Ipotanes or hippotaynes are mythical creatures. They are usually depicted as being half-human half-horse creatures much different from the centaurs. Although sometimes attributed to Greek mythology, the term appears to have originated at a much later date, and without a definite description; they are first mentioned in John de Mandeville's fourteenth-century Travels. Ipotanes appear in modern works of the fantasy genre.
John de Mandeville In his 1356 travelogue, The Travels of Sir John Mandeville,Charles Knight, Charles Knight's Popular History of England, vol. 2, p. 13, London: Bradbury, Evans, & Company, 1862–67 . the author reports the existence of a violent race of ipotanes, found in Bacharie (Bactria). More recent editions of Mandeville's work use various spellings; hippotaynes (Macmillan, 1900),Sir John Mandeville, A.W. Pollard (ed), The Travels Of Sir John Mandeville, p. 177, London: Macmillan & Co., 1900 hippopotami (Penguin, 1983).Sir John Mandeville, C.W.R.D. Pollard (trans), The Travels Of Sir John Mandeville, p. 167, Penguin, 1983 .
Description The word "ipotane" appears to be derived from the Greek (), "a knight", which itself is derived from (), "a horse".Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, p. 708, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1890 . Mandeville's description is not clearly distinguishable from that of a centaur, and some depictions use the term synonymously. Some depictions show ipotanes with a human body and a horse's head. Other depictions have them as humans with the hindquarters of a horse.
Modern literature Despite their similarity to centaurs, ipotanes are not mentioned in the corpus of Greek and Roman literature. However, they appear in modern works of fantasy literature, in which they are depicted with various combinations of horse-like and human features.
See also Hippopodes, Greek myth Tikbalang, Philippine folklore BoJack Horseman, fictional character Glaistig, Scottish folklore Sihuanaba, Central American folklore
References