Pegasus
The winged horse of Greek myth, born from the neck of Medusa when Perseus beheaded her, tamed by Bellerophon and later the steed of the Muses and a common charge in heraldry.
Meaning
Pegasus is the winged horse that sprang from the Gorgon Medusa when Perseus cut off her head. Hesiod says his name comes from the springs (pegae) of Ocean where he was born, and that he flew up to the gods and carries Zeus’s thunder and lightning; Apollodorus adds that his father was Poseidon. Corinth put him on its coins, and our drawing follows those coins, the archaic wing curling forward. Since then he has stood for poetry, as the horse of the Muses, and for swiftness, and he is the badge of the Inner Temple in London.
Origin and history
John Vinycomb gives the Corinthian legend: the hero Bellerophon caught Pegasus as he came down to drink at the spring of Pirene below the citadel of Corinth, with the help of Athena (Minerva), who taught him to tame and ride the horse. Riding him, Bellerophon killed the Chimera, as Hesiod already says. Vinycomb also retells Pindar’s ending: Bellerophon tried to fly up to heaven, angered the gods, and was thrown, and Pegasus went on alone to the stables of Zeus.
Pegasus is also the horse of the Muses. Vinycomb records the story that the spring Hippocrene on Mount Helicon gushed out when he kicked the mountain.
On coins and in heraldry
The winged horse was the main type on the coins of Corinth, Vinycomb writes, and Corinth’s colony Syracuse took the winged horse and the head of Athena for its own coinage. In heraldry, he says, the pegasus stands for fame, eloquence and poetry, though some heralds read it simply as swiftness.
The Inner Temple
The Society of the Inner Temple in London bears a pegasus in its arms. Vinycomb repeats a theory about where it came from: an early seal of the Knights Templar shows two knights riding one horse, and a worn impression of it may have been taken by Elizabethan lawyers for a pegasus. He calls it “exceedingly probable”; it remains a theory.
Read next
- Next in Mythical creatures of Greece and EuropeGriffinA creature with the head, wings and fore-claws of an eagle and the body of a lion: in Greek writers the guardian of gold in the far north, and in heraldry one of the commonest beasts, standing for strength and vigilance.
- Pegasus sprang from Medusa’s neck when Perseus beheaded her (Hesiod, Apollodorus)MedusaThe Gorgon whose gaze turned people to stone, beheaded by the hero Perseus. Her staring face, the gorgoneion, was put on shields, temples, cups and coins to frighten off harm. Since about 2021 a Medusa tattoo has also been widely worn as a sign of surviving sexual violence.
See also
Chimera, Minotaur, Centaur, Hydra, Harpy, Siren.
Sources
- Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns and Homerica (tr. Hugh G. Evelyn-White), Hesiod, Theogony; Shield of Heracles; The Homeric Hymns, translated by Hugh G. Evelyn-White (Loeb Classical Library, 1914), Project Gutenberg eBook #348, Project Gutenberg, Theogony, lines 270–294 and 319–325
- Apollodorus, Library 2.4.2 (tr. J. G. Frazer), Apollodorus, The Library, translated by Sir James George Frazer (Loeb, 1921), 2.4.2, Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University, Library 2.4.2
- Fictitious and Symbolic Creatures in Art (John Vinycomb, 1906), John Vinycomb, Fictitious & Symbolic Creatures in Art, with Special Reference to Their Use in British Heraldry (London: Chapman and Hall, 1906), Project Gutenberg, The Pegasus, pp. 137–140
The same shape elsewhere
Browse symbols formed from curves and waves.
Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed October 10, 2026. How we research
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