Tea at Trianon: Griffins of the Desert

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Thursday, August 24, 2023

Griffins of the Desert

From Greek Reporter:

We can combine the fact that the griffin was a creature of Central Asia, probably near Mongolia, with the fact that the Greek writers consistently describe it as guarding gold in the country in which it lived. Aeschylus, one of the earliest sources of the griffin, directly associates it with a desert. Interestingly, in Mongolia, the Gobi Desert was known in ancient times for its gold. Even today, it still has huge deposits of gold.

Therefore, it is likely that the Gobi Desert was the land that the griffins were supposed to have inhabited. Hence, how does this relate to the origin of the griffin? Well, in the Gobi Desert, there are many fossils of dinosaurs. One of the most commonly-found dinosaurs there may well explain the origin of the griffin: the Protoceratops.

The Protoceratops was similar to the more famous Triceratops, except it was smaller and did not have any horns. This dinosaur was a four-legged creature, thus having the same basic structure as a lion. Yet, it also had a beak, like a bird. (Read more.)