To me, the simple answer is to assume that the scholar's assembling Anaxial's roster and less than omniscient. Clearly they have heard of cunning but savage and non-sentient griffons, and they take it that all are like that. On the other hand, when you look at the origin myth, out of such longing and dedication on the one hand, and divine perfection on the other, would you expect the result to be merely a savage and cunning beast?
I say more likely that the first griffons were more pure of mind and purpose, clear of mind but ferocious in their defense of what they valued. They probably wielded magic of their own as well as certain items of power and prestige given to them for their service. In the darkness however they chose to survive rather than die, and abandoned their culture and purpose. By the dawn most were hopelessly lost to savagery, having no language or magic or culture beyond raw cunning. A few remembered the old stories and returned to their ancestral nests (on Griffon Mountain?) and tried to salvage some of what was lost. Their descendants are mostly indistinguishable from their purely savage cousins, however they retain some basic language, in which they pass down certain myths and possibly basic magical practices. They also gather and protect items of value and power, even if they no longer know how to use them. Their grip on sentience is tenuous however, and is beyond the grasp of youngsters. It is only once they are mostly full grown that a few are attracted to the sage elders to learn of these things. Enough take up the torch in each generation to keep the basics. Because these griffons still have openness to instruction, their newborn can potentially be "tamed" if raised in another culture from birth. Trying to raise the young of a fully feral griffon is a fool's exercise, however.
Who knows, maybe in the hero wars some hero will manage to befriend the last of the cultured griffons and help them to quest to regain more of their heritage, or perhaps they will lose it all and slip into and endless night after their last traditional nests are plundered.
--Bryan
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