Ipotane
Ipotanes or hippotaynes are mythical creatures. They are usually depicted as being half-human half-horse creatures much different from the centaurs. Although sometimes attributed to Greek mythology, the term appears to have originated at a much later date, and without a definite description; they are first mentioned in John de Mandeville's fourteenth-century Travels. Ipotanes appear in modern works of the fantasy genre.
John de Mandeville
In his 1356 travelogue, The Travels of Sir John Mandeville,[1] the author reports the existence of a violent race of ipotanes, found in Bacharie (Bactria). Template:Quote More recent editions of Mandeville's work use various spellings; hippotaynes (Macmillan, 1900),[2] hippopotami (Penguin, 1983).[3]
Description
The word "ipotane" appears to be derived from the Greek Script error: No such module "Lang". (Script error: No such module "Lang".), "a knight", which itself is derived from Script error: No such module "Lang". (Script error: No such module "Lang".), "a horse".[4] Mandeville's description is not clearly distinguishable from that of a centaur, and some depictions use the term synonymously.[5] Some depictions show ipotanes with a human body and a horse's head. Other depictions have them as humans with the hindquarters of a horse.
Modern literature
Despite their similarity to centaurs, ipotanes are not mentioned in the corpus of Greek and Roman literature. However, they appear in modern works of fantasy literature, in which they are depicted with various combinations of horse-like and human features.[6]
See also
- Glaistig, Scottish folklore
- Hippopodes, Greek myth
- BoJack Horseman, fictional character
References
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- ↑ Charles Knight, Charles Knight's Popular History of England, vol. 2, p. 13, London: Bradbury, Evans, & Company, 1862–67 Template:Catalog lookup link.
- ↑ Sir John Mandeville, A.W. Pollard (ed), The Travels Of Sir John Mandeville, p. 177, London: Macmillan & Co., 1900 Template:Catalog lookup link
- ↑ Sir John Mandeville, C.W.R.D. Pollard (trans), The Travels Of Sir John Mandeville, p. 167, Penguin, 1983 Template:Catalog lookup link.
- ↑ Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, p. 708, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1890 Template:Catalog lookup link.
- ↑ Cite error: Script error: No such module "Namespace detect".Script error: No such module "Namespace detect".
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