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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77830 ***




NATURAL HISTORY LORE AND LEGEND




                              NATURAL HISTORY
                              LORE AND LEGEND

           BEING SOME FEW EXAMPLES OF QUAINT AND BY-GONE BELIEFS
             GATHERED IN FROM DIVERS AUTHORITIES, ANCIENT AND
                MEDIÆVAL, OF VARYING DEGREES OF RELIABILITY

                                    BY
                      F. EDWARD HULME, F.L.S., F.S.A.
                                 AUTHOR OF
       “WAYSIDE SKETCHES,” “SUGGESTIONS IN FLORAL DESIGN,” “FAMILIAR
            WILD FLOWERS,” AND DIVERS OTHER BOOKS THAT NEED NOT
                             HERE BE SET FORTH

                  “As some delighte moste to beholde
                    Eche newe devyse and guyse,
                  So some in workes of fathers olde
                    Their studies exercise.”

                  _“Historicall Expostulation” of John Halle,
                                       Chyrurgeon_, A.D 1565

                             BERNARD QUARITCH
                           15 PICCADILLY, LONDON
                                   1895

                                  LONDON:
                G. NORMAN AND SON, PRINTERS, FLORAL STREET,
                              COVENT GARDEN.




CONTENTS.


                                                                     PAGES

                                CHAPTER I.

    Mediæval naturalists honest searchers after truth—Sir
    Emerson Tennant thereupon—Recent discoveries confirm many
    statements once contested—“Travellers’ tales”—Mediæval natural
    history largely based upon ancient—Difference of aim between
    modern and ancient and mediæval nature-study—The moral
    treatment—Illustrations from the “Speculum Mundi”—Falsification
    of natural facts justified by the ecclesiastics—Ready credulity
    a mediæval characteristic—Two examples thereof—The love of the
    marvellous—Astrological influences—The mental equipment of a
    mediæval surgeon—Quaint book titles—The unchanging East—Suttee,
    Juggernaut, &c. in the pages of mediæval writers—The “Mirabilia
    descripta” of Bishop Jordanus—The “Voiage and Travaile” of
    Maundevile—The coca plant—Burton’s “Miracles of Art and
    Nature,”—The “Historia Mundi” of Pliny—English editions
    of it—Herodotus—The writings of Aristotle—The sources of
    information in the Middle Ages—The praise of books—Books of
    travel—Munster’s “Cosmography”—The interest and beauty of
    old title-pages—Elephants in lieu of towns in the old maps—A
    tale of a tub—Herbert’s “Some Yeares Travels into Africa and
    Asia the Great”—The travels of Marco Polo—Geography of Peter
    Heylyn—Raleigh’s, Hakluyt’s, Purchas’, Struys’, Acosta’s books
    of travels—Medical books—Potter’s “Booke of Physicke”—Cogan’s
    “Haven of Health”—Indifference to animal suffering—“Bestiare
    Divin” of Guillaume—The “Bestiary” of Philip de Thaun—The
    Armories of Guillim, Legh, and Bossewell                          1-53

                               CHAPTER II.

    The pygmies—Ancient and modern writers thereon—Conflicts
    with the cranes—Counterfeits—Modern travel, confirming
    the statements of the ancient geographers—Pygmy races now
    existing—The “Monstrorum Historia” of Aldrovandus—Crane-headed
    men—Men with tails—The Gorilloi—The dog-headed people—The
    canine king—The many-eyed men—The giants of Dondum—The
    snake-eaters—The Ipotayne—Mermaids—Syren myth—Storm-raisers—The
    mermaids of artists and poets—Shakespeare thereupon—As
    heraldic device—The mermaids of voyagers—The seal and walrus
    theory—Mermaids in captivity—Mermaids as food—Counterfeit
    mermaids—Mermaid in Chancery—The “Pseudodoxia Epidemica” of
    Browne—Oannes or Dagon—Mermaids and Matrimony—Lycanthropy—The
    “Metamorphoses” of Ovid—The fate of Lykaon—Nine years of
    wolfdom—Wehr-wolves—Mewing nuns—Olaus Magnus—The doctrine of
    metempsychosis—Influence of enchantment—The dragon maiden—The
    power of a kiss—Witchcraft—Scot and Glanvil, for and against
    it—The good old times                                           54-114

                               CHAPTER III.

    The lion, king of beasts—Unbelievers in him—Aldrovandus on the
    lion—The lion of the heralds—The “Blazon of Gentrie”—Guillim
    as an authority—The lion’s medicine—The lion’s antipathies—Why
    some lions are maneless—De Thaun’s symbolic lion—Lion’s cubs
    born dead—The theory of Creation held during the Middle
    Ages—Degenerate lions of Barbary—The Leontophonos—Hostility
    between lion and unicorn—Literary references to the
    unicorn—Martin’s “Philosophical Grammar”—How to capture
    the unicorn—The value of the horn—The elephant—The capture
    thereof—Feud between elephant and dragon—Use of elephant
    in war—Performing elephants—Moon-worshippers—Knowledge
    of the value of their tusks—The first elephant
    seen in England—Sagacity of the elephant—Kindliness
    to lost travellers—Ethiopian huntresses—Difference
    between the creations of Fancy and of Nature—Elephants
    cold-blooded—Hippopotamus prescribing himself blood-letting—The
    river-horse of Munster—The panther—Powers of fascination—Beauty
    of coat—Fragrance—Red panthers of Cathay—Aromatic spices
    as diet—Antipathies between various animals—Antipathetic
    medicines—Porta’s “Natural Magick”—The hyæna—Counterfeiting
    human speech—The wolf—Producing speechlessness—The dragon’s
    parentage—Enmity between wolf and sheep—Value of wolf-skin
    garments—The stag-wolf—The bear—Licking cubs into shape—Bees
    and honey—The hare—Cruelty of many mediæval remedies—The
    hedgehog—The deer—Stories with morals—The boar—Swine-stone—The
    ermine—The goat—The malevolent shrew-mouse—The horse—Why
    oxen should drink before horses—The donkey—The sparrow’s
    aversion—The dog—The cat—Rats and mice                         115-199

                               CHAPTER IV.

    The phœnix—Various ancient and mediæval writers thereon—The
    Bird of Paradise—The Museum of Tradescant—The roc—The
    barnacle goose—The eagle—Its power of gazing upon the sun—Its
    keenness of vision—The pelican—The swan and its death song—A
    favourite idea with the poets—Hostility between the swan and
    the eagle—The ostrich—Its digestive powers—How its eggs are
    hatched—The cock—Antipathy between lion and cock—Cock-broth
    and cock-ale for invalids—Incorporation in man of various
    valued animal characteristics—The stone alectorius—Animals
    haled before the judges for offence against man—The deadly
    cockatrice—Cock-crow—The “Armonye of Byrdes”—The raven—How
    it became black—The raven-stone—The owl—The swallow—Sight
    to the blind—Oil of swallows as a remedy—The robin and the
    wren—Their pious care of the dead—The nightingale—The
    doctrine of signatures—Thorn-pierced breast—Philomela—The
    cuckoo—His voice-restorer—The peacock—Its pride and its
    shame—The kingfisher—As a weathercock—Sir Thomas Browne
    thereon—Halcyone—Halcyone days—The filial stork—The cautious
    cranes                                                         200-263

                                CHAPTER V.

    Forms reptilian and piscine—The basilisk—Shakespeare and
    Spenser thereupon—King of serpents—The dragon—Aldrovandus
    thereon—The dragon-stone—The griffin—The scorpion—The
    “Newe Jewell of Healthe”—Toads—Antipathy between toad
    and spider—The toad-stone—How to procure it—The weeping
    crocodile—Cockeram’s Dictionary—The treacherous seal—The
    salamander—Its potent venom—Its home in fire—Prester John
    and his kingdom—Pyragones—The chamæleon—Its changing
    colour—Serpents from air—The gift of invisibility—The
    serpent-stone—Theriaca—Viper-Broth—Antidotal herbs—The soil of
    Malta—The deaf adder—The two-headed Amphisbæna—Aldrovandus on
    serpents—Hairy serpents—The deadly asp—Monstrous snails—Snail
    and spider remedies—Bees—Virgil on their production—Glowworm
    ink—Marine forms the counterparts of those on land—The
    sea-monk—The sea-bishop—The sus marinus—The brewers of
    the storm—The hog-fish—The sea-elephant—The sea-horse—The
    sea-unicorn—The remora—The dolphin, its special fondness for
    man—Its love of music—Its changeful colouring—The acipenser—The
    loving ray—The sargon—The friendship between the oyster and the
    prawn—The voracious swam-fish—Leviathan—Cause of the crooked
    mouth of the flounder—The healing tench—Fish medicaments—The
    vain cuttle-fish—The fish that came to be eaten—Conclusion     264-339

    INDEX                                                          341-350




NATURAL HISTORY

_LORE AND LEGEND_




CHAPTER I.

    Mediæval naturalists honest searchers after truth—Sir
    Emerson Tennant thereupon—Recent discoveries confirm many
    statements once contested—“Travellers’ tales”—Mediæval natural
    history largely based upon ancient—Difference of aim between
    modern and ancient and mediæval nature-study—The moral
    treatment—Illustrations from the “Speculum Mundi”—Falsification
    of natural facts justified by the ecclesiastics—Ready credulity
    a mediæval characteristic—Two examples thereof—The love of the
    marvellous—Astrological influences—The mental equipment of a
    mediæval surgeon—Quaint book titles—The unchanging East—Suttee,
    Juggernaut, &c. in the pages of mediæval writers—The “Mirabilia
    descripta” of Bishop Jordanus—The “Voiage and Travaile” of
    Maundevile—The coca plant—Burton’s “Miracles of Art and
    Nature”—The “Historia Mundi” of Pliny—English editions
    of it—Herodotus—The writings of Aristotle—The sources of
    information in the Middle Ages—The praise of books—Books of
    travel—Munster’s “Cosmography”—The interest and beauty of
    old title-pages—Elephants in lieu of towns in the old maps—A
    tale of a tub—Herbert’s “Some Yeares Travels into Africa and
    Asia the Great”—The travels of Marco Polo—Geography of Peter
    Heylyn—Raleigh’s, Hakluyt’s, Purchas’, Strays’, Acosta’s books
    of travels—Medical books—Potter’s “Booke of Physicke”—Cogan’s
    “Haven of Health”—Indifference to animal suffering—“Bestiare
    Divin” of Guillaume—The “Bestiary” of Philip de Thaun—The
    Armories of Guillim, Legh, and Bossewell.


In the following pages we propose to consider at some little length
the state of zoological knowledge in the Middle Ages, and in so
doing we shall, we doubt not, discover much of interest. While we
shall undoubtedly find from time to time strange errors that greater
opportunity of observation has in these latter days rectified, and
encounter many things that may provoke a smile, we must in the forefront
of our remarks very definitely assert that much of the literary work of
our ancestors in this branch of study is worthy of high commendation,
and that anything approaching scorn or sneer is entirely out of place.
Strange, indeed, would it be if the modern man of science, with all the
advantages of travel now so freely available, with the microscope, with
the great facilities for the interchange of ideas or of specimens with
kindred spirits, had not made a marked advance, but we can never look
upon the works of the greater writers of the mediæval period without the
utmost respect. The common people of that day were eagerly searching
after knowledge and the huge folios and encyclopædias that were freely
published are a monument of the diligence and painstaking zeal, of the
courage and enthusiasm of their teachers. That they made mistakes goes
without saying, but to the full extent of their light they were honest
seekers after truth.

While the statements of these early writers have been too frequently
dismissed as fabulous and unreliable, it is only just to them to recall
the fact that some of the details that have come into reproach have after
all been found authentic. Sir Emerson Tennant in his work on Ceylon
very justly observes that “we ought not to be too hasty in casting
ridicule upon the narratives of ancient travellers. In a geographical
point of view they possess great value, and if sometimes they contain
statements which appear marvellous, the mystery is often explained away
by a more minute and careful enquiry.” The Troglodytes mentioned by
Pliny, Aristotle and Herodotus yet exist in the Bosjesmen of to-day and
still preserve many of the peculiarities and customs that those early
writers described. Du Chaillu rediscovered the gorillas that Hanno, the
ancient Carthaginian, endeavoured to capture, and Stanley encountered
the pigmy tribes that are mentioned by travellers of a thousand years
before. We accept in full faith the statements of such men as Captain
Cook and Dr. Livingstone, and we may reasonably conclude that there have
been many other and earlier travellers as scrupulously truthful. There
have, undoubtedly, been travellers who have too credulously accepted
mere hearsay in place of actual observation, and these, whether ancient,
mediæval, or modern, are responsible for the stigma that has at times
attached to “Travellers’ tales”: all that we are at present careful to
assert is that the great bulk of travellers and authors in the Middle
Ages—as in all other ages—were neither the fools nor the knaves that the
malicious or the hypercritical would sometimes fain represent them.

We speedily find, on opening any of the books on natural history that
were issued in the Middle Ages, that such ancient writers as Pliny,
Aristotle, or Herodotus, and other venerable authorities are held in
great reverence, and that the prefatory “as Pliny saith” gives at once
dignity and authenticity to any statement advanced. Mediæval zoology is
no more independent of the gatherings of previous centuries than the
dogmas of nineteenth century Christianity are independent of the writings
of Isaiah.

In comparing ancient or mediæval zoology with modern, we are conscious
of a difference of aim and treatment. The study of the present day
is largely devoted to the life-history of the creatures themselves,
their structure, and so forth; while in former times the writer strove
ordinarily after an entirely different aim, thinking much less of these
external facts, but dwelling upon the value of the animal to mankind in
one of two directions. While we occasionally in books of travels have the
more modern and descriptive treatment, the main bulk of the writings on
animals in mediæval days had ordinarily one of two objects: the healing
of the body, or the saving of the soul. Hence the medical writers sought
anxiously for “the vertues” that indicated their value to suffering
humanity, and the theologians sought with equal zeal to implant a moral,
and if the facts in this latter case did not lend themselves very happily
to this treatment so much the worse for the facts.

As an illustration of this moral-pointing treatment we find in one of
these old writers that “polypus is a fish with many feet, and a rounde
head neare unto them: it is a great enemy to the lobster, and they can
often change their colour, and by that project devoure other fishes.
Their use and custom is to be lurking closely by the sides and roots of
rocks, changing themselves into the colour of the same thing unto which
they cleave: insomuch that they seem as a part of the rock; whither
when the foolish fish swim they fall into danger, for whilst they dread
nothing these polypodes suddenly prey upon them and devoure them. And
indeede this is the constancie and unfeared treacherie which is often
found in many men, who will be anything for their own ends. And nothing
without them: sparing none for their own purposes, nor loving any but
to effect them. Their heads, indeed, may well be neare their feet; for
they prize the trash we trample on farre above the joyes of heaven; else
they would never work their fond purposes by deceitfull meanes and damage
others to help themselves.” Another illustration of the same kind states
that “although the mole be blinde all her lifetime, yet she beginneth
to open her eyes in dying: whiche is a prettie embleme. This serveth
to decypher the state of a worldly man, who neither seeth heaven nor
thinketh of hell in his lifetime, untill he be dying: and then beginning
to feel that which before he either not believed or not regarded, he
looketh up and seeth. For even against his will he is then compelled to
open his eyes and acknowledge his sinnes, although before he could not
see them.” We have taken these two passages from the “Speculum Mundi,
or a Glasse representing the Face of the World, whereunto is added a
Discourse of the Creation, together with a Consideration of such things
as are pertinent to each dayes Worke.” It was written by one John Swan,
and the copy before us as we write bears date 1635.[1] It is a good
typical example of the theological treatment of natural history that was
long so much in vogue. Many parables and fables in like manner deal with
animals as so much raw material to be shaped to such moral end as the
narrator or writer pleases.

The idea that it was permissible to sacrifice a lower truth to gain a
higher one, and to make whatever modification was needed to turn a good
moral into one still better was very frankly held, as the goodness of
the intention was considered ample justification for any aberration from
the actual facts. Thus Hippeau writes: “N’oublions pas que les pères
de l’Eglise se préoccupèrent toujours beaucoup plus de la pureté des
doctrines qu’ils avaient à développer, que de l’exactitude scientifique
des notions sur lesquelles ils les appuyaient. L’objet important pour
nous, dit Saint Augustin, àpropos de l’aigle, qui disait on brise contre
la pierre l’éxtrémité de son bec devenue trop long, est de considérer la
signification d’un fait et non d’en discuter l’authenticité.” This simple
principle runs through the whole series of “Bestiaries” published under
ecclesiastical influence, and, while it gives them a special interest of
their own, deprives them of any scientific value.

The zoological lore of the mediæval writers was based, to some degree,
upon actual observation, but was still more often largely borrowed
from earlier writers, and was greatly influenced by various external
influences, such as astrology. It was, moreover, a very credulous age,
and men in all good faith wrote or read statements of wild improbability
or of absolute impossibility; statements, too, that could so readily
be brought to the test of experiment that one would have thought it
impossible to gain a week’s credence for them, and yet which are gravely
transferred from one book to another for centuries. Numerous examples
of such statements will necessarily crop up throughout our pages, but
we may by way of immediate illustration quote a couple. These are both
taken from a work entitled “Alberti Parvi Lucii Libellus de Mirabilibus
Naturæ Arcanis,” which was once very popular, was translated into French
and English, and held in high repute. We merely quote these instances
as we find them in the first book that comes to our hand; it would be
easy from a score of other books to give a hundred of like character.
The first of these would be invaluable to athletes if only it would bear
the test of experience. “Gather some of the herb called motherwort, when
the sun is entering the first degree of the sign of Capricorn: let it
dry a little in the shade, and make some garters of the skin of a young
hare; that is to say, having cut the skin of the hare into strips two
inches wide, double them, sew the before-mentioned herb between, and wear
them on your legs. No horse can long keep up with a man on foot who is
furnished with those garters.” There is evidently here an idea that the
speed of the hare can be somehow bestowed on the man who wears its skin,
and this notion of transfer crops up repeatedly in these old recipes.
Our next extract points to a time of some little peril, and gives
welcome means of avoiding the evils that might befall the traveller.
“Gather, on the morrow of All Saints, a strong branch of willow, of
which you will make a staff, fashioned to your liking. Hollow it out,
by removing the pith from within, after having furnished the lower end
with an iron ferrule. Put into the bottom of the staff the two eyes of a
young wolf, the tongue and heart of a dog, three green lizards, and the
hearts of two young swallows. These must all be dried in the sun between
two papers, having been first sprinkled with finely ground saltpetre.
Besides all these, put into the staff seven leaves of vervain, gathered
on the eve of St. John the Baptist, with a stone of divers colours,
which you will find in the nest of the lapwing, and stop the end of the
staff with a panel of box, or of any other material you please, and be
assured that this staff will preserve you from the perils which befall
the traveller, either from robbers, wild beasts, mad dogs, or venomous
animals. It will also procure you the goodwill of those with whom you
lodge.” The dread of mad dogs, of scorpions and other venomous creatures
seems to have been extreme in the Middle Ages, every medical book and
herbal abounding in preservatives from, and antidotes for, such perils
to the traveller. It will be noted in these and such like receipts that
no little amount of trouble was necessarily entailed in providing the
necessary ingredients, and in providing them at the special season that
increased their efficacy. The necessary items in the foregoing receipt,
a calendar to tell when the Saints’ days come round, a willow stick, a
wolf, two swallows, and a dog to be slain, lizards to be captured, paper,
saltpetre, iron ferrule and plug of box to be procured, vervain leaves
to be gathered, and lapwing’s nest to be found and ransacked, are really
few in number and easy of attainment compared to those required in many
preparations. In the famous vermifuge and antidote to all animal poisons
that was known as “Venice treacle,” there were seventy-three ingredients.
This was retained in the London Pharmacopeia up to little more than a
century ago. The fourteenth-century equivalent of the well-known legend
of the nineteenth-century chemist, “prescriptions carefully prepared,”
must have carried with it a tremendous responsibility in mediæval days.

Another potent influence with the older writers was the delight in what
is abnormal and wonderful, and here again a ready credulity found ample
material. The love of the marvellous is deeply engraved in human nature.
We may see abundant proof of this in such classic myths as the Sirens,
in the monstrous forms carved or depicted in the temples of Egypt or
Mexico, in the popularity of such books as the Arabian Nights’ Tales,
or the adventures of Gulliver or Munchausen down to the fearful joy of
the youngsters in the nursery in the sanguinary giant whose food was the
blood of Englishmen.

    “Far away in the twilight time
    Of every people, in every clime,
    Dragons and griffins and monsters dire,
    Born of water, or air, or fire,
    Crawl and wriggle and foam with rage,
    Through dark tradition and ballad age.”

The fell harpies, the monstrous roc, the death-dealing basilisk, the
phœnix, the chimæra, the monstrous kraken, the deadly cockatrice, the
fire-drake, dragon, half-man half-fish, the vulture-headed Nisroch, the
treacherous Lorelei, sweet Queen Mab of Fairyland, fiery dragons, ghastly
wehr-wolves, mermaids, centaurs, together with the great sea-serpent, the
toad embedded for countless centuries in the rock, and other wonders that
still turn up from time to time during the dull season in the newspapers,
are but a few examples that at once occur to one’s thoughts. Ovid and
Pliny in their day went to very considerable lengths to satisfy this
love of the marvellous; in the Middle Ages writers not a few discoursed
of dog-headed men, of pigmies, of “the anthropophagi, and men whose heads
do grow beneath their shoulders,” while no country fair in this present
year of grace would be considered by its patrons at all up to date unless
it included a giant and a dwarf, together with a two-headed calf, or some
such monstrosity.

The writings of Chaucer, Shakespeare, and other poets abound in allusions
to the folk-lore of the time. Thus in the lines—

    “When beggars die there are no comets seen,
    The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes,”

we have an interesting reference to the old belief that all things,
terrestrial or celestial, were created for the service of man and were
profitable in some way or other to him. Much of the early medical
treatment was a strange mixture of astrological, zoological and botanical
lore. Thus Chaucer tells us of his Doctour of Phisik that—

    “In al this world ne was ther non him lyk
    To speke of phisik and of surgerye:
    For he was grounded in astronomye.”

Not only did he put his trust in “drugges and letuaries,” but—

    “He kepte his pacient wonderfully wel
    In houres by his magik naturel.
    Wel coude be fortunen the ascendent
    Of his ymages for his pacient.”

We have seen that it was a necessary condition in the preparation of
the receipt that we have given that the sun should be in a particular
position in the heavens prior to gathering one of the ingredients,
and the saturnine, jovial, martial, or mercurial qualities of various
substances employed in the healing art owed their potency to a due regard
to the starry influences.

In a quaint old book “Imprinted in London at Flete Streate, nyghe unto
Saint Dunstones Churche,” by one Thomas Marshe, and published by him in
the year 1565, we have “goodlye Doctrine and Instruction necessarye to
be marked and folowed of all true chirurgeons, gathered and diligently
set forth by John Halle, Chyrurgeon,” under the title of “An Historicall
Expostulation against the Beastlye Abuses, both of Chyrurgerie
and Physicke in oure tyme.”[2] He sums up the requirements of the
“chyrurgeon” properly equipped for his work in the following lines—

    “Not onlye in chirurgery
    Thou oughtest to be experte,
    But also in astronomye
    Bothe prevye and aperte.

    In naturall philosophye
    Thy studye shoulde be bente:
    To knowe eche herbe, shrubbe, root, and tree,
    Muste be thy good intente.

    Eche beaste and foule, wyth worme and fishe,
    And all that beareth lyfe:
    Their vertues and their natures bothe
    With thee oughte to be rife.”

The acquisition of this varied fund of knowledge shall prove itself
enjoyable, helpful, and profitable, for—

    “Whereby of knowledge and greate skill
    Thou shalt obteine the fruit:
    And men to thee in generall,
    For helpe shall make their sute.”

One interesting result of searching in these old tomes is that amidst
much that the world has now outlived one often finds interesting
references that show how unchanging some customs are, and how some of the
things that we have regarded as recent discoveries were, after all, well
known centuries ago. It is somewhat startling, for instance, to see the
great African lakes—the Victoria and Albert Nyanza, and others that have
only comparatively lately been rediscovered—quite clearly marked in some
ancient maps; and the whole course of the Nile, from source to sea, as
definitely given as that of Thames or Tiber.

We speak of the “unchanging East,” and adopt the phrase with more or
less of thoughtful acquiescence, but it is distinctly interesting in the
pages of Jordanus, for example, to find the Parsee funeral customs and
the Tower of Silence thus referred to:—“There be pagan folk in this
India who worship fire; they bury not their dead, neither do they burn
them, but cast them into the midst of a certain roofless tower, and there
expose them totally uncovered to the fowls of heaven.” He was present
also at Suttee, for he says:—“I have sometimes seen for one dead man who
was burnt, five living women take their places on the fire with their
dead, and for the love of their husbands and for eternal life burn along
with them, with as much joy as if they were going to be wedded.”

This Jordanus was a missionary bishop in India. He was appointed to
the bishopric of Columbum by Pope John XXII., by a Bull bearing date
April 5th, 1330. There are indications that there was at that time a
considerable body of Christians at Columbum, but the locality is now
entirely unknown. Many conflicting theories have been held, and each
one demolished as hopeless by the holders of the others. His book,
entitled “Mirabilia descripta,” was written in Latin. “Like many other
old writers,” very justly observes Colonel Henry Yule, who published an
English translation of his book from which we quote, “whilst endeavouring
to speak only truth of what he had seen, Jordanus retails fables enough
from hearsay. What he did see in his travels was so marvellous to him
that he was quite ready to accept what was told him of regions more
remote from Christendom, when it seemed but in reasonable proportion more
marvellous.” Of the truth of this we shall doubtless find illustration
in subsequent references to his book.

Maundevile in like manner in his “Voiage and Travaile” gives us another
insight into the unchangeable nature of the customs of the East. We
recognize at once the sacrifice made to Juggernaut when we read that “at
the thronynge of the Ydole all the Contree aboute meten there to gidere:
and thei setten this Ydole upon a Chare with gret reverence, wel arranged
with Clothes of gold, of riche Clothes of Tartarye and other precyous
Clothes: and thei leden him aboute the Cytee with gret solempnytee. And
before the Chare gon first in processioun alle the Maydennes of the
Contree two and two to gidere, fulle ordynately. Aftre the Maydennes gon
the Pilgrymes. And sume of hem falle down undre the Wheles of the Chare
and let the Chare gon over hem, so that thei ben dede anon. And sume hav
here Armes or here Lymes alle to broken and sume the sydes: and alle this
done thei for love of hire God, in gret Dovocioun. And he thinkethe that
the more peyne, and the more tribulacioun that thei suffren for love of
here God the more ioye thei schulle have in an other World.” We read
also of the snake charmers, of the small misshapen feet of the Chinese
ladies, the talon-like nails of their lords and masters. He tells us too
of the incubation by artificial means, “withouten Henne, Goos or Doke
or ony other Foul,” of eggs “at Cayre,” which our readers will readily
recognize as Cairo. It will no doubt be remembered by many who may scan
these pages, how large a use the French made of pigeons, when, during the
siege of Paris in the Franco-German war, they desired to communicate with
the outside world, and this is clearly no new thing under the sun, for
Maundevile tells us that “in Judæa and other Contrees beyonde thei hav a
Custom, whan thei schulle usen Werre, and whan men holden Sege abouten
Cytee or Castelle, and thei with innen dur not senden out Messagers with
Letters for to aske Sokour thei bynden here Lettres to the Nekke of a
Colver[3] and leten the Colver flee, and the Colveren ben so taughte that
thei fleen with the Lettres to the verry place that Men wolde sende hem
to.”

As we shall from time to time have occasion to refer to Maundevile’s
book, we may, on this first mention of it, very advantageously introduce
some few details respecting it. The “Voiage and Travaile” of Sir John
Maundevile was professedly a book for the guidance of pilgrims and
travellers journeying to Jerusalem, but on the same principle that it
has been asserted that all roads lead to Rome so all seemed to have
centred in the capital of Judæa; hence his book is comprehensive enough
to include the “Marvayles of Inde,” and a very full description of China.
The book was one of the most popular works of the Middle Ages, and
passed through many editions both in England and on the continent,[4]
first in manuscript form and afterwards as a printed book. Of no book,
with the exception of the Scriptures, can more MSS. be found of the
end of the fourteenth and beginning of the fifteenth century. Nineteen
manuscript copies of it, four being in Latin and nine in French, are in
the library of the British Museum, and others at Oxford, Cambridge, and
in various other libraries. In one of the copies in the British Museum, a
small vellum folio of the fourteenth century, its _raison d’être_ is thus
defined—“Here bygynneth the book of John Maundevile, Knyght of Inglelond,
that was y-bore in the toun of Seynt Albons, and travelide aboute in
the worlde in manye diverse countreis to se mervailes and customes of
countreis and diversiteis of folkys and diverse shap of men and of
beistis, and all the mervaill that he say he wrot and tellitte in this
book.” The book is made up from his personal experiences, supplemented by
gossip and hearsay, while at times he appropriated freely from the works
of other authors. Much of what he tells of China and India is markedly
similar, for instance, to the narrative of Friar Odoric, the narration
of whose travels in those lands was given to the world in the year 1331.
When Maundevile has an exceptionally improbable story to narrate he
evades personal responsibility by prefacing it with the formula, “thei
seyn.” He set out on his travels on Michaelmas day in 1322, and was
absent from England for thirty-four years, being “ravished with a mightie
desire to see the greater part of the world,” and in that lengthened
period of absence going far towards the attainment of his ideal.

As regards the mention by various old authors of divers things that we
have a way of considering quite recent discoveries we may give as an
illustration the coca plant. This has been within the last few years
brought to the front and highly commended as a stimulant, from its
undoubted power of enabling one to sustain strength and endurance during
any exceptional bodily exertion, but on taking down Burton’s “Miracles
of Art and Nature” from our bookshelf, we find that over two hundred
years ago (our copy is dated 1678) all this was as thoroughly known as it
is to-day. After mentioning in his description of Peru, divers curious
animals, he goes on to say—“Some as deservedly account the coca for a
wonder, the leaves whereof being dried and formed into Lozenges, or
little pellets, are exceedingly useful in a Journey: for melting in the
mouth, they satisfie both hunger and thirst, and preserve a man in his
strength and his Spirits in vigour: and are generally esteemed of such
Soveraign use that it is thought no less than 100,000 Baskets full of the
leaves of this tree are sold yearly at the Mines of Potosi only, each of
which at some other places would yield 12_d_ or 18_d_ apiece.”

Burton’s book, “Miracles of Art and Nature, or a Brief Description of
the several varieties of Birds, Beasts, Fishes, Plants, and Fruits of
other Countreys, Together with Severall Remarkable Things in the World,”
contains much curious and interesting matter, and we shall find occasion
to quote from it from time to time in our subsequent pages. The scope
and aim of the book may be very well gathered from the following extract
from the preface—“Candid Reader, what thou findest herein are Collections
out of severall Antient Authors, which (with no small trouble) I have
carefully and diligently Collected and Comprised into this small Book
at some vacant hours, for the divertisement of such as thyself, who are
disposed to read it: For the several Climates of the World, have not only
influenced the Inhabitants, but the very Beasts, with Natures different
from one another: So hast thou here, not only a Description of the
several Shapes and Natures of Variety of Birds, Beasts, Fishes, Plants,
and Fruits: but also of the Dispositions and Customs (though some of them
Barbarous and Inhuman) of severall People, who Inhabit many pleasing
and other parts of the World. I think there is not a Chapter wherein
thou wilt not find various and remarkable things worth thy observation:
and such (take the Book throughout) that thou canst not have in any one
Author, at least Modern, and of this Volume. ’Tis probable they are not
so Methodically dispos’d as some hands might have done: Yet for Variety
and Pleasure-sake, they are (I hope) pleasingly enough intermixed. And as
I find this accepted so I shall proceed. Farewel.” That the disposition
is not altogether methodical is speedily evident, as opening the book at
random we find chapters following each other on “Norwey, Assiria, Quivira
in California, Germany, Nova Zelina.”

The influence of Pliny is of immense weight with the writers of mediæval
days, and even when the well-used formula “as Pliny saith,” is not given,
anyone who is familiar with his labours will have no difficulty in
recognizing the utilization of his material by his successors. Thus Pliny
tells us that many wonderful things which he specifies are to be found in
Ethiopia, hence Ethiopia has been discovered by many subsequent writers
to be a marvellous land, and the wondrous things they detail of it have
strange similarity with those of the older writer. This need not in all
cases imply plagiarism; if a writer five hundred years ago, in describing
the Bay of Naples, introduced a volcano into his description, we do not
resent all subsequent writers on the subject also seeing it, but when an
ancient writer introduces a rank impossibility, and subsequent writers
see that too, we may reasonably assume that they have been borrowing.
As an illustration we may mention that we read in the pages of Pliny of
single-footed men who possess this solitary feature of so gigantic a size
that its owner utilizes it as a sunshade. Hence these people appear from
time to time in the pages of divers travellers. Maundevile, for instance,
without acknowledgment of the source of his information, which he allows
us to think is the result of his personal observation, tells us that “in
Ethiope ben many dyverse folk,” and goes on to specify that “in that
Contree ben folk that have but on foot: and thei gon so fast that it is
marvayle, and the foot is so large that it schademethe all the Body agen
the Sonne whanne thei wole lye and reste hem.”

That Pliny was at times imposed upon by his informants is sufficiently
obvious from the illustration that we have given, but when all deductions
have been made his work was a very wonderful and valuable one, and
a monument of painstaking industry, intellectual power and enormous
erudition. The great naturalist Cuvier, no mean authority, calls it “one
of the most precious monuments that have come down to us from ancient
times.” Buffon, no mean authority either, writes: “It is, so to say, a
compilation from all that had been written before his time: a record of
all that was excellent or useful: but his record has in it features so
grand, this compilation contains matter grouped in a manner so novel,
that it is preferable to most of the original works that treat upon
similar subjects.”

Seeing that it is the _fons et origo_ of so much subsequent work, we
may well devote some little space to its consideration, for mediæval
natural history is largely Pliny, either frankly acknowledged, boldly
appropriated without acknowledgment, or at least the nucleus around
which other observations of more or less value are gathered.

Pliny’s book is of the most comprehensive character, and even his table
of contents runs into many pages. This table would appear at the time of
its issue to have been almost a literary curiosity, as he prefaces it
by saying that “as you[5] should be spared as far as possible from all
trouble, I have subjoined the contents of the following books, and have
used my best endeavours to prevent your being obliged to read them all
through. And this, which was done for your benefit, will also serve the
same purpose for others, so that anyone may search for what he wishes,
and may know where to find it. This has been done before amongst us by
Valerius Soranus, in his book which he entitled ‘On Mysteries.’”

The following shortened list gives a notion of the general character
of the various sections of this _magnum opus_. After the first book,
which is occupied entirely by the elaborate preface to the Emperor, the
author plunges at once into his subject, and devotes the second book to
a general treatise on the elements and on the world and the heavenly
bodies. The third and fourth books describe the great bays of Europe,
while the fifth and sixth deal with Africa and Asia respectively. The
seventh book is entirely devoted to man, and the eighth and ninth are on
land and aquatic animals. The tenth treats of birds, and the eleventh
of insects. The attention of the author and reader is then turned to
matters botanical, and the twelfth book dwells upon odoriferous plants.
The thirteenth is occupied with the consideration of the various exotic
trees then known, while the fourteenth is devoted entirely to the vine,
and the fifteenth to fruit trees generally. In the next book, the
sixteenth, the author passes to a consideration of the various kinds of
forest trees, and in the following, the seventeenth, to the plants raised
in nurseries and gardens. The eighteenth book deals with the cultivation
of corn and the general pursuits of the husbandman. The treatise then
turns to economic and medicinal considerations, section nineteen taking
up flax and other commercial plants, and twenty dealing with the herbs
cultivated for food or medicine. The twenty-first and twenty-second are
somewhat æsthetic, and dwell upon the flowers and plants proper for
garlands. The twenty-third and twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth are devoted
to the medicines made from cultivated trees, forest trees, and wild
plants respectively. The twenty-sixth deals with new diseases and their
appropriate treatment by herbs, and the twenty-seventh is a continuation
and amplification of the twentieth. The twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth
are devoted to the medicines derived from animals, and the thirtieth
chapter deals with magic and the proper medicines for various parts of
the body. The thirty-first and thirty-second sections are given up to
the economic uses of various aquatic animals, one being entirely devoted
to their medicinal value, and the next to their general commercial
adaptability. The remaining chapters deal with the mineral kingdom, the
thirty-third chapter being given up wholly to gold and silver, and the
thirty-fourth to lead and copper. The thirty-fifth division is given
up to pictures and colours and the painters and users thereof. The
thirty-sixth chapter is occupied with marbles and various kinds of stone,
while the concluding section deals with gems.

It will thus be seen that the work is of the most comprehensive
character, and however far the world may since have travelled, and in its
revolutions disproved much that when this book was written was held to be
undoubted, the book nevertheless remains a noble monument of the zeal,
energy, and thirst after knowledge of its author.

Caius Plinius Secundus, ordinarily called the Elder to distinguish
him from his nephew, who was also an eminent man of letters, was born
at Verona or Como, A.D. 23. As the son of a Roman of noble family,
he was early devoted to a military career, and spent a considerable
portion of his life in the army, where he gained distinction in various
campaigns; and on his retirement from actual service, was appointed
by the Emperor Procurator of Spain. Though much occupied in public
work he was an enthusiastic student, and devoted all his intervals of
relaxation to literature. During dinner he was either being read to or
was busily engaged in taking notes, and when travelling his secretary
was in constant attendance upon him. Even while enjoying his bath, he
was busy dictating or imbibing knowledge. He was a tremendous worker,
and besides the “Natural History,” wrote a voluminous treatise on the
German Campaign and various other books. He fell a victim to his love
of science, as while commanding the fleet he was witness of the great
eruption of Vesuvius that destroyed Pompeii and Herculaneum, and while
making observations ashore he was overwhelmed in thick sulphurous vapour.

Pliny had an intense love of nature, and to his own researches he
added those of a great body of other observers, sifting with infinite
patience from their labours whatever he deemed of value, and accumulating
vast stores of observation. That he at times drew false conclusions
is sufficiently evident, but it is clearly not just to apply a
nineteenth-century standard to his labours. He gave credence to many
stories that have since been proved erroneous, but he always honestly
strove after truth. When he tells us, for example, that the appearance
of an owl is a portent of misfortune, he adds, “but I myself know that
it hath perched upon many houses of private men and yet hath no evil
followed.”

At the beginning of each book Pliny is careful to give the names of the
authors that he has consulted for it.[6] As the subjects that he treats
of are very varied the total list of authorities is very large. Some of
the names, such as Virgil, Archimedes, and others, are those of men still
held in reverence; while many are naturally now but little known, their
works having perished. As an illustration of the thoroughness of Pliny
in the matter we will give an illustrative list—that which precedes his
eighth book, dealing with land animals. He divides his lists always into
two sections, and commences with the authors of his own country. These
in this particular instance are Mutianus, Procilius, Verrius Flaccus, L.
Piso, Cornelius Valerianus, Cato the Censor, Fenestella, Trogus, Actius,
Columella, Virgil, Varro, Metellus Scipio, Cornelius Celsus, Nigidius,
Trebius Niger, Pomponius Mela, and Manlius Sura. His foreign authorities
are considerably more numerous, and are, naturally, most of them
Greek writers: Polybius, Onesicritus, Isidorus, Antipater, Aristotle,
Demetrius, Democritus, Theophrastus, Euanthes, Hiero, Duris, Ctesias,
Philistus, Architas, Philarchus, Amphilochus the Athenian, Anaxipolis the
Thasian, Apollodorus of Lemnos, Aristophanes the Milesian, Antigonus the
Cymæan, and twenty-three others, whom it is needless to add to the list,
as it is already quite long enough to illustrate the care with which
Pliny fortified his own knowledge with the best aid that he could procure.

Though, doubtless, in some cases, the bearers of these names were
travellers and others who contributed but one or two items to the store
of knowledge, the greater portion of the names are those of men who, to
the best of their ability, were endeavouring to penetrate the secrets of
nature. It is a striking fact that at this early period there should be
such a body of scientific opinion to draw upon. Pliny tells us that he
has dealt with twenty thousand subjects and that this has necessitated
the perusal of over two thousand books.

Though the quaintness of some of the ideas we encounter in Pliny raises
a smile, yet the real wonder is that he was able to produce a book so
excellent, and the more one reads of it the more this truth is impressed
upon one’s mind. In many of his ideas he appears to have been far in
advance of his age. Thus he distinctly declares that the world is round,
and gives lucid reasons for his statement, and in an age of abounding
polytheism, when temples innumerable each enshrined the image of some
deity, he had the courage to declare that “to seek after any shape of God
and to assign a form or image to him is a proof of man’s folly. For God,
wheresoever he be and in what part soever resident, all sense he is, all
sight, all hearing. He is the whole of the life and of the soul, and
to believe that there be gods innumerable, and those according to man’s
virtues, as chastity, concord, understanding, hope, honour, clemency,
faith, these conceits render men’s negligence the greater.”

The unchanging nature of the East that we have, already seen illustrated
by extracts from mediæval writers is even visible in the work of this
author of nearly two thousand years ago, for Pliny mentions the people
called Seres, beyond Scythia, who fly the company of other people and
who are famous for the fine silk that their woods yield. There can be
no reasonable doubt but that these exclusive folk were the Chinese. He
tells us that they collect this silk from the leaves of the trees, and,
having steeped it in water, card it: it being a very pardonable error to
conclude that this silk was the product of the tree itself rather than of
the silkworm that spun its cocoon amongst its foliage. The men have feet
of natural size, while the women’s are so small that Pliny’s informant
described them as ostrich-footed. Here we can scarcely doubt that the
strange custom of the Chinese in binding up the feet of the women is
referred to, and granting this it is an interesting proof of the great
antiquity of this barbarous proceeding.

In India, too, it was reported to Pliny that there were certain
philosophers who from sunrise to sunset persevere in gazing upon the
sun without once removing their eyes, and from morn to eve stand upon
one leg on the burning sand. It is remarkable to observe how exactly
these austerities and others of like severity and uselessness are still
practised by the Fakirs of India. He tells us too of others who had
strange influence over venomous serpents, doubtless the snake-charmers
whose descendants still exhibit their skill, and refers to the people
of India hunting and taming the elephants and using them as beasts of
burden, as valuable aids to locomotion and for purposes of war.

Pliny’s book has gone through many editions and translations. Of these we
need but mention that of Dalecamp in 1599; De Laet in 1635, Gronovius,
1669; Pinet, 1566; and Poinsinet de Sivri, 1771. An English version of
delightful quaintness of language and expression is the translation
issued by Dr. Philemon Holland in the year 1601. He is the only writer
who has given a complete rendering of Pliny’s book in English.[7] Bostock
also, in 1828, began a translation and issued the first and thirty-third
books as a specimen of a proposed rendering of the whole work. His death
prevented the accomplishment of the task. The reader in subsequent
passages will readily detect for himself from which source any quotation
we give is derived, as the diction of Holland is far more quaint and
old-fashioned than that of the later translator.

Several other writers of antiquity influenced the mediæval authors, but
it is scarcely necessary to detail their labours at any length, since
if they lived before Pliny he borrowed from them, and if they lived
afterwards they borrowed from him, so that we practically in Pliny get
the pith and cream of all. Herodotus, the “Historiarum parens,” as
Cicero terms him, was, we read, scarcely a historian, but one finds
divers passages from time to time in his descriptions of Egypt and other
lands that throw an interesting side-light on the natural history of the
country under consideration, and these have a certain value. A writer
of greater direct importance is Aristotle, one of the most illustrious
naturalists of antiquity. It will be remembered that his works supplanted
the love of gold, of sumptuous apparel, even the charms of music in the
breast of Chaucer’s philosopher, and formed an all-sufficient solace for
a light cash box, a sparse wardrobe, and the missing “fidel.” The passage
is interesting as it indicates the repute in which the works of the
ancient writer were held in the days of the poet:—

    “For him was lever han at his beddes hed
    A twenty bokes, clothed in black and red,
    Of Aristotle, and his philosophie,
    Than robes rich, or fidel, or sautrie,
    But all be that he was a philosopher
    Yet hadde he but litel gold in cofre.”

Aristotle had very exceptional opportunities of acquiring knowledge, as
his royal patron and friend, the potent Alexander the Great, was able
and willing to afford him aid that was invaluable to him. Thousands
of men, huntsmen, fishermen, soldiers in distant garrisons of his
far-stretching realm, by royal command were instructed to keep a keen
outlook, and to forward to Aristotle anything that was curious or rare,
or to procure him, if possible, any specimen he desired to possess. His
book “De animalibus,” though naturally not free from a certain amount of
error, and the intrusion of second-hand hearsay, is a mine of industry
and research and not unworthy of the special opportunities that gave it
birth.

In the study of our subject during the Middle Ages, several sources of
information are open to us. Of hooks on natural history, pure and simple,
there are none; their day was not yet. The love of nature for its own
sake was a later birth, but the books of travels often detail the zoology
and botany of the lands journeyed through. Then there are the medical
books, containing the most extraordinary remedies, or perhaps it would
be safer to say, prescriptions, for the ills of suffering humanity, and
which more or less fully describe the source and origin of the various
ingredients in their gruesome pharmacopœia, and with these we may class
the books on social economics, dealing with gastronomy, gardening, the
distillation of essences, and so forth, and which necessarily deal in
some degree with the life-history of the materials that are introduced.
In addition to these we have what are termed bestiaries, books that treat
the animals and plants as so many lay figures to be clothed upon with
any moral that, with often scant regard to facts, will serve to enforce
a dogma. To these must be added the armories or books on heraldry,
where the lions, elephants, bears, and other devices of blazonry, are
often very quaintly and graphically described for the benefit of those,
doubtless a considerable majority, to whom they were little more than a
name; or to whom, if they had seen them at the Tower of London in the
royal collection, further information on creatures so strange was of
great interest. In addition to these sources of instruction of more or
less value we may fitly refer to the writings of the poets, since in the
pages of Chaucer, Shakespeare and the lesser lights of poesy are abundant
allusions to the beliefs of the time, in this as in other directions, and
many of these are of great interest and value.

    “Oh for a booke and a shady nooke
    Eyther in doore or out,
    With the greene leaves whispering overhead,
    Or the streete cryes all about;
    Where I maie reade all at my ease,
    Both of the newe and old,
    For a jollie goode booke whereon to looke
    Is better to me than golde.”[8]

It must surely have been of some quaint book of travel that this old
English song-writer was thinking when he thus discoursed on the pleasant
debt we owe to books, when in the stirring days of Frobisher, Drake and
Raleigh, men’s minds were expanding to all sorts of possibilities, and
they read with avidity of the Eldorado of the west, and of the headless
men, or those whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders. Such as were
in all good faith held to be fairly represented by our illustration (fig.
1) from one of these old books. The writers of the day described too the
wondrous creatures that peopled the torrid plains of Africa or India, or
the lands of Prester John, or far Cathay; where so many things were new
and true and wonderful that it seemed as if all things were possible, and
a mermaid no more an unreasonable probability than a milkmaid.

[Illustration: FIG. 1.]

Of Maundevile we have already made mention. It would be manifestly
undesirable to dwell at the length that the ample materials to hand would
permit. We will mention but one or two other books as samples of the bulk.

Munster’s “Cosmography” is a book that all bibliophiles whose
tastes incline in this direction should see. Sebastian Munster, the
learned author, died of the plague at Basel in the year 1552, at the
comparatively early age of sixty-three, almost immediately after he had
completed his book. The copy before us we see was published at Basel in
the year of his death. Everyone consulting such a book should always
begin at the very beginning, as the old titles, as we have already
indicated, are often full of interest and beauty. In the instance before
us the centre of the page is filled up with the title, given with that
elaborate fulness that is so characteristic of early books. The upper
part of the page is devoted to the secular and spiritual princes of the
Roman Empire, the former crowned, the latter wearing their mitres, and
each having a shield of arms. Amongst the secular princes we find those
of Cyprus, Ungar, Sicilia, Bohem, Neapol and Polon. The sides of the page
are taken up with panels containing the rulers of Turkey, Tartary and
such-like outlandish places, and at the bottom is a very comprehensive
picture indeed. In the foreground, resting against a tree, is a man in
grievous extremity, naked and forlorn, and to him advances a warlike
savage with bow and arrow and, worse still, a manifest inclination to
use them to the detriment of the traveller. Behind the prostrate figure
is an elephant, while in rear of the savage are three trees, marked
respectively Piper, Muscata and Gariofili. In the background is a river,
or arm of the sea, from which dolphins emerge, and on the further shore
are two towns and a range of mountains.

The book is very freely illustrated with maps, portraits, pictures of
towns, animals, plants, and so forth. Some of the figures are really
very good; there is one of the Moufflon, for instance, that is full
of character and truth, while others are hopelessly wrong. The same
pictures come over and over again at intervals in the text, thus a man
with a great sword going to chop off the head of a man kneeling before
him, stands for martyrdom or the doom of the traitor, and reappears
impartially on all occasions where the text suggests such ideas. The
same battle-scene often crops up to illustrate the various conflicts
described, and there is a standard figure of a bishop with mitre and
pastoral crook that serves as a portrait of divers ecclesiastics. The
same lantern tower that does duty for Lucerne reappears for Alexandria.
It argues a quaint simplicity all round when the author could gravely
furnish and his readers as gravely accept these few stock illustrations
for all the varying conditions.

It is very interesting to see that in the map of Africa[9] the Nile takes
its rise from three large lakes far south of the equator, but the map
of the world is an extraordinary production, and shows, sources of the
Nile notwithstanding, a strange ignorance of elementary facts. The South
Atlantic is almost entirely filled up from Brazil to Africa by a great
sea monster. In the map of Africa a gigantic elephant is introduced, a
proceeding that was rather popular with these older writers, and which
is satirized in the well-known lines of Swift—

    “So geographers, in Afric maps,
    With savage pictures fill their gaps,
    And o’er inhabitable downs
    Place elephants for want of towns.”

Even in the days of Plutarch a kindred device was not unknown, as we
find him in the “Theseus” writing, “as geographers crowd into the edges
of their maps parts of the world which they do not know about, adding
notes in the margin to the effect that beyond this lies nothing but
sandy deserts full of wild beasts and unapproachable bogs.” Elsewhere in
this map of Africa we see trees with enormous parrots (miles long if we
judge them by the general scale of the map) perched in their branches,
and the reputed home of the monoculi, the one-eyed men, is indicated
by the introduction of one of them. In South America in the same way
the home of the Canibali is marked by a hut of tree trunks and branches
from which hang suspended, as in a larder, a human leg and a man’s head.
Many old beliefs obtain curious illustration, thus in one of the quaint
pictures we see a man using the divining rod to detect subterranean
water. That Swift knew the book seems probable from his happy allusion
to the elephants in lieu of towns, and this probability grows almost
into a certainty, when we read, in his “Tale of a Tub,” his assertion
that sea-men have a custom, when they meet a whale, of flinging him out
an empty tub by way of amusement, to divert him from doing damage to
the ship. In the “Cosmography” there is the picture of a ship to which a
whale is approaching somewhat too closely for the nerves of the crew, and
they are, therefore, represented as throwing a tub overboard for it to
play with. Neither the substitution of elephants for towns nor the notion
of the ship-preserving tub are, however, the exclusive copyright of the
Munster limners. The former are seen in various other old maps and the
tub incident is introduced into the “Ship of Fools” and other old books.

The great value of these monsters, terrestrial or marine, in filling up
bare spaces, and in giving an additional interest and reality, may be
very well seen in the accompanying illustration (fig. 2)—a view of the
Azores, where the strange water-monster fills up very adequately indeed
a space where Nature failed to deposit an island. It is impossible to
decide its species; at first sight it suggests the notion of a sawfish or
water-unicorn. The old draughtsman was unwilling that any of it should
be lost to us, so instead of placing it in the water, it, with perhaps
the exception of the missing lower jaw, is entirely on the surface. The
mysterious something that crosses it suggests the idea that the creature
is going bathing, and has thrown its towel, schoolboy-fashion, over its
back; but on fuller reflection we take it that that is meant to indicate
the wave and turmoil that the creature makes in the otherwise placid sea
as it rushes through it, or rather over it.

[Illustration: FIG. 2.]

The figure is a facsimile of a drawing of a portion of the Azores, St.
George and Flores being omitted by us. It is extracted from Sir Thomas
Herbert’s book, “Some Yeares Travels into Africa and Asia the Great,
especially the famous Empires of Persia and Industant.” The edition
we consult was printed in London in the year 1677. After the usual
dedicatory letter we find the following appeal to the reader:—

    “Here thou at greater ease than he
    Mayst behold what he did see;
    Thou participat’st his gains,
    But he alone reserves the pains.
    He travell’d not with lucre sotted,
    He went for knowledge, and he got it.
    Then thank the Author: thanks is light,
    Who hath presented to thy sight
    Seas, Lands, Men, Beasts, Fishes, and Birds,
    The rarest that the world affords.”

Personally we have much pleasure in paying the suggested tribute of
courteous thanks, and we think that any of our readers who may encounter
the book will in like manner confess their obligations to the old writer
for his labours. We would fain hope that the trip had many brighter spots
in it than he seems quite willing to allow.

It has been the custom with many writers to depreciate the labours of
Marco Polo,[10] and to impute to him a lack of trustworthiness; but it
appears to us, after a careful perusal of his book, that such censure
is scarcely deserved. He made mistakes, but he is poles asunder from
such writers as Maundevile or Pinto.[11] His travels in the east are
narrated with much fidelity, and are almost entirely free from the gross
misstatements that are met with so freely in many books of travel, not
only at this early date but for centuries afterwards. The original was
probably written in the Venetian dialect, but the earliest manuscript now
known, that of 1320, is in Latin. A copy of this is in the magnificent
library of the British Museum, another is in the Royal Berlin Library,
another in the Paris Library, and some few others are in private
collections. Other MSS. of it exist, and it was also freely printed on
the advent of the printing press, as for instance, at Basle in 1522; in
Venice in 1496, 1508, 1597, and 1611; in Brescia in 1500; Paris, 1556;
Nuremberg, 1477; Strasburg, 1534; Leipzig, 1611; Lisbon, 1502; Seville,
1520; London, 1597, 1625; Amsterdam, 1664. As these various editions were
in the languages of the respective places of publication it indicates
a widespread interest, and it may be taken as a proof, too, that the
book was held to possess solid value: no book of the Munchausen type can
show such a record as this. An excellent English edition, very freely
illustrated by notes, is that of William Marsden, published in 1818: to
this the editor prefixes a very complete biography of the old author.

Master Peter Heylyn, geographer, who flourished during the reigns of
Charles I., Cromwell, and Charles II., tells us of many marvellous
journeys in his volume, and introduces much that is curious in his notes
of the natural history of the countries visited. India was in those days
an inscrutable and little-known land, where the wildest imagination had
full play and was in but little danger of being dispossessed by cold
reality. Wonderful, however, as the tales were that came to Heylyn’s
ears he found some of them almost beyond credit, and after telling us
of “men with dogges heads: of men with one legge onely, of such as live
by sent; of men that had but one eye, and that in their foreheads; and
of others whose eares did reach unto the ground,” he is careful to
add—“But of these relations and the rest of this straine I doubt not
but the understanding reader knoweth how to judge and what to believe.”
He tells us, too, of an Indian people that by eating dragon’s heart and
liver attain to the understanding of the languages of beasts, who can
make themselves, when they will, invisible, and who have “two tubbes,
whereof the one opened yields winde, and the other raine,” but here, too,
he hesitates to take the responsibility of these tales and leaves their
credence or rejection to the faith or scepticism of his readers. In the
Moluccas, too, he hears of many wonders: a river, for instance, that is
plentifully stored with fish, yet the water so hot that it immediately
scalds the skin off any beast that is thrown into it; of men with
“tayles”; of fruit, that whosoever eateth shall for the space of twelve
hours be out of his wits; of “a tree which all the day-time hath not a
floure on it, but within half an hour after sunne-set is full of them.”
These, however, and several other wonders of the land, he concludes by
embracing in one simple category—“All huge and monstrous lies.” He tells
of a people of Libya, the Psylli, so venomous in themselves that they
could poison a snake! One can fancy the immense disgust of some poisonous
reptile of death dealing powers when he found that he had at length met
more than his match, and that his attempt on the life of one of these
very objectionable Libyans was recoiling with fatal effect upon himself.

