The Griffin (Greek gryphos, Persian ??????? shirdal "lion-eagle") (also very often spelled gryphon and, less commonly, gryphen, griffon, griffen, or gryphin) is a legendary creature with the body of a lion and the head and wings of an eagle. As the lion was considered the "King of the Beasts" and the eagle the "King of the Air", the griffin was thought to be an especially powerful and majestic creature. The griffin is generally represented with four legs, wings and a beak, with eagle-like talons in place of a lion's forelegs and feathered, equine-like ears jutting from its skull. Some traditions say that only female griffins have wings. Some writers describe the tail as a serpent. See the entry Saint George and the Dragon for a 19th century painting of St George and the dragon, showing a dragon very like a classically-conceived griffin. Classical and heraldic griffins are male and female. A "male" griffin, called a keythong in a single 15th century English heraldic manuscript, is an anomaly that belongs strictly to a late phase of English heraldry.----------------------------Tales of griffins and the Arimaspi of distant Scythia near the cave of Boreas, the North Wind (Geskleithron) were elaborated in the lost archaic poem of Aristeas of Proconnesus, Arimaspea, and eagerly reported by Herodotus and in Pliny's Natural History. The griffin was said to build a nest, like an eagle. Instead of eggs, it lays agates. The animal was supposed to watch over gold mines and hidden treasures, and to be the enemy of the horse. The incredibly rare offspring of griffin and horse would be called hippogriff. Griffins were consecrated to the Sun; and ancient painters represented the chariot of the Sun as drawn by griffins. The griffin was a common feature of "animal style" Scythian gold; it was said to inhabit the Scythia steppes that reached from the modern Ukraine to central Asia; there gold and precious stones were abundant; and when strangers approached to gather the stones, the creatures would leap on them and tear them to pieces. The Scythians used giant petrified bones found in this area as proof of the existence of griffins and to keep outsiders away from the gold and precious stones. It has recently been suggested that these "griffin bones" were actually dinosaur fossils, which are common in this part of the world.