[Mehrbod]

Manticore
aka: Mantikhoras, Martyaxwar

The manticore is a Persian legendary creature similar to the Egyptian sphinx. It has the body of a red lion, a human head with three rows of sharp teeth (like a shark), and a trumpet-like voice. Other aspects of the creature vary from story to story. It may be horned, winged, or both. The tail is that of either a dragon or a scorpion, and it may shoot poiso
nous spines to either paralyze or kill its victims. It devours its prey whole and leaves no clothes, bones, or possessions of the prey behind. The manticore myth was of Persian origin, where its name was "man-eater".

The manticore is said to be able to shoot its spines either in front or behind, curving its tail over its body to shoot forwards, or straightening it tail to shoot them backwards. The only creature reputed to survive the poisonous stings is the elephant. Thus, hunters rode elephants when hunting the manticore. The manticore is said to be able to leap in high and far bounds; it is an excellent hunter, and is said to have a special appetite for human flesh. Occasionally, a manticore will possess wings of some description.

The earliest accounts of the existence of the manticore come from the Persian courts in the fifth century B.C., documented by Ctesias, a Greek physician at the Persian court. Greek and Roman authors (Aristotle, Pliny) described the beast the same way the Persians had.

In the middle ages, the manticore was the emblem for the profit [sic] Jeremiah because the manticore lives in the depths of the earth and Jeremiah had been thrown into a dung pit. At the same time, the manticore became the symbol of tyranny, disparagement and envy, and ultimately the embodiment of evil. As late as the 1930s it was still considered by the peasants of Spain, to be a beast of ill omen.