Grimmer than these scarce any prodigy, nor any plague e'er rose at the wrath of the gods from the Stygian waves: a winged thing with maiden’s face, belly o'erflowing and most foul, a hooked hand, and face hunger-pale forever.
Like
centaurs,
mermaids,
fauns and satyrs, harpies are mythical creatures that take the form of
Half-Human Hybrids — in this case, one half is
a woman and the other half is a bird, usually a bird of prey. They originated in
Greek Mythology, where they often took the job of punishing mortals for their misdeeds. This punishment frequently took the form of snatching away or befouling people's food, hence their name which comes from the Greek word for "snatcher." They also can be considered as
Anthropomorphic Personifications of violent winds.
They can
vary widely in appearance. Most of the time they are seen as ugly, but they were originally described as beautiful, and often are subject to the
Gorgeous Gorgon effect. The ratio of human to bird can also vary from human-faced bird to
Winged Humanoid. In many classical depictions, their arms are their wings. They often come in
groups of three, and are often given the names of Aello, Celaeno, and Ocypete.
Related to the
other mythological half-woman half-bird creature, the
Enthralling Siren. Sirens and harpies are confused almost as much as
sirens and mermaids, usually by giving harpies beautiful voices.
The real life animal, the harpy eagle, is named for them, and their tendency to be
Always Chaotic Evil has led the word "harpy" to be used to describe any unpleasant woman.
Examples:
Anime and Manga
Card Games
Comic Books
- The Incredible Hulk: The Leader turned Betty Ross into a Gamma powered Harpy once, and in World War Hulk's "Gamma Corps", the Hulk's old enemy the Clown was turned into the Griffin with Gamma technology, specifically based on Betty as the Harpy.
Film
Heraldry
- The "Great Arms" of the Imperial City of Nuremberg originally depicted an eagle with a king's head; over the decades this was Flanderized into a harpy.
Literature
- Celaeno first appears alongside her fellow harpies in The Aeneid, where she prophesies that before Aeneas and his men find their home, they will become so hungry that they will eat their tables.
- The Black Jewels trilogy includes them as the new forms of dead women who were killed violently by men.
- Dante's The Divine Comedy puts them in hell, specifically the area inhabited by people who have committed suicide.
- A rare heroic (and gorgeous) harpy, Chewppa, is the lead female protagonist of Book 5 of Grey Hawk Adventures novels.
- While there's no evidence of the existence of actual harpies in the Harry Potter universe (the veela are the closest thing to them), there is a Quidditch team called the Holyhead Harpies, that's made up entirely of women.
- In His Dark Materials, harpies guard the underworld.
- The Last Unicorn includes the harpy Celaeno.
- They make an appearance in a Dream Sequence in Last Exit To Brooklyn.
- They appear in Ronja the Robber's Daughter, possibly with a different name.
- The Secret Of Platform 13 has them as the Island's Good Is Not Nice police force. Eventually, a team is dispatched to rescue the prince when the less nightmarish team of rescuers seem to be failing.
- Peter David's Sir Apropos Of Nothing has male harpies, called "harpers", mainly as an excuse for a "Harper's Bazaar" pun.
- The Solomon Kane story "Wings in the Night" has them pop up in Africa. They're called akaanas, and they like to eat people, and are notable for being the only time that Solomon Kane has gone berserk.
- Xanth harpies are ugly old hags who attack via curses. The One Gender Race and Gorgeous Gorgon aspects of them are played with, in that there are a few rare male harpies who are the good-looking ones; this is explicitly (not that kind of explicit, they're not that kind of book...usually) contrasted with the goblins, which in Xanth are mostly ugly males with a few beautiful females.
- Also it becomes clear in one of the novels that young female harpies are actually very pretty; it's not until they grow up that they become ugly.
- In A Song of Ice and Fire, the harpy is the symbol of the fallen civilization of Old Ghis.
- In the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, harpies help keep curfew at Camp Half-Blood... by eating any camper stupid enough to break it.
Live-Action TV
Myth And Legend
- One of the obstacles faced by Jason and the Argonauts.
Tabletop Games
- Harpies appear as a flying unit for Dark Elves and Hordes of Chaos in Warhammer. They are a One Gender Race, winged female humanoid, group of scavengers and snatchers. The issue of beautiful vs ugly Harpies comes to a head since they are depicted as attractive but only from the belly up to the neck as a "parody of a woman's body".
- Dungeons & Dragons Harpies are the ugly bird ladies with beautiful, enrapturing voices.
- The Harpie Lady monsters from Yu-Gi-Oh!.
Theater
- Ariel disguises himself as one in The Tempest to deliver a message.
Video Games
Web Comics
Western Animation
