29/08/2026
How do you know an animal doesn’t exist when you’ve simply never seen it?
In medieval bestiaries, griffins appeared alongside lions, elephants, bears and other creatures of the known and unknown world. They were said to live in distant lands, with the body of a lion and the head and wings of an eagle, fierce enough to carry away a man, or even an ox.
And there seemed to be evidence.
So-called griffin claws were kept in European churches and treasuries, and enormous eggs were believed to have come from their nests. One inventory from Durham Cathedral in 1383 even records two griffin claws and several griffin eggs. Today we know that the “claws” were most likely ibex horns, while the eggs were probably ostrich eggs.
I think that’s what I love most about medieval creatures. The line between the real and the marvellous wasn’t always where we would draw it today. Somewhere beyond everything you knew, perhaps there really were griffins.
So I made one of my own, cut and engraved by hand in sterling silver, tangled in ivy, with a small Carnelian hanging beneath.
