Comparatively Small Number of Mythical Bird-Forms--The Martlet--The
Bird of Paradise--The Humma--The Huppe--The Ibis--The Roc--The
Hameh Bird--Reptiles, Fish, &c.--The Sea-Serpent--The Adissechen
of Hindu Mythology--The Iormungandur of Scandinavian Mythology--
The Egg Talisman--Fire-Drake--Aspis--Amphisbena--Kraken--Cetus--
Leviathan--Behemoth--Nautilus--Dolphin--The Acipenser--The Remora--
The Fish Nun--The Chilon--The Dies--Sea-Bishops and Sea-Monks--Davy
Jones and his Locker--Ojibiway Legend of the Great Serpent--Fabledom
in the Vegetable Kingdom--The Barnacle Tree--The Kalpa-Tarou--The
Lote Tree--The Tree of Life--Lotus-Eating--Amaranth--Lotus Wreaths
at Kew from the Egyptian Tombs--Asphodel--Mediæval Herbals--
Ambrosia--The Upas Tree--The Umdhlebi Tree of Zululand--The Kerzereh
Flower--The Mandrake--"Miracles of Art and Nature"--Travellers'
Tales--The Dead Sea Apple--Alimos--The Meto--The Herb Viva--Cockeram
on Herb-Lore--The Pseudodoxia of Dr. Browne--Herb Basil--The "Eikon
Basilike"--Fitzherbert's "Boke of Husbandry" 133-205
Appendix 207
Index 235
[Decoration]
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
The Unicorn (from a "Description of 300 Animals,"
A.D. 1786) 5
The Manticora (from a "Description of 300 Animals,"
A.D. 1786) 13
The Lamia (from a "Description of 300 Animals," A.D.
1786) 13
Dragons (from a "Description of 300 Animals," A.D.
1786) 17
The Sea-Elephant 72
Dragon, from a piece of Italian decoration 79
The Sea-Lion 160
The Harpy (from the "Historia Monstrorum" of Aldrovandus,
A.D. 1642) 161
The Barnacle Tree, from Gerarde's "Herbal," A.D. 1633 169
The Barnacle Tree (from the "Theatrum Botanicum" of
Parkinson, A.D. 1640) 173
The Barnacle Tree (from "Munster's Cosmography," A.D.
1550) 174
The Palm (from the "Eikon Basilike," A.D. 1648) 203
[Decoration]
[Decoration]
MYTH-LAND.
CHAPTER I.
Introduction--"A Description of 300 Animals"--Unicorn--The Bible
Unicorn--The Heraldic Unicorn--The Horn as a Poison Test--The Unicorn
of Mediæval Legend--Wolf Causing Dumbness--The Rompo or Man-eater--The
Manticora--The Lamia--Stag Antipathies--Dragons--Dragon-slaying--
Legends of the Saints--The "Legenda Aurea"--St. George--Mediæval
Recipes--The "Historia Monstrorum" of Aldrovandus--The Dragon in
Heraldry--The Dragon of Wantley--Dragons' Teeth--The Dragonnades--The
Dragons of Shakespeare--Guardians of Treasure--The Feud between the
Dragon and the Elephant--The "Bestiare Divin" of Guillaume--The
Cockatrice--The Basilisk--The Phoenix--Its Literary Existence from
Herodotus to Shakespeare--The Dun-Cow of Warwick--Sir Guy, and
Percie's "Reliques of Antient Poetry"--Old Ribs and other Bones in
Churches--The Salamander--Breydenbach's Travels--The "Bestiary" of
De Thaun--The Ylio--The Griffin--The Arimaspians--Burton's "Miracles
of Art and Nature"--The Lomie--The Tartarian Vegetable Lamb--The
Sea-Elephant--Pegasus--The Vampyre--The Chameleon.
All science is a gradual growth. Travellers as they toil up a long
ascent turn round from time to time, and mark with satisfaction the
ever-lengthening way that stretches between them and their distant
starting-place, and derive a further encouragement from the sight to
press onward to the yet unknown. So may we in this our day compare
ourselves, in no offensive and vainglorious way, with the men of the
past, and gain renewed courage in the future as we leave their ancient
landmarks far behind us. Shame, indeed, would it be to us had we not
thus advanced, for our opportunities of gaining knowledge are
immeasurably greater than those of any preceding generation.