The America of those days was a very different place from the America of
to day. Primeval forest covered much of the land, the red man and the
buffalo were in full possession, and the pilgrim fathers had but lately
landed on its shores from the little “Mayflower.” As the remote is always
associated with the wonderful, and monstrosities and marvels flourish in
such congenial soil, Heylyn finds in America no less than in Asia and
Africa a rich crop of marvels. Into these we need not, however, go; those
who care to seek out this old author will find much of quaint interest,
tradition blending with solid history and fable with fact in his pages.

Sir Walter Raleigh’s book on Guiana—“The discoverie of the large,
rich and bewtiful Empire of Gviana, with a relation of the great and
golden City of Manoa, which the Spaniards call El Dorado, performed
in the year 1595,” gives much curious information, and should not be
overlooked. We may read in it of the Amazons, the Cannibals, the headless
people, and other strange creatures of this wondrous land. Hakluyt’s
blackletter folio, “The Principal Navigations, Voiages and Discoveries
of the English Nation, made by Sea or over Land to the most remote and
farthest distant Quarters of the earth at any time within the compasse
of these fifteen hundred yeeres,” published in 1589, and “Purchas his
Pilgrimage, or Relations of the World, Asia, Africa, and America, and
the Hands adiacent,” published in London in the year 1614, are both
quaint and interesting old books. Struys’ “Perillous and most Unhappy
Voiages through Moscovia, Tartary, Italy, Greece, Persia, and Japan,” is
another delightful old volume. It was published in the year 1638, and is
illustrated by divers curious plates. To this list we need only add the
“Natvrall and Morall Historie of the East and West Indies,” by Joseph
Acosta, published in 1604, and “Intreating of the Remarkable things of
Heaven, of the Elements, Mettalls, Plants, and Beasts which are proper
to that Country.” Where we have given a date it is simply that of the
copy that has come under our own cognisance; many of those works were of
sufficient popularity to run through several editions, sometimes several
years apart; still the dates we give will afford an approximate notion
of the age of the books in question. This slight sketch of mediæval books
of travel might very readily be extended; we do but introduce them as
illustrations and samples of the mass of material available.

The medical treatises of our forefathers were very numerous. Such books
as Potter’s “Booke of Phisicke and Chirurgery,” or Cogan’s “Haven of
Health,” may advantageously be consulted. The copy of the first of these
that lies open before us as we write is dated “the yeare of our Lorde
God, 1610,” and like almost all these old books is more or less of a
compilation, full of divers interesting matters “necessary to be knowne
and collected out of sundry olde written bookes.” Cogan is very frank
on this point. He says, “Yet one thing I desire of all them that shall
reade this booke; if they finde whole sentences taken out of Master
Eliot his Castle of Heath, or out of Schola Salerni, or any other author
whatsoever, that they will not condemne me of vaine glorie, as if I meant
to set forth for mine owne workes that which other men have devised; for
I confess that I have taken verbatim out of other wher it served for my
purpose, but I have so interlaced it with mine owne, that (as I think)
it may be the better perceived, and therefore seeing all my travaile
tendeth to common commodity I trust every man will interpret all to the
best.” His statement that his ingenious interweaving of other men’s work
with his own makes the plagiarism and appropriation the more readily
detected, is somewhat difficult to follow.

Cogan did, however, plagiarism notwithstanding, take up a somewhat
special ground that supplied the _raison d’être_ of his book, since he
tells us that “it was chiefly gathered for the comfort of students, and
consequently of all those that have a care for their health.” There
are repeated references to the Oxford scholars: thus, under the head
of quinces he gives a receipt for marmalade, “because the making of
marmalade is a pretty conceit, and may perhaps delight some painefull
student that will be his own Apothecarie.” Elsewhere we are told of
“Cinamon-water” that “it hath innumerable vertues, wherefore I reckon it
a great treasure for a student to have by him in his closet, to take now
and then a spoonfull.” One gets some interesting side-light thrown on the
University life of that day—Cogan’s book we may mention was published
in 1636,—as for instance when we are told that “when foure houres bee
past after breakefast a man may safely take his dinner, and the most
convenient time for dinner is aboute eleaven of the clocke before noone.
At Oxford in my time they used commonly at dinner boyled beefe[12] with
pottage, bread, and beere and no more. The quantitie of beefe was in
value one halfepenny for one man, and sometimes if hunger constrained
they would double their commons.” Judging by the “battels” we have had
the felicity of paying we may take it that this tariff has undergone
considerable alteration since 1636.

The working and superintendence of the printing press has up to
comparatively recent years been considered such essentially masculine
labour that it is rather curious to find on the title-page of Cogan’s
book that it was “printed by Anna Griffin for Roger Ball, and are to be
sold at his shop without Temple-Barre at the Golden Anchor.”

As the ingredients used as remedies by our ancestors came largely from
the animal and vegetable kingdoms, we get in these medical works a good
deal, indirectly, of natural history lore. Thus Cogan strongly commends
the eating of cabbage leaves as a “preservative of the stomache from
surfetting and the head from drunkennesse.” “Raw Cabage with Vinegar so
much as he list.” The philosophy of the thing is that “the Vine and the
Coleworts be so contrarie by Nature that if you plant Coleworts neare to
the rootes of the Vine of it selfe it will flee from them, therefore it
is no maruaile if Coleworts be of such force against drunkennesse.” Macer
tells of the virtue of fennel as a restorative of youth, and bases his
treatment on the assertion that “Serpentis whan thei are olde and willing
to wexe stronge, myghty, and yongly agean thei gon and eten ofte fenel
and thei become yongliche and myghty.” Coles, in his “Adam in Eden,”
commends the Eyebright as a remedy for weak eyes, on the all-sufficient
ground that goldfinches, linnets, and other birds eat of this plant to
strengthen their sight.

Many of these prescriptions of our grandfathers’ great-grandfathers would
have supplied ample justification for action on the part of the Society
for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, had so invaluable a society
been extant in those good old times of bull-baiting, cock-throwing
brutality. Thus, in one remedy, the first step is to “take a red cock,
pluck him alive, and bruise him in a mortar,” in another we must take a
cat, cut off her ears and tail and mix the blood thereof with a little
new milk, while the victim to tight boots must find relief for his
blistered heel by skinning a mouse alive and laying the skin, while
still warm, upon the injured spot. Scores of such instances of selfish
indifference to suffering could readily be adduced.

We need scarcely pause to dwell on books dealing with cookery,
distillation, gardening, and such like household economics, though it
will be readily seen how in these again the natural history knowledge—or
want of it—of our ancestors finds room for its display, but pass on to
the books that deal with animals and the works of nature generally, from
the theological point of view.

The “Bestiare Divin” of Guillaume, a Norman priest, is a very good
example of the attempts that were made by the ecclesiastics to show that
all the works of Nature were symbols and teachers of great Divine truths.
The MS. of Guillaume dates from the thirteenth century, and is at present
preserved in the National Library in Paris. The work has been very well
reproduced in a French dress by Hippeau, a compatriot of the author
of it. The statements of the compiler of such a book as the one under
consideration are essentially unreliable, since it was very difficult for
him to ascertain the truth, and he had in addition no great desire to be
literally exact, and was at any moment prepared to sacrifice the actual
facts for what he would consider a higher stratum of truth. He could
not be accurate if he would, and would not if he could. Hence Hippeau,
in estimating the value of the book, very justly says: “N’oublions pas
que les pères de l’Eglise se préoccupèrent toujours beaucoup plus de la
pureté des doctrines qu’ils avaient à développer, que de l’exactitude
scientifique des notions sur lesquelles ils les appuyaient;” and we have
already seen that Augustine considered the significance that could be
wrung out of a statement of very much more importance than any adherence
to the facts of the case. “Dans la vaste étendue des Cieux, au sien des
mers profondes, sur tous les points du globe terrestre, il n’est par un
phénomène, pas une étoile, pas un quadrupède, pas un oiseau, pas une
plante, pas une pierre, qui n’éveille quelque souvenir biblique, qui
ne fournisse la matière d’un enseignement moral, qui ne donne lieu à
quelqu’effusion du cœur, qui n’ait à révéler quelque secret de Dieu.”
It is evident that whatever of value or interest may be evolved on the
strength of such sentiments, the result can hardly be called natural
history—a decision that we have already arrived at in our consideration
of the “Speculum Mundi.”

The “Bestiary” of De Thaun is a book of like nature. Only one copy of the
MS. is known, that in the Cottonian collection. Of another of his books,
the “Livre des Creatures,” seven copies are extant. The author had as
his great patron Adelaide of Louvain, the second queen of Henry I. of
England, and to her he dedicated his books. The language in which they
are written is very archaic, but an excellent reproduction of the book
for English readers has been made by Thomas Wright, F.S.A. We give six
lines as an illustration of the original MS., and of its rendering into
the rugged English that best gives its character:—

    “En un livre divin, que apelum Genesim,
    Iloc lisant truvum que Dés fist par raisun
    Le soleil e la lune, e estoile chescune.
    Pur cel me plaist à dire, d’ico est ma materie,
    Que demusterai e à clers e à lai,
    Chi grant busuin en unt, e pur mei perierunt.”

    “In a divine book, which is called Genesis,
    There reading, we find that God made by reason
    The sun and the moon, and every star.
    On this account it pleases me to speak, of this is my matter,
    Which I will show both to clerks and to laics,
    Who have great need of it, and will perish without it.”

As an example of moral-making we may instance “the ylio, a little beast
made like a lizard,” and which we imagine must be the salamander. De
Thaun says that “it is of such a nature that if it come by chance where
there shall be burning fire it will immediately extinguish it. The beast
is so cold and of such a quality that fire will not be able to burn where
it shall enter, nor will trouble happen in the place where it shall be. A
beast of such quality signifies such men as was Ananias, as was Azarias,
as was Misael: these three issued from the fire praising God. He who has
faith only will never have hurt from fire.” Of the Aspis he tells us
that “it is a serpent cunning, sly and aware of evil. When it perceives
people who make enchantment, who want to take and snare it, it will stop
very well the ears it has. It will press one against the earth: in the
other it will stuff its tail firmly, so that it hears nothing. In this
manner do the rich people of the world: one ear they have on earth to
obtain riches, the other Sin stops up: yet they will see a day, the day
of Judgment. This is the signification of the Aspis without doubt.” In
like manner a moral is tacked on to every creature, and all creation is
shown to be a text-book wherein man may read to some little degree of the
mercy, but much more fully of the penal judgments, of the God the writer
thus blindly professes to honour.

The old Armories are a very happy hunting ground for the student
who would learn somewhat of the beliefs of our ancestors on matters
zoological and botanical, as the writers while introducing the various
creatures and plants as charges often take the opportunity to add a few
explanatory details for the benefit of those to whom they were unknown.
Guillim’s book, “A Display of Heraldrie, manifesting a more easie accesse
to the knowledge thereof than has beene hitherto published by any,” is a
mine of wealth on this score. The original edition appeared in the year
1611, but it was a very popular work for a long time, and other copies
bear the dates 1632, 1638, 1660, 1679, and 1724. Another interesting
book of the same class was the “Accedence of Armorie” of Legh, a
considerably earlier work, as it first appeared in 1562. This also was a
very favourite book and was very frequently reprinted, as for instance
in 1568, 1576, 1591, 1597, &c. It is nevertheless now a rare book.
Bossewell’s “Works of Armorie,” and many other quaint old volumes of
this character might readily be dwelt on, but our aim is but to mention
some few books in each section, and we care not to make our list either
exhaustive or exhausting.

Having then dwelt at some little length upon various books from which
we shall have occasion later on to draw illustrations, we propose now
to deal with some few of the creatures more or less familiar to these
old writers, commencing with mankind and touching successively upon
beasts, birds, fishes, and, finally, reptiles. Guillim in his book
before mentioned greatly prides himself upon his “method.” For this he
claims credit over and over again. “Whosoever,” he says, for example,
“shall address himself to write of Matters of Instruction, or of any
other Argument of Importance, it behoveth him that he should resolutely
determine with himself in what Order he will handle the same, so shall he
best accomplish that he hath undertaken, and inform the Understanding and
help the Memory of the Reader.” In the spirit of this teaching we would
humbly desire to walk, and having quite resolutely determined the order
of our going we will endeavour so far as in us lies to make our labour a
profit to those who honour us with their perusal.




CHAPTER II.

    The pygmies—Ancient and modern writers thereon—Conflicts
    with the cranes—Counterfeits—Modern travel, confirming
    the statements of the ancient geographers—Pygmy races now
    existing—The “Monstrorum Historia” of Aldrovandus—Crane-headed
    men—Men with tails—The Gorilloi—The dog-headed people—The
    canine king—The many-eyed men—The giants of Dondum—The
    snake-eaters—The Ipotayne—Mermaids—Syren myth—Storm-raisers—The
    mermaids of artists and poets—Shakespeare thereupon—As
    heraldic device—The mermaids of voyagers—The seal and walrus
    theory—Mermaids in captivity—Mermaids as food—Counterfeit
    mermaids—Mermaid in Chancery—The “Pseudodoxia Epidemica” of
    Browne—Oannes or Dagon—Mermaids and Matrimony—Lycanthropy—The
    “Metamorphoses” of Ovid—The fate of Lykaon—Nine years of
    wolfdom—Wehr-wolves—Mewing nuns—Olaus Magnus—The doctrine of
    metempsychosis—Influence of enchantment—The dragon maiden—The
    power of a kiss—Witchcraft—Scot and Glanvil, for and against
    it—The good old times.


Shakespeare, whose writings form a mine of wisdom from which one can dig
an appropriate wisdom-chip for every occasion, avers truly enough in the
“Merchant of Venice,” that “Nature hath fram’d strange fellows in her
time,” while the credulity of mankind has added to this goodly company
many others too impossible even for the wildest freaks of nature to be
held responsible for.

Of some of these abnormal forms we propose now to treat, and commence
our chapter with some short reference to the pygmies. References to
these are to be found in the works of many of the ancient writers, such
as Homer, Pliny, Herodotus, Philostratus, Oppian, Juvenal and Aristotle.
Strabo mentions them in his geography, but regards the belief in them
as a mere fable, while some of the older authors suggest that very
possibly exceptionally large monkeys[13] might have been mistaken for
exceptionally small men. While most writers affirmed that such a race was
to be met with in Africa—Aristotle, for instance, locating them at the
head of the Nile—some authors placed them in the extreme north, where the
rigour of the climate was held a sufficient explanation of their stunted
growth. Philostratus assigned them a home on the banks of the Ganges,
and Pliny gave them local habitation in Scythia. Shakespeare, not only
the fount of countless stores of quotation, but also the storehouse of
ancient and mediæval lore, mentions the pygmies, though he gives us no
hint as to their home. “Will your Grace command me any service to the
world’s end? I will go on the slightest errand now to the Antipodes that
you can devise to send me on: I will fetch you a toothpicker now from
the furthest inch of Asia; bring you the length of Prester John’s foot;
fetch you a hair off the great Cham’s beard; do you any embassage to the
Pygmies!”

Homer, in the third book of the Iliad, refers to the conflicts between
the pygmies and the cranes:—

    “When inclement winters vex the plain
    With piercing frosts, or thick-descending rain,
    To warmer seas the cranes embodied fly,
    With noise and order,[14] through the midway sky:
    To pygmy nations wounds and death they bring.”

Our readers may possibly wonder, as we have done, why the cranes should
bear the pygmies such ill-will, but Pliny in his seventh book supplies
the justification for the feud, as it appears that in the spring-time the
pygmies sally forth in great troops, riding upon goats, searching for and
devouring the eggs of the cranes, a state of things that no creature of
proper parental instincts could be expected to submit quietly to.

Sir Thomas Browne, in his excellent book on vulgar errors, says that
“Homer, using often similes as well to delight the ear as to illustrate
his matter, compareth the Trojanes unto Cranes when they descend against
the Pigmies;[15] which was more largely set out by Oppian, Juvenall and
many Poets since; and being only a pleasant figment in the fountain,
became a solemn story in the stream and current still among us.” He
declines to give credence to the pygmies and the tales that appertain
to them and says that “Julius Scaliger, a diligent enquirer, accounts
thereof but as a poeticall fiction. Ulysses Aldrovandus, a most careful
zoographer, in an expresse discourse thereon, concludes the story
fabulous. Albertus Magnus, a man ofttimes too credulous, was herein
more than dubious,” and though he quotes the statement of Pigafeta
that pygmies were found in the Moluccas, and that of Olaus Magnus as
to their being encountered in Greenland, he declares that “yet wanting
confirmation in a matter so confirmable, their affirmation carrieth but
slow perswation.”

Maundevile, of course, is as fully prepared to believe in the existence
of pygmies as of most other things, provided they be sufficiently outside
ordinary experience. In his book he takes us “throghe the Lond of
Pigmaus, wher that the folk ben of lytylle Stature, that ben but three
span long; and thei ben right faire and gentylle. Thei maryen hem whan
thei ben half Yere of Age, and thei lyven not but six yeer or seven at
the moste, and he that lyvethe eight yeer men holden him there righte
passynge olde. Thei han often times Werre with the Briddes of the Contree
that thei taken and eten. This litylle folk nouther labouren in Londes
ne in Vynes, but thei han grete men amonges hem, of one Stature, that
tylen the Lond and labouren amonges the Vynes for hem. And of the men of
our Stature han thei as grete skorne and wondre as we wolde have among
us of Geauntes if thei weren among us. And alle be it that the Pygmeyes
ben lytylle yet thei ben full resonable aftre here Age: connen bothen
Wytt and gode and malice.” Another people of somewhat similar character
that Maundevile professed to have met with in his travels were still more
remarkable, for they “ne tyle not, ne labouren not the Erthe for thei
eten no manere thing, and thei ben of gode colour and of faire schap
aftre hire gretnesse, but the be smale as Dwerghes, but not so lytylle as
ben the Pigmeyes. These men lyven be the smelle of wylde Apples, and whan
thei gon ony far weve thei beren the Apples with hem. For if thei hadde
lost the savour of the Apples thei scholde dyen anon.” Unfortunately
he can only say of these interesting people that “thei ne ben not full
resonable, but thei ben symple and bestyalle.”

Bishop Jordanus, in his “Mirabilia descripta,” tells of pygmies in “an
exceeding great island what is called Jaua,” which our readers who are
at all used to the substitution of the letter u for v, will at once
recognize as Java, “where are many world’s wonders. Among which, beside
the finest aromatic spices, this is one, to wit, that there be found
pygmy men of the size of a boy of three or four years old, all shaggy
like a goat.” He adds that they dwell in the woods, and we may not
unreasonably conclude that these hirsute arboreals were a species of ape.

[Illustration: FIG. 3.]

In the conflict of testimony, some affirming and some denying the
existence of such a people, Marco Polo, writing it will be remembered
in the thirteenth century, warns us that we must beware of counterfeits
that are palmed off on the unwary as the real thing. “It should be
known,” says he, “that what is reported respecting the dried bodies of
diminutive human creatures or pigmies, brought from India, is an idle
tale, such pretended men being manufactured in the following manner. The
country produces a species of monkey of a tolerable size, and having a
countenance resembling that of a man. Those persons who make it their
business to catch them shave off the hair, leaving it only about the
chin and those other parts where it naturally grows on the human body.
They then dry and preserve them with camphor and other drugs, and having
prepared them in such a mode that they have exactly the appearance of
little men, they put them into wooden boxes and sell them to trading
people, who carry them to all parts of the world. But this is an
imposition, and neither in India nor in any other country, however wild
or little known, have pigmies been found of a form so diminutive as these
exhibited.” It will be noted that the very fact of a counterfeit implies
a something to be counterfeited, and Marco Polo is clearly quite prepared
to give in his adhesion to the affirmative side.

The belief in a pygmy race, first declared centuries before the Christian
era, was held most fully in mediæval days; and modern travel and research
has amply proved that—various elements of the marvelous stripped away—the
belief was a sound one. Du Chaillu in Western Equatorial Africa met
with a diminutive race of which the average height of the individuals
who would submit to measurement was four feet five inches; and readers
of Stanley’s books will recall his experiences with a similar people.
On the authority of Dr. Parke, the Mikaba average four feet one inch,
the Batwas four feet three inches, and the Akkas four feet six inches.
Related to them in shortness of stature are the Bushmen of Southern
Africa, averaging about four feet seven inches in height; and elsewhere,
the Lapps, the Fuegians, the Ainos of Japan, and the Veddahs—all people
of notoriously short stature.

Probably the Bushmen, or Bosjesmen, are the modern representatives of
the Pygmaioi, for in their cave-dwelling, reptile-eating, and other
peculiarities they agree entirely with the descriptions given by
Herodotus, Pliny, and other ancient writers. The Bosjesmen are found,
with all the peculiarities of their dwarfish race intact, as far north
as Guinea. Winwood Reade, in his “Savage Africa,” gives many interesting
details concerning them, and holds the view that they were the aboriginal
race in Africa. Dr. Stuhlmann, Emin Pacha’s companion in many of his
wanderings, succeeded for the first time in bringing pygmies alive
to Europe, some members of the Akka tribe being brought to Berlin,
where they were regarded with immense interest by the professors of
anthropology.

The truthfulness of the ancient geographers being thus confirmed, it is
quite possible that the tales of the conflicts of the pygmies with great
birds may have a more solid foundation of fact than we are quite prepared
to admit. The Maori traditions tell of the contests with the moa and
other gigantic birds which formerly inhabited the islands of New Zealand;
while the Jesuit missionaries give accounts of enormous birds once found
in Abyssinia and Madagascar. All these are now extinct, but it may well
be that to a dwarf race, armed only with bows and arrows, such birds
would be foes by no means to be despised. One finds the trustworthiness
of the old writers often so curiously confirmed that one hesitates in the
case of many of them to assume too readily either gross credulity or a
willful misstatement.

Amidst the millions of births in the animal creation there is scarcely
any conceivable malformation, excess, or defect of parts, that has
not at some time or other occurred; anyone turning to the medical and
surgical journals will find many strange illustrations of this, or our
readers may find much interesting information on this subject, and given
in a less technical form, in the “Histoire Générale des Anomalies” of
Geoffroi de St. Hilaire. But such malformations occur singly and at
comparatively remote intervals; the anomalous departure from the type,
the eccentricity of structure, is not hereditarily produced, does not
become the starting-point of a new species. No natural malformation,
allowance being made for the very restricted influence of hybridism, ever
passes outside the species in which it is found or combines with it the
character of any other creature, while even the limited possibilities of
hybridism have a tendency to die out, owing to the sterility that is so
marked a characteristic. Such monsters as Aldrovandus figures are utterly
impossible, such as the body of a man conjoined to the head of an ass,
and having one foot that of an eagle, and the other that of an elephant.

Abundant illustrations of the most un-natural history may be found
in the works of Aldrovandus; his voluminous works on animals are very
curious and interesting, and are richly illustrated with engravings at
least as quaint in character as the text. His “Monstrorum Historia,”
published in folio at Bologna in 1642, is a perfect treasure-house
of rank impossibilities. Another book of very similar character is
Boiastuau’s “Histoires Prodigeuses,” published in Paris in the year 1561,
a strange assemblage of curious and monstrous figures.

The wondrous creatures of Aldrovandus, and it must be borne in mind
that these are given in the most perfect good faith as contributions
towards a better knowledge of natural history, are divisible into three
classes:—creatures that are absolute impossibilities, such as fig. 3, a
man having the head and neck of a crane; secondly, various species of
malformation and abnormal growth, which do undoubtedly occur from time
to time; and thirdly, other forms suggested by this second class, but
carried to altogether impossible excess.

It is of course easy, having realized that a lizard with a forked tail is
somewhat of a curiosity, to make a much greater wonder by representing,
as he does, a ten-tailed lizard; and while a boy born without arms is a
painful possibility, the wonder is undoubtedly greatly increased by also
cutting off his legs, as Aldrovandus does, and replacing them with the
tail of a fish.

The creature he calls hippopos, having the head, arms, and body of a
man, but terminating below in the legs and hoofs of a horse, was (though
here only two-legged,) probably suggested by the centaur myth. Amongst
the other impossibilities which we must nevertheless again remind our
readers the old writer brings forward in the most perfect sincerity as
valuable aids to a better knowledge of the wonders of creation, is a man
of normal growth, except that he has the head of a wolf, the lady, fig.
4, who is distinctly of harpy type, a ram-headed individual, and a boy
with the head of an elephant.

[Illustration: FIG. 4.]

This notion of the substitution of heads has a great charm for
Aldrovandus. He gives us, elsewhere, a bird-headed boy, and horses,
goats, pigs, and lions, all with human heads; while the “monstrum triceps
capite vulpis, draconis et aquilæ” is, we venture to think, a creature
that neither Aldrovandus, nor anyone else, ever did see or ever will
see. According to the picture it had a human body and legs, differing
however from those of ordinary humanity in being clothed with large
scales. One arm was like that of a man, the other was the wing of an
eagle, and a horse’s tail in rear was another distinctly abnormal growth,
while surmounting all were three heads, those of a wolf, a dragon, and
an eagle. There are many other such atrocities; while they are curious
as showing the depth of credulity our forefathers could reach, it will
readily be seen that they are the dullest things possible. Anyone with a
slight knowledge of zoology could create them by the score, placing, for
instance, on the neck of a giraffe the head of an elephant, giving it the
body of an alligator, and finishing off all neatly with the tail of a
peacock.

The multiplication, or suppression, or distortion of various parts is
a very strong point with Aldrovandus. He illustrates for our benefit
four-legged ducks and pigeons, and two-headed pigs, sheep, cows, and
fishes; calves, dogs, hares, each walking erect on their hind legs and
having no front ones, and pigs, cats, dogs, chickens, double-bodied but
single-headed. He also tells us of headless men, and gives us a drawing
of one, neckless, having the ears rising from the shoulders, mouthless,
the nose a proboscis a foot or so in length; this and the eyes are
on the back of the figure. Fig. 5 we may fairly include as an example
of distortion, while fig. 6 is a monstrosity produced by suppression.
In another place he gives a drawing of a man having two eyes in their
natural position, and beyond each of these another, so that we have four
in a row.

[Illustration: FIG. 5.]

[Illustration: FIG. 6.]

One quaint picture shows us two men wearing large ruffs and habited in
quite the costume of “the upper ten” of the seventeenth century, but
their faces are covered with thickly matted hair, their eyes peeping out
like those of a skye-terrier. This idea was too grotesque not to utilize
to the uttermost, so the next picture in the book is that of a young lady
in the same plight.

The notion of hairy men, tailed men, and the like has no doubt arisen
from the first introduction of the early writers and voyagers to
various species of monkeys. Duris, one of the ancients, professed to
know of the existence of an Indian tribe of shaggy, tailed men, while
Ctesias, not to fall short in this pursuit of the marvellous, tells us
of a certain Indian valley, or more probably a very uncertain one and
exceedingly difficult to locate, where the inhabitants lived two hundred
years, having in their youth white hair, which, with the ravages of
time, gradually became quite black. In the “Periplus” of Hanno, about
five hundred years before the Christian era, we have an unquestionable
reference to the apes. “For three days,” says the Carthaginian admiral,
“we passed along a burning coast, and at length reached a bay called
the Southern Horn. In the bottom of this bay we found an island which
was inhabited by wild men. The greater number of those we saw were
females; they were covered with hair, and our interpreters called them
Gorilloi.[16] We were unable to secure any of the men, as they fled to
the mountains, and defended themselves with stones. As to the women we
caught three of them, but they so bit and scratched us that we found it
impossible to bring them along: we therefore killed and flayed them,
and carried their hides to Carthage.” Rather a cool proceeding this,
granting either that they were really human or that the Carthaginians
regarded them as such. We should at all events so regard it nowadays if,
for instance, the crew of a whaler flayed some Eskimo ladies and brought
their hides to Dundee.

Burton and other early English writers thoroughly believe in the
existence of tailed men, and it has long been an article of belief that
divers men even in this realm of England were born with tails. The
Devonshire men stoutly contended that their Cornish neighbors were thus
distinguished. According to Polydore Vergil, some at least of the men of
Kent shared this peculiarity, and he very definitely asserts that it was
a Divine judgment upon them for insulting one of His servants, Thomas
à Becket. He tells us that when that prelate fell into disgrace with
his sovereign, many people treated him with but little respect, and in
Rochester he met with such contempt that amongst other marks of contumely
the tail of the horse on which he was riding was cut off. By this profane
inhospitality they reaped deserved reproach, for all the offspring of
the men who did or connived at this thing were born with tails like
horses. This mark of infamy we are told only disappeared with the gradual
extinction of those whose forefathers had incurred this notorious and
shameful penalty. In the “Loyal Scot” of Andrew Marvel we find the line,
“For Becket’s sake, Kent always shall have tails.” As a line or two
before this he has written “Deliver us from a Bishop’s wrath,” it is
sufficiently evident that the passage alludes to the legend referred to.

John Bale, the writer of the “Actes of English Votaries,” is righteously
indignant on the point. He writes as follows in his book, “John Capgrave
and Alexander of Esseby sayth that for castynge of fyshe tayles at thys
Augustyne, Dorsettshyre men had tayles ever after, but Polydorus applieth
it unto Kentish men at Strood by Rochester, for cuttynge of Thomas
Becket’s horse’s tail. Thus hath England in all other land a perpetual
infamy of tayles by these wrytten legendes of lyes. An Englyshman cannot
now travayle in another land by way of marchandyse or any other honest
occupynge, but it is most contumeliously thrown in his teethe that all
Englyshmen have tayles. That uncomely note and report hath the nation
gotten, without recover, by these laisy and idle lubbers, the monkes and
the priestes, which could find no matters to advance their gaines by, or
their saintes, as they call them, but manifest lies and knaveries.” John
Bale was a post-Reformation Bishop, holding the see of Ossory during the
reign of Edward VI, and was especially notable for his zeal in spreading
the principles of the Reformed Church.

John Struys, a Dutchman, who visited Formosa in the year 1677, gives a
description of a tailed man that is strongly suggestive of the monkey
theory, except that he endows him with intelligible speech. He tells us
that before he visited this island he had often heard of men therein who
had long tails, but that he had never been able to credit it. Seeing,
however, is proverbially believing. “I should now have difficulty in
accepting it,” he writes, “if my own senses had not removed from me every
pretence for doubting the fact, by the following strange adventure.
The inhabitants of Formosa, being used to see us, were in the habit of
receiving us on terms which left nothing to apprehend on either side;
so that, although mere foreigners, we always believed ourselves to be
in safety, and had grown familiar enough to ramble at large without
an escort, when grave experience taught us that in so doing we were
hazarding too much. As some of our party were one day taking a stroll,
one of them had occasion to withdraw about a stone’s-throw from the rest,
who being at the moment engaged in an eager conversation, proceeded
without heeding the disappearance of their companion. After awhile,
however, his absence was observed, and the party paused, thinking he
would rejoin them. They waited some time, but at last, tired of the
delay, they returned in the direction of the spot where they remembered
to have seen him last. Arriving there, they were horrified to find his
mangled body lying on the ground. While some remained to watch the dead
body, others went off in search of the murderer, and these had not gone
far when they came upon a man of peculiar appearance, who, finding
himself enclosed by the exploring party, so as to make escape from them
impossible, began to foam with rage, and by cries and wild gesticulations
to intimate that he would make anyone repent the attempt who should
venture to meddle with him. The fierceness of his desperation, for a
time, kept our people at bay; but as his fury gradually subsided they
gathered more closely around him, and at length seized him. As the crime
was so atrocious, and if allowed to pass with impunity might entail even
more serious consequences, it was determined to burn the man. He was
tied up to a stake, where he was kept for some hours before the time of
execution arrived. It was then that I beheld what I had never thought to
see. He had a tail more than a foot long, covered with red hair, and very
much like that of a cow. When he saw the surprise that this discovery
created amongst the European spectators, he informed us that his tail was
the effect of climate, for that all the inhabitants of the southern side
of the island, where they then were, were provided with like appendages.”
The measure of burning the man to avoid any future unpleasantness, seems
a somewhat strong one, and attended with a very considerable element
of risk to themselves, besides the grave personal inconvenience to
the victim. The account is a very circumstantial one; how is it to be
explained? One cannot accept the tail—or the tale; and yet it is painful
to feel that the alternative is to brand John Struys as deliberately
errant from the truth; and brave men who take their lives in their hands
are above the meanness of vapouring or lying. In such a case one agrees
entirely with Dr. Johnson: “Of a standing fact, sir, there ought to be no
controversy. If there are men with tails, catch a homo caudatus.”

Africa and India, the two great wonder-lands of our forefathers, were
the home of many strange specimens of humanity. Far away towards the
sources of the Nile were the Nigriæ, ruled by a king who had but one
eye, and that in the midst of his forehead. There, too, were found the
Agriophagi, a people who lived on the flesh of lions and panthers: the
Anthropophagi that fed on the flesh of men, and the Pomphagi that, like
the modern schoolboy, eat all things. In that mysterious land too dwelt
the Cynamolgi, whose heads were those of dogs. One old writer tells
us that there was a tribe of one hundred and twenty thousand of these
dog-headed men: they wore the skins of wild animals as their clothing,
and carried on conversation in true canine style by yelps and barks. Sir
John Maundevile, of course, knew all about these folk, since he found a
great and fair island somewhere, called Nacumera, that was more than a
thousand miles in circuit, and which had no other population. He tells us
that they were a very reasonable people and of good understanding, the
only fault that he finds with them being that they worship an ox as their
god. Jordanus, Burton and others locate these peculiar people in India.
Jordanus says that there are many different islands in which the men have
the heads of dogs, but the women are purely human, and, moreover, very
beautiful, whereat he very justly observes, “I cease not to marvel.” Ibn
Bakuta, describing the people of Barah-nakar, says “their men are of the
same form as ourselves, except that their mouths are like those of dogs,
but the women have mouths like other folks.” Aldrovandus naturally does
not miss such a chance as the dog-headed people afford him. Vicentius
places them in Tartary, and Marco Polo heard of them in the island of
Angaman. In Ethiopia we hear of a tribe of men that elected a dog as
their king, and judged as best they might by his actions and barking the
royal commands.

Ethiopia was a land of marvels, the focus and centre of all the wonders
of Africa. It was held that the strange and monstrous forms there
produced arose from “the agility of the fiery heat to frame bodies and
to carve them into strange shapes.” It was reported by some that far
within the interior of the country were to be found whole nations of
noseless men, and that others were without the upper lip, while others
again were without speech, and only made communication by signs. It is
easy to see how the notion of a noseless people originated, since the
negro physiognomy often has the nose a very flattened feature, while
the people who could only make signs to the strangers that came amongst
them evidently did so from a full realization of the hopelessness of
speech. The negro lip is ordinarily a very conspicuous feature, so that
the lipless people were a legitimate object of wonder. In one district
all the four-footed beasts were without ears, even the elephants, the
old author is careful to add, being in the same plight. Our readers will
doubtless remember that the ears of the African elephant, outside this
district, are of enormous size, and form one marked difference between
him and his Asiatic brother. Elsewhere in this wondrous land we hear of
men having three and four eyes, but the old traveller carefully explains
that this tale merely arose—“not because they are thus furnished, but
because they are excellent archers.” The “because” is not very evident,
as the keenness and excellence of sight that would be of such value to
an archer is scarcely to be obtained by the multiplication of eyes: it
is quality rather than quantity that is needed here, and the old writer
is careful to add, “thus much must I advertise my readers, that I will
not pawn my credit for many things that I shall deliver.” What he saw for
himself he could vouch for, and these things were themselves so strange
that he could scarcely refuse to credit some of the wonders that were by
hearsay, but he very justly declines responsibility.

Another old writer, Burton, in the same way cautiously evades fathering
all the wonderful tales he tells of the men who live by scent alone,[17]
of those who by eating the heart and liver of a dragon attain to the
understanding of the language of beasts, of those who have the power
of making themselves “invisible, and so forth,” “but of these I doubt
not but that the understanding reader knoweth how to judge and what to
believe.”

On the isle called Dondum, an island that Maundevile seems to have
discovered, or developed from his inner consciousness, are “folk of gret
stature, as Geauntes: and thei ben hidouse for to loke upon: and thei
han but on eye, and that is in the myddylle of the Front, and thei eten
no thing but raw Flessche and raw Fyssche. And in another yle towards
the Southe duellen folk of foule Stature and of cursed kynde that han no
Hedes: and here Eyen ben in here Scholdres.” These are both mentioned
by Pliny, but this passage of Maundevile must not be considered as
confirmatory of Pliny’s wonders, as it is considerably less probable
that the mediæval writer had seen these monsters than that he had seen
the olden book, and transferred its wonders to his own pages. He, in
fact, distinctly tells us that his nerves would not stand an interview
with these giants, “sume of forty-five Fote or fifty Fote long. I saghe
none of tho, for I had no lust to go”! He tells us, however, of the
“Geauntes Scheep als gret as Oxen here, and thei beren gret Wolle and
roughe. Of these Scheep I have seyn many tymes.” These we may reasonably
conclude to have been Yak. As he tells us that men have often seen “the
Geauntes taken men in the Sea out of hire Schippes and broughte hem to
lond, two in one hond and two in another, etynge hem goynge alle rawe
and alle quyk,” we can readily understand his reluctance to visit them.
Elsewhere he professes to have found “wylde men hidouse to loken on for
thei ben horned, and thei speken nought, but thei gronten as Pygges.”
In yet “another Yle ben folk,”—so at least Maundevile tells us, though
it may be but a traveller’s tale,—that are “of such fasceon and Schapp,
that han the Lippe above the Mouthe so gret that whan thei slepen in
the Sonne thei kovoren alle the face with that Lippe.” This story again
is probably less a personal experience than a proof of scholarship, as
Strabo describes such a people in his writings.

These great-lipped people have as neighbours “lytylle folk that han no
Mouthe, but in stede therof thei han a lytylle round hole: and whan thei
schalle eten or drynken thei taken throughe a Pipe or a Penne or suche a
thing and sowken it in. Thei han no Tonge and therefor thei speke not but
thei maken a manner of hyssynge, as a Neddre dothe.”

Pliny, Isidore, Strabo and other ancient authorities on the subject, tell
of a tribe that have ears so long and pendulous that they reach to their
knees, and therefore Maundevile knew of them too, and as Pliny knew of
the Hippopodes so the mediæval writer tells us of “folk that han Hors
Feet.” These, thanks we may assume to this peculiarity, are a nation
of very swift runners, easily beating the record of any of our modern
athletes, hence they are able to capture “wylde Bestes with rennyng” and
add them to their bill of fare.

Amongst other strange specimens of humanity that we encounter in the
pages of Maundevile, if not in the flesh, are the peculiarly strange
“folk that gon upon hire Hondes and hire Feet as Bestes,[18] and thei ben
all skynned and fedred, and thei lepen als lightly in to Trees and fro
Tree to Tree as it were Squyrelles.” In one district the people subsist
chiefly on adders, partly because there is “gret plentee” of them, but
more especially from appreciation. “Thei eten them at gret sollempnytees,
and he that makethe there a Feste, be it nevere so costifous, and he han
no Neddres, he hathe no thanke for his travaylle.” It would in fact be a
parallel atrocity to a gathering of the City Fathers at the Mansion House
and no turtle soup provided.

The long-headed people that formed part of the strange African fraternity
we may reasonably conclude to have owed their peculiarity to the
habit of employing pressure to mould the head into the compressed and
elongated form, in just the same way that in recent times the heads
of some of the tribes of North American Indians were manipulated. We
may not unreasonably conclude, too, that some at least of the various
curious people referred to by the ancient and mediæval writers were but
accidental monstrosities, malformations of rare or casual occurrence.
Such an one appearing amongst strangers would be regarded with great
curiosity, and it would be but a short step farther to the lover of the
marvellous to assume that somewhere or other in the region from whence he
sprang, was a whole tribe or nation of such. The accidental resemblances,
too, that we sometimes see in the human physiognomy to animals would be
suggestive material to those in search of the wonderful. Porta’s book,
“De Humana Physiognomonica,” gives many illustrations of heads, animal
and human, showing resemblance of the men’s heads to those of the owl,
lion, ox, and other creatures. Some of these are very clever, while
others are absurdly forced and exaggerated.

Munster, under the section De mirabilibus et monstrosis creaturis quæ
in interioribus Africæ inueniuntur, gives a picture in his book, where
our old friend the man with the single immense foot, the one-eyed man,
a two-headed fellow, the headless man with his eyes and other features
in his chest,[19] whose acquaintance we have made in fig. 1, and a
wolf-headed man, are all grouped together as a matter of course, leaving
the observer to conclude that anyone strolling through Central Africa
would any day expect to come across such a gathering.

The classic myth of the centaur crops up again in the mediæval Ipotayne.
These “dwellen somtymes in the Watre and somtyme on the Lond, and thei
ben half Man and half Hors, and thei eten men[20] whan thei may take
hem.” Pliny writes of the Ægipanæ, half beasts, “shaped as you see
them commonly painted,” a terse description that may have been amply
sufficient for his original readers, but which leaves later generations
considerably in the dark.

The belief in the mermaid was to our ancestors as real as the belief in
the mackerel; and though we have in these later days surrounded all with
an air of romance, the mermaid was to them no myth or poetic fancy, but
as genuine an article of credence as any other creature of earth, or air,
or sea. Phisiologus simply calls it “a beast of the sea,” which is a very
unpoetic definition indeed; while Boswell in like manner calls it “a sea
beast wonderfully shapen.” Nowadays one’s notion of a mermaid is of a
fair creature, half woman half fish, basking amongst the rocks or rocking
on the waves, and engaged in nothing more arduous than alternately
combing her flowing golden tresses in the sunlight, and gazing in her
constant travelling companion, her mirror, to study the effect of her
work. The mediæval mermaid was of sterner temper; one old writer says
that “they please shipmen greatly with their song that they draw them to
peril and shipwreck;” while another affirms that “this beast is glad and
merry in tempest, and heavy and sad in faire weather.” Bœwulf, the Saxon
poet, styles the mermaid—

    “The sea-wolf of the abyss,
    The mighty sea-woman.”

The syren myth of the ancients is clearly the origin of this belief in
the malevolence of the mermaid. These syrens, to quote Spencer’s “Fairie
Queen,”

    “Were faire ladies, till they fondly strived
    With th’ Heliconian Maides for mastery:
    Of whom they overcomen were depriv’d
    Of their proud beautie, and th’ one moyity
    Transform’d to fish, for their bold surquedry:
    But th’ upper half their hew retayned still,
    And their sweet skill in wonted melody
    Which ever after they abused to ill,[21]
    T’ allure weake travellers whom gotten they did kill.”

The writer of the “Speculum Mundi” believed in mermaids as firmly as his
contemporaries did, but he departs somewhat from the traditional lines of
belief, and instead of making his mermaids brewers of the storms, sees
in them merely rather exceptionally weather-wise and gifted prophets of
the coming tempest. He says of them: “The mermaids and men-fish seem to
me the most strange fish in the waters. Some have supposed them to be
devils or spirits, in regard of their whooping noise that they make.
For (as if they had power to raise extraordinary storms and tempests)
the windes blow, seas rage, and clouds drop presently after they seem
to call.” This was the popular belief, but he explains matters as
follows:—“Questionlesse that Nature’s instinct makes in them a quicker
insight and more sudden feeling and foresight of those things than is
in man, which we see even in other creatures upon earth, as fowles, who
feeling the alteration of the aire in their feathers and quills, do
plainly prognosticate a change of weather before it appeareth to us.”
So that really the bellowing of these maidens is brought down to the
level of cock-crowing, the braying of the ass,[22] or the scream of the
peacock, as indications of weather-changes.

The classic writers limited the number of their syrens to three
ordinarily, though they were not quite unanimous as to the exact number,
while the mediæval mermaids were simply as unnumbered and as un-named
denizens of the deep as the cod-fish. In mediæval times the mermaidens
were not ordinarily credited with any particular musical gifts, though
we remember seeing a Gothic carving of one playing on a violin. It will
be remembered that with their antique prototypes the musical part of the
entertainment was a very conspicuous feature:—

    “Withe pleasaunte tunes the syrenes did allure,
    Vlisses wise, to listen to theire songe:
    But nothinge could his manlie harte procure,
    He sailde awaie, and scaped their charming stronge,
        The face he likde; the nether parte did loathe,
        For woman’s shape, and fishes, had they bothe.

    Which showes to us, when Bewtie seeks to snare
    The carelesse man, who dothe no daunger dreede,
    That he should flie, and should in time beware,
    And not on lookes his fickle fancie feede:
        Such Mairemaides liue, that promise onelie ioyes,
        But he that yeldes at lengthe him selffe distroies.“[23]

We will consider first the mermaid of the artist and the poet, and then
see how the poetic and artistic type tallies with, or differs from, the
mermaid as the ancient voyager vouches for her from ocular demonstration.
Naturally the poets were unwilling to surrender the sweet song of the
mermaid, and the bellowing and whooping of the matter-of-fact naturalists
becomes with the poets a “dulcet and harmonious breath.” All our readers
must be familiar with the beautiful passage in the “Midsummer Night’s
Dream”:—

          “I sat upon a promontory,
    And heard a mermaid on a dolphin’s back
    Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath,
    That the rude sea grew civil at her song;
    And certain stars shot madly from their spheres
    To hear the sea-maid’s music.”[24]

Several other allusions to the mermaid will be found in the writings of
Shakespeare and many others of our poets, though it would be somewhat
foreign to our purpose to quote them at any length, fascinating as the
subject would be. Our present prosaic intent is but to introduce the
poets as witnesses to the widespread belief in such a creature as the
mermaid and to show their sympathy with it.

In mediæval heraldry the mermaid frequently appears as a charge upon
the shield, as a supporter of the arms, and as the surmounting crest.
Any book upon heraldry will supply illustrations of this. We need only
now refer to the allusive use of the charge in the arms of the ancient
family of De La Mere, and to its occurrence as one of the badges adopted
by the Black Prince. By his will in 1376 the Prince left to his son some
hangings “de worstede embroidery avec mermyns de mier.” The mermaid is
found, too, sometimes on paving tiles, bells, and in Gothic stone and
wood-carving. It may be seen, for example, in a boss at Exeter Cathedral.
In Winchester Cathedral the mermaid holds the accustomed comb, while her
companion merman grasps a captured fish. In Lyons Cathedral a mermaid, or
we may perhaps more justly say a mer-matron, nurses a mer-baby. A mermaid
will be found carved on one of the misereres of Henry VII.’s chapel.
Another may be seen at Exeter Cathedral, and a very good one again on a
bench end at Sherringham church.[25] It is also well known as a tavern
sign, and the first literary club ever founded in England, including
amongst its members Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont, Fletcher, Selden
and Carew, was established in 1603 at the Mermaid in Bread Street,
Cheapside.

Scoresby in his account of the arctic regions says that the head of the
young walrus is very human in appearance; the creature has a way too of
rearing itself well out of water to gaze at ships and other objects in
a way that proves very suggestive of the mermaid idea. “I have myself,”
he remarks, “seen one in such a position and under such circumstances,
that it required very little stretch of imagination to mistake it
for a human being. So like, indeed, was it, that the surgeon of the
ship actually reported to me his having seen a man with his head just
appearing above the water.” It is probable that the various species of
seals, too, are responsible for many of the mermaid and triton stories,
as at a little distance, and amidst the spray dashing over the rocks,
they are very human-looking—at all events, perhaps sufficiently so to
satisfy the credulity of those whose superstition made them susceptible
to such ideas. On the other hand, a whaler or other old salt who has seen
thousands of seals should scarcely be imposed upon in this way under any
possible circumstances. Let us turn, however, to some of the experiences
of those who profess to have seen the real thing in the way of mermaids,
and see what they can tell us.

Hudson, the great navigator, whose narrative is strikingly free from any
touch of imagination, and may in fact almost without fear of libel be
called dry and tedious, tells us, in the following words, of a curious
incident that happened to them while forcing a passage through the ice
near Nova Zembla: “This morning one of our company, looking overboard,
saw a mermaid, and calling up some of the company to see her, one more
came up, and by that time she was come close to the ship’s side, looking
earnestly on the men. A little while after a sea came and overturned her.
From the navel upward her back and breast were like a woman’s, as they
say that saw her; her body as big as one of ours; her skin very white,
and long hair hanging down behind, of colour black. In her going down
they saw her tail, which was like the tail of a porpoise, and speckled
like a mackerel. Their names that saw her were Thomas Hilles and Robert
Rayney.” “Whatever explanation,” says Gosse, in commenting on this story
of the old voyager in his “Romance of Natural History,” “may be attempted
of this apparition, the ordinary resource of seal and walrus will not
avail here. Seals and walruses must have been as familiar to these polar
mariners as cows to a milkmaid. Unless the whole story was a concocted
lie between the two men, reasonless and objectless, and the worthy old
navigator doubtless knew the character of his men, they must have seen
some form of being as yet unrecognized.”

In the “Speculum Regale,” an Icelandic work of the twelfth century, we
read of a creature that was to be found off the shores of Greenland—“like
a woman as far down as her waist, long hands, and soft hair, the neck
and head in all respects like those of a human being. The hands seem to
be long, and the fingers not to be pointed, but united into a web like
that on the feet of water birds. From the waist downwards this monster
resembles a fish, with scales, tail, and fins. This shows itself,
especially before heavy storms. The habit of this creature is to dive
frequently and rise again to the surface with fishes in its hands. When
sailors see it playing with the fish, or throwing them towards the ship,
they fear that they are doomed to lose several of the crew; but when it
casts the fish from the vessel, then the sailors take it as a good omen
that they will not suffer loss in the impending storm. This monster has a
very horrible face, with broad brow and piercing eyes, a wide mouth and
double chin.” This is clearly a creature to be dreaded: we may, in fact,
lay down the broad principle that the attractive and fascinating mermaid
is the creation of the landsman and poet, while the sterner type is that
of the mariner.

Pontoppidan, in his “Natural History of Norway,” has his mermaid story,
but it is too long to quote, and it is, moreover, needless to do so, as
all these narratives follow much the same general lines. Captain John
Smith, too, in his account of his expedition to America in 1614, has a
similar experience to relate, and many narratives of like tenour might
be found in various old writers, but we will now turn to one or two that
not merely describe a mermaid and merman seen, but the creature actually
captured.

The following news item, from the _Scots Magazine_ for the year 1739,
refers to a creature less piscine than the typical form, but coming
sufficiently near it for inclusion. “They write from Vigo, in Spain, that
some fishermen lately took on that coast a sort of monster, or merman,
five feet and a half long from its foot to its head, which is like that
of a goat. It has a long beard and moustachios, and black skin somewhat
hairy, a very long neck, short arms, and hands longer than they ought
to be in proportion to the rest of the body: long fingers like those of
a man, with nails like claws; very long toes, joined like the feet of a
duck, and the heels furnished with fins resembling the winged feet with
which painters represent Mercury.” We get considerably nearer the ideal
in the seven mermaids that were said to be entrapped by some fishermen in
their nets off Ceylon in the year 1560. Of these, several Jesuits, and
the physician to the Viceroy of Goa, professed to be eye-witnesses, and
the latter having dissected them with great care asserts that both the
internal and external structure resembled that of human beings. Of the
piscine moiety he appears to make no mention.

In the “Speculum Mundi” we have a very circumstantial account indeed of
a mermaid who drifted inland through a broken dyke on the Dutch coast
during a heavy storm, “and floating up and down and not finding a passage
out againe (by reason that the breach was stopped after the flood), was
espied by certain women and their servants as they went to milke their
kine in the neighbouring pastures, who at the first were afraide of
her, but seeing her often, they resolved to take her, which they did,
and bringing her home, she suffered herself to be clothed and fed with
bread and milk and other meats, and would often strive to steal again
into the sea, but being carefully watched, she could not: moreover, she
learned to spinne and perform other pettie offices of women, but at the
first they cleansed her of her sea-mosse, which did sticke about her.
She never spake, but lived dumbe, and continued alive fifteene yeares;
then she died. They tooke her in the yeare of our Lord, 1403.” One can
scarcely wonder at the poor sea-maid endeavouring to escape; the scraping
down to get off the seaweed and barnacles prior to the introduction to
the rough dress of a Dutch peasant and the homely lessons in spinning,
bread-making, and other domestic cares, were a sad contrast to the life
of wild freedom of yore amidst the rolling billows of the wild North Sea.
We read, too, that she was taught to kneel before a crucifix—a task in
itself, we should imagine, of considerable difficulty to a mermaid. When
we read in another old author that “in the island Mauritius they eat
of the mermaid, its taste is not unlike veal,” the last vestige of the
poetry of the belief vanishes, while the added detail that “when they are
first taken they cry and grieve with great sensibility” seems to bring
the indulgence in such diet almost to cannibalism.

From veal to the “maiden clothed alone in loveliness,” of whom the poet
sings, is a contrast indeed, and even the scraped mermaid turned Dutch
vrouw is a very different creature to her whose—

    “Golden hair fell o’er her shoulders white
    And curled in amorous ringlets round her breasts;
    Her eyes were melting into love, her lips
    Had made the very roses envious;
    Withal a voice so full and yet so clear,
    So tender, made for loving dialoges.
    And then she sang—sang of undying love
    That waited them within her coral groves
    Beneath the deep blue sea, and all the bliss
    That mortals made immortal could enjoy,
    Who lived with her in sweet community.”

In an advertisement in the London _Daily Post_, of January 23rd, 1738,
we read that there is “To be Seen, next door to the Crown Tavern in
Threadneedle Street, behind the Royal Exchange, at One Shilling each,
the Surprising Fish or Maremaid, taken by eight Fishermen on Friday the
9th of September last, at Topsham Bar, near Exeter, and has been shewn
to several Gentlemen, and those of the Faculty, in the Cities of Exeter,
Bath, and Bristol, who declare never to have seen the like, so remarkable
is this Curiosity amongst the Wonders of Creation. This uncommon Species
of Nature represents from the Collarbone down the Body what the Antients
called a Maremaid, has a Wing to each Shoulder like those of a Cherubim
mentioned in History, with regular Ribs, Breasts, Thighs, and Feet, the
Joints thereto having their proper Motions, and to each Thigh a Fin; the
Tail resembles a Dolphin’s, which turns up to the Shoulders, the forepart
of the Body very smooth, but the skin of the Back rough; the back part
of the Head like a Lyon, has a large Mouth, sharp Teeth, two Eyes, Spout
holes, Nostrils, and a thick Neck.” This we may not uncharitably assume
was less a mermaid than a swindle. While the advertisement tells us that
the creature in question has been seen by several of the faculty, it
does not tell us what the faculty said when they saw it! This is a very
serious omission. This “Maremaid” does not altogether conform to the
accepted type, feet, spout-holes, and cherubic wings being all abnormal
developments.

There are, of course, at all times plenty of skilful knaves and
unprincipled adventurers ready in divers ways to take advantage of the
credulity of the public, and a belief in many absurdities has been
maintained by the apparent evidence which the conniving of such persons
has from time to time furnished. To say nothing of the impostures
constantly practised at fairs and by travelling show-people, it was
announced in the earlier days of the century that a party had arrived
from abroad with a mermaid, and that it was to be exhibited in one of
the leading streets in the West End of London. A good round fee was
demanded for admission, and the dupes were shown a strange-looking object
in a glass case, which was unblushingly declared to be a mermaid. But
the imposture was too gross to last long; it was ascertained to be the
dried skin of the head and shoulders of a monkey attached to the skin
of a fish of the salmon kind, with the head cut off, the whole being
stuffed and highly varnished. This grotesque object was taken by a Dutch
vessel from on board a native Malacca boat, and from the reverence shown
it by the sailors it was probably an idol or fetish, the incarnation of
some river-god of their mythology. Repulsive as the creature was, we
have an illustration of it before us in a newspaper of the year 1836.
It achieved a great popularity, and the profits that accrued from the
exhibition were, for some time, considerable, but the owners presently
quarrelled amongst themselves, and the unpoetic ending of this monkey
mermaiden was that she became the subject of a suit in Chancery. When
one remembers the success that Barnum achieved amongst the credulous in
very much more recent times with a stuffed mermaid, we can only feel
that Carlyle was right in his liberal percentage of fools, and though
in this case it was the cute Yankee and not the unsuspecting Britisher
that succumbed, the truth of Southey’s assertion that “man is a dupeable
animal” holds equally good, and is of far-reaching application.

