Talk:Harpy

Harpies & Horses

Harpies changed from beautiful winged women to vicious monsters? What?

• If I remember correctly, Harpies are depicted as horses in the Illiad, and it may have been their first form (winds ere associated with horses, and Harpies was nefast winds) -- Bloodstained Agar

Cleanup

Anyone else thinks this article needs cleaning up? I don't want to tread on anyones toes, but i think the links for "wing" and "women" can be removed, they don't really add anything, also a re-ordering/sectionning might be nice. If there are no replies, i'll have a go myself. i'd love to get a pic too ;) FrancisTyers 20:36, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

If anyone reads this, and thinks there is more cleanup to do, please add back the tag. CapnZapp (talk) 22:08, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, do we really need all those obscure references to computer games and anime? Don't get me wrong, I love video games. But they don't add a lot to the article. I think two or three examples of more widely-known usage in fiction would suffice, rather than all these - rather obscure - notes. Story Weaver 18:29, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Resolved (that stuff was moved out to a subpage and now removed) CapnZapp (talk) 22:08, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Disinfobox

The disinfobox, telling the reader that a Harpy is also known as a "baby stealer", that its habitat is "Land and Air", its "country" given as "World", has been deleted. No doubt there will be howls of dismay from our pre-teens... --Wetman 18:50, 28 March 2007 (UTC)[edit]

Harpies in Fiction Section

I am deleting the following text from the Harpies in Fiction section: In Gregory Maguire's "Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister," Clara (Cinderella) calls her stepmother an "old widowed harpy." "Harpy" is a term meaning a predatory or shrewish woman. It would be okay to mention that the term comes from harpies if that is true, but if we start listing every use of the term, this will be a very long and pointless article. :) I also agree about the video games. We don't need a list of instances, just a mention that it is a popular creature in games. --66.192.236.126 20:12, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

what about the Holyhead Harpies?

as in the quidditch team from Wales? They should be added to the Harpies in fiction section. (maybe - "The Holyhead Harpies is the name of a Quidditch team from Wales in the Harry Potter Universe.") horizon (talk) 13:43, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Vandalism

I removed some random words that were added in by someone. "pie fried chicken" ..Something along those lines anyway. If those were actually in any way relevant please feel free to revert it. Otherwise I seriously doubt it has anything to do with harpies.

24.222.205.225 (talk) 02:30, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Reverted to clean version. Wetman (talk) 02:40, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Harpies in popular culture

Just a heads-up: the Harpies in popular culture was removed (=replaced with a redir here). If there's anything you feel is worth saving, you'll have to copy it from that page's history to the corresponding section here. CapnZapp (talk) 22:10, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Harpy is a featured monster in World Of Warcraft, where they are said to live in large communities, attacking travellers and occasionally molesting the males of some species to procreate. http://www.wowwiki.com/Harpy

Will add to this Wiki if there are no objections. surfingus (talk) 20:28, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

"harpy" fountain

The creatures at the base of the fountain are clearly sphinx. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.250.245.59 (talk) 00:07, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

. . . the Ulster Druid Association?

I have to admit that I am not totally up on ancient Irish mythology, but this bit:

Chaney Bonnough (of ancient Irish Mythology) was a renowned harpy. She is best known for carrying around a satchel full of deadly poisons, often luring in defenseless woodland creatures and aspiring young novelists into a state of feigned friendship before tossing a vial of venom in their face. Some devout members of the Ulster Druid Association believe that Bonnough still lives to this day, imprisoned in the body of a teenage girl.

. . . would appear to be written by an aspiring young novelist of some sort to defame someone (s)he doesn't like. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 180.106.233.69 (talk) 10:38, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Etymology

Is the harpy really harpeia (harpeiae?) in Latin? What I have been able to dig up online so far are instead harpyria, harpyriae, feminin, apparently according to "A Latin Dictionary" by Lewis & Short, 1879.--SwordAngel (talk) 15:37, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

I was coming in to ask the same thing. The word appears in the plural form Harpyiae in Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898), and in the singular form Harpȳia in the Online Latin Dictionary. Harpyia is of course what you would expect from the Greek Ἅρπυια. Searching harpeia online seems to turn up mostly material related to the Final Fantasy game series, so it could be a variant spelling used by them, but unless someone can provide a source showing that harpeia is good Latin, I'll be bold and change it to harpȳia. --Iceager (talk) 10:29, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

Electra, mother of the Harpies.

The link on Electra in the article takes you to Electra, daughter of King Agamemnon, this is the wrong Electra. On the article of Thaumas (son of Gaia and Pontus), the link on Electra (his wife and the mother of the Harpies) takes you to the general article of Oceanids due to the absence of an article dedicated to Electra (Oceanid). So could someone change the link to the Oceanid article, and possibly add that this Electra is not to be confused with the Electra from greek tragedy? Mjones72 (talk) 23:11, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

done it myself and added 'daughter of King Agamemnon' instead of 'from greek tragedy' as i realise that the latter is based on the former. Is that okay? Mjones72 (talk) 23:21, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

"Baby stealer" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Baby stealer. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Steel1943 (talk) 21:18, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

Redirection

Can anyone tell me why "Acholoe" redirects here? Acholoe is a genus of marine annelids and I have created the page Acholoe (animal) but it is to anyone who searches for just "Acholoe" even though that string does not occur on this page. Robin Wilson (talk) 07:09, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

See [1], which quotes Hyginus, Fabulae 14, as saying: "The three birds Harpies, Alope, Acholoe, and Ocypet, are daughters of Thamas and Ozomene." However Mary Grant's translation of Hyginus, Fab. 14.3 has: "the three Harpies, Aellopous, Celaeno, and Ocypete, daughter of Thaumas and Oxomene". Notice that neither of these lists of Hyginus' Harpies agree with what our article list as the names given by Hyginus. I'm guessing there is some textual problem with Hyginus' Latin text here, which is corrupt in several places. Grant's 1960 translation, I believe, uses a now out-of-date Latin text. I can look in Smith and Trzaskoma's 2007 translation, when I'm home later today, to see what it says. Paul August ☎ 10:42, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

Smith and Trzaskoma's 2007 gives the same three names as Grant: Aellopous, Celaeno, and Ocypete. So based on this I think it is reasonable to conclude that the name "Acholoe' results from some older garbled version or translation of Hyginus' text. So I think we should delete the redirect Acholoe and move Acholoe (animal) to "Acholoe". Paul August ☎ 18:49, 7 June 2020 (UTC)