#called shirdal!

[kaatiba]

@tracle0 that gryphon art you tagged me in sparked a little research excursion and I now have gryphons in LofM! Do you remember my little soot dragon? Sadly, they don't feature anymore, because little gryphons have replaced them.

I do still have dragons, but I'll be saving the soot dragons for a different story (sequel, maybe? Or different universe altogether, I haven't decided!) The gryphons are more in line with the origin myths and folklore and history I'm pulling from than the somewhat western dragons I was envisioning :]

[talonabraxas]

Shirdal 'Lion-Eagle' Talon Abraxas

Ancient origins of the griffin

A legendary creature with the body, tail, and back legs of a lion, the head and wings of an eagle, and, sometimes, an eagle's talons as its front feet first appears in ancient Iranian and Egyptian art dating back to before 3000 BCE. In Egypt, a griffin-like animal can be seen on a cosmetic palette from Hierakonpolis, known as the "Two Dog Palette", dated to 3300–3100 BCE. The divine storm-bird, Anzu, half man and half bird, associated with the chief sky god Enlil was revered by the ancient Sumerians and Akkadians. The Lamassu, a similar hybrid deity depicted with the body of a bull or lion, eagle's wings, and a human head, was a common guardian figure in Assyrian palaces.

In Iranian mythology, the griffin is called Shirdal, which means "Lion-Eagle." Shirdals appeared on cylinder seals from Susa as early as 3000 BCE. Shirdals also are common motifs in the art of Luristan, the North and North West region of Iran in the Iron Age, and Achaemenid art. The 15th century BCE frescoes in the Throne Room of the Bronze Age Palace of Knossos are among the earliest depictions of the mythical creatures in ancient Greek art. In Central Asia, the griffin image was later included in Scythian "animal style" artifacts of the 6th–4th centuries BCE.

In his Histories, Herodotus relates travelers' reports of a land in the northeast where griffins guard gold and where the North Wind issues from a mountain cave. Scholars have speculated that this location may be referring to the Dzungarian Gate, a mountain pass between China and Central Asia. Some modern scholars including Adrienne Mayor have theorized that the legend of the griffin was derived from numerous fossilized remains of Protoceratops found in conjunction with gold mining in the mountains of Scythia, present day eastern Kazakhstan. Recent linguistic and archaeological studies confirm that Greek and Roman trade with Saka-Scythian nomads flourished in that region from the 7th century BCE, when the semi-legendary Greek poet Aristeas wrote of his travels in the far north, to about 300 CE when Aelian reported details about the griffin - exactly the period during which griffins were most prominently featured in Greco-Roman art and literature. Mayor argues that over-repeated retelling and drawing or recopying its bony neck frill (which is rather fragile and may have been frequently broken or entirely weathered away) may have been thought to be large mammal-type external ears, and its beak treated as evidence of a part-bird nature that lead to bird-type wings being added. Others argue fragments of the neck frill may have been mistook for remnants of wings.

Lucius Flavius Philostratus (170 – 247/250 CE), a Greek sophist who lived during the reign of the Roman emperor Philip the Arab, in his "Life of Apollonius of Tyana" also writes about griffins that quarried gold because of the strength of their beak. He describes them as having the strength to overcome lions, elephants, and even dragons, although he notes they had no great power of flying long distances because their wings were not attached the same way as birds. He also described their feet webbed with red membranes. Philostratus says the creatures were found in India and venerated there as sacred to the sun. He observed that griffins were often drawn by Indian artists as yoked four abreast to represent the sun.

[hrodvitnon]

Addendum to Myths and Folklore: There is actually an Iranian version of the Griffin known as the Shirdal. However, I meant Griffin as in the near-universal views about them, namely the nobility and divinity associated with them. From what I can gather, the Shirdal, whilst similar, has enough differences to be its own thing. Obviously, when not in the context of these myths, I’d just call it an Iranian Griffin, but not being specific with myths can cause some confusion. Sorry for that.

It's all good, nonnie, I was half-asleep upon reading the griffon ask and thus the brain was not firing all cylinders.

