Chimaera

In this week's episode, we're going back to my favourite place in mythology, to Ancient Greece and Rome to look at the legendary Chimaera! How many creatures is this monster made out of? What hero defeated them? Find out this week!

Transcript

INTRO:
Hello and welcome to Myth Monsters, my name is Erin and I’ll be your host for these little snack bite size podcasts on folklore and mythical monsters from around the world. 

These podcasts focus on the actual cryptids, folklore and mythic monsters from global mythology, rather than focusing on full stories of heroes and their big adventures.

I’ll also be dropping in some references that they have to recent culture and where you can see these represented in modern day content so you can learn more, and get as obsessed as I am about these absolute legends of the mythological world.

This episode is most definitely one I’ve been really looking forward to, and I’ve been amping up for outside of the show too. I’ve been playing Hades 2 since it came out in early access, but it came out fully in September and I cannot put it down, which happened when the original came out too. 

If you’re into your Greek mythology and you’ve not played this yet, please give it a go, even if you don’t like rogue-likes because it is phenomenal. The representation of some of our monsters is great and Supergiant really make some beautiful music for all their games.

DESCRIPTION:

Moving outside of video games, let's get onto this episode's titular monster instead. We are heading into Greek mythology this week and looking at the terrifying monster of legend, the Chimaera. 

So what is this monstrous creature? The Chimaera is typically described as a mountain-sized hybrid monster, having the body of a lion, goat and snake. What is slightly different about this one is that it’s the full bodies of all of these animals, so it’s literally made up of a lion, goat and snake - with three heads and three bodies. 

The lion is at the forefront, sharing a body with the goat, whose head sticks out of the spine and lastly, the snake acts as a tail, with the head rearing at the end, ready to attack. They have all of the features of these animals too, such as the venomous bite of the snake, agility of the goat and the teeth and claws of a lion to make them a really ferocious predator. 

All of these heads could talk and belonged to the same body, but almost embodied separate personalities, although within the specific myth it was a part of, it never speaks to the hero involved.

A fun thing that the goat can do is breathe fire, so it makes that part a little more interesting than just looking like they want to nibble your clothes. In fact, I have a quote from the Iliad about this; 

She was of divine stock not of men, in the fore part a lion, in the hinder a serpent, and in the midst a goat, breathing forth in terrible wise the might of blazing fire.

The Chimaera is a singular monster, and we believe that she is female - which is backed up in some tellings of their myth. She’s also a mother, famously one of the legendary parents of the Sphinx, the half-lion, half bird defeated by Oedipus and the Nemean Lion, who was one of Heracles’ labours to defeat. I’ve covered both of these in their own episodes if you want to hear more about them.

They’re also descended from a pair of legendary monsters, the epic Titans and mother and father of all monsters from Greek mythology, Typhon and Echidna. These two deserve their own episodes at some point and they will get one, but they had most of the monsters we know from Greek myth, making the Chimaera just one of many famous siblings, such as Cerberus, the three-headed guard dog of the Underworld, the Lernean Hydra, multi-headed monster of Heracles’ labours and Orthus, a two-headed guard dog, again a monster for the labours and consort of the Chimaera, so father of the Sphinx and Nemean Lion. 

You can find the Chimaera in one specific place, in the mountains of Lycia in modern day Turkiye, specifically on Mount Cragus, where she would hassle nearby towns with her fiery breath raining down on them. She was the size of this mountain, so she would sit in the crater until she got hungry for people-sized snacks. 

Once she was killed, she lived on the edge of the Underworld where she would guard alongside her brother, Cerberus to make sure no one got out.

But how can you kill the Chimaera? It was almost an impossible task. Whilst most monsters from Typhon and Echidna were able to be killed, they were boss-level fights and usually taken out by legendary heroes that were typically demi-gods sent on an epic quest. This case is no different, the Chimaera is completely immortal, so wouldn’t have died if you just left her there anyway and can’t be injured by mortal instruments, so you would have to think out of the box. 

To avoid spoiling the story of the myth I’ll tell you in a moment, I’ll just say that most of these monsters kill themselves with their own abilities and a bit of unique thinking from our heroes. But it is possible - you just wouldn’t stand a chance as a normal person. 

ORIGIN:

Moving onto their etymology, the word Chimaera is Greek of course and comes from the word chimaira, meaning ‘one-year old animal’ or sometimes ‘she-goat’. However, in modern language, a Chimaera is often used to describe any hybrid creature, so you would describe something like Frankenstein for instance as a Chimaera-like monster as he’s made up of different parts. 