The “Pseudodoxia Epidemica, or Enquiries into very many received Tenents
and commonly Presumed Truths, by Thomas Browne, Doctor of Physick,” is
a book far in advance of its time, and very interesting in showing what
extraordinary beliefs were held at the time it was written. The copy open
before us is the second edition, and is dated 1650. Some of the ideas
combatted are “that Crystall is nothing else but Ice strongly congealed;
the legend of the Wandering Jew; that a diamond is made soft by the blood
of a goat; that an elephant hath no joynts; that a salamander lives in
the fire; that storks will only live in republics.” To these fancies many
others might be added, and some few of them that deal with the animal
kingdom we shall have occasion to touch upon in the course of our book.

We naturally turn to Browne’s remarks upon mermaids, but we scarcely
gather from them any definite idea as to his belief in the matter. Before
quoting his remarks we must premise that his style of composition is
somewhat stilted and pedantic. “Few eyes,” saith he, “have escaped the
Picture of Mermaids; that is, according to Horace, his monster, with
woman’s head above and fishing extremity below; and this is conceived
to answer the shape of the ancient Syrens that attempted upon Ulysses.
Which notwithstanding were of another description, containing no fishy
composure, but made up of Man and Bird; the human mediety being variously
placed not only above but also below. These pieces so common among us
doe rather derive their originall, and are indeed the very description
of Dagon; which was made with humane figure above and fishy shape below,
of the shape of Atergates or Derceto with the Phœnicians, in whose fishy
and feminine mixture as some conceive, were implied the Moon and the Sun,
or the Deity of the waters, from whence were probably occasioned the
pictures of Nereides and Tritons among the Grecians.”[26]

Browne had the wisdom at a period when immense faith was attached to
tradition to investigate matters for himself whenever it was possible,
and the courage to declare the result whether it fell in with the
statements of previous authorities or not. Thus he tells us that “the
Antipathy between a Toad and a Spider—and that they poisonously destroy
each other—is very famous, and Solemne Stories have been written of their
combats, wherin most commonly the Victory is given unto the Spider.” This
definite statement of antipathy would appear to be an assertion very
capable of proof or disproof, but it never seems to have occurred to
the philosophers to bring the matter to test, it being so much simpler
to copy throughout the centuries from each other.[27] “But what we have
observed herein,” quoth Browne, “we cannot in reason conceale; who having
in a glasse included a Toad with severall Spiders, we beheld the Spiders
without resistance to sit upon his head and passe over all his body,
which at last upon advantage he swallowed down, and that in a few houres
unto the number of seven.” Thus in ten minutes of practical observation
collapsed a legend that had held its ground for over a thousand years.

Such results gave him full right to speak out, and he analyses the works
of the ancients very freely, yet withal very justly and temperately.
Thus he terms Dioscorides “an Author of good Antiquity, preferred by
Galen before all that attempted the like before him: yet all he delivered
therin is not to be conceived oraculous.” Concerning Ælianus he tells us
that he was “an elegant Author, he hath left two books which are in the
hands of every one—his ‘History of Animals’ and his ‘Varia Historia,’
wherein are contained many things suspicious, not a few false, some
impossible.” Of Pliny himself, the great holdfast and sheet-anchor of all
previous writers on natural history, he writes: “A man of great elegance
and industry indefatigable, as may appear by his writings, which are
never like to perish, not even with learning itself. Now what is very
strange, there is scarce a popular error passant in our daies which is
not either directly expressed or diductively contained in his ‘Natural
History,’ which being in the hands of most men, hath proved a powerful
occasion of their propagation.” The labours of Browne should ever be held
in great esteem, as he had the true scientific spirit, and, regardless of
all minor considerations, sought eagerly for the truth.

[Illustration: FIG. 7.]

In fig. 7 we have a representation of the Oannes of the Chaldeans, the
Philistine Dagon,[28] the fish On, as shown on one of the slabs from
the Palace of Khorsabad. While one may readily admit that the mediæval
mermaid is a direct descendant from the tritons and sea-nymphs of classic
mythology and fancy, and that these in turn may have descended from the
yet older civilizations and creeds of Egypt and Assyria, we can hardly
ascribe any close association between the Chaldean Oannes and the
popular notion as to mermaids. The former is divine, and is necessarily
but one, while the latter claim no divinity and no individuality, but
are both numerous and nameless. The work of Oannes was moreover wholly
beneficent; he taught men the arts of life—to construct cities, to found
temples, to compile laws. He was a solar deity equivalent to Osiris and
Apollo, bringing light and life to all. He was fabled to visit earth each
morning, and at evening to plunge into the sea; a poetic description
of the rising and setting of the sun. Hence his semi-piscine form was
an expression of the belief that half his time was spent on earth and
half below the waves. Hence, too, the moon-goddess, Derceto, that Browne
refers to as at times manifesting herself to the eyes of men, at times
plunged beneath the waves, was represented as half-woman, half-fish, and
may be thus still seen on the coins of Ascalon. The kindly influence
of solar and lunar deities—in other words, the beneficent influence of
Nature and of the times and seasons—on the works of men is an altogether
nobler idea than belief in classic syren or mediæval Lorelei, who charm
but to destroy.

Fig. 8 is a curious variant from the accepted notion of a mermaid. We
have extracted it from one of the maps in Munster’s Cosmography. It is
placed where in more modern charts Australia would be found, south of the
islands of “Iaua” and “Porne,” names which the discrimination of our
readers, who are at all accustomed to the transposition and substitution
of letters in these old records, will no doubt readily resolve into Java
and Borneo. One can easily imagine that the double tail, like the twin
screws of an ironclad or ocean liner, might be of great assistance in
steering, though some few millions of the lowlier inhabitants of the deep
have nevertheless for ages got along very fairly without this special
development.[29]

[Illustration: FIG. 8.]

We are told in mediæval story that a young man wandering along the rocky
beach suddenly encountered a mermaid and seized her before she was
able to reach the water. Her personal charms so worked upon his ardent
temperament that he then and there proposed matrimony, and his suit was
successful. Would that we could conclude in true story-book style, and
declare that they lived happy ever after! After years of wedded bliss,
a great longing came over her to see her own people once more, and, on
the distinct understanding that the parting was to be a very short one,
she embraced her husband and children and plunged into the sea and never
reappeared, it being charitably assumed by those responsible for the
story that the waters, like those of Lethe, washed away all remembrance
of the past, and buried in oblivion the years she had spent so happily on
earth.

The power that this story and the next one we propose to tell
presupposes—the power of being able to change one’s nature—is responsible
for some of the most terrible beliefs, notably those where men and women
were changed into animals, such as dragons or the wehr-wolf. In the
following story, though the outcome was lamentable, the weird horror
of so many of these tales is absent. Like the previous story, it deals
with the tender passion, and the ardent lover and the charming damsel
reappear on our page. The lady, before acceding to the wishes of her
suitor, stipulated that she should have, without question, the whole of
every Saturday to herself, and the request was acceded to and honourably
observed for some years. At last one day, stung by the remarks of some
mischief-makers, he intruded upon his wife’s privacy, and found her
in mermaid form disporting herself in her bath. She gave one piercing
shriek, and then vanished for ever. In fig. 9 we see in the foreground
the astonished husband, and to the left of the picture the meddlesome
neighbour riding off, while, with the quaint _naïveté_ of Gothic art,
all that intervenes between us and the chamber of mystery is removed,
and there is unmistakable evidence that the fatal and final Saturday,
after years of wedded bliss, has dawned. The tempting peep-hole that
facilitated the tragedy will be seen by the side of the man’s head, and
it speaks well for the honourable feeling of the promise-giver that so
easy a means of clearing up the weekly mystery was for years unused. It
is difficult now to realize that such a story could ever be seriously
believed, and that the possibility of some such incident might befall
oneself, or occur, quite as a matter of course, in the circle of one’s
friends.

[Illustration: FIG. 9.]

The terrible belief in lycanthropy, the transmutation of men into wolves,
was one of the most widely spread of the weird fancies of the Middle
Ages. The idea of the changing of men into various animals is a very
ancient one. Herodotus tells us that the Scythians affirm that the whole
nation of the Neuri change themselves once a year into wolves, and our
readers will readily recall the transformation of the companions of
Ulysses into swine, of Actæon into a stag, and divers other gruesome
stories of like nature. Ovid, for example, in the “Metamorphoses” tells
how Zeus visited Lykaon, the King of Arcadia, and how the king placed a
dish of roasted human flesh before his guest to test his omniscience. The
daring experiment was promptly detected, and the monarch as a punishment
was changed into a wolf by the offended deity in order that henceforth
he should himself feed on the flesh he had so impiously offered.

    “In vain he attempted to speak; from that very instant
    His jaws were bespluttered with foam, and only he thirsted
    For blood, as he ranged amongst flocks and panted for slaughter.
    His vesture was changed into hair, his limbs became crooked,
    A wolf—he retains yet large trace of his ancient expression,
    Hoary he is as afore, his countenance rabid,
    His eyes glitter savagely still, the picture of fury.”[30]

Euanthes, an early Greek writer, tells a very circumstantial story indeed
of a certain tribe where one of its members must each year be chosen by
lot to become a wolf. Why this should be at all necessary he does not
stop to explain. The conditions are very precise. The day and the man
having been selected he is taken to the border of a large lake, and his
clothes removed, and hung upon an oak tree. He then swims across the lake
and disappears into the gloomy woods that come down on the further side
to the water’s edge, and then and there changes into a wolf. Should he
forbear for nine years to eat the flesh of man he may return to the lake
and recross it, changing back, as he lands, into his manhood again, and
only differing from his former self in the fact that he will look nine
years older. Should he, on the general principle of doing at Rome as the
Romans do, share with his vulpine companions in any feast of human flesh,
a wolf he must remain to the end of his days. As very probably, however,
he would find amongst his comrades some few who, like himself, were human
beings undergoing this temporary metamorphosis, he would be encouraged
to persevere in this restriction of his diet by their example and
encouragement, and also escape the painful singularity that his genuinely
wolf associates would very possibly resent.

One Fabius, having an inquiring mind and fired with curiosity as to why
the man should carefully suspend his clothes in an oak tree, is able
to add as the result of his inquiries, that those are the clothes that
the man resumes when he emerges from the lake. Whether they had been
miraculously preserved or whether they had undergone such deterioration
as would otherwise arise from their suspension in a tree exposed to all
weathers for nine years he does not inform us. The point is a distinctly
interesting one, and especially to the man reclaiming his wardrobe.

One great feature of terror in the belief in lycanthropy and such like
metamorphosis is that the man still retains his human reason, memory, and
knowledge of himself and his surroundings, and is, in addition, imbued
with the fierce animal instincts of the ravenous brute into which he has
been transformed.

The wolf is the prominent animal in the history of this belief in
Europe, since in this part of the world it was the creature that caused
the greatest devastation, but in India the transformation is to the tiger
or the serpent, in South America to the jaguar, in Africa to the lion,
the leopard, or the hyæna. In some cases this change would appear to
be a terrible punishment for wrong done, in others a transformation at
pleasure by wicked men seeking in the new guise to inflict terror, loss,
and death. Amongst some peoples it was believed that brave and noble
men became lions and eagles, while mean and treacherous ones changed to
snakes, jackals, or hyænas. The belief in one form or another reappears
in endless fables in circulation amongst the natives of almost every
country the wide world over.

Insanity, monomania, bodily disease, hydrophobia, are doubtless
responsible for much in this matter. In many cases, we can scarcely
doubt, the people charged with being wehr-wolves were entirely innocent
of offence, the charge, like that of witchcraft, being brought against
them by those who either in blind terror and superstition or some motive
of craft or greed were desirous to get them removed out of the way. In
some cases fierce lunatics, not as now confined in asylums, but roaming
the country at large, in homicidal mania destroyed human life and became
invested in the eyes of men with strange and terrible powers. Often, too,
the reputed wehr-wolves under pressure of torture would in their agony
confess to anything their tormentors suggested, simply as a means of
obtaining some temporary respite for their sufferings, or in the ravings
of delirium utter things that superstition could readily distort into
admission and confession. We must remember, too, that many of the most
horrible stories are narrated by writers whose veracity is by no means
on a par with their credulity, and while their statements, outrageous as
they are, were no doubt in most cases honestly intended, the reader must
by no means suspend the right of private judgment.

It is historic fact that in the year 1600 multitudes of men were seized
with the hallucination that they were changed into wolves, and retreating
into caves and dark recesses of the forests, issued thence howling and
foaming in mad lust of blood.[31] Many helpless men, women, and children
were destroyed by them during this frightful epidemic, and many hundreds
of those possessed were executed on their own confession or on the
testimony of the panic-stricken.

    “In those that are possess’d with’t there o’erflows
    Such melancholy humour they imagine
    Themselves to be transform’d into woolves;
    Steale forth to churchyards in the dead of night,
    And dig dead bodies up; as, two nights since
    One met the Duke ’bout midnight, in a lane
    Behind St. Markes Church, with the leg of a man
    Upon his shoulder; and he howl’d fearfully;
    Said he was a woolfe; only the difference
    Was, a woolfes skinne is hairy on the outside,
    His on the inside, bade them take their swords,
    Rip up his flesh and try. Straight I was sent for;
    And, having ministered unto him, found his Grace
    Very well recover’d.”

Some commentators have held that Nebuchadnezzar, when driven from the
presence of man, was suffering from a like form of madness, and fancying
himself to be a beast.

It was a common belief in ancient times that the wehr-wolf simply
effected the change from man to beast by turning his skin inside
out, hence he was sometimes called Versipellis, a term equivalent to
skin-turner. In mediæval days it was thought that the wolf’s skin was
beneath the human, and any unfortunate individual who was suspected of
lycanthropy was very likely to find himself being hacked at by seekers
after truth in search of this inner hairy covering.

Olaus Magnus,[32] in the early part of the sixteenth century, tells us
a story of a nobleman and his retinue who lost their way in journeying
through a wild forest and presently found themselves hopelessly foodless
and shelterless. In the urgency of their need, one of his servants
disclosed to him in confidence that he had the power of turning himself
at will into a wolf, and doubted not but that, if his master would kindly
excuse him awhile, he would be able to find the party some provision.
Permission being given, the man disappeared into the forest under
semblance of a wolf, and very quickly returned with a lamb in his mouth,
and then, having fulfilled his mission, resumed his human shape. The
forest would provide unlimited fuel, while their knives would supply the
cutlery. Some member of the party, it is to be hoped, had a tinder-box,
or the repast after all would have to consist of cold raw lamb. As hunger
is proverbially said to be the best sauce, the absence of mint would be
of little moment at this vulpine banquet.

The belief in man’s power thus to change his form and nature is obviously
derived from the widely-spread doctrine of metempsychosis, the passing
of the soul after the human life is ended into an animal, or a series
of animals. This change is ordinarily in harmony with the character
of the deceased, the timid nervous folk reappearing on earth as hares
and such-like creatures, the gluttonous as swine or vultures and other
foul-feeders. Thus the soul, the eternal principle, in the words of the
poet:

    “Fills with fresh energy another form,
    And towers an elephant or glides a worm
    Swims as an eagle in the eye of noon
    Or wails a screech-owl to the deaf cold moon,
    Or haunts the brakes where serpents hiss and glare,
    Or hums, a glittering insect, in the air.”

John of Nuremberg relates, in his book “De Miraculis,” how a man, lost at
night in a strange country, directed his steps towards a fire that he saw
before him. On reaching it he found a wolf sitting enjoying its warmth,
and was informed by him that he was really as human as himself, but that
he was compelled for a certain number of years, like all his countrymen,
to assume the shape of a wolf. A strange country, indeed, where wolves
when the evenings grow chilly light a fire, and in the comfort of its
ruddy glow are found quite ready to entertain the passing traveller with
their conversation.

In the year 1573 one Garnier, a native of Lyons, who had led a very
secluded life, excited the suspicions of his neighbours, and was dragged
before the tribunals on the charge of being a _loup-garou_, the French
equivalent term for wehr-wolf. It was affirmed that he prowled about at
night and in vulpine form devoured infants. He was arrested, and put
to the torture, confessed everything that was charged against him, and
was burnt at the stake. It was no joke in mediæval days to be a little
retiring in disposition: the worst construction was put upon it, and
one’s neighbours, at short notice, were able to report having seen a
black cat about the place, or some equally convincing proof of evil
possession, and from thence it was a short passage to the river or the
fire.

Within a few years afterwards a man named Roulet was tried at Angers
on the charge of having slain and partially devoured a boy. Evidence
was given that he was seen in wolf form tearing the body, and on
being pursued, he took refuge in a thicket. Here he was surrounded
and captured, but when caught he had resumed the human form. He was
condemned to death, but the sentence was afterwards changed to life-long
confinement.

In Auvergne in 1588, a nobleman, in returning from the chase, was stopped
by a stranger, who told him that he had been furiously attacked by a
savage wolf, but had been fortunate enough to save himself by slashing
off one of its fore-paws. This he produced as a trophy, when, to the
astonishment of both, it was found to have become the delicate hand of
a lady. The noble felt so sure that he recognized a ring upon it, that
he hurried to the castle, and there found his wife sitting with her arm
tied up, and on removing the wrappers the hand was missing. She had to
stand her trial as a _loup-garou_, and being convicted, perished at the
stake. Stories of the type of those given might readily be multiplied
indefinitely.

A belief in enchantment introduced a new complication. Things we are
taught are not always what they seem, and certainly in the writings
of the Middle Ages we find many illustrations of the truth of this
adage, since the pages of those authors abound with examples of the
transformation of men and women into various uncanny creatures by mystic
spells. The story of Beauty and the Beast is a survival of these. Sir
John Maundevile, to give but one illustration, tells us, in his very
wonderful travels, of a dragon that was to be seen in the island of Cos,
a creature which the people of the island called the Lady of the Land,
being in fact “the Doughtre of Ypocras in forme and lykenesse of a gret
Dragoun, that is an hundred Fadme of lengthe. Sche lyethe in an old
Castelle, in a Cave, and schewethe twyse or thryes in the yeer. Sche was
thus chaunged and transformed from a fayre Damysele in to lykenesse of
a Dragoun be a Goddesse that was clept Deane.” This Deane our readers
may perhaps scarcely recognize as Diana. How it was that Damysele and
Deane had between them brought about such a state of things the history
does not tell us. Centuries after Deane was an exploded myth we find
this evidence of a by-gone feud still in existence, testifying to the
virulence of the goddess’s temper and the power of enchantment. “Men seyn
that sche schalle so endure in that forme of a Dragoun unto the tyme that
a Knyghte come that is so hardy that dare come to hir and kisse hir on
the mouthe, and then schalle sche turne agen to hire owne Kynde and ben
a Woman agen. It is not long sith then that a Knyghte of Rodes that was
hardy and doughtie in Armes seyde that he wolde kyssen hire, and whan he
entred into the Cave the Dragoun lifte up hire Had agenst him, and whan
the Knyghte saw hire in that Forme so hidous and so horrible he fleyghe
awey.” The dragon-maiden naturally resented this slight upon her charms,
and pursued and killed him. Presently, a young man who knew nothing of
all this, for “he wente out of a Schippe” and was a stranger in those
parts, came to the cave, and there found a charming “Damysele that Kembed
hire Hede and lokede in a Myrour.” She asked him if he were a knight,
and when he answered her that he was but a poor mariner, she told him to
go and get knighted, and come again on the morrow, “and kysse hir on the
Mouthe and have no Drede, for I schalle do the no maner harm, alle beit
that thou see me in Lykenesse of a Dragoun.” She went on to assure him
that she was the victim of enchantment, and that if he would free her
from this he should be her lord, and have in addition much treasure. How
his “Felowes in the Schippe” were able to dub him knight does not appear;
but he, at all events, presented himself on the morrow “for to kysse this
Damysele.” But his nerve failed him at the critical moment, for “whan he
saughe hir comen out of the Cave so hidouse and so horrible, he hadde
so gret dred that he flyhte agen to the Schippe.” For anything we learn
to the contrary, the charm was never broken, for all that Maundevile
can tell us more is that “whan a Knyghte comethe that is so hardy as to
kysse hir he schalle not dye, but he schalle turne the Damysele in to
hir righte Forme and Kyndely Schapp, and he schal be Lord of alle the
Contreye and Isles.” In our illustration, fig. 10, we see the newly-made
knight making his way back again to his vessel with all convenient speed,
his courage having entirely failed him at the critical moment.

[Illustration: FIG. 10.]

A belief in witches, fairies, and divers other uncanny folk was a strong
article of faith with our ancestors, but to go at any just length into
these points would lead us further afield than our title would perhaps
justify. As we have already referred to the suspicion that attached
itself to anyone who led a life somewhat outside the ordinary groove, we
append an excellent illustrative passage from Spenser’s “Faerie Queene,”
as it admirably conveys the popular idea. There in a gloomy hollow glen
she found:—

    “A little cottage built of sticks and reedes
    In homely wise, and walled with sod around,
    In which a Witch did dwell, in loathly weedes
    And wilful want, all careless of her needes;
    So choosing solitarie to abide
    Far from all neighbours, that her devilish deedes
    And hellish arts from people she might hide,
    And hurt far off unknowne whom ever she envide.”

Those who care to look the subject up may turn to Reginald Scot’s
“Discoverie of Witchcraft,” “wherein the lewde dealing of Witches and
Witchmongers is notablie detected, the knauerie of coniurors, the
Curiositie of figure-casters, and many other things are opened which have
long lien hidden;”[33] or perhaps, better still, to the book entitled
“Saducismus Triumphatus, or full and plain Evidence concerning Witches
and Apparitions, proving partly by Holy Scripture, partly by a choice
Collection of modern Relations, the Real Existence of Apparitions,
Spirits and Witches, by Jos. Glanvil, late Chaplain to His Majesty, and
Fellow of the Royal Society.” The copy before us is dated 1658, and is
full of tales of familiar spirits in the forms of toads, rabbits, hares,
dogs, &c., diver incantations to provoke evil or to shield from it,
and the like, all gravely narrated. The author, in fact, holds it rank
atheism to doubt such tales, since witches are moved by evil spirits,
and if people do not believe in one they do not in the other, and
therefore not in spirits at all, and therefore not in God!

In the days of our forefathers the ideas held were of a very primitive
and unscientific character, and what knowledge there was was largely
mixed up with mysticism, gross superstition, rank credulity, sheer
guesswork. The common people saw in everything outside their common
experience some grave portent, some prophecy of coming evil, and filled
the forest glades, the wild moorland, the dark recesses of the mine,
the air, the waters, with strange forms of life, sometimes in sympathy
with mankind, but more frequently hostile. We may, on the whole, be very
thankful that our lot was not cast in the “good old times.”




CHAPTER III.

    The lion, king of beasts—Unbelievers in him—Aldrovandus on the
    lion—The lion of the heralds—The “Blazon of Gentrie”—Guillim
    as an authority—The lion’s medicine—The lion’s antipathies—Why
    some lions are maneless—De Thaun’s symbolic lion—Lion’s cubs
    born dead—The theory of Creation held during the Middle
    Ages—Degenerate lions of Barbary—The Leontophonos—Hostility
    between lion and unicorn—Literary references to the
    unicorn—Martin’s “Philosophical Grammar”—How to capture
    the unicorn—The value of the horn—The elephant—The capture
    thereof—Feud between elephant and dragon—Use of elephant
    in war—Performing elephants—Moon-worshippers—Knowledge
    of the value of their tusks—The first elephant seen
    in England—Sagacity of the elephant—Kindliness to
    lost travellers—Ethiopian huntresses—Difference
    between the creations of Fancy and of Nature—Elephants
    cold-blooded—Hippopotamus prescribing himself blood-letting—The
    river-horse of Munster—The panther—Powers of fascination—Beauty
    of coat—Fragrance—Red panthers of Cathay—Aromatic spices
    as diet—Antipathies between various animals—Antipathetic
    medicines—Porta’s “Natural Magick”—The hyæna—Counterfeiting
    human speech—The wolf—Producing speechlessness—The dragon’s
    parentage—Enmity between wolf and sheep—Value of wolf-skin
    garments—The stag-wolf—The bear—Licking cubs into shape—Bees
    and honey—The hare—Cruelty of many mediæval remedies—The
    hedgehog—The deer—Stories with morals—The boar—Swine-stone—The
    ermine—The goat—The malevolent shrew-mouse—The horse—Why
    oxen should drink before horses—The donkey—The sparrow’s
    aversion—The dog—The cat—Rats and mice.


Having in the preceding chapters dealt with some few of the abnormal
forms of humanity, we propose now to give some little consideration to
the ideas that have clustered round various animals, dealing first
with the beasts, the royal lion, the elephant, and various others; then
passing through the various stages of birds, fishes, and reptiles, to the
conclusion of our labours.

The lion claims our first regard, since he has, by the naturalists,
poets, moralists, fable-writers, been unanimously crowned the King of
Beasts, and has been duly accredited with every royal virtue, such as
magnanimity, courage, generosity; while in art he has always taken
the same exalted position, crowning the gates of Mycenæ, flanking the
entrances of the palaces of Nineveh, enhancing the dignity of the
Pharaohs, guarding the steps of the throne of Solomon, typifying in the
lion of Lucerne undaunted bravery, and around the column of Nelson in
Trafalgar Square, or on the Royal Standard of England, symbolising all
that Britons associate with the grandeur and might of their country.

The lion alone of all wild beasts, we are told, is gentle to those that
humble themselves to him, and even when his wrath is awakened, and the
pangs of hunger call for relief, his chivalrous nature is such that he
will not attack a woman without the greatest provocation or necessity.
Another interesting fact that the ancient writers ascertained is that
the blood of the lion is black. That he is not in any derogatory sense
black-hearted, is one of the most heartily accepted articles of belief
since the magnanimity of the lion is the trait in his character that is
most fully dwelt upon.

There have, nevertheless, arisen unbelievers in these latter days who
have endeavoured to belittle the royal beast, and to make out that he
is, after all, not much better than a sneaking coward, that his courage
springs from a knowledge of his superior power, and that his forbearance
and generosity are but indications that the creature at the time he
displayed these estimable qualities had lately dined. Even in the
following passage from an early writer we get some little hint of this
feeling: “He despiseth the darts and defendeth himself by his terror
only, and, as if bearing witness that he is forced to his own defence,
he riseth up in fury, not as at last compelled by the peril, but is made
angry by their folly. But this more noble display of courage is shown in
that, however great may be the strength of hounds and hunters, while in
the open plains, and where he may be seen, he retireth only by degrees,
and with scorn; but when he hath got amongst the thickets and woods, then
he hurrieth away, as if the place concealed his shame.” Perhaps, however,
we should assign this strategic movement to the rear to the discretion
that we are proverbially told is such an excellent supplement to mere
valour, or a wise acquiescence in the dictum: “He that fights and runs
away will live to fight another day.”[34] The ideal lion, however, is a
very noble beast indeed, and very few of the early writers do aught but
sing his praises.

Aldrovandus in his book on animals—not the “Monstrorum Historia,” but
the volume that treats of matter-of-fact creatures—deals very fully with
his subject. The Lion stands first, and our readers will gather some
notion of the fulness of the treatment when we state that the royal beast
takes up sixty-three folio pages. The book is written wholly in Latin,
and the various details are arranged in sections. Amongst these we find
“Descriptio, Anatomica, Differentiæ, Locvs, Natvra, Mores, Magnanimitas,
Vox, Sympathia et Antipathia, Historica, Mystica et allegorica,
Hieroglyphica, Moralia, Nvmismata, Insignia Gentilitia et Militaria,
Simvlacra statvæ, Fabvlosa, Proverbia, Vsvs in Medicina, Vsvs in Lvdis
et Trivmphis, Vsvs in Venatione et in Bello.” Even this does not exhaust
the exceedingly comprehensive treatment, though amply sufficient to
illustrate it. The leopard, lynx, dog, and other beasts are in proportion
as fully treated of, though the subjects of the sections of course vary;
thus in the dog we find much information under the heading Fidelitas and
Amor, sections that would be entirely out of place in the description of
the wolf.

The Aldrovandus picture of the lion is rather a poor one, while the tiger
is very fairly good, and the wolf is capital. It is rather curious too
that the hippopotamus, the first living specimen of which, as far as we
know, came to Europe over two hundred years after the publication of the
book in question, is represented by very fair figures, by which it can
readily be identified. There are three of these altogether, and one of
them has seized a crocodile by the tail. Several of the beasts are also
given in skeleton form, thus we have the osteology of the wolf, squirrel,
mole, and many others carefully rendered. The effect is sometimes rather
quaint, thus, for instance, the skeleton of the hare is given, and the
creature in this osseous condition is represented as gnawing a plant.
The mole is figured with very conspicuous eyes. Any plant that can be
at all associated with an animal is always introduced, thus we have a
very good drawing of the rabbit nibbling clover, and the legend appended
“cuniculus cinereus cum trifolio pratensi, quo maxime delectatus,” a
statement that many a luckless farmer would very heartily endorse; then
we have the weasel standing by a plant of rue, and the legend “qua omnes
mustelæ adversus serpentes se defendunt,” in allusion to the old belief
that a weasel well fortified with rue was able to wage successful war
against venomous serpents. Many kinds of dogs are shown, the greyhound,
the water spaniel, the poodle with his collar, and so forth; one, to show
his fidelity to his master, carries two keys in his mouth, while another
is termed “canis bellicosus,” and certainly looks the character.

“The Lyon,” says Ferne, in his “Blazon of Gentrie, 1586,” “is the most
worthiest of all beastes; yea, he standeth as the king, and is feared
above all the beastes of the fielde. So that by the Lyon is signified
principallitie, dominion, and rule. Fortitude and magnanimity is denoted
in the Lyon.” Coats, another heraldic authority of somewhat later date,
affirms that “the lion is the most magnanimous, the most generous, the
most bold and fierce of all the four-footed race, and therefore he
has been chosen to represent the greatest heroes. This noble creature
represents also Command and Monarchical Dominion, as likewise the
Magnanimity of Majesty, at once exercising Awe and Clemency, subduing
those that resist, and sparing those that humble themselves.” In the
“Indice Armorial” of Geliot, published in Paris in the year 1635, we
read: “Si ca est auec raison que les anciens ont donné a l’aigle la
qualité de Roy des oyseaux et au dauphin celuy des poissons, il y a plus
de sujet de qualifier du nom de Roy le lyon, non seulement pour estre
plus fort et le plus genereux des animaux terrestres, mais principalement
à cause des qualitez royales qui sont en luy. Le lyon ne dort iamais, ou
bien s’il dort c’est auec si peu de repos qu’il ne laisse pas d’auoir les
yeux ouverts. C’est ce que l’on remarque de genereux au lyon que iamais
il n’offence ceux qui s’humilient deuant luy, qu’il ne touche point aux
petits enfants et porta qu’entre les hommes et les femmes il s’addresse
plutost aux hommes, et entre ceux qui les prouoquent il choisira
tousiours celuy qui l’aura blessé, comme mespriant les autres.” Guillim,
in his “Display of Heraldry,” a most popular book, running through many
editions, scarcely gives so exalted an idea of the king of beasts,
since he tells us that “the lion, when he mindeth to assail his enemy,
stirreth up himself by often beating of his back and sides with his tail,
and thereby stirreth up his courage to the end to do nothing faintly
or cowardly. The lion, when he is hunted, carefully provideth for his
safety, labouring to frustrate the pursuit of the hunters by sweeping out
his footsteps with his tail as he goeth, that no appearance of his track
may be discovered. When he hunteth after his prey he roareth vehemently,
whereat the beasts, being astonished, do make a stand, while he with his
tail makes a circuit around them in the sand, which circle they dare
not transgress, which done, out of them he maketh choice of prey at his
leisure.” Thus the lion’s tail is at once a stimulus to valour, an aid
to concealment when the valour has oozed away, and a ring-fence for the
enclosure of his prey.

Gerard Legh, author of the “Accedens of Armorie,” a book originally
published in 1562, and so popular that within half a century five
editions were called for, tells us that when lions are born “they sleepe
continually three long Egyptian daies. Whereat the Lyonesse, making such
terrible roring as the erth trembleth therewith, raiseth them by force
thereof out of that deadlie sleepe, ministering foode, which of sleepe
before they could not take. Aristotle writeth that in his marching he
setteth foorth his right pawe first, and beareth in himselfe a princelie
port. When he pursueth aunie beast he rampeth on them, for then he is
in most force. In nothing so much appeareth the princelie minde of the
haughtie Lyon as in this, that where other beastes do herd and rowte
together the Lyon will not do so, neither will hee haue any soueraigne,
such is the haughtie courage of his high stomache that he accomteth
himselfe without peere; when he is sicke he healeth himselfe with the
bloud of an Ape.[35] In age when his strength faileth him he becommeth
enemie to man, and not before, but neuer to children. There is little
marrow in his bones, for when they are smitten together fier flieth out
of them as from a flint stone. Therefore in the olde time they made
shields for horsemen of Lyon’s bones.” Another old writer tells us that
“the lion is never sick but of loathing.” This we may presume is a kind
of biliousness or sick headache, and a general disinclination for food.
Whatever it may be, the Faculty are equal to the occasion, as the simple
“way to cure him is to tie to him the apes, which with their wanton
mocking drive him to madness, and then when he hath tasted their blood
it acts as a remedy.” Legh’s remedy and this one do not quite agree, but
this latter is clearly intended for the lion in a state of captivity,
when his unnatural surroundings necessitate severer treatment.

When a lion is wounded we are told that he has a remarkable quickness
of observation in detecting which amongst the hunters is to be held
responsible for the injury, and, no matter what the size of the hunting
party, he singles out this particular individual for his attack, but if a
man has merely thrown a dart at him without wounding him it is sufficient
punishment for his audacity to be struck down and well shaken. Lions,
Pliny tells us, are destitute of craft and suspicion; “they never look
aslant, and they love not to be looked at in that manner.” The lion was
believed by the ancients to be afraid at the turning of a wheel, and
more especially at the crowing of a cock. These ancient naturalists had
excellent opportunities of studying the lion. For one thing he was found
in Greece, Palestine, and many other districts where he is now never
seen, and then, too, the sports and combats of the amphitheatre and the
desire of the rulers to gain popularity by pleasing the multitude with
various shows led to their free introduction. Thus we read that Pompey
the Great caused six hundred lions to be exhibited together to the
Roman people, while Cæsar the Dictator exhibited four hundred, and many
others in authority had smaller collections gathered together for the
gratification of the populace.

That there were maneless lions was a fact known to the ancient writers,
as they are mentioned by Pliny, Aristotle, and others, but the reason
they give for this peculiarity, that they had panthers as their sires,
is erroneous.[36] The lions found in Persia and Arabia are almost
maneless, and the lions of Gujerat have simply on the middle line of the
back of the neck some hairs that stand erect like the mane of a quagga.
It would probably be one or both of these varieties that had come under
the notice of the ancient authors. Amongst other mixed breeds that these
writers believed in was the camelopardilis, the reputed offspring of the
camel and the leopard or panther, and the hartebeest, springing from the
union of the antelope and the buffalo.

In the “Livre des Creatures,” the quaint old MS. of Philip de Thaun,
the lion is treated symbolically, and as this tone of thought greatly
influenced the art and literature of the period we may very legitimately
quote the passage. “The lion,” writes our old author, “in many ways rules
over many beasts, therefore is the lion king. He has a frightful face,
the neck great and hairy; he has the breast before square, hardy and
pugnacious; his shape behind is slender, his tail of large fashion, and
he has flat legs, and haired down to the feet; he has the feet large and
cloven, the claws long and curved. When he is hungry or ill-disposed he
devours animals without discrimination, as he does the ass which resists
and brays. Now hear, without doubt, the significance of this. The lion
signifies the Son of Mary. He is King of all people without any gainsay.
He is powerful by nature over every creature, and fierce in appearance,
and with fierce look He will appear to the Jews, when He shall judge
them. The square breast shows strength of the Deity. The shape which he
has behind, of very slender make, shows humanity, which He had with the
Deity. By the foot, which is cloven, is demonstrance of God, who will
clasp the world and hold it in His fist.” It is needless to follow De
Thaun any further in his laboured mysticism; the passage quoted suffices
to show the method adopted. The idea that the lion’s cubs were brought to
life three days after their birth was a belief that very readily became
transformed into a symbolism of the Resurrection of Christ from the sleep
of death,[37] while the notion that the lion always slept with its eyes
open made it a symbol of watchfulness, and led to its introduction in
the sculptures of early Christian churches, and especially those under
Lombard influence, where it is not infrequently found as a sentinel at
the doors, as the base to pillars, or at the foot of the pulpits.

[Illustration: FIG. 11.]

According to Burton, in his “Miracles of Art and Nature,” in Barbary
“’tis said they have Lyons so tame that they will gather up Bones in the
Street like Dogs, without hurting any Body; and other Lyons that are of
so cowardly a Nature that they will run away at the Voice of the least
child.” Munster’s notion of the African lion, fig. 11, is impressive,
though it is perhaps less nearly allied to the lion of real life than
to the lion of the herald, of which fig. 12, from the effigy of Prince
John of Eltham, brother of Edward III, in Westminster Abbey, may be
taken as a characteristic example. Munster’s lion[38] would satisfy
even the country heraldic painter, who was so irate when shown a lion
in a travelling menagerie. “What!” cried he, “tell me that’s a lion!
Why I’ve painted lions rampant, lions passant, and all soils of lions
these five-and-twenty years, and for sure I ought to know what a lion is
like better than that!” This lion of Munster is a very different beast
to the degenerate lions of Barbary that find a precarious sustenance
in collecting discarded bones from the gutter, and slink away at the
chiding-of some Arab brat who is inclined to break in upon their sordid
repast.

[Illustration: FIG. 12.]

Nature, when not interfered with by man, ever keeps the balance true:
hence “the Leontophonos is only bred where lions are found,” and if the
old writers may be trusted (and there is much virtue in an “if”), we have
in this an excellent antidote to the bane that a plague of lions would
undoubtedly be. The king of beasts, we are told, regards the leontophonos
with deadly hatred and crushes the life out of it with its paw, as the
smallest portion of its flesh is immediate death to him. To checkmate
this decisive action of the lion, we learn from our ancient author that
in districts that have a plague of lions the people of the place burn the
leontophonos and sprinkle the ashes on other pieces of flesh, and these
they lay about as a bait with fatal effect. By this happy arrangement
they are free at once of Leo and Leontophonos.

One of the greatest enemies of the lion would appear to be the unicorn;
for though the two appear to get on amicably enough as supporters of the
royal arms, appearances, it is well known, are often deceptive, and they
are really deadly foes. Gesner, in his “History of Animals,” gives the
whole story in a nutshell, for he tells us that “the Unicorn and the Lion
being enemies by nature, as soon as the lion sees the unicorn he betakes
himself to a tree.” This strikes one as being a rather feeble performance
on the part of the king of beasts—in fact, decidedly _infra dig._; but
the end is considered to justify the means, for “the unicorn in his fury,
and with all the swiftness of his course, running at him, sticks his
horn fast in the tree, and then the lion falls upon him and kills him.”
The indiscreet valour of the unicorn seems distinctly a nobler thing
than the calculating craft of the lion. Spenser, in the “Faerie Queene,”
introduces the story as evidently a well-known fact in natural history:—

    “Like as a Lyon whose imperial powre
      A proud rebellious unicorn defyes,
    T’avoid the rash assault and wrathful stowre
      Of his fiers foe, him to a tree applyes,
    And when him ronning in full course he spyes
      He slips aside: the whiles that furious beast
    His precious horne, sought of his enemyes[39]
      Strikes in the stocke, ne thence can be releast,
      But to the mighty victor yields a bounteous feast.”[40]

In “Timon of Athens” Shakespeare writes: “Wert thou the Unicorn pride and
wrath would confound thee, and make thine own self the conquest of thy
fury;” and in “Julius Cæsar” we find the line: “Unicorns may be betray’d
with trees,” both passages evidently referring to this legend.

Most furious of all beasts was the Monoceros; or, as Ælian calls it, the
Cartazonos, a creature still having literary and heraldic existence as
the unicorn; though in some few points the beast, as described by Pliny
and others, does not altogether resemble in form the creature of the
heralds that is so well known to us as joint supporter with the lion of
our national arms. The ancient monoceros had the body of a horse, the
head of a stag, the feet of an elephant, and the tail of a boar, and from
the middle of his forehead projected a single horn.

The Monoceros, Unicornu, or Einhorn is described in Jonston’s “Historia
Naturalis,” published in 1657, and Munster, in his description of
Asia,[41] gives a picture of the unicorn, a beast in all respects like a
horse, save that it has one tremendous horn. Barrow, in his “Travels in
Southern Africa,” gives the figure of a head of a unicorn which he saw
drawn on the side of a cavern, and appears to entertain no doubt that
such an animal exists, while Burton tells us that in Æthiopia “some Kine
there are which have Horns like Stags, others but one Horn only, and that
in the Forehead, about a foot and a half long, but bending backwards,” a
departure this from the recognized type.

Figures of the unicorn are found on the archaic cylinder seals of Assyria
and Babylonia, and throughout the whole course of ancient and mediæval
history we find belief in the creature as much a matter of course as
belief in horse or elephant, and it would not be difficult to bring
forward a score or more of authors who have written even in comparatively
recent times on the existence of the unicorn.[42]

In a curious old book on our shelf, the “Philosophical Grammar” of
Benjamin Martin, published in 1753, the author raises the question as to
whether such creatures as the phœnix, syrens, dragons, mermaids, fairies,
and many others that he mentions really exist, and in the matter of the
unicorn he evidently suspends judgment. “Most naturalists,” he says,
“have affirmed that there have been such creatures and give descriptions
of them; but the sight of the creatures or credible relations of them
having been so rare, has occasioned many to believe there never were any
such animals in nature; at least it has made the history of them very
doubtful. In all such ambiguous pieces of history ’tis better not to be
positive, and sometimes to suspend our belief rather than credulously
embrace every current report.” In another book, however, published in
1786, and therefore not much more than a century ago, the unicorn is
described in all sober seriousness as having equine body, a voice like
the lowing of an ox, and his horn “as hard as iron and as rough as any
file” to the touch.

Guillim declares that the unicorn cannot be taken alive, “the greatness
of his mind is such that he chuseth rather to die,” while De Thaun gives
full directions for its capture. It would appear that the animal is of a
particularly impressionable nature, and is always prepared to pay homage
to maiden beauty and innocence, hence fierce as it is the wily hunter
by taking advantage of this amiable trait in its character effects its
capture, for “when a man intends to hunt and ensnare it he goes to the
forest where is its repair, and there places a virgin. Then it comes to
the virgin, falls asleep on her lap, and so comes to its death. The man
arrives immediately and kills it in its sleep, or takes it alive, and
does as he will with it.” As this must be rather a trying experience
for the young lady, “the Indian and Ethiopians,” says a later writer,
“catch of these unicornes which be in their country after the following
manner. They take a goodly-strong and beautifull young man, whom they
clothe in the apparell of a woman, besetting him with divers flowers and
odoriferous spices, setting him where the Unicornes use to come, and when
they see this young man they come very lovingly and lay their heads down
in his lap (for above all creatures they do great reverence to young
maids), and then the hunters having notice given them, suddenly come, and
finding him asleep, they will deal so with him, as that before he goeth
he must leave his horn behind him” and fall a victim to his guileful
foes. Spenser speaks of “the maiden Unicorne,” and Dallaway, too, refers
to “their inviolable attachment to virginity,” and many other writers
speak in the same sense, or shall we rather say lack of it!

The horn was in great demand as it was made into drinking vessels that
were held to possess the invaluable gift of detecting poison. Thus in the
“Speculum Mundi” we read of it that “it hath many soveraigne virtues,
insomuch that, being put upon a table furnished with many junkets and
banqueting dishes, it will quickly descrie whether there be any poyson or
venime among them, for if there be, the horne is presently covered with
a kinde of sweat or dew.” This belief in the efficacy of the horn of the
unicorn as a test for poisons is seen by the frequent appearance of it in
mediæval inventories. We gather from these no clue, no alternative name,
for instance, to guide us, as to what the material so valued really was.
In a book of travels by one Hentzner, a foreigner who visited England
in the year 1598, mention is made of a horn of the unicorn that he was
shown at Windsor Castle, and which he says was valued at over £1000, as
indeed it very well might be, if Decker’s line, “the unicorn whose horn
is worth a city,” written in 1609, gives anything like a fair estimate of
its worth. In the “Comptes Royaux” of France for 1391 we find the entry:
“Une manche d’or d’un essay de lincourne pour attoucher aux viandes de
Monseigneur le Dauphin,” and in the year 1536 in the inventory of the
treasures of Charles V., we have: “Une touche de licorne, garnie d’or,
pour faire essay.” Many other examples of a similar nature might readily
be brought forward. It seems strange that a belief in the efficacy of
the horn of the unicorn to detect the presence of poisons should have
endured for hundreds of years, when practical experiment would in half an
hour have convicted the thing, whatever it was, of being a mockery, a
delusion, and a snare.

Many curious beliefs have clustered around the elephant, his sagacity,
great strength, and association with the wonderful countries of Africa
and India giving occasion for much that is marvellous. One old writer
tells that “the elephant is a beast of great strength, but greater wit,
and greatest ambition; insomuch that some have written of them that if
you praise them they will kill themselves with labour, and if you command
another before them they will break their hearts with emulation. The
beast is so proud of his strength that he never bows himself to any,
and when he is once down (as it usually is with proud great ones) he
cannot rise up again.” The female elephant was supposed to rear her young
one in deep water, for fear lest the dragon should find and devour it.
Physiologus says that when the bone of an elephant shall be burnt, or his
hair singed, the smell of it shall drive away serpents and all poison.
Isidore informs us that the elephant is beyond measure great, and that
it has the form of a goat, a statement that leads us to imagine that
he writes rather from hearsay than from personal knowledge. He further
tells us that the creature cannot lie down, a statement that is entirely
opposed to fact, as they may be seen rolling to and fro with the greatest
ease when bathing, and after their ablutions recovering their feet with
great readiness. This supposed inability to lie down necessitated the
elephant’s leaning against a wall or tree while sleeping, and the people
of the land, when they desired to capture one, had only to fell the tree
or undermine the wall, while the elephant was in happy unconsciousness of
the rude awakening that they were preparing for him.

    “The elephant so huge and strong to see
    No perill fear’d but thought a sleepe to gaine;
    But foes before had underminde the tree,
    And down he falls, and so by them was slaine.
    First trye, then truste; like goulde the copper showes;
    And Nero oft in Numa’s clothinge goes.”

                                        WHITNEY’S _Emblems_.

They are provoked to madness at the sight of blood or of the juice of the
mulberry tree. They eat both leaves and stones, but if by inadvertence
they swallow a chameleon the result is fatal, unless they can immediately
afterwards eat some olives. As no elephant, being a vegetarian, would eat
a chameleon knowingly, we are reduced to the alternative that he must
eat him unconsciously, and would therefore feel nothing of the need of a
prompt administration of antidote until the olives came too late.

In the family feud which was held to exist between the elephant and the
dragon the reptile endeavoured to twist himself round the ponderous
beast’s feet and so bring him to the ground, but the sagacity of the
elephant here stood him in good stead, and when he saw that his fall was
inevitable, he also saw the great advantage of flattening the life out of
his foe by falling with all his huge bulk upon him. The blood produced
by these sanguinary combats soaked into the earth and thus yielded the
cinnabar of commerce. Possibly some early observer may have seen a deadly
struggle in the jungle between an elephant and some huge python or boa,
and being content to view from some little distance, may have filled
in the details from imagination and thus set the story afloat. When a
tale of this nature once gained credence, one old writer after another
inserted it in his work without further question. The elephant was said
to be afraid of a mouse, though the ancient authors unfortunately fail to
satisfy our very legitimate curiosity as to why this should be so; in an
old romance, dealing with the wars of the great Alexander, the elephants
of the enemy are put to rout by the squeaking of a herd of swine brought
for the nonce on to the tented field.

The elephant was first used in war by Pyrrhus, who, B.C. 280, employed
these animals in the war with Tarentum against the Romans. We learn also
that the Carthaginians, in the time of Hannibal, B.C. 210, employed them
in their wars; and we have modern illustrations of the like service
amongst the various princes of India. When the Romans in Leucania first
saw the elephants in the battle array of Pyrrhus, they called them
Leucanian oxen. “Next the Poeni taught the horrible Leucanian oxen, with
lowered body and snake-like head, to endure the wounds of war, and to
throw into confusion the mighty ranks of Mars.” Later on the Romans
introduced them into their own service, and in one of the triumphal
entries of Cæsar into Rome his chariot was drawn by forty elephants.

A little later on we read of their appearance in the arena, dancing and
wrestling with each other, walking on stretched ropes, four of them
carrying a fifth on their shoulders reposing on a litter or couch, and
generally going through those performances that from the earliest times
to the travelling show of to-day have been received by the vulgar with
such favour. Both Pliny and Plutarch tell us that if any one elephant
in such a gathering for any reason fails to do what is required of him
he will study by night, in what a workman would call “his own time,” to
achieve success, and go through the performance of his own accord when
the rest of the world is sleeping, until he has mastered it.

Sir John Maundevile, in his “Voiage and Travaile,” give’s an interesting
mediæval reference to an Eastern potentate having “14,000 Olifauntz or
mo. In cas that he had ony Werre agenst ony other Kynge aboute him than
he makethe certyn men of Armes for to gon up in to the Castelles of
Tree, made for the Werre, that craftily ben set uppe on the Olifauntes
Bakkes, for to fryghten agen hire Enemyes.” How very craftily these are
set up may be seen in our illustration, fig. 13, from an early edition
of the book. As we may reasonably assume from the look of the Castelle
of tree that it is built in two storeys, we may judge the bulk of the
elephant from imagining the size that the men must be who are quartered
in the upper storey. It will be noticed that there is no suggestion of
any method of fastening the Castelle to the Olifaunte. Were we amongst
the men of arms who were expected to take up a position in this fortress,
we should regard this as a peculiarly weak point in the arrangements. In
marked contrast with this massive beast Munster has a funny picture of a
man ploughing with an elephant, the elephant being, in proportion to the
man, of about the size of a Shetland pony.

The ancient writers believed, or taught, that the elephant indulged in
moon-worship. Ælian, amongst others, states that at the increase of the
moon these creatures gathered long branches of trees in the forest, and
held them up in adoration, with uplifted trunks, to the queen of night.
Pliny, too, writes that “they have withall religious reverence, with a
kind of devotion; not only the starres and planets but the sunne and
moone they also worship, and in very truth, writers there be who report
thus much of them—that when the new moone beginneth to appeare fresh and
bright,[43] they come doune by whole herds to a certaine river named
Amelus in the deserts and forests of Mauritania, where, after that they
are washed and solemnlie purified by sprinkling and dashing themselves
all over with the water, and have saluted and adored after their manner
their planet, they returne againe unto the woods and chases, carrying
before them their young calves that be wearied and tired”—a grand and
pious pilgrimage of pachyderms.

Another strange idea of the ancients was that the elephant when pursued
by the hunters beats its tusks against the trees until they drop off, as
he has a shrewd suspicion that it is his ivory rather than himself that
they want. The elephant, sagacious beast, would appear to have as good
a notion of the value of his tusks to the hunter as his pursuer himself
has. We are told that “when they chance to be environed and compassed
round with hunters they set foremoste in the ranke to bee seene those
of the heard that have the least teeth, to the end that their price
might not be thought worth the hazard and venture in chace for them. But
afterwards, when they see the hunters eager and themselves over-matched
and wearie, they breake them with running against the hard trees, and,
leaving them behind, escape by this ransome as it were, out of their
hands.” Another curious fact is that “their skin is covered neither with
haire nor bristle, no, not so much as in their taile, which might serve
them in goode steade to driue away the busie and troublesome flie (for as
vast and huge a beast as he is, the flie haunteth and stingeth him), but
full their skinne is of crosse wrinckles lattiswise: and besides that,
the smell thereof is able to draw and allure such vermine to it, and
therefore when they are laid stretched along, and perceive the flies by
whole swarmes settled on their skin, sodainly they draw those cranies and
crevices together close, and so crush them all to death. This serues them
instead of taile, maine and long haire,”—one striking instance the more
of the wonderful compensatory powers of Nature!

[Illustration: FIG. 13.]

It is by no means an incurious subject to trace the sources of
information possessed by our ancestors of subjects of natural history
that have now become so familiar as to create a surprise that fables
respecting them should so long have been currently received. In regard to
the elephant, the earliest notions the people of the Middle Ages had of
it must have been from the narratives of pilgrims and other travellers
from the East. The first instance, after classic times, of an elephant
being brought to the West occurred in the year 807, when one was sent
as a present from the famous Caliph Haroum al Raschid to the Emperor
Charlemagne, and must have occasioned no small degree of astonishment.
Matthew Prior mentions that the Soldan of Babylon, Malek el Kamel, sent
an elephant as a choice present to the Emperor Frederic II. in the year
1229, but it was not till 1255 that the first specimen was seen in
England: this was a present from the King of France to our Henry III.
The chronicler, John of Oxenedes, gives full details of the arrival of
this animal in London, and tells us of the enormous crowds that flocked
together to behold it. The writ is still existing that was sent to the
Sheriff of Kent, dated February 3rd, 1255, directing him to go in person
to Dover, together with John Gouch, the king’s servant, to arrange in
what manner the king’s present might most conveniently be brought over,
and to find for the said John a ship and all things necessary; and if,
by the advice of mariners and others, it could be brought by water,
directing it to be so conveyed. It was, however, eventually landed at
Sandwich, and walked thence to London. Another writ, dated the 26th of
the same month, ordered the Sheriffs of London to cause to be built at
the Tower a house for it, forty feet in length and twenty in breadth.
The elephant itself was ten feet in height and ten years old. It only
lived two years. Of this elephant Matthew Prior made a very good
representation and his original drawing may still be seen amongst the
Cottonian MSS. in the British Museum; this he expressly tells us was
taken from the life _ipso elephante exemplariter assistente_. An equally
good, but smaller, drawing occurs at the close of the chronicle of John
de Walingeford, a monk in the Abbey of St. Albans. This also may be seen
amongst the Cottonian collection. The historians of the time regarded the
new arrival as a perfect prodigy, as they very well might do, when we
remember how the British public, comparatively satiated with wild beasts,
flocked in hundreds of thousands some few years ago to see the first
hippopotamus. They gave long and detailed accounts of the habits of the
elephant in a wild state, details which were eagerly read by the great
multitude seeking for some information on this strange monster in their
midst; these more or less trustworthy facts, though mingled with many
obvious absurdities, would seem to show that a fair amount of knowledge
of the creature had penetrated thus far. Some of the information was at
least curious, as, for instance, that elephants will not enter a ship to
cross the sea until an oath is taken before them by their conductor that
they shall return, and that if they meet a man in the desert who has lost
his bearings they will very courteously conduct him to the right path.
Either of these indicate a high degree of sagacity, and a good knowledge
of human speech. The latter proceeding was probably a delicate way of
conveying to the wandering botanist or prospecting engineer that he was
a trespasser on their domain, and a gentle hint to him that he would-be
on the right path when he took his leave and left them in undisturbed
possession.[44]

There is no record in modern times of an African tribe endeavouring to
domesticate the wild elephant, or to utilize it in warfare, but Marco
Polo mentions that in the South-East of Africa the people are very
warlike, and fight—having no horses—upon elephants and camels. Upon
the backs of the former he tells us that they place castles capable
of containing from fifteen to twenty armed men, and that, previous to
the conflict, they give the elephants draughts of wine to make them
more spirited and furious in the assault.[45] “There is no creature,”
saith the writer of the “Speculum Mundi,” “amongst all the beasts of
the world which hath so great and ample demonstration of the power and
wisdom of Almighty God as the Elephant, both from proportion of body and
disposition of spirit; and it is admirable to behold the industrie of our
ancient forefathers, and noble desire to benefit us their posteritie, by
searching into the qualities of every beast, to discover what benefits
and harms may come by them to mankinde; having never been afraid of the
wildest, but they tamed them; and the greatest, but they also set upon
them: witness this beast of which we now speak, being like a living
mountaine in quantitie and outward appearance, yet by them so handled as
no little dog could be made more serviceable, tame, and tractable.”