[gotojobin]

#Griffin The Griffin (Greek gryphos, Persian ??????‌ shirdal "lion-eagle") (also very often spelled gryphon and, less commonly, gryphen, griffon, griffen, or gryphin) is a legendary creature with the body of a lion and the head and wings of an eagle. Asthe lion was considered the "King of the Beasts" and the eagle the "King of the Air", the griffin was thought to be an especially powerful and majestic creature. The griffin is generally represented with four legs, wings and a beak, with eagle-like talons in place of a lion's forelegs and feathered, equine-like ears jutting from its skull. Some traditions say that only female griffins have wings. Some writers describe the tail as a serpent. See the entry Saint George and the Dragon for a 19th century painting of St George and the dragon, showing a dragon that looks alot like a classically-conceived griffin. Classical and heraldic griffins are male and female. A "male" griffin, called a keythong in a single 15th century English heraldic manuscript, is an anomaly that belongs strictly to a late phase of English heraldry. Less commonly known to many, the griffin is a parent to the hippogriph - a combination of a horse and a griffin - even though griffens and hippogriphs are the worst of enemies. tail as a serpent. See the entry Saint George and the Dragon for a 19th century painting of St George and the dragon, showing a dragon that looks alot like a classically-conceived griffin. Classical and heraldic griffins are male and female. A "male" griffin, called a keythong in a single 15th century English heraldic manuscript, is an anomaly that belongs strictly to a late phase of English heraldry. Less commonly known to many, the griffin is a parent to the hippogriph - a combination of a horse and a griffin - even though griffens and hippogriphs are the worst of enemies.

[kaatiba]

The Storyteller, The Djinn, & The Prince | Prologue (2.0)

The moon is a thin paring in the sky surrounded by a spangle of stars. Insects chirp their night songs, the symphony mingling with the crackle and pop of the fire. Ilyas is idly considering taking another helping of the meaty stew when movement in the dark catches his eye.

A shadow peels away from the deeper shadow of the forest’s edge to the east. It walks like a person, but where its head should be is a misshapen lump. Remembering all the stories he’s heard of the beings and creatures that roam the wild, Ilyas reaches for his knife, unsheathing it slowly, quietly, hiding the movement in the fold of his bedroll.

Zsa Zsa, the great war cat stretched out between him and his dozing sister, flicks her ears at the soft sound of scraping metal, opening her golden eyes. She spots the stranger and, black tail lashing, surges upright. His sister wakes with an inquiring hum, alerted that something is amiss.

“Hold,” he murmurs to Zsa Zsa, and she does, all contained tension in sleek muscles.

“Trouble?” Nilam murmurs, sitting up with all the appearance of simply rousing to stretch languidly.

He hums a maybe as she reaches for the crossbow at her side and arms it with swift, sure movements, never taking her eyes from the approaching stranger. 

Wings flare about the being’s head; Ilyas realizes the stranger must be carrying a bird on their shoulder just as the creature leaps to the ground. That is no bird, he thinks, watching it move, the way its eyes glow green in the reflection of his fire.

When the pair are only a few feet away, Ilyas stands, taking no pains to hide his weapon. “Salām,” he calls cautiously. “Do you want to join our camp for the night? You’re welcome to. We have a bit of food, if you’re hungry.”

“Was’salām,” the stranger replies, voice low and rough. “I am—I would be glad of the fire and the food, but more so the company.”

Ilyas chokes on a breath. That voice—

Beside him, his sister tenses, sweeping to her feet nearly as smoothly as Zsa Zsa does. “Step into the light,” she demands. 

The shadow shuffles forward…and the orange glow of the fire illuminates the planes of a familiar face. Almost familiar. Her soft brown eyes—brown eyes that he has dreamed about these past months, brown eyes he has grieved—are brown no longer. They are instead a pale and eerie blue. 

“Halah?” Ilyas gasps, his grip on his knife faltering.

Nilam swings her crossbow up and aims it unerringly at the woman’s chest. The creature at her feet—half-bird, half-cat, all black but for a shock of white on its crest and breast—cries out high and piercing in warning.

“How dare you,” Nilam hisses furiously, uncowed. “How dare you wear her face!”

But it’s Halah’s voice that comes from the woman’s mouth, Halah’s voice that says, “I swear in the Name of the Creator of the heavens and the earth and all the realms between—it’s me, Nilam. It’s really me.”

There is incontestable power in oaths, and oaths made in the Creator’s Name are inviolable. With a choked exclamation, Nilam discharges and shoves her crossbow into Ilyas’s unresistant hands and throws herself forward to sweep Halah into a crushing hug.

