Three-Legged Animals in Mythology and Folklore

Lloyd D. Graham

Although it seems that no animal – extant or extinct –

was designed to walk on three limbs,1 a recent model in
evolutionary biology suggests ‘tripedal knuckle-walking’ as
an intermediate stage in the development of our own bipedal
locomotion. A tripedal tool-carrying posture (Fig. 1) provides
a plausible explanation for the morphological asymmetry
(right- or left-handedness) that is unique to hominids.2 With
the possibility of a tripedal protohominid in our direct line of
descent,3 it is perhaps no wonder that three-legged creatures
feature in the mythologies of many cultures.

For example, the chan chu or jin chan is the three-legged money toad of Chinese folklore.
A lunar symbol, such a toad once lived in a deep pool and was able to expel a poisonous
exhalation to keep people at bay. It was said to
have escaped from Liu Hai, a human (born 10th
century CE) who went on to achieve immortality.
However, Liu Hai re-captured the toad in the 17th
century CE by baiting it with a gold coin. He then
tied it up, slung it behind him and either dis-
appeared into the sky with it or destroyed it.4
Although the symbolism of the legend appears to
be that the allure of money will prove the undoing
of men, statuettes of the money toad (usually
shown seated on a pile of cash and/or with a coin
in its mouth; Fig. 2) are popular nowadays as feng shui instruments to attract wealth into
homes and businesses.5

Another tripedal creature of Asian mythology is the sanzuwu, or three-legged crow

(Fig. 3)6, whose representation has been found on
Neolithic pottery from the Yangshao culture (5000-
3000 BCE). The most popular depiction of sanzuwu
is as Yangwu, a golden crow identified with the sun,
who was first described in words by the poet Kui
Yen in 314 BCE.7 In Japanese mythology the
equivalent creature is the raven or ‘jungle crow’
Yatagarasu, a portent of divine will and heavenly
intervention; it features in the Shinto canon, and is
said to have guided the first Emperor of Japan on an
important journey. In terms of Taoism and the I
Ching, its three legs can be taken to represent

1
Heaven, Human, and Earth. In Korean mythology, the cognate bird, Samjokgo, is an
emblem of power superior to both the dragon and the phoenix.

With the chan chu money toad it is clear that the front legs form a pair and the single
back leg is central, but with the foot at an angle to the main axis of the body (Fig. 2).
While artistic representations of the three-legged Asian crows are often stylized or
ambiguous to the point that the exact leg placement is uncertain, these usually seem to
follow the same pattern as the toad (e.g., Fig. 3). Occasionally, the third leg is placed
immediately between the two ‘natural’ ones so that the three form a straight line
orthogonal to the main axis of the body. Depictions in which the third leg is placed front-
and-centre seem to be rare or absent.

Interestingly, there are grounds for believing that the Asian three-legged birds have a
Western origin.8 Conceptually related images appear on ancient coins from Lycia and
Pamphylia (on the north-eastern coast of the Mediterranean), of which Compte d’Alviella
writes:9
The sun, which […] was often typified in Asia Minor by a disk from which radiated three
legs united at the thighs [i.e., a triskele], was likewise symbolised there by different animals,
such as the lion, the wild boar, the dragon, the eagle, and the cock. Now some Asiatic coins
exhibit the cock beside the triskele [Fig. 4a: a coin of Aspendus, Pamphylia]; on others, the
triskele is superposed upon, or rather stuck to the body of, a bird, or a lion, without the
aspect of the latter being changed on that account [Fig. 4b: another coin of Aspendus,
Pamphylia]; elsewhere, finally, the two parallel symbols, first placed near and then upon
each other, literally blend together, the three legs of the triskele being transformed into
cocks’ heads, or monsters’ busts, which revolve in the same direction round a central point
[Fig. 4c: a coin of Lycia].

The triskele, a motif characteristic of the European Celts of the Iron Age, is related to the
triple-spiral (of which there is a fine Neolithic example at Newgrange, Ireland), and
triskeles comprised of human legs form the national symbols of both Sicily and the Isle of
Man. Further south, the association of three-legged birds with the sun is reported to
extend to some North African mythologies.10

2
It is also in the Afro-Mediterranean world, and particularly around the Saharan zone, that
we encounter another ancient but less well known tradition of three-legged animals, most
often in the form of tripedal statuettes of cows, sheep and horses. Terracotta figurines of
this type have been recovered in Mali from archaeological digs at the tumulus of el-
Oualadji (a burial mound near Goundam; e.g., Fig. 5a) and at Jenné-jeno (the site of the
ancient city that preceded Jenné), which are 280 km apart in the Inland Niger Delta, as
well as from riverside surface collections in the Niger Bend region (e.g., Fig. 5b,c). The
finds, along with any associated context, are summarized in Table 1.