According to the belief of one mediæval writer, at least, the capture of
the elephant is not a matter of much difficulty, though, having caught
him, he seems to find no better use for him than to kill him as so much
raw material for the dyer’s vat, instead of utilizing his gigantic
strength and magnificent willingness for work[46] in the service of
man. Nowadays, the men do most of the elephant-catching, but “among
the Ethiopians,” says one ancient authority on the subject, Bartholomew
Anglicus, “in some countries elephants be hunted in this wise. There
go in the desert two maidens, and one of them beareth a vessel and the
other a sword. And these maidens begin to sing alone; and the beast
hath liking when he heareth their song, and cometh to them, and falleth
asleep anon for liking of the song,” an explanation of the drowsiness
that would scarcely nowaday be held satisfactory at any concert or social
function of the kind; “then the one maid sticketh him in the throat or
in the side with a sword, and the other taketh his blood in a vessel.
And with that blood the people of the country dye cloth, and done colour
it therewith.” The writer prefaces his story by the assertion that it is
“full wonderful;” and so it is, when regarded from our modern standpoint,
but to anyone who could believe that unicorns could be captured in a very
similar way, we should have thought that the narrative would have seemed
most matter-of-fact and prosaic. The ladies of Ethiopia must have been of
considerably stouter heart than some fair maidens of the present day,
who dare not enter where the presence of mouse or cockroach is suspected.

Great good-natured beast as the elephant is, he has more than one most
merciless and vindictive foe. “There ben Bestes,” or Maundevile is in
error, “men clepen hem Loerancz, and thei han a blak Hed and thre longe
Hornes trenchant in the Front, scharpe as a Sword, and the body is
sclender. And he is a fulle felonous Best, and he chacethe and sleethe
the Olifaunt.” What can have ever prompted and suggested the idea of
such a very unpleasant tricorn it is impossible to say. In real life
the elephant and the rhinoceros are sometimes at feud, but clearly
the massive rhinoceros cannot be this very slender and objectionable
three-horned beast. We have seen, too, that the dragon cannot let the
elephant alone; he is to the full as “felonous” as the Loerancz. Pliny
held that this constant unpleasantness on the part of the reptile was
a “sport of nature.” In other words, that Nature,—personified, as the
Romans personified the winds, the mountain streams, and so forth,—felt
a real delight in seeing a downright fight between two such doughty
antagonists. As the dragon was always the aggressor, while the elephant
only wished to be let alone, and merely used his strength in self-defence
when so wantonly attacked, one’s sympathies must necessarily be with the
latter.

[Illustration: FIG. 14.]

As this view degraded Nature to the level of an emperor feasting his
eyes on the sanguinary horrors of a gladiatorial show, or to that of
a bull-baiter or other member of “the fancy,” it was not altogether
acceptable to thinking men, as it must have been difficult to worship at
the shrine of the Creator and Sustainer of all, and yet feel that one was
in the grasp of a power so capricious, relentless, and unfair. Nor was
the narration even fair to the dragon, as there was no suggestion in it
that the attack was made for the legitimate purpose of obtaining food;
the story as it stood pointed to a depth of sheer vindictiveness that
even a dragon with any self-respect would resent the imputation of. The
theory therefore was started that while during the great heats of the
dry season the dragon’s blood was almost at boiling point the blood of
the elephant was singularly and exceptionally cold, and thus made the
creature a most welcome prey. The dragon, with parched throat and molten
veins, therefore went as naturally for an elephant as the members of a
picnic-party in July go for the iced lemonade or claret-cup.

Our ancestors had immense faith in blood-letting, but there is nothing
new under the sun, and Pliny tells us that a hippopotamus, when good
living has told upon him and he is suffering from plethora, goes
ashore to where he has seen that the river reeds have been newly cut,
and presses one of the sharp edges of a stem into his leg, and thus
vigorously bleeds himself. When the process has given him the desired
relief, and there is no immediate fear of gout or apoplexy, he smears the
wound over with the Nile mud and quickly heals it. Munster’s idea of the
hippopotamus, as shown in his book, from which we have made the facsimile
fig. 14, is a much more genuine notion of a river-horse than the beast as
we see him in the Zoological Gardens. The way he is dashing up the stream
around him as he gallops through the water is a caution.

The panther was believed to have an especial power of fascination, a gift
ascribed by some to the beauty of his coat and by others to his odour.
The savour of the larger species of felidæ, as we find it in zoological
collections, is malodorous rather than fascinating, though the creatures
could doubtless plead in their own defence that they were placed under
artificial circumstances. In one of Spenser’s sonnets we find the first
theory upheld in the lines:—

    “The panther knowing that his spotted hide
      Doth please all beasts, but that his looks them fray,
    Within a bush his dreadful head doth hide
      To let them gaze, while he on them may prey.”

In the eighth book of Pliny’s “Natural History,” the second theory is
maintained. “It is said that all four-footed beasts are wonderfully
delighted and enticed by the smell of panthers; but their hideous looke
and crabbed countenance, which they bewray so soone as they show their
heads, skareth them as much againe; and therefore their manner is to hide
their heads, and when they have trained other beasts within their reach
by their sweet savour, they flee upon them and worrie them.”[47] In a MS.
presented by Sir William Segar to King James I. and now No. 6085 in the
Harleian collection, we come across a combination of the theories, the
result being a fascination of the most killing description:—“The panther
is admired of all beasts for the beauty of his skyn, being spotted with
variable colours, and beloued and followed of them for the sweetnesse of
his breath, that streameth forth of his nostrils and ears like smoke,
which our paynters mistaking corruptlie, doe make fire.” This detail
is given in the manuscript in explanation of one of the badges of King
Henry VI.—a panther passant guardant argent, spotted of all colours, with
vapour issuant from his mouth and ears.[48]

Sir John Maundevile professed to see in the capital of far Cathay a
palace with its halls “covered with red skins of animals called panthers,
fair beasts and well-smelling; so that for the sweet odour of the skins
no evil air may enter into the palace. The skins are as red as blood and
shine so bright against the sun that a man may scarce look at them. And
many people worship the beasts when they meet them first in a morning,
for their great virtue and for the good smell that they have; and the
skins they value more than if they were plates of fine gold.” This is
very clearly not a statement springing from personal observation. Some
old writers of imaginative turn of mind regarded the panther as the
emblem of providence and foresight, the number of eye-like spots on his
coat suggesting the idea that he was well able to look before, behind,
and around him; while others declared that he bore on his shoulder one
particular spot of the shape of the moon, and that this passed through
the various phases of form from crescent to full circle simultaneously
with the moon itself.

The tastes of the panther would appear to be considerably more refined
than those of the other great carnivoræ—an idea that we base on the
statement of the author of the “Speculum Mundi.” “Now, the reason why
these beasts have such a sweet breath is in regard that they are so
much delighted with the kinde of spices and daintie aromaticall trees;
insomuch that (as some affirm) they will go many hundred miles in time of
the yeare when these things are in season, and all for the love they bear
to them. But above all, their chief delight is in the gumme of camphire,
watching that tree very carefully, to the end they may preserve it for
their owne use.” The notion of the panther prowling round and keeping his
eye on the camphor the while is distinctly quaint.

Porta tells us that the hyæna and the panther are in continual enmity,
and that even the skin of a dead hyæna makes the panther run away, though
we should ourselves have thought that the live hyæna, skin and all, would
have been no match for the panther. Nay, this feeling is so intense, that
one old author tells us that even if one hangs up the two skins together
the antipathy outlives death itself, and the panther’s skin will lose all
the hair.

This notion of antipathy between various animals is a very strong point
with old writers. “A lion’s skin wasteth and eating out the skins of
other beasts; and so doth the wolves skin eat up the lambs skin.
Likewise the feathers of other fowles, being put among eagles feathers
do rot and consume of themselves. The beast Florus and the bird Ægithus
are at such mortal enmity that when they are dead their blood cannot
be mingled together.” Porta is very learned on this matter, and tells
us that an elephant is afraid of a ram. This must clearly be from some
invincible feeling of antipathy, for there is little doubt but that in
fair fight the ram would be nowhere; yet we learn that, unmanageable as
an elephant may be, “as soon as ever he seeth a ram he waxeth meek, and
his fury ceaseth.” One can only wonder, over and over again, how it comes
that such ideas should gain credence for centuries, when the whole matter
could so readily be brought to the touchstone of experience.

The doctrine of sympathy and antipathy, and more especially the latter
half of it, was of immense value in mediæval medicine. As an example of
sympathy we may instance the affection that was held to exist between the
goat and the partridge; hence for whatever one of them was a remedy the
other became equally available. The prescriptions were interchangeable,
and one used one or the other in full faith that either was equally
valuable, as indeed might very possibly be the case. As examples of the
antipathetic treatment, one may instance the following:—“The Ape of all
things cannot abide a Snail; now the Ape is a drunken beast, for they are
wont to take an Ape by making him drunk and a Snail well wash’d is a
remedy against drunkenesse. The Wolf is afraid of the Urchin; thence if
we wash our mouth and throat with Urchin’s blood it will make our voice
shrill, though before it were hoarse and dull like a Wolves voice. The
Hart and the Serpent are at continuall enemity; the Serpent as soon as he
seeth the Hart gets him into his hole, but the Hart draws him out again
with the breath of his nostrils and devours him; hence it is that the
fat and the blood of Harts, and the stones that grow in their eyes, are
ministered as fit remedies against the biting and stinging of Serpents.
Likewise the breath of Elephants draws Serpents out of their dens, and
therefore the members of Elephants burned, drive away Serpents. So also
the crowing of a Cock affrights the Basilisk, and he fights with Serpents
to defend his hens, hence the broth of a Cock is good remedy against the
poison of Serpents. The Stellion, which is a beast like a Lyzard, is an
enemy to the Scorpions, and therefore the Oyle of him being purified is
good to anoint the place which is stricken by the Scorpion. A Swine eats
up a Salamander without danger, and is good against the poison thereof.”
All these and many other hints of like value may be found in the pages of
Porta.

The edition of “Natural Magick,” by John Baptist Porta, from which we
have made these extracts, is a somewhat late one,[49] as the preface
begins:—“Courteous Reader,—If this work made by me in my youth, when
I was hardly fifteen years old, was so generally received, and with so
great applause, that it was forthwith translated into many Languages,
as Italian, French, Spanish, Arabick; and passed through the hands of
incomparable men; I hope that now coming forth from me that am fifty
years old, it shall be more dearly entertained. For when I saw the first
fruits of my Labours received with so great Alacrity of mind, I was moved
by these good Omens, and therefore have adventured to send it once more
forth, but with an Equipage more Rich and Noble. From the first time it
appeared it is now thirty-five years, and (without any derogation of my
Modesty be it spoken) if ever any man laboured earnestly to disclose the
secrets of Nature it was I.”[50] After nearly forty years, therefore, of
reflection, observation, and criticism he feels that his medical hints on
this subject of antipathy have borne the test of time, and may well take
their place amongst the other secrets of Nature divulged for the benefit
of humanity.

The hyæna was held to possess the power of counterfeiting man’s speech,
and of turning the gift to profitable account by going up at night to a
shepherd’s or woodman’s hut and calling out the man’s name.[51] Upon the
man’s going forth to see who wanted him, he was promptly torn to pieces.
The Manticora also, according to Juba, possessed this uncanny power of
imitating human speech, and turned its conversational powers to the
same treacherous use. It was also held that if a hyæna made a circuit
three times round any animal its victim lost all power of escape, and
could not stir a foot. According to some ancient writers the animal had
a stone called hyænia in its eye, and this being placed under a man’s
tongue imparted to him the gift of prophecy. Aristotle taught that the
eyes of this creature could change colour a thousand times a day, and
this is but a sample of many other curious and absurd stories concerning
the beast. Sir Gardner Wilkinson mentions a strange fancy believed in by
the Abyssinians that a race of people who inhabited their country had
the power of changing their form at pleasure, being sometimes men and at
others hyænas.

In the Middle Ages the wolf seems to have been in decidedly bad odour;
he was probably too well-known to be respected, and in the long dreary
nights of winter proved himself a terribly bad neighbour, and a very
undesirable travelling companion for those who had to cross amidst the
snows the almost trackless wastes. Amongst the Scandinavians the wolf
held a conspicuous place in tradition and mythology. Eclipses of the sun
and moon were held to be caused by two great wolves that were always
pursuing them through the heavens.[52] The wolf, too, was the companion
of Odin, the god of war, and at his feet these creatures crouched while
he fed them with the flesh of his enemies.

It was an accepted belief that if a man encountered a wolf, and the
creature caught sight of him before he saw it, he became dumb. Scott
refers to this old notion in his “Quentin Durward,” where, in the
eighteenth chapter, Lady Hameline exclaims, “Our young companion has
seen a wolf, and has lost his tongue in consequence.” “The ground or
occasionall originall thereof,” Browne in his “Exposure of Vulgar
Errors” would endeavour to persuade us, “was probably the amazement
and sudden silence the unexpected appearance of wolves doe often put
upon travellers, not by a supposed vapour or venomous emanation, but
a vehement fear which naturally produceth obmutescence, and sometimes
irrecoverable silence”; but it would appear to be a still simpler
procedure, and one with a good deal to recommend it, to deny that there
is an atom of truth in the story. In another old natural history before
us, we read that “the wolf when he falls upon a hog or a goat, or such
small beast, does not immediately kill them, but leads them by the ear,
with all the speed he can, to a crew of ravenous wolves, who instantly
tear them to pieces.” We should have thought that the reverse had been
more probable, and that the wolves that had nothing would have come with
all the speed they could upon their more successful comrade; but if
the old writer’s story be true, it opens out a fine trait of hitherto
unsuspected unselfishness in the character of the wolf.

John Leo, in his “History of Africa,” declares that the dragon is the
progeny of the eagle and wolf. Perhaps this may be so, but probably the
conception that most of our readers have of the dragon is that he was a
considerably more formidable beast than such a parentage, fierce as it
is, quite suggests.

An old heraldic author tells us “how that the wolfe procureth all other
beasts to fight and contention. He seeketh to deuour the sheepe, that
beaste which is of all others the most hurtlesse, simple, and void of
guile, thirsting continually after their blood. Yea, Nature hath planted
so inveterate an hatred atweene the wolfe and the sheepe, that being
dead, yet in the secrete operation of nature appeareth there a sufficient
trial of their discording natures, so that the enimity betweene them
seemeth not to dye with their bodies; for if there be put vpon a harp
or any such like instrument strings made of the intrailles of a sheepe,
and amongst them but onely one made of the intraills of a wolfe, be the
musician never so cuning in his skil, yet can he not reconcile them to an
vnity and concorde of sounds, so discording alwayes is that string of the
wolfe.” The inveterate enmity between the two creatures is scarcely in
accordance with the facts, for the wolf, from its appreciation of mutton
as an article of diet, is really partial to the sheep, and is always glad
to make its acquaintance.

Another old herald tells us that “the wolfe loveth to plaie with a
child, and will not hurt it till it be extreme hungrie, what time he
will not spare to devour it.” He dwells also upon some of the animal’s
prejudices, as that “he watcheth much, and feareth fier and stones to be
wherled at him,” a feeling that one finds no difficulty in sympathizing
with, and adds that “there is nothing that he hateth so much as the
knocking togither of two flint stones, the which he feareth more than the
hunters.” He also mentions the curious physiological fact that “the wolf
may not bend his neck backward in no moneth of the yere but in May,” but
gives us no inkling as to the reason for this.

The wearing of wolf-skin was held to be a valuable preservative against
epilepsy, but those who were unable to procure this, found an equally
serviceable remedy in wearing a small portion of an ass’s hoof in a
ring. The wolf-skin coat also was in request as a preservative against
hydrophobia, and there was nothing better in the good old times than
a wolfs head under the pillow to secure a good night’s rest. Albertus
Magnus, in his work “De Virtutibus Herbarum,” tells us that if we wrap
the tooth of a wolf in a bay leaf and carry it about with us no one will
have the power to vex or annoy us.

According to Porta—and he, we have seen, professes to have gone into the
secrets of nature as deeply as most men who pose as authorities[53]—the
rook is killed by eating “the reliques of flesh the wolf hath fed on.”
This would appear to be a discovery of Porta’s own: we do not find any
suggestion of it, so far as we are aware, in any other author.

A creature called the stag-wolf, if we may credit these ancient authors
(and there is much saving virtue in this if), had the curious peculiarity
that if, while he was devouring his prey, he chanced to look backward,
he straightway forgot that he was already provided with a dinner, and
would at once start off for one with all the zeal that his supposititious
famishing condition called for.

The bear has not escaped the observation of the lover of the marvellous,
though we should have thought that our forefathers, with their
bear-baiting proclivities, would have had a sufficient knowledge of the
creature to protect them from falling into gross error. One of the most
firmly accepted beliefs in ancient and mediæval days was that the cubs
were born a merely shapeless mass, and owed what after-beauty of form
they possessed to the assiduous care of their mother. Hence, an ancient
scribe hath it, “At the firste they seeme to be a lumpe of white flesh
without any forme, little bigger than rattons, without eyes, and wanting
hair. This rude lumpe, with licking, they fashion by little and little
into some shape.” Shakespeare it will be remembered compares Gloucester,
in King Henry VI., to “an unlick’d bear-whelp,” while Dryden writes:—

    “The cubs of bears a living lump appear
    When whelp’d, and no determined figure wear.
    The mother licks them into shape, and gives
    As much of form as she herself receives.”

The device of the great Venetian painter, Titian, was a she-bear licking
her cubs into shape.[54] Our readers will probably recall the lines in
“Hudibras”:—

    “A bear’s a savage beast, of all
    Most ugly and unnatural;
    Whelp’d without form, until the dam
    Has lick’d it into shape and frame.”

“Which opinion notwithstanding,” quoth Browne in his assault on the
vulgar errors of his day, “is not only repugnant unto the sense of
everyone that shall enquire into it, but of exact and deliberate
experiment. It is, moreover, injurious unto reason, and much impugneth
the course and providence of nature to conceive a birth should be
ordained before there is a formation. Besides, what few take notice of,
men do hereby in a high measure vilifie the works of God, imputing that
unto the tongue of a Beast.” Browne’s ideas were, we have already seen,
far in advance of his time, and he took the trouble to do what many who
wrote on the subject before him failed to do, went to look at some young
bears. Though the belief in the idea has died away, the remembrance of
the superstition still survives in the notion of licking youngsters
into shape at school by such appeals to body or mind as may seem most
efficacious and persuasive.

It was held that the bear found no little nutriment in sucking his own
paws, and in old books on natural history he may often be found thus
figured. Beaumont and Fletcher embody the old belief in their “Bonduca,”
where we read of those—

    “Just like a brace of bear-whelps, close and crafty,
    Sucking their fingers for their food.”

It has long been an accepted belief in rural England, that a child who
has had a ride upon a bear will escape whooping cough, a belief that
has had great pecuniary value to the Savoyards and others, who take a
dancing bear through the villages, as the rustics gladly fee them for
the privilege of a ride for their children, and the attendant immunity
from one of the most infectious and distressing of the minor ailments of
childhood.

We have long been familiar with the idea that bears attacked bee-hives,
but we have accepted the notion that the bears did so from an
appreciation of the honey that they found therein. It appears, however,
that the bear does it really as a kind of stimulant, the stinging of the
angry bees giving him just a welcome titillation, and arousing him from
a certain torpidity that at times oppresses him, and which he rightly
feels should be fought against. Others tell us that the outraged bees,
justly angry at the overturning of their home and the pillage of their
store, supply, by the energy of their attack and the keenness of their
stings, just that pleasant piquant set-off to the epicurean bear that
the over-richness and cloying sweetness of the honey seems to call for.
Yet a third theory is that “they are many times subject to dimnesse of
sight, for which cause especially they seeke after honeycombes, that the
bees might settle upon them, and with their stings make them bleed about
the head, and by that meanes discharge them of that heavinesse which
troubleth their eyes.” Possibly three more equally reasonable theories
might be forthcoming on searching for them in the various old tomes in
which the wisdom of our forefathers is enshrined.

A considerable amount of folk-lore has gathered round the hare. It was
held to be a favourable omen to meet certain beasts early in the morning,
but it was especially unfortunate to meet a hare. “Sume Bestes han gode
meetynge, that is to seye for to meete with him first at Morne; and
sume Bestes wykked meetynge: and that thei han proved ofte tyne tat the
Hare hathe fulle evylle meetynge, and Swyn, and many othere Bestes. The
Sparhauke and other Foules of Raveyne whan thei fleen aftre here preye
and take it before men of Armes, it is a gode Signe; and if he fayle of
takynge his preye it is an evylle sygne, and also to such folke it is
an eville meetynge of Ravennes.” Carew, in his “Survey of Cornwall,”
mentions that “to talk of hares or such uncouth things” was regarded as
omnious of coming ill by the fishermen; and at some places on the coast
until quite recently—or possibly even till to-day, for such notions die
out very slowly—if a fisherman going down to his boat were to see a hare
cross his path, he would not that day go to sea.

    “How superstitiously we mind our evils!
    The throwing down of salt, or crossing of a hare,
    Bleeding at nose, the stumbling of a horse,
    Or singing of a cricket, are of power
    To daunt whole man in us.”

This superstition arose from the belief that witches sometimes
transformed themselves into hares. In Ellison’s “Trip to Benwell,” we
find the following congratulatory lines:—

    “Nor did we meet, with nimble feet,
    One little fearful lepus;[55]
    That certain sign, as some divine,
    Of fortune bad to keep us.”

In Aubrey’s “Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme,” written in the year
1586, it is stated, as “found by Experience, that when one keepes a Hare
alive and feedeth him till he have occasion to eat him, if he telles
before he killes him that he will doe so the hare will thereupon be found
dead, having killed himself.” One really scarcely sees what the creature
gains by this proceeding.

Old writers tell us that when the hare is fainting with the heat, a
state of things that one may hope does not often occur, it recruits
its strength by munching up sowthistle. Topsell says that there is no
leporine ailment that this plant will not cure, and that directly the
hare feels a little unwell he seeks sowthistle and goes in for a course
of diet. Askham goes so far as to say that “yf a hare eate of this herbe
in somer when he is mad he shal be hole,” but as hares are proverbially
held to be specially _non compos mentis_ in March, the treatment seems
to come a little late. All boys who have kept rabbits will recall how
appreciatively they nibble up the succulent sowthistle leaves and stems,
and probably it is just as welcome to the hares, not as a medicinal herb
or a help to sanity, but as a toothsome item in the daily fare.

It will be remembered that in 1 Henry IV. i. 2, Shakespeare uses the
expression “Melancholy as a hare,” and as it was believed in mediæval
days that those who partook of the flesh of any animal thereby partook
also of its nature, the flesh of the hare was supposed to generate
melancholia, and was therefore avoided. Why the hare should be considered
of a desponding temperament no one seemed to know.

It seems curious in face of such an expression as “Mad as a March Hare”
and such an epithet as “hare-brained” applied to anything especially
wild and foolhardy, to find the great Bacon in his “Natural History”
recommending the brains of hares as invaluable for strengthening
the memory[56] and brightening up the faculties. Those who have
“frekels,”[57] and would like to get rid of them, should “take the bloude
of an hare, anoynte them with it, and it will doe them awaye.” Another
eccentric prescription is for the benefit of sufferers from rheumatism,
and if it were only efficacious, its simplicity would be a great point in
its favour, as it merely consists in the carrying in the pocket of the
right fore-foot of a hare, the only caution to be exercised being that in
the case of a man it must be the foot of a female hare, while a male hare
must supply the remedy if the patient be a woman. Cogan, in his “Haven
of Health,” declares “thus much will I say as to the commendation of the
hare, and of the defense of hunters’ toyle, that no beast, be it never
so great, is profitable to so many and so diverse uses in Physicke as
the hare,” and he then proceeds to give numerous prescriptions in which
it is the principal feature. “The knee-bone of an Hare taken out alive
and worne abute the necke is excellent against Convulsion fitts,”[58] we
are told, and perhaps it may be so, but the point that more especially
strikes us, and it impresses one over and over again in these mediæval
recipes, is the cold-blooded cruelty and indifference to animal suffering
that is shown in so many of them. Fried mice were considered a specific
in small-pox, but it was necessary that they should be fried alive; while
for cataract a fox should be captured, his tongue cut out, and the animal
released; the member thus barbarously procured was placed in a bag of
red cloth and hung round the man’s neck. For erysipelas a favourite old
remedy was to cut off one-half of the ear of a cat and let the blood
drop on the part affected, while for fits one popular recipe was to take
a mole alive, cut the tip of his nose off, and let nine drops of the
blood fall on to a lump of sugar: the swallowing of this was held to
be a certain cure. It would be easy to multiply these illustrations of
atrocious cruelty by the score, since one comes across such barbarities
in abundance.

Edward Topsell, in his “Historic of Foure-footed Beastes,” published in
the year 1607, discusses thus quaintly and pleasantly of the Hedgehog:
“It is about the bignesse of a Cony, but more like to a Hogge, being
beset and compassed all ouer with sharpe thorney haires, as well on the
face as on the feete. When she is angred or gathereth her foode, she
striketh them vp by an admirable instinct of nature, as sharp as pinnes
or needles: these are haire at the beginning, but afterwards grow to be
prickles, which is the lesse to be maruelled at, because there be Mise in
Egypt which haue haire like Hedgehogs. His meate is Apples, Wormes, and
Grapes. When he findeth Apples or Grapes on the earth he rowleth himselfe
vppon them, vntill he haue filled all his prickles, and then carrieth
them home to his den. And if it fortun that one of them fall off by the
way, he likewise shaketh off all the residue and waloweth vpon them
afresh vntill they all be settled vpon his backe againe, so foorthe he
goeth, makyng a noyse like a cart wheele. And if there be any young ones
in his nest they pull off his load wherewithall he is loaded, eating
thereof what they please, and laying uppe the residue for the time to
come.”

In the “Workes of Armorie” of Bossewell, published some thirty years
or so before Topsell’s book, we find an account so similar that we may
conclude that some one or other wrote a sketch of the hedgehog that
was considered so satisfactory that it became the nucleus for anybody
else who wanted to deal with the subject. “The little Hiricion, with
his sharpe pykes, is almost the least of all other Beastes. And of vs
Englishmen he is termed an Irchin or Urcheon, a beast so-called for the
roughness and sharpnesse of his pykes, which nature hath giuen him in
steade of haire. And such hys pykes couereth his skinne, as the haire
doth the other beastes, and be his weapon or armour wherewith he pricketh
and greeveth them that take or touch him. He is a beaste of witte and
good puruciance, for he clymeth vpon a Vine or an Apple tree, and biteth
of their branches and twiggs, and when they be fallen doune he waloweth
on them, and so they sticke to his prickles, and he beareth them into a
hollow tree, or some other hole, and keepeth them for meate for himselfe
and his young ones. If after he is so charged there happe any to fal from
his pricks, then for indignation he throweth from his backe all the other
and eftsoones returneth to the tree to charge him againe of newe.”

These two old authors both refer, too, to the belief that the hedgehog
had distinct gifts as a wind and weather prophet. Bossewell asserts that
“the Urcheon is witty and wise in his knowledge of comming of Winds,
North and South, for he changeth his Denne or hole, when he is ware that
such windes come;” while Topsell has it that “when they hide themselves
in their den they haue a naturall vnderstanding of the turning of the
wind. They have two holes in their caue, the one North, the other South,
obseruing to stop the mouth against the winde, as the skilful mariner to
stiere and turn the rudder and sailes, for which some haue held opinion
that they do naturally foreknow the change of weather.”

    “The hedgehogge hath a sharp quicke thorned garment,
    That on his backe doth serue him for defence;
    He can presage the winds incontinent,
    And hath good knowledge in the difference
    Between the southerne and the northerne wind.
    These virtues are allotted him by kind,
    Whereon in Constantinople, that great city,
    A merchant in his garden gaue one nourishment;
    By which he knew that winds true certainty,
    Because the hedgehog gaue him just presagement.”

So at all events declares Chester in his “Love’s Martyr”; and Bodenham in
the “Belvedere, or Garden of the Muses,” A.D. 1600, testifies to the same
belief in the lines:—

    “As hedgehogs doe foresee ensuinge stormes,
    So wise men are for fortune still prepared.”

The author of “Poor Robin’s Almanack,” at the much more recent date of
1733, takes what one may consider quite a professional interest in the
hedgehog as a weather prophet, and exclaims:—

    “If by some secret art the hedgehog know,
    So long before, which way the winds will blow,
    She has an art which many a person lacks,
    That thinks himself fit to make almanacks.”

A remark that is certainly most true, though for the honour of the craft
we should hardly have expected a calendar-maker to admit as much.

The medicinal virtues of the hedgehog were held to be very considerable
in the days of faith, and some of the preparations were abominably nasty.
“The flesh being stale,” says one of these old authorities, “giuen to a
madde man cureth him.” Putrid hedgehog fetched out of a ditch and given
as food or medicine to a man! The flesh salted, dried, beaten to a powder
and then drank in vinegar was held in high repute as a remedy for dropsy,
and for “Leprosie, the Crampe, and all sicknesse in the nerves,” and the
fat beaten up with honey was deemed an excellent strengthener for a weak
voice.

Topsell states that “the left eie of a Hedgehog being fried with oyle,
yealdeth a liquor which causeth sleep, if it bee infused into the
eares with a quill. Warts of al sorts are likewise taken away by the
same. If the right eie be fryed with the oile of lineseed and put in a
vessell of red brasse, and afterward anoint his eies therewith, as with
an eie-salue, he shal see as well in the darke as in the light.” The
distinction is often a very important one in these old recipes between
left or right, hind leg or front, male or female, and the like, and an
error in any of these details completely upsets all hope of any benefit
being derived; thus we see in this last receipt that a man might fry the
left eye for ever, and never get any nearer the gift of nocturnal vision.
In the same way “tenne sprigs of Laurell, seauen graines of Pepper, and
the skin of the ribs of an hedgehog dryed and beaten, cast into three
cups of water and warmed, so being drunk of one that hath the Collicke,
and let rest, he shall be in perfect health; but with this exception,
that for a man it must bee the membrane of a male hedgehog, and for a
woman a female.”

Porta declares that the ancients made their hair grow by using the
ashes of a land-hedgehog. As no one ever heard of a water-hedgehog this
stipulation seems almost needlessly precise. In another recipe we are
told to “take the body of a hedgehog burnt to powder,[59] and if you
adde thereto Beares-grease it will restore unto a bald man his heade of
haire againe, if the place be rubbed vntil it be ready to bleed.” Bear’s
grease pure and simple has long had a reputation amongst hair-dressers,
and if this be as potent as they would have us believe, the rest of the
prescription can scarcely claim much of the credit. The writer adds that
“some mingle red Snailes,” but this is clearly optional, and we should
certainly avail ourselves of the option.

Epilepsy was to be cured by wearing a ring in which a portion of the
hoof of a deer was enclosed. It may interest anyone with a partiality
for venison to know that “Deer’s flesh that is catcht in Summer is
poyson; because then they feed on Adders and serpents: these are venemous
creatures, and by eating of them they grow thirsty; and this they know
naturally, for if they drink before they have digested them they are
killed by them; wherefore they will abstain from water, though they burn
with thirst. Wherefore Stag’s flesh eaten at that time is venemous and
very dangerous.” Shakespeare refers to the weeping of the deer, and tells
how

    “The big round tears
    Cours’d one another down his innocent nose
    In piteous chace.”

It was an old belief that the deer wept every year for the loss of their
horns, “a likeness of those who grieve for the loss of their worldly
possessions. So, too, should a penitent and watchful sinner not cease
to weep when he is overtaken.” This straining after a moral, as we have
already seen, is a very marked feature amongst the old writers. Sometimes
the moral sentiment flows fairly naturally, but more often it is terribly
laboured. Thus, for example, we read that “the ferret is a bold and
audacious beast (though little), and an enemie to all other, and when
they take a prey their custome and manner is onely to suck the bloud as
they bite it, and not to eat the flesh; and if at any time their prey
shall be taken from them they fall a squeaking and crying. Such are the
rich men of this world, who yell and crie out when they part with their
riches, weeping and wailing for the losse of such things as they have
hunted after with as much greedinesse as want of pitie.”

In like manner we learn that “when the Squirrell is hunted she cannot
be driven to the ground, unlesse extremitie of faintnesse cause her to
do so through an unwilling compulsion, for such is the stately mind of
this little beast that while her limbes and strength lasteth she tarrieth
and saveth herself in the tops of tall trees, disdaining to come down
for every harm or hurt which she feeleth; knowing, indeed, her greatest
danger to rest below amongst the dogs and busie hunters. From whence
may be gathered a perfect pattern for us, to be secured from all the
wiles and hungrie chasings of the treacherous devil: namely, that we
keep above in the loftie palaces of heavenlie meditations, for there is
small securitie in things on earth; and greatest ought to be our fear of
danger, when we leave to look and think of heaven.”

The fabulists and moralists of ancient and mediæval days regarded
animals as so much raw material to be modelled into whatever form best
suited their ends. They were little, if at all, concerned in giving a
true picture of animal life, but used the various creatures in such
conventional and allegorical way as most readily adapted itself to the
moral or political end in view in their writings. Art has often pursued
much the same course, and instead of giving us the real animal nature has
introduced an entirely foreign element, and represented the creatures
as swayed by purely human considerations. Æsop and La Fontaine make
the animals speak as though they were influenced by human feelings and
motives, while Landseer, for example, in some of his noble pictures
employs his dogs and other animals to simulate humanity, as in “Laying
Down the Law,” “Alexander and Diogenes,” and other well-known works of
the master. The result is quaint, grotesque, delicious, humorous; but
these law-givers, philosophers, and so forth, are canine in form alone,
and are but puppets acting a part that is a good-natured satire on
humanity.

It was a very old belief that when the wild boar was hunted its tusks
grew so hot in its rage and excitement as to actually burn the dogs if
they came within the terrible sweep of them. Xenophon tells us in his
description of the chase of the boar that hairs laid upon the tusks
shrivel up even after the brute is slain. This belief has been handed
down from generation to generation of writers on so-called natural
history, and even in a book in our possession, published in London in
1786, we find the statement only very slightly qualified by a preliminary
“it is said.” “It is said that when this creature is hunted down his
tusks are so inflamed that they will burn and singe the hair of the
dogs.” Shakespeare says that the “ireful boar” does not even fear the
lion, and Guillim says that “he is counted the most absolute Champion
amongst Beasts, for that he hath weapons to wound his foe, which are his
strong and sharp Tusks, and also his Target to defend himself: for which
he useth oft to rub his shoulders and sides against Trees, wherewith to
harden them against the stroke of his Adversary.”

Herbert states in his book of travels that there are on the African
coast, opposite Madagascar, vast herds of wild swine that are greatly
esteemed by the natives of those parts, not only for their flesh, but
more especially for a stone that is found often within them, which is
“very soveraign against poison.” The Spaniards, he tells us, call it
Pietro del Porco. The virtue of this stone is supposed to arise from
their feeding upon certain medical herbs.

The ermine was believed to prefer death to defilement, and if placed
within a wall or ring of mud, would kill itself rather than contaminate
its spotless fur. It is on this account that ermine is selected as the
robe of prince and judge—an emblem of unspotted purity. Beaumont and
Fletcher, in their “Knight of Malta,” refer to this in the line:—

    “Whose honour, ermine-like, can never suffer spot.”

In a portrait of Queen Elizabeth at Hatfield, an ermine is represented as
running up her arm, as a delicate compliment to the Virgin Queen.

It was reported that goats see as well by night as by day, hence those
people who are unable to see after dark can be cured of their infirmity
by eating the liver of a goat; while for those who suffered from
insomnia no remedy was held in better repute than the horn of a goat:
this placed beneath the head of the patient speedily brought refreshing
sleep. Porta affirms that “goats, when their eyes are blood-shotten,
let out the blood; the she-goat by the point of a bullrush, the he-goat
by the pricking of a thorn.” Such examples of animal sagacity have a
great attraction for this old author, and he gives many instances in
support of his contention, that “living creatures, though they have no
understanding, yet their senses are quicker than ours, and by their
actions they teach us Physick, Husbandry, the art of Building, the
disposing of Household Affairs, and almost all Arts and Sciences. The
beasts that have no reason, do by their nature strangely shun the eyes
of witches and hurtfull things; the Doves, for a preservative against
inchantment, first gather some little Bay-tree boughs, and then lay them
upon their nests to preserve their young; so do the Kites use brambles,
the Turtles swordgrasse, the Crows withy, the Lapwings Venus-hair, the
Ravens ivy, the Herns carrot, the Blackbirds myrtle, the Larkes grasse,
for the same purpose. In lyke manner they have shewed us preservatives
against poysons; the Elephant having by chance eaten a Chameleon,
against the poyson thereof eats of the wilde Olive; the Tortoise, having
eaten a Serpent, dispels the poyson by eating the herb Origan. There is
a kind of Spider which destroyeth the Harts, except permitting they eat
wilde Ivy; and whensoever they light upon any poysonous food they cure
themselves with the artichoke; and against Serpents they prepare and arm
themselves with wilde Parsneps.” We need not further pursue matters with
our author. Suffice it to say, that he brings forward an enormous number
of examples, and amply proves his case to his satisfaction, as indeed he
should have no difficulty in doing, when it is once understood that facts
are of secondary importance.

One strange notion of antiquity was that the blood of the goat would
dissolve the diamond. The statement is found in Pliny, Solinus,
Albertus, Cyprian, Isidore, and many other writers, right away down
to comparatively recent days. Legh, for instance, states, without
hesitation, “The Diamonde, which neither iron nor fier wil daunt, the
bloud of the gote softneth to the breaking.” Maundevile, of course,
receives it as an undoubted truth; while even Browne writes: “We hear it
in every mouth, and in many good Authors reade it, that a Diamond, which
is the hardest of stones, not yeelding unto Steele, Emery or any other
thing, is yet made soft and broke by the bloud of a Goat.”

That things are not always what they seem must have been a mere truism
in the Middle Ages. Thus Aubrey in his “Remains of Gentilisme and
Judaism,” introduces the goat in an entirely new character. “A conceit
there is that ye devil commonly appeareth with a cloven hoof, wherein
though it seem excessively ridiculous there may be something of truth,
and ye ground at first might be his frequent appearing in the shape of
a goat, which answers that description. This was the opinion of ancient
Xtians concerning ye apparition of Fauns and Satyrs. The devil most
often appears in the shape of a goat, nor did he only assume this shape
in olden times, but commonly in later times, especially in ye place of
his worship, if there be any truth in the confession of witches. And
therefore a goat is not improperly made an hieroglyphic of ye devil.”

The shrew-mouse, one of the most inoffensive of creatures, was by
our ancestors held to be of terribly poisonous nature. Its bite was
thought to be most venomous, and even contact with it in any way was
accounted extremely dangerous. Cattle and horses seized with any malady
that appeared to cause any numbness of the legs were at once reputed
shrew-struck. “It is a ravening beast,” quoth Topsell, “feigning itself
gentle and tame, but being touched it biteth deep and poysoneth deadly.
It beareth a cruel minde, desiring to hunt anything, neither is there any
creature that it loveth.” On whatever limb it crept was “cruel anguish,”
often ending in paralysis. These calumnies have prevailed in many
countries and for many ages, the Romans being as firmly convinced of the
deadly nature of the shrew-mouse, as any British rustic of a century ago.
The shrew-mouse, according to the author of the “Speculum Mundi,” “hath
a long and sharp snout like a mole. In Latine it is called Mus araneus,
because it containeth in it poison or venime like a spider, and if at any
time it bite either man or beast the truth of this will be too apparent.
But commonly it is called a Shrew-mouse, and from the venimous biting of
this beast we have an English imprecation, I beshrew thee; in which words
we do, indeed, wish some such evil. And again, because a curst scold or
brawling wife is esteemed none of the least evils; we, therefore, call
such a one a Shrew.” Hence Shakespeare, dealing with such a character,
entitled one of his plays the Taming of the Shrew.

Happily there was a certain antidote against the evil wrought by this
malevolent beast. A large ash-tree being chosen, a deep hole was made
in its trunk, and after certain incantations were made a shrew-mouse
was thrust alive into the opening, and the hole securely plugged. “A
shrew-ash,” says Gilbert White in his “Natural History of Selborne,”
“is an ash whose twigs or branches, when gently applied to the limbs of
cattle, will immediately relieve the pain which a beast suffers from the
running of a shrew-mouse over the part affected. Against this accident,
to which they were continually liable, our provident forefathers always
kept a shrew-ash at hand, which when once medicated would maintain its
virtue for ever.” One of these shrew-ashes, now but a fragment of what
was evidently once a massive stately tree, may still be seen near the
Sheen Gate in Richmond Park, and there are those still living who can
remember cattle and horses being brought to it for its healing virtues.

The horse does not seem to have so much unnatural history associated with
him as we might have anticipated, such stories as that of the feeding
of the horses of Diomed with human flesh, or of the milk-white steed,
Al Borak, of Mohammed, each of whose strides was equal to the furthest
range of human vision, being altogether fabulous and mythical. Diomed,
the tyrant of Thrace, seems to have held out very little encouragement to
immigrants or wandering tourists, if the legend be true that he utilized
them as fodder.

    “Here such dire welcome is for thee prepared
    As Diomed’s unhappy strangers shared;
    His hapless guests at silent midnight bled,
    On their torn limbs his snorting coursers fed.”[60]

One meets with many famous steeds in classical and mediæval literature,
but these, of course, are individual examples of the race, and anything
told of them can scarcely be considered as testifying to the general
though erroneous notions entertained on the subject of horses generally.
The horse Bayard, for example, the property of the four Sons of Aymon,
had a most useful peculiarity in that he grew larger or smaller in fair
proportion to his rider, according as the big stalwart brother of six
feet high, or the little fellow not yet in his teens got astride him. One
of the horses of Achilles is said to have announced to his master his
impending death. It is sufficiently evident that expanding, contracting,
and talkative horses are altogether outside the ordinary pale.

According to a small manuscript of the twelfth century, called “Mappæ
clavicula,” “if oxen drink first, then there will be enough water for
both oxen and horses: but if the horses drink first there will not be
sufficient either for horses or oxen.” Horses are afraid of elephants
until they get used to them, and there is also some little antipathy
between camels, bears and horses. Porta declares that “Horses will burst
if they tread upon the Wolf’s footing. If Drums be made of an Elephant,
Camel, or Wolves skin, and one beat them, the Horses will then run away
and dare not stand. By the same reason, if you will drive away Bears, a
Horse hath a capital hatred with a Bear: he will know his enemy that he
never saw before, and presentlie provide himself to fight with him, and
I have heard that Bears have been driven away in the Wildernesse by the
sound of a Drum, when it was made of Horse’s skin.”

It has for centuries been a belief in many parts of the country that the
hairs from a horse’s tail, when dropped in the water, become endued with
life, and turn into small eels. A horsehair tied round a wart has been
held to be of potent efficacy for its removal; and horsehair spread on
bread and butter has been prescribed as a remedy, even in quite recent
times, for worms. For sciatica, according to one Dr. Floyer, once on a
time one of the shining lights of the medical profession, the finest
preparation is “the marrow of a horse (kill’d by chance, not dying of any
disease) mixed with some rose-water. Chafe it in with a warme hand for a
quarter of an houre, then putt on a Scarlett cloth, broad enough to cover
ye part affected, and go into a warme Bed.” As personal experience is so
valuable in all such cases, he adds: “It cured my Aunt Lakes, who went
yearly to the Bath for ye Sciatica, but never went after she knew and
used this medicine.”

In Winstanley’s “Book of Knowledge,” a book that went through several
editions (our copy we see is dated 1685),[61] he deals with many strange
matters, and gives receipts for various extraordinary requirements: to
make men seem headless, to make it that men shall not find the door, and
so forth; but amongst rather more reasonable items we find, “to make one
dance.” The _modus operandi_ is sufficiently simple, though perhaps a
trifle disgusting; it is as follows:—“Cut the Hoof of a Horse in pieces,
seethe it with Oyl and anoint the Table or any other place, and lay his
head thereon, when you would have him to dance.” Such is a sample of the
best that this storehouse of knowledge could yield to those who sought
its help.

Horse-shoes were at one time often nailed on doors as a protection
against witches and malignant spirits, and “The horse-shoe nailed, each
threshold’s guard”[62] may often still be seen on old country houses.
John Aubrey, writing some two hundred years ago, says: “Most houses at
the West End of London have a horse-shoe on the threshold.” Dwellers in
town, however, have not the same dread of the mysterious as the more
lonely dwellers in the country, though many a man who is brave enough on
the gas-lighted pavement would feel a little “creepy” when the shrill
scream of a trapped hare, or the wild cry of the peewit, broke upon the
stillness of the night and found him in some country lane or on the open
downland. It is a firm article of belief, however, with all who have
faith in the efficacy of the horse-shoe that it must be picked up, not
bought. Whatever virtue may reside in one that is found is wholly wanting
in one that is purchased.

The humble donkey has its share of quaint associations. The conspicuous
cross upon its back is popularly supposed to date from the day that our
Saviour rode in Jerusalem upon an ass. It is, however, more probable that
the ass that brayed and browsed in Eden bore a similar mark.

Amongst the ancient Egyptians the ass was dedicated to the evil spirit
Typho, and once a year, if we may believe Plutarch, the people sacrificed
an ass to this foul deity by hurling it over a precipice. The people of
Lycopolis carried their antipathy so far that they excluded the trumpet
from their festivals and military service from a fancy that its sound
was a little too suggestive of the asinine vocal performances. The asses
of the East are of a more tawny colour than those with which we are
familiar in England; as this red tint was associated in people’s minds
with a creature devoted to the Evil One, it was but a step further to
ascribe an evil association to the colour itself; hence anyone who was
so unfortunate as to have an especially ruddy countenance, or a more
than usually deep shade of red in the hair, was at once held to be in
an uncomfortably close relationship with Typho. The dun-colour of our
British specimens gave them their name. Chaucer, for instance, calls the
donkey the dun, as we may see in the “Canterbury Tales”—“Dun is in the
mire.”

According to De Thaun, “The wild Ass, when March in its course has
completed twenty-five days, brays twelve times, and also in the night,
for this reason, that that season is the equinox—days and nights are of
equal length. By the twelve times that it makes its braying and crying
it shows that night and day have twelve hours in their circuit. The ass
is grieved when he makes his cry that the night and the day have equal
length, for he likes better the length of the night than of the day.” One
can only read such an extract as this with a feeling of utter wonder;
in the first place, how De Thaun could believe such a thing himself,
and in the second place, how he could expect anyone else to do so. The
exact accuracy of the wild ass as to the day of the month, and his
twelvefold bray of regret as each recurring year brings it round again,
are triumphs of the imaginative faculty. We may probably infer that when
the twenty-ninth day of September has come round again the balance is
redressed, hope springs again, and the twelve brays this time are of a
peculiarly jubilant and sonorous character.

Asses’ hair was in the Middle Ages held to be a sterling remedy for
ague, though one must have been credulous indeed to try it. It is
interesting more especially perhaps as a foreshadowing of that doctrine
of homœopathy which deals with the cure of like by like. Great healing
powers are attributed to the hairs from the cross on the donkey’s back:
hairs cut from it and suspended in a bag round a child’s neck were a
potent influence in the prevention of fits and convulsions. Another
famous remedy was the cure of whooping cough by passing the sufferer
three times under the belly and three times over the back of a donkey. In
Sussex a standard remedy for the same distressing complaint was procured
by cutting some of the hair out of the cross, chopping it up finely,
and spreading it on bread and butter for the breakfast of the patient;
while in Dorsetshire prevention was rightly considered better than cure,
and though the rustics may have doubted the efficacy of vaccination as
a remedy against small-pox, they had no hesitation whatever in getting
their children astride on the donkey’s back as early as possible as a
preventative to their ever catching whooping cough. One meets with remedy
after remedy of the same general nature, and all owing their efficacy
to some mysterious connection between this particular complaint and
donkey-hair, but what this occult influence can be is wholly unknown to
us.

The old herald, Legh, says of the ass—“As he is not the wisest so is
he the least sumptuous, especially in his diet, for his feeding is on
Thistles, Nettles, and Briers, and therefore small birdes hate him,
especially the Sparrowe is most enemie unto him,” as they see him
stolidly devouring the plants that they visit for their own sustenance.
The ancient author with ponderous humour finishes his account of the
ass by saying, “I could write much of this beast, but that it wolde be
thought it were to mine owne glorie.”

The dog, the friend and companion of man, was said to see ghosts, and
their howling at untoward times portended death or conflagration or some
such grave event, and has, therefore, for many centuries been held of
evil omen, and no doubt in remote country districts the feeling still
remains. The cries were said to be often in terror of sights invisible
to man. Rabbi Menachem declares in his exposition of the Pentateuch
that “when the Angel of Death enters into a city the dogs do howl,”[63]
and he records an instance of a dog that fled in terror from before the
angel, and that someone kicked it back and it died, but whether from the
effects of a too vigorous kick, or from being thrust into the path of the
destroying angel, he does not venture to pronounce.

If a child has whooping cough some of its hair must be placed between
slices of bread and given to a dog. Should the dog cough, as he most
probably will, it is an indication that the disease has passed from the
child to the dog. The same idea may be seen in the old custom of giving
some of the hair of anyone attacked with scarlet fever to a donkey.
Should the animal swallow it the disease was supposed then and there to
pass from the one ass to the other.

Coles, in his “Art of Simpling,” says that “the herb called Hound’s
tongue will tye the Tongues of Houndes, so that they shall not bark at
you, if it be laid under the bottom of your foot.” A little hare’s fur
somewhere about the person was held to be equally valuable, and no doubt
it was. One authority hath it that a dog will not bark if another dog’s
tongue be carried under the great toe, and the carrying of a dog’s heart
in one’s pocket is another capital idea to the same end. “The tail of
a young Wheezel put under your foot is also recommended,” and if none
of these methods are available, the dog may be equally well silenced by
giving him a frog to eat, artfully secreted in a piece of meat.

During the Middle Ages it was held that the head of a mad dog pounded
up and drank in wine was a specific for jaundice. If, on the other
hand, the head was burnt and the powdered ashes put to a cancer, it
was held a sure remedy, and, naturally, on the homœopathic principle
of like to like, these ashes, if given to a man who had been bitten by
a rabid dog, “casteth out all the venom and the foulness, and healeth
the maddening bites.” The liver of the dog was equally efficacious. A
gipsy preventative of hydrophobia was to take some hairs from the dog
that gave the bite, a very risky operation by the way, and fry them in
oil, applying them with a little green rosemary to the wound. To eat
churchyard grass[64] was esteemed also a good thing in the case of anyone
bitten by a rabid dog. So lately as the year 1866 it came out at the
inquest held on the body of a child that had died of hydrophobia, that
one of the relatives fished up out of the river the dead body of the dog
that had done the mischief, in order that its liver might be cooked and
eaten by the child. In spite of this the patient died.

It was held that if a cat were in a cart, a state of things that need
rarely happen one would imagine, the horses would soon tire if the wind
blew from Pussy to them, and that in like manner the steed would soon
flag that was ridden by a man who had any cat’s fur in his dress, and
that anyone swallowing the hair of a cat would be subject to fainting
fits. On the other hand, it was believed that nothing was better as a
cure for whitlow than to put the ailing finger for a quarter of an hour
each day into the ear of a cat. Anything that touches a cat’s ear is
received with such marked disfavour that we imagine this remedy is simply
unworkable, as the cat would never be a consenting party. Three drops
of blood from a cat’s tail were held to be a cure for epilepsy, while a
sovereign remedy for those who would preserve their sight was to burn the
head of a black cat to ashes, and then blow a little of the dust three
times a day into the eyes. This, we imagine, should rather be classed
amongst the methods of injuring the sight.

To cure a stye our forefathers had great faith in rubbing it with hairs
from a cat’s tail,[65] two essential points being that the cat should be
a black one, and that the operation should take place on the first night
of the new moon; but to cure warts the hairs must be taken from the tail
of a tortoiseshell cat, and even then the remedy is only efficacious
during the month of May. Another strange belief was that a cat having
three colours in its fur was a great protection against fire. It is an
old idea that the brains of cats are of destructive malignity, and that
anyone desiring to quietly get rid of an enemy has only to invite him to
a repast in which some of the delicacies have an imperceptible fragment
of this poison added.

Cats see well by night, and were often, and especially black ones,
believed to be the witches’ familiars, and therefore regarded with fear
and aversion. It was held that they had power to raise a gale, and on
board ship the malevolent disposition with which they were credited has
made them in an especial degree unpopular shipmates. Pussy was thought
to particularly provoke a storm by playing with any article of wearing
apparel, by rubbing her face, or by licking her fur the wrong way; she
was sheltered from rough usage however by the belief that provoking her
would bring a gale, while drowning her would cause a regular tempest.
In Germany there is a belief that anyone who makes a cat his enemy will
be attended at his funeral by rats, and heavy rain. As cats see well
by night, and are given to wandering abroad at unholy hours, they were
connected with the baleful influences of the moon. Freye, the Norse
goddess, was attended by cats, and Friday, her especial day, was always
considered unlucky. The ruffling of the water by the rising wind is
called a cat’s paw, and cats are said to smell a coming gale, while all
must be familiar with that tempestuous state of affairs known as “raining
cats and dogs.” In Cornwall, and on some other parts of the coast, the
people say that a spectral dog, called Shony, is sometimes seen, and
that this always predicts a storm.

Some persons have a marked antipathy to cats. Henry III. of France
fainted if he caught sight of one, and Napoleon I. had almost as strong
a feeling and failing. Shylock, in the Merchant of Venice it will be
remembered, says:—

    “Some men there are that love not a gaping pig,
    Some that are mad if they behold a cat.”

It is well known that cats have a wonderful knack of falling on their
feet, and they are so tenacious of life that they are ordinarily credited
with having nine lives, though it is proverbially held that care will
kill even a cat. Not only does Shakespeare refer to cat-lore in Macbeth
in “the poor cat i’ the adage,” but in Romeo and Juliet this old belief
in the strong hold that Pussy has on life is distinctly referred to in
the first scene of the third act:—

    “What would’st thou have with me?
    Good king of cats, nothing but one of your nine lives.”

The cat again appears in the legend of the indomitable cats of Kilkenny
that fought till a little fluff was all the record of that sanguinary
struggle, and we have all of us heard of the special power of facial
expression of the cats of Cheshire.

The Grimalkin of Shakespeare’s Macbeth was one of the witch’s familiar
spirits, and the cat, the reputed companion of these unlovely and unloved
personages, often therefore receives this name. Aubrey, writing in 1686,
tells a story that smacks strongly of witchcraft and the black cat. “Mrs.
Clarke, a Herefordshire woman, told me,” he says, “to bury the head of
a black Catt with a Jacobus or a piece of gold in it, and put into the
eies two black beanes (what was to be done with the beanes she hath
forgott), but it must be done on a Tuesday at twelve o’clock at night,
and that time nine nights after the piece of gold must be taken out, and
whatsoever you buy with it (always reserving some part of the money) you
will have money brought into your pockett, perhaps the same piece of gold
again.” Unfortunately, he does not seem to have tried it, so we never
learn what success might have attended the experiment.

The description of pussy by Bartholomew Anglicus is most graphic, and is
an evident study from the life. “He is a full lecherous beast in youth,”
saith he, “swift, pliant, and merry, and leapeth and reseth on everything
that is afore him, and is led by a straw and played therewith, and is
a right heavy beast in age and full sleepy, and lieth slyly in wait
for mice, and is aware where they be more by smell than by sight, and
hunteth and reseth on them in privy places, and when he taketh a mouse he
playeth therewith, and eateth him after the play. In time of love is hard
fighting for wives, and one scratcheth and rendeth the other grievously
with biting and with claws; and he maketh a rueful noyse and ghastful
when one proffereth to fight with another, and hardly is he hurt when he
is thrown down off an high place.[66] And when he hath a fair skin he
is, as it were, proud thereof, and goeth fast about, and is oft for his
fair skin taken of the skinner and slain and flayed.”[67] This is clearly
the description of a close and accurate observer.