Halah laughs brokenly and embraces her back just as tightly as Ilyas drinks in the sight of her. When Nilam finally lets her go, both their faces are wet with tears, and Ilyas remembers himself enough to force his gaze away. 

The winged creature had scurried out of the way of the two women and now sits at his feet. It and Zsa Zsa are examining each other with wary curiosity. The cat sniffs at the creature. The creature consents to be sniffed at. Ilyas has only ever heard of such animals in legends, but he knows it immediately for what it is. 

“Salām, little shirdal,” he says, wondering if it’s friendly. “What a lovely thing you are.”

“His name’s Nujyam,” Halah says, wiping at her eyes with the heel of her palm, “He’s been a very good friend to me. My little star in the dark.”

Ilyas takes in how worn and harrowed she looks. She’s far too thin, dressed in odd and unfamiliar clothes of strange and shifting material, and her eyes…

“I couldn’t believe it, when I saw the fire,” she says, looking away from him and at the flames. “Couldn’t believe that I wouldn’t have to beg shelter from strangers. Couldn’t believe that the first people I’d come across would be you two… All praise to the One.”

“Come, sit,” Nilam insists, drawing Halah down by the fire, “Eat with us. We’ve questions for you, and by the looks of it you need some bracing before we can interrogate you.”

Halah laughs again, no less brokenly but this time with bitterness underscoring it, and sits. She sighs deeply after her first bite of the stew, eyes drifting shut, veiling the unsettling blue. “This is delicious,” she murmurs. 

“You know how Ilyas is with his spices,” Nilam says proudly. “Though you can thank Zsa Zsa and me for the pheasant.”

“I thank you both,” Halah says, and devotes herself to eating with a ravenousness that alarms them both. It takes Ilyas everything in him not to demand answers from her immediately, to allow her the peace of her meal. It’s the same for Nilam; he can tell by the fixed nature of her attention on Halah. 

To occupy himself, he boils water from his canteen and prepares some coffee. It’s ready by the time she’s scraped her bowl clean, and she accepts a cup with alacrity, cradling it in her hands and inhaling the aroma long and deep.

“You’ve been exemplars of patience,” she sighs, after taking a sip. “And now answers are the least of what I owe you. Go ahead; ask me what you will.”

 “What happened to you?” Nilam exclaims instantly. “We couldn’t get an explanation from their Majesties or from your blasted husband—

“Nilam,” Ilyas reprimands quietly, but she ignores him.

“—and all anyone would say was that you’d vanished! Simply disappeared, and then people began to say you’d run off with some—” She breaks off, scowling. “I knew you hadn’t. We knew you hadn’t—me and Ilyas and your family. Everyone with sense knew something must have happened, that someone was lying or keeping secrets, and—we thought you were dead,” she finishes bleakly.

“Well, I’m not,” Halah answers with a wan smile. “I'm basically hale, in fact. Except for—” She waves a hand at her eyes. “Except for these.” Her gaze flicks to them both and then away, down at Nujaym, who has settled in her lap comfortably, wings folded along his back. “I did not abandon Raoul. But before I explain…how long has it been, exactly?”

Ilyas and Nilam glance at each other with mingled dismay and concern. Finally, Ilyas answers. “Four months and a sennight,” he tells her, almost unembarrassed by the specificity of his answer. 

Halah nods as though unsurprised, but her cup trembles in her grasp. “Four months,” she murmurs. “Not so long a time, in the end. And yet too long. Far too long.”

“What happened?” Nilam asks again, gentler this time, when Halah trails off. “Where have you been all this time?”

For a long while, Halah doesn’t answer. Nilam goes to prompt her again, but Ilyas lays a hand on her knee with a speaking look and she subsides. He recognizes the face of one gearing up to convey a horror they have long endured in silence. He’s seen it on soldiers and former slaves and those who have suffered some sort of depredation. 

His heart aches for her. He steels himself to hear what horrible trial she’s endured, for only such a thing would have kept her from her family for so long without a word, would have left her wandering the roads, alone, at night, to be found by them only by good fortune. 

At last, she speaks. In a voice roughened by restrained emotion, she says,  “I’ve been in the Unseen Realm. I’ve been with the djinn. 

They stole me away.”

*

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