Harpies in appearance

In Greek mythology harpies were personifications of storm winds that punished those who angered the gods. They were a bit similar to the furies. In Dante’s Inferno, harpies appear in the Circle of Violence tormenting the souls of suicides. They are generally unpleasant and vicious, often ugly and/or smelly. Aside from that, there really isn't that much to them.

Appearance

The harpy’s appearance has varied immensely in art over the centuries. For example:

In heraldry they are depicted as a bird with the head and breasts of a woman. A variation of this is used in many other fiction, such as Warcraft and Castlevania (the latter gives them lion tails).

In Ray Harryhausen films and Adventures of Sinbad, harpies are depicted with bat wings.

In The Last Unicorn movie adaptation, the harpy Celaeno was depicted as a bird monster with three pendulous breasts and the capacity for speech.

In the 2005 Hercules miniseries the harpies were combined with stymphalian birds.

In D&D harpies have been given the enthralling voices of the sirens. In 2e they were crones with added bird wings and talons for feet. In 3e they had bat wings. In a rejected 3e concept art, they were depicted as birds with only a vague human resemblance. In 5e they are similar to 2e except they look young.

In Hellboy: Blood & Iron, the harpies were depicted as crones with bird wings, feathered tails and talons.

In Dota 2, harpies are depicted as tubby with horns and bat wings. Their feathers are tough like armor.

Male harpies

In Greek mythology there were only three harpies and they were immortal. Hence, they did not need males to propagate.

Nonetheless, some sources claim that two of the harpies had children by the north and west winds (here personified as winged youths). However, their children were not harpies, but immortal horses.

In fantasy fiction and art, there may or may not be male harpies. In fantasy gaming, their reproduction varies and I will address that in a following post.

Links

• http://www.theoi.com/Pontios/Harpyiai.html
• http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HarpingOnAboutHarpies