The description in the “Speculum Mundi,” though much shorter, is almost
equally happy. “The common or vulgar Cat is a creature well known, and
being young it is very wanton and sportfull: but waxing older is very sad
and melancholy. It is called a Cat from the Latine word signifying wary,
for a Cat is a watchfull and warie beast, seldome overtaken, and most
attendant to her sport and prey.” John Bossewell says of the cat that “he
is slie and wittie and seeth so sharply that he overcommeth darknesse of
the nyghte by the shynynge lyghte of his eyne. He doth delighte that he
enjoyeth his libertie.” Men may come and men may go, but cat-nature is
evidently unchanging.

Cats naturally suggest rats and mice. It was an ancient belief that
these sprang spontaneously from any mass of putrefaction. “Mice excell
all living creatures,” writes one of the ancient authorities, “in the
knowledge and experience of things to come: for when any old house,
habitation, tenement, or other dwelling place waxeth ruinous and ready to
fall, they perceive it first, and out of that their foresight they make
present avoidance from their holes, and betake themselves to flight even
as fast as their little legs will give them leave, and so they seek some
other place wherein they may dwell with more securitie.” Our readers will
naturally recall the proverbial belief that rats desert the sinking ship.
Swift, in his epistle to Mr. Nugent, writes of those that “fly like rats
from sinking ships,” and the desertion of the losing side has received
the opprobrious name of “ratting” on this account.

Maundevile, amongst many other wonderful things that he saw or heard of
in his travels, came to a place where the rats were as large as dogs;[68]
requiring great mastiffs for their capture, as they were altogether
beyond the power of the cats of the place to deal with. “And ther ben
Myse als grete as Houndes, and yalowe Myse als grete as Ravennes.” If the
rats and mice kept the proportion between their respective sizes that we
are familiar with, and the mice were as big as hounds, we can readily
understand that the rats must have been very formidable creatures
indeed, and quite beyond the power of ordinary terrier or pussy to cope
with.

Jordanus brought home a story of rats in India as large as foxes. The
creatures he saw were probably bandicoots,[69] very rat-like animals,
though not quite so big as foxes, even though the Indian foxes are
much smaller than the species we have in England. A bandicoot is about
twenty-one inches long, full measure, about five inches of this being
tail. According to Herodotus, it was not the rats that were equal in size
to foxes in India, but the ants. We can recall an absurd picture of these
in one of the mediæval natural history books, where a couple of Europeans
stand at a very respectful distance from a large mound that is covered
with ants as big as cats, the effect of the ant-form when thus magnified
being very quaint.

It was a very ancient belief that oysters, mussels, cockles, and all
shell fishes grew or diminished according to the phases of the moon.
“Some have found it out by diligent search that the fibres in the livers
of rats and mice answer in number to the days of the month’s age.” This
was really a very curious discovery to make, or shall we rather say—a
very curious assertion to be responsible for?

It is impossible to mention a tithe of the strange facts got together by
the industry of the men of science of the past; sometimes introducing
to our notice the most extraordinary creatures, at others presenting
the most ordinary creatures in an extraordinary way. What can we say,
for instance, of the Catoblepas, a beast bred in Lybia, “a fearful and
terrible beast to look upon”? His eyes “very fierie, as it were of a
bloudie colour, and he never useth to look directly forward, nor upward,
but always down to the earth.” He has a long mane and cloven feet,
and his body covered with scales. “As for his meat, it is deadly and
poysonfull herbes, and he sendeth forth a horrible breath which poysoneth
the aire over his head and about him, inasmuch that such creatures as
draw in the breath of that aire are grievously afflicted, and losing both
voice and sight, they fall into deadly convulsions.” What shall we say of
the Oryges, the only beast in creation that has his hair growing reversed
and turning towards the head? Or of the Lomie in the forests of Bohemia,
“which hath hanging under its neck a Bladder always full of scalding
water, with which, when she is hunted, she so tortureth the Dogs that
she thereby maketh her escape”? Or of the wonderful Eale of Ethiopia as
large as a hippopotamus, and having horns that he can incline backwards
or forwards at any angle to suit the exigencies of conflict? Or of the
Manticora, having the face of a man and the body of a lion, and voice
like the blending of flute and of trumpet? Or of fifty other creatures
equally extraordinary? It is painful to think that such stories were
deliberate inventions, and that knaves devised them and fools accepted
them; and we must, we believe, conclude that almost every story had a
grain of truth in it, but that the love of the marvellous, the tendency
to exaggeration, the change that took place as the story travelled, and
received almost unconsciously here an additional graphic touch and there
a little more fully developed detail, made the fully matured statement an
entirely different thing to the modest seed from which it sprang.

We have already encountered many instances of how the most ordinary
creatures are described in a way that leads one to suppose that the two
great virtues in a naturalist, observation and experiment, were almost
entirely wanting at any period for the last two thousand years or more.
How else could such a belief as that the badger has his two legs on one
side shorter than the other two have ever gained credence? or that the
ram “when he slepeth, from spring-time till harvest he lyeth on the one
side, and from harvest till spring-time againe on the other side”? Or, to
travel a little further afield, that the whiskers of a tiger are mortal
poison, causing men to die mad if given to them in meat? Or that the
camel is so ashamed of its ugliness that before drinking in a stream it
always fouls the water so that it may not see the reflection of itself?
Or fifty other statements equally at variance with the facts? The respect
for those who by the vigour and uncompromising directness of their
assertions became regarded as great authorities was so tremendous and
all-embracing that no one seemed to dare to challenge statements made
by them, while the ease and comfort to subsequent writers of having all
responsibility taken off their own shoulders by merely copying instead of
testing had a fatal fascination, the result being that many assertions
have had a vigorous vitality for centuries that could have been readily
disproved in a week or even an hour of honest personal investigation.




CHAPTER IV.

    The phœnix—Various ancient and mediæval writers thereon—The
    Bird of Paradise—The Museum of Tradescant—The roc—The
    barnacle goose—The eagle—Its power of gazing upon the sun—Its
    keenness of vision—The pelican—The swan and its death song—A
    favourite idea with the poets—Hostility between the swan and
    the eagle—The ostrich—Its digestive powers—How its eggs are
    hatched—The cock—Antipathy between lion and cock—Cock-broth
    and cock-ale for invalids—Incorporation in man of various
    valued animal characteristics—The stone alectorius—Animals
    haled before the judges for offences against man—The deadly
    cockatrice—Cock-crow—The “Armonye of Byrdes”—The raven—How
    it became black—The raven-stone—The owl—The swallow—Sight
    to the blind—Oil of swallows as a remedy—The robin and
    the wren—Their pious care of the dead—The nightingale—The
    doctrine of signatures—Thorn-pierced breast—Philomela—The
    cuckoo—His voice-restorer—The peacock—Its pride and its
    shame—The kingfisher—As a weathercock—Sir Thomas Browne
    thereon—Halcyone—Halcyon days—The filial stork—The cautious
    cranes.


Though a belief in the phœnix has long since died away it was for a
thousand years or more as much an article of credence as a swan or an
eagle. As far as we are aware, the first reference to it is found in the
pages of Herodotus, and the story, as he tells it in the seventy-third
chapter of the second book of his history, was the basis upon which for
centuries a vast superstructure of fabledom was reared.

Even Tacitus, one of the most cautious and reliable of authors, seems to
have felt no difficulty in believing in the existence of the phœnix.
Erroneous as his account is, we feel at once on reading it that we have
the opinions of one honestly seeking the truth, a very different sort of
man to such a credulous old fellow, for example, as Maundevile. Tacitus
writes that “in the course of the year[70] the miraculous bird known to
the world by the name of the phœnix, after disappearing for a series
of ages, revisited Egypt. A phenomenon so very extraordinary could not
fail to produce abundance of speculation. The facts, about which there
seems to be a concurrence of opinions, with other circumstances in
their nature doubtful, yet worthy of notice, will not be unwelcome to
the reader. That the phœnix is sacred to the Sun, and differs from the
rest of the feathered species in the form of its head and the tincture
of its plumage, are points settled by the naturalist. Of its longevity
the accounts are various. The common persuasion is that it lives five
hundred years, though by some writers the date is extended to fourteen
hundred and sixty-one. It is the custom of the phœnix when its course of
years is finished, and the approach of death is felt, to build a nest in
its native clime, Arabia, and there deposit the principles of life, from
which a new progeny arises. The first care of the young bird, as soon as
fledged and able to trust to its wings, is to perform the obsequies of
its father. But this duty is not undertaken rashly. He collects a great
quantity of myrrh, and to try his strength, makes frequent excursions
with a load on his back. When he has made his experiment through a
great tract of air, and gains sufficient confidence in his own vigour,
he takes up the body of his father and flies with it to the Altar of the
Sun, where he leaves it to be consumed in flames of fragrance. Such is
the account of this wonderful bird. It has, no doubt, a mixture of fable;
but that the phœnix from time to time appears in Egypt seems to be a fact
satisfactorily ascertained.”

Pliny feels no difficulty in describing the phœnix, declaring that it is
about the size of an eagle, the neck being of a golden sheen, the body
purple, and the tail of an azure blue, though he admits feeling a doubt
as to whether it can be true that only one is in existence at one time.
According to Maundevile, “he hathe a Crest of Fedres upon his Hed more
gret than the Poocok hathe, and his Nekke is yalowe aftre colour of an
Orielle, that is a Ston well schynynge, and his Bek is coloured Blew, and
his Wenges ben of purpre colour, and the Taylle is yelow and red. And he
is a fulle fair Brid to loken upon, for he schynethe full nobely.” One
wonders at first how this old writer is able to give such very precise
details, but as he tells us that “this Bryd men sene often tyme fleen in
the Countrees,” he would have no difficulty in getting a full description
of it from some of these countrymen to whom it was a familiar sight.

Maundevile does not fail in his book of “Voiage and Travaile” to recite
the whole wonderful story. He tells us that “in Egypt is the Cytee
of Elyople,[71] that is to seyne, the Cytee of the Sonne. In that
Cytee there is a Temple made round, after the schappe of the Temple of
Jerusalem. The Prestes of that Temple have alle here Wrytynges, under
the Date of the Foul that is clept Fenix, and there is non but one in
alle the Worlde. And he comethe to brenne him selfe upon the Awtre of
the Temple at the end of five hundred Yeer: for so longe he lyvethe. And
at the five hundred Yeres ende the Prestes arrayen here Awtere honestly
and putten there upon Spices and Vif Sulphur and other thinges that wolm
brenne lightly. And then the Bryd Fenix comethe and brenneth him self to
Ashes. And the first Day aftre Men fynden in the Ashes a Worm; and the
seconde Day next aftre Men finden a Brid quyk and perfyt; and the thridde
Day next aftre he fleethe his wey. And so there is no more Briddes of
that Kynde in alle the World but it alone.”

This belief in the phœnix is found not only through heathen and mediæval
literature, but in the Rabbinical writings, and those of the early
Fathers of the Christian Church. By these latter it was accepted as a
symbol of the resurrection of the dead, and it may not unfrequently be
found figured in the mosaics that adorn the basilicas of the primitive
Church. The Rabbins tell us that all the birds, save the phœnix, shared
in the sin of Eve, and eat of the forbidden fruit; hence the phœnix, as a
reward, obtained this modified form of immutability. Philippe de Thaun,
in his “Bestiary,” writes of the mystic bird: “Know this is its lot; it
comes to death of its own will, and from death it comes to life: hear
what it signifies. Phœnix signifies Jesus, Son of Mary, that he had power
to die of his own will, and from death came to life. Phœnix signifies
that to save his people he chose to suffer upon the cross.” “God knew
men’s unbelief,” writes St. Cyril, “and therefore provided this bird as
evidence of the Resurrection.” St. Ambrose says, too, that “the bird of
Arabia teaches us, by its example, to believe in the Resurrection.” Other
passages of like tenour could be quoted from Tertullian and others of
the writers of the early Christian Church, and all alike show the most
unquestionable belief in the existence of the bird.[72]

It was suggested by Cuvier that at remote intervals a golden pheasant
from China might have strayed as far west as Arabia or Egypt, and given
rise to the legend; but gorgeous as the bird is, and fully capable of
making a considerable sensation on its appearance in a land where it was
previously unknown, one feels that such an appearance goes but a very
little way indeed towards clearing up the mass of myth that still remains
to be some way accounted for.

Browne, in his excellent dissection of the vulgar errors of his day,
approaches the Phœnix story tenderly, but feels bound to declare against
it, though he rather takes refuge in the Scottish verdict of “not proven”
than slaughters it in cold blood. “That there is but one Phœnix in the
world,” saith he, “which after many hundred yeares burneth itself, and
from the ashes thereof ariseth up another, is a conceit not new or
altogether popular, but of great Antiquity: not only delivered by humane
Authors, but frequently expressed by holy Writers; by Cyril, Epiphanius,
and others. All which, notwithstanding, we cannot presume the existence
of this Animall, nor dare we affirm there is any Phœnix in Nature. For,
first, there wants herein the definite test of things uncertain—that is,
the sense of man. For though many writers have much enlarged hereon,
there is not any ocular describer, or such as presumeth to confirm it
upon aspection. Primitive Authors, from whom the stream of relations
is derivative, deliver themselves dubiously, and either by a doubtful
parenthesis, or a timorous conclusion, overthrow the whole relation.
As for its unity or conceit that there should be but one in Nature, it
seemeth not only repugnant unto Philosophy, but also Holy Scripture,
which plainly affirmes there went of every sort two at least into the
Ark of Noah. Every fowle after his kinde, every bird of every sort, they
went into the Ark, two and two of all flesh wherein there is the breath
of life. It infringeth the Benediction of God concerning multiplication.
God blessed them, saying Be fruitfull and multiply and let fowls multiply
in the earth, which terms are not applicable unto the Phœnix, whereof
there is but one in the world, and no more now living than at the first
benediction. As for longevity that it liveth a thousand years or more,
besides that from imperfect observations and rarity of appearance no
confirmation can be made, there may probably be a mistake in the compute.
For the tradition being very ancient the conceit might have its originall
in times of shorter compute. For if we suppose our present calculation,
the Phœnix now in nature will be the sixt from the Creation, and but in
the middle of its years, and, if the Rabbine’s prophecy succeed, it shall
conclude its daies not in its own, but in the last and generall flames.”

Some medical enthusiasts held that a bird of such singular and noble
properties must be of sovereign virtue for the ills of mankind, and
did not hesitate to assign its several healing properties. On these
mistaken individuals Browne descends heavily. “Surely,” quoth he, “they
were not wel-wishers unto Physick or remedies easily acquired, who
derived Medicines from the Phœnix, as some have done. It is a folly to
finde out remedies that are not recoverable under a thousand years, or
propose the prolonging of life by that which the twentieth generation
may never behold. More veniable is a dependence upon the Philosopher’s
stone, potable gold, or any of those Arcanas whereby Paracelsus, that
died himself at fourty seven, gloried that he could make men immortall,
which, although exceedingly difficult, yet they are not impossible:
nor doe they (rightly understood) impose any violence on Nature. And,
therefore, if strictly taken for the Phœnix, very strange is that which
is delivered by Plutarch, that the brain thereof is a pleasant morsel,
but that it causeth the headach.” The amount of headache caused by too
free an indulgence in Phœnix must have been infinitesimal.

The Phœnix may still be considered to have a literary existence, and
remains part of the stock-in-trade of the orator and poet as an emblem of
something especially choice and rare. Fletcher writes of

    “That lone bird in fruitful Arabie,
    When now her strength and waning life decays,
    Upon some airy rock or mountain high,
    In spicy bed (fir’d by near Phœbus’ rays)
    Herself and all her crooked age consumes:
    Straight from her ashes, and those rich perfumes,
    A newborn Phœnix flies, and widow’d place resumes.”

Ariosto, in his “Orlando Furioso,” refers to the bird in the Voyage of
Astolfo in the following lines:—

    “Arabia, nam’d the happy, now he gains,
    Incense and myrrh perfume her grateful plains:
    The Virgin Phœnix there in search of rest
    Selects from all the world her balmy nest.”

In the two foregoing extracts the Phœnix has been represented as maiden
and as widow, and in the first line of Ariosto the pronoun is masculine,
and in the fourth line feminine. Ovid, and many other writers, in
describing him, her, or it, select the masculine as the most appropriate.
Thus Ovid, in the translation of Dryden, sings:—

    “All these receive their birth from other things,
    But from himself the Phœnix only springs:
    Self-born, begotten by the parent flame
    In which he burn’d, another and the same.”

It is needless to give the rest of the reference, as the ancient poet
naturally follows in the lines of the recognized tradition: the funeral
pyre, the infant Phœnix rising from the ashes, the dutiful removal of the
paternal remains to Heliopolis, all taking their proper and accustomed
place in the narrative.

Shakespeare frequently refers to the mythical bird in his writings, and
seems to have thoroughly mastered all that could be said on the subject.
Some half-dozen passages naturally rise to one’s mind as illustrations of
this: thus Rosalind says in As You Like It:—

    “She calls me proud; and that she could not love me,
    Were man as rare as Phœnix.”

And the idea of its unique character is again brought out in Cymbeline,
in the passage “If she be furnished with a mind so rare, she is alone the
Arabian bird.” The destruction of the bird on its own funeral pyre, and
the resurrection of its successor therefrom, are several times referred
to. Thus in 1 Henry VI. we read: “But from their ashes shall be reared
a Phœnix that shall make all France afeared,” and in 3 Henry VI.: “My
ashes, as the Phœnix, may bring forth a bird that will revenge upon you
all.” Some little doubt of its existence at all is suggested by the
words of Sebastian in the Tempest. Now I will believe

    “That there are unicorns: that in Arabia
    There is one tree, the Phœnix throne; one Phœnix
    At this time reigning there.”

Notwithstanding the doubts as to the reality of this creature that were
freely expressed in the seventeenth century, two feathers that were
said to be from the tail of a Phœnix were amongst the treasures of
Tradescant’s Museum.[73]

It was held a firm article of belief during the Middle Ages that the Bird
of Paradise fed upon nothing more gross than the dew of Heaven and the
odours of flowers, and that it had no feet, nor ever rested on earth at
all.

    “Thou art still that Bird of Paradise
    Which hath no feet, and ever nobly flies.”

It is a sadly prosaic explanation of this to recall that its footless
condition simply arose from the fact that the natives of Molucca in
sending the skins to Europe removed the legs and feet as needless
additions, seeing that the beauty of the plumage was the reason for their
export.

Tavernier relates that “the Birds of Paradise come in flocks during the
nutmeg season to the South of India. The strength of the nutmeg odour
intoxicates them, and while they lie in this state on the earth, the
ants eat off their legs.” Saving the last terrible detail and shocking
instance of what may befall those who stray from the paths of temperance,
Moore evidently adopts this account in Lalla Rookh in the lines:—

    “Those golden birds that in the spicetime drop
    About the gardens, drunk with that sweet fruit
    Whose scent hath lured them o’er the summer flood.”

Literary allusions to the Bird of Paradise are not unfrequent, and
testify to the general acceptance of the myth that has grown up around
the prosaic facts of the case. Francis Thynne, in his “Emblemes and
Epigrames,” A.D. 1600, takes the somewhat exceptional view that the bird
is to be pitied:—

    “There is a birde which takes the name of Paradise the fair,
    Which allwaies lives beatinge the winde and flienge in the Ayre,
    For envious Nature him denies the helpe of resting feete
    Wherby hee forced is in th’ayre incessantlie to fleete.”

The Roc or Rukh, though associated nowadays in our minds with the
“Thousand and One Nights,” and regarded as simply an illustration of the
lengths that the Eastern love of the wonderful can be carried to, was
an article of faith with our ancestors. Marco Polo, in his wonderfully
interesting book on his travels in Eastern lands, refers to this
remarkable bird; but it will be noted that he merely gives the account
as hearsay, and protects himself more than once from any admission of
personal belief in the creature. He states respecting it as follows: “The
people of the island[74] report that at a certain season of the year an
extraordinary kind of bird, which they call a rukh, makes its appearance
from the southern region. In form it is said to resemble the eagle, but
it is incomparably greater in size; being so large and strong as to seize
an elephant with its talons, and to lift it into the air, from whence it
lets it fall to the ground, in order that when dead it may prey upon the
carcase. Persons who have seen this bird assert that when the wings are
spread they measure sixteen paces in extent from point to point, and that
the feathers are eight paces in length and thick in proportion. The Grand
Khan, having heard this extraordinary relation, sent messengers to the
island on the pretext of demanding the release of one of his servants who
had been detained there, but in reality to examine into the circumstances
of the country, and the truth of the wonderful things told of it. When
they returned to the presence of his Majesty they brought with them (as I
have heard) a feather of the Rukh, positively affirmed to have measured
ninety spans. This surprising exhibition afforded his Majesty extreme
pleasure, and upon those to whom it was presented he bestowed valuable
gifts.”

The existence of such a bird seems to have been universally credited
in the East. While the tale passes all belief as it stands, or rather
as it lies, it may possibly be that it is grossly exaggerated rather
than entirely fabulous, as it may have originated from the occasional
sight of some bird of vast, though not miraculous, dimensions, such as
the albatross, birds of fierce aspect, measuring many feet from tip to
tip of their wings, though with strength and power of grip considerably
short of transporting elephants from their umbrageous retreats to
mid-air. The sixteen paces that are given by the informants of Marco Polo
as the measurement of the wings would be about forty feet, while the
wing-measurement of the albatross would not exceed fifteen or sixteen
feet, thus leaving a handsome balance to be put to the credit of the love
of the marvellous.

Jordanus brought back from India the story of “certain birds which are
called Roc, that are so big that they easily carry an elephant into the
air.” He did not himself see one of these, the nearest he is able to
approach to this being, “I have seen a certain person who said that he
had seen one of these birds.” The Roc was said to lay an egg equal in
bulk to one hundred and forty-eight hen’s eggs. The precision of this
estimate should disarm criticism: one feels in face of it that to have
said one hundred and fifty would have been a fatal yielding to the charm
of round numbers and a palpable exaggeration.

Mr. Lane refers to an Arab, one Ibou el Wardee, for authority for the
statement that Rocs are found in an island in the Chinese Sea that have
each wing ten thousand fathoms long.[75] These birds find no difficulty
in carrying an eagle in their beak, plus two others in their talons.
Wardee also knew of a Roc’s egg, or said he did—which is, perhaps, not
quite the same thing—on one of these islands that looked like an enormous
white dome over a hundred cubits high and as firm as a mountain.

Many of the beliefs of our forefathers had a refreshing quaintness about
them, and one of the quaintest, perhaps, of these was the notion that a
particular kind of goose sprang from the barnacles that cluster in salt
water on submerged wood. Butler, in his “Hudibras,” tells of those

    “Who from the most refined of saints
    As naturally turn miscreants
    As barnacles turn Soland geese
    In the islands of the Orcades.”

[Illustration: FIG. 15.]

Gerarde, in 1597, in his “Historie of Plants,” of which there are many
editions—our own copy, we see, being dated 1633,—gives in all good faith
a description and an illustration of the barnacle-goose tree. The former
Gerarde shall give in his own words, the latter we have reproduced in
fig. 15 in facsimile from his book. We see in it the branch bearing
barnacles, and by its side a bird, which stands for the resulting goose.
This “wonder of England, for the which God’s name be ever honoured and
praised,” he thus discourses upon—“Hauing trauelled from the grasses
growing in the bottom of the fenny waters, the woods and mountaines, euen
unto Libanus it selfe, and also the sea and bowels of the same, wee are
arriued at the end of our Historie; thinking it not impertinent to the
conclusion of the same, to end with one of the maruells of this land,
we may say of the world. The historie wherof to set forth according to
the worthinesse and ranke therof would not only require a large and
peculiar volume, but also a deeper search into the bowels of Nature than
mine intended purpose will suffer me to wade into, my sufficience also
considered, leauing the historie therof rough hewn unto some excellent
men learned in the secrets of Nature, to be both fined and refined;
in the meantime, take it as it falleth out, the naked and bare truth,
though vnpolished. There are found in the North parts of Scotland and
the islands adiacent, called Orchades, certaine trees whereon do grow
certaine shells of a white colour tending to russett, wherein are
contained little liuing things, which shells in time of maturitie do
open, and out of them do grow those little liuing creatures, which
falling in the water do become fowles, which we call Barnakles, and in
Lancashire tree-geese, but the others that do fall upon the land perish
and come to nothing. Thus much by the writings of others, and also from
the mouths of people of those parts, which may very well accord with
truth.

“But what our eyes haue seene and hands haue touched, we shall declare.
There is a small island in Lancashire, called the pile of Foulders,
wherein we find the broken pieces of old and bruised ships, some wherof
haue been cast thither by shipwracke, and also the trunks and bodies with
the branches of old and rotten trees cast up there likewise; whereon
is found a certaine spawne or froth that in time breedeth unto certain
shels, in shape like those of the muskle, but sharper-pointed, wherein is
contained a thing in forme like a lace of silke finely wouen together as
it were. One end thereof is fastened into a rude masse or lumpe, which
in time commeth to the shape and form of a Birde. When it is perfectly
formed the shel gapeth open, and the first thing that appeareth is the
foresaid lace or string: next come the legs of the bird hanging out, and
as it groweth greater it openeth the shel by degrees til at length it is
all come forth and hangeth onely by the bill: in short space after it
commeth to ful maturitie, and falleth into the sea, when it gathereth
feathers and groweth to a Fowle bigger than a Mallard and lesser than
a Goose, hauing blacke legs and bill and beake, and feathers blacke and
white, spotted in such manner as is our magpie, which the people of
Lancashire call by no other name than a tree-goose: which place therof
and all those parts adioining doe so much abound therewith that one of
the best is bought for threepence. For the truth wherof, if any doubt,
may it please them to repair unto me, and I shall satisfie them by the
testimony of good witnesses.”

On reading the foregoing one can only wonder what the old fellow really
did see on this wild sea shore amidst the wreckage: that he wrote in the
most perfect good faith, and in the strongest belief in this “Maruell,”
is perfectly evident. That he has no desire to practise on our credulity
is patent, but it is equally patent that his own credulity got the
better of his judgment. He goes on to tell us that on another occasion,
near Dover, he found on the sea shore an old tree-trunk covered with
“thousands of long crimson bladders, in shape like unto puddings newly
filled, and at the nether end therof did grow a shelfish fashioned
somewhat like a small muskle.” Many of these shells he brought back with
him to London, and on opening them he tells us that he found “liuing
things that were very naked, shaped like a bird: in others the birds
couered with a soft doune, the shel halfe open, and the bird ready to
fall out; which no doubt were the fowles called Barnakles.”

Soon after Gerarde’s death, Thomas Johnson, “Citizen and Apothecarie of
London,” brought out another edition of the “Historie of Plants,” in
which he adds the following note to Gerarde’s statement: “The Barnakles,
whose fabulous breed my Author here sets downe and diuers others have
also deliuered, were found by some Hollanders to haue another originall,
and that by egges, as other birds have: for they in their third voyage
to find out the North-East passage to China and Mollocos, found little
islands, in the one of which they found an abundance of these geese
sitting upon their egges, of which they got one goose and tooke away
sixty egges.” Here again one can only feel that the explanation needs
explaining, as it hardly seems necessary to sail for China to find the
home of the birds that were to be had retail in any quantity on the
Lancashire coast, for the by no means extravagant price of sixpence a
brace.

In a description of West Connaught by Roderic O’Flaherty, published
in the year 1684, the barnacle is thus mentioned: “There is the bird
engendered by the sea, out of timber long lying in the sea. Some
call these birds Clakes and Solan’d geese, and some puffins, others
barnacles.” And in the “Divine Weekes and Workes” of Du Bartas we find
another reference:—

    “So Sly Bootes underneath him sees
    In y’ cycles, those goslings hatcht of trees,
    Whose fruitfull leaues falling into the water
    Are turn’d, they say, to liuing fowles soon after.
    So rotten sides of broken ships do change
    To barnacles! O transformation strange!
    ’Twas first a greene tree, then a gallant hull,
    Lately a mushroom, now a flying gull.”

[Illustration: FIG. 16.]

Another version of the barnacle-tree is given in fig. 16. We have
extracted it from Parkinson’s “Theater of Plants,” a book that achieved
considerable popularity and ran through several editions. Our own copy,
from which we have reproduced the illustration, is dated 1640. Parkinson,
we see, classes the barnacle-tree with “Marsh, Water, and Sea Plants,
with Mosses and Mushrooms.” It seems curious that he should have inserted
it at all, as his remarks thereupon are not at all those of a believer.
“To finish this treatise of sea-plants,” he writes, “let me bring this
admirable tale of untruth to your consideration, that whatever hath
formerly been related concerning the breeding of these Barnakles to be
from shels growing on trees is utterly erroneous, their breeding and
hatching being found out by the Dutch and others, in their navigations to
the Northward.” This second reference to the Dutch shows that the matter
had caused some little stir outside England, and we may perhaps not too
uncharitably assume that the foreigner did not feel altogether displeased
when so great a British wonder was reduced to a very commonplace and
everyday affair indeed.

The “Cosmography” of Munster supplies us with the graceful illustration
which we have reproduced in facsimile in fig. 17. It is a far more
charming representation than either of the others we have given. In the
drawing the whole process may be clearly traced, from the immature and
unopened fruit to that sufficiently ripe to give some indication of its
strange contents in the form of the protruding head of the coming bird,
and then on again to the geese actually fallen in the water, and more or
less freeing themselves from the encumbering husk, until finally we see
them in all respects fit and proper subjects for the ornithologist or
the salesman of Leadenhall Market. Munster states in his book that “in
Scotland we find trees, the fruit of which appears like a ball of leaves.
This fruit, falling at its proper time into the water below, becomes
animated, and turns to a bird which they call the tree-goose.”

[Illustration: FIG. 17.]

Æneas Sylvius, afterwards better known to the world as Pope Pius II.,
visited Scotland in the year 1468, and while there made diligent inquiry
concerning this wonderful tree, but found that no one could point it out
to him. As the general impression that one gathers on reading his account
of his travels is that he appeared in Scotland rather as a seeker after
knowledge than as the recipient of a wonderful story till then unknown to
him, we must conclude that the myth had spread considerably beyond the
land of its origin. In fact, as we often find even unto the present day,
in divers matters the intelligent stranger is often able to enlighten the
natives on matters in which we might reasonably have expected to find
them well informed. Who, for instance, would ever dream of asking the
nearest resident to a cathedral anything of its history, or seeking from
“the Shepherd of Salisbury Plain” any light on the mysterious origin of
Stonehenge?

William Turner, one of the earliest writers on ornithology, described the
barnacle-goose as being produced from “something like a fungus growing
from old wood lying in the sea,” and quotes Giraldus Cambrensis as his
authority. “Having uncomfortable misgivings I asked,” he writes, “a
certain clergyman named Octavianus, by birth an Irishman, whom I knew
to be worthy of credit, if he thought the account of Giraldus was to
be believed. He, swearing by the Gospel, declared that which Giraldus
had written about the bird was most true: that he had himself seen and
handled the young unformed birds, and that if I would remain in London
a month or two he would bring me some of the brood.” Whether Turner
was satisfied by the very unsatisfying proof of the production of some
dubious ducks in London, or by the solemn declaration and oaths taken on
the Gospels by his reverent informant, we have no means of knowing, but
as he inserts the wonder in his book, he was evidently relieved from his
previous doubt of the veracity of the story.

In a land even beyond far distant Cathay, according to Maundevile,
“growethe a maner of Fruyt as thoughe it weren gowrdes, and whan thei ben
rype men kutten hem a to and fynden with inne a lytylle Best in Flessche,
in Bon and Blode, as though it were a lytylle Lamb with outen Wolle. And
Men eten bothe the Fruyt and the Best, and that is a gret Marveylle.
Of that Frut I have eten, alle thoughe it were wondirfulle, but that I
knowe wel that God is marveyllous in his Werkes. And nathles I tolde hem
that in oure Contree weren Trees that beren a Fruyt that becomen Briddes
fleeynge, and tho that fellen in the Water lyven, and thei that fellen on
the Erthe dyen anon, and thei ben righte gode to Mannes mete. And here of
had thei als gret marvaylle that sume of hem trowed it were an impossible
thing to be.” One would have thought that people who were quite familiar
with the sight of a lamb-tree would have found no great difficulty in
believing in a goose-tree. Anyone who can credit the one should feel no
hesitation in accepting the other.

Saxo Grammaticus, Lobel, Valcetro, and many other writers, refer to the
barnacle-tree, some with full belief in it, others more dubiously, but it
is, of course, needless to quote a multiplicity of authors. Should any
of our readers themselves feel any doubt in the matter, they may very
advantageously pay a visit to a good museum, where probably, even if they
fail to find a goose-tree, they may see much else that will be almost
equally a wonder and a delight to them.

The ancients thoroughly believed that the eagle proved her young by
forcing them to gaze upon the sun, discarding any that failed to face
the test, and the belief survived well into the Middle Ages. “Before that
her little ones bee feathered she will beat and strike them with her
wings, and thereby force them to looke full against the sunne beames. Now
if shee see any one of them to winke or their eies to water at the raies
of the sunne shee turnes it with the head foremost out of the nest as a
bastard and none of hers, but bringeth up and cherisheth that whose eie
will abide the light of the sunne as she looketh directly upon him.” It
will be remembered that Shakespeare, in King Henry VI., refers to this
old belief when the Duke of Gloucester addresses the young prince in the
words—

    “Nay, if thou be that princely eagle’s bird,
    Show thy descent[76] by gazing ’gainst the sun.”

In Ariosto, again, we have the same reference, where he styles the eagle

                                “The bird
    That dares with steadfast eyes Apollo’s light.”

And Dryden exclaims in his “Britannia Rediviva,”

    “Truth, which is light itself, doth darkness shun,
    And the true eaglet safely dares the sun.”

The keenness of vision of the eaglet[77] has been noted in all ages, and
its powers sometimes made even more astonishing than facts can justify.
It has been asserted that when the eagle has soared into the air to a
height that has rendered it perfectly invisible to human eye, it can
discern the motions of the smaller animals upon the earth, and swoop down
upon them from the sky, and Homer, in the “Iliad,” it will be recalled,
describes Menelaus as

    “The field exploring, with an eye
    Keen as the eagle’s, keenest eyed of all
    That wing the air, whom, though he soar aloft,
    The lev’ret ’scapes not hid in thickest shades.
    But down he swoops, and at a stroke she dies.”

The eastern writers, ever given to hyperbole, have assigned to the eagle
powers of vision of a far more astonishing character than this. One of
them, Damir, quoted by Burckhardt, declares that the eagle can discern
its prey at a distance of four hundred parasangs—more than a thousand
miles—and poets of all periods have drawn striking images from the
wonderful power of vision of the king of birds. Mediæval naturalists have
asserted that this magnificent eyesight was strengthened even beyond its
natural powers by a diet on the eagle’s part of wild lettuce, in the same
way that the linnet cleared its sight by means of the eyebright, the
swallow through use of the celandine, and divers other birds through use
of some special herb that they had proved to be of value to them.

Our readers will doubtless remember the fine passage in the
“Areopagitica” of Milton: “Methinks I see in my mind a noble and
puissant nation rousing herself like a strong man after sleep, and
shaking her invincible locks: methinks I see her as an eagle renewing
her mighty youth, and kindling her undazzled eyes at the full midday
beam.” It was one of the beliefs of our forefathers that the eagle had
this power of rejuvenescence. The description of the process has a
very prosaic sound about it, but the result is highly successful. When
the eagle “hathe darknesse and dimnesse in eien and hevinesse in wings
against this disadvantage she is taught by kinde to seeke a well of
springing water, and then she flyeth up into the aire as farre as she
may, till she bee full hot by heat of the aire and by travaile of flight,
and so then by heat the pores be opened, and the feathers chafed, and she
falleth sideinglye into the well, and there the feathers be chaunged and
the dimnesse of her eien is wiped away and purged, and she taketh againe
her might and strength.”[78]

It was a strange belief of the writers of antiquity on these natural
history topics that the feathers of the eagle, when placed amongst those
of other birds, in a short space of time entirely consumed them.

While the king of beasts has been credited with generosity and other
royal virtues, the eagle, king of birds, seems not to have developed,
either in nature or in fable, any such regal qualities. The most
favourable estimate we have encountered is that of the “Speculum Mundi,”
and even that leaves much to be desired. “The Eagle,” writes our
authority, “is commended for her faithfulnesse towards other birds in
some kinde, though sometimes she show herselfe cruell. They all stand in
awe of her; and when she hath gotten meat she useth to communicate it
unto such fowls as do accompany with her; onely this some affirme, that
when she hath no more to make distribution of, then she will attack some
of her guests, and for lack of food, dismember them.”

The eagle is often depicted as bearing the thunderbolts of Jove, from an
ancient belief that “of all flying fowles the ægle only is not smitten
nor killed with lightening.”

    “Secure from thunder, and unharm’d by Jove.”[79]

A man clothed in the skins of seals, or crowned with bay-leaves, enjoyed
like immunity.

The pelican has been pressed into the service of religious symbolism,
from a belief that it nourished its young with its own blood, and hence
it was made the emblem of loving sacrifice.[80] “The pelicane, whose sons
are nursed with bloude, stabbeth deep her breast, self-murdresse through
fondnesse to hir broode,” and the Shakespearian student will recall the
lines in Hamlet:—

    “To his good friends thus wide I’ll ope my arms,
    And, like the kind, life-rendering pelican,
    Refresh them with my blood.”

The whole myth is based upon a very slender basis indeed, as it is
conjectured that it arose from the habit of the bird pressing its breast
feathers with its bill, the bill itself having a crimson spot at its
extremity that suggested the idea of blood. When the bird is represented
in ecclesiastical work, or as a charge in heraldry, it is always shown
in this position, and is known technically as “a pelican in her piety.”
Many of the early writers accept the legend in the most perfect good
faith, and no more doubted that the young pelicans were reared on the
blood of the mother bird, than that hens would eat barley, or sparrows
come for bread-crumbs. Some ecclesiastical writers, whom we cannot quite
exonerate from acting on the principle that it is lawful to do ill if
good flows from it, added the detail that when the young of the pelican
were destroyed by serpents, the mother pelican shed her blood upon them,
and brought them to life again, and hence became a striking symbol of the
restoration to life of those dead in trespasses and sin by the vivifying
blood of the Redeemer of mankind.

It was for many centuries a belief that the swan, mute through life, sang
melodiously at its death.

    “Sweet strains he chaunteth out with’s dying tongue,
    And is the singer of his funerall song.”

“Wherein,” writes the author of the “Speculum Mundi,” “he is a perfect
embleme and pattern to us, that our death ought to be cheerfull, and life
not so deare unto us as it is.” Martial writes of the swan’s “joyful
death, and sweet expiring song,” and Virgil, Lucretius, Horace, Ovid,
and other ancient authors all refer to the belief. Cicero compared the
excellent discourse which Crassus made in the senate a few days before
his death to the melodious singing of a dying swan, while Socrates
declared that good men ought to imitate swans, who, perceiving by a
secret instinct what gain there was in death, die singing with joy.

Shakespeare refers frequently to the belief: thus in the Merchant of
Venice Portia says: “Then if he lose he makes a swan-like end, fading in
music.” After King John is poisoned his son, Prince Henry, is told that
in his dying frenzy he sang; whereupon the prince replies:—

    “’Tis strange that death should sing,
    I am the cygnet to this pale faint swan,
    Who chants a doleful hymn to his own death;
    And from the organ-pipes of frailty sings
    His soul and body to their lasting rest.”

Many similar passages might be quoted from the poets; it will suffice to
give but one example:—

    “Place me on Sunium’s marbled steep,
      Where nothing, save the waves and I,
    May hear our mutual murmurs sweep.
      There, swan-like, let me sing and die.”[81]

Though the ordinary swan of our English lakes and rivers would appear
to be without a grain of music in its composition, the black swan of
Australia,[82] now naturalized in our midst, has a really very musical
note, and one, too, which it very readily utters, not by any means
reserving it as a pæan of approaching dissolution.

It was a firm article of belief with the older writers, such as Pliny,
Aristotle, and Ælian, that the swan was especially exposed to attack
from the eagle, and that when thus assailed it fought with extreme
determination, and never failed to come off victor in the fray.

[Illustration: FIG. 18.]

To the ostrich was accredited the power of digesting iron. How such an
idea could have arisen, it is now impossible to explain. In allusion
to this myth the bird, when introduced in blazonry, as in fig. 18,
from a mediæval flagon, ordinarily has a horse-shoe in its mouth.[83]
The artist who thus represented the bird was evidently by no means
oblivious of the fact that the plumage of the ostrich was another very
characteristic feature. Shakespeare, in his Henry VI., makes Jack Cade
declare “I’ll make thee eat iron like an ostrich, and swallow my sword
like a great pin;” while Munster, in his “Cosmography,” gravely gives a
picture of an ostrich with an immense key in his mouth, and at his feet,
as second course, a horse-shoe. Cogan, the author of the very popular
“Haven of Health,” finds apt simile herein. “The fat of flesh,” he says,
“alone without leane is unwholesome and cloyeth the stomack and causeth
lothsomnes, yet have I knowne a country man that would feed onely of the
fat of Bacon or Pork, without leane, but that is not to bee marvelled at,
considering that many of them have stomackes like the bird that is called
an Ostridge, which can digest hard Iron.”

It was held that the ostrich never hatches her eggs by sitting upon
them, but by the rays of warmth and light from her eyes. Southey alludes,
it will be remembered, to this old fancy in the lines:—

    “With such a look as fables say,
    The mother ostrich fixes on her eggs,
    Till that intense affection
    Kindle its light of life.”[84]

A considerable body of folk-lore is associated with the cock. One strange
notion that crops up in the books of the mediæval writers is that the
lion has a strong antipathy to this bird, and that the crowing of
chanticleer will effectually put to the rout the king of beasts. One can
readily imagine that the lion, prowling in the darkness round some human
habitation, would naturally resent the shrill clarion of the cock, and
that this idea might, with the delight in mysticism and symbolism of the
Middle Ages, be readily transferred to the roaring lion, seeking whom he
may devour, thwarted by the vigilance of which the cock is the emblem.
Even so early, however, as the pre-Christian days of Pliny we find this
belief in the antagonism between the two creatures in full operation,
for this ancient author prescribes the broth from a stewed cock as an
excellent outward application for those in peril from wild beasts,
declaring confidently that whosoever shall bathe himself in this shall
fear no harm from lion or panther.

Gerard Legh, in his “Accedence of Armorie,” affirms that “the Cocke is
the royallest birde that is, and of himself a king, for Nature hath
crowned hime with a perpetuall Diademe, to him and to his posteritie for
ever. He is the valiantest in battle of all birdes, for he will rather
die than yeelde to his aduersarie.” And one old writer goes so far as
to declare that the lion, whom we have always been taught to regard as
generosity itself, feels his royal title somewhat impaired by the rivalry
of the barn-door fowl, and that the pretension to royalty suggested by
the scarlet crest is distasteful to the king of beasts, who can brook no
idea of a rival.

There was throughout the Middle Ages an idea that one was able to
incorporate[85] any desirable quality by looking around for some
creature of which it was a characteristic, and then promptly making
some culinary preparation of which this creature’s flesh should be a
leading ingredient. “If,” says one of these sages, “you would have a
man talkative give him tongues, and seek out for him water-frogs, wilde
geese and ducks, and other such creatures, notorious for their continual
noise-making,” and thus the sturdy self-assertion and valour of the cock
naturally suggested the idea that the weakly and retiring would find in
him valuable nutriment. In an old cookery book we find “how to still a
cocke for a weak body that is in consumption, through long sicknesse.”
The cock selected must be a red one,[86] and not too old. Having cut him
into quarters, he must be put into an earthenware pot with “the rootes
of Fennell, Parcely and Succory, Corans, whole Mace, Annise seeds, and
liquorice scraped and slyced.” Half a pint of rose-water and a quart
of white wine are then to be added, together with “two or three cleane
Dates, a few prunes and raysons,” and then all must stew gently for the
space of twelve hours. Finally, “streine out the broth into some cleane
vessell, and give thereof unto the weak person morning and evening,
warmed and spiced as pleaseth the patient.” Our ancestors, even when in
rude health, quaffed a beverage known as cock-ale, in order that they
might preserve their vigour. This drink—strong ale mixed with the broth
of a boiled cock—is mentioned in the old plays, such as “Woman turned
Bully,” written in the year 1675; in Digby’s book of receipts—“The Closet
Open,”—published in 1648, and divers other medical and culinary works of
the Middle Ages.

In these same “good old times,” the liver of a male goat, the tail of a
shrew-mouse, the brain and comb of a cock, the worm under the tongue of
a mad dog, pounded ants, cuckoo-broth, were all suggested as remedies for
hydrophobia, though, like the fish-brine of Pliny or the pounded crab of
Galen, they must have been but sorry reeds to rest upon in the dreadful
paroxysms of this terrible malady.

The ancient Romans believed in the existence of a crystalline stone
which they called alectorius, as large as a bean, and to be found in the
gizzard of a cock, though not by any means, discoverable in every fowl
cut open. This stone was held to have the wonderful property of rendering
the human possessor of it invisible. It may indeed have had the same
effect on the original owner, as there could scarcely be an authentic
instance of a stone of such peculiar property being found, but if the
fowl itself could not be seen it is scarcely to be wondered at that the
stone within it should be equally invisible. The belief in some such
stone was one of the numerous articles of faith of the Middle Ages, but
instead of the property of invisibility being attached to its possessor
they sometimes substituted for it the much more prosaic idea that its
owner could never feel thirsty, while the way to discover the bird that
possessed it was simplicity itself, it being only necessary to discover
which fowl at feeding time never drank. The first belief is much the more
tenable, and is in fact impossible of refutation, as the world may be
full of the owners of alectorius, invisible to us, and therefore unknown.

The cock was at one time supposed to possess the power of laying eggs
from which were reared the deadly cockatrice. “When the cock is past
seven years old an egg grows within him, whereat he greatly wonders. He
seeks privately a warm place, and scratches a hole for a nest, to which
he goes ten times daily. A toad privily watches him, and examines the
nest every day to see if the egg be yet laid. When the toad finds the
egg he rejoices much, and at length hatches it, bringing forth an animal
with the head, neck, and breast of a cock, and from thence downward the
body of a serpent.”[87] In the year 1474 a cock at Basle was publicly
accused of having laid one of these very objectionable eggs, and after
a short trial[88] was sentenced to death and burnt, together with the
egg, in the market place, amid a great concourse of the towns-folk, who
were right joyfully thankful to feel that a great peril had been averted
by the prompt action of their rulers, for a cockatrice was indeed no
laughing matter to those who thought it one of the possibilities of life.
In England the hens have entirely usurped the egg-laying department, and
we are therefore spared the mortification of finding that our hoped-for
chick has assumed the less welcome form of a cockatrice.

The poison of a cockatrice was without cure, and the air was in such a
degree affected by it that no creature could live near it. It killed,
we are assured, not only by its touch, for even the sight of the
cockatrice, like that of the basilisk, was death. We read, for instance,
in Romeo and Juliet of “the death-darting eye of cockatrice,” and again
in King Richard III., “a cockatrice hast thou hatched into the world
whose unavoided eye is murtherous;” while in Twelfth Night we find the
passage, “this will so fright them both, that they will kill one another
by the look like cockatrices.” The good people of Basle might therefore,
believing all this, very heartily congratulate themselves on their escape
from a fearful peril.

The baleful cockatrice is often referred to in literature. Thus in the
book entitled “Some Yeares Trauels into Africa and Asia the Great,”
written by Sir Thomas Herbert, and published in London in the year
1677, the writer says that Mohamed, on finishing his Koran, was “so
transported, that to Mecca he goes to have it credited; but therein his
predictions fail him, for so soon as the Arabs perceived his design
(being formerly acquainted with his birth and breeding) they banish
him, and (but for his Wives’ relations) there had crushed him and his
Cockatrice egg, which was but then hatching.”

Legh, in his “Curiosities of Heraldry,” gives the usual details of the
death-dealing cockatrice, but adds, “Though he be venome withoute
remedye whilest he liueth, yet when he is dead and burnt to ashes he
loseth all his malice, and the ashes of him are good for alkumistes
in turnyng and chaungyng of metall.” Practically, therefore all that
stands, or shall we say lies, between ourselves and wealth beyond the
dreams of avarice is but a cockatrice moribund. Orthography was not a
strong point in these old writers, and the word which is now established
as cockatrice, may be met with as cocatrice, cokatrice, kokatrice,
kocatrice, cockatryse, cocatryse, cocautrice, cockautrice, coccatryse,
cocatris, kokatrix, chocatrix, and many other forms.

It has long been a belief in many parts of the country that if a cock
crow at midnight the Angel of Death is passing over the house, and that
if he delays to strike it is but for a short season. It is evident
however that a score or more of different households may hear the same
cock-crow, and we can scarcely conclude that it is to be fatal to all,
since such wholesale slaughter would quickly depopulate whole hamlets,
and we might really almost as well have the dread cockatrice at once.

Cock-crowing in mediæval days received mystical importance from a belief
that it was in the dawn of the morning that our Saviour was born; it was
regarded, too, as a warning voice telling of the coming of the day of
Judgment,[89] and from its association with St. Peter’s grievous denial
of his Master a warning against self-sufficiency and base cowardice.
It was thought that during the hours of darkness evil spirits and the
souls of the departed were abroad and that these fled at daybreak: hence
Shakespeare makes the ghost of Hamlet’s father vanish at this season—“It
faded on the crowing of the cock.” To the belief that on Christmas Eve
the night was entirely free from any such spiritual manifestation he
refers in the beautiful lines:—

    “Some say that ever ’gainst that season comes
    Wherein our Saviour’s birth is celebrated,
    The bird of dawning singeth all night long,
    And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad;
    The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike.
    No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
    So hallow’d and so gracious in the time.”

In the quaint and delightful “Armonye of Byrdes” with its mingled Latin
and English:—

    “The Cock dyd say:
    I use alway
    To crow both first and last.
    Lyke a Postle I am,
    For I preache to man
    And tell him the nyght is past.[90]

    “I bring new tydyngis
    That the king of kynges
    In tactu profundit chorus:
    Then sang he, mellodious,
    Te Gloriosus,
    Apostolorum chorus.”

This poem, of which only one ancient copy is in existence, has been
reproduced by the Percy Society. The author is unknown, but is
conjectured to be John Skelton. No date appears on it, but the name of
the printer, John Wyght, shows that it must have been published somewhere
about the year 1550. The poem begins:—

    “Whan Dame Flora
    In die Aurora
    Had covered the meadow with flowers,
    And all the fylde
    Was over dystylde
    With lusty Aprell showers,
    For my desporte
    Me to comforte
    Whan the day began to spring
    Foorth I went
    With a good intent
    To hear the byrdes syng.”

The poem then goes on to tell us of the birds all “praisyng Our Lorde
without discord, with goodly armony,” the popyngay, the mavys, partryge,
pecocke, thrusshe, nyghtyngale, larke, egle, dove, phenix, wren, the
tyrtle trew, the hawke, the pellycane, the swalowe, all singing in quaint
blending of Latin and English the praise of God.

The raven, “the hoarse night-raven, trompe of doleful drere,”[91] has
been at almost all periods regarded with superstitious awe. Shakespeare,
for instance, writes of the raven “that croaks the fatal entrance of
Duncan,”[92] and again, in Othello, we find the illustrative passage—

    “It comes o’er my memory
    As doth the raven o’er the infected house,
    Boding to all.”

Marlowe, in like spirit, in his “Rich Jew of Malta,” dwells on the sad
presaging raven

                              “That tolls
    The sick man’s passport in her hollow beak,
    And in the shadow of the silent night
    Doth shake contagion from her sable wings.”

The whole field of literature teems with references of the same ominous
character. It will suffice to add but one more illustration, where Gay,
in “The Dirge,” notices the evil presage in the lines—

    “The boding raven on her cottage sat,
    And with hoarse croakings warned us of our fate.”

The raven is sometimes called the devil’s bird. It is believed that
it was originally white, but that it was changed to black for its
disobedience. What this disobedience was appears to be a very moot point.
The old Greeks believed that Apollo once sent it to a fountain to fetch
water, and the bird on arrival found a fig-tree with very nearly ripe
fruit, and determined to wait until they were quite so. As this was a
matter of some few days, it became necessary to invent some plausible
explanation of the delay, so he took a water-snake out of the fountain
and brought it in the pitcher to the god, and explained that this
creature had drunk the reservoir dry. Apollo, declining to accept this
explanation, turned the disobedient raven black, condemned it to be
always plagued with thirst, and changed its once melodious voice into the
monstrous croak[93] that it has ever since been uttering as token of its
punishment. Mediæval writers do not accept this story at all, but declare
that the real reason that the raven exchanged its snow-white plumage for
the sable garb was the consequence of its disobedience when, instead of
returning to the ark to Noah, it stayed to feed on the bodies of the
drowned.[94] It will be seen that in each case disobedience was the
offence, and appetite the occasion thereof.

It is rather startling after this to read in the quaint pages of Legh
that “the Rauen delighteth so much in her owne bewty that when her birds
are hatched she will giue them no meate vntill she see whether they will
bee of her owne colour or no.” Guillim, another writer, like Legh,
on matters heraldic, entirely supports this statement, declaring that
“it hath bene an ancient received opinion, and the same also grounded
vpon the warrant of the Holy Scriptures that such is the property of
the Raven, that from the time his young ones are hatched or disclosed,
untill he seeth what colour they will be of, he never careth of them nor
ministereth any food unto them, therefore it is thought that they are
in the meane space nourished with the heavenly dew. And so muche also
doth the kingly prophet, David, affirme, ‘which giveth fodder unto the
catell and feedeth the young Ravens that call upon him.’ The Raven is of
colour blacke, and when he perceiveth his young ones to be pennefeathered
and black like himself, then doth he labour by all means to foster and
cherish them from thence forward.”

Surprising as it is to find that the sable plumage that we regard as the
mark of disgrace is to the bird himself or herself (for Legh refers to
the maternal pride and Guillim to the paternal) a beauty that no bastard
brood can attain to, it is still more surprising to find that this
“devil’s bird” and messenger of woe is really not by any means so black
as he is painted, and is, indeed, possessed of deep religious feeling.
Maundevile in his pilgrimage to Mount Sinai saw and heard of many
wonderful things, and certainly what he heard in that sacred spot of the
ravens must have greatly astonished him. He tells us that at the shrine
of St. Catherine he found many lamps burning, and the monks rejoicing
in an abundance of “Oyle of Olyves both for to brenne in here Lampes and
to ete also, and that plentee have thei of the Myracle of God, for the
Ravennes and the Crowes and the Choughes and other Fowles of the Countree
assemble hem there ones every yeer, and fleen thider as in pilgrymage,
and everyche of hem bringethe a Braunche of the Olyve in here Bekes in
stade of offryng and leven hem there: of the whyche the monkes maken gret
plentee of Oyle, and this is a gret marvaylle.” The monkish moral to the
story is obvious—that if “Foules that han no kyndely wytt ne Resoun” thus
willingly offer to the maintenance of the church how much more should
the sons of men give of their substance to so excellent a cause. One can
indeed only feel that it is more probable that the story was made to fit
the moral than the moral to fit the story.

Like most other things in mediæval days the raven found a place in
the pharmacopœia, for it would appear that there was scarely anything
better “for ye Gowte” than raven-broth, but to make it effectually one
or two points that appear in themselves of little importance had to be
scrupulously observed. For those who care to make trial of it we append
the recipe: “Take Rauynys bryddys all quyke owte of here neste and loke
yat yei towche not the erth nor yat yei comy in non hows, and brene hem
in a new potte all to powdir and gif it ye seke man to drynkeyn.”