Table 1. Tripedal terracotta animal figurines from excavations in Mali

Location Phase Approx. dates Cow Other Ref.

El-Oualadji 1000-1050 CE11 1 (bull?) 3* Desplagnes

Jenné-jeno I/II 200 BCE-400 CE 4 - McIntosh

III 400-800 CE 7 1 McIntosh
III/IV 800-900 CE 2 1 McIntosh
IV 900-1400 CE 5 - McIntosh

Surface
Niger Bend 5 (sheep) Desplagnes
1 (camel) Desplagnes
Inland Niger Delta 1 (sheep) McIntosh

Figurine lengths are typically 3-7 cm. References are Desplagnes 12 and McIntosh.13 In the latter reference,
some excavated figurine fragments (none unequivocally tripedal) are tentatively identified as horses, which
have been in West Africa since at least the 9th century CE.
* Of these three zoomorphs, one (Fig. 5a) attracts comment for its large teats/udders and the other (not
illustrated in the source document) for the ‘well-developed genitals’ equipping its prominent hindquarters,
which suggests that these animals are female and male, respectively.

3
In contrast to previous examples, the legs of these African animals are invariably
arranged with two paired at the rear (as normal) and one placed centrally at the front.
Susan Keech McIntosh comments that the bovine terracottas (which include the many
tripedal examples) are humpless and are stylistically similar to other cattle figurines
found throughout the Sahel from the Late Stone Age into the Iron Age (a transition which
occurred locally from the 6th century BCE to the first few centuries CE14).15 She also
observes that most of the statuettes are relatively crudely made. Desplagnes’ commentat-
ors, making the same criticism of his finds, suggest that they were toys made by children,
a proposal that does not sit comfortably with the prominent genitalia adorning the largest
(9 cm) of the figurines (Table 1, footnote). Indeed, this and one other of the three tripedal
zoomorphic figurines excavated at el-Oualadji were discovered within the funeral
chamber at the centre of the tumulus, these being the only statuettes found in this setting.
A ritual purpose for figurines of this type does not of course preclude a broader – or
perhaps later – use of similar animal shapes as children’s playthings. Of the el-Oualadji
animal figurines in general, Desplagnes’ commentators say:16
They are without doubt objects modelled by children in accordance with a preconceived
model figuring three-legged animals; all the specimens bear in effect two clearly separated
posterior limbs and a single anterior limb. It is worth noting that, according to H[enri]
Lhote, a comparable type is still modelled by the Saharan children of the Hausa, Songhai,
Tuareg and Haratin peoples.

At least one other large (13 cm) and well-executed Jenné

terracotta zoomorph with the same leg configuration has been
found in central Mali (Fig. 6). This example, which in style
resembles the few known Ténenkun pieces,17 is ascribed to
the 12th-13th centuries CE.18
Fig. 6. Sketch of Jenné terracotta

4
It seems that the concept of the three-legged mammal has been retained to modern times
in the art of West Sahelian/Sudanian statuary, insofar as a
few Jenné (Fig. 7) and Dogon cire perdue bronzes19 of
(presumably) more recent origin20 feature three-legged
horses cast with the same leg configuration. While Fig. 7
is unambiguously tripedal, in other cases it looks as if a
second foreleg may originally have been present. The
Dogon bronze horse in Fig. 8 balances stably thanks to an
inward-curving foreleg and a tilt away from the
unsupported side caused by rear legs of slightly different
length; the patina indicates that the absent limb was lost
or removed soon after manufacture, and may even have
been cast as a stump. As with the bronze equestrian, it
seems that wooden Dogon horsemen are sometimes
carved on three-legged mounts that have an asymmetric
placement of the single front leg, like quadruped
amputees.21

Tripedal animal figurines also occur in modern East Africa. An unfired clay figurine with
the same leg arrangement as Fig. 7, but with a more serpentine neck and square snake-
like body markings (Fig. 9), was used until the mid-20th century in the male puberty
initiation rites of the Zigua people (Tanzania). The figurine, which was placed briefly in
the groin of the novice, is associated with the ritual verse ‘The great snake is a creature
that creeps slowly.’22 The item’s curator –
government sociologist Hans Cory –
comments that the ‘imaginary animal with
three legs […] is the symbol of the slowly
growing maturity of the boy.’23 Similarly, in
the female initiation rites of the Nguu people
(Tanzania), a clay figurine of a three-legged
animal, whose unpaired leg (at front centre) is
much longer than the other two, represents a
man hunting by night for girls.24

