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reference:: https://ibb.co/hCnhjsX



contest entry for TW15T3D5H4D0W 's "spirits of the forest" contest!


background & history::

A centaur (or female Centauride or centauress) was a creature from Greek mythology who was half-man and half-horse. The head, arms, and torso were human and joined at the waist to the body and legs of a horse. These creatures represented barbarism and unbridled chaos.

The centaurs were believed to live in the forests of Thessaly (before the Greek Dark Ages, Thessaly was known as Aeolia, and appears in Homer's Odyssey), beyond the laws of man. These mythical creatures may actually have had a basis in reality as there was a tradition in Thessaly of hunting bulls on horseback and the very word centaur may have originally meant 'bull-killer'.

The legend of the centaurs begins with a people called the Lapiths, a mythical tribe who lived in the central Greek region of Thessaly. The king of the Lapiths, Ixion, fell in love with the goddess Hera, wife of Zeus.

Rather than just smiting Ixion, Zeus decided to trick him. Zeus took a cloud and shaped it to look like Hera, gave it life, and called her Nephele. Ixion mistook Nephele for Hera and consummated his love. As a result, Nephele got pregnant and gave birth to a deformed child named Centaurus. Cast out, Centaurus lived in the wilds of Thessaly and mated with the wild mares of the forest. From these unions, the half-human, half-horse centaurs were created.

sources:
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Centaur-Greek-mythology
https://www.greekmythology.com/Myths/Creatures/Centaur/centaur.html
https://www.thoughtco.com/centaur-4767962