Sphinx: In this case it’s the Greek version of a winged lion with a feminine face and head that was famous for posing a riddle (much like the operatic heroine Turndot). Much like with Turandot, if you failed to answer the riddle of the Sphinx (or in Turandot’s case, a trilogy of riddles) you forfeited your life by becoming a Sphinx-snack (or in Turandot’s case, via the use of that time-honoured phrase, “off with his head”).

WINGED HUMANS AND HUMANOIDS

*Angels: Sorry, despite the zillions of images found across and around the world, angels, as in Biblical angels, haven’t a wing to share between the whole lot of them. So, angels really shouldn’t be mentioned here though I will just because of that popular misconception. Readers will expect to see angels referenced. Angels however could easily be extraterrestrial since they are clearly identified as sky beings from somewhere up there. You could say their home world address somewhere out there as described is a fairly exotic one.

*Boreas (Greek – North Wind): Well one would just about expect a deity representing the wind to have wings.

*Calais (Greek) was the son of Boreas and like father, like son – he had wings upon his back, or feet, depending on what version you read. His claim to mythological fame was being one of the crew on the Argonaut and doing battle with the Harpies.

*Cherub: In modern English the word cherub is sometimes used for what are strictly putti, baby or toddler angels, or winged children in fact, mainly shown in works of art. Sort of like our current images of Eros or Cupid but without the bow and arrows!  In this case the cherubs appear to have some sort of kinship with the fairy-folk. Check out images of fairies and they are, though not childlike, are tending to be small and winged.

*Cherubim (Biblical): The cherubim (singular is cherub) are actually Assyrian in origin. They were depicted as enormous eagle-winged beings with the bodies of lions with human heads (Lammasu) or human heads on the bodies of bulls (Shedu).  They seemed however to have shape-shifted from their Assyrian image just a bit and taken on a different persona in the Bible, especially prominent in the Old Testament. However, it was these beasties, a composite of some things human and wings that morphed into the stereotyped image of an angel, especially as both played the role of guardians. However, cherubim are named as such in the Bible and their image is anything but traditionally angelic. Angels and cherubim are two separate entities.

The definitive book in the Bible on cherubim is the Book of Ezekiel, mainly 1:10 and 10:14. The prophet Ezekiel first describes cherubim as a tetrad of living creatures, each having four faces: of a man, a lion, an ox, and an eagle. Later there’s a slight shift to cherub, man, lion, and eagle. They are said to have four wings each. Two of the wings extended upward, while the other two stretched downward and covered the creatures themselves. In the New Testament similar beings are mentioned in Revelation 4: 7 with four faces: a man, a flying eagle, a lion and a calf. But just to muddy the waters, these entities had six wings each. That means they must be the somewhat related Seraphim since they instead of four wings have six wings. Just to further distance cherubim from traditional angels in either Ezekiel or Revelation, the cherubim’s wings are multi-eyed – no doubt that’s all the better to see you with I guess.

If you check out 1 Kings 6 (KJV), you’ll find that cherubs have a wingspan of 10 cubits, and a height of 10 cubits, at least I gather that must be their real life size since Solomon manufactured two of them, I assume on a one-to-one scale. The whole story is repeated in the third chapter of 2 Chronicles by the way. Now a cubit is roughly 18 to 22 inches; say 20 inches on average. So our model cherub is 200 inches tall; ditto the wingspan. That’s a tad over 16 ½ feet! Well, the Assyrians did say their versions were enormous being life-sized!

You’ll also find several references to someone hitching a ride on a flying cherub (2 Samuel 22:11 and Psalm 18:10). At over 16 feet, well that sounds plausible.

*Eos (Aurora to the Romans) was the goddess of the dawn, usually depicted, much like Helios (Sun god) and Selene (Moon goddess), as driving a horse-drawn chariot through the heavens or across the sky, nevertheless was also imaged as having wings, perhaps because she was mother to the winged deities of the winds like Zephyrus (see below), Boreas (see above) and Notus (see below).  

*Eros (Cupid or Amour to the Romans) was in Greek mythology a deity with wings, celebrated or cursed by lovers or ex-lovers around the world. Eros does a neat trick in that he grows younger as the years go by ending up as the chubby bouncing baby boy with bow and arrows we all recognise in the numerous images of him. [Eros isn’t the only god to grow younger – ditto Dionysus, the god of wine and overall good times, though never back to the bouncing baby boy stage.] 

*Eurus: (Greek – East Wind): See Boreas above.

*Fairies are known throughout the world, and it’s a rare image that doesn’t show them without wings.

*Hypnos is the Greek god of sleep; twin of Thanatos; born of the goddess Nyx (night) and her brother Erebus (darkness). Hypnos has wings attached to his head!

*Nike: The Greek goddess of victory (Victoria in the Roman pantheon), was the winged daughter of Pallas and Styx.

*Notus (Greek – South Wind): See Boreas above.

*Thanatos is the Greek personification of death; twin of Hypnos; born of the goddess Nyx (night) and her brother Erebus (darkness).

*Zephyrus or Zephyr (Greek – West Wind): See Boreas above.

*Zetes (Greek): See comments on Calais above. It’s the same story.

To be continued...