The mythological creature. Head, wings and tallons of an eagle, rear of a lion.
Many of the Dungeons and Dragons novels include griffins (they’re pretty standard fantasy monster fare). I have one recollection of griffins being summoned as transport for the adventuring party in Tracy Hickman’s / Margaret Weis’ famous Dragonlance Chronicles trilogy. I could be mixing this up with another one of those novels, however.
Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series has a castle guarded by a griffin, a winged horse, and a wyvern. I’d recommend the ninth and tenth trade paperbacks if you’re just interested in griffins.
Thanks guys!
Oh, I forgot the ‘stories’ part of the question. Check out these links on Griffins (or Gryphons) in Greek mythology and art:
Bullfinch’s Mythology
Mythography
And, since I found such an excellent link while Googling, here’s a
link that provides an extensive list of griffins in literature.
try “A Griffin in the Garden”
http://hallkidspoetry.com/fairy_tales_folk_tales_myths/732.shtml
or about 50 books on this list
<trivia moment>
The Spanish word for faucet or water tap is “grifo” (griffin) because the first ones were in the form of a griffin. It sounds so weird in English though: The kitchen griffin is dripping… better call the vet… errr, the plumber.
</trivia moment>
lol sailer!
General Questions is for questions with factual answers. Cafe Society is for discussions about literature and such-like.
I’ll move this to Cafe Society for you.
DrMatrix - General Questions Moderator
Mercedes Lackey has a trilogy of books titled, in order, The Black Gryphon, The White Gryphon, and The Silver Gryphon. The first is pretty good, the second slightly less good, and the third sucks on toast.
Roger Zelazny’s Unicorn Variations has a cute short story with a griffen
The Sword in the Stone has a griffin episode. Unfortunately, Sir Kay slays the thing in mid-attack.
There’s an episode of Family Guy where Peter (Griffin) is in a restaurant or something, trying to come up with a fake name, so he names off things he sees around him: “Pea… eater… griffin.”
The list linked here includes one of my favorite books of all time, “Orlando Furioso” by Lodovico Ariosto.
Check that one out.
Truly a great read!
T.H. White’s The Book of Beasts is a translation (with commentary) of a medieval bestiary. Well worth reading, for lots of reasons. The Dover edition has a griffin on the cover. It’s a period illustration (it’s inside the book, too), and illustrates the section on griffins.
I highly recommend Adrienne Mayor’s The First Fossil Hunters, which has a chapter on griffins, and a probable explanation of their genesis and development.
and Dijon Warlock beat me to Alice in Wonderland. Read the Martin Gardner-annotated edition, if you can.
I’m pretty sure there’s one in Clifford Simak’s inferior fantasy The Fellowship of the Talisman. At least I remember one being on the cover :D. That’s frankly about all I remember about it, other than it bit. Hard. I’m fond of Simak and his “pastoral” style of science-fiction, but I recall thinking this attempt was pretty crappy.
So it might not be worth your time 
.
- Tamerlane
The Harry Potter books have hippogriffs (half-horse/half-eagle) in them. They’re close cousins of griffins.
“The hippogriff is a beast that is half horse and half griffin. The griffin, in turn, was half eagle and half lion. The hippogriff was therefore one-quarter eagle, which is $2.50. The study of biology is full of surprises.”
– Ambrose Bierce The Devil’s Dictionary
(In case you don’t know, the Eagle was a gold U.S. coin that disappeared around 100 years ago. It was worth $10, and had an eagle on one side.)