This is a drawing of Grisn the Kaprik-Usshu, a character we meet in The Archer From Kipleth. He's pretty huge and very grouchy. That's all I'll say... spoilers. :)
The Archer From Kipleth has been out long enough for me to say something about Grisn. We meet his sister Josr in The Lord of Lightning.
They are hybrids of dragon and mountain goat, and very, very old, the last and probably the only of their kind.
I actually used some interesting mythology to come up with these creatures.
First, obviously, I used the idea of the Capricorn from the zodiac. But I did a lot of digging and found that the Capricorn idea comes from an ancient Chaldean water god, you guessed it, half goat, half fish. The Babylonian water god was named Ishu. So that's where that part of the name comes from. Ishu was the fore runner of the Capricorn.
Then, with the goat idea in my head, I researched the divine goats in the Norse legend of Thor.
Thor has two goats that pull his chariot through the sky. Their names are 'Snarler'-Tanngrisnir and 'Biter'-Tanngnjostr in the old norse.
When we first meet Grisn in The Archer From Kipleth, the colossal animal 'snarls' at Lord Stavolebe.
So you can bet that when we meet Josr, she's going to do a lot of 'biting'. :D
So a little reverse engineering had me thinking, well what if the story of these impressive beasts was handed down and transformed through time? Mixed up and muddled by human minds, and...
Sorry, that Chaldean water god was Apsu. And the origin of the Capricorn is very old, going back to Babylon and it's water god Ea. Of course the word Capricorn comes from Latin for 'horned goat'. The Romans didn't invent the zodiac; they picked it up from much older Middle Eastern cultures.
3 comments:
The Archer From Kipleth has been out long enough for me to say something about Grisn. We meet his sister Josr in The Lord of Lightning.
They are hybrids of dragon and mountain goat, and very, very old, the last and probably the only of their kind.
I actually used some interesting mythology to come up with these creatures.
First, obviously, I used the idea of the Capricorn from the zodiac. But I did a lot of digging and found that the Capricorn idea comes from an ancient Chaldean water god, you guessed it, half goat, half fish. The Babylonian water god was named Ishu. So that's where that part of the name comes from. Ishu was the fore runner of the Capricorn.
Then, with the goat idea in my head, I researched the divine goats in the Norse legend of Thor.
Thor has two goats that pull his chariot through the sky. Their names are 'Snarler'-Tanngrisnir and 'Biter'-Tanngnjostr in the old norse.
When we first meet Grisn in The Archer From Kipleth, the colossal animal 'snarls' at Lord Stavolebe.
So you can bet that when we meet Josr, she's going to do a lot of 'biting'. :D
So a little reverse engineering had me thinking, well what if the story of these impressive beasts was handed down and transformed through time? Mixed up and muddled by human minds, and...
Ta-da!
The Kaprik-Uusshu.
Kurt
Sorry, that Chaldean water god was Apsu. And the origin of the Capricorn is very old, going back to Babylon and it's water god Ea.
Of course the word Capricorn comes from Latin for 'horned goat'. The Romans didn't invent the zodiac; they picked it up from much older Middle Eastern cultures.
Another clue:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mushussu
Post a Comment