Manticore

Manticore statant guardant (Accepted)

Manticore statant guardant (Accepted)

The manticore is a monster, consisting of a lion’s body with a human face (sometimes head), a scorpion’s tail, and sometimes horns.  It was described in medieval bestiaries as also having three rows of teeth, but that detail seldom appears in Society armory.  The manticore is very similar to the man-tyger, and may possibly be an artistic variant; but no period heraldic examples of the monster have been found (though one 1613 grant misused the term to describe the lamia) [Gwynn-Jones 106; cf. Dennys 115].

The manticore doesn’t seem to have a default posture, so this must be explicitly blazoned; the illustration shows a manticore statant guardant.

Chèr du Bonvin de Bellevue bears:  Argent, a manticore rampant to sinister gules and a gore sinister azure.

Antonin Malyi Barsukov bears:  Per pale sable and azure, a manticore rampant within an orle Or.

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