The three-headed eagle, also called triple-headed eagle, is a

mythological Myth is a genre of folklore consisting primarily of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society. For scholars, this is very different from the vernacular usage of the term "myth" that refers to a belief that is not true. Instead, the ...

heraldic Heraldry is a discipline relating to the design, display and study of armorial bearings (known as armory), as well as related disciplines, such as vexillology, together with the study of ceremony, rank and pedigree. Armory, the best-known branc ...

bird, as it were an augmented version of the

double-headed eagle The double-headed eagle is an Iconology, iconographic symbol originating in the Bronze Age. The earliest predecessors of the symbol can be found in Mycenaean Greece and in the Ancient Near East, especially in Mesopotamian and Hittite Empire#icon ...

. A three-headed eagle is mentioned in the apocryphal Latin Ezra, featuring in a dream by the high priest

Ezra Ezra ( fl. fifth or fourth century BCE) is the main character of the Book of Ezra. According to the Hebrew Bible, he was an important Jewish scribe (''sofer'') and priest (''kohen'') in the early Second Temple period. In the Greek Septuagint, t ...

. In a Chechen fairy tale, a three-headed eagle figures as a monstrous adversary to be killed by the hero. ''Öksökö'' (Өксөку) is the name of an eagle with either two or three heads in

Yakut Yakut or Yakutian may refer to: * Yakuts, the Turkic peoples indigenous to the Sakha Republic * Yakut language, a Turkic language * Yakut scripts, Scripts used to write the Yakut language * Yakut (name) * Yakut Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic ...

and Dolgan folklore.P. E. Efremov, Фольклор долган ("Dolgan Folklore"), Novosibirsk: Institute of Archeology and Ethnography of the Russian Academy of Sciences (2000), p. 430
bestiary.us
V.L. Seroshevsky, Якуты. Опыт этнографичекого исследования ("The Yakuts. An experience in ethnographic research", Russian Political Encyclopedia, Moscow, 1993, p. 227. Exceptionally, a three-headed eagle (or rather, an eagle with two additional heads mounted on the tips of its wings) is shown as the coat of arms of minnesinger Reinmar von Zweter (c. 1200–1248) in the

Codex Manesse The Codex Manesse (also or Pariser Handschrift) is a (a German term for a manuscript containing songs) which is the single most comprehensive source of Middle High German ''Minnesang'' poetry. It was written and illustrated manuscript, illustr ...

(c. 1300). An unrelated depiction of the ''

Reichsadler The ' (; "Imperial Eagle") is the heraldic eagle, derived from the Roman eagle standard, used by the Holy Roman Emperors, later by the Emperors of Austria and in modern coat of arms of Austria and Germany. The term is also translated as "Rei ...

'' with three heads is found in the ''Wappenbuch'' of Conrad Grünenberg (1483). A three-headed bird (not necessarily an eagle) is also found in the

Middle Low German Middle Low German is a developmental stage of Low German. It developed from the Old Saxon language in the Middle Ages and has been documented in writing since about 1225–34 (). During the Hanseatic period (from about 1300 to about 1600), Mid ...

illustrated manuscript ''

Splendor Solis ''Splendor Solis'' (English: "The Splendour of the Sun") is a version of the illuminated alchemical text attributed to Salomon Trismosin. This version dates from around 1582. The earliest version, written in Central German, is dated 1532–15 ...

'', dated to the 1530s. The sceptre of tsar

Michael I of Russia Michael I (; ) was Tsar of all Russia from 1613 after being elected by the Zemsky Sobor of 1613 until his death in 1645. He was elected by the Zemsky Sobor and was the first tsar of the House of Romanov, which succeeded the Rurikids, House o ...

was decorated with a three-headed eagle, and representations of the design are found in Russian symbolism. The literary anthology ''Lado'', published in 1911, opens with a poem, "Slavic Eagle" (Славянский орел) by Dmitriy Vergun, in which the three heads are explained as representing the union of three races which contributed to the genesis of Russia, the "western" head representing the

Varangians The Varangians ( ; ; ; , or )Varangian
," Online Etymology Dictionary were

Mongols Mongols are an East Asian ethnic group native to Mongolia, China ( Inner Mongolia and other 11 autonomous territories), as well as the republics of Buryatia and Kalmykia in Russia. The Mongols are the principal member of the large family o ...

, and the central head the

Slavs The Slavs or Slavic people are groups of people who speak Slavic languages. Slavs are geographically distributed throughout the northern parts of Eurasia; they predominantly inhabit Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Southeastern Europe, and ...

. ''The Three-Headed Eagle'' (1944) by A. Ferris discusses the destiny of the peoples of Europe based on the Latin Ezra.

References

{{reflist 3 (number) Heraldic eagles National symbols of Russia Mythical many-headed creatures Heraldic birds Mythological birds of prey Birds in mythology Imperial Eagle Double-headed eagle

See also

References