The talisman known as the raven-stone was held to confer on its holder
invisibility, and we may remark in passing on the curious attraction that
in the Middle Ages this gift of invisibility possessed, whether used as
a means of shielding one’s self from dangers, as a means of inflicting
without detection injuries on others, or the dishonourable desire of
secretly spying upon their proceedings. It appears to point to a somewhat
unwholesome state of things, too suggestive of cowardice and treachery
to be at all an object to be sought after. There were many such kinds of
talisman, all doubtless of equal efficacy, and all of them, naturally,
presenting considerable difficulties in acquisition. The raven-stone was
no exception. It was necessary first to discover a nest, then to climb
the tree and to take from the brood one of the nestlings and kill it.
The victim must be a male bird and not more than six weeks old. So far,
with reasonable powers of observation, a fair amount of agility, and
sufficient sense to visit the nest at a time when one might reasonably
expect to find young birds therein, there would appear to be no great
difficulty; but unless the parent birds were at least a hundred years
old, all this preliminary trouble was of no avail. Having descended the
tree in safety, the slaughtered nestling had to be placed at its foot,
and watch kept for the return of the parent raven. On its return it will
be observed to place a stone in the throat of its offspring, whereupon
nothing remains but to secure the treasure and proceed to exercise its
mystic power. How many persons actually put the matter to the test it
is of course impossible to say, but full belief in its efficacy was for
generations an article of faith to thousands.

The owl, like the raven, was regarded by our forefathers with great awe
as an omen of misfortune and death; thus in Shakespeare we find several
allusions to this superstitious belief—

    “Out on ye owls! nothing but songs of death,”

and the “boding scritch owl,” as he is called in Henry VI., reappears in
Macbeth in the passage:—

    “It was the owl that shriek’d; that fatal bellman
    Which giv’st the stern’st good night.”

The idea dates from time immemorial. Pliny says, in the tenth book of
his “Natural History,” that “the scritch-owle betokeneth alwaies some
heavie newes, and is most execrable and accursed. He keepeth ever in
the deserts, and loveth not only such unpeopled places, but also those
that are horrible hard of accesse. In summer, he is the verie monster
of the night, neither crying, nor singing out cleare, but uttering a
certaine heavie grone of dolefull moning. And, therefore, if he be seene
within citties or otherwise abroad in any place it is not for good, but
prognosticateth some fearfull misfortune.”

Raven-like again, the owl is a specific for the gout, all that is
necessary being to “take an owl, pull off her feathers, salt her well
for a weak, then put her into a pot and stop it close, and put her into
an oven, that so she may be brought into a mummy.” This has then to be
beaten into a powder and mixed with boar’s grease, and “the grieved
place” well anointed with this preparation. Owl-broth has in many rural
districts of England been regarded as invaluable in whooping cough.

The notion of stones of mystic virtue being found in divers animals is a
very common one in ancient and mediæval lore. We have already referred
to the raven-stone, and many others were sought after. The interior
of a fowl was said to yield a precious stone called alectorius; the
chelidonius came from a swallow, geranites from a crane, and draconites
from a dragon; while corvia was the name of the stone obtained from the
crow. Anyone who cares to penetrate farther into this mass of rubbish
will find plenty of it in the “Mirror of Stones” of Camillus. A stone
from the hoopoe, when laid upon the breast of a sleeping man, forced
him to reveal any rogueries he might have committed. The swallow was
believed by some people to have two of these precious stones stowed
away somewhere in its interior; one of these was a red one, and cured
insanity; while the other, a black one, brought good fortune. Others said
that the swallow found by some inspiration a particular kind of stone on
the seashore, and that this stone restored sight to the blind. It will be
remembered that Longfellow, in his “Evangeline,” refers to this fancy in
the lines:—

    “Seeking with eager eyes that wondrous stone which the swallow
    Brings from the shore of the sea, to restore the sight of her
        fledglings.”[95]

Hence people assumed, not unreasonably, that what the bird found of
such value to its young ones could scarcely fail to be of equal value
for suffering humanity. Sometimes the association of the swallow with
blindness is much more recondite. Thus Marcellus, writing in the year of
our era, 480 A.D., advises one who fears that he is going blind to “look
out for the first swallow, then run silently to the nearest spring, wash
your eyes, and pray God that you may be free from it that year;” and
then, with the callousness that is so characteristic of so many of these
folk-lore remedies, very needlessly adds, “and that all the pain may pass
into the swallow.”

On referring to our copy of Winstanley’s “Book of Knowledge,” edition of
1685, to find out how far he confirms these wondrous cures of insanity,
impecuniosity, and ophthalmia, we find that he does not even recognize
their existence, but supplies in their place other facts equally
striking. “Take a Swallow on the Wednesday,” he writes, “and bind him
with a silken thread by the foot, then cut him in the midst, and thou
shalt find three stones, a white, a red, and a green; take the white
and put it into thy mouth, and it shall make thee fair; put into thy
mouth the red, and thou shalt have favour from her thou lovest; put the
green into thy mouth, and thou shalt never be in peril.” If none of
these inducements prevail or appeal to the reader, the author can supply
another recipe of equal value. “Take a swallow in the moneth of August,
look in her breast, and you shall find there a stone of the bignesse of
a pease: take it and put it under your tongue, and you shall have such
eloquence that no man shall have power to deny thy request.” Such a gift
would often be invaluable, and it seems distinctly unfortunate for the
legal profession that it can only be utilised during the Long Vacation,
unless, indeed, this wondrous stone can be in some way preserved
without losing its efficacy; but of this the recipe gives no hint. In
an old receipt book before us oil of swallows is pronounced “exceeding
soveraign” for broken bones, or “any grief in the sinews.” It is procured
by pounding the swallows in a mortar, and adding thereto divers herbs.

For one that is, or will be, drunken, it is well to have at hand some
preparation that may be deterrent, and here is the very thing! “Take
swallowes and burne them, and make a powder of them; and give the dronken
man thereof to drinke, and he shall never be dronken hereafter.” There is
a certain sense of incompleteness here, as one does not quite realize how
this powder becomes drinkable.

The ill-luck that attended those who hurt the robin or the wren was an
article of faith with our forefathers, and probably still remains so in
rural districts. In the “Six Pastorals,” written in the year 1770, we
find the belief very clearly expressed in the lines:—

    “I found a robin’s nest within our shed,
    And in the barn a wren has young ones bred:
    I never take away their nest, nor try
    To catch the old ones, lest a friend should die.
    Dick took a wren’s nest from the cottage side,
    And ere a twelvemonth pass’d his mother dy’d.”

The belief that they, “with leaves and flowers, do cover the friendless
bodies of unburied men” has no doubt had much to do with the kindly
feeling extended to them. As Drayton hath it:—

    “Covering with moss the dead’s unclosed eye
    The little red-breast teacheth charity.”

Its fearless confidence, too, in visiting the habitations of men has
begotten a kindly feeling for it, while one ancient legend tells us that
when our Saviour hung forsaken on the cross the robin strove to draw out
the cruel nails, and thus imbrued its breast in the Sacred Blood, an
act of piety of which from thenceforth it bore the token in its ruddy
feathers.

Though there are divers quaint beliefs associated with the wren which we
need not here particularize, we may perhaps assume that the main reason
for its association with the robin lies in the love of alliteration,
for though the actual spelling of the words is against this theory, the
sound to the ear favours it, and the two R’s of the Robin and the ’Ren
are certainly not more far-fetched than the three R’s that were once
held to cover the whole field of rustic scholarship, Reading, Riting and
Rithmetic.

“The eyes and heart of a nightingale laid about men in bed,” according
to the “Magick of Kirani,” serve to “keep them awake, and to make one
die for sleep. If anyone dissolve them and give them secretly to anyone
in drink, he will never sleep, but will so die, and it admits of no
cure.” It was a belief in the Middle Ages, and termed the doctrine of
signatures, that every plant bore stamped upon itself, though men’s eyes
were in some cases too blind to detect it, an indication of its value to
humanity, thus the spots in the inside of a foxglove flower were a sign
that this plant was of value for ulcerated sore-throat; the buds of the
forget-me-not bent round in a spiral somewhat suggestive possibly of the
tail of a scorpion, gave the plant its mediæval name of scorpion-grass,
and were held a clear indication that anyone stung by a scorpion would
find in this herb his remedy. In a like spirit we see that the eyes and
heart of the nightingale, a bird awake when most other creatures are
sleeping, were held to be, on application, a cause of wakefulness to
anyone coming within their subtle influence.

It was a very common and widespread belief that the nightingale when
singing pierced its breast with a thorn, but whether this was to keep it
awake, or to give its song the sad character that the poets will insist
most wrongfully in attributing to it, seems an open question. Sir Philip
Sidney in one of his sonnets appears to reflect the popular belief—

    “The nightingale, as soon as April bringeth
      Unto her rested sense a perfect waking,
    While late bare earth, proud of her clothing, springeth,
      Sings out her woes, a thorn her song book making:
      And mournfully bewailing
    Her throat in times expresseth,
    While grief her heart oppresseth.”

The author of the “Speculum Mundi” also refers to “the nightingale
sitting all the night singing upon a bough, with the sharp end of a thorn
against her breast,” assigning, as the reason, “to keep her waking.”
The bird is a great favourite with the poets, but in most cases their
invocations are somewhat misplaced: it is not the “sweet songstress”
that so delights us, for though her notes are sweet, the real flood of
melody wells from the heart of her lord. ’Tis he, to quote the words of
Coleridge—

    “That crowds, and hurries, and precipitates
    With thick fast warble his delicious notes,
    As he were fearful that an April night
    Would be too short for him to utter forth
    His love-chant, and disburden his full soul
    Of all its music.”

The error as to sex, and the error as to the pensive character of the
song, have a common origin and date back from the ancient time when
Ovid declared that Philomela, the daughter of Pandion, King of Athens,
mourning for her children, was turned into a nightingale: hence Virgil
uses the word “Philomela” when speaking of the bird, and the mediæval
and modern poets have continued the usage; and on this same account,
the song of the nightingale has by poetic fiction been deemed pensive
and melancholy. Thus Shelley refers to “the nightingale’s complaint,”
and Drayton writes of “our mournful Philomela,” while Milton calls the
bird “most musical, most melancholy.” Coleridge, Clare, and others refuse
however to follow this precedent.

When the peasant of mediæval days heard the cuckoo for the first time in
each year, he rolled himself vigorously on the grass, and thus secured
himself for the rest of the year from pains in the back. Much of the
virtue of this remedy, we should imagine, would depend upon how damp
the grass might be. We could easily imagine a state of things when this
rolling process would be provocative rather than preventative. It was
generally believed that the cuckoo sucked the eggs of other birds.

    “The cuckoo, he sings in the spring of the year,
    And he sucks little birds’ eggs to make his voice clear.”

Hence so soon as the general nesting season is over, and this selfish
ovisuction fails him, the cuckoo to a great extent loses his song.[96] It
was a generally accepted belief, too, that the cuckoo repaid the care of
his foster parents, when he had no further occasion for it, by swallowing
them. This belief dates from very early times. Aristotle refers to it,
for instance, while in later days it crops up in the various books on
so-called Natural History. On turning again to Shakespeare, who rarely
fails us when any quaint folk-lore has to be illustrated, we find an
interesting reference to it in King Lear: “The hedge-sparrow fed the
cuckoo so long that it had its head bit off by its young”—and again in
the first part of King Henry IV., where Worcester, reminding the king of
his broken word, says:—

    “And being fed by us, you used us so,
    As that ungentle gull, the cuckoo’s bird,
    Useth the sparrow; did oppress our nest;
    Grew by our feeding to so great a bulk,
    That even our love durst not come near your sight
    For fear of swallowing.”

Those, it was believed, who turned their money over in their pockets when
they each year first heard the cuckoo, would have good fortune throughout
the rest of the year, and keep their pockets well supplied until the
recurring spring necessitated a re-turning of the contents.

It was a curious fancy of many of the old writers on such matters, that
the peacock, though arrayed in such splendour, was ashamed of his feet,
the mortification at the latter being more than a set-off to his pride
in his plumage. “The peacock,” says, for instance, one of these ancient
authorities, “is a bird well-known and much admired for his daintie
coloured feathers, which, when he spreads them against the sunne, have
a curious lustre, and look like gemmes. Howbeit his black feet make him
ashamed of his fair tail: and therefore when he seeth them, (as angrie
with nature, or grieved for that deformitie) he hangeth down his starrie
plumes, and walketh slowly in a discontented fit of solitary sadnesse,
like one possest with dull melancholy.” The peacock was throughout the
Middle Ages the symbol of pride, and doubtless those who started and
those who accepted such a story as this saw in it a happy illustration of
the haughty spirit that goeth before a fall, and very gladly added it to
the great body of moral teaching that the works of creation were required
to furnish.

A large mass of legend and folk-lore is associated with the halcyon or
kingfisher. One curious old superstition is that if a dead kingfisher is
suspended from the roof it will always turn its breast in the direction
from which the wind blows.[97] On looking over any old works on natural
history one is repeatedly struck by the way in which the writers all
copy each other, and reproduce the most outrageous statements, without
ever seeming to care to bring the matters they deal with to the easy
test of actual proof. It is, therefore, the more refreshing to find the
old writer, Sir Thomas Browne, the author of the “Enquiry into Vulgar
Errors,” very wisely declining to accept the statement without proof,
but actually getting a kingfisher for himself, and seeing what would
befall. His reflections and experience are so graphically and quaintly
given in his book that we make no apology for transferring them to our
own pages. He says “that a Kingfisher hanged by the bill, sheweth in what
quarter the winde is by an occult and secret property, converting the
breast to that point of the horizon from whence the winde doth blow, is
a received opinion and very strange, introducing naturall Weathercocks,
and extending magneticall positions as far as animall natures: a conceit
supported chiefly by present practice, yet not made out by reason or
experience. Unto reason it seemeth very repugnant that a carcasse or
body disanimated should be so affected by every winde as to carry a
conformable respect and constant habitude thereto. For although in
sundry animals we deny not a kinde of naturall Meteorology or innate
præsention bothe of winde and weather, yet that proceeding from sense
receiving impressions from the first mutations of the air, they cannot
in reason retain their apprehension after death: as being affections
which depend upon life and depart upon disanimation. And therefore with
more favourable reason may we draw the same effect or sympathie upon
the Hedgehog, whose præsention of windes is so exact that it stoppeth
the North or Southern hole of its nest, according to prenotion of
these windes ensuing; which some men observing, have been able to make
predictions whiche way the winde should turn, and been esteemed hereby
wise men in point of weather. Now this proceeding from sense in the
creature alive, it were not reasonable to hang up an Hedgehog dead and to
expect a conformable motion unto its living conversion. Thus Glowe-wormes
alive project a lustre in the dark, which fulgour notwithstanding ceaseth
after death; and thus the Torpedo, which being alive stupifies at a
distance, applied after death produceth no such result.”

“As for experiment we cannot make it out by any we have attempted, for
if a single Kingfisher be hanged up with silk in an open room and where
the aire is free, it observes not a constant respect unto the winde, but
vainly converting doth seldome breast it right. If two be suspended in
the same room they will not regularly conform their breasts, but oftimes
respect the opposite points of heaven. And if we conceive that for exact
exploration they should be suspended where the air is quiet and unmoved,
that clear of impediment they may more freely convert upon this naturall
verticity, we have also made this way of inquisition, suspending them
in large and spacious glasses closely stopped; wherein, neverthelesse,
we observed a casuall station, and that they rested irregularly upon
conversion.”

It was formerly held that if the dead bodies of these birds were put away
in chests they protected garments from the ravages of moths, and it was
believed that the feathers of a dead kingfisher were renewed in all their
splendour every year. It was an article of faith, too, that the plumage
of the kingfisher was injurious to the eyes of those who gazed too long
and too intently upon it, while the possession of even a feather was a
protection against lightning.

According to the old Greek myth, Halcyone was the daughter of Æolus. Her
husband, Ceyx, king of Trachyn, was drowned in the Ægean Sea, and the
widowed Halcyone, wandering on the shore, saw afar the dead body of her
husband. The gods, in pity, turned her into a bird, which with eager
wings bore her spirit across the waste of waters, and that Ceyx might be
able to return the love she lavished upon him, he, too, was permitted the
same transformation.

It was an old belief that during the space of fourteen days, while the
young kingfishers were being hatched, a great calm fell upon all things,
and this period of quietness and security is referred to by many of our
writers.[98] A very beautiful illustration may be found in Milton’s “Hymn
on the Nativity,” where he describes how:—

    “Peaceful was the night
    Wherein the Prince of Light
      His reign of peace upon the earth began;
    The winds with wonder whist,
    Smoothly the waters kiss’d,
      Whispering new joys to the wild ocean,
    Which now hath quite forgot to rave,
    While birds of calm sit brooding on the charmed wave.”

The word halcyon is Greek and signifies brooding on the sea, as it was
formerly believed that the kingfisher laid its eggs in a floating nest
upon the sea. Drayton writes, for example, of

    “The halcyon, whom the sea obeys
    When she her nest upon the water lays.”

While Dryden, to quote one more instance, says:

    “Amidst our arms as quiet you shall be
    As halcyon brooding on a winter’s sea.”

This exceptional favour fair Halcyone owes to her close relationship
with Æolus, since with him rested the power to lash the waves to fury or
to soothe them to rest. This beautiful Greek myth doubtless underlies
the superstition as to the dead body of the kingfisher indicating the
direction of the wind, though probably it never occurs to the rustic
meteorologist as he watches his revolving kingfisher that any idea of
the loving Halcyone turning to greet the coming Æolus enters into the
philosophy of his test.

It was for centuries a belief that storks fed with filial care their
aged parents. Thus Heywood, writing in the year 1635, asserts in “The
Hierachie of the Blessed Angells” that

    “The indulgent storke, who builds her nest on hye
    (Observ’d for her alternat pietie),
    Doth cherish her unfeather’d young and feed them,
    And looks from them the like, when she should need them.
    (That’s when she grows decrepit, old, and weake)
    Nor doth her pious Issue cov’nant breeke:
    For unto her, being hungry, food she brings,
    And being weake, supports her on her wings.”

One meets with the same notion again in Beaumont, where he asserts that

    “The stork’s an emblem of true piety:
    Because, when age has seized and made his dam
    Unfit for flight, the grateful young one takes
    His mother on his back, provides her food,
    Repaying thus her tender care for him,
    Ere he was fit to fly.”

The extraordinary idea that storks were found only in countries having a
republican form of government held its ground for a considerable time,
though it would appear as though nothing could have been simpler than its
prompt disproof.

Cranes, it was believed, bore stones with them when they were migrating,
in order that they might not be swept out of their course by the wind.
A somewhat parallel notion was that swallows in their annual migrations
carried in their bills, when about to cross the sea, a piece of stick, to
be laid upon the water from time to time as a convenient resting place.
The idea of the cranes steadying themselves in flight by a ballasting of
small rock was too quaintly happy a conception not to bear amplification,
so we find that the bees, the never-failing emblems of industry and
wisdom, were equally ready to avail themselves of the notion. “Bees
that are emploied in carrying of honie chuse alwaies to have the wind
with them if they can. If haply there do arise a tempest whiles they
bee abroad they catch up some little stonie greet to ballaise and poise
themselves against the wind. Some say that they take it and lay it
upon their shoulders.” How the little stony grit maintains this latter
position the old authors do not stop to explain. In the Georgics of
Virgil we find a reference to this, which evidently even then was an old
and unchallenged belief, in the lines:—

    “And oft with pebbles, like a balanced boat,
    Poised through the air on even pinions float”—

and the idea reappears from time to time as a fact in natural history.
There is so much that is legitimately wonderful in bee-arrangements that
it is scarcely strange that some of the details given by ancient and
mediæval naturalists in praise of their sagacity, and other estimable
qualities, should overreach the possibilities, and fail in the not
unimportant element of truth.[99]

The sagacious cranes seem to have found several valuable uses for their
pieces of rock. We are told that while the main body are resting at
night, sentinels are posted to guard against surprise, so that the flock
or covey, or whatever else may be the proper technical term to use, rest
in full assurance of safety. To insure the necessary vigilance, these
sentinels stand upon one foot, and hold in the other a large stone.[100]
Should they inadvertently nod, the muscles relax and the stone drops, and
by the slight noise it makes awakens them to a proper sense of their duty
and their temporary lapse from it.

A third valuable use that the cranes seem to have found for stones was to
put them in their mouths when migrating, so that thus gagged they might
not make a noise, and by their cries bring the eagles and other birds
of prey upon themselves.[101] In the “Euphues,” we find a passage that
admirably illustrates the belief in these two latter uses of the stone,
as the author would naturally not use similes that would be unfamiliar
to his readers. “What I haue done,” he writes, “was onely to keep myselfe
from sleepe, as the Crane doth the stone in hir foote; and I would also,
with the same Crane, that I had been silent, holding a stone in my mouth.”

It will be sufficiently evident that the birds we have mentioned are but
few in number. It would be extremely difficult to make our treatment
exhaustive, extremely easy to make it exhausting; we would desire in pity
to our readers to avoid either of these alternatives. We would therefore
steer straight for the proverbial third course, and trust that it may
be held that we have found a happy medium in resting satisfied with the
comparatively few species of birds that are here brought under notice.




CHAPTER V.

    Forms reptilian and piscine—The basilisk—Shakespeare and
    Spenser thereupon—King of serpents—The dragon—Aldrovandus
    thereon—The dragon-stone—The griffin—The scorpion—The
    “Newe Jewell of Healthe”—Toads—Antipathy between toad
    and spider—The toad-stone—How to procure it—The weeping
    crocodile—Cockeram’s Dictionary—The treacherous seal—The
    salamander—Its potent venom—Its home in fire—Prester John
    and his kingdom—Pyragones—The chamæleon—Its changing
    colour—Serpents from air—The gift of invisibility—The
    serpent-stone—Theriaca—Viper-broth—Antidotal herbs—The soil of
    Malta—The deaf adder—The two-headed Amphisbæna—Aldrovandus on
    serpents—Hairy serpents—The deadly asp—Monstrous snails—Snail
    and spider remedies—Bees—Virgil on their production—Glowworm
    ink—Marine forms the counterparts of those on land—The
    sea-monk—The sea-bishop—The sus marinus—The brewers of
    the storm—The hog-fish—The sea-elephant—The sea-horse—The
    sea-unicorn—The remora—The dolphin, its special fondness for
    man—Its love of music—Its changeful colouring—The acipenser—The
    loving ray—The sargon—The friendship between the oyster and the
    prawn—The voracious swam-fish—Leviathan—Cause of the crooked
    mouth of the flounder—The healing tench—Fish medicaments—The
    vain cuttle-fish—The fish that came to be eaten—Conclusion.


We turn in conclusion to forms reptilian and piscine, and to “such small
deer” as may call for a parting word or two in drawing our labours to a
close; and here we find no great amount of material to deal with, for
though our section includes such fabulous monsters as the basilisk and
the dragon, the general knowledge of reptiles and fish was naturally
by no means so extensive as that of the more readily visible beasts and
birds.

The basilisk, a wingless dragon, according to some authorities—a serpent,
if we may credit others—was a peculiarly objectionable creation, not of
nature, but of man. Like all such creatures, it is extremely difficult
to get a very definite idea of it, since imagination has run rampant
in dealing with it. It was but twelve fingers’ breadth long, according
to some writers; this we may take to mean some eight or nine inches
long,[102] but, unfortunately, its powers of mischief were out of all
proportion to its size. It wore a diadem upon its head, as a sign of
its kingship over all other serpents, and its poison was death without
remedy. Pliny, however, shall be allowed to describe the venomous little
monster in his own way, as he does so with a vivid force that it is
impossible to surpass:—“With his hies he driveth away other serpents; he
moveth his body forward not by multiplied windings like other serpents,
but he goeth with half his body upright and aloft from the ground; he
killeth all shrubs not only that he toucheth, but that he breatheth upon;
he burns up herbs and breaketh the stones, so great is his power for
mischief. It is received of a truth that one of them being killed with
a lance by a man on horseback, the poison was so strong that it passed
along the staff and destroyed both horse and man.” Its touch caused the
flesh to fall from the bones of the animal with which it came in contact,
and even the glance of its eye was death upon whomsoever it fell. It will
be remembered that Shakespeare refers to this belief in the utterance of
the Lady Ann in response to Richard’s observation on her eyes—

    “Would that they were basilisk’s to strike thee dead.”

In 2 Henry VI. (act iii. sc. 6) the king exclaims,

    “Come, basilisk, and kill the innocent gazer with thy sight,”

—while in Henry V. (act iii. sc. 2) Queen Isabel says—

    “Your eyes, which hitherto have borne in them
    Against the French, that met them in their bent
    The fatal balls of murthering basilisks.”

Suffolk in cursing his enemies invokes against them the deadly basilisk,
while Gloster boasts that he will “slay more gazers than the basilisk.”
Spenser in like manner mentions one who—

    “Secretly his enemies did slay
    Like as the Basilisk, of serpent’s seede
    From powerful eyes close venim did convey
    Into the looker’s hart, and killed farre away.”

The writer of the “Speculum Mundi” hath it that “the Basilisk is the King
of Serpents, not for his magnitude nor greatnesse, but for his stately
pace and magnanimous minde.” Of this magnanimity, however, he gives no
illustration or proof, but simply goes on to give the creature as black a
character as all other writers do. “His eyes are red in a kinde of cloudy
thicknesse, as if fire were mixt with smoke. His poyson is a very hot
and venimous poyson, drying up and scorching the grasse as if it were
burned, infecting the aire round about him, so as no other creature can
live near him. His hissing, likewise, is said to be as bad, in regard
that it blasteth trees, killeth birds, &c., by poysoning of the aire, and
if anything be slaine by it the same also proueth venimous to such as
touch it,”—an altogether unloving and unlovely brute. It must be borne
in mind that whilst we in this nineteenth century simply regard such a
creature as a weird fancy, countless generations of mankind have accepted
the basilisk as a very grim reality indeed, that might in all its fearful
power some day cross their paths.

Even Sir Thomas Browne, who demolished in his book so many common
beliefs, is prepared to accept the Basilisk, for while he declares
that “many opinions are passant concerning the basilisk, or little
King of Serpents, some affirming, others denying, most doubting the
relations made thereof,” he, himself, adds “that such an animal there
is, if we evade not the testimony of Scripture and humane writers, we
cannot safely deny.” For his Scriptural proofs he quotes Psalm xci.:
“Super aspidem et Basilicum ambulabis,” and Jeremiah viii., ver. 17:
“For behold I will send serpents, cockatrices among you, which will not
be charmed, and they shall bite you.” Many of the old writers we may
mention in passing, consider the basilisk and the cockatrice the same
creature. That by death-dealing glance a basilisk may empoison is not
to Browne a thing impossible, “for eies receive offensive impressions
from their objects, and may have influences destructive to each other.
For the visible species of things strike not our senses immaterially,
but streaming in corporall raies doe carry with them the qualities of
the object from whence they flow. Thus it is not impossible what is
affirmed of this animall; the visible raies of their eies carrying forth
the subtilest portion of their poison, which, received by the eie of
man or beast, infecteth first the brain, and is thence communicated
to the heart.” Again he says, “that deleterious it may be at some
distance, and destructive without corporall contaction, there is no
high improbability,” and he proceeds, not by any means without thought
or shrewdness, to give reasons for his belief in the possibility of
such a thing. “For,” says he, “if plagues or pestilentiall Atomes have
been conveyed in the air from different Regions, if men at a distance
have infected each other, if the shaddowes of some trees be noxious,
if Torpedoes deliver their opinion at a distance and stupifie beyond
themselves, we cannot reasonably deny that (besides our grosse and
restrained poisons requiring contiguity unto their actions) there may
proceed from subtiller seeds more agile emanations, which contemn those
laws, and invade at distance unexpected.”

The belief in the dragon was one of the articles of faith of our
ancestors. In another of our books, “Symbolism in Christian Art,”
we have dwelt at considerable length upon the various legends in
which the dragon figures, and the symbolic use made of the monster as
representative of the evil principle that all are called upon to combat,
but our forefathers had a very real belief in the veritable existence of
the dragon, not by any means regarding it as a symbol merely, a figure of
speech or apt allegory, but as one of the quite definite perils that the
adventurous traveller in distant lands might be called upon to face,[103]
while preparations of the dragon were a recognized feature in the
pharmacopœia. “Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,” and many other horrible
ingredients are found in the witches’ cauldron in Macbeth.

In a mediæval work we are told that “the turning joint in the chine of
a dragon doth promise an easy and favourable access into the presence
of great lords.” One can only wonder why this should be, all clue and
thread of connection between the two things being now so hopelessly lost.
We must not, however, forget that, smile now as we may at this, there
was a time when our ancestors accepted the statement with the fullest
faith, and many a man who would fain have pleaded his cause before king
or noble, bewailed with hearty regret his want of draconic chine, the
“turning-point” of the dragon and of his own fortunes. Another valuable
recipe runs as follows: “Take the taile and head of a dragon, the haire
growing upon the forehead of a lion, with a little of his marrow also,
the froth, moreover, that a horse fomethe at the mouth who hath woon the
victorie in running a race, and the nailes besides of a dog’s feete;
bind all these together with a piece of leather made of red deer’s skin,
with the sinewes partly, of a stag, partly of a fallowe deere, one with
another; carry this about with you, and it will work wonders.”[104] It
seems almost a pity that the actual benefits to be derived from the
possession of this compound are not more clearly defined, as there is no
doubt that a considerable amount of trouble would be involved in getting
the various materials together, and the zeal and ardour of the seeker
after this wonder-working composition would be somewhat damped by doubt
as to its actual utility. Mediæval medicine-men surely must have been
somewhat chary of adopting the now familiar legend of “prescriptions
accurately dispensed” when the onus of making up such a mixture could be
laid upon them.

In spite of the familiarity with the appearance of the creature that the
obtaining of its head and tail would suggest, the various authorities
differ very widely in describing it. Some writers say that dragons are
of “a yellow fierie colour, having sharp backs like saws,” and some tell
us that “their scales shine like silver.” Some dragons are said to have
wings and no feet, some again have both feet and wings, others have
neither one nor the other, and are only distinguished from the common
sort of serpents by the combs growing upon their heads. Father Pigafetta
in his book declares that “Mont Atlas hath plentie of dragons, grosse
of body, slow of motion, and in by ting or touching incurably venomous.
In Congo is a kind of dragons like in bygnesse unto rammes with wings,
having long tayles and divers jawes of teeth of blue and greene, painted
like scales, with two feete, and feede on rawe fleshe.” John Leo, in his
“History of Africa,” says that the dragon is the progeny of the eagle and
wolf. Others affirm that it is generated by the great heat of India, or
springs from the volcanoes of Ethiopia.

After reading about almost every possible variation of structure that
is open to a dragon, winged, serpentine, two-legged, four-legged, and
the like, it is rather quaint to find that Pliny feels that there is a
point after all where one must draw the line. He says that “in Ethiopia
there are produced as great dragons as in India, being twenty cubits
long. But I chiefly wonder at one thing: why Juba should think they were
crested.” This suggestion of the crass ignorance of Juba was certainly
a little hard on him, as when so very much was believed a crest was a
very little extra item to credit, besides as a matter of fact dragons as
such, Ethiopian or otherwise, were often described by ancient authorities
as having this feature. It really seems like accepting the sheeted
spectre of the country churchyard, and then growing sceptical because its
hollowed turnip head was still crowned with a little of the foliage that
rustic haste or indifference to the verities had failed to cut away.

Aldrovandus, in his “History of Serpents and Dragons,” published in 1640,
goes very thoroughly indeed into the subject.[105] The work is in folio
size, and the portion devoted to the dragon extends from pages 312 to
360. It must be duly noted that Aldrovandus entirely accepts the dragon
as a reality; that this is so is obvious from his dealing with it in
this volume instead of placing it in his “Historia Monstrorum.” The book
is written in Latin, and amongst the various sections concerning the
dragon we find Differentiæ, Forma et Descriptio, Mores, Locus, Antipathia
(unlike most other creatures treated by the old author, his vindictive
savagely forbids the usual chapter on Sympathia), and Usus in Medicina.
Fig. 19 is one of the draconic forms illustrated in the book; the
varieties given are very numerous, and of widely differing nature.

[Illustration: FIG. 19.]

Our ancestors used always to prescribe divers kinds of herb-teas to be
drunk in the Spring-time, and it is a curious example of instinct in
a reptile that the dragon likewise, whom he feels at this season of
the year a certain loathing of meat, physics himself into rude health
again with the juice of the wild lettuce. Many animals have, or at all
events had, if we may credit the wisdom of our forefathers, considerable
faith in the medicinal value of herbs. Thus pigeons and blackbirds when
suffering from loss of appetite eat bay leaves as a tonic. The bay leaf,
too, was a most valuable thing for internal application against the
poison of the chameleon, though the elephant when he had inadvertently
swallowed one of these creatures, a mistake that seems to have not
unfrequently happened, probably from the resemblance in colour of the
reptile to the foliage amongst which he was ensconced, pinned his faith
in the wild olive leaf.

As the toad, ugly and venomous, bore yet in popular belief a precious
jewel in its head, so we find in the writings of various authorities a
belief that the still uglier and more venomous dragon bore in like manner
the lustrous carbuncle. Jordanus tells us, for example, that in India the
dragons that there abound are thus gifted, a fact that the natives turn
to their advantage. “These dragons,” he declares, “grow exceeding big,
and cast forth from the mouth a most infectious breath, like the thickest
smoke rising from fire. These animals come together at the destined time,
develop wings, and begin to raise themselves in the air, and then, by the
judgment of God, being too heavy, they drop into a certain river which
issues from Paradise, and perish there. But all the regions round about
watch for the time of the dragons, and when they see that one has fallen
they wait for seventy days, and then go down and find the bare bones of
the dragon, and take the carbuncle which is rooted in the top of his
head.”

Even the dragon, however, may not be quite so black as he is painted,
for we read in one old author of a child in Arcadia that had a dragon
for its playmate. There was much affection between them, but presently a
considerable dread of the dragon’s powers gained possession of the boy,
and he compassed the brilliant idea of beguiling his companion well out
into the desert and then slipping away. In the very consummation of this
plan a new danger arose, as the stripling found himself in an ambush of
robbers, whereupon he was only too thankful to call out to his discarded
playmate, who immediately came to the rescue and very effectually
scattered his despoilers. At this point the history unfortunately stops,
but we may perhaps conclude that it follows on the lines of most stories
of the affections, and that “they lived happy ever after.” However this
may be, it is a charming narrative, and opens out quite a new trait of
dragon disposition.

Amongst the many strange creatures that were held to inhabit Ethiopia,
the griffins were perhaps the most conspicuous amidst the weird fauna of
that marvellous land. “Some men seyn,” and Maundevile in his quaint book
of travels fully endorses the idea, “that Griffounes han the Body upward
as an Egle and benethe as a Lyoun and treuly thei ben of that schapp.
But a Griffoun hathe the body more gret and is more strong thanne eight
Lyouns and more gret and stronger than an hundred Egles such as we han
amonge us. For a Griffoun ther wil bere, fleynge to his Nest, a gret Hors
or two Oxen yoked togidere as thei gon at the Plowghe.”

Chaucer, in the “Canterbury Tales,” says of one of his characters:—

    “Blake was his berd, and manly was his face,
    The cercles of his eyen in his hed
    They gloweden betwixten yelwe and red,
    And like a griffon loked he about.”

Ctesias describes the griffin in all sober earnestness as a bird with
four feet of the size of a wolf, and having the legs and claws of a lion,
their feathers being red upon the breast and black on the rest of the
body. Glanvil says of it: “the claws of a griffin are so large and ample
that he can seize an armed man as easily by the body as a hawk a little
bird.” The griffin is often met with in heraldry past and present, either
as a crest, charge, or supporter of the arms. A very familiar example of
its employment in the latter service may be seen in the arms of the City
of London, or exalted on lofty pedestal, where, in lieu of Temple Bar, it
marks the westward civic boundary. Shakespeare, Milton, and others of our
poets and writers, refer to the griffin.

Anyone reading the herbals of Gerard, Parkinson, and others, or the
various medical books of the Middle Ages, will scarcely have failed to
notice how frequently reference is made to the scorpion. In these later
days a man might well journey from John o’ Groats to the Land’s End, and
run no peril of an encounter, but in the earlier times we have referred
to, the sting of the scorpion was a very present dread, and numerous
remedies for it were devised. The beautiful blue forget-me-not of our
streams is in all herbals and floras till the beginning of this century
called the scorpion-grass,[106] from its supposed virtue as a cure, a
remedy that was supposed to be sufficiently indicated from its head of
flowers and buds being rolled round into some more or less satisfactory
resemblance to a scorpion’s tail. Cogan, in his “Haven of Health,” tells
how “a certaine Italian, by often smelling the Basill, had a scorpion
bred in his braine, and after vehement and long paines he died therof.”

In the “Newe Iewell of Health, gathered out of the best and most
approved Authors by that excellent Doctor Gesnerus,”[107] we find some
extraordinary preparations. Most of these are of a botanical nature,
but we also have “Oyle holy[108] prepared out of dead men’s bones, Oyle
or distilled lycour gotten out of the Gray, Oyle marveylous gotten out
of the Beuer, Oyle of frogges ryght profitable to such as are payned of
ye gout, Oyle of antes egges,” and many other strange remedies for the
ills that the flesh is heir to. Among them, a forerunner of the ideas
of Hahnemann, and the notion of like curing like, we find “Oyle of
Scorpion’s distilled against Poysons.” Apropos of the oil from dead men’s
bones, we may point out the special charm that our ancestors seemed to
find in anything associated with the charnel house—thus one favourite
remedy was the moss that grew on a dead man’s skull, another was a pill
compounded from the brains of a man that had been hanged; powder of mummy
in like manner was in high repute, and to those who found pill or powder
too nauseous a draught of spring water from the skull of a murdered man
was at once refreshing and health-giving. The following recipe[109] for
the cure of a wound seems to show that our forefathers had no great fear
of blood poisoning: “Take of the moss of the skull of a strangled man
two ounces, of the mumia of man’s blood one ounce and a halfe, of earth
wormes washed in water or wine and dryed, one ounce and a halfe, of the
fatte of a Boare two drams, of oyle of Turpintine two drams: pound them
and keepe them in a longe narrow pott, and dippe into the oyntment the
yron or wood, or some sallowe sticke made wet with blood in opening the
wound.” The medicine and surgery of the Middle Ages must have been a
powerful influence in checking redundance of population.

Toads were in great repute in sickness. “In time of common contagion,”
writes Sir Kenelm Digby in 1660, “men use to carry about with them the
powder of a toad, and sometimes a living toad or spider[110] shut up in
a box, which draws the contagious air, which otherwise would infect the
party,” and many other illustrations of their employment as preventives
or remedies might be given. The spider and the toad seem to have been
each regarded as most venomous creatures, and in many of the old remedies
one or other of them at will are recommended, either alternative being
regarded as equally efficacious; thus for whooping cough, if one cannot
find a toad to thrust up the chimney, two spiders in a walnut shell will
serve equally well.

There was held to be mortal antipathy between the toad and the spider,
and the result of a meeting between them was a conflict fatal to one or
both of the antagonists. The _Aster Tripolium_, a well-known English wild
plant, was originally called the toad-wort. “When a spider stings a toad,
and the toad is becoming vanquished, and the spider stings it thickly and
frequently, and the toad cannot avenge itself, it bursts assunder,” at
least, the author of the “Ortus Sanitatis” says it does, but whether this
arises from venom or from vexation he does not explain. “If such a burst
toad be near the toad-wort, it chews it and becomes sound again; but if
it happens that the wounded toad cannot get to the plant, another toad
fetches it and gives it to the wounded one.” Topsell, in his “Natural
History,” vouches for this having been actually witnessed.

That the skin of the toad gives forth an acrid secretion which serves
the creature as a defence is established beyond doubt, but its hurtful
properties have been greatly exaggerated. Dryden refers to the lady “who
squeezed a toad into her husband’s wine,” the inference being she was in
heart murderous. Spenser makes Envy ride upon a wolf and chew “between
his cankred teeth a venomous tode,” while Diodorus declares that toads
were generated by the heat of the sun from the dead bodies of ducks
putrefying in mud.[111]

Lily, in his “Euphues,” declares that “the foule toade hath a faire stone
in his head,” an idea that Shakespeare has immortalized in the beautiful
lines that remind us how:—

    “Sweet are the uses of adversity,
    Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
    Yet wears a precious jewel in its head.”

The crapaudine, or toad-stone, is of a dull brown colour. It was believed
to possess sovereign virtue against poison from its changing colour
when in the presence of any noxious thing: hence it was often worn as a
protection in finger rings. Figs. 20 and 21 are good examples of this
use. They are both from rings in the Londesborough collection. The belief
in the virtues of the toad-stone was not only popular in England, but
was one of the fallacies accepted throughout Europe. Though the stone is
well-known to geologists as a variety of trap-rock, the accepted belief
was that it was found only in the head of the toad. Fenton, writing in
1569, affirms that “there is found in the heads of old and great toads
a stone which they call borax or stelon,” and Lupton, some fifty years
afterwards, writes: “the crepaudia or toad-stone is very valuable,
touching any part envenomed by the bite of a rat, wasp, spider, or other
poisonous beast it ceases the pain and swelling thereof.” Ben Jonson
also refers to it in his play of “The Fox.” Albertus Magnus, writing
about 1275, adds the great wonder that this stone when taken out of the
creature’s head has the figure of a toad upon it, while others declare
that the stone itself is of the form of a toad. It is a treasure not
easily to be procured, for the toad “envieth much that man should haue
that stone,” declares Lupton, the author of “A Thousand Notable Things,”
hence it was very necessary to beware of useless counterfeits, and this
old writer gives us a ready means of detecting them. “To know,” says he,
“whether the toad-stone called crepaudia be the righte and perfect stone
or not, holde the stone before a toad so that he may see it, and if it
be a right and true stone the toad will leap towards it, and make as
though he would snatch it from you,” a proceeding that must have required
a considerable amount of nerve on the part of anyone duly impressed with
the fear of the deadly venom of the creature.

[Illustration: FIG. 20.]

[Illustration: FIG. 21.]

The same ancient authority on the subject very obligingly gives “a rare
good way to get the stone out of the toad.” It suffices to “put a great
or overgrown toad, first bruised in divers places, into an earthen pot:
put the same into an ant’s hillocke, and cover the same with earth, which
toad at length the ants will eat, so that the bones of the toad and
stone will be left in the pot.” This certainly seems simplicity itself,
but, unfortunately, most authorities agree in saying that the stone,
to have any real virtue, should be obtained while the creature is yet
alive. Porta has his doubts on the whole matter, nevertheless he gives
some hints that might be of value to those of greater faith. “There is a
stone,” he says, “called Chelonites—the French name it Crapodina, which
they report to be found in the head of a great old Toad; and if it can be
gotten from him while he is alive, it is soveraign against poyson. They
say it is taken from living toads in a red cloth, in which colour they
are much delighted; for while they sport themselves upon the scarlet the
stone droppeth out of their head and falleth through a hole made in the
middle into a box set under for the purpose, else they will suck it up
again. But I never met with a faithfull person who said that he had found
it: nor could I ever find one, though I have cut up many. Nevertheless,
I will affirm this for truth that those stones which are pretended to
be taken out of Toads are minerals. But the value is certain: if any
swallow it down with poyson it will preserve him from the malignity of
it, for it runneth about with the poyson and asswageth the power of it
that it becometh vain and of no force.” Boethius tells us how he watched
throughout a whole night an old toad that he had placed on a piece
of scarlet cloth, but is obliged to confess that nothing occurred to
“gratify the great pangs of his whole night’s restlessness,” as the toad
entirely declined to be lured into any frivolities that might cause him
the loss of his precious jewel.

Browne, in his exposure of the various popular errors current in his
time, presently arrives at this belief, but finds himself unable to
express any very definite opinion, and takes refuge in compromise.
“As for the stone,” quoth he, “commonly called a Toad-stone, which is
presumed to be found in the head of that animall, we first conceive it
not a thing impossible, nor is there any substantiall reason why in a
Toad there may not be found such hard and lapideous concretions; for
the like we daily observe in the heads of Fishes, as Codds, Carps, and
Pearches. Though it be not impossible, yet it is surely very rare, as
we are induced to believe from inquiry of our own; from the triall of
many who have been deceived and the frustrated search of Porta, who,
upon the explorement of many, could scarce finde one.[112] Nor is it
only of rarity, but may be doubted whether it be of existency, or really
any such stone in the head of a Toad at all. For though Lapidaries and
questonary enquires affirm it, yet the writers of Mineralls and natural
speculators are of another belief, conceiving the stones which bear this
name to be a Minerall concretion, not to be found in animalls but in
fields. What therefore best reconcileth these divided determinations may
be a middle opinion; that of these stones some are minerall and to be
found in the earth; some animall, to be met with in Toads, at least by
the induration of their cranies. The first are many and manifold, to be
found in Germany[113] and other parts, the last are fewer in number, and
in substance not unlike the stones in Carps’ heads. This is agreeable
unto the determination of Aldrovandus, and is also the judgment of the
learned Spigelius in his Epistle unto Pignorius.” If only a toad with an
indurated cranium could be discovered, everything would fall into its
right place!

Through the Middle Ages men believed that the toad exercised the power
of fascination not only upon its insect prey, but upon all other
creatures, including man himself, and even so far back as the days of
the classical writers it was a fully accepted belief that whosoever had
the misfortune to be looked squarely in the eyes by a toad would find
that, basilisk-like, the gaze to him meant death.

The belief that the crocodile shed tears over his prey is a very ancient
one; various motives have been assigned for this grief, but the generally
accepted belief is that the whole proceeding is a fraud, perpetrated
with the idea of attracting sympathetic passers-by within reach of his
formidable jaws; hence he has been accepted as a symbol of dissimulation.
We get an excellent illustration of this in Shakespeare’s King Henry
VIII., where Henry is said by Queen Margaret to be—

    “Too full of foolish pity; and Gloster’s show
    Beguiles him, as the mournful crocodile
    With sorrow snares relenting passengers.”[114]

Spenser, in the Faerie Queene,[115] deals equally clearly and explicitly
with the same fancy in the lines—

    “As when a wearie traveiler, that strayes
    By muddy shore of broad seven-mouthed Nile,
    Unweeting of the perillous wandring wayes,
    Doth meete a cruell craftie Crocodile,
    Which in false grefe hyding his harmefull guile,
    Doth weepe full sore, and sheddeth tender teares;
    The foolish man, that pities all this while
    His mournful plight, is swallowed up unawares,
    Forgetfull of his owne that mindes an other’s cares.”

“Thereupon,” ungallantly adds an old writer, “came this proverb that
is applied unto women when they weep. Lachrymæ Crocodili, the meaning
whereof is, that as the Crocodile when he crieth goeth about most to
deceive, so doth a woman most commonly when she weepeth.” Thus Othello
misanthropically exclaims—

    “If that the earth could teem with woman’s tears,
    Each drop she falls would prove a crocodile.”

In the same spirit Barnfield, in his “Cassandra,” written in the year
1595, has the following passage:—

    “He, noble lord, fearlesse of hidden treason,
    Sweetely salutes this weeping Crocodile;
    Excusing every cause with instant reason
    They kept him from her sight so long a while;
    She faintly pardons him; smiling by art,
    For life was in her lookes, death in her hart.”

The author of the “Speculum Mundi,” who is ever seeking a moral[116] or
an opportunity of improving the occasion, declares that “the crocodile
when he hath devoured a man and eaten all up but the head, will sit and
weep over it[117] as if he expressed a great portion of sorrow for his
cruel feast, but it is nothing so, for when he weeps it is because his
hungrie paunch wants such another prey. And from hence the proverb took
beginning, viz. Crocodiles’ tears; which is then verified when one weeps
cunningly without sorrow, dissembling heaviness out of craftinesse; like
unto many rich men’s heirs who mourn in their gowns when they laugh in
their sleeves; or like to other dissemblers of the like nature who have
sorrow in their eyes, but joy and craftiness in their hearts.” However
this may be, the supposititious tears of the crocodile have been turned
to abundant literary and moral account. The tears of the crocodile were
supposed, according to some who were great authorities in their day and
generation, to crystallize into gems, but as supposititious tears could
only produce supposititious gems the actual value would be but small.

In an early Bestiary it states that “if a crocodile comes across a man
it kills him, but it remains inconsolable the rest of its life;” but
why it suffers this life-long remorse we are not told. This old writer
also tells us of the hydra, “a very wise animal who understands well
how to injure the crocodile.” The _modus operandi_ is very simple, and
the injury inflicted seems beyond question:—“When the hydra sees the
crocodile go to sleep it covers itself over with slimy mud, and wriggles
itself into the crocodile’s mouth, penetrates into its stomach, and then
tears it assunder.” The dolphin appears to be another foe to be by no
means despised. Pliny tells us that when these desire to pass up the Nile
the crocodiles, who regard the river as their peculiar preserve, greatly
resent their presence, and endeavour to drive them back. As the dolphins
fully realize that they are no match for their foes in fair fight, they
take refuge in their superior activity and craft, and having a dorsal fin
as sharp edged as a knife, they swim swiftly beneath the crocodiles, and
as the under portion of these creatures is unprotected by the armour that
is so conspicuous on the upper parts of their bodies, with one sharp gash
they rip the crocodile completely open.

It was a Greek superstition that beneath the visible exterior of the seal
was concealed a woman, and that when a swimmer ventured too far he ran
great risk of being seized by a seal and strangled. The creature then
carried the lifeless body to some desert shore and wept over it, from
which arose the popular saying that when a woman shed false tears she
cried like a seal. As the desert shore implies absence of spectators, it
seems difficult to tell what authority there is for the statement as to
what went on there, and even when this initial difficulty is overcome
it seems equally impossible to suggest any satisfactory reason for the
gruesome proceedings of this weird woman-seal or seal-woman, either in
the preliminary murderous attack or the subsequent lamentation. Whatever
strange idea may have originally started the story, it is a curious
parallel to that of the weeping crocodile.

The salamander received its full mythical development in mediæval
days, though the older writers refer to it occasionally, and we note
in the writings of such men as Pliny the first steps taken towards the
erection of that fabric of fancy and superstition that later on became so
conspicuous. The ancients asserted that the salamander was never seen in
bright weather, but only made its appearance during heavy rain, and that
it was of so frigid a nature that if it did but touch fire it quenched it
as completely as if ice were piled thereon. It was, moreover, declared
to be so venomous that the mere climbing of a tree by the animal is
amply sufficient to poison all the fruit, so that those who afterwards
eat thereof perished without remedy, and that if it entered a river the
stream was so effectually poisoned that all who drank thereof must die.
Glanvil, an English writer in the thirteenth century, roundly declares as
historic fact that four thousand men and two thousand horses of the army
of Alexander the Great were killed by drinking from a stream that had
been thus infected.

It was in the Middle Ages an article of faith that the salamander was
bred and nourished in fire,[118] hence when the creature is represented
it is always placed in the midst of flames. Our illustration, fig.
22, from Porta, is a fair typical example. How the creature should be
nourished in the flames, while its mere contact with them suffices to
extinguish them, seems a practical difficulty, but the contradiction
of ideas does not seem to have troubled our forefathers, and the two
mutually destructive statements rest side by side equally unquestioned
in the writings of all the authorities. Pliny, having his doubts, thrust
a salamander into the fire, and the unfortunate victim of science was
quickly shrivelled up and consumed.[119] One would have thought that this
crucial test of actual experiment would have settled the whole matter,
and reduced the fire-extinguishing theory to oblivion, but it takes much
more than that to kill an old and well-established belief, as we may see
even in our own day where many superstitions still flourish in spite of
common sense, education, and experience arrayed against them.

[Illustration: FIG. 22.]

De Thaun in his “Bestiary” declares that “the Salamander is of such a
nature that if it come by chance where there shall be burning fire it
shall at once extinguish it. The beast is so cold and of such a quality
that fire will not be able to burn where it shall enter, nor will
trouble happen where it shall be.” This latter statement is entirely
at variance with the general belief in its deadliness, but all these
statements are dwelt on, exaggerated, or suppressed, as occasion and the
moral to be deduced requires. As in this particular case the pious writer
desired to see in the creature an emblem of Azarias, Ananias and Misael
praising God without hurt in the fiery furnace, any reference to its
noxious properties was clearly out of place, and on the strength of this
association it even receives a somewhat negative form of commendation on
its virtues as a peace-producer. This we are bound to say is the only
good word we have ever seen ascribed by any of the writers of the past to
this unfortunate creature, and it beyond doubt only receives even this
solitary commendation because the exigencies of what the old writers
thought the greater truth appeared to call for it.

Asbestos was, from its incombustible property, long held to be the
wool of the salamander. In the Middle Ages popular imagination was
greatly exercised over a mysterious Ruler in the East known as Prester
John. He was held to be a Christian, and to bear sway in Asia over a
widely-extended empire, but the stories of returning travellers showed
that the idea had no foundation in fact, and the scene of the monarchy
was then shifted to Abyssinia. The first reference to this sovereign
would appear to be in the Chronicle of one Otto of Freisingin, who wrote
about the middle of the twelfth century, and afterwards allusions to
this mysterious monarch frequently recur. In the Chronicle of Albericus,
about a hundred years later than that of Otto, we read that “Presbyter
Joannes sent his wonderful letter to various Christian princes, and
especially to Manuel of Constantinople, and Frederic, the Roman Emperor.”
In this letter, a very lengthy one, he claims to be Lord of Lords, and
to receive the tribute and homage of seventy-two kings. “In the three
Indies,” saith he, “our Magnificence rules, and our land extends beyond
India: it reaches toward the sunrise over the wastes, and it trends
towards deserted Babylon, near the Tower of Babel.” Whatever of credence,
much or little, we may give to this letter, it is at least interesting
to us as showing the set of opinion on, amongst other matters, things
zoological, and therefore comes within the scope of our book. He gives
many details as to the plants, the gold, and precious stones, and
so forth, and also states that “our land is the home of elephants,
dromedaries, camels, crocodiles, metacollinarum, cammetennus, tensevetes,
white and red lions, white bears, crickets, griffins, lamias, wild
horses, wild men, men with horns, one-eyed, men with eyes before and
behind, centaurs, fauns, satyrs, and pygmies; it is the home, too, of
the phœnix, and of nearly all living animals. In one of our lands, hight
Zone, are worms called in our tongue salamanders. These worms can only
live in fire, and they build cocoons like silkworms, which are unwound by
the ladies of our palace and spun into cloth and dresses, which are worn
by our Exaltedness. These dresses, when we would wash them and clean,
are cast into flames.” Browne, in his exposure of vulgar errors, gravely
denies the existence of wool on a salamander at all, truly pointing out
that “it is a kinde of Lizard, a quadruped corticated and depilous, that
is, without woolle, furre, or haire,” an altogether hopeless animal to
shear.

Porta mentions that some peculiar creatures called “Pyragones be
generated in the fire: certain little flying beasts so called because
they live and are nourished in the fire, and yet they fly up and down in
the air. This is strange; but that is more strange, that as soon as ever
they come out of the fire into any cold air presently they die.” Porta
of course uses the word presently in the older sense of at this present
moment, so that it really is, as he says, a wonder that these creatures
are able to fly about in the air, when its effect upon them is immediate
death. We have ourselves been gravely told that if the fires at the great
iron-works in the Midland Counties were not occasionally extinguished
an uncertain but fearful something would be generated in them, and it
seems only natural that after the imagination has peopled earth and sea
with strange monsters, and placed in the upper regions of the air the
paradise-birds and other creatures that derived all needful sustenance
from that element alone, that the remaining element, fire, should also
have its peculiar inhabitants and monsters.

The chamæleon was for centuries supposed to live only on air, while its
property of changing colour under the influence of its surroundings was
greatly exaggerated.

Shakespeare, the great storehouse of mediæval folk-lore, makes Speed, in
the Two Gentlemen of Verona, exclaim:—

    “Tho’ the chamæleon Love can live on the air,
    I’m one that am nourish’d by my victuals,”

while Gloster, in King Henry VI., boasts that he could “add colours to
the chamæleon.”

Gower, in like manner, asserts that vainglory is

    “Lich unto the Camelion
    Whiche upon every sondry hewe
    That he beholt he mote newe
    His colour.”

Hence, again, other moralists declare that men and women inconstant and
fickle are like unto chamæleons.

