Centaurs are mythical creatures that possess the combined physical characteristics of humans and horses. These creatures are depicted with the torso and head of a human being attached to a horse's body.
Centaurs are known for their wild and barbaric nature. They are often depicted as untamed and violent, which contrasts with their human side.
Mythology[]
According to Greek mythology, the Centaurs were created as a result of a series of events involving Ixion, a king of Thessaly. Ixion, in an act of defiance and disrespect towards the gods, attempted to seduce Hera, the wife of Zeus.
This act infuriated Zeus, who decided to punish Ixion in a unique way. Zeus created a cloud in the guise of Hera and placed it next to Ixion. From this unusual union between Ixion and the cloud, the Centaurs were born.
The result of this peculiar union was the creation of beings with the upper part, including head and torso, of a human, attached to the lower part of a horse. This combination of human and equine characteristics defined the nature of the Centaurs.
Behavior[]
In Greek mythology, centaurs were considered wild and violent beings. They were known for their unruly behavior and their fondness for wine, which often led them to commit acts of violence and debauchery. Centaurs were feared by humans, as they could appear suddenly and attack without warning, especially women.
A famous example of the brutality of the centaurs is the story of the wedding of Pyritoo, king of the Tombstones. During the celebration, the centaurs were invited and became intoxicated with wine. In their state of inebriation, they attempted to kidnap the women present, which sparked a violent battle between the pencilites and the centaurs. This story clearly illustrates the wild and violent side of the centaurs in Greek mythology.
Alleged Centaur reports[]
For thousands of years centaurs, monsters with the torso of a man and the body of a horse or other animal, have generally been regarded as mere fantasy beings, below we will highlight some testimonies from different times of people who have claimed to see them in our reality or at least reports of them.
The following excerpt comes from the book “The First Fossil Hunters” by historian Adrienne Mayor. The author wonders if time and nature really could have produced populations of such strange creatures as these, as the myths claimed. If centaurs ever existed in certain places and are not just an invention of folklore, he reasoned that they must have been at least a temporary fauna of the remote past.
Palephact's claim in the 4th century BC that if centaurs ever existed, then they would still be seen alive, was literally expressed in a series of centaur sightings in the Roman period, during the reign of Emperor Claudius (41-54 AD). Officials in Arabia claimed that a small herd of centaurs still inhabited the Sauna, a remote mountainous wilderness infested with poisonous plants. Despite the danger, one of these living fossils was captured and transported to Egypt as a gift to the emperor.
The “Book of Marvels”, originally the work of the historian Phlegon of Tralles, describes this fact: “A centaur was found in Sauna, a city in Arabia. It was a very high mountain that is replete with a deadly drug. The drug came to the same name as the city and among the fatal substances it is extremely fast and effective. The centaur was captured alive by the king, who sent it to Egypt along with other gifts for the emperor. Its sustenance was meat; however, it did not tolerate the change of air and died, so the prefect of Egypt embalmed it and sent it to Rome. At first he was exhibited in the palace. His face was fiercer than a human face, his arms and fingers were hairy, and his ribs were connected with his forelegs. Its stomach had the firm hooves of a horse and its mane was tawny, although as a result of embalming its mane along with its skin was darkened. In size it did not match the usual depictions, although it was not small either. It was also said that there were other centaurs in the city of Sauna mentioned above. It is told that the centaur was apparently coated with honey, a preservative used when transporting corpses over long distances.”
The writer and naturalist Pliny the Elder, in his work “Natural History,” claimed to have seen for himself the body of a centaur, probably the same specimen. Claudius Caesar writes that a centaur was born in Thessaly, but died the same day. “In his reign I personally saw a centaur brought here from Egypt, preserved in honey.”
Reports of such creatures today are sporadic, but apparently in certain regions they occur much more frequently than in others. The following report happened in Ireland, this according to Graham McEwen's “Mysterious Animals of Britain and Ireland”. McEwen entitles the next monster as “The Horse Man of County Louth”.
It happened sometime in the spring of 1966, when Margaret Johnson and her boyfriend John Farrell were driving past Lord Dillon's estate in County Louth, Ireland. Suddenly, what looked like a huge horse appeared in the road and blocked their path for a few minutes. Upon closer inspection, they both froze as they realized that this horse's head was like that of a man. Its face was grotesque with very protruding eyes. Witness Margaret Johnson described the entity as a huge horse with the face of a man and horrible bulging eyes. I could see from John's face that he saw it too. The thing had the body of a horse, but it was the leering, hairy, huge face that was most startling. The couple sensed that the entity emanated an aura of malevolence until it abruptly disappeared.
The website “Phantoms and Monsters” has records of eyewitnesses who claimed the existence of centaurs. The following report occurred in Melbourne, Florida. Three friends and I saw an apparition, possibly a demon, when we were about 10 years old. Myself, another boy and his two sisters were riding our bicycles together on a sidewalk that ran outside our neighborhood. The end of that sidewalk is on a beachside road in Bellevue, Florida. As I approached the road, with me in the lead, they put their hand on my shoulder. When I looked at them, both girls were looking straight ahead with tears in their eyes and the boy pointed at me to look. Not knowing what they might be pointing at, because I was looking in that direction when they stopped me, I looked and saw what I can only say was a centaur on the sidewalk between us and the road. The sun had just risen and was at the creature's back, so the whole figure was in semi-darkness, but I could make out that it had a very muscular body. It had a reddish torso, four horse legs and was over six feet tall. Next to it was a thicket of palm trees from which a person in an ingenious disguise could have jumped, although the speed of the appearance and the incredible detail of the creature would make me doubt that.
Lon Strickler, author and researcher, received the following report from a Navajo man about the presence of possible centaurs near a Navajo reservation in northwestern New Mexico. When my father's friend was younger, he was an Apache reservation police deputy. I believe it happened in the early 1980s. One night he was keeping watch alone on the reservation, driving down the deserted road through town. When he got to the church, he saw something moving back and forth along the church, looking out the windows. He stopped the vehicle on the road and watched for a while. It was too dark to make out much at first. Then, the dark shape noticed him and began to move out of the shadows toward the front of the church. I forget exactly if he then moved the vehicle into the parking lot to intercept the man or if he stopped the vehicle shortly after making a move, but either way, the headlights helped illuminate what he saw. Beneath the orange light of the streetlights was a seven-foot-tall centaur demon. The bottom half was actually a dark-haired horse, while where the neck and head should have been, was the upper torso of a man. The man was staring at it as it passed, all four hooves clattering across the pavement. His skin was a dark red and he had horns on either side of his head. He said they were like ram's horns curled up on both sides.