Winged “snatchers” who stole the food of the blind king Phineus until the Argonauts drove them away.
Strength 4/10 · Wisdom 2/10 · Courage 5/10 · Divinity 5/10 · Fame 6/10
The story
Winged women, “the snatchers”, who swooped down to steal food and carry people off. The gods sent them to torment the blind prophet-king Phineus by spoiling every meal he tried to eat.
How it ends
The Argonauts Zetes and Calais, winged sons of the North Wind, chased them away, and Phineus told the heroes how to pass the Clashing Rocks. In the Aeneid they attack Aeneas‘s men.
Still with us today
A “harpy” is a scolding, grasping person. The harpy eagle of South America is named after them.
Family
The sources do not agree on, or do not name, The Harpies’s family.
Appears in
Jason and the Argonauts, The Aeneid
Read about them in the Library
- Theogony and Works and Days 3: Children of Night and the Sea
- Library of Apollodorus 5: Phrixus, the Golden Fleece and the Argonauts
- Argonautica 2: To the end of the world
- Aeneid 3: The years of wandering
Ancient sources
- Hesiod, Theogony
- Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica
- Virgil, Aeneid