Hippocampus mythology vs kelpies11/10/2023 True hippocamp creatures count the Breaching Hippocamp and Wavebreak Hippocamp of Theros (20) and the Surge Mare card of the 2018 base set.A hippocampus made of water and possessing wings appears as the steed of the Cavalier of Gales. The first hippocamp was the steed of the Vodalian Knights card in 1994 similarly, hippocamps are used as steeds by the tritons of Theros, a plane based on Greek myth. ![]() ![]() Hippocamps from Dominaria, the game's original central setting, have fairly standard horse bodies and fish tails, but Theros' possess large, showy fins and even crustacean plating on their mammalian portions. Magic: The Gathering: Hippocamps have appeared uncommonly in the game, either as steeds for merfolk, tritons and other aquatic characters or, more recently, as creatures in their own right.The hippocamp has no connection to any Brain Monster whatsoever. ![]() Combine it with centaurs and you get ichthyocentaurs, which go on Our Centaurs Are Different. Compare to Our Kelpies Are Different for another kind of water horse. A Sister Trope to Seahorse Steed, Seahorses Are Dragons, and Dolphins, Dolphins Everywhere. Modern works typically use the Latinized hippocampus/hippocampi, Anglicize it into hippocamp/hippocamps, or simply translate it directly into "sea horse" or "water horse".Ī Sub-Trope of Cool Horse and Our Mermaids Are Different. The former means "water" and the latter, as said before, "horse". "Hydrippus" is a Latinified combination of "hydros" and "hippos". The former means "horse" and the latter "sea monster (in the sense of something with a long, flexible tail)". If seahorses and hippocamps show up in the same story, they're either the same sort of thing or the seahorse will be on the person end of things and the hippocamp on the animal end of things.įor the record, "hippocamp" is shortened from "hippocampus", which is a Latinified combination of "hippos" and "kampos". "Seahorse", of course, is the name of a real-life fish, and to keep things confusing its genus name is Hippocampus. Most are part of North-West European folklore and none are hippocamps as defined by Classical Mythology, but they may be depicted in the form of a hippocamp.ĭue to their mythological origins, hippocamps are commonly found in settings or regions associated with the Mediterranean, fantasy stand-ins thereof, Greco-Roman myth, Lords of the Ocean, Atlantis when presented as an undersea city, and mermaids in general. The aforementioned term "water horse" is a catch-all for water spirits of equine form, whether permanent or part of the time, such as the Scottish kelpie. Different depictions may alter how much the fish and horse parts blend into each other some may have purely equine front halves and fishlike tails, but others may give hippocamps flippers or webbed claws instead of hooves or long fins instead of manes. Most modern-day depictions omit the wings or turn them into fins. These may be taken literal, but also symbolical because wings may signify speed instead of actual flight. Classical art regularly gives the creature wings. Hippocamps are a favored mount among the rest of the sea deity crowd too. ![]() Several sources describe four-legged horses, but more often they're depicted as hippocamps. Horses were imagined as the creation of the sea god Poseidon, who'd either ride on them or have them pull his shell chariot over the waves. The oldest known depictions of hippocamps are from 4th Century BC Phoenicia and the creature was known around the Mediterranean, making its way to modern times through Classical Mythology. What makes the difference is that for most of history, hippocamps had a presence in art only and never got any legends attached to them. Although not as popular as pegasi, unicorns, and centaurs, hippocamps have been around for just as long. It is also known as a hydrippus, a sea horse, and a water horse, but those last two terms have other meanings too. You take the front half of a horse and the back half of a fish and that's a hippocamp(us) a merhorse, so to say.
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