The Quinotaur () is a mythical sea creature mentioned in the 7th century Frankish '' Chronicle of Fredegar''. Referred to as "the beast of

Neptune Neptune is the eighth and farthest known planet from the Sun. It is the List of Solar System objects by size, fourth-largest planet in the Solar System by diameter, the third-most-massive planet, and the densest giant planet. It is 17 t ...

which resembles a Quinotaur", it was held to have fathered Meroveus by attacking the wife of the Frankish king Chlodio and thus to have sired the line of

Merovingian The Merovingian dynasty () was the ruling family of the Franks from around the middle of the 5th century until Pepin the Short in 751. They first appear as "Kings of the Franks" in the Roman army of northern Gaul. By 509 they had united all the ...

kings. The "

bull A bull is an intact (i.e., not Castration, castrated) adult male of the species ''Bos taurus'' (cattle). More muscular and aggressive than the females of the same species (i.e. cows proper), bulls have long been an important symbol cattle in r ...

with five horns" was likened by Pseudo-Fredegar- interpolating

Gregory of Tours Gregory of Tours (born ; 30 November – 17 November 594 AD) was a Gallo-Roman historian and Bishop of Tours during the Merovingian period and is known as the "father of French history". He was a prelate in the Merovingian kingdom, encom ...

who authored an earlier record of the legend- to both

and the

Minotaur In Greek mythology, the Minotaur (, ''Mīnṓtauros''), also known as Asterion, is a mythical creature portrayed during classical antiquity with the head and tail of a bull and the body of a man or, as described by Roman poet Ovid, a being "par ...

, as it was both seaborne and taurine. It is not known whether one or both traits are original to the legend or if their combination is an accretion by one or both of the Christian authors. The clerical Latinity of the name does not indicate whether it is a translation of some genuine Frankish creature or a coining. The suggested rape and subsequent family relation of this monster attributed to Frankish mythology correspond to both the Indo-European etymology of

(according to

Jaan Puhvel Jaan Puhvel (born 24 January 1932) is an Estonians, Estonian comparative linguistics, comparative linguist and comparative mythologist who specializes in Indo-European studies. Born in Estonia, Puhvel fled his country with his family in 1944 f ...

, from

Proto-Indo-European Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. No direct record of Proto-Indo-European exists; its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-Euro ...

, "grandson" or "nephew", compare also the Indo-Aryan '' Apam Napat'', "grandson/nephew of the water") and to bull-related fertility myths in

Greek mythology Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the Ancient Greece, ancient Greeks, and a genre of ancient Greek folklore, today absorbed alongside Roman mythology into the broader designation of classical mythology. These stories conc ...

, where for example the princess Europa was abducted by the god

Zeus Zeus (, ) is the chief deity of the List of Greek deities, Greek pantheon. He is a sky father, sky and thunder god in ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, who rules as king of the gods on Mount Olympus. Zeus is the child ...

, in the form of a white bull, that swam her to

Crete Crete ( ; , Modern Greek, Modern: , Ancient Greek, Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the List of islands by area, 88th largest island in the world and the List of islands in the Mediterranean#By area, fifth la ...

; or to the very myth of the

, which was the product of

Pasiphaë In Greek mythology, Pasiphaë (; , derived from πᾶσι (dative plural) "for all" and φάος/φῶς ''phaos/phos'' "light") was a queen of Crete. The daughter of Helios and the Oceanid nymph Perse (mythology), Perse, Pasiphaë is notable a ...

's, a Cretan Queen's, intercourse with a white bull, initially allotted to King

Minos Main injector neutrino oscillation search (MINOS) was a particle physics experiment designed to study the phenomena of neutrino oscillations, first discovered by a Super-Kamiokande (Super-K) experiment in 1998. Neutrinos produced by the NuMI ...

, Pasiphaë's husband, as a sacrifice for Poseidon.

Footnotes

{{reflist French legendary creatures Maritime folklore Mythological hybrids Mythological bovines