There is nobility amongst animals of the wilds. Among them, the lion always seems the one with a pride and golden roar. Take it or leave it. Heraldic lions and symbolism of lions from godlike Aslan from the Chronicles of Narnia, to the friendly Cowardly Lion in the land of Oz, to the Simba family of "The Lion King", the monstrous Nemean lion and to the ones beaten by Heracles.
There are the Chinese guardian lions, also called lion dogs or foo dogs. Guardians of imperial palaces and homes, made of stone, often in pairs to symbolise yin and yang. There are similar guardian lion duos called Shisa from the Ryukyu islands, and also the Komainu guardians of Japan.
Sphinxes have lion and humanlike features, found in Egyptian as well as Greek mythologies. Magical lions tend to look more bizarre, such as the winged lions of myths from many places such as India, Persia, Egypt, Greece, Rome and Mesopotamia. Such winged lions are even found in stories of the Book of Daniel. The winged lion is a symbol of Saint Mark.
Other weird looking lions are the griffin, chimera, sphinx, manticore, merlion, Pixiu, Yali and much more. Some are good and some are bad, others are neither.
Evil lions as figures in folklore and fiction tend to be demonic. There is Ugallu the lion demon made by Tiamat. In today's culture she's associated with dragons as she's got many heads of dragons but in ancient Mesopotamian myth she was primordial goddess of the sea. In fiction there is the Lion of Night in A Song of Ice and Fire book series that brought the dreadful long night.
Lions with rabies tend to be more aggressive and frightening to come across. They try to eat car tyres to get at passengers within. A pride of lions will be severely affected when its leader has got rabies.
Storm Valkyrie
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