For her history, we have to go back to the Ancient Greek philosophers, specifically Homer and Hesiod, who were around in the 8th century BC or 700-800 BC to be precise. Homer, very different from his Simpsons counterpart, was an incredibly intelligent poet, who wrote the Iliad and the Odyssey, two massively important and influential pieces of Ancient Greek literature which inform a good portion of our mythology knowledge from this time. 

Hesiod did the same, but isn’t as well known - he wrote the Theogony during this time, a collection of stories about the gods, their lineage and the creation of man within Greek belief - he’s responsible for the telling of Pandora’s box and Prometheus’ betrayal of the gods for instance. 

But how is this relevant to our monster - because both of these authors wrote about the story of Bellerophon. This is our hero story that brings the Chimaera into Greek myth and one you may not be as familiar with. Bellerophon was a demi-god child of Poseidon and had incurred the unjust anger of Proetus, the king of Argos, who wrongly believed that Bellerophon had seduced his wife. 

Proetus wanted Bellerophon dead but was too chicken to do this himself. So he sent Bellerophon to his friend Iobates, king of Lycia, with a letter containing instructions that the person who delivered it was to be killed immediately.

Iobates read the letter, and also didn’t want to kill this random bloke himself, especially not for someone else parring it off onto him. So he instead sent Bellerophon to fight the Chimera, which was terrorizing the countryside, expecting her to do said dirty work.

But no one knew that Bellerophon had the favor of the gods because his pa was the god of the sea. They helped him tame the immortal winged horse Pegasus with the help of Athena, goddess of tactics and wisdom. Bellerophon tracked down the Chimera and attacked it from above from Pegasus. 

After fighting for what seems like ages, he came up with a strategy to kill the Chimera: he attached a ball of lead to the end of a spear, which he then thrust into the goat’s fire-breathing mouth. As it melted down in the heat, the Chimera choked on the molten lead and died - I couldn’t say this earlier because it’s way too on the head to be like ‘you can kill it by melting metal into its mouth’. So I hope this answers that question from earlier.

The Chimaera was also featured in another myth, but a much lesser known one called the Sibyl of Cumae, a prophetic priestess, encounters the Chimaera during one of her visions. She interpreted this as an omen, the Sibyl advises her followers to be nice to each other to ward off the chaos and destruction that the chimera symbolises and tragedy avoids them thankfully because of her foresight. 

But this idea of disaster follows the Chimaera from her birth, where it was described as an event marked by ominous signs and wonders. The earth trembled and the skies darkened at the moment of her birth, prophesying that she would be a truly horrendous force to be reckoned with.

Lastly, during the Gigantomachy, the legendary fight between the Olympian gods and their giant cousins, the gods used the Chimaera to spread confusion and fear among the giants, with her terrifying appearance and fiery breath - I reckon that would have worked. 

In reality, the explanation behind the Chimaera is something that has been discussed. In Lycia, there are naturally occurring vents in the ground giving off methane, which sets on fire. There are eternal fires burning on that mountain to this day, so we believe that the myth of the fire-breathing monster might have come from seeing these in the distance, as they were also used as almost waypoints or lighthouses to sailors back in the day. 

We have a few similar mythical legends to this one, the big one is the Manticore - this one is actually mixed up with the Chimaera all the time. In fact, when I told my colleague I was covering this one, he described the Manticore to me very confidently and I had to politely correct him - which felt GREAT.

These hybrid lion-scorpions are another Greek monster, and because of their lion hybrid likeness, they’re often confused - so we’ll let you off this time if you get mixed up. 

Another is the Chinese Qilin, Bixie and Tianlu, which were all hybrid monsters - but in Chinese pottery and art, the word Chimaera was used to describe them, which is super interesting from a culture half-way across the world with not many paths crossing either.

I’ve covered the Qilin and the Manticore in their own episodes and both of the Bixin and Tianlu are yet to be covered, but will be in the future - so if you wanted to know more about those, do check out their separate entries.

CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE: 

Now onto modern media, surprisingly, there’s a few bits on the Chimaera, but I’ve filled it out with a few extra hybrid bits that work too.

For art, have a look at pottery art from Bellerophon’s myth for great, ancient and real depictions from Greeks of the Chimaera, or at the mosaics of the fight too. Otherwise, have a look at independent art for super cool, modern takes by modern artists.

