Author interview with the griffin lady

[Kessie]

I just conducted my first author interview!

netraptor.org/blog/2012/08/author-interview-jess-owen/

This lady wrote a book about griffins on an Island-like island, and the main griffin's attempts to prove himself to his conquering king, but at the same time, learns about his heritage and talks to the wolves. It's called Song of the Summer King. If you like animal fiction, you'll love this. It's wonderful.

[metalikhan]

Sounds cool!

Although I went through the fascination with unicorns when I was a preteen, griffins nudged them aside as my favorite mythological creature. There's a lot of lore about them, but they never had the same amount of fictional representation as other beasts. That seems to have changed only recently -- in the last decade or so.

And congrats on doing your first author interview, Kessie! ;D

[newburydave]

I included Griffins in one of my stories, but they were just one of the background predators who had the sense to abandon Atlantis before the Elusions blew it up with volcanic activity so the Abyssian hordes couldn't use it as their Star Base.

Um, I guess you had to read the book (not published yet).

Well, it's tired and I'm late

SGD
dave

[Divides the Waters]

I used a variant of a griffin briefly in Bid the Gods Arise, but because it didn't have wings, I didn't call it a griffin. Wondering now if I should have, in order to help people visualize it.

[metalikhan]

I used a gryphon (old spelling of griffin) as a conduit for healing and justice in one of my stories.

Divides, you would've been correct to call your creature a griffin. The wingless ones, although rarer, were a known variation. And in heraldry, the wingless ones were male; the winged ones, female.

Lore surrounding griffins is fascinating. Because they combined the king of beasts with the king of birds, they symbolized courage, royalty, judgment, intelligence, boldness, and protection. In mythology, a griffin was sometimes a companion of Nemesis and helped deliver justice to criminals who'd otherwise escaped punishment for their crimes. Later, the Church used the griffin as a symbol for Jesus; its dual nature (terrestrial and aerial) represented Christ's duality as both divine and human as well as His kingship.

Not bad for an imaginary critter.

[Kessie]

There's lots of websites drawing parallels between protoceratops and griffins. Apparently there were shepherds and other peasants out in Russia that knew of a creature that went on all fours and had a hooked beak, and they were afraid of it. That's why the griffin in Roman mythology was more like a real animal. No magic powers, it had mates and young and guarded treasure, and that was about it.

And really, google a protoceratops and tell me that if you had to look at one, then go home and draw it from memory, it wouldn't look like a griffin. Bird head, cat hindquarters.

[Divides the Waters]

I think the evidence linking the protoceratops with the griffin is pretty strong.

There's still time to change the name of the animal in my book. But then, nothing else is a representative of a known mythological creature, so I'm not sure if that would take the reader out of the story.

[Kessie]

Naw, just call it a griffin. If you're writing fantasy, let the dragons be dragons and let people draw their own mind pictures. :-)