The sexual excitement of the Jenné horse in Fig. 7 recalls the comment (above) about
well-developed genitalia on some of its terracotta antecedents in the Desplagnes
collection; a three-legged Dogon bronze stallion, ascribed to the 16th-19th centuries CE, is
similarly well endowed.25 In regard to this surrogate ‘fourth leg,’ it is interesting to note
that there may be an ancient connection between the male sexual principle and the
missing leg of tripedal beasts. Specifically, it has been proposed that the Mycenaean bull
cult equated the leg of the animal with its sexual organ, and that sacrificing such a limb to
the goddess26 left the bull as a three-legged creature whose nature was symbolised by the
tripodal form of the prophetic seat and sacred vessel of the Delphic oracle. In a discussion
of the letter sequences ti-ri-po-de and ti-ri-po in the Mycenaean tablet 641 from Pylos
(Ventris-Chadwick 236, ca. 1200 BCE),27 which are followed by iconograms of vessels
with three feet, Tina Martinotti writes:

5
 We have already discussed […] the importance of the leg of the animal, and the repres-
entations of Mycenaean bull hooves like semen-emitting phalluses. Logically, the male
treads the female with his foot. The tripod, subsequently, is a representation of the sacri-
ficial animal, the one who ‘disappears,’ who goes into the hereafter and who loses the leg
that is dedicated to the goddess. He is left with only three legs. Such is the observation of
the rite, which was finally accomplished in connection with the tripod.28

The tripod was the holiest object in Delphi. This sacred object, from which the Pythia
received her oracles and which clearly represented the sacrificed animal whose leg had been
dedicated to the goddess, is not quoted casually. [...] Thus we come to show that TI-RI-PO-
DE augmented by an iconogram of the tripod must be translated ‘Offer as a (burnt) sacrifice
he who dies and whose leg is consecrated ... in the tripod.’29

If an echo of this ancient formula underpins the tripedal design of West African animal
figurines, the absent fourth foot with which ‘the male treads the female’ belongs to a
foreleg (Figs. 6-8), just as in the East African clay figurines (e.g., Fig. 9) the phallus is
represented by the frontal third leg of the shape-shifted humans.30 Perhaps the
equivalence even originated in Africa. A very old cult practice that focuses on the
offering of a life-imparting bovine foreleg is the ancient Egyptian ‘Opening of the
Mouth’ ceremony, a re-vivification ritual for the recently deceased king. The defining
myth of death in ancient Egypt is Seth’s murder of Osiris, which the former may have
accomplished in the form of a bull and by use of his foreleg.31 In avenging the murder,
Osiris’s son Horus ripped off Seth’s foreleg and testicles,32 a suggestive pairing in which
we may again see the equivalence of phallus and front leg. In the royal funerary ritual, the
foreleg of a living calf was amputated and touched to the dead king’s mouth, or an iron
adze was used to symbolise the severed limb.33 ‘Both could bring life as well as death to
the recipient and, therefore, were very important objects.’34 The bovine foreleg imparted
new life in the ritual, just as the phallus did in conventional biology. Although scholars
have proposed that ‘major contractions of the amputated forelimb’s muscles [provided]
very dramatic demonstrations that the full measure of the sacrificial bull’s ‘magic’ of life
was being transferred to the deceased,’35 the orgasmic symbolism has gone unnoticed.36

In the ancient Greek world, the bull may not have been the unique focus of sacrificial
traditions of the Mycenaean kind, insofar as a three-legged horse skeleton was discovered
in a prehistoric burial tumulus at Marathon.37 At the very least, an extrapolation over time
from bovine to equine forms would be quite natural, given that bulls and stallions both
serve as symbols of male sexuality. Throughout Scandinavia, for example, the stallion
largely replaced the bull as a symbol of power and virility.38

Interestingly, it is in Scandinavia that we find another three-legged male horse – the

helhest or ‘ghost horse.’ Here the semiotic focus is not on sexual prowess but rather on
‘going into the hereafter,’ in that this phantom serves as a harbinger of death in the
folklore of Denmark and Schleswig. It is associated with the kingdom of the dead, Hel,
and is the steed of the Scandinavian goddess of this realm, who also bears the name Hel.
The helhest was supposed to appear at night, typically in cemeteries, and to announce the
death of anyone who saw or heard it,39 the sound of its triple footsteps being
unmistakable.40 While the horse may be construed as a maimed quadruped, many

