The griffin that appeared on the Ice Maiden’s shoulder — the creature with the beak of a griffin, the head and antlers of a deer, the antlers tipped with flowers — is precisely this kind of composite being.

It draws on elements of real creatures (deer, birds of prey) and combines them into something that no one has ever seen in nature, something that could only exist in the spiritual or symbolic world.

This visual vocabulary was not merely artistic convention.

It was a language — a system of symbols through which ideas about power, identity, cosmos, and the relationships between different categories of being could be expressed and communicated.

The presence of this vocabulary on the Ice Maiden’s skin — literally inscribed on her body — means that she carried these symbols as part of herself.