Calopus

 

Many real creatures were turned into mythical beasts in the Medieval era. The hyena inspired the crocotta, the wildebeest the bonnacon and the ibex the yale. Yet few beasts have strayed so far from their real life inspiration as the antelope and the calopus.

The antelope was first known in Europe by the ancient Greeks, who called it antelopos. The records of Alexander the Great called them aeternae and the Romans called them calopus, which means pretty foot. The name calopus continued through the Medieval period as a mostly separate creature from antelopes. Medieval bestiaries varied on whether they had entries on the calopus, antelope or both. Eventually the calopus became a symbolic beast in heraldry, where it gained its most unfamiliar form yet.

The antelope known to the ancient Greeks was considered a fearsome beast, yet it still had the overall form of a goat or a roe deer. The calopus had dangerous serrated horns which it used to shred tree branches. It would hesitate to shred limbs in a similar manner.  

Alexander the Great encountered calopus, or aeternae, while crossing Mesopotamia. There his armies encountered mass herds of the beasts drinking from the Euphrates river. The beasts turned aggressive against Alexander's men. Their horns were strong enough to pierce through Macedonian shields. Yet, in spite of the danger Alexander's armies were able to slay five thousand calopus. Later Medieval writers would say that this was the reason the calopus was so rare.

In roman times and the medieval era the calopus's appearance became even more extreme. Now it gained boar's tusks, goat's beard, and any arrangement of hoves, paws or talons. Sometimes they were depicted with porcupine quills. Some bestiaries even state the calopus had reptilian legs. As time went on the aggressive qualities of the calopus were exaggerated, turning it into a carnivore and stating it would knock over trees by ramming into them.

By the late Medieval period any connection the calopus had to hoofed animals had been forgotten. It was being depicted as a mixture of cat and wolf, with a pare of curved, yet no longer serrated horns. It was this form the calopus took when it became popular in heraldry. However over time even the wolf like qualities diminished until it was an unusually hairy wild cat with horns. The Calopus's origins as an antelope had been entirely forgotten.