(harpy, from Vlyssis Aldrovandi's Monstrorum Historia, 1642)
The harpies (harpyiae: the snatchers, robbers, or spoilers) were according to Hesiod the two daughters of Thaumas and the Oceanid Electra. Their names were Ocypete and Aello. Hesiod described them in his Theogony as: "lovely haired Aello and Okypete, who fly on their swift wings as fast as birds, or breath of wind; high through the air they hurl themselves."
Other names assigned to them by later writers are Aellopos, Nicothoe, Ocythoe, Ocypode, Calaeno, Acholoe, Podarge, and Kelaino. Their names are said to imply the storm wind. In was in this capacity of personified storm winds that they were described by Homer snatching up the three daughters of King Phandarius to give them into the service of the Erynnyes (Furies). Their general office is to carry criminals to the Furies for punishment. They were said to dwell in a cave in Crete.
As their myth evolved, their number increased to three, and they were given a more demonic appearance. Aeschylus characterized them as ugly creatures with wings. They were said to have long claws and faces pale with hunger, and were represented either as women with the wings of birds, or as birds with the faces of women. It was their task to torment the blind prophet Phineus. Each time food was set before the sage, the harpies snatched it away before he could eat. In the accounts of later classical writers, they ravenously devour the food themselves, or defecate upon it and render it unfit to eat. After they were driven away from Phineus by two of the Argonauts, Virgil states that they went to live on the Strophades Islands in the Ionian Sea.
Their evolution is based upon the gradual assignment to them of birdlike qualities by various writers. They lose much of their original association with storm winds and become a type of monstrous bird of prey, or carrion bird.
Their connection with the Furies, their original home in a cave beneath the surface of the earth, and their role as the active agents of the harsh punishments of the gods, cause them to merit the status of demons, and this is the way they are usually regarded.