It has been asserted by Avicenna that a decoction of chamæleon put into a
bath will make him green-coloured that stayeth long therein, but that by
degrees this verdant hue will pass away, and the man recover his natural
colour, while Porta declares that “with the Gall of a Chamæleon cut into
water Wheezles will be called together.” Why anyone should want to call a
wheezle together he does not explain, so that the receipt, simple as it
is, seems to be of no great practical value.

It has been rather a disgusting belief that if a man will lick a lizard
all over he will not only be safe from the personal inconvenience of
having a lizard go down his throat some day when he might be sleeping in
the fields, but that he will have the power henceforward of healing any
sore to which he applies his tongue.

Our ancestors held many strange beliefs respecting serpents and
snakes—one of these was they were created from hair, “women’s hairs
especially”—as one old writer is careful to emphasize—“because they are
naturally longer than men’s.” One old authority, our oft-quoted Porta,
hesitates not to say that “we have experienced also that the hairs of a
horse’s mane laid in the waters become serpents, and our friends have
tried the same,” and he goes on to mention as a truism to be almost
apologized for from its self-evident character, that “no man denies
but that serpents are easily gendred of man’s flesh, specially of his
marrow.” Ælianus in like manner declares that a dead man’s marrow, being
putrified, becomes a serpent. Florentinus affirms that basil chewed and
laid in the sun will engender serpents.[120]

Another strange idea was that serpents conferred the power of
invisibility. Thus John Aubrey, an antiquary and author, and one of the
earliest Fellows of the Royal Society, gives in full faith the following
recipe: “Take on Midsummer night at xii, when all the planets are above
the earth, a serpent, and kill him, and skinne him, and dry him in the
shade, and bring it to a powder. Hold it in your hand, and you will be
invisible.” His book entitled “Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme” is a
perfect storehouse of old-world superstitions, an inexhaustible mine of
quaint imaginings.

The “pretious stone” theory that we have already encountered in one or
two other cases, the toad being the most notable, is in full force again
amongst the various strange notions concerning serpents. The recipe
for its possession, given by Jacobus Hollerius, is simplicity itself,
as it is merely necessary that the “snake be tyed by the tayle with a
corde, and hanged up, and a vessell full of water set below; after a
certayne time he will avoyde out of his mouth a stone.” The stone is
of great medicinal value; for instance, “it fullye and wholelye helpes
the partye that hath the dropsye,” by merely being attached to the body
of the sufferer, and in divers other ways that we need not stay to
particularize, proves itself a stone of price. Jordanus, amongst his
other Indian experiences, came across serpents with horns, evidently the
cerastes or horned viper, and others with precious stones. Tennant tells
us that the Cingalese believe that the stomach of the cobra contains a
stone of inestimable value, and this belief, absurd as we deem it, is
really hardly more far-fetched than such a story as pearls being found in
oyster-shells would appear to a man who heard it for the first time.

Snakes and serpents, like most other repulsive things, have found
their way into the pharmacopœia and the menu. Galen tells us that the
Egyptians used to eat vipers as other people did eels, and it is a
very old-world superstition that viper’s flesh is an antidote to the
viper’s poison. In classic and mediæval days a famous remedy, originally
known as mithridate or theriaca, and later on as Venice treacle, was
held to owe much of its virtue as a vermifuge and antidote to all kinds
of poison to the vipers that formed one of its ingredients. It was
retained in the London Pharmacopœia until about a hundred years ago. Its
constituent parts changed somewhat from time to time; at one period we
see it contained seventy-three ingredients. The vipers were added to the
horrible mess by Andromachus, the physician to the Emperor Nero,[121]
and became a leading element in the prescription. The name treacle was
at one time applied to any confection or syrup, and it is only in these
latter days that the name has become associated exclusively with the
syrup of molasses: it is derived from the Greek Therion, a name given
to the viper, so that the schoolboys’ lunch of bread and treacle is the
direct etymological outcome of the abominable adder’s broth of the Roman
emperor.[122]

One often sees in these ancient remedies a foreshadowing of the
homœopathic notion of like to like; thus Porta prescribes “a present
remedy” for the poison of the viper, declaring that “the viper itself,
if you slay her, and strip off her skin, cut off her head and tail, cast
away all her entrails, boil her like an Eele, and give her to one that
she hath bitten, it will cure him,” but in another place he says “for
serpent’s bites I have found nothing more excellent than the earth which
is brought from the isle of Malta, for the least dust of it put into
their mouths kills them presently.” There is evidently here some sort of
connection endeavoured to be established between the escape of St. Paul
while in Malta from the evil effects of the poison of a viper and this
present prescription, and it no doubt arose from the old legend that,
like St. Patrick in Ireland, St. Paul, after his experience of them,
banished all snakes from the island. Once granted that a serpent cannot
live on the soil of Malta, it follows almost as a matter of course that a
little of this same soil administered to it anywhere the wide world over
will prove fatal to it. The recipe is, nevertheless, a little vague, as
it deals exclusively with the destruction of the serpent, which is not at
all the same thing as the restoration to health of the sufferer from its
poison fangs.

Prevention being better than cure, the hint that Cogan gives in his
“Haven of Health” should prove of value. “The setting of Lauender within
the house in floure pots must needes be very wholesome, for it driueth
away venemous wormes, both by strawing and by the sauour of it,” and
he adds that “being drunke in wine it is a remedie against poyson.”
Tusser, in his book on Husbandry, gives a long list of “strowing herbes,”
their fragrance and remedial value being held in high esteem by our
forefathers:—

    “No daintie flowre or herbe that growes on grownd,
    No arborett with painted blossoms drest,
    And smelling sweete, but there it might be fownd
    To bud out faire, and throwe her sweet smels al around.”[123]

The bunches of flowers that are still presented to the Judges on the
opening of the Law Courts are the graceful and now happily needless
developments of the bunches of herbs that were once placed on their desks
to avert the dangers of the gaol fever, that with its noxious breath
slew not the hapless prisoners alone, but the judges on the bench, and
administered wild justice on all alike for the contempt of sanitary
laws, and for the brutality that was rampant and supreme.[124]

Fennel was, according to our forefathers, held in esteem by the serpents
themselves, and one scarcely wonders that this should be so, if it be
true that “so soone as they taste of it they become young again, and
with the juice thereof repair their sight.” How this juice is applied
externally by the serpent is not explained, but it very naturally
suggested the idea to the medical men of the Middle Ages that what was
so good for serpents might prove equally valuable to suffering humanity,
hence “to repair a man’s sight that is dim” nothing better than fennel
could be found, though they hesitated to promise also to the human
subject rejuvenescence.

The Syrians, according to one venerable authority, had a most singular
defence for their country, the land being full of snakes that would do
no harm to the natives even if they trod upon them, but which eagerly
assailed the people of any other nation and destroyed them. Naturally
therefore the Syrians cherished such a valuable protection, though such
a state of things would hardly accord with modern notions of free trade
and the intercourse of nations. The discovery of one wonder frequently
leads to knowledge of others, and Aristotle has a companion story in his
“History of Animals,” of scorpions that in Caria sting to death the
natives of the country, but do no harm to strangers. In like manner,
according to Maundevile, in the island called Silha, wherever that may
be, “the men of that yle seen comonely that the Serpentes and the wilde
Bestes of that Countree nee will not don non harm, ne touchen with
evylle, no strange man that entreth into that Contree, but only to men
that ben born of the same Countree.” This differential treatment seems
distinctly hard on the aborigines.[125]

“It is observable,” quoth the author of the “Miracles of Art and Nature,”
that “in Crete there is bred no Serpents or Venomous Beasts or Worms,
Ravenous or hurtful Creatures, so their Sheep graze very securely without
any Shepheard; yet if a Woman happen to bite a Man anything hard he will
hardly be cured of it,” a statement which brings forth the very natural
conclusion that “if this be true, then the last part of the Priviledge
foregoing (of breeding no hurtful Creature) must needs be false.”

Amongst various familiar country beliefs lasting even to the present day
is the one summed up in the well-known expression, “deaf as an adder.”
It has for centuries been an accepted belief that the adder lays one ear
upon the ground, and closes the other with its tail, and it doubtless has
its origin in that passage in the psalms of David where it states that
“the deaf adder stoppeth her ears, and will not heed the voice of the
charmer, charm he never so wisely,” and we meet with this idea over and
over again in our own literature. Thus Shakespeare writes in King Henry
VI.—

    “What! art thou, like the adder, waxen deaf?
    Be poisonous too.”

And, again, in his Troilus and Cressida we find the passage—

    “Pleasure and revenge have ears more deaf than adders.”

In Orlando Furioso, too, we find an interesting reference to the old
fancy:—

    “He flies me now, nor more attends my pain
    Than the deaf adder heeds the charmer’s strain.”

Many varieties of serpents were known to the ancients, and some of them,
as the Cerastes, are quite recognizable from the descriptions given, but
of others we have no means of identification. The two-headed Amphisbæna,
for example, that was credited with such venomous malignity that nothing
but twice the normal power of offence sufficed for its deadly attack.
The Amphisbæna was an article of faith with Nicander, who was the first
to introduce it to the scientific world of his name, and it is referred
to by Galen, Pliny, Ælian, and many other ancient writers, who gravely
describe this especially objectionable reptile, “a small kind of serpent
which moveth backward and forward, and hath two heads, one at either
extreme.” The creature is now entirely lost to science.

[Illustration: FIG. 23.]

Aldrovandus, in his history of serpents, gives an illustration of the
basilisk, a serpentine form, but having eight legs, and on its head
a crown. Another of his figures shows us a serpentine form again,
this time with two legs, the moderation in this direction being fully
compensated by the gift of seven heads of human form, while another has
the serpent-like body, but to this are added two legs and feet like those
of a cock, and the creature has six cocks’ heads. All these creatures
are put forth and described in all seriousness, so it is evident that
the author must either himself have been excessively credulous, or that
he must have expected to find his readers so. It is manifest that such
inventions are of the lamest possible type. Nothing could be easier or
more fatuous than to fill a folio volume with serpents having three cats’
heads, five lions’ heads, seven bisons’ heads, or twenty rats’ heads, and
distribute legs in the same liberal and senseless manner. His drawing,
fig. 23, of a two-headed lizard is the nearest approach we can give our
readers to the Amphisbæna.

Burton tells us that in Samogitia, a small province in Poland, the
people nourish amongst them “a kind of four-footed serpents, above three
handfuls in length, which they worship as their household gods, and if
mischance do happen to any of their family, it is imputed presently
to some want of due observations of these ugly creatures.” Some old
writers tell us of hairy serpents, and depict a thing something like the
well-known larva of the tiger-moth, the caterpillar popularly known as
the “woolly bear,” and familiar enough to all dwellers in the country,
the only difference, though that a very serious one, being that the
woolly bear is barely three inches long, while the hairy serpents are
stretched to any number of feet that the credulity of the narrator will
permit.

[Illustration: FIG. 24.]

Fig. 24 is a facsimile from one of the illustrations in Munster’s “de
Africæ regionibus,” and represents the sort of thing that he would have
us believe was to be found in his days in Africa, that great home of the
weird and mysterious. The perspective effect of the coils of the upper
creature, as they recede in the distance towards the horizon, suggests
a terrific length, something far exceeding any of the possibilities of
the present day, but this may be only a slip of draughtmanship, or a
polite desire on the part of the two-headed reptile not to crowd up its
three-headed companion.

The asp, from being freely found in Egypt and other parts of North
Africa, was well known to the naturalists of Greece and Rome, and its
deadly nature fully understood, though the facts are perhaps rather
against them when they assert that they are such affectionate creatures
that they are always found in pairs and cannot live without their mates.
We are told that should one of the pair be killed, this sweet connubial
bliss is exchanged for deadly ferocity and instant revenge. The unhappy
man is closely pursued and relentlessly tracked, and finds no safety
amongst his fellows, as the avenger knows him from all others, and
will not be turned aside. Distance is no object, and difficulties no
hindrance, and all that the luckless individual can do is to take to his
heels with all celerity, and at the earliest opportunity embark in a boat
or swim a river, and thus shake off his relentless pursuer.

Democritus tells us that if we mingle the blood of certain birds together
a serpent will be engendered. Whoso eateth of this serpent shall know the
language of birds, and be able to join in the conversation of any or all
of the great feathered host, singing with the lark, cawing with the rook,
hooting with the owl, and being thoroughly conversant with all that
passes between them.

Maundevile tells us, in his wonderful “Voiage and Travaile,” of an island
where one finds “a kynde of Snayles that ben so grete that many persones
may loggen hem in hur Schelles, as men woulde done in a litylle Hous”—a
sufficiently striking feature in the landscape of that now unknown land.

Snails entered largely into the rustic Materia Medica, and not only
indeed into rural practice but into the most courtly and exclusive
circles, for we find Sir John Floyer, the physician to Charles II.,
prescribing thus for dulness of hearing: “Take a grey snaile, pricke
him, and putt ye water which comes from him into ye eare and stop it
with black woole, and it will cure.” He left behind him a folio volume
of such-like valuable recipes, and the manuscript may yet be seen in the
Cathedral Library at Lichfield. He was a native of that city.

Spiders were also deemed of great remedial value. When a child has
whooping cough, one of the parents should catch a spider and hold it over
the head of the patient, repeating three times, “Spider, as you waste
away, whooping cough no longer stay.” The spider must then be hung up in
a bag over the mantel-piece, and when it has dried up the cough will have
disappeared.[126]

Burton, the author of the “Anatomy of Melancholy,” writes: “Being in
the country in the vacation time, not many years ago, at Lindley in
Leicestershire, my father’s house, I first observed this amulet of a
spider in a nutshell wrapped in silk, so applied for an ague by my
mother. This methought was most absurd and ridiculous. I could see no
warrant for it, till at length, rambling amongst authors, as I often
do, I found this very medicine in Dioscorides, approved by Matthiolus,
and I began to have a better opinion of it, and to give more credit to
amulets when I saw it in some parties answer to experience.” Gerarde,
in his “Historie of Plants,” found that such a remedy, however good
in theory, however supported by ancient authority, would not bear the
strain of actual use. He shall however speak for himself in his own
refreshingly quaint way. “It is needlesse,” he writes, “here to alledge
those things that are added touching the little wormes or magots, found
in the heades of the Teasell,[127] which are to be hanged about the
necke, for they are nothing else but most vaine and trifling toies, as
my selfe haue proved a little before, hauing a most grieuous ague, and
of long continuance: notwithstanding physicke charmes, these wormes
hanged about my necke, spiders put into a nutshell and divers such
foolish toies that I was constrained to take by phantasticke people’s
procurement: notwithstanding, I say, my helpe came from God himselfe, for
these medicines, and all other such things, did me no good at all.” It is
passing strange that such so-called remedies, so easily proved valueless,
should have held their ground for centuries, and are doubtless even now
in the byways of our land as firmly believed in as they were nigh two
thousand years ago. When one of our own family was ailing, a woman in the
little Wiltshire village where we were then staying strongly advised us
to drop some peas down the well as an infallible means of restoration to
health!

Bees were held to be bred out of putrefying carcases, an idea that
doubtless arose in very early times, as we find it referred to by Virgil
and other ancient authors, and the Biblical story of the swarm of bees
found by Sampson in the carcase of the lion that he slew would be held as
confirmation, though anyone reading the story[128] carefully would see
that no such inference could be drawn from it. Many weeks had elapsed
between the slaying of the lion and the discovery of the honey, ample
time for the birds and beasts of prey to have cleared away the flesh, and
for the heat of the sun to have dried up all putrefaction and rendered
the skeleton a sufficiently cleanly and suitable place for the wild bees
to form their combs within. Herodotus tells us that when the Amathusians
revenged themselves on Onesilus, by whom they had been besieged, by
cutting off his head and hanging it over one of their city gates, the
skull presently alone remained, and in this hollow chamber a swarm of
bees settled and filled it with honeycomb.

The fourth Georgic of Virgil, which is devoted to the subject of bees,
gives account of a simple method whereby the race of bees, if diminished
or lost, might be replenished. He speaks of it as an art practised in
Egypt, and it is easy to see that it originated in accounts of bees
swarming in the dead bodies of animals. The process was to kill a young
bullock by stopping up his nostrils, so that the skin should be unbroken
by any wound, and then leaving it for nine days in a position where it
would be undisturbed, when:—

    “Behold a prodigy, for from within
    The broken bowels and the bloated skin,
    A buzzing sound of bees the ear alarms:
    Straight issuing through the sides assembling swarms.
    Dark as a cloud they make a wheeling flight,
    Then on a neighbouring tree descending, light.
    Like a large cluster of black grapes they show,
    And make a large dependence from the bough.”[129]

In this account we see clearly enough that the belief in the generation
of the bees from the putrefying body is frankly accepted. The author of
the “Speculum Mundi,” hundreds of years after the Georgics were written,
declares that a dead horse breeds wasps, that from the body of an ass
proceed humble bees, while a mule produces hornets. Those who would
have bees must seek them in a dead calf, though he adds the curious
limitation, “if the west winde blow.” He goes on to say “whether the bees
in Samson’s dead lion were bred anywhere else no man knoweth.” As an
Englishman, more familiar with the possibilities of a dead calf than with
those of a dead lion, he declines to commit himself to an opinion as to
what is or is not possible in far distant lands over sea.[130]

The strange association of ideas that we have seen in many other
instances may be well seen again in the notion that if one pounds up
those luminous creatures of the night, glowworms, the result will be an
ink that will render any writing performed by its aid visible in the
dark. Winstanley, in his “Pathway to Knowledge,” gives a simple receipt
for the manufacture of this useful ink, and other writers are content
to copy him, or each other, in the laudable desire to spread abroad the
knowledge of this luminous fluid. One can easily realize that such a
preparation might at times be really very useful.

Turning, in conclusion, our attention to the creatures of sea and stream,
we at once encounter the favourite mediæval theory that all creatures
of the land had their marine counterparts. “There is nothing,” says the
comparatively modern writer, Camden, “bred in any part of Nature, but
the same is in the sea;” while Olaus Magnus affirms that “there be fishes
like to dogs, cows, calves, horses, eagles, dragons, and what not.”
These mysterious denizens of the deep were an unfailing resource in the
romances and poems of the Middle Ages, and an article of faith with the
writers on natural history. On the Assyrian slabs we see the monster
“upward man and downward fish,” while the mermaid we all recognize as a
most familiar instance of the presence of creatures at least semi-human
in the broad and mysterious expanse of ocean. Bœwulf, the Saxon poet,
writes of “the sea-wolf of the abyss, the mighty sea-woman.” The
quotation is not altogether complimentary in its sentiment: no lady of
one’s acquaintance would feel flattered on being addressed as a sea-wolf.
But while a certain halo of romance has in these later days gathered
round the idea of the mermaid, those who really believed in her gave her
credit for deeds considerably more heinous than combing her flowing hair
in the sunlight, since her beauty was a snare and destruction to all who
came within its fatal influence.

Sir Thomas Browne, in his merciless dissection of the vulgar beliefs of
his day, writes, with his accustomed quaintness and equally accustomed
sound common sense, “that all Animals of the Land are in their kinde in
the Sea, although received as a Principle, is a tenet very questionable
and that will admit of restraint. For some in the Sea are not to be
matcht by any enquiry at Land and hold those shapes which terrestrious
formes approach not, as may be observed in the Moonfish and the severall
sorts of Raias, Torpedos, Oysters, and many more, and some there are
in the Land which were never mentioned to be in Sea, as Panthers,
Hyænas, Cammells, Molls, and others, which carry no name in Ichthology,
nor are to be found in the exact descriptions of Rondoletius, Gesner,
and Aldrovandus. Again, though many there be which make out their
nominations, as the Sea-serpents and others, yet there are also very
many that bear the names of Animalls at Land, which hold no resemblance
in corporall configuration, wherein while some are called the Fox, the
Dog, or Frog-fish, and are known by common names with those at Land,
as their describers attest, they receive not these appellations from a
totall similitude in figure, but any concurrence in common accidents,
in colour, condition, or single conformation. As for Sea-Horses, which
much confirm this assertion in their common descriptions, they are but
Grotesco delineations which fill up empty spaces in Maps, and meer
pictoriall inventions, not any Physicall shapes. That which the Ancients
named Hippocampus is a little animall about six inches long, and not
preferred beyond the classis of Insects. That they termed Hippopotamus,
an amphibious animall about the River Nile, so little resembleth an horse
that, except the feet, it better makes out a swine. Although it be not
denied that some in the water doe carry a justifiable resemblance to
some at Land, yet are the major part which bear their names unlike, nor
doe they otherwise resemble the creatures on earth than they on earth
the constellations which passe under Animall names in heaven: nor the
Dogfish at Sea much more make out the Dog of the Land than that his
cognominall or namesake in the heavens.” He then goes on to show that
this belief restrains Omnipotence and abridges the variety of creation,
making the creatures of one element but a counterpart of the other.

[Illustration: FIG. 25.]

This belief in sea-monsters of all kinds was naturally not a chance
that a man like Aldrovandus could miss. He gives his imagination full
scope, or perhaps we should rather say his credulity, as he introduces
these creatures to us as things as real as a rabbit; his sea-monk, for
instance, with tonsured human head, arms replaced by fins, and legs by
fishy tail, being as matter of fact as one’s vicar. Fig. 25 is given by
him in all good faith as the true presentment of a sea-bishop, though
not at all our notion of a bishop in his see. The right hand, it will
be seen, is giving the benediction. The dragon of the deep, shown in
fig. 26, aims at being terrible, but merely succeeds in being feeble.
We cannot but feel that the draughtsman here failed to reach our ideal;
for one has certainly seen, many representations of land-dragons far
more fear-inspiring than this bloated monster with ears like a King
Charles spaniel, and tail like a rat. This illustration is from another
source, the work of Ambrosinus on the same subject, published “permissu
superiorum” in the year 1642. While the book is as quaint and grotesque
as any of its rivals, the skill of the artist has in divers cases not
paralleled the gifts of description of the author.

[Illustration: FIG. 26.]

The “monstrosus sus marinus,” or terrible sow of the sea, or more
especially perhaps of Aldrovandus (fig. 27), will surely fully come up
to everyone’s expectation of what a marine pig should be like. Catching
a weasel asleep should be a comparatively easy task to circumventing sus
marinus; it seems such a peculiarly wide-awake animal. Possibly in the
struggle for existence in the watery depths its toothsome flesh may place
it in jeopardy, and Nature may have bestowed upon it these numerous eyes
to enable it to evade dragons and other foes having a penchant for pork;
a rather unexpected addition to the various better-known examples of that
comfortable doctrine for the well-to-do, the survival of the fittest.

Purchas tells us of a fish called the Angulo or Hog-fish. “It hath,” he
says, “as it were two hands, and a tail like a target, which eateth like
pork, and whereof they make lard, and it hath not the savour or taste of
fish. It feedeth on the grasse that groweth on the banks of the river and
never goeth out; it hath a mouthe like the mozell of an ox, and there be
of them that weigh five hundred pound a piece.” This is found, he tells
us, in the River Congo.

Another of the strange creatures of ocean is shown in fig. 28. It is
somewhat startling to reflect that our ancestors had at least the
expectation that such a monster might at any moment rise alongside their
vessel and address them in the peremptory tones that the figure suggests:
and it must be borne in mind that these illustrations are not a tithe of
the strange imaginings that even this one old book sets forth, though
it is needless to multiply examples from it. We have carefully drawn our
figures in facsimile from the originals, and have naught extenuated, nor
set down aught in malice. They are fairly typical examples of the sort of
thing that is encountered on page after page.[131]

[Illustration: FIG. 27.]

In the excellent book of Rondeletius (doctoris medici et medicinæ in
schola monspeliensi professoris regii), published in the year 1554, on
the subject of marine fishes, the illustrations are full of spirit and
life. Amongst these fish of the ocean we find the sea-bishop, sea-monk,
&c., all over again, and such creatures as the sea-lion, fig. 29; this
latter, except for his scaly hide, has nothing very suggestively aquatic
about him. The book, in addition to such impossibilities, contains
very good and life-like representations of the sun-fish, sturgeon,
hammer-headed shark, ray, and many others.

The author of the “Speculum Mundi” confirms all these wonders, and adds
his quota to the general store. He affirms that, “In the year 1526
there was taken in Norway, neare to a seaport called Elpoch, a certain
fish resembling a mitred bishop, who was kept alive six days after
his taking, and there was, as the author of Du Bartas his summarie
reporteth, one Ferdinand Alvares, Secretarie to the storehouse of the
Indians, who faithfully witnesseth that he had seene not farre off from
the Promontorie of the Moon, a young Sea-man coming out of the Waters,
who stole fishes from the fishermen and ate them raw. Neither is Olaus
Magnus silent on these things, for he also saith there be monsters in the
sea, as it were imitating the shape of a man, having a dolefull kinde of
sounde or singing. There be also sea-men of an absolute proportion in
their whole body; these are sometimes seene to climbe up the ships in
the night times, and suddenly to depresse that part upon which they sit;
and if they abide long the whole ship sinketh. Yea (saithe he), this I
adde from the faithfull assertions of the Norway fishers, that when such
are taken, if they be not presently let go again, there ariseth such
a fierce tempest, with an horrid noise of those kinde of creatures and
other sea-monsters there assembled, that a man would think the verie
heaven were falling, and the vaulted roofe of the world running to ruine,
insomuch that the fishermen have much ado to escape with their lives;
whereupon they confirmed it as a law amongst them that if any chanced
to hang such a fish upon his hook he should suddenly cut the line and
let him go on. But these sudden tempests are very strange, and how they
arise with such violent speed exceeds the bounds of ordinary admiration.
Whereupon it is again supposed that these monsters are verie devils,
and by their power such strange storms are raised. Howbeit for my part
I think otherwise, and do much rather affirm that these storms, in my
judgment, are thus raised, namely, by the thickening and breaking of
the aire; which the snortling, rushing, and howling of these beasts,
assembled in an innumerable companie, causeth. For it is certain that
sounds will break and alter the aire (as I have heard it of a citie freed
from the plague by the thundering noise of cannons), and also I suppose
that the violent rushing of these beasts causeth much water to flie up
and thicken the aire, and by their howling and snortling under the waters
they do blow up, and as it were attenuate the waves, and make them arise
in a thinner substance than at other times; so that Nature, having all
these helps, in an instant worketh to the amazement of the mariners,
and often to the danger of their lives. Besides, shall we think that
spirits use to feed, and will be so foolish as to go and hang themselves
on an hook for a bait? They may have occult properties (as the loadstone
hath) to work strange feats, and yet be neither spirits nor devils; for
experience likewise teacheth that they die sooner or later after their
taking, neither can a spirit have flesh and bones as they have.”

[Illustration: FIG. 28.]

The monsters of the deep are best seen at the times of the equinox, “for
then,” says Pliny, “by the whirlwinds, rains and tempests which rush with
violence from the rugged mountains, the seas are turned up from the very
bottom, and thus the billows roll and raise these beasts out of the deep
parts of the ocean.” It certainly seems a much more reasonable theory
that the storms produce the beasts than that the beasts produce the
storms.

[Illustration: FIG. 29.]

On an antique seal we remember to have seen a sea-elephant, a creature
having the forelegs, tusks, trunk, and great flapping ears of the African
elephant, yet terminating in the body of a fish, and duly furnished with
piscine tail and fins. This outrageous combination would seem to indicate
the limit possible to absurdity in this direction. When the ancient
writers would desire to people the vast unknown of air and sea, their
thoughts naturally turned to those creatures of the land with which
they were more familiar. Hence, the denizens of the air or ocean are not
really creations at all, but adaptations, wings or fins being added to
horses, lions and the like, according to the new element in which they
were to figure. Of these the sea-horses that drew the chariot of Neptune
through the waves, or the winged steed Pegasus, are examples that at once
occur to one’s mind.

The sea-horse according to some authorities is found floating on the ice
between Britain and Norway, and is taken by the whalers for the oil he
contains. He is described as having a head like a horse, and as sometimes
neighing, but his hoofs are said to be cloven like those of a cow, while
his hinder parts are those of a fish. This creature would appear to be
now quite lost to science. The sea-horse naturally suggests the idea of
the sea-unicorn, depicted as of equine form, but having the hinder parts
piscine in character. The horn of the sea-unicorn occasionally brought
home by merchants and mariners was probably the “sword” of the swordfish
or the tusk of the narwhal, as it is often mentioned that it was able
to penetrate the ribs of ships, and later experience has proved that
an encounter between swordfish or narwhal and ships has occasionally
taken place. The tusk of the narwhal is a spiral tapering rod of ivory,
sometimes attaining to the length of eight or ten feet. Purchas mentions
a horn of a sea-unicorn that was presented by Frobisher to his sovereign,
and preserved at Windsor, and the name of this great arctic voyager
naturally suggests that this horn was the tusk of a narwhal, a creature
of the northern seas. One old writer speaks of the horn as a “wreathy
spire,” a description which admirably accords with the narwhal tusk.
The fact once established that there were creatures in the sea with
horns like unicorns, it was at once assumed that they had the horse-like
form assigned to the land-unicorn, and in some of the old authors the
sea-unicorn is represented as of purely equine form, plus the horn.[132]

In a book published in 1639, entitled “A Helpe to Memorie and Discourse,”
we find this question asked, “Whether doth a dead body in a shippe
cause the shippe to sail slower, and if it doe, what is thought to be
the reason thereof?” The answer to the query is that “the shippe is as
insensible of the living as the dead, and as the living make it goe the
faster, so the dead make it not goe the slower; for the dead are no
Rhemoras to alter the course of her passage, though some there be that
thinke so, and that by a kind of mournful sympathy.”[133] The potent
influence of the remora or sucking-fish to arrest the progress of a ship
by merely adhering to its keel is a curious fancy that has been handed on
for centuries. Pliny and many other ancient writers had full belief in
this foe to the mariner, and references to it in much more recent authors
are by no means uncommon. Thus Ben Jonson alludes to it in the lines—

                    “I say a remora,
    For it will stay a ship that’s under sail.”

While Spenser in his “Visions of the World’s Vanity,” writes—

    “Looking far forth into the ocean wide,
      A goodly ship, with banners bravely dight,
    And flag in her top-gallant I espied,
      Through the main sea making her merry flight:
    Fair blew the wind into her bosom right,
      And th’ Heavens looked lovely all the while
    That she did seem to dance, as in delight,
      And at her own felicity did smile:
    All suddenly there clove unto her keel
      A little fish that we call remora,
    Which stopt her course, and held her by the heel,
      That wind nor tide could move her thence away.”

We may indeed be thankful that this mysterious power, worse even than the
more prosaic barnacles and other sea impedimenta that plague the modern
shipowner by fouling the bottom of his good ship, and so retarding her
course, seems to be no longer exercised. The merchantman speeding home
with perishable cargo, the yachtsman burning to carry off the challenge
cup, the great record-breaking Atlantic liner, carrying under heavy
penalty for delay Her Majesty’s mails, would all be terribly hampered
in their several ambitions in presence of so potent yet so apparently
insignificant a foe. Well might Spenser add—

    “Strange thing meseemeth that so small a thing
    Should able be so great an one to wring.”

One old writer feeling the impossibility of giving a satisfactory
explanation of the marvel is content to say “of which there can be no
more reason given than of the loadstone drawing iron; neither is it
possible to shew the cause of all secrets in Nature,” a statement as true
to-day as the day it was written, though this particular secret of Nature
has in the interval been disestablished.

That the dolphin was the swiftest of all living creatures, more rapid
than a bird, swifter than an arrow shot from a bow, will probably be
an entirely new idea to most of our readers, yet such was the ancient
belief. The dolphin occurs very freely in blazonry, on ancient coinage,
and in classic and renaissance decoration, and it is almost always
represented either as “embowed,” that is to say, bent round like a
bow, such being the significance of the heraldic term, or else it is
introduced with its lithe body coiled gracefully round an anchor or
trident. In either case the representation suggests an easy-going and
leisurely state of affairs that is very different to the picture conjured
up by the arrowy rush of the creature through the waves, as Pliny paints
it for us.[134]

It is a very old belief that the dolphin has an especial fondness for
man. “Of a man he is nothing afraid, neither avoideth from him as a
stranger: but of himselfe meeteth their ships, plaieth and disporteth
himselfe, and fetcheth a thousand friskes, and gambols before them. He
will swimme along by the mariners, as it were for a wager, who should
make way most speedily, and alwaies outgoeth them, saile they with
never so good a forewind.” The representation of the dolphin with the
anchor is not simply a type of maritime supremacy, but is a distinct
illustration of this belief in the dolphin’s kindly regard for man. Thus
Camerarius asserts that “when tempests arise, and sea-men cast their
anchor, the dolphin, from its love to man, twines itself round it, and
directs it, so that it may more safely lay hold of the ground.”

The works of the ancient writers abound with illustrations of the
friendly regard of the dolphin for mankind. Thus in one wonderful story
we have a schoolboy, the son of a poor man, who had to travel each day
from Baianum to Puteoli, who used at the water’s edge to call a dolphin
to his aid. The dolphin would at once respond to the call, and the boy
used to mount upon his back and be taken across the sea, and be brought
back again at night. This went on for some years, and at last, when the
boy fell sick and died, his constitution probably not being able to stand
the constant wetting and exposure, the dolphin was inconsolable, and
promptly died of a broken heart. In another story, equally veracious,
the rider was so unfortunate as to pierce himself with one of the sharp
spines of the dorsal fin, and an artery being severed, he bled to death.
The dolphin, seeing the water stained with blood, and finding that his
rider did not sit on his back in the light and active way that had
been his wont, concluded that some catastrophe had happened, and when
he realized the full truth, resolved not to outlive him whom he had
affectionately loved, and therefore ran himself with all his might upon
the shore, and so perished. Pliny, Mecænas, Fabianus, Flavius Alfius,
Ælian, Aulus Gellius, Apion, Egesidemus, Theophrastus, and many other old
writers, all give equally surprising illustrations of this wonderful love
of the dolphin for mankind.

The dolphin is also a great lover of music, and equally wonderful stories
are told in illustration of this taste also. Another well-known belief in
connection with it is the imaginary brilliancy of its changeful colours
when dying. The idea has been a favourite one with poets in all ages:
an example from Byron’s “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage” will suffice as an
illustration:—

                        “Parting day
    Dies like the dolphin, whom each pang imbues
    With a new colour as it gasps away;
    The last still loveliest, till ’tis gone, and all is gray.”

Another strange fish believed in by our forefathers was the Acipenser,
“a fish of an unnatural making and quality,” as an old writer terms him;
and indeed he may very well do so, as we are told that “his scales are
all turned towards his head.” We are not therefore much surprised to
learn that “he ever swimmeth against the stream,” though we might well be
more astonished if we ever found him swimming at all.

The amiable dolphin stands not alone in its friendship with man. The ray
too, if we may believe a mediæval authority, is “a loving fish to man:
for swimming in the waters, and being greedily pursued by the devouring
Sea-dogs, the Ray defends him, and will not leave him untill he be out
of danger.” Sometimes the friendship is with some other creature; thus
Porta gives an unfailing recipe for catching a sargon, whatever that
may be, by taking advantage of this kindly trait in its character. “The
Sargi,” he declares, “love Goats unmeasurably: and they are so mad after
them that when so much as the shadow of a Goat that feeds neer the shore
shall appear neer unto them they presently leap for joy and swim to it
in haste, and they imitate the goats, though they are not fit to leap,
and thus they delight to come unto them. They are, therefore, catcht by
those things that they so much desire. Whereupon the Fisher, putting on
a Goat’s skin with the horns, lies in wait for them, having the Sunne
behind his back and paste made wet with the decoction of Goat’s flesh:
this he casts into the Sea where the Sargi are to come: and they, as
if they were charmed, run to it, and are much delighted with the sight
of the Goat’s skin and feed on the paste. Thus the Fishermen catcheth
abundance of them.” Porta gives no suggestion that this affection is
reciprocal.

Another mediæval writer has a still more extraordinary story of the
kind, and in this case it is pleasant to know that the loving feeling
is mutual. “Amongst the severall sort of shell fishes,” saith he, “the
glistering Pearl-fish deserves remembrance, not only in respect of
herself but also in regard of the Prawn, another fish and her companion:
for between these two there is a most firm league of friendship, much
kindnesse, and such familiaritie as cannot but breed admiration in the
reader. They have a subtill kinde of hunting, which being ended, they
divide their prey in loving manner: for seeing they one help the other
in the getting of it, they likewise joyn in the equall sharing. And, in
few words, thus it is—when the Pearl-fish gapeth wide, she hath a curious
glistering within her shell, by which she allureth her small fry to come
swimming unto her: which when her companion the Prawn perceiveth, he
gives her a secret touch with one of his prickles, wherupon she shuts her
gaping shell, and so incloseth her wished prey: then (as I said) they
equally share them out and feed themselves. And thus, day by day, they
get their livings, like a combined knot of cheaters, who have no other
trade than the cunning deceit of quaint consenage: hooking in the simpler
sort with such subtill tricks, that be their purses stuft with either
more or less, they know a way to sound the bottome and send them lighter
home: lighter in purse, though heavier in heart.” The moral seems
perhaps needlessly severe, and we trust that henceforth our readers,
after reading this romance of the deep, will have a kindlier feeling for
these faithful friends, the artful oyster and the watchful prawn. The
only drawback to the sentiment of the thing seems to be that this loving
alliance has a somewhat low motive as its basis. One at least of the
partners is capable of a more tender passion, as we have the authority of
Sheridan for saying that an oyster may be crossed in love.

Olaus Magnus gives an awful example of voracity in the swam-fish, one
of the most greedy cravens of the denizens of the sea, and cites many
stories of it that amply justify the bad character bestowed on it.
Another old writer affirms that when danger threatens “he will so winde
up himselfe and cover his head with the skinne and substance of his own
body that he is then bent like unto a piece of dead fish, and nothing
like himself.” The plan however appears to have its drawbacks, as the
venerable and veracious author goes on to say that this feat “he seldome
doth without hurt or damage, for still fearing that there be those about
him who will prey upon him and devoure him, he is compelled for lack of
meat to feed upon the substance of his own body, choosing rather to be
devoured in part than to be consumed by other more strong and powerful
fishes”—at best a most painful alternative.

In the account of the Creation the forming of the whale is specially
dwelt upon: “And God created great whales and every living creature that
moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly after their kind.”
Luther, commenting on this, says that the creation of whales is specified
by name, lest affrighted with their greatness we should believe them to
be only visions or fancies. Though later commentators have decided that
the leviathan of the Bible is the crocodile, it was long held to be the
whale. Milton, in the first book of the “Paradise Lost,” writes of that
sea beast—

    “Leviathan, which God of all his works
    Created hugest that swim the ocean stream,”

and the Jews had a legend that the first whales were so immense in bulk,
so formidable in attack, so voracious, that there was considerable risk
of their overtoppling the rest of creation; so while as yet there were
but two of them in existence, one was destroyed in order that the race
might not be continued and the general balance of Nature upset.

Our ancestors found apt moral against the scornful in the reason assigned
for the mouth of the flounder being on one side. It appears that at one
time the flounder’s mouth was as fair to see as any other, but that it
lost all its beauty through contemptuous flouting of the herring, and it
has borne this evil mark of its jealousy ever since, and will probably
so bear it to the end of time. At the vague date known as once upon a
time we are told that all the fishes of the sea assembled to choose a
king, and that the herring was elected to this dignified position. The
flounder, on account of his red spots and other features that were
evidently more appreciated by himself than by the main body of electors,
had strong hope that he should himself be chosen, and the unlovely
grimace with which he saluted his sovereign was, as a judgment upon him,
made a fixture for all time as a punishment to himself and a warning to
others.

The tench was commonly called the physician, for it was believed by our
forefathers that when the other fish were in any way hurt and required
the aid of surgeon or physician, they healed themselves by rubbing
against the tench, finding the slime of his body to be a “soveraigne
salve” for their needs. For the sufferings of humanity the beasts,
birds, and plants appear to have supplied a sufficient materia medica,
and the less accessible creatures of the waters were but rarely pressed
into the mediæval pharmacopœia. The blood of the eel was rubbed upon
unwelcome warts, and a cruel remedy for bad eyes, the cruelty being, as
we have seen over and over again in those old remedies, by no means an
exceptional feature, was to capture a crab alive, cut out its eyes and
then let it go.[135] The eyes were then bound upon the neck of the man,
woman, or child, and a satisfactory result was speedily anticipated,
though very possibly not so speedily forthcoming.

The Cuttle fish is scarcely one’s ideal of beauty, yet it is by its
vanity and belief in its personal attractions that it is most readily
captured. Porta tells us that pieces of looking glass are let down by
the fishermen into the waters, and that the Cuttle seeing his image
reflected, clasps the glass around, and while he is still enamoured
with the reflection of his charms is drawn to the surface by the wily
fishermen. In the “Pathway to Knowledge,” published in the year 1685,
we are told that if we take the juice of Nettles and Houseleek, and
anoint our hands therewith, the fish will gather round and “you may take
them out at your pleasure.” This seems almost as simple a method as the
catching of birds by placing a pinch of salt on their tails.

If we may credit Maundevile, and the “if” is a most important point, in
one favoured land instead of the people going for the fish, the fish come
to the people. In a certain isle, or we may perhaps more truthfully say
an uncertain isle, called Calonak, many wonderful things were to be seen,
but one of these he especially, and very justly, calls “a gret Marvayle,”
and when he goes on to add that “it is more to speke of than in ony
partie of the World,” one is loath to gainsay his opinion. He tells us
that “alle manere of Fissches that ther ben in the See abouten hem, comen
ones in the Yeer, eche manere of dyverse Fissches, one maner of kynde
aftre another; and thei casten hem selfe to the See Banke of that Yle in
so gret plentee and multitude that no man may see but Fissche, and ther
thei abyden thre dayes, and euerie man of the Countree takethe of hem als
many as him lykethe, and that maner of Fissche aftre the thridde day
departeth and gothe in to the See. And aftre hem comen another multitude
of Fissches of anothre kynde and don in the same maner as the firste
diden othre three dayes. And aftre hem another, tille alle the dyverse
maner of Fissches have ben there, and that men have taken of hem that hem
lykethe. And no man knowethe the cause wherfore it may ben. But thei of
the Contree seyn that it is for to do reverence to here Kyng, that is the
most worthi Kyng that is in the World, as thei seyn.” The reason assigned
for the king’s special worthiness is a somewhat peculiar one, and though
it is duly set forth at full length by the old author, other times have
brought other manners and ideas, and one can scarcely insert in a book of
the present day many things, and this amongst them, that were set forth
in the greatest simplicity and directness of language in books of earlier
date.

At all events this “most worthie Kyng” was so far under the special
care of Providence that “God sendethe him so the Fissches of dyverse
kyndes, of all that ben in the See, to be taken at his wille, for him
and alle his peple. And therfore all the Fissches of the See comen to
make him homage as the most noble and excellent Kyng of the World, and
that is best beloved of God as thei seyn.” Well may Maundevile say, as he
realized the idea of the various finny tribes of Ocean thus sacrificing
themselves in so orderly a sequence, that “this me semethe is the most
merveylle that evere I saughe. For this mervaylle is agenst kynde, that
the Fissches that have fredom to environe all the Costes of the See at
here owne list comen of hire owne wille to profren hem to the dethe with
outen constreynynge of man.” It must have been an immense convenience to
have known thus readily what was in season, and even if in this Hobson’s
choice of diet one did not happen to be very partial to plaice or conger,
there was always the happy knowledge that next Tuesday or possibly
Thursday week, soles or turbot would be “in.” We may conclude that a
fresh series of herrings, mackerel, or whatever they might be, would
come ashore on each one of the three days that they were due, or by the
termination of that period they would certainly all be smelt.

After this great marvel the cruel pontarf that beguiled children away
to sport with them and finally to eat them, the silurus that at the
rising of the dog-star is struck insensible, the dead crabs that turn
to scorpions, the eels that rub themselves against stones, and, in so
doing, scrape off fragments that come to life, and are the only cause
and means of their increase, the fish that swim in the boiling water
of some tropical stream that is now unknown, all sink as wonders into
insignificance.

The whole world has now been so ransacked that there is little room in
these times for the imagination to play; but in mediæval days travellers
brought back such wonderful stories, some of them true, and others,
perhaps, a little wanting in that respect, of the things that they had
seen, that almost anything seemed a possibility. Of this our present
pages may be considered some little indication, though it will be
abundantly evident that we have not used up one hundredth part of the
great store of folk-lore and ancient and mediæval science that is open to
investigation.

[Illustration]




FOOTNOTES


[1] The title pages of these old books should by no means be overlooked,
as they are often full of interest and meaning. In the one before us
we have at the top the Hebrew name for Jehovah within an equilateral
triangle, and this again within a circle of rays. On one side is the sun
shining in full splendour, on the other the moon and stars. From the
triangle issues a narrow track that broadens as it goes, and finally
returns to the triangle, its point of emergence being marked Alpha and
the point of re-entry Omega. In the centre of this track is the world
being rolled along by the foot of Time. On one side is a sitting figure,
Theologia, book on knee, and having the tables of the law in one hand,
and in the other a lantern, and on the other we find “Philosophia” with
globe and compasses.

[2] The titles of many of these old books are sufficiently quaint and
striking. Sometimes a spade is called a spade with the most startling
directness; while at others the title is a mystical conceit that needs
interpretation. The following are some few that we have come across:—“The
flaming sword of Justice unsheathed,” “Matches lighted at the Divine
Fire,” “The shop of the Spiritual Apothecary,” “The Scraper of Vanity,
a Spiritual Pillow necessary to exterpate Vice and to plant Virtue.”
There would appear to be here some little confusion of metaphor: anyone
desiring to plant anything would scarcely find a pillow a serviceable
tool for the purpose.

[3] Culver is derived from the Anglo-Saxon culfre, a pigeon. The Culver
cliffs in the Isle of Wight are so called from the great numbers of wild
pigeons that nest there, while the Columbine, Lat. Columba, a pigeon, so
named from the resemblance of its flowers to a ring of birds, is also
known as the Culverwort.

[4] Thus we find a Strasburg copy dated 1484; Bologna, 1488; Venice,
1491; Florence, 1492; Antwerp, 1494; Venice again, 1496; Milan, 1497;
another Bologna edition, 1497; and so on.

[5] The Emperor Titus Vespasian, to whom the book was dedicated.

[6] “I conceive it,” he says, “to be courteous, and to indicate an
ingenious modesty, to acknowledge the source whence we have derived
assistance, and not act as most of those have done whom I have
examined. For I must inform you that in consulting various authors I
have discovered that some of the most grave and of the latest writers,
have transcribed word for word, from former works without making any
acknowledgment.”

[7] He only used one pen throughout, a circumstance which he deemed
sufficiently remarkable to be celebrated in these lines which are
prefixed to his book:—

    “With one sole pen I wrote this book,
      Made of a grey goose quill.
    A pen it was when I it took,
      A pen I leave it still.”

[8] “I would rather be a poor man in a garret with plenty of books than
a king who did not love reading.”—_Macaulay._ Sir John Herschell in like
manner tells us—“Were I to pay for a taste that should stand me in stead
under every variety of circumstances, and be a source of happiness and
cheerfulness to me during life, and a shield against its ills, however
things might go amiss and the world frown upon me, it would be a taste
for reading. Give a man this taste and the means of gratifying it, and
you can hardly fail of making him a happy man; unless, indeed, you put
into his hands a most perverse selection of books. You place him in
contact with the best society in every period of history—with the wisest,
the wittiest, the tenderest, the bravest, and the purest characters
who have adorned humanity. You make him a denizen of all nations, a
contemporary of all ages. The world has been created for him.” But we
must bear in mind, while we subscribe to the dictum of Carlyle, “Of
all things which men do or make here below, by far the most momentous,
wonderful, and worthy are the things we call books,” the wise line of
Shakespeare: “Learning is but an adjunct to oneself,” lest haply we be
classed with “the bookful blockhead” of Pope—ignorantly read, “with loads
of learned lumber in his head.”

[9] There are separate maps for the leading countries, giving towns,
rivers, forests, mountains, and other features. The towns are not only
named, but have actual buildings represented. We notice that in the map
of Germany “Holand” and “Flandria” are at the bottom right-hand corner,
but this arises from the reversal of the whole thing, the north being at
the bottom of the page instead of the top. It is as Germany would look
if we imagine the point of view in Southern Denmark. Italy in the same
way shows Venice at the bottom of the map and Sicily at the top. In the
description of Spain the so-called pillars of Hercules are treated as two
actual pillars and in the illustration look very like two pawns from a
set of chessmen.

[10] His accounts were at the time considered so incredible, that the
Venetians gave him the _sobriquet_ of “Millioni,” from the frequent
recurrence of millions in his statements; and amongst other traducers
Herbert says that “Geographers have filled their maps and globes with
the names of Tenduc, Tangutt, Tamfur, Cando, Camul, and other hobgobling
words obtruded upon the World by those three arrant Monks, Haython,
Marc Parc the Venetian, and Vartoman, who fearing no imputations make
strange discoveries as well as descriptions of places.” This from the
sea-monsterist of the Azores!

[11] Ferdinand Mendez Pinto was a celebrated Portuguese navigator, who
published a description of his travels of so marvellous a nature that
his name became a synonym for extravagant fiction. We meet with him,
for instance, in Congreve’s play of “Love for Love,” where the passage
occurs: “Ferdinand Mendez Pinto was but a type of thee, thou liar of the
first magnitude.”

[12] “Beefe is a good meate for an Englysshe man, so be it the beest be
yonge, and that it be not kowe-flesshe: for olde beefe and kowe-flesshe
doth ingender melancholye and leperouse humoures. Yf it be moderatly
powderyd, that the groose blode by salte may be exhaustyd it doth make an
Englysshe man stronge.”—_Andrew Boorde’s “Dyetary.”_

[13] There can be little question but that the ancient fictions of
satyrs, cynocephali and other supposed monstrous forms of humanity arose
in vague accounts of different species of apes.

[14]

    “Marking the tracts of air, the clamorous cranes
    Wheel their due flight in varied ranks descried;
    And each with outstretched neck his rank maintains
    In marshalled order through the ethereal void.”

[15] The word is spelt sometimes as pigmy, and at others as pygmy; the
latter is the more correct, as the word is from the Greek name for them,
the pygmaioi.

[16] These great anthropoid apes are found in the forests that extend
southward for a thousand miles or so from the gulf of Guinea. The gorilla
is not found beyond this limit.

[17] Burton probably got this notion from Megasthenes, an old writer who,
not to be outdone in the introduction of the marvellous, tells us of a
nation in the extreme East of India that are wholly mouthless, and that
live only by the smells that they draw in at their nostrils, partaking
of no food whatever, but flourishing on the pleasant odours given off by
various roots, blossoms, and fruits that they are careful to carry about
with them when travelling. Unfortunately, if the scent be too strong
it deprives them of life and they die as effectually of a surfeit of
good things as the famous British sovereign who overdid his devotion to
lamprey stew.

[18] These doubtless would be some of the larger apes, that, sufficiently
human in general form to suggest the notion of a man, drop upon their
fore-paws and travel across the open spaces of the forest as quadrupeds.

[19]

    “Who would believe that there were mountaineers,
    Dewlapped like bulls, whose throats had hanging at them
    Wallets of flesh? Or that there were such men
    Whose heads stood in their breasts?”

                                   GONZALE _in the “Tempest.”_

[20] Robertson, in his “History of America,” Vol. II., p. 525, says of
the Spaniards, “that they and their horses were objects of the greatest
astonishment to all the people of New Spain. At first they imagined
the horse and his rider, like the centaurs of the ancients, to be some
monstrous animal of a terrible form. Even after they had discovered the
mistake they believed the horses devoured men in battle, and when they
neighed, thought that they were demanding their prey.”

[21] In the “Eastern Travels of John of Hesse,” amongst perils of voyage,
we read:—“We came to a stony mountain, where we heard syrens singing,
meermaids who draw ships into danger by their songs. We saw there many
horrible monsters and were in great fear.”

[22] As the old adage hath it:—

    “When that the ass begins to bray,
    Be sure we shall have rain that day.”

[23]

    “A maiden strangely fair, but strangely formed,
    Rises from out the pool, and by her songs
    And heavenly beauty lures to shameful death
    The luckless wight who hears her melodies.”—_Kirke._

[24] Allusive to Mary Queen of Scots and to the Duke of Norfolk, and the
Earls of Westmoreland and Northumberland, who fell from their allegiance
to Elizabeth by the witchery of Mary. She was celebrated for the melody
of her singing. The reference to the dolphin alludes to her marriage with
the Dauphin of France.

[25] See some good figures, too, in the “Book of Emblems” of Alciatus,
1551.

[26] A writer in the _Gentleman’s Magazine_, in the year 1771, says of
Browne’s book on “Vulgar Errors,” “Of all the books recommended to our
youth after their academical studies, I do not know a better than this
of Sir Thomas’s to excite their curiosity, to put them upon thinking
and inquiring, and to guard them against taking anything upon trust
from opinion and authority. His language has, indeed, a little air of
affectation which is apt to disgust young persons, and it would be doing
a very great service to that class if some gentlemen of learning would
take the pains to smooth and adapt it a little more to modern ears,”—a
comment which we do not at all endorse, as the individual style of the
old writer has a quaint charm of its own.

[27] “There is scarce any tradition or popular error but stands also
delivered by some good authors, who though excellent and usefull,
yet being merely transcriptive, or following common relations, their
accounts are not to be swallowed at large, or entertained without
a prudent circumspection. In whome the _ipse dixit_, though it be
no powerfull argument in any, is yet lesse authentick than in many
others, because they deliver not their own experiences, but others’
affirmations.”—_Browne._

[28] “Dagon his name, sea-monster, upward man, and downward,
fish.”—_Milton._

[29] A very similar figure may be seen amongst the designs of the mosaic
pavements at the Roman villa discovered at Brading.

[30] Agriopas tells a gruesome story of a man who, at the sacrifice of
a human being to the gods, surreptitiously tasted a piece of the flesh
and was turned into a wolf. Whether as a punishment for his cannibalism,
or because by abstracting a portion of the victim he was sacrilegiously
robbing the altar, we are not informed.

[31] Such hallucinations are often very contagious. A nun in a large
convent got the idea into her head that she was a cat, and began to
mew. Shortly afterwards other nuns also mewed, until at last the great
majority of them were mewing for hours at a time. The matter got to the
ears of the town authorities, and on the removal of the monomaniac and
the promise of a good whipping to anyone who mewed again, the concert at
once died out.

[32] “There is a book, De Mirabilibus narrationibus, written by
Antigonus, another also of the same title by Trallianus, which make good
the promise of their titles, and may be read with caution, which if any
man shall likewise observe in the Lecture of Philostratus, or not only
in ancient Writers but shall carry a wary eye on Paulus Venetus, Olaus
Magnus, and many another, I think his circumspection laudable, and he may
hereby decline occasion of Error.”—_Browne._

[33] The first edition of Scot’s book was published in the year 1584.

[34] “The Lion is not so fierce as painted.”—_Thos. Fuller._

“The Lion is not so fierce as they paint him.”—_Herbert._

[35] “A lion being sick of a quartane Ague eats and devours Apes,
and so is healed; hence we know that Apes’ blood is good against an
ague.”—_Porta._

[36] A much later writer, Porta, includes some strange animals in his
treatise: thus the leopard is the offspring, according to him, of the
panther and lioness: the crocuta of the hyæna and lioness; the thoes of
the panther and the wolf; the jumar of the bull and ass; the musinus
of the goat and ram; the cinirus of the he-goat and ewe. The figures
of-these are sufficiently curious.

[37] “However erroneous it may now be considered, the theory of creation
held during the Middle Ages, was both beautiful and noble, and in a
fairly accurate manner may be summarized as follows: On the fall of the
tenth legion of the citizens of heaven, God resolved to create man to
take the place of the fallen angels. He evolved this world for the home
of the new creation, and all things that He then made. The celestial
bodies, the vegetable and animal kingdoms were formed solely and entirely
for man alone, as the centre round which the whole of creation revolved.
There was no idea then that the world in which man was placed formed
only one of many such inhabited homes, and that our sphere was simply an
insignificant fragment of a vast universe. The celestial bodies, it was
held, were created not only to give light and heat to generate metals and
precious stones, but to govern the affairs of men, and enable them to
foretell events. The vegetable kingdom was to furnish food and medicine
not only for man’s body but likewise for his mind. Lastly, the animal
creation provided him with servants, with food for his bodily wants, and
with moral lessons and examples for those of his soul. This I venture to
advance as a tolerably accurate summary of the theory of creation held
during the Middle Ages and until nearly the close of the seventeenth
century, and, if correct, it will appear from it that each part of
creation was viewed not only in an outward and material manner, but also
in an interior and spiritual one.”—_André._

[38] “De leonibus, quaram copia est in Africa.” The illustration is a
facsimile of the one given in this section of Munster’s book.

