Product Code Database
The wyvern ( ), sometimes spelled wivern ( ), is a type of mythical dragon with bipedalism, two , and often a pointed tail.
The wyvern in its various forms is important in heraldry, frequently appearing as a mascot of schools and athletic teams (chiefly in the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada). It is a popular creature in European literature, mythology, and folklore. Today, it is often used in fantasy literature and video games. The wyvern in heraldry and folklore is rarely fire-breathing, unlike other dragons.
The concluding " –n" had been added by the beginning of the 17th century, when John Guillim in 1610 describes the " wiverne" as a creature that "partakes of a Fowle in the Wings and Legs ... and doth resemble a Serpent in the Taile". John Gibbon in 1682 emphasises that it "hath but two Legs".
Conversely, Medievalism William Sayers proposes a more complex origin for the term. He notes that the Anglo-French guivre and its Middle English derivative ceased to retain the original sense of "venomous snake" after the Latin term was re-introduced into medieval Latin, freeing them up to take an alternative meaning. Adducing another meaning of wiver (this time Old English) and guivre, "light javelin", and noting partial resemblances between the size and shape of javelins and snakes, plus the later medieval era's increasing use of heavy armor and decreasing use of light javelins, he proposes that the concepts of "venomous snake" and "light javelin" were melded to produce a new term for a previously unimagined concept of flying snake, a kind of dragon.
The earliest Greek literary reference to creatures explicitly described as "winged serpents" and "winged dragons" (πτερωτῶν ὀφίων and πτηνοὶ δράκοντες) appears in Herodotus' Histories where they come from Arabia to Egypt in spring but are stopped and killed by ibises (sacred Egyptian birds) waiting for them at the pass. Similarly, Euripides' Medea (431 BCE), where they are identified as the chariot steeds of Helios that transport Medea from Ancient Corinth. This motif was subsequently adopted by Roman authors, with Ovid's Metamorphoses (8 CE) providing an expanded description of these serpentine creatures possessing both wings and fiery breath. The conflation of serpentine and draconic features in classical literature established a precedent for the morphological ambiguity that would characterize medieval depictions of such creatures.
In medieval British heraldry, the earliest documented use of "wyver" appears in The Great, Parliamentary, or Banneret's Roll of 1312. The term derives from the Anglo-Norman wivre and Old French guivre "poisonous snake", both ultimately descended from the Latin vipera (viper), indicating the creature's fundamentally serpentine nature. Throughout the 14th and 15th centuries, heraldic texts demonstrate considerable terminological fluidity, with "dragon," "wyrm," and "wyver" often used interchangeably for two-legged winged serpents. The taxonomic distinction between four-legged dragons and two-legged wyverns emerged gradually during the late medieval period, becoming codified in English heraldry during the 16th century. This distinction was further elaborated in subsequent heraldic manuals, including Gerard Legh's The Accedens of Armory (1562) and John Guillim's influential Display of Heraldrie (1610), which established the iconographic conventions that would persist in British heraldry.
A wyvern is typically depicted resting upon its legs and tail, but may be depicted with its claws in the air and only supported by its tail. On occasion, a wyvern may be depicted as wingless and with its tail nowed.
A silver (argent) wyvern formed the crest of the Leicester as recorded at the heraldic visitation 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 than its legs are not depicted, being hidden or folded under.Geoffrey Briggs, Civic & Corporate Heraldry, London, 1971C. W. Scot-Giles, Civic Heraldry of England and Wales, 2nd edition, London, 1953A. C. Fox-Davies, The Book of Public Arms, London, 1915 This was adopted by the Midland Railway in 1845 when it became the crest of its unofficial coat of arms.Cuthbert Hamilton Ellis, The Midland Railway, 1953 The company asserted that the "wyvern was the standard of the Mercia", and that it was "a quartering in the town arms of Leicester".Frederick Smeeton Williams, The Midland Railway: Its rise and progress: A narrative of modern enterprise, 1876
A green wyvern stands in the emblem of the ancient city of Terni; the dragon is called by the name Thyrus by the citizens. A sable wyvern on a white background with endorsed wings forms the coat of arms of the Tilley family.
The arms of the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries depict a wyvern, symbolising disease, being overcome by Apollo, symbolising medicine.
Wyvern Zilant is depicted on the coat of arms of the city of Kazan, the capital of the Tatarstan.
The Railway Magazine, Vol. 102, 1897.Clement Edwin Stretton, History of The Midland Railway, 1901 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 Railway Magazine, Vol. 102, 1897 It has been associated with Leicester since the time of Thomas, 2nd Earl of Lancaster and Leicester (c. 1278–1322), the most powerful lord in the Midlands, who used it as his personal crest.
As a logo or mascot
The wyvern is a popular commercial logo or mascot, especially in Wales and what was once the West Country Kingdom of Wessex, but also in Herefordshire and Worcestershire, as the rivers River Wye and Severn run through Hereford and Worcester respectively. A local radio station was formerly called Wyvern FM. Vauxhall Motors had a model in its range in the 1950s called the Vauxhall 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.
Examples
See also
External links
|
|
