Pegasus is the most famous horse in mythology: a pure white stallion with great feathered wings, who could fly as swiftly as the wind. He was born from the blood of a monster, tamed by a golden bridle given by a goddess, and carried the hero Bellerophon into battle against the fire-breathing Chimera. Where his hoof struck the earth, springs of water gushed out, and one of them became the fountain of the Muses. At last he flew up to Olympus to carry Zeus’s thunderbolts, and was placed among the stars.
Pegasus has become a universal symbol of poetic inspiration, of freedom, and of the soaring imagination.
Born of Medusa
When the hero Perseus cut off the head of the Gorgon Medusa, two beings sprang from her severed neck: the winged horse Pegasus and the warrior Chrysaor, “he of the golden sword.” Their father was the sea-god Poseidon, who had lain with Medusa when she was still beautiful, in a temple of Athena (see How Perseus Slew Medusa).
Hesiod says Pegasus was named after the springs (pēgai) of Ocean, near which he was born. Immediately after his birth, he flew away from the earth to the home of the immortals.
In later tradition, Perseus rode Pegasus to rescue Andromeda — though in the older sources, Perseus flew with the winged sandals of Hermes. Renaissance painters loved to show Perseus on Pegasus, but the image is a later fusion of two stories.
The Hippocrene Spring
Pegasus’s hoof had the power to bring forth water. On Mount Helicon in Boeotia, the home of the Muses, he struck the ground with his hoof and a spring gushed forth: the Hippocrene, “horse’s spring.” Its waters were said to inspire poets. The English poet John Keats longed for “a beaker full of the warm South, / Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene.”
According to one story, the mountain had begun to swell with delight at the Muses’ singing, rising toward heaven, and Poseidon sent Pegasus to kick it and stop it growing.
Another spring, Pirene at Corinth, was also associated with Pegasus.
Bellerophon and the Golden Bridle
The hero most closely linked with Pegasus is Bellerophon, a prince of Corinth. Exiled for an accidental killing, he came to the court of King Proetus of Tiryns, whose wife, Stheneboea (or Anteia), fell in love with him. When he rejected her, she falsely accused him of trying to seduce her. Proetus, unwilling to kill a guest, sent Bellerophon to his father-in-law, King Iobates of Lycia, with a sealed letter asking Iobates to kill the bearer. (This “Bellerophontic letter” is the only reference to writing in Homer.)
Iobates, also unwilling to kill a guest, set Bellerophon impossible tasks, beginning with slaying the Chimera — a fire-breathing monster with a lion’s head, a goat’s body (and a goat’s head rising from its back), and a serpent’s tail, which was ravaging Lycia.
Bellerophon consulted the seer Polyeidus, who told him he would need Pegasus. He was advised to sleep in the temple of Athena. In his dream, the goddess gave him a golden bridle, and when he woke, the bridle was lying beside him. He found Pegasus drinking at the spring of Pirene, slipped the bridle over his head, and the horse became tame.
The Slaying of the Chimera
Riding Pegasus, Bellerophon flew above the Chimera, out of reach of its flames, and shot it with arrows. In a later version, he fixed a lump of lead to the tip of his spear and thrust it into the Chimera’s mouth. The monster’s fiery breath melted the lead, which ran down its throat and killed it.
With Pegasus, Bellerophon went on to defeat the warlike Solymi, the Amazons, and an ambush of Lycian warriors. Iobates, recognizing that the gods protected him, showed him the letter, gave him his daughter in marriage, and made him heir to the kingdom.
The Fall of Bellerophon
Bellerophon’s success made him proud. He decided to ride Pegasus up to Mount Olympus and join the gods. Zeus sent a gadfly to sting Pegasus, and the horse reared and threw Bellerophon back to earth. He fell into a thorn bush, and lived the rest of his life lame (or blind), wandering alone, “eating his heart out and avoiding the paths of men,” as Homer says.
The fall of Bellerophon became a classic warning against hubris, like the fall of Icarus (see Why Did Icarus Fall From the Sky?).
Pegasus Among the Gods and Stars
Pegasus continued his flight to Olympus, where he was welcomed. He lived in Zeus’s stables and was given the task of carrying Zeus’s thunder and lightning. Eventually Zeus placed him among the stars as the constellation Pegasus, whose great square of four stars is one of the most recognizable features of the autumn sky in the northern hemisphere. The constellation shows only the front half of the horse.
Pegasus as a Symbol
- Poetry and inspiration. From the Renaissance onward, Pegasus became the steed of poets, carrying them to the heights of inspiration. To “mount Pegasus” meant to write poetry.
- Corinth. Pegasus appeared on the silver coins of Corinth for centuries, and on those of its colonies.
- Military symbol. In the Second World War, the British Parachute Regiment and airborne forces adopted a badge of Bellerophon riding Pegasus. Pegasus Bridge in Normandy, captured by British glider troops on D-Day in 1944, was named after it.
- Brands and culture. Pegasus appears in the logo of Mobil oil, of TriStar Pictures, and countless other companies. The flying horses of Disney’s Fantasia (1940) and Hercules (1997) made him familiar to children.
Winged Horses Elsewhere
Other cultures have their winged or flying horses: Sleipnir, Odin’s eight-legged horse, which galloped through the sky and down to Hel; the Tianma or “heavenly horses” of China; the Buraq, the winged steed that carried the Prophet Muhammad on his Night Journey; and the Uchchaihshravas, the seven-headed flying horse of Hindu myth. Pegasus remains the most famous of them all.
Last reviewed: September 2026.