Manticore

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For the record label, see Manticore Records.

For the skateboard brand, see Manticore Skateboards.

For the comic and video game character, see Manticore (City of Heroes)

For fictional planet, see Manticore (Honorverse).

The manticore is a mythical creature, a kind of chimera with the head of a man — often with horns, gray eyes, three rows of iron teeth, and a loud, trumpet/pipe roar — the body of a (sometimes red-furred) lion, and the tail of a dragon or scorpion, which may shoot out venomous spines or hairs to incapacitate prey (thus confusing its imagery with the cryptozoology of a porcupine, though real tarantulas do something similar with their hairs). Occasionally, a manticore will possess wings of some description. Size reports range from lion-sized up to horse-sized.

The manticore was of Persian origin, where its name was "the Eater of People" (from early Middle Persian martya "human, mortal being" and xwar- "to eat"). The English term "manticore" was borrowed from Latin mantichora, itself borrowed from Greek mantikhoras - an erroneous pronunciation of the original Persian name. It passed into European mythology first through a remark by Ctesias, a Greek physician at the Persian court of King Artaxerxes II in the fourth century BCE, in his notes on India ("Indika"), which circulated among Greek writers on natural history, but have not survived.

The Romanized Greek Pausanias, in his Description of Greece, recalled strange animals he had seen at Rome and commented,

The beast described by Ctesias in his Indian history, which he says is called martichoras by the Indians and "man-eater" by the Greeks, I am inclined to think is the tiger. But that it has three rows of teeth along each jaw and spikes at the tip of its tail with which it defends itself at close quarters, while it hurls them like an archer's arrows at more distant enemies; all this is, I think, a false story that the Indians pass on from one to another owing to their excessive dread of the beast. (Description, xxi, 5)

Image:Manticora.gif

Pliny the Elder did not share Pausanias' skepticism. He followed Aristotle's natural history by including the martichoras — mistranscribed as manticorus in his copy of Aristotle and thus passing into European languages — among his descriptions of animals in Naturalis Historia, c. 77 CE.

Pliny's book was widely enjoyed and uncritically believed through the European Middle Ages, during which the manticore was sometimes illustrated in bestiaries. The manticore made a late appearance in heraldry, during the 16th century, and it influenced some Mannerist representations — sometimes in paintings but more often in the decorative schemes called 'grotteschi' — of the sin of Fraud, conceived as a monstrous chimera with a beautiful woman's face, and in this way it passed into the 17th and 18th century French conception of a sphinx.

Nowadays, the manticore is said to inhabit the forests of Asia, particularly Indonesia. The manticore can kill instantly with a bite or a scratch and will then eat the victim entirely, bones and all. Whenever a person disappears completely, it is said that the locals consider it the work of the manticore. An authentic eastern manticore tradition would clearly have to refer to the creature as a "manticore".

The manticore is also known as the "manticora", the "mantichor", or by a folk etymology, even the "mantiger". Outside occultist circles, the manticore was still an arcane creature in the Western world when Gian Carlo Menotti wrote his ballet The Unicorn, the Gorgon, and the Manticore in 1956.

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The manticore in literature, art, and popular culture

Like many other mythological creatures, the manticore is a popular monster in modern fantasy stories and games:

Gian Carlo Menotti's above-mentioned ballet, The Unicorn, the Gorgon and the Manticore.
The manticore appears in Jorge Luis Borges' Dictionary of Fantastic Zoology. [1]
The Caldari State's stealth bomber in MMORPG EVE Online is code-named "Manticore"
The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling includes manticores in its bestiary. In one novel, manticores are crossbred with Fire-crabs to create a new manticore/arthropod species called "Blast-Ended Skrewt".
In 2005, The Sci Fi Channel showed a TV movie called Manticore. It is about American soldiers in Iraq who discover a real manticore. [2][3]
The rock band Emerson Lake & Palmer used the name "Manticore" for their Atlantic Records releases. Additionally, one of their albums is called Return of the Manticore. [4]
In 2003, Roy Horn of the magic duo Siegfried & Roy was seriously injured when bitten by one of his white tigers named Montecore, a name likely derived from 'manticore'.
The manticore appears in Indian fantasy author Samit Basu's 2005 novel,The Manticore's Secret.
In Canadian writer Robertson Davies' "Deptford Trilogy", the middle novel is entitled "The Manticore".
Manticores appears as Myth Units in Age of Mythology and its expansion pack Age of Mythology: The Titans
Manticores also appear in the strategy game Heroes of Might and Magic III as creatures controlable by the Overlord and Warlock player classes.
In the 2004's hit film Napoleon Dynamite, the protagonist Napoleon elects the liger as his favourite animal; however, as he attempts to sketch it, he produces a ghastly image resembling a manticore.
In the hit online MMORPG Final Fantasy XI, players have the option to fight Manticores in various areas throughout the game. Additionally, a Manticore is the boss of the Bloodpool level in ActRaiser for the Super Nintendo.
The television show 'Dark Angel' featured a government initiative known as Manticore that created super soldiers by splicing together the genes of animals and men.
The graphic novel series The Books of Magic originally created by Neil Gaiman, though carried on by others, features a character which is found to be a Manticore.
Canadian Metal band 3 Inches of Blood released a bonus track on their Japanese release of Advance & Vanquish CD called "Quest for the Manticore".
The manticore appears in The Worm Ouroboros (1922) by Eric Rucker Eddison.
The manticore appears in the Xanth series by Piers Anthony in the book A Spell for Chameleon (1977).
The manticore appears in the A Song of Ice and Fire series by George R. R. Martin.
The manticore is pictured in Arthur Spiderwick's Field Guide to the Fantastical World Around You by Tony DiTerlizzi.
The Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game City of Heroes features a superhero named Manticore, who appears in game and in a series of comics based on the game. His name probably derives from the fact that his costume is red with a type of metal mane around his head and neck, and his primary weapon is a bow and arrow.
In the turn-based strategy game Age of Wonders 2: The Wizard's Throne, one of the units available is the manticore.
The online flash game Which Way Adventure (http://www.atrianglemorning.com/games/flash.php) often ended with the player being killed by a manticore.
The Manticore appeared in the television series Charmed.de:Mantikor