Wyvern
Encyclopedia
Legendary creature
A legendary creature is a mythological or folkloric creature.-Origin:Some mythical creatures have their origin in traditional mythology and have been believed to be real creatures, for example the dragon, the unicorn, and griffin...
winged reptilian
Reptile
Reptiles are members of a class of air-breathing, ectothermic vertebrates which are characterized by laying shelled eggs , and having skin covered in scales and/or scutes. They are tetrapods, either having four limbs or being descended from four-limbed ancestors...
creature with a dragon
Dragon
A dragon is a legendary creature, typically with serpentine or reptilian traits, that feature in the myths of many cultures. There are two distinct cultural traditions of dragons: the European dragon, derived from European folk traditions and ultimately related to Greek and Middle Eastern...
's head, two legs (sometimes none), and a barbed tail. The wyvern is found in heraldry
Heraldry
Heraldry is the profession, study, or art of creating, granting, and blazoning arms and ruling on questions of rank or protocol, as exercised by an officer of arms. Heraldry comes from Anglo-Norman herald, from the Germanic compound harja-waldaz, "army commander"...
. There exists a purely sea-dwelling variant, termed the Sea-Wyvern which has a fish tail in place of a barbed dragon's tail. Two of these mythical sea beasts form the supporters of the arms of West Dorset District Council. Wyverns are mentioned in Dante Alighieri
Dante Alighieri
Durante degli Alighieri, mononymously referred to as Dante , was an Italian poet, prose writer, literary theorist, moral philosopher, and political thinker. He is best known for the monumental epic poem La commedia, later named La divina commedia ...
's Inferno
Inferno (Dante)
Inferno is the first part of Dante Alighieri's 14th-century epic poem Divine Comedy. It is followed by Purgatorio and Paradiso. It is an allegory telling of the journey of Dante through what is largely the medieval concept of Hell, guided by the Roman poet Virgil. In the poem, Hell is depicted as...
(Canto XVII) as the component body for the poem's Geryon
Geryon
In Greek mythology, Geryon , son of Chrysaor and Callirrhoe and grandson of Medusa, was a fearsome giant who dwelt on the island Erytheia of the mythic Hesperides in the far west of the Mediterranean. A more literal-minded later generation of Greeks associated the region with Tartessos in southern...
.
Etymology
The usual spelling wyvern (older wivern too) is not attested before the 17th century as 'winged two-footed dragon'. It is an alteration of Middle English wyvere, wyver (13th century), loanword of Old French wivre (French guivre and vouivre), itself from Latin vipera 'viper', 'adder', 'asp', altered in Proto-French to *wipera by Germanic influence (see Old High German wipera).Use as symbol or mascot
The wyvern (and its 'cousin' the four-legged dragonDragon
A dragon is a legendary creature, typically with serpentine or reptilian traits, that feature in the myths of many cultures. There are two distinct cultural traditions of dragons: the European dragon, derived from European folk traditions and ultimately related to Greek and Middle Eastern...
) is a frequent heraldic device on British coats of arms and flags, and a fairly popular commercial logo
Logo
A logo is a graphic mark or emblem commonly used by commercial enterprises, organizations and even individuals to aid and promote instant public recognition...
or mascot
Mascot
The term mascot – defined as a term for any person, animal, or object thought to bring luck – colloquially includes anything used to represent a group with a common public identity, such as a school, professional sports team, society, military unit, or brand name...
as well, especially in Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
and what was once the West Country
West Country
The West Country is an informal term for the area of south western England roughly corresponding to the modern South West England government region. It is often defined to encompass the historic counties of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset and Somerset and the City of Bristol, while the counties of...
Kingdom of Wessex
Wessex
The Kingdom of Wessex or Kingdom of the West Saxons was an Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the West Saxons, in South West England, from the 6th century, until the emergence of a united English state in the 10th century, under the Wessex dynasty. It was to be an earldom after Canute the Great's conquest...
, but also farther afield in Herefordshire
Herefordshire
Herefordshire is a historic and ceremonial county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes it is a NUTS 3 region and is one of three counties that comprise the "Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Gloucestershire" NUTS 2 region. It also forms a unitary district known as the...
and Worcestershire
Worcestershire
Worcestershire is a non-metropolitan county, established in antiquity, located in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes it is a NUTS 3 region and is one of three counties that comprise the "Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire" NUTS 2 region...
