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Ipotanes or hippotaynes are mythical creatures; a race of half-
Ipotanes or hippotaynes are mythical creatures; a race of half-horse
The horse (''Equus ferus caballus'') is a domesticated, one-toed, hoofed mammal. It belongs to the taxonomic family Equidae and is one of two extant subspecies of ''Equus ferus''. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million ...
, half-humans. They are usually depicted as the reverse of centaur
A centaur ( ; grc, κένταυρος, kéntauros; ), or occasionally hippocentaur, is a creature from Greek mythology with the upper body of a human and the lower body and legs of a horse.
Centaurs are thought of in many Greek myths as bein ...
s, having human bodies with the heads of horses. Although sometimes attributed to Greek mythology
A major branch of classical mythology, Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the ancient Greeks, and a genre of Ancient Greek folklore. These stories concern the origin and nature of the world, the lives and activities of ...
, the term appears to have originated at a much later date, and without a definite description; they are first mentioned in John de Mandeville
Sir John Mandeville is the supposed author of ''The Travels of Sir John Mandeville'', a travel memoir which first circulated between 1357 and 1371. The earliest-surviving text is in French.
By aid of translations into many other languages, the ...
's fourteenth-century ''Travels''. Ipotanes appear in modern works of the fantasy genre
Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction involving magical elements, typically set in a fictional universe and sometimes inspired by mythology and folklore. Its roots are in oral traditions, which then became fantasy literature and dra ...
.
John de Mandeville
In his 1356 travelogue, ''The Travels of Sir John Mandeville'', the author reports the existence of a violent race of ''ipotanes'', found in Bacharie (Bactria
Bactria (; Bactrian: , ), or Bactriana, was an ancient region in Central Asia in Amu Darya's middle stream, stretching north of the Hindu Kush, west of the Pamirs and south of the Gissar range, covering the northern part of Afghanistan, so ...
).
More recent editions of Mandeville's work use various spellings; ''hippotaynes'' (Macmillan, 1900), ''hippopotami'' (Penguin, 1983).
Description
The word "ipotane" appears to be derived from the Greek (), "a knight". Mandeville's description is not clearly distinguishable from that of a centaur, and some depictions use the term synonymously. Other depictions show ipotanes with a human body and a horse's head, sometimes with the legs or tail 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 horselike and human features.See also
*Glaistig
The glaistig is a ghost from Scottish mythology, a type of fuath. It is also known as ''maighdean uaine'' (Green Maiden), and may appear as a woman of beauty or monstrous mien, as a half-woman and half-goat similar to a faun or satyr, or in the ...
- Scottish
* Hippopodes - Greek myth
A major branch of classical mythology, Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the Ancient Greece, ancient Greeks, and a genre of Ancient Greek folklore. These stories concern the Cosmogony, origin and Cosmology#Metaphysical co ...
References
{{reflist Centaurs Horses in mythology Mythological human hybrids