In movies, we have; Wrath of the Titans, Coco, Animal Crackers, The Fly, Alien, Beauty and the Beast,  Shrek 2, Prometheus, Jurassic World, Underworld, Splice, The Monster Club & The Omen.

For TV, we have; SPY×FAMILY, Mon Colle Knights, Bakugan, Kamen Rider, Kyūkyū Sentai GoGoV, Bleach, Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, American Dragon: Jake Long, Mythic Warriors: Guardians of Legend, Class of the Titans, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Long Ago and Far Away, The Godzilla Power Hour, Mission Odyssey, Hercules: The Animated Series & Jentry Chau vs The Underworld.

In video games, we have loads such as; God of War, Sylphia, Tavern Talk, Gauntlet, Age of Mythology, Final Fantasy, Shining Force, Kirby and the Forgotten Land, Red Earth, Tekken, Zeus: Master of Olympus, Warcraft 3, Blade Chimera, Hades, Titan Quest, Clash of The Titans, Fate/Grand Order, An Egyptian Tale, Born Under the Rain, Dragalia Lost, Golden Sun, A Very Long Rope to the Top, Dragon’s Crown, Abracadabrall, Slashout, Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness, XCOM: Chimera Squad, World of Warcraft, Dragon’s Dogma, Persona 5 Royal, Grimms Notes & Shin Megami Tensei.

My book recommendation this week is for Mythos & Heroes by Stephen Fry, The Greek Myths: The Complete and Definitive Edition by Robert Graves, Greek Mythology: The Gods, Goddesses, and Heroes Handbook by Liv Albert, host of Let’s Talk About Myths, Baby! & The Greek Myths: Stories of the Greek Gods and Heroes Vividly Retold by Robin & Kathryn Waterfield for some great Greek myth tellings that I personally enjoy the most.

DO I THINK THEY EXISTED? 

Now it’s time for, do I think they existed?

Definitely not lol. It’s a hybrid of a lion, goat and snake, and the snake got put at the butt, and I don’t think any snake would be happy with that arrangement. Also the lion would eat the goat bit, and I don’t want to hear the argument that it wouldn’t eat itself, cats are dumb - trust me I have two. 

Whilst I do think the Greeks’ love of hybrid monsters is unshakable and frankly, mad - I also really love them, and like I said in our last episode on Sharabha, hybrid monsters are usually created to reflect all of the natures of these creatures coming together in one being, and all of these, maybe except the goat, make sense. The goat is an anomaly to me honestly, maybe it’s the kicking or the urge to eat literally anything that makes it a solid hybrid selection. 

Whatever way you want to look at it though, this scientific monstrosity definitely is not something you would want to bump into, but you also probably wouldn’t bump into - and it’s okay because we believe there was only one and Bellerophon killed it, so we’re relatively safe - but not safe from the idea that a lion, goat and snake share the same body in some ancient belief system. 

Anyway, it’s a legendary monster - do I believe it existed, no. But do I think it’s super cool and deadly, hell yeah I do. And it’s a testament to the human imagination when there was no internet or picture books, so I take off my hat to the person who invented the Chimaera and long may it live in our history books and not in reality because that lion would definitely eat that goat - I’m just saying.

But what do you think? Did the Chimaera lie in wait for a hero in Turkiye somewhere? Let me know on social media!

OUTRO: 

One of my absolute favourite monsters ever this week, and you know I love a Greek monster, especially one involved in such a legendary story like the Iliad and one that gets killed by another mythical creature too! 

Next week, we’re heading over to one of my favourite unsung mythologies of the world, the Inuit mythology to look at a shapeshifting, child-napping menace. So look out for their permanent red-eyes for the Ijiraq next time on the show.

For now, thank you so much for listening, it’s been an absolute pleasure. If you enjoyed this podcast, please give it a rating on the service you’re listening on - I’ve got loads of social media for any questions, or suggestions on what monsters to cover next and I’d love to hear from you. The social media handles for Tiktok, YouTube and Instagram are mythmonsterspodcast, twitter is mythmonsterspod and BlueSky is mythmonsters. But all of our content can be found at mythmonsters.co.uk, and you can also find us on Goodpods, Buymeacoffee and Patreon if you want to help me fund the podcast too.

Come join the fun though and share this with your pals, they might love me as much as you do.

But for now, stay spooky and I’ll see you later babes.