Thursday, June 5, 2008

Reptilian Proof? Part 2


Boreas (Aquilon to the Romans) was the Greek god of the cold north wind, described by Pausanias as a winged man with serpents between his legs.
( I'm not even gonna touch that one....)

Anyway, going a little further....
Boreas was the Greek god of the cold north wind and the bringer of winter. His name meant "North Wind" or "Devouring One". Boreas is depicted as being very strong, with a violent temper to match. He was frequently shown as a winged old man with shaggy hair and beard, holding a conch shell and wearing a billowing cloak. Pausanias wrote that Boreas had snakes instead of feet, though in art he was usually depicted with winged human feet.
( Okay, is he a Reptoid...or Prince Namor? )

Boreas was closely associated with horses ( Not Lizards) . He was said to have fathered twelve colts after taking the form of a stallion, to the mares of Erichthonius, king of Troy. These were said to be able to run across a field of grain without trampling the plants. Pliny thought that mares might stand with their hindquarters to the North Wind, and bear foals without a stallion. The Greeks believed that his home was in Thrace, and Herodotus and Pliny both describe a northern land known as Hyperborea ("Beyond the North Wind"), where people lived in complete happiness and had extraordinarily long lifespan.

The Roman equivalent of Boreas was Aquilo, or Aquilon. An alternate, rarer name used for the northern wind was Septentrio, a word derived from septem triones ("seven oxen") referring to the seven prominent stars in the northern constellation Ursa Major. Septentrio is also the source of the obscure word septentrional, a synonym for boreal meaning "northern".

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