6
depictions (e.g., Figs. 10 & 11)41 portray a centrosymmetric leg configuration identical to
the African prototypes discussed above (Figs. 5-7 & 9). Considered to be black (for death)
or – less commonly – white (for pestilence), one version describes ‘an uncanny white
schimmel, blind, three-legged and ridden by an old woman in black, it stalks though the
village at midnight, and in whatsoever window it looks, in that house somebody will
die.’42 Jacob Grimm’s study of Teutonic mythology (1883) says of the helhest that ‘he
goes around the churchyard on his three legs, he fetches Death,’ and supplies a number of
other Danish sayings about the horse.43 It is also mentioned in de Plancy’s Dictionnaire
Infernal (1818).44 To conform with tradition, a live horse was allegedly buried in each
Danish cemetery before any human interments so that the animal could transform into a
psychopomp who would guide subsequent arrivals into the afterlife.45 The concept of the
three-legged death-horse may perhaps derive from Sleipnir, the eight-legged steed of
Odin, who was able to descend into the infernal regions. Odin was supposed to appear to
blacksmiths during the twelve days of Christmas and require three horseshoes from each
smith, on pain of great misfortune, a demand from which it is easy to infer a three-legged
mount.46 According to a nineteenth-century study of medieval folklore, Sleipnir is also
the helhest or Hell-horse, straddled by Hel when she spreads all imaginable evils on
earth.’47

The three-legged ‘ghost horse’ also seems to have been known in Central Europe. In the
16th century, Johannes Kunze (b. ca. 1532) intermittently held the post of mayor in Horní
Benešov, a town near the Czech-Polish border. Following his untimely death in 1592, he
reappeared as a vampiric revenant who caused great disruption to his family and who
‘wreaked great havoc in the area, riding around on a three-legged horse.’48

Not all tripedal equids are inauspicious, nor are they always horses. A three-legged
donkey with positive connotations plays an important role in Indo-Iranian creation
mythology, especially in the Pahlavi book Bundahišn.49 The donkey is of enormous size,
with each footprint equivalent to the area occupied by a thousand sheep. It has other

7
anatomical abnormalities as well, including ‘six eyes, nine mouths, two ears, and one
horn.’50 The donkey is located in the middle of the Vourukasha/Frakhvkard/Varkash
Sea,51 the vast ocean to the south and south-east of the Asian continent,52 where its
braying causes fertility among beneficial ocean-dwelling creatures53 and its urine (or, in
other texts, its gaze) purifies the oceanic waters from pollution.54 Amir Zamani has
recently suggested that the donkey may be a representation of the Indo-Iranian deity
Mitra, to whom the missing limb has been sacrificed;55 its three extant legs ‘may
represent the three powers of Mitra.’56 However, older scholarship identifies the donkey
as ‘a three-legged ass, that is, a lame ass (or the solar horse who has become lame during
the night, in the same way as the solar hero becomes lame, or a lame devil).’57

A more definite instance of the three-legged solar horse may be found in Ireland. There,
‘folk tradition maintained that Finnbheara was the king of the Connacht fairies and that
he had an interest in feasting, sporting contests and horse racing. He owned a three-
legged horse which can be seen to be modelled on the solar horse, a mythical animal that
gave rise to the epithet Eochaidh Ollathair (“horseman, all-father”), which is an
alternative designation for the Daghda.’58 Eochaidh – pronounced ‘yok-ee’ – is cognate
with the English word ‘jockey,’ and the Daghda (meaning the ‘good god’) was the
supreme pre-Christian deity whose palace was the Neolithic monument of Newgrange59 –
a site already mentioned as the home of a fine triple-spiral petroglyph. It seems that
Finnbheara’s three-legged horse combines the solar attributes of the Asian three-legged
birds, which we considered early in the discussion, with the fertility of the stallion, which
we encountered in Afro-Mediterranean contexts as a symbol of virility; jointly, the two
attributes probably constitute a generic allusion to the sun-given bounty of the
agricultural cycle.

To bring the discussion full circle, let us close by considering the chanchito – a three-
legged pig from the Chilean village of Pomaire which is traditionally crafted as a pottery
figurine. Like the similar-sounding chan chu, which we encountered near the start, the
chanchito is believed to bring good fortune; it also shares the leg configuration (i.e., two
front and one back) of the money toad.60 An effigy of a mythical Estonian treasure-
bringer known as a kratt may be made in quadruped form but – like the luck-attracting
pig and toad – ‘there was also a three-legged creature with two legs in front and one in
the back.’61 As the Slavic kratt was originally a treasure-bearing serpent with nocturnal
associations (specifically, a flying ‘serpent of enrichment’ associated with meteors or
comets), and since the kratt counts the toad among its animal manifestations,62 there may
be some genuine continuity between it and the Chinese chan chu.63 The Chilean
chanchito, however, must be an instance of ‘convergent evolution’ in folklore; perhaps
the underlying concept is simply that, for any three-legged variant of a quadruped, ‘being
able to stand is a sign that he/she must be lucky.’64