[39] Bussy D’Amboise, 1607, writes—

    “An angry unicorne in his full career
    Charged with too swift a foot a jeweller
    That watch’d him for the treasure of his brow,
    And ere he could get shelter of a tree
    Nail’d him with his rich antler to the earth.”

[40] Ctesias says that its flesh is so bitter that it cannot be eaten.

[41] “Topsell nameth two kingdomes in India (the one called Niem, the
other Lamber), which he likewise stored with them.”—_Speculum Mundi._

[42] As for example: Bacci’s book “Discorso dell’ Alicorno,” published
at Florence in 1573, and the “De Unicornu Observationes novæ” of Thomas
Bartholinus, bearing date 1645. Caspar Bartholinus had already, in
1628, written “De Unicornu ejusque affinibus.” Then we have Bereus’ “De
Monoceroti,” 11667; Catelan’s “Histoire de la Licorne,” 1624; Frenzel,
“De Unicornu,” 1675; Stolbergk’s “Exercitatio de Unicornu,” 1652; Sachs’
“Monocerologia,” 1676; and the “Notice en refutation de la non-existence
de la Licorne” of Laterrade, bearing the very recent date of 1826.

[43] Mutianus tells us that when the moon is on the wane the monkeys are
sad, but that they adore the new moon with liveliest manifestations of
delight.

[44] “When trauaylers are out of their way the Oliphaunt will do all
that hee can by familiar tokens to bring them in again. He is of much
vertue and verie seruiceable with loue towardes man.”—_Legh._ “Even
the wilde ones living in deserts will direct and defend strangers and
travellers. For if an Elephant shall finde a man wandering in his way,
first of all that he may not be affrighted, the Elephant goeth a little
wide out of the path and standeth still, then by little and little going
before him, he shews him the way; and if a Dragon chance to meet this
man thus travelling, the Elephant then opposeth himself to the Dragon
and powerfully defendeth the helplesse man who is not able to defend
himself.”—_Speculum Mundi._

[45] “And to the end they might provoke the elephants to fight they
shewed them the blood of grapes and mulberries.”—1 _Maccabees_ vi. 34.

“And upon the beasts there were strong towers of wood, which covered
every one of them, and were girt fast unto them with devices; there were
also upon every one two and thirty strong men that fought upon them,
besides the Indian that ruled him.”—1 _Macc._ vi. 37.

[46] Miss Cobbe, in discussing the moral difference between the
creatures of Fancy and those of Nature, remarks very truly that “the
instincts which man has lent to the offspring of his imagination are
infinitely worse and lower than those which are to be found in real
eagles and tigers, which slay and eat their natural prey to satisfy
their hunger, and there make an end. But the perfidious and cruel
Sphinxes, and Harpies, and Gorgons, and Gnomes, and Dragons, do mischief
for mischief’s sake, and are altogether merciless. The brutes of Fancy
are merely brutal, with a spice of human malignity superadded. Man has
created filthy Harpies, and relentless Hydras, and subtle and vindictive
Sphinxes, but he has never, even in thought, created such an animal as
the sagacious and friendly elephant, the kindly-natured horse, or the
affectionate dog.”

[47] The panther was one of the beasts that was brought in great
numbers to Rome. Pompey, for instance, exhibited to the citizens over
four hundred of them on one occasion. The beast is figured in mosaic
pavements, in the fresco paintings of Pompeii, &c., and was evidently so
well under observation that it is remarkable how such erroneous ideas
concerning it could have become current or stood their ground as articles
of belief even for a day.

[48] At a state banquet given by Gaston the Fifth we read that “there was
brought in (for an enter-course) the shape of a beast called a Tiger,
which by cunning art disgorged fire from his mouth and nostrils.”

[49] It is dated 1658. The author was a Neapolitan.

[50] The “Natural Magick” is divided into what is called twenty Books,
equivalent really to chapters, and they receive various headings
according to their contents, but the twentieth Porta calls “Chaos,” and
he explains it by saying: “I determined from the beginning of my Book
to unite Experiments that are contained in all Natural Sciences, but by
my business that called me off, my mind was hindered, so that I could
not accomplish what I attended. Since, therefore, I could not do what
I would, I must be willing to do what I can. Therefore, I shut up in
this Book those Experiments that could be included in no Classes, which
were so diverse and various that they could not make up a Science or a
Book; and, therefore, I have here them altogether confusedly as what I
had over-passed, and, if God please, I will another time give you a more
perfect Book. Now you must rest content with these.”

[51] We see this notion so lately as in a book entitled “An English
Expositour,” issued in 1680 by John Hayes, Printer to the University of
Cambridge.

[52] The northern peoples believed also in an enormous wolf, called
Fernris, who was the offspring of Loki, the evil principle. This creature
until the end of the world would be the cause of unnumbered ills to
humanity, but at the crack of doom would, after a fearful struggle, be
vanquished by the Gods, and a reign of universal peace would succeed his
overthrow.

[53] “Wherefore, studious Readers, accept my long Labours, that cost me
much Study, Travel, Expense, and much Inconvenience, with the same Mind
that I publish them; and remove all Blindness and Malice, which are wont
to dazle the sight of the Minde, and hinder the Truth; weigh these Things
with a right Judgement when you try what I have Written, for finding both
Truth and Profit, you will (it may be) think better of my Pains.”—_End of
the Preface to Porta’s “Natural Magick.”_

[54] In Dryden’s poem, “The Hind and Panther,” we find the reference:—

    “The bloody bear, an independent beast,
    Unlick’d to form, in groans her hate expressed.”

[55] The scientific name of the hare is _Lepus timidus_. Dryden, in the
“Hind and Panther,” places “amongst the timerous kind the quaking hare.”

[56] Magliabechi, the learned librarian, pinned his faith upon treacle to
make his memory retentive. Grataroli, a famous physician of the sixteenth
century, wrote a Latin treatise, “The Castle of Memory,” wherein, amongst
an enormous number of recipes, we find the internal application of bear’s
grease, a hazelnutful of mole’s fat, and calcined human hair, strongly
recommended by the learned author.

[57] It was held by our ancestors that freckles came in the early part
of the year when the birds were laying their eggs, and that the same
mysterious influence of Nature that spotted the eggs of the chaffinch,
wren, robin, thrush, and other birds, freckled the human skin.

[58] In another popular remedy for “fitts” one has to “take the furr of a
living Bear’s belly, boil it in Aqua Vitæ, take it out, squeeze it, and
wrap it upon ye soales of ye Feete.”

[59] A mole skinned, dried in the oven, and then powdered, was held in
the fen districts to be a specific for ague. It may still be in vogue—it
certainly was in use twenty years ago. The mole must be a male. As much
of the powder as would lie on a shilling was to be taken every day, for
nine days, in gin. Nine days were then to be omitted, and then the remedy
was to be resumed for nine days, by which time a cure was supposed to be
effected.

[60] The “Lusiad”; Camoens.

[61] Published therefore in the reign of Charles II., “Our most undoubted
and lawful King.” We have most of us formed an opinion on the character
of this wearer of the spotless ermine; and the fulsome verse of
Winstanley, written, not when the reign was commencing and the national
hopes were high, but as it neared its end, is somewhat startling:—

    “Long may he live who now doth wear the Crown
    To tread all Heresies and Schismes down.
    Great God, let not his prayers e’er return empty,
    But Crown his Head with Years and Years with plenty.”

[62] Gay’s Fables.

[63] “In the Rabbinical book it saith the dogs howl when with icy
breath Great Sammael, the Angel of Death, takes through the town his
flight.”—LONGFELLOW, _Golden Legend_.

[64] The butter made from the milk of a cow fed in a churchyard was held
to be a potent remedy for consumption.

[65] As this led to vigorous protests from the cat, and very possibly a
good scratching, a gold ring or coin was often substituted, and found to
be equally beneficial.

[66] “It is also watchful, dextrous, swift, pliable, and has such good
nerves that if it falls from never so high it still lights upon its feet,
and therefore may denote those that have so much foresight that whatever
befalls them they are still upon their guard.”—_Coats_, A.D. 1747.

[67] The skin of the cat is the only portion of the animal that can be
turned to any use. According to mediæval belief, Satan once thought he
could make a man, but only succeeded in turning out a skinless cat. St.
Peter, filled with compassion for the miserable object, bestowed on it a
fur coat, its only valuable possession, and a queer-tempered beast it has
turned out.

[68] He does not specify what dogs—

    “Mastiff, greyhound, mongrel, grim,
    Hound, or spaniel, black, or lym,
    Or bob-tail tike, or trundle tail,”

though this is clearly not an unimportant detail.

[69] The name is said by Sir E. Tennent, in his “Natural History of
Ceylon,” to be from the Telegu words: Pandi-koku, the pig-rat.

[70] A.U.C. 787, equivalent to A.D. 34.

[71] Heliopolis.

[72] Even so comparatively recently as the time of Maundevile we meet
with the same symbolic significance, as we find this author declaring
that “men may well lykne that Brid unto God: because that there hys no
God but on; and also that oure Lord aroos fro Dethe to Lyve the thridde
Day.”

[73] “I know,” writes Izaak Walton, in his “Complete Angler,” “we
islanders are averse to the belief of wonders, but there be so many
strange creatures to be now seen, collected by John Tradescant, who keeps
them carefully and methodically at his house near to Lambeth. I will
tell you some of the wonders you may now see, and not till then believe,
unless you think fit. You may see there the hog-fish, the dogfish, the
dolphin, the coney fish, the parrot fish, the shark, the poison fish,
the swordfish; and not only other incredible fish, but you may there
see the salamander, several sorts of barnacles, of Solan geese, and the
bird of paradise; such sorts of snakes, and such birds’ nests, and of so
various forms, and so wonderfully made, as may beget wonder and amazement
in any beholder.” Walton, as an enthusiastic angler naturally, it will
be noted, dwells most upon the strange fish. Charles I. and his queen,
together with Archbishop Laud, and many others of rank and influence,
visited the museum and assisted by contributing to its stores, and we
find in Evelyn’s Diary, September 17th, 1657, that he, too, visited
it. The brothers Tradescant were the first well-known collectors of
natural curiosities in England, and portraits of them may be seen in the
Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. The Tradescant collection was on December
15th transferred to Elias Ashmole. The botanical genus, _Tradescantia_,
is so called in honour of John Tradescant.

[74] Madagascar.

[75] The Eastern love of the wonderful may be readily seen in the
well-known “Arabian Nights,” in the Koran, and in Oriental literature
generally. Mohammed tells us, in his sacred book, that he saw in Heaven
infinite companies of angels, each a thousand times bigger than the
globe of the earth: each had ten thousand heads; every head threescore
and ten thousand tongues; and every one of those tongues praised God in
seven hundred thousand languages. The throne of Allah was supported by
seven angels, each so great that a falcon, if he were to fly a thousand
years, could not get so far as the distance from one of their eyes to the
other. Gabriel, the doorkeeper of Paradise, has seventy thousand keys
which pertain to his office, every key being seven thousand miles long.
This exaggerated balderdash is but childish stuff; it contains no element
of grandeur or sublimity; and, in reading it, one only wonders, when
astonishment and awe were to be excited by an artifice so commonplace,
that, while he was about it, all the numbers were not doubled,
quadrupled, multiplied ten or a hundred fold; so that we finally come to
the conclusion that, with all the arithmetical possibilities open to him,
he was but a poor bungler at his business after all.

[76] “She dwelleth and abideth on the rock, upon the crag of the rock,
and the strong place. From thence she seeketh the prey and her eyes
behold afar off.”—_Job_ xxxix. 28, 29.

[77] “The nature of the Eagle is to bend her eyes full into the sunne
beams. So strong is her sighte that she can even see into the great and
glaring sunne.”—FERNE, _The Blazon of Gentrie_.

[78]

    “As eagle fresh out of the ocean wave
    Where he hath left his plumes, all hoary grey,
    And decks himself with feathers, youthful, gay.”

                                           SPENSER.

[79] Dryden.

[80] Hence Dante terms the Saviour of the World “Nostro pelicano;” and an
enthusiastic admirer of Charles I., and an evident believer in the idea
that he shed his blood for his people, wrote in the year 1649, a book on
that king, entitling him “the Princely Pelican.”

[81] Byron.

[82] It is curious that until this species was discovered at the
Antipodes a black swan was regarded both by ancient and mediæval writers
as the very emblem and type of extravagant impossibility, so that those
who found no difficulty in believing in centaurs, mermaids, and fifty
other extravagances, felt that they really must draw the line at this.

[83] In “Camden” we read that the device of Anne, queen of Richard II.,
was “an ostrich with a nayle in his beake.”

[84] Thalaba.

[85] While actual incorporation was doubtless regarded as the most
effectual, mere possession was not by any means to be despised. Thus
Porta tells us that “if you would have a man become bold and impudent,
let him carry about him the skin or eyes of a Lion or a Cock, and he will
be fearlesse of his enemies—nay, he will be very terrible unto them.”
Scores of equally valuable hints may be gathered from these old authors.

[86] In another book we consulted, “Notes for Cookerie, gathered from
experienced Cookes,” published in 1593, it is equally emphatic that
“a Cock to be stewed to renew the weake” must be a red one. There is
naturally here a connection suggested between the colour of the bird and
the ruddy hue of health that is to be hoped for after such a dietary.

[87] MS. No. 10,074 in the Royal Library, Brussels.

[88] In the Middle Ages animals were frequently haled before the judges
for various offences. In 1266 a pig was burnt at Fontaney, near Paris,
for having killed a child, and in 1386, at Falaise, a sow was condemned
to death for a similar offence. Horses and cattle were solemnly tried
before the magistrates for manslaughter, and either expiated their
offence on the gallows or were burned.

[89] Aubrey tells us that in his younger days people had “some pious
ejaculation when the cock did crow, which put them in mind of ye Trumpet
at ye Resurrection.”

[90]

            “The peasants’ trusty clock,
    True morning watch, Aurora’s trumpeter,
    The lion’s terror, true astronomer,
    Who leaves his bed when Sol begins to rise
    And when Sunne sets then to his roost he flies.”

                                   _Speculum Mundi._

            “O chanticleer,
    Your clarion blow, the day is near.”

                 LONGFELLOW, _Daybreak_.

[91] Spenser.

[92] Macbeth.

[93] An old writer, one Fulgentius, declares that so far from this croak
being monotonous “the Raven hath sixty-four sundry chaunges of her
voice.” No other observer seems to have detected this.

[94] A fourteenth-century MS., the “Cursor Mundi,” says of the raven’s
exit from the ark:—

    “Than opin Noe his windowe
    Let ut a rauen and forth he flow
    Dune and vp sought here and thare
    A stede to sett upon somequar.
    Vpon the water sone he fand
    A drinkled best ther flotand.
    Of that fless was he so fain
    To schip came he neuer again.”

[95] This notion of the sightlessness of the young swallow was a very
popular one. The chelidonium, or swallow wort, according to Aristotle and
Dioscorides was so called because the swallows use it to give sight to
their young. Goldfinches, linnets, and other birds, in like manner were
believed to use the eyebright; while the hawks strengthened their vision,
we are told, by means of the plant that was hence called the hawkweed,
and still retains that name.

[96] “He was but as a cuckoo is in June,” says Shakespeare in reference
to Richard II., that is to say, he had lost the power to attract, his
utterances no longer commanded attention.

[97] Thus Christopher Marlowe enshrines the old belief in the lines:—

    “But how now stands the wind?
    Into what corner peers my halcyon’s bill?”

While Shakespeare, in King Lear, refers to the time-servers who “turn
their halcyon beaks with every gale and vary of their masters.”

[98] The idea is at least as old as Pliny, as he mentions it in his
“Natural History” as a recognized fact too well-known to need any apology
or explanation. Theocritus in his seventh idyll dwells on it, and it is
found in the writings of Pliny and many other ancient authors.

[99] A quaint little octavo on this subject is that of Dr. Warder,
“The true Amazons or the Monarchy of Bees,” being a new discovery and
Improvement of those wonderful creatures. The book went through several
editions. The one that came under our notice is the third; it is dated
1716.

[100] Ammianus Marcellinus has put it upon record that in imitation of
the ingenuity of the crane in assuring vigilance, Alexander the Great
was accustomed to rest with a silver ball in his hand, so that on the
slightest movement it might fall and wake him. This is certainly heroic
treatment, since even such an one as Alexander might fairly claim the
necessity that other mortals feel of uninterrupted rest. It reminds
one of the dictum of the great Duke of Wellington in defence of his
camp-bedstead, accommodation so confined that one could scarcely turn
round in it, that directly a man begins to think of turning round it is
time to turn out.

[101] In “A Mirror for Mathematics, a Golden Gem for Geometricians,
a sure Safety for Saylers, and an auncient Antiquary for Astronomers
and Astrologians,” by Robert Tanner, Gent, Practitioner in Astrologie
and Physic, a book published in the year 1587, we find an “Epistle
dedicatourie” to Lord Howard of Effingham, commencing:—“The Cranes when
they fly out of Cilicia, over the mountain Taurus, carrie in their mouths
a pebble stone, lest by their chattering they should be ceased upon by
the eagles, which birds, Right Honourable, might teach me silence,” &c.,
&c.

[102] “This creature is in thicknesse as big as a man’s wrist, and of
length proportionable to that thicknesse.”—_Speculum Mundi._

[103] The “Annals of Winchester,” for the year 1177, inform us that “in
this yeare Dragons were sene of many in England.” In 1274 it is recorded
that there was an earthquake on the Eve of St. Nicholas’ Day, and that
there appeared “a fiery dragon which frightened the English.”

[104] In the “Magick of Kirani,” a Persian book that appeared in an
English dress in 1685, we find the representation of a dragon employed
as a charm. “If therefore any man engrave a woodpecker on the stone
dentrites, and a sea-dragon under its feet, every gate will open unto
him; savage beasts will also obey him and come to tameness; he shall also
be loved and observed of all, and whatever he hath a mind to, he shall
perform.”

[105] On its noble title-page we see on either side of the title of the
book a powerful dragon, beneath one is inscribed Dominium, and below the
other Vigilantia. At the base a third dragon supports two shields. On one
is represented the serpent twining round a staff, the well-known symbol
of Æsculapius, inscribed Salus, and on the other the equally familiar
symbol of eternity, the serpent with its tail in its mouth, inscribed
Immortalitatis.

[106] Thus Lyte tells us that in his day, 1578, it had “none other knowen
name than this.”

[107] “Wherein is contained the most excellent Secretes of Phisicke and
Philosophie deuided into fower Bookes. In the which are the best approued
remedies for the diseases as well inwarde as outwarde, of all the partes
of Man’s bodie: treating very amplie of all Dystillacions of Waters, of
Oyles, Balmes, Quintessences, with the vse and preparation of Antimonie
and Potable Gold.”

[108] The “holy” has, of course, no reference to the sacred character
of the mess in question: it is merely the free and easy mediæval way of
spelling the word wholly.

[109] Extracted from the “Arcana Fairfaxiana,” a facsimile reproduction
of a manuscript book of recipes some three hundred years old, found in an
old lumber room at the ancestral seat of the Fairfax family.

[110] Our readers will remember the use that Longfellow makes of this
fancy in his “Evangeline:”—

    “Only beware of the fever, my friends! Beware of the fever!
    For it is not like that of our cold Acadian climate,
    Cured by wearing a spider hung round one’s neck in a nutshell.”

In the diary of Elias Ashmole we find that on May 11th, 1651, he was
suffering from ague. He writes: “I took early in the morning a good dose
of elixir, and hung three spiders about my neck, ague away, Deo Gratias!”
Sometimes a pill made up of spider web is taken, and in some parts of the
south of England a favourite remedy for jaundice was the living spider
itself rolled up with butter into a pill.

[111] Another of these ancient authorities affirmed that mud engendered
frogs that lack feet. In other words, he made acquaintance with tadpoles!

[112] It will be noted on turning back to our quotation from Porta, that
this “scarce one” is altogether too favourable to the belief in the
jewelled cranium of the toad. Porta, it will be seen, says, “nor could I
finde one,” an entirely different state of things.

[113] It will be seen from this that the state of things involved in the
too familiar legend, “Made in Germany,” is of ancient date.

[114] Act iii., sc. 9.

[115] Book I., Canto V.

[116] A very good illustration of this treatment may be seen in the
statement that “the dogs in Egypt use to lap their water running when
they come to Nilus, for fear of the crocodiles there, which cannot but be
a fit pattern for us in the use of pleasures; for true it is, we may not
stand to take a heartie draught, for then delights be dangerous, howbeit
we may refresh ourselves with them as we go on our way, and may take
them, but may not be taken by them; for when they detain us, and cause us
to stand still, then their sweet waters have fierce Crocodiles; or if not
so, they have strange Tarantulas, whose sting causeth to die laughing.”

[117] We meet a like precision of statement in Cockeram’s Dictionary,
a quaint old volume, wherein “all such as desire to know the plenty of
the English” will find some very strange illustrations of it. He says,
edition of 1623, that “the crocodile having eaten the body of a man,
will, in fine, weep over the head.”

[118] Readers of Shakespeare will recall how Falstaff rails at Bardolph,
calling him the “Knight of the Burning Lamp,” and other sarcasms inspired
by the effects of strong liquor on his rubicund countenance. “Thou hast
saved me a thousand marks in links and torches, walking with thee in the
night. I have maintained that Salamander of yours with fire any time this
two-and-thirty years.”

[119] Galen, in one of his prescriptions, includes the ashes of a
salamander, an ingredient impossible to obtain if fire had no power to
destroy the creature.

[120] A parallel idea is that if the body of a crab be laid in the
sunshine while the sun is in Cancer it will generate scorpions.

[121] “Andromachus a voulu changer le nom de Mithridate en celuy de
Theriaque, à cause des vipères, auxquelles il a attribué le nom, et
lesquelles il a ajouté pour la base principale de cette composition.”
(Chares, “l’histoire des Animaux etc. qui entrent dans la Theriaque,”
Paris, 1868.) See also Heberden’s “Antitheriaca.”

[122] A viper drowned in a bowl of wine gave the draught great healing
virtues for leprosy. This happy discovery, like many others of still
greater value, was the result of accident. Some mowers found on going
to their provisions that a viper had got into the wine, so they, very
naturally, “contented themselves with water; but when they had finished
their day’s work, and were to go out of the field, as it were out of
pity they gave a leprous man the wine wherein the viper was drowned,
supposing it better for him to die than to live on in that misery, but
he, when he had drank it, was miraculously cured,” at least, so we read
in the “Miracles of Art and Nature,” Galen being referred to as the
original authority for the story. The first essential in many of these
ancient remedies appeared to be that they should be most improbable and
unreasonable, and, secondly, that they should be as repulsive as possible.

[123] Spenser.

[124] In “the Ceremonies to be observed at the Coronation of His most
Excellent Majesty King George IV.,” the order of the procession is given,
the first item of all being “the King’s Herbwoman with her six maids,
strewing the way with Herbs.”

[125] In this mysterious isle also “there ben wylde gees that han two
Hedes, and ther ben Lyouns all white and als grete as oxen, and many
othere dyverse Bestes.”

[126] There is a notion in Cheshire that this complaint can be cured by
holding a toad or frog for a few minutes within the child’s mouth, at the
imminent risk, one would imagine, of choking the patient. In Norfolk,
they had greater faith in giving the child milk to drink that a ferret
had previously lapped at.

[127] “The knops or heads are holow within, and for the most part hauing
wormes in them, the which you shall find in cleaning the heads. The small
wormes that are founde within the knops of teasels do cure and heale the
quartaine ague, to be worne or tied about the necke or arme.”—_Lyte’s
translation of Dodœns_, A.D. 1586.

[128] Judges, chap. xiv.

[129] Dryden’s Translation.

[130] This old writer, not being aware of the various stages of egg,
larva, pupa, and imago through which butterflies and moths pass, is much
perplexed over the silkworm, “whether I may name it a worme or a flie,”
he says, “I cannot tell. For sometimes it is a worm, sometimes a flie,
and sometimes neither worm nor flie, but a little seed which the dying
flies leave behinde them.”

[131] Apart from these various monsters, and the hundreds of others that
bear them company, Aldrovandus seems to have been always accessible to
anyone who would bring him one wonder the more; hence he also figures
a bunch of grapes terminating in a long beard; representations of
cloud-warriors in conflict in the sky; comets like blazing swords, and
many other wonderful things that set our ancestors wondering in fear and
amazement as to what such portents should signify.

[132] “To be shewn at the Royal Infirmary of this city, price sixpence,
the largest and most beautiful lion that was ever seen in this country.
Also an Egyptian mummy, lately sent as a present to the Infirmary by
Alexander Drummond, Esq., Consul of the Turkey Company at Aleppo.
Likewise a very large horn of a sea unicorn, which all connoisseurs
acknowledge to be a remarkable curiosity.

“N.B.—As the money collected on this occasion is to be applied solely
for the relief of the Indigent Sick in the said Hospital, therefore
if persons of Substance and Distinction shall give more, it will be
thankfully accepted on behalf of the distressed Patients.”—_Edinburgh
Chronicle_, 1758.

[133] In the travels of Boullaye le Gouz, published in 1657, we find a
reference to this notion. He says, “I had among my baggage the hand of a
Syren, or fisherwoman, which I threw, on the sly, into the sea, because
the captain, seeing that we could not make way, asked me if I had not got
some mummy or other in my bags which hindered our progress, in which case
we must return to Egypt to carry it back again. Most of the Provençals
have the opinion that the vessels which transport the mummies from Egypt
have great difficulty in arriving safe at port: so that I feared, lest
coming to search my goods, they might take the hand of this fish for a
mummy’s hand, and insult me on account of it.”

[134] “That dolphins are crooked is not only affirmed by the hand of
the painter, but commonly conceived their naturall or proper figure,
which is not only the opinion of our times, but seems the belief of
older times before us: for besides the expressions of Ovid and Pliny,
their Portraicts in ancient Coynes are framed in this figure, as will
appear in some thereof in Gesner, others in Goltzius, and Lævinus Hulsius
in his description of Coynes. Notwithstanding, to speak strictly, in
their naturall Figure they are streight, nor have they their spine
convexed or more considerably embowed than Sharkes, Porposes, or
Whales, and therefore what is delivered of their incurvity must either
be taken Emphatically, that is, not really, but in appearance; which
happeneth when they leap above water or suddenly shoot down again: which
is a fallacy of vision, whereby streight bodies in a sudden motion
protruded obliquely downward appear to the eye crooked, and this is the
construction of Bellonius: or, if it be taken really, it must not be
universally and perpetually, that is, not when they swimme and remaine
in their proper figures, but only when they leape or impetuously whirle
their bodies anyway: and this is the opinion of Gesnerus. Or, lastly, it
must be taken neither really nor emphatically, but only emblematically;
for being the Hieroglyphic of Celerity, and swifter than other animalls,
men best expressed their velocity by incurvity, and under some figure of
a bowe, and in this sense probably do Heralds also receive it.”—_Browne._

[135] In Sussex no better remedy could be found for tooth-ache than the
application of a paw cut from a living mole.




INDEX.


  “Accedence of Armorie,” 52, 121, 232

  Acipenser, 330

  Acosta, “travels in the Indies,” 44

  Acrid secretion in skin of toad, 281

  “Actes of English votaries,” 69

  “Adam in Eden,” 48

  Adder, 173

  Adder eaters, 77

  Ælianus, works of, 95

  Agriophagi, 72

  Ague, specifics for, 172, 186, 309

  Ainos of Japan, 61

  Albert Nyanza in old maps, 13

  Albertus Magnus, 160, 282

  Alciatus, Book of Emblems, 84

  Aldrovandus, 63, 272, 305, 316

  Alectorius, 235, 247

  All creation a moral text book, 51, 125

  Ambrosinus, 316

  Amphisbæna, 304

  “Anatomy of Melancholy,” 309

  Anchor and Dolphin, 329

  André on theory of Creation, 125

  Andrew Marvel’s “Loyal Scot,” 69

  Andromachus, physician to Nero, 299

  Angulo or Hog-fish, 318

  Animals in art and fable, 175

  “Annals of Winchester,” 269

  Anthropophagi, 11, 72

  Antipathies, animal, 94, 153, 182, 187, 230, 232, 280, 289

  Antipathy and sympathy, 153

  Ant’s eggs, oil of, 278

  Ants of India, 196

  Ape, 122, 153

  Apollo and Raven, 241

  “Arcana Fairfaxiana,” 279

  Arena, lions in the, 123

  “Areopagitica,” 225

  Ariosto, 207, 224

  Aristotle, 30, 31, 55, 302

  “Armonye of Byrdes,” 239

  Armories, Natural History in, 32, 51, 119, 120, 121

  Arms of the City of London, 277

  Art, animals in, 175

  “Art of simpling,” 188

  Asbestos, its supposed nature, 293

  Ashmole, diary of, 279

  Askham on hare, 165

  Asp, 51, 307

  “As Pliny saith,” 4, 20

  Assyrian seals, 131

  Astrological influences, 11

  “As you like it,” 208

  Aubrey, extract from, 165, 179, 184, 238, 297

  Augustine on higher and lower truths, 49

  Authors consulted by Pliny, 26

  Avicenna on chamæleon, 296

  Azores in old map, 39


  Bacci on unicorn, 131

  Bacon’s “Natural History,” 166

  Badge, panther, of King Henry VI., 151

  Badger, 198

  Bale on scandalous reports, 69

  Ballasting of cranes and bees, 260

  Bandicoot, 196

  Barbary, lions of, 127

  Barnacle goose, 214

  Barnfield, “Cassandra,” 287

  Barrow, “Travels in Africa,” 131

  Bartholinus on unicorn, 131

  Basilisk, 265, 286, 305

  Bay-leaf as medicine, 274

  Bearded grapes, 319

  Bear, 161, 167, 182

  Beaumont and Fletcher, 162, 176

  Beaver, oil from the, 278

  Bee, 260, 310

  Beef, the praise of, 46

  Bee-hives attacked by bears, 163

  “Belvedere” of Bodenham, 170

  Bereus on unicorn, 131

  “Bestiare Divin” of Guillaume, 48

  Bestiaries of Middle Ages, 31, 50

  Blackbird, Sagacity of, 177

  Black Swan, 230

  “Blazon of Gentrie,” 119, 224

  Blood of lion black, 116

  Boar, 175

  Bœwulf on Mermaid, 80

  Boiling river, 43

  “Bonduca,” extract from, 162

  “Book of Emblems,” 84

  “Book of Knowledge,” Winstanley, 183, 248

  Boorde’s “Dyetary,” 46

  Bosjesmen, ancient Troglodytes, 3, 61

  Bossewell’s “Armorie,” 52, 169, 194

  Bostock on Pliny, 29

  Browne on Vulgar Errors, 56, 92, 106, 157, 162, 178, 205, 255, 267,
        284, 313, 328

  Buffon on Pliny, 21

  Burton, “Miracles of Art and Nature,” 18, 19, 127, 131, 305

  Bussy d’Amboise on Unicorn, 130

  Butler, Hudibras, extract from, 214

  Byron, extract from, 229, 330


  Cabbage, the praise of, 47

  Camel, 182, 198, 294

  Camelopardilis, 124

  Camerarius on dolphin, 329

  Camillus, “mirror of stones,” 247

  Cammetennus, 294

  Camoens, extract from, 181

  Camphor-tree, 152

  Cancer, specific for, 189

  Canibali, home of the, 37

  “Canterbury Tales,” 276

  Capture of elephant, 145

  Carbuncle borne by dragon, 274

  Carew, extract from, 164

  Carlyle on books, 33

  Carrier pigeons, 16

  Cartazonos, 130

  “Cassandra,” extract from, 287

  “Castle of Memory,” 166

  Cat, 168, 189

  Catelan on Unicorn, 131

  Cathay, palace at, 151

  Catoblepas, 197

  Centaur, 79, 294

  Cerastes or horned viper, 298, 304

  Ceylon, mermaids of, 88

  “Ceylon, Natural History of,” 196

  Chameleon, 136, 178, 274, 296

  Chanticleer, 239

  Chares on Theriaca, 299

  Chaucer, extract from, 11, 30

  Chelidonius, 247

  Chelonites of Porta, 283

  Chester’s “Love’s Martyr,” 170

  “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage,” 330

  Chinese referred to by Pliny, 28

  Churchyard grass, remedial virtues of, 189

  Cinirus, 124

  Cinnabar, how produced, 137

  Coats, extract from, 120, 194

  Cobbe on the creation of monsters, 145

  Cobra stone, 298

  Coca plant, properties of, 18

  Cock, 154, 232, 238

  Cock-ale, 234

  Cockatrice, 236, 267

  Cockeram’s Dictionary, 288

  Cockle, 196

  Cogan, “Haven of Health,” 45, 167, 231, 277, 301

  Coleridge on Nightingale, 252

  Cole’s “Adam in Eden,” 48
    “Art of simpling,” 188

  Colours of dying dolphin, 330

  Comets like blazing swords, 319

  Composition of Venice Treacle, 229

  Coney-fish, 209

  Convulsions, remedy for, 167, 186

  Coolness of blood of elephant, 149

  Cornishmen tailed, 68

  Corvia, 247

  Cos, dragon of, 110

  “Cosmography,” Munster’s, 34, 97, 127, 130, 139, 149, 220

  Crabs’ eyes a remedy, 235, 335

  Crabs generating scorpions, 297

  Crane, 56, 260

  Crapaudine, or toad stone, 281

  Creatures of the fire, 295

  Crippled feet of Chinese ladies, 15

  Crocodile, 286, 294

  Crocuta, 124

  Cross on donkey’s back, 184, 186

  Crow, sagacity of, 177

  Cruelty in preparation of recipes, 48, 248, 335

  Ctesias on griffin, 276;
    on unicorn, 130

  Cubs of bear a shapeless mass, 161

  Cuckoo broth, 235

  Culverwort, 16

  “Curiosities of Heraldry,” 237

  “Cursor Mundi,” extract from, 242

  Cuttle-fish, 335

  Cuvier on phœnix, 204;
    on Pliny, 21

  “Cymbeline,” extract from, 208

  Cynamolgi, 72


  Dagon, the fish god, 93

  _Daily Post_, advertisement from, 90

  Dallaway on unicorn, 133

  Dead animals generating other creatures, 311

  Dead men’s bones, oil from, 278

  Deaf as an adder, 303

  “De Animalibus” of Aristotle, 31

  Death song of the swan, 229

  Death-dealing cocatrice, 237

  Decker on unicorn’s horn, 134

  Deer, 173, 270

  “De Humana Physiognomonica,” 78

  “De Miraculis,” story from, 108

  Democritus on serpent generation, 307

  Derceto, 97

  De Thaun, “Bestiary” of, 50, 124, 132, 185, 204, 292

  Devil’s-bird, 241

  “De Virtutibus Herbarum,” 160

  Diamond dissolving, 178

  Differences in aim in zoological study, 4

  Digby, “The Closet Open,” 234

  “Dirge,” extract from Gay’s, 241

  Dioscorides, writings of, 95

  “Discoverie of witchcraft,” 113

  “Display of Heraldrie,” Guillim, 52, 120

  Divining rod in use, 37

  Doctrine of Signatures, 251

  Dodœns, extract from, 309

  Dog, 8, 119, 187, 189, 270, 316

  Dog-headed men, 11, 42, 72

  Dog-king, 73

  Dolphin, 83, 289, 327

  Donkey, 184, 188

  Double-bodied animals, 65

  Dove, 177, 240

  Draconites, 247

  Dragon, 268, 274

  Dragon-maiden, 110

  Dragon and elephant, feud between, 136, 147

  Drayton, extract from, 250, 253, 259

  Dropsy, remedy for, 298

  Drunkenness, to avert, 249

  Dryden, extract from, 161, 165, 224, 227, 259, 281

  Du Bartas on barnacle-goose, 218

  Du Chaillu on gorilla, 3;
    on pygmies, 60

  Dulness of hearing, remedy for, 308

  Dust of Malta a remedy, 300

  “Dyetary” of Boorde, 46


  Eagle, 108, 223, 240, 276

  Eale of Ethiopia, 197

  Earless animals, 74

  Earthworms in medicine, 279

  Eastern love of the wonderful, 213

  Eastern Travels of John of Hesse, 81

  Eel’s blood for warts, 335

  Eels from hairs, 182

  Effects of climate on human tail growth, 71

  Egyptians and the ass, 185

  Einhorn, 130

  El Dorado of Raleigh, 44

  Elephant, 36, 107, 135, 177, 182, 213, 274, 294, 323

  Elephant-headed boy, 64

  Elizabeth, portrait of Queen, 176

  Ellison, “Trip to Benwell,” 165

  “Emblemes and Epigrames,” 210

  “Emblems” of Whitney, 136

  England, first elephant seen in, 142

  Epilepsy, cure for, 173, 190

  Ermine, the spotless, 176

  Ethiopia, land of marvels, 73, 146, 276

  “Euphues,” extract from, 262, 281

  “Evangeline,” extract from, 247, 279

  Evil spirit in donkey, 185

  Eyebright for the sight, 48, 298


  Fable, animals in, 175

  “Fairie Queen,” extract from, 80, 113, 129

  Fakirs of India mentioned by Pliny, 28

  Famous horses of antiquity, 181

  Fascination, power of, 285

  Fennel, value of, 47

  Fenton on toad stone, 282

  Ferne, “Blazon of Gentrie,” 119, 224

  Ferret, 173, 309

  Feuds, animal, 129, 136

  Filial love of storks, 259

  Fishes choosing a king, 334

  Fletcher on phœnix, 207

  Flounder the wry-mouthed, 334

  Fondness of dolphin for man, 328

  Forget-me-not, 251, 277

  Formosa men with tails, 70, 71

  Four-eyed men, 74

  Four-footed ducks and pigeons, 65

  Four-legged serpents, 306

  Fox, 167

  Foxglove, 251

  Freckles, cure for, 166

  Frenzel on Unicorn, 131

  Frog, 189, 278, 281, 308

  Fulgentius on note of Raven, 242

  Fuller, extracts from, 117


  Galen, prescription of, 291

  “Garden of the Muses,” extract from, 170

  Garnier, the loup-garou, 108

  Gay, extract from, 184, 241

  Geliot’s “Indice Armorial,” 120

  _Gentleman’s Magazine_, extract from, 93

  Geranites, 247

  Gerarde, extract from, 214, 309

  Gesner’s “History of Animals,” 129

  Giants, 75

  Gift of eloquence, To acquire, 249

  Gift of invisibility, 235

  Gilbert White’s “Selborne,” 180

  Glanvil, assertions of, 113, 276, 290

  Glowworm, 257

  Goat, 177, 234, 331

  “Golden Gem for Geometricians,” 262

  Gonzale on monstrous men, 79

  Gorilla mentioned by Hanno, 3, 67

  Gosse, “Romance of Natural History,” 86

  Gout, remedy for, 244, 246, 278

  Gray, oil from the, 278

  Great-lipped men, 76

  Green lizards in mediæval recipe, 8

  Grimalkin, 192

  Guiana of Sir W. Raleigh, 44

  Guillaume, “Bestiare Divin” of, 48

  Guillim’s “Display of Heraldrie,” 52, 120, 132, 176, 243

  Gujerat, lions of, 124


  Hairy men, 67

  Hairy serpents, 306

  Hakluyt’s “Voyages,” 44

  Halcyone, myth of, 258

  Halle on knowledge for Chirurgeons, 12

  “Hamlet,” extract from, 228

  Hanno’s pursuit of gorilla, 3, 67, 68

  Hare, 8, 164, 165, 184

  Harpy, 64, 146

  Hartebeest, 124

  “Haven of Health,” Cogan’s, 45, 167, 231, 277, 301

  Hawkweed, 248

  Headless men, 34, 65, 75

  Heberden’s “Antitheriaca,” 299

  Hedgehog, 168, 256

  Hentzner on horn of unicorn, 134

  Heraldic animals, 83, 127, 276, 328

  Herbert’s book of travels, 39, 176

  Herb-tea in the Spring, 274

  Herodotus, writings of, 30

  Herring, the king of fishes, 334

  Herschell on love of books, 32

  Heylyn, travels of, 42

  Heywood on stork, 259

  “Hind and Panther,” extract from, 161, 165

  Hippeau on theological treatment, 6, 49

  Hippocampus, 314

  Hippopotamus, 118, 143, 149, 314

  “Histoire des Anomalies” of St. Hilaire, 62

  “Historia Naturalis” of Jonston, 130

  “Historie of Plants,” Gerarde, 214

  “History of America,” Robertson, 79

  “History of Animals,” Gesner, 129

  “History of Serpents and Dragons,” Aldrovandus, 272

  Hog-fish, 209, 318

  Holland, English version of Pliny, 29

  Hollerius on snake stone, 298

  Homer on eagle, 225;
    on pygmies, 55

  Hoopoe, stone from, 247

  Horned men, 76, 294

  Horned viper, 298

  Hornets from dead mule, 311

  Horn of unicorn, 133, 324

  Horse, 181, 189, 236, 270, 276, 294, 297

  Horse-shoe, 184

  Hound’s-tongue, value of, 188

  Howling of dogs an evil omen, 188

  How serpents are developed, 297

  How tempests may arise, 321

  How the raven became black, 241

  How to procure toad-stone, 283

  Hudibras, quotation from, 162, 214

  Hudson on mermaids, 85

  Humble bees from dead ass, 311

  Hyæna, 152, 156;
    Men turned into, 104

  Hydrophobia, treatment of, 189, 234

  “Hymn on the Nativity,” Milton, 258


  Iliad, extract from, 225

  Incubators mentioned by Jordanus, 15

  Indian customs mentioned by Pliny, 28

  “Indice Armorial,” 120

  Indifference to animal suffering, 48, 167, 248, 335

  Inhabitants of the sea-depths, 313

  Insomnia, specific for, 177

  Instances of sagacity in birds, 177

  Invisibility, gift of, 245, 297

  Ipotayne, half-man, half-horse, 79

  Izaak Walton, extract from, 209


  Jaguars, men turned to, 104

  Jaundice, specific for, 189

  Java, home of the pygmies, 58

  Jewel-bearing toad, 281

  Job on the eagle, 224

  John of Hesse, travels of, 81

  Jonston’s “Historia Naturalis,” 130

  Jordanus, extract from, 13, 58, 73, 196, 213, 274

  Juggernaut, 15

  “Julius Cæsar,” extract from, 130

  Jumar, 124


  Keen sight of eagle, 225

  Kentish men tailed, 68, 69

  Kingfisher, 255

  “King Henry IV.,” extract from, 166, 254

  “King Henry VI.,” extract from, 161, 208, 224, 246, 266, 296, 304

  “King Henry VIII.,” extract from, 286

  “King Lear,” extract from, 254

  King of beasts, 116;
    of birds, 232;
    of fishes, 334;
    of serpents, 266

  Kite, sagacity of, 177

  “Knight of Malta,” extract from, 176


  Lady loup-garou, 109

  Lalla Rookh, extract from, 210

  Lamia, 294

  Lamb-tree, 223

  Land of the pygmies, 57

  Landseer’s animal painting, 175

  Language of beasts, to learn, 42

  Lapwing, 177

  Lark, sagacity of, 177

  Larva of tiger-moth, 306

  Laterrade on the unicorn, 131

  Lavender as a remedy, 301

  Legend of the robin, 250

  Legh, “Accedence of Armorie,” 52, 121, 144, 178, 187, 242

  Leo, “History of Africa,” 158, 271

  Leontophonos, 128

  Leopards, men turned to, 104

  Leviathan, 334

  Licking little bears into shape, 161

  Lightning, protection against, 258

  Like to like, 300

  Lily, “Euphues” of, 281

  Lion, 116, 232, 270, 276, 294, 303, 310

  Lipless men, 73

  “Livre des Creatures” of De Thaun, 50, 124

  Lizard, 8, 296

  Lomie, 197

  Long-eared men, 42, 77

  Long-headed men, 78

  Longfellow, extract from, 247, 279

  Loup-garou, 108

  Love of the marvellous, 10

  “Love’s Martyr” of Chester, 170

  “Loyal Scot” of Andrew Marvel, 69

  Luminous ink, 312

  Lupton, extract from, 282

  “Lusiad” of Camoens, 181

  Luther on whale, 334

  Lycanthropy, 101


  “Macbeth,” extract from, 192

  Macaulay on books, 32

  “Maccabees,” extract from, 145

  Macer on fennel, 47

  Mad as a March hare, 165, 166

  Mad dog, 9

  “Magick of Kirani,” 251, 270

  Maneless lions, 123

  Manticora, 156, 197

  Manufacture of mermaids, 91;
    of pygmies, 58

  Maori traditions, 61

  “Mappæ Clavicula,” extract from, 182

  Marcellus, cure of blindness, 248

  Marco Polo, travels of, 40, 144, 211

  Marlowe, extract from, 241, 255

  Marmalade for students, 46

  Martin’s “Philosophical Grammar,” 132

  Marvellous Isle of Dondum, 75

  Matthew Prior, drawing of elephant, 143

  Maundevile, extract from, 15, 16, 110, 138, 147, 151, 195, 202, 244,
        276, 308, 336

  Mauritius veal, 89

  Medical zoology, 4, 45

  Mediæval theory of creation, 125

  Melancholia, its cause, 166

  Men who lived on odours, 58, 75

  Mendez Pinto the marvellous, 41

  Mermaid, 79, 80, 313

  Metacollinarum, 294

  “Merchant of Venice,” extract from, 54, 192, 229

  “Metamorphoses,” Ovid, 101

  Metempsychosis, 107

  Mewing nuns, 105

  “Midsummer night’s dream,” extract from, 83

  Milton, extract from, 226, 253, 258, 334

  “Miracles of Art and Nature,” extract from, 18, 19

  “Mirror for Mathematics,” 262

  Mirror of stones, 247

  Mithridate, 299

  Mole, 168, 172, 335

  Monoceros, 130

  “Monstrorum Historia” of Aldrovandus, 63

  Moon-worshipping elephants, 139

  Moore, Extract of, 210

  Moral-pointing treatment of zoology, 4, 6, 173, 244, 287, 293

  Moss from dead man’s skull, 278

  Moufflon in Munster’s book, 35

  Mouse, 137, 167, 194

  Mouthless men, 75, 76

  Munster’s “Cosmography,” 34, 97, 127, 130, 139, 149, 220, 306

  Music, dolphins love of, 330

  Musinus, 129

  Mussel, 196

  Mutianus on monkeys, 139


  Narwhal tusk, 324

  “Natural History,” Bacon’s, 166

  “Natural History of Norway,” 87

  “Natural History of Selborne,” 180

  “Natural Magick,” 154

  “New Jewell of Health,” 277

  Nightingale, 251

  Nile represented in old maps, 13, 36

  Noah and the raven, 242

  Noseless men, 73


  Oannes the fish-god, 96

  Odin’s wolf, 157

  Oil of swallows, 249

  Oils of medicinal repute, 278

  Olaus Magnus, writings of, 106, 320, 333

  Omens from animals, 164

  One-legged men, 42, 294

  “Orlando Furioso,” extract from, 207, 304

  “Ortus Sanitatis,” extract from, 280

  Oryges, 197

  Ostrich devouring iron, 231

  “Othello,” Extract from, 241, 282

  Ovid, the “Metamorphoses” of, 101

  Owl, 246

  Oxford life in the year 1636, 46

  Oyster, the susceptible, 196


  Panther, 149, 232

  “Paradise lost,” extract from, 334

  Parkinson, on barnacle goose, 219

  Parrot-fish, 209

  Parsee funeral customs, 13

  “Pathway to Knowledge,” extract from, 312, 336

  Peacock, 240, 254

  Pearl-fish, 332

  Pegasus, 324

  Pelican, 227, 240

  Percy Society Publications, 240

  Performing elephants, 138

  “Periplus” of Hanno, 67

  Philomela, 252

  “Philosophical Grammar,” Martin, 132

  Philostratus on pygmies, 55

  Phisiologus on the mermaid, 80

  Phœnix, 200, 240, 294

  Physician-tench, 335

  Pietro del Porco, 176

  Pillars of Hercules, 36

  Pinto, liar of first magnitude, 41

  Plagiarism, 45

  Playmate, dragon as a, 275

  Pliny’s “Natural History,” 21, 95, 123, 150, 246

  Plutarch, quotation from, 37

  Poison fish, 209

  Polypus and the significance thereof, 4, 5

  Pomphagi, 72

  Pontarf, 338

  Pontoppidan, writings of, 87

  “Poor Robin’s Almanack,” extract from, 170

  Pope on learned blockheads, 33

  Porta, extract from, 78, 122, 124, 152, 154, 160, 172, 182, 233, 283,
        295, 300

  Potter’s “Booke of Phisicke,” 45

  Powdered mummy, 278

  Praise of method, 53

  Prawn, 332

  Prester John, kingdom of, 293

  “Pseudodoxia Epidemica,” 92

  “Purchas his Pilgrimage,” 44, 318

  Pygmies, 54, 294

  Pyragones, 295


  “Quentin Durward,” extract from, 157


  Rabbit, 119

  Raleigh, Sir Walter, on Guiana, 44

  Ram, 198

  Ram-headed man, 64

  Rat, 194, 196, 282

  Raven, 177, 241

  Raven-stone, 244

  Ray, its love for man, 331

  Reginald Scot, “Discoverie of Witchcraft,” 113

  Rejuvenescence of the eagle, 226

  Relentless asp, 307

  “Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme,” 165, 298

  Remedies for hydrophobia, 189

  Remora, 326

  Rheumatism, remedy for, 167

  “Rich Jew of Malta,” extract from, 241

  Rings bearing toad-stone, 281

  Robbers checkmated, 9

  Robertson, “History of America,” 79

  Robin, 249

  Rochester rudeness to A. Becket, 68, 69

  Roc or Rukh, 211

  “Romance of Natural History,” Gosse, 86

  Roman mosaic at Brading, 98

  “Romeo and Juliet,” extract from, 192

  Rondoletius, book of, 319

  Roulet, the loup-garou, 109


  Sachs on unicorn, 131

  “Saducismus Triumphatus,” 113

  Sagacity of the crane, 261

  Salamander, 154, 209, 290

  Sargon, 331

  “Savage Africa,” Winwood Reade, 61

  Sciatica, specific for, 182

  Scoresby on mermaids, 84

  Scorpion, 9, 277, 278, 302, 338

  Scorpion-grass, 251, 277

  _Scots Magazine_, extract from, 87

  Screech-owl, 108

  Sea elephant, 323

  Sea horse, 314

  Seal, Greek superstition respecting, 289

  Serpent, 173, 178, 236, 267

  Serpentine monstrosities, 305

  Shakespeare, extract from, 11, 32, 54, 55, 130, 173, 180, 192, 208,
        228, 229, 241, 246, 253, 254, 255, 266, 277, 291, 296, 304

  Shakespeare on learning, 33

  Sheep as great as oxen, 76

  Shelley on nightingale, 253

  “Ship of Fools,” 39

  Shony, the storm-dog, 191

  Shrew-ash, 180

  Shrew-mouse, 179, 234

  Silkworm, 312

  Silurus, 338

  Single-footed men, 20

  Sir Emerson Tennant on travellers’ tales, 2

  “Six Pastorals,” extract from, 250

  Skelton’s poem on birds, 240

  Sleeplessness, to cause, 251

  Snail-shells as houses, 308

  Snake charmers mentioned by Pliny, 29

  Song of the nightingale, 252

  Southey, extract from, 232

  “Speculum Mundi,” extract from, 5, 81, 88, 131, 133, 144, 180, 194,
        227, 229, 252, 265, 266, 287, 320

  “Speculum Regale,” 86

  Speechless men, 73

  Spenser, quotation from, 80, 113, 129, 150, 226, 240, 281, 286, 301,
        326, 327

  Sphinx, 146

  Spider, 279, 282, 308

  Squirrel, 174

  Stag-wolf, 160

  Stanley rediscovering pygmies, 3, 60

  Stellion, 154

  Stolbergk on unicorn, 131

  Stone in lapwing’s nest, 8

  Stones of magic virtue, 247

  Stork, 259

  Storm-raisers, 191

  Strabo on the pygmies, 55

  Strewing herbs, 302

  Struys’ voyages and travels, 44, 70

  Subjects dealt with by Pliny, 22

  Sucking fish or remora, 326

  “Survey of Cornwall,” extract from, 164

  Sus Marinus, 317

  Suttee an ancient usage, 14

  Swallow, 8, 240, 247, 260

  Swallow-wort, 248

  Swam-fish, 333

  Swan-song, 228

  Swift, quotation from, 37

  Symbol of resurrection, 203

  Sympathy and antipathy, 153

  Syrens, 82


  Tacitus on phœnix, 201

  Tailed men, 43, 68, 69

  “Tale of a Tub,” Swift, 37

  “Taming of the Shrew,” extract from, 180

  Tavernier on bird of paradise, 210

  Tears of the crocodile, 286

  Teasel-heads, 309

  “Tempest,” extract from, 79, 209

  Tench, the physician fish, 335

  Tennant on works of ancient travellers, 2

  Tensevetes, 294

  Ten-tailed lizard, 63

  “Theater of plants,” 219

  Theocritus on halcyon calm, 258

  Theologians, a study of zoology, 4

  Theriaca, 299

  Thoes, 124

  “Thousand notable things,” 282

  Three-eyed men, 74

  Three-headed monster, 65

  Thynne’s “Book of Emblems,” 210

  Tiger, 118, 198

  Tiger-men, 104

  “Timon of Athens,” extract from, 130

  Titian, device of, 161

  Title-pages full of interest, old, 6, 34, 272

  Titles of old books, 12

  Toad, 236, 274, 279, 308

  Toad-stone, 281

  Toad-wort, 280, 298

  To catch Sargi, 331

  Tooth-ache, remedy for, 335

  Topsell, extract from, 165, 168, 171, 179, 280

  Torpedo, 257

  Tortoise, sagacity of, 178

  Tradescant’s museum, 209

  Transfer of valuable animal properties to man, 8

  Travellers’ tales, 3, 338

  “Travels in Africa,” Barrow, 131

  Travels of Le Gouz, 326

  Treachery of the shrew mouse, 179

  “Trip to Benwell,” extract from, 165

  Troglodytes mentioned by Pliny and others, 3

  “Troilus and Cressida,” extract from, 304

  Tusser’s “Husbandry,” 301

  “Two Gentlemen of Verona,” extract from, 296

  Two-headed animals, 65


  Unchangeableness of old customs, 13, 28

  Urcheon, urchin, or hedgehog, 169

  Use of elephant in war, 137


  Value of personal observation, 199

  “Varia Historia,” extract from, 95

  Venice treacle, 9, 299

  Venomous men, 43

  Versipellis, the skin-turner, 106

  Vervain in recipe, 8

  Victoria Nyanza in old maps, 13

  Viper in medicine, 298, 299

  Virgil on bees, 261, 311

  “Voiage and Travaile” of Maundevile, 15, 16, 110, 138, 202, 308


  Warder, Dr., on bees, 261

  Wart, to cure, 182, 190

  Wasps from dead horse, 311

  Waters of Lethe, 99

  Weasel, 119, 188, 296, 318

  Weather prognostics, 82, 170

  Weeping of deer, 173

  Wehr-wolves, 99, 104

  Whales pacified with tubs, 37, 39

  When venison should be avoided, 173

  Whitney’s “Emblems,” 136

  Whooping cough, remedy for, 163, 186, 188, 308

  Why bears attack bee-hives, 163

  Winstanley’s “Book of Knowledge,” 183, 248, 312

  Wolf, 8, 118, 154, 157, 182

  Wolf-headed man, 79

  Wondrous beasts of mediæval fancy, 197

  Woolly bear, 306

  Wren, 249

  Wright’s translation of De Thaun, 50


  Xenophon on boar, 175


  Ylio of De Thaun, 51

  Yule’s translation of Jordanus, 14

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