, as the rivers Wye
River Wye
The River Wye is the fifth-longest river in the UK and for parts of its length forms part of the border between England and Wales. It is important for nature conservation and recreation.-Description:...
and Severn run through Hereford
Hereford
Hereford is a cathedral city, civil parish and county town of Herefordshire, England. It lies on the River Wye, approximately east of the border with Wales, southwest of Worcester, and northwest of Gloucester...
and Worcester
Worcester
The City of Worcester, commonly known as Worcester, , is a city and county town of Worcestershire in the West Midlands of England. Worcester is situated some southwest of Birmingham and north of Gloucester, and has an approximate population of 94,000 people. The River Severn runs through the...
respectively. For example, a local school travel company is called Wyvern Schooltours Ltd and one of the local radio stations is called Wyvern FM
Wyvern FM
Wyvern is a radio station broadcasting to Herefordshire and Worcestershire in England. Wyvern is predominantly music-based, playing pop from the 1980s through to the present day...
. Vauxhall Motors
Vauxhall Motors
Vauxhall Motors is a British automotive company owned by General Motors and headquartered in Luton. It was founded in 1857 as a pump and marine engine manufacturer, began manufacturing cars in 1903 and was acquired by GM in 1925. It has been the second-largest selling car brand in the UK for...
had a model in its range in the 1950s called the Wyvern
Vauxhall Wyvern
The Vauxhall Wyvern is a medium sized family car introduced by Vauxhall in 1948 as a successor to the Vauxhall 12. The name comes from the mythical beast the Wyvern and may be due to a mis-identity of the heraldic Griffin on the Vauxhall badge....
. The Westland Wyvern
Westland Wyvern
The Westland Wyvern was a British single-seat carrier-based multi-role strike aircraft built by Westland Aircraft that served in the 1950s, seeing active service in the 1956 Suez Crisis...
was a British single-seat carrier-based multi-role strike aircraft built by Westland Aircraft that served in the 1950s, seeing active service in the 1956 Suez Crisis
Suez Crisis
The Suez Crisis, also referred to as the Tripartite Aggression, Suez War was an offensive war fought by France, the United Kingdom, and Israel against Egypt beginning on 29 October 1956. Less than a day after Israel invaded Egypt, Britain and France issued a joint ultimatum to Egypt and Israel,...
.
The wyvern is a frequent mascot of athletic teams, colleges and universities, particularly in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
and the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, and is the mascot of the Korean Baseball Organization
Korean Baseball Organization
Korea Professional Baseball is the highest level league of baseball in South Korea. The Korean romanization is Hanguk Peuro Yagu , a league title which mirrors Nippon Professional Baseball in Japan. Korea Professional Baseball was originally founded with six teams in 1982 and currently has eight...
team SK Wyverns
SK Wyverns
SK Wyverns Baseball Club is a South Korean professional baseball team founded in 2000. Based in Incheon, they play their home games at Munhak Baseball Stadium.Their current manager is Man Soo Lee .-History:...
, established in 2000. The Wyvern is the symbol of, or is used in the crest of, Wesley College, Dublin
Wesley College, Dublin
This article is about Wesley College in Dublin, Ireland. See Wesley College for articles on other institutions named "Wesley College"....
, Magdalene College, Cambridge
Magdalene College, Cambridge
Magdalene College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England.The college was founded in 1428 as a Benedictine hostel, in time coming to be known as Buckingham College, before being refounded in 1542 as the College of St Mary Magdalene...
, and Woodbridge College
Woodbridge College
Woodbridge College opened its doors in 1958 as Woodbridge High School, and remained a regular neighborhood high school until 1991, when it became an academy alternative school, changing its name to Woodbridge College, with students in grades 7-OAC...
in Woodbridge, Ontario
Woodbridge, Ontario
Woodbridge is a large suburban community in the City of Vaughan, just north of Toronto in Southern Ontario. It was once an independent town before being amalgamated with nearby communities to form the city in 1971. Its traditional downtown core is the Woodbridge Ave...