In summary, we have seen that tripedal locomotion potentially formed a stage in our own
evolution, and that three-legged animals have been associated in myth and folklore with
the whole spectrum of human concerns. Their attributes encompass the sun and divine
power (East Asian crow and Irish horse), the night sky and earthly wealth (Chinese toad
and Estonian serpent), good luck in general (Chilean pig), aquatic fertility and purity

8
(Indo-Iranian donkey), the male sexual principle (Mediterranean bull, East African
initiation figurines and perhaps West African stallion), amusement for children (Saharan
mammal figurines), and even sacrifice and death (Mediterranean bull, Scandinavian
ghost-horse, and West African funerary figurines). While there are no doubt prototypes
that have been overlooked and further associations yet to be discovered, it should already
be clear that the concept of the three-legged creature has fired the human imagination
since the earliest times. Derided or neglected all too often, tripedalism has provided
inspiration and symbolism that deserves wider acknowledgement and appreciation.

Cite as: Lloyd D. Graham (2011-22) Three-Legged Animals in Mythology and Folklore, online at
https://www.academia.edu/444355/Three-Legged_Animals_in_Mythology_and_Folklore.
Text (excluding quotations) and Figs. 7-8 are © Lloyd D. Graham, 2011. v08_07.02.22.

Notes
Unless otherwise stated, information from online resources was retrieved during Jan 2011.

1
Thomson, T.J. (2019) Three-legged locomotion and the constraints on limb number: Why tripeds don’t
have a leg to stand on, BioEssays 41, article 1900061, https://doi.org/10.1002/bies.201900061,
accessed 3 Feb, 2022.
2
Kelly, R.E. (2001) Tripedal knuckle-walking: a proposal for the evolution of human locomotion and
handedness, Journal of Theoretical Biology 213 (3), 333-58. On tripedal gaits in extant primates, see
Hunt, K.D., Cant, J.G.H., Gebo, D.L., Rose, M.D., Walker, S.E. & Youlatos, D. (1996) Standardized
descriptions of primate locomotor and postural modes, Primates 37 (4), p.363-387, at p.377-378 (in
travelling while holding an item); Webster, C., Jusufi, A. & Liu, D. (2019) A comparative survey of
climbing robots and arboreal animals in scaling complex environments, In: Robotics and
Mechatronics: Proceedings of the Fifth IFToMM International Symposium on Robotics &
Mechatronics (ISRM 2017) [Mechanisms and Machine Science 72], eds. R. Yang, Takeda, Y.,
Zhang, C. & Fang, G., p.31-45, at p.35-36 (gibbons, climbing). The latter reference also suggests a
‘tripedal’ climbing mode for parrots (p.32) in which the bird’s beak serves as a ‘third foot,’ while
many animals with tails adopt a static “tripod stance;” Thomson (2019), Three-legged locomotion,
p.3-5.
3
The scientific proposal of a three-legged form in humanity’s youth forms a perfect counterpoint to the
classical image of the senescent human travelling on three feet (one of them a cane), which of course
forms part of the solution to the ancient Greek ‘Riddle of the Sphinx.’ See, for example, online at
https://sites.pitt.edu/~edfloyd/Class1130/sphinx.html, accessed 3 Feb, 2022.
4
Chan chu, online at http://www.anthro.uci.edu/html/Programs/Anthro_Money/ChanChu.htm; Volker, T.
(1975) The Animal in Far Eastern Art and Especially in the Art of the Japanese, Brill, Leiden,
p.167-8.
5
Chan chu, online at http://www.anthro.uci.edu/html/Programs/Anthro_Money/ChanChu.htm.
6
Courtesy of Mekugi, via GNU Free Documentation License v1.2 at Wikimedia Commons:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Yatagarasu_A.jpg.
7
Volker (1975) The Animal in Far Eastern Art, p.39.
8
Volker (1975) The Animal in Far Eastern Art, p.39.
9
Comte Goblet d’Alviella, E.F.A. (1891) La Migration des Symboles, Leroux, Paris, p.222.
10
Williams, Y. (2010) Legendary creatures in Africa, 24 Apr, online at http://www.unexplainable.net/Info-
Theories/Legendary-Creatures-in-Africa.shtml.

