What’s the difference between a harpy and a siren?
I know they are both species of bird monsters, but are there any characteristics or environmental differences that distinguishes the two?
Are there any male harpies or sirens?
(I love the worldbuilding of this blog, it’s fantastic!)
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Harpies and sirens are the same monster, at DOMA we call them harpies to avoid the connections that sirens have with merfolk. The pre-Incursion idea that sirens were merfolk or otherwise different than harpies is a misremembrance due to the Division. This misremembering in myths is perhaps due to the behavioral differences seen in harpies of various regions and due to confusion with merfolk. It is difficult to pin down the exact cause as the Division caused much of our true history to be muddled into exaggerated myths.
However, we can point to a few of possibilities for the mythic distinction. First, harpies have a wide natural range from mountains to tall forests to coastal cliffs. While harpies generally have plumage resembling egales or hawks the coloration and patterning does vary based on their habitat - this may have given the idea that they are difference species.
Second, coastal harpies tend to sing much more than mountain or forest harpies. Harpies, like many birds, sing to attract mates and define their territory. Coastal harpies also seem to sing to communicate with nearby merfolk when large shoals of fish are nearby allowing them to work together to get food. It is likely that human fishermen learned to follow this song to find fish as well but due to infringing on harpy territory were attacked thus giving the myth that "sirens" lured men to their doom with song.
Finally, harpies are known to steal food from humans or attack and eat them directly when food is scarce. This is more likely to happen among mountain and forest harpies as coastal waters due tend to be more abundant with prey. Again these behavioral differences could be reasons why myths lay out a distinction between harpies and sirens.
Regarding the sex of harpies, yes there are male harpies. For some reason a good number of Greecian myths believed that monsters only came in one sex but that is untrue of any known monster species that reproduces sexually, with the exception of some demons. It is possible that because of the chest plumage found in harpies of both sexes that there was difficultly telling sex, especially from a distance, in the past. Though that does not explain other more obviously sexually dimorphic species like saytrs, centaurs, sphinxes, and lamias (also known as Nagas).
Thank you again for contacting the Department of Monster Affairs if you have any other questions about monsters or magic please contact us again.
