The empusae are sometimes described as having donkey-like features. They were believed to usually appear with one prosthetic leg of brass and the other of a donkey. Empusa is pictured as wearing brazen slippers and bearing flaming hair. By folk etymology, her name was said to mean "one-footed," which gave rise to the iconography of a one-legged hybrid. Whenever a traveler addressed the empusa with insulting words, it would flee and utter a high-pitched shrill sound.