9
11
McIntosh, S.K. & McIntosh, R.T. (1986) Recent Archaeological Research and Dates from West Africa,
Journal of African History 27 (3), 413-442.
12
Leboeuf, A.M.D. & Pâques, V. (1970) Archéologie Malienne – Collections Desplagnes, Catalogues du
Musée de l’Homme, Serie C, Afrique Noire 1 (Supplement au tome X, 3, d’Objects et Mondes,
Revue du Musée de l’Homme), p.23, 45-47 & 53-54.
13
McIntosh, S.K., ed. (1995) Excavations at Jenné-Jeno, Hambarketolo, and Kaniana (Inland Niger Delta,
Mali), the 1981 Season [University of California Publications in Anthropology 20], University of
California Press, p. 125, 219-21 & 238-9.
14
Miller, D.E. & van der Merwe, N.J. (1994) Early metal working in sub-Saharan Africa: a review of
recent research, Journal of African History 35, 1-36.
15
McIntosh (1995) Excavations at Jenné-Jeno, p.214
16
Desplagnes, L. (1951) Fouilles du tumulus d’El Oualadji (Soudan), annoté par R. Mauny, Bull. IFAN
XIII (4) 1159-1173; Leboeuf & Pâques (1970) Archéologie Malienne, p.45. Translated from the
French by LDG.
17
The five published Ténenkun statues are either bipedal or quadrupedal, but Fig. 6 resembles them in
shape and style. Schaedler, K-F. (1997) Earth and Ore: 2500 Years of African Art in Terra-cotta
and Metal, trans. Burwell, G.P. Panterra/Minerva, Munich, pp.62-63.
18
In this case, as in a few other Jenné/Dogon figurines, the front leg is slightly thicker than the rear ones.
Online as item 827 at http://www.memoiredafrique.com/en/djenne/galerie-amis.php; original is
currently online as cat. PF.3049 at Barakat Gallery,
http://www.barakatgallery.com/store/index.cfm/FuseAction/ItemDetails/UserID/0/CFID/2561863/C
FTOKEN/b136c3161965c8ae-5304A03C-3048-33BC-
FC5D691716CC73ED/jsessionid/84309a4e8e8ed998a4012183412b2848266a/CategoryID/30/SubC
ategoryID/488/ItemID/7390.htm.
19
Technically the copper alloy is almost always brass, but it is traditional to refer to such statues as
‘bronzes.’
20
On the basis of art, language and cultural practices, the Dogon are thought to derive from the original
inhabitants of the Inland Niger Delta; in particular, Dogon bronze figurines have been connected
with the terracottas of Jenné-jeno. de Grunne, B. (1988) Ancient sculpture of the Inland Niger Delta
and its influence on Dogon art, African Arts 21 (4), 50-55.
21
For example, online at http://fr.auction-in-europe.com/index.py/object_details_archives/cid/1598054.
22
Cory, H. (1956) African Figurines: Their Ceremonial Use in Puberty Rites in Tanganyika, Faber & Faber,
London, p.68, item 42.
23
Cory (1956) African Figurines, p.159.
24
Cory (1956) African Figurines, p.116-117, item 113.
25
Barakat Gallery, cat. PF.9662, online at
http://www.barakatgallery.com/store/index.cfm/FuseAction/ItemDetails/UserID/0/CFID/2561863/C
FTOKEN/b136c3161965c8ae-5304A03C-3048-33BC-
FC5D691716CC73ED/jsessionid/8430bdd5a78cd27a30437728612d292c6ce1/CategoryID/30/SubC
ategoryID/488/ItemID/21950.htm.
26
One must wonder if there is not some overlap here with the story of the Bull of Heaven and Ishtar in the
Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh, which dates from ca. 2000 BCE. After Gilgamesh and Enkidu had
killed the Bull of Heaven (Taurus), which had been sent as a punishment by Ishtar, Enkidu was so
annoyed with the goddess that he tore off the right hind leg of the Bull and threw it at her [de
Villiers, G. & Prinsloo, G.T.M. (2002) Gilgamesh sees the deep: From shame to honour, Journal for
Semitics 11 (1), p.23-44, at p.37]. As Ishtar then assembled her courtesans, prostitutes and harlots to
mourn the severed leg [George, A. (1999) The Epic of Gilgamesh, Penguin, London, p.53], we may
assume that the term ‘haunch’ or ‘thigh’ (used of the leg) is a euphemism and that the amputation
included or focused upon the bull’s genitals [e.g., Butler, R.M. (n.d.) Introduction to Classical
Mythology: Gilgamesh & Greek Interpretations of Myth, accessed 16 Nov, 2016, online at
http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~cla204s/III.1.html]. Similarly, the Mycenaean cult under discussion
in the main text involves the removal of a bull’s leg – equated with its sexual organ – in order to
transfer it to a goddess. Of course, there are differences; in the Mycenaean case, the limb is a foreleg
rather than a hindleg, and it is sacrificed to the goddess as an offering rather than thrown at her as an
insult.

