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Peg|a·sus (peg´e ses) [L<Gr Pegasos]
1 Gr. Myth. a winged horse which springs forth from the body of Medusa at her
death 2 a large N constellation between Andromeda and Pisces.
This definition comes out of Webster's New World College Dictionary.
The origin of the name Pegasus is derived from the Greek word meaning strong. Some believe Pegasus have a magical horn like that on a unicorn while others disagree. You decide! Another interesting one is over a winged centaur called a pegataur. The word is derived from a combination of "Pegasus" and "centaur". The being resembles that combination, with the wings emerging from the barrel.
According
to Greek mythology, Pegasus is the winged horse that was fathered by Poseidon,
god of the sea, and Medusa. A woman who had snakes for hair and was so hideously
ugly people would turn to stone at just a glance of her face. When her head was cut of by the Greek hero
Perseus. The horse Pegasus sprang forth from her pregnant body. His galloping
later created the well Hippocrene on the Helicon (a mountain in Boeotia).
One day when the horse was drinking from the well Pirene on the
Acrocotinth, Bellerophon, the Corinthian hero was able to capture the horse to
help complete his quest. Athena, the goddess of wisdom had given
Bellerophon certain instructions on how to do this in a dream, upon waking he
found laying next to him a golden bridle. The gods then gave him Pegasus for killing the monster Chimera but when he attempted to
mount the horse it threw him off and rose to the heavens, where it became a constellation (north of the ecliptic).
In another version, Bellerophon killed the Chimera while riding on Pegasus, and when he later attempted to ride to the summit of Mount
Olympus, Zeus sent a gadfly to sting the horse, and it threw Bellerophon off its back.
I have also read that Pegasus did eventually
returned to Mount Olympus and lived in Zeus's stables and when needed he would
carry Zeus's thunderbolts to him.
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This page was last updated: Tuesday, April 24, 2001