, and wyverns appear as both supporters in the arms of Leyton Orient F.C.
Leyton Orient F.C.
Leyton Orient F.C. are an English professional football club in East London. They currently play in Football League One and are known to their fans as the O's.Leyton Orient have spent one season in the top flight of English football, in 1962–63...
, one of London's oldest professional football clubs. Similarly, a wyvern is the crest
Crest (heraldry)
A crest is a component of an heraldic display, so called because it stands on top of a helmet, as the crest of a jay stands on the bird's head....
of Newington College
Newington College
Newington College is an independent, Uniting Church, day and boarding school for boys, located in Stanmore, an inner-western suburb of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia....
in Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
, New South Wales, Australia, and is the symbol of the Trinity Residents' Club in Perth
Perth, Western Australia
Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia and the fourth most populous city in Australia. The Perth metropolitan area has an estimated population of almost 1,700,000....
, Western Australia
Western Australia
Western Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...
. It is employed, too, by The LLVM Compiler Infrastructure
Low Level Virtual Machine
The Low Level Virtual Machine is a compiler infrastructure written in C++ that is designed for compile-time, link-time, run-time, and "idle-time" optimization of programs written in arbitrary programming languages...
and is also the background logo for BackTrack
BackTrack
BackTrack is an operating system based on the Ubuntu GNU/Linux distribution aimed at digital forensics and penetration testing use. It is named after backtracking, a search algorithm...
Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
. A wyvern is also found on the crest of the Anglo-Chinese School
Anglo-Chinese School
The Anglo-Chinese School ; is a family of Methodist schools in Singapore, and Indonesia.The name is usually abbreviated as "ACS", with the junior college as "ACJC", and its students and alumni referred to as "ACSians" , or "ACS boys" .ACS was the first school...
which is located in Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
and Jakarta
Jakarta
Jakarta is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Officially known as the Special Capital Territory of Jakarta, it is located on the northwest coast of Java, has an area of , and a population of 9,580,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political centre...
.
A white (argent) wyvern formed the crest of the Borough of Leicester
Leicester
Leicester is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands of England, and the county town of Leicestershire. The city lies on the River Soar and at the edge of the National Forest...
as recorded at the heraldic visitation
Heraldic visitation
Heraldic Visitations were tours of inspection undertaken by Kings of Arms in England, Wales and Ireland in order to regulate and register the coats of arms of nobility and gentry and boroughs, and to record pedigrees...
of Leicestershire in 1619: A wyvern sans legs argent strewed with wounds gules, wings expanded ermine. The term sans legs may not imply that the wyvern was "without legs", rather that its legs are not depicted, being hidden or folded under. This was adopted by the Midland Railway
Midland Railway
The Midland Railway was a railway company in the United Kingdom from 1844 to 1922, when it became part of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway....
in 1845, when it became the crest of its unofficial coat of arms
Coat of arms
A coat of arms is a unique heraldic design on a shield or escutcheon or on a surcoat or tabard used to cover and protect armour and to identify the wearer. Thus the term is often stated as "coat-armour", because it was anciently displayed on the front of a coat of cloth...
. The company asserted that the "wyvern was the standard of the Kingdom of Mercia
Mercia
Mercia was one of the kingdoms of the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy. It was centred on the valley of the River Trent and its tributaries in the region now known as the English Midlands...
", and that it was "a quartering in the town arms of Leicester". However, in 1897 the Railway Magazine noted that there appeared "to be no foundation that the wyvern was associated with the Kingdom of Mercia".