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27
Colvin, S. (2007) A Historical Greek Reader: Mycenaean to the Koiné, Oxford University Press, p.77-79.
28
Martinotti, T. (2008) Linéaire B: TI-RI-PO-DE et l’iconogramme “tripode” dans la tablette 236=Ta 641
de Pylos, Preprint (version 2; 28 Feb, 2008) online at http://hal.archives-
ouvertes.fr/docs/00/25/96/35/PDF/Lineaire_B_TI-RI-PO-DE.pdf.
29
Abstract of previous reference in Scientific Commons, at http://en.scientificcommons.org/54823532.
30
The equivalence may have an antecedent in the Ancient Near Eastern practice of using ‘hand’ as a
euphemism for penis, e.g. George (1999) The Epic of Gilgamesh, p.50.
31
Gordon, A.H & Schwabe, C.W. (2004) The Quick And The Dead: Biomedical Theory in Ancient Egypt,
Brill, Leiden, p.78.
32
E.g., Hart, G. (2005) The Routledge Dictionary of Egyptian Gods and Goddesses, Routledge, Oxon,
p.144.
33
Gordon & Schwabe (2004) The Quick And The Dead, p.73-79.
34
Gordon & Schwabe (2004) The Quick And The Dead, p.78.
35
Gordon & Schwabe (2004) The Quick And The Dead, p.79.
36
On the involvement of the mouth, note the parallelism of semen and saliva in ancient Egyptian thought.
Ritner, R.K. (2008) Mechanics of Ancient Egyptian Magical Practice [Studies in Ancient Oriental
Civilization 54], Univ. Chicago, p.75-78.
37
Vermeule, E. (1979) Aspects of Death in Early Greek Art and Poetry [Sather Classical Lectures 46],
University of California Press, p.227.
38
Davidson, H.R.E. (1988) Myths and Symbols in Pagan Europe: Early Scandinavian and Celtic Religions,
Syracuse University Press, p.53.
39
Bérenger-Féraud, L-J-B. (1896) Superstitions et survivances: étudiées au point de vue de leur origine et
de leurs transformations, vol. 1. Leroux, Paris, p.379.
40
Vermeule (1979) Aspects of Death, p.227.
41
Fig. 10 courtesy of Tsaag Valren, via GNU Free Documentation License v1.2 at Wikimedia Commons:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Helhest.jpg?uselang=fr, contrast-enhanced for better
viewing of small image. Fig. 11 courtesy of Grith Vemming Oksen, sourced with permission from
http://www.middelaldercentret.dk/Engelsk/beliefandsuperst.html.
42
Gummere, F.B (1889) On the symbolic use of the colors black and white in the Germanic tradition,
Haverford College Studies 2, 112-162, at 150.
43
Grimm, J. (1883) Teutonic Mythology, trans. (from 4th ed) Stallybrass, J.S., vol. 2, Bell & Sons, London,
p.844.
44
de Plancy, J.C. (1845) Dictionnaire Infernal: Répertoire Universel des Etres, des Personnages, des
Livres, des Faits et des Choses ... , 4th ed. Adolphe Wahlen & Co., Brussels, p.494.
45
Langlois, E-H., Leber, C., Depping, G-B., Pottier, A.A., Baudry, A. (1852) Essai Historique,
Philosophique et Pittoresque sur les Danses des Morts, Lebrument, Rouen, p.199; Société des
Traditions Populaires (1892) Revue des Traditions Populaires (France), vol. 7, Lechevalier &
Leroux, Paris, p.591.
46
Nordgren, I. (2004) The Well Spring of the Goths: About the Gothic Peoples in the Nordic Countries and
on the Continent, iUniverse, Nebraska, p.62-63.
47
Hampson, R.T. (1841) Medii Ævi Kalendarium: or, Dates, Charters, and Customs of the Middle Ages,
vol. 1, Causton & Co., London, p.246.
48
Bohn, T.M. (2019) The Vampire: Origins of a European Myth, trans. Francis Ipgrave, Berghahn, New
York & Oxford, p.42 & 44.
49
Zamani, A. (n.d.) Three-legged donkey, draft paper, accessed 3 Feb, 2022, online at
https://www.academia.edu/18292619/THREE_LEGGED_DONKEY, p.3-4; Skjærvø, P.O. (2007)
Introduction to Pahlavi, upload of 4 May, 2008, accessed 3 Feb, 2022, online at
https://bayanbox.ir/view/8882150498859088732/Pahlavi-Primer-Prods-Oktor-Skjaerv.pdf, p.27.
50
Zamani (n.d.), Three-legged donkey, p.3.
51
Zamani (n.d.), Three-legged donkey, p.3; Skjærvø (2007), p.27 & 130.
52
Eduljee, K.E. (2010) The Great Ocean Vourukasha/Frakhvkard/Varkash, Zoroastrian Heritage, 14 Jul,
online at http://zoroastrianheritage.blogspot.com/2010/07/great-ocean-vourukasha-frakhvkard.html,
accessed 3 Feb, 2022.
53
This reprises the theme of fertility discussed earlier in connection with bulls and stallions as emblems of
male potency.

