Which Is the Least Likely Magical Creature?
BUCKBEAK THE HIPPOGRIFF, INTRODUCED IN Azkaban, is more than just an unusual magical
creature. With the bird-like head and forelegs of a griffin
attached to the body of a horse, hippogriffs are an especially odd
combination. That’s just what was intended by the man who imagined
them, a sixteenth-century author with sense of humor.
The Roman poet Virgil once described something
as impossible by saying it would only happen when “griffins are
mated with horses.” The phrase stuck. For centuries it was used
just as someone today might say, “When pigs have wings.” Ludovico
Ariosto, an Italian court poet of the early 1500s, remembered that
line when he was writing Orlando Furioso,
an epic story about the knights of Charlemagne, a king who ruled
much of Europe in the ninth century. Deciding the time had come to
make
Ludovico Ariosto (1474-1533)
In Ariosto’s version of the story, the brave
knights Bradamante and Rogero are said to be ancestors of the
family that employed Ariosto while he wrote the epic. Not true to
life, but a polite gesture.
Virgil’s unlikely match, he created the
hippogriff. (The Greek word for horse is hippos.)
According to Ariosto, the hippogriff comes from
the Rhiphaean Mountains, “far beyond the icebound seas.” The
creature appears in the story when Charlemagne’s brave niece,
Bradamante, searches for her beloved, a knight named Rogero.
Bradamante discovers Rogero is the captive of an enchanter who
rides the strange creature, which few people have seen before.
After defeating the enchanter and freeing Rogero, Bradamante
approaches the beast:
They descended from the mountain to the spot where the encounter had taken place. There they found the Hippogriff, with the magic buckler in its wrapper, hanging to his saddle-bow. Bradamante advanced to seize the bridle; the Hippogriff seemed to wait her approach, but before she reached him he spread his wings and flew away to a neighbouring hill, and in the same manner, a second time, eluded her efforts.
Rogero and the other liberated knights dispersed
over the plain and hill-tops to secure him, and at last the animal
allowed Rogero to seize his rein. The fearless Rogero hesitated not
to vault upon his back, and let him feel his spurs, which so roused
his mettle that, after galloping a short distance, he suddenly
spread his wings, and soared into the air.
Bradamante had the grief to see her lover snatched
away from her at the very moment of reunion. Rogero, who knew not
the art of directing the horse, was unable to control his flight.
He found himself carried over the tops of the mountains, so far
above them that he could hardly distinguish what was land and what
water.
The Hippogriff directed his flight to the west,
and cleaved the air as swiftly as
See also: Beasts Griffins
a new-rigged vessel cut the waves, impelled by the freshest and
most favourable gales.
The name “Charlemagne”
comes from combining the title “Charles Magnus,” meaning Charles
the Great.
The tales of Charlemagne and his twelve Paladins—the peers of his court—are as widespread as
the Celtic tales of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.
The knight Orlando (known as Roland in some versions) is usually
the greatest hero.
See also: Beasts Griffins
In another episode of the story, a different knight, Astolfo, rides the same hippogriff across the world:
Hawk and eagle soar a course less free. Over the wide land of Gaul the warrior flew, from Pyrenees to Rhine, from sea to sea. To Aragon he passed out of Navarre, leaving people below wondering at the sight, then crossed Castile, Gallicia, Lisbon, Seville and Cordova. He left no coast or inland plain of Spain unexplored.
From the Atlantic to the farther side of Egypt,
bent over Africa, he turned. Morocco, Fez, and Oran, looking down,
noble Biserta next and Tunis-town. Tripoli, Berniche, Ptolomitta he
viewed, and into Asia’s land the Nile he pursued.
Eventually Astolfo rides the hippogriff all the way to Paradise. Later, he respectfully sets it free. One can understand why J. K. Rowling says in Beasts that the hippogriff “is now found worldwide.”