The Kings of Aragon
Crown of Aragon
The Crown of Aragon Corona d'Aragón Corona d'Aragó Corona Aragonum controlling a large portion of the present-day eastern Spain and southeastern France, as well as some of the major islands and mainland possessions stretching across the Mediterranean as far as Greece...
of the House of Barcelona
House of Barcelona
The House of Barcelona was a medieval dynasty that ruled the County of Barcelona continuously from 878 and the Crown of Aragon from 1137 . From the male part they descend from the Bellonids, the descendants of Wifred the Hairy...
since Peter IV
Peter IV of Aragon
Peter IV, , called el Cerimoniós or el del punyalet , was the King of Aragon, King of Sardinia and Corsica , King of Valencia , and Count of Barcelona Peter IV, (Balaguer, September 5, 1319 – Barcelona, January 6, 1387), called el Cerimoniós ("the Ceremonious") or el del punyalet ("the one...
used a wyvern as a crest on their helmets. Nowadays this symbol has been officially adopted as the coat of arms of the Generalitat Valenciana
Generalitat Valenciana
The Generalitat Valenciana is the generic name covering the different self government institutions under which the Spanish autonomous community of Valencia is politically organised....
(Valencian
Valencian Community
The Valencian Community is an autonomous community of Spain located in central and south-eastern Iberian Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Valencia...
Parliament and Government). Wyverns are also an important part of the mythological animals in many traditional local festivals of Catalonia
Catalonia
Catalonia is an autonomous community in northeastern Spain, with the official status of a "nationality" of Spain. Catalonia comprises four provinces: Barcelona, Girona, Lleida, and Tarragona. Its capital and largest city is Barcelona. Catalonia covers an area of 32,114 km² and has an...
.
Cryptozoology
Some cryptozoologists have interpreted wyverns as surviving pterosaurPterosaur
Pterosaurs were flying reptiles of the clade or order Pterosauria. They existed from the late Triassic to the end of the Cretaceous Period . Pterosaurs are the earliest vertebrates known to have evolved powered flight...
s, which were extinct around 65 million years ago. There are alleged sightings in remote areas of pterosaur-like creatures such as the Kongamato
Kongamato
The Kongamato is a reported pterosaur-like creature said to have been seen by natives and explorers in the Mwinilunga district's Jiundu swamps of Western Zambia, Angola and Congo...
in Africa.
Examples
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| A wyvern fighting with a wolf. Relief Relief Relief is a sculptural technique. The term relief is from the Latin verb levo, to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is thus to give the impression that the sculpted material has been raised above the background plane... , Trento Trento Trento is an Italian city located in the Adige River valley in Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol. It is the capital of Trentino... Cathedral, Italy |
A golden wyvern is believed to have been the symbol of the ancient kingdom of Wessex Wessex The Kingdom of Wessex or Kingdom of the West Saxons was an Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the West Saxons, in South West England, from the 6th century, until the emergence of a united English state in the 10th century, under the Wessex dynasty. It was to be an earldom after Canute the Great's conquest... |
Coat of arms, City of Leicester Leicester Leicester is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands of England, and the county town of Leicestershire. The city lies on the River Soar and at the edge of the National Forest... , with crest: A wyvern argent sans legs |
Arms of Midland Railway Midland Railway The Midland Railway was a railway company in the United Kingdom from 1844 to 1922, when it became part of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway.... at Derby Derby Derby , is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands region of England. It lies upon the banks of the River Derwent and is located in the south of the ceremonial county of Derbyshire. In the 2001 census, the population of the city was 233,700, whilst that of the Derby Urban Area was 229,407... station, 2006, showing as crest the Wyvern sans legs of Leicester |
See also
- BasiliskBasiliskIn European bestiaries and legends, a basilisk is a legendary reptile reputed to be king of serpents and said to have the power to cause death with a single glance...
- CockatriceCockatriceA cockatrice is a legendary creature, essentially a two-legged dragon with a rooster's head. "An ornament in the drama and poetry of the Elizabethans", Laurence Breiner described it...
- European dragonEuropean dragonEuropean dragons are legendary creatures in folklore and mythology among the overlapping cultures of Europe.In European folklore, a dragon is a serpentine legendary creature. The Latin word draco, as in constellation Draco, comes directly from Greek δράκων,...
- LindwormLindwormLindworm in British heraldry, is a technical term for a wingless bipedal dragon often with a venomous bite.-Etymology:In modern Scandinavian languages, the cognate lindorm can refer to any 'serpent' or monstrous...
- WyrmWyrmWyrm , or wurm, is the Old English term for a dragon or a dragon-like creature, especially one that is serpentine. It is used as an archaism in English folklore and modern fantasy to distinguish it from its Modern English counterpart worm...