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54
Zamani (n.d.), Three-legged donkey, p.3-4; Skjærvø (2007), p.130-131.
55
This reprises the idea of leg sacrifice to a deity discussed earlier in connection with bulls and horses. For
more on Vedic horse sacrifices and the loss of one leg, see Doniger, W. (2006) A symbol in search
of an object: The mythology of horses in India, In: A Communion of Subjects: Animals in Religion,
Science, and Ethics, eds. Waldau, P. & Patton, K., Columbia University Press, New York, p.335-
350, at p.339.
56
Zamani (n.d.), Three-legged donkey, p.8.
57
De Gubernatis, A. (1872) Zoological Mythology, vol. 1, Trübner & Co., London, p.379. Also identifying
the donkey’s three-leggedness as lameness is Cool, A.B. (1894) Animal worship in the Mycenaean
Age, Journal of Hellenic Studies 14, p. 81-169, at p.98 fn. 104. In a different kind of ‘solar
disability,’ a Native American myth from the Rocky Mountains has a three-legged rabbit shoot and
dismember the sun in order to prevent its excessive heating of the earth; Scherrer, D. (ed.) Solar
folklore and storytelling, online at http://solar-center.stanford.edu/folklore/Solar-Folklore.pdf,
accessed 7 Feb, 2022.
58
Kelly, E.P. (2020) The god of wisdom and the origins of the legendary hero Fionn mac Cumhaill, Irish
Lives Remembered 49 (Summer), p.68-81; accessed 7 Feb, 2022, online at
https://www.academia.edu/43839233/The_God_of_Wisdom_and_the_Origins_of_the_Legendary_
Hero_Fionn_mac_Cumhaill, at p.11 of PDF. On the solar horse in Ireland and beyond, see Kelly,
E.P. (2019) The solar boat at Knowth (County Meath), Irish Lives Remembered 46 (Autumn), p.2-9,
at p.4-5.
59
Ellis, P.B. (1991) A Dictionary of Irish Mythology, Oxford University Press, Oxford, p.76-77; Graham,
L.D. (2021) Consanguineous unions in the archaeology and mythology of the Neolithic passage-
tomb at Newgrange, Ireland, Academia Letters, art. 2963, p.3; accessed 7 Feb, 2022, online at
https://doi.org/10.20935/AL2963.
60
See, e.g., online at http://sweetsavoryplanet.blogspot.com/2010/07/chanchito-lucky-chilean-three-
legged.html and http://www.verbena.net/product.asp?pfid=VER00905.
61
Kõiva, M. & Boganeva, A. (2020) Beliefs about flying serpents in the Belarusian, Estonian and Estonian
Russian tradition, In: Between the Worlds: Magic, Miracles and Mysticism, vol. 2, eds. Maeva, M.,
Erolova, Y., Stoyanova, P., Hristova, M. & Ivanova, V., Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Studies
with Ethnographic Museum, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences & Paradigma, Sofia, p.386-401, at
p.392.
62
Kõiva & Boganeva (2020), Beliefs about flying serpents, p.391-393 & 396.
63
There appears to be some continuity in related phenomena; for example, both Chinese and Slavic/Fenno-
Ugric belief associate meteors and shooting stars with flying dragons or fire-serpents; Wu, G. &
Zhang, Z. (2010) Special meteoric phenomena recorded in ancient Chinese documents and their
modern confirmation, Chinese Astronomy and Astrophysics 27 (4), 435-446, at 440-441; Kõiva &
Boganeva (2020), Beliefs about flying serpents, p.388.
64
Valenza, E. (2017) What is a chanchito?, online at http://emilyjanevalenza.com/1st-
grade/2017/1/20/chanchitos-three-legged-lucky-pigs-from-chile, accessed 1 Feb, 2022. Being able to
walk or run would require even greater luck; Thomson (2019), Three-legged locomotion, p.2.

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