Quote Originally Posted by chimera View Post
Arlen,
It is most interesting that the unicorn may have pre-dated James 1. That would confirm its joint Scot and Cymri Celt tradition. The Gordon dragon is relevant here, and connects with the next reply.
MacMillan,
Lions have always been militant symbols and the joint goat-lion combines horns with it. To Greeks, billy-goat "krios" was a monster due to its charging with horns, and the battering ram on galleys was a "kriomachin" goat machine. The Greek hero Bellerophon riding Pegasus the winged horse, battled the goat-lion Chimera and "poured lead down its fiery throat and killed it". Lead bullets for sling-shots have been excavated in Greece. Chimera then became Mount Olympias volcano in "Turkey" and a guardian of the dead, keeping out the dishonest.
_ "Handbook Greek Myth" H Rose. p.83.
The horned-lion is carved on Persian palaces of 6th and
5th centuryBC, and the site I copied is of a gold ornament of that time, now in Metropolitan Museum NY. This dates from 2 centuries after the Homer legend of Chimera.
He wrote of Chimera being daughter of Kelto snake-woman,
daughter of Brettanos of Gaul._"Python-Delphic Myth" Fontenrose. UCal. 1959. p.97-9. (Diodorus 5.24 Parthenion Alcman 30). Kelto and Hercules produced Keltos, "the Celt".
Kelto was a viper, and Greek "dracos"means a snake, hence "dragon". The Chimera is on many artworks and was carved as a gold sculpture by the Etruscans in Italy 6th century BC. That connects with Rome and the time of Scots before they sailed across to the Highlands. Some Celts were in "Turkey" from 4th centuryBC and "Hungary" a century before, where Scythians also had moved in.
(this stuff gets me going...)
All well and good, but this really has nothing to do with Scottish heraldry. Heraldry wasn't even around in the 6th century.

T.