The old herbals and books of travels abound in curious examples of the
quaint beliefs of our forefathers, while their treatises on natural
history are a still richer storehouse. Many of the old tomes, again,
on the science of heraldry give other curious notions respecting the
different animals introduced. Some of these animals, as the dragon or
the griffin, are undoubtedly of the most mythical nature, yet we find
them described in the most perfect good faith, and without the
slightest suspicion as to their real existence. We shall have occasion
to refer to several of the works of these old writers, and we will,
without further preface, take down from our book-shelf a little book
entitled "A Description of 300 Animals."[1]
[1] The name of Thomas Bewick is to all book-collectors "familiar in
their mouths as household words," and we rarely read the account of
the dispersal of any large library or the choice collection of some
bibliophile without finding that it contained a choice edition of
Bewick's "quadrupeds" or "birds"--a "lot" that always calls for a
keen competition. It is interesting to know that the book we have
named above considerably influenced him, and in no slight degree led
to the production of the works that will always remain his monument,
for we find him writing to a friend of his--"From my first reading,
when a boy at school, a sixpenny history of birds and beasts, and
then a wretched composition called the 'History of Three Hundred
Animals,' to the time I became acquainted with works of natural
history written for the perusal of men, I was never without the
design of attempting something of this kind myself."
No one person appears on the title-page as author, but it is stated
that it is extracted from the best authorities and adapted to the use
of all capacities. It is also illustrated with copper-plates "whereon
is curiously engraven every beast, bird, fish, serpent, and insect,
described in the whole book." The word "curiously" is very happily
chosen, and most happily describes the extraordinary nature of the
illustrations. The preface shows us that the primary intention of the
book was the instruction and entertainment of the young, and after
wading painfully through the cumbrous Roman figures, the long array of
C's, X's, and the like, we find that the date of the treatise was
1786, or just a hundred years ago. Let us, then, dip here and there
into it and see what "the best authorities" could teach our
grandfathers when their youthful minds would know something of the
wonders of creation. The lion, as the king of beasts, heads the list.
"He is generally of a dun colour, but not without some exceptions, as
black, white, and red, in Ethiopia and some other parts of Africa."
The red lion, then, it would appear, is no mere creation of the
licensed victualler or Garter King-at-Arms, no mere fancy to deck a
signboard withal or emblazon on a shield of honour, but a living
verity; and we may pause to remark that almost all the most wonderful
things in the book have their home in Africa, not as now the
playground of the Royal Geographical Society, but an unknown land full
of wonder and mystery, of which nothing is too marvellous to be
impossible. We are told, too, that the lion sleeps with his eyes open,
and many other curious details follow. On the next page the unicorn is
in all sober seriousness described. "His head resembles a hart's, his
feet an elephant's, his tail a boar's, and the rest of his body a
horse's. The horn is about a foot and a half in length, his voice is
like the lowing of an ox, his horn is as hard as iron and as rough as
any file." Burton in his "Miracles of Art and Nature," published in
1678, says that in Ethiopia "some Kine there are which have Horns like
Stags; other but one Horn only, and that in the Forehead, about a foot
and a half long, but bending backward." It will be seen that Burton
does not identify these with the so-called unicorn, but the passage is
in some degree suggestive. Any one who has noticed the fine series of
antelopes in the collection of the Zoological Society of London will
scarcely have failed to observe the length and straightness of the
horns of some of the species, while they are often so close together
and so nearly parallel in direction, that any one seeing the animals
at a little distance away, and so standing that one of their horns
covers the other, might well be excused for starting the idea of
single-horned animals. Great virtues are attributed to the horn of the
unicorn, as the expelling of poison and the curing of many diseases.
The unicorn is very familiar to us as one of the supporters of the
royal arms, but the form we know so well does not altogether agree
with that described. The heraldic unicorn is in all respects a horse
save and except the horn, while our old author tells us of the head of
a stag and the feet of an elephant. The creature is sometimes referred
to in our English version of the Bible, and has thus become one of the
animals introduced in symbolic and religious art. In some of the
passages it would clearly seem to indicate that in the very early days
dealt with in some of the books of the Bible there was a general
belief in some such creature, while in others probably the word is
rather introduced in error by our translators--an error that may very
well be pardoned when we find the animal gravely described in the much
more recent book before us. In the book of Job, the earliest in point
of time in the whole Bible, the belief in some such animal seems very
distinctly indicated in the words, "Will the unicorn be willing to
serve thee or abide by thy crib? Canst thou bind the unicorn with his
band in the furrow, or will he harrow the valleys after thee?" In the
92d Psalm the peculiar feature that gives the creature its name is
especially referred to in the words, "My horn shalt thou exalt like
the horn of a unicorn." The reference is always to some wild and
powerful animal; thus in Exodus we read, "His horns are like the horns
of unicorns;" and again in one of the psalms we find David crying,
"Save me from the lion's mouth, for Thou hast heard me from the horns
of the unicorns." Other passages might be quoted, but these will amply
suffice to indicate the very early belief in some such creature. The
form is frequently seen in the earliest Christian art, as in the
catacombs of Rome, the havens of refuge for the living and the
resting-places of the dead followers of the new faith. Our
illustration is a facsimile of that in the "Description of 300
Animals."
[Illustration: {THE UNICORN}]
For some reason that we cannot now discover, the unicorn was an
especial favourite with the Scotch heralds, and it is from them that
we derive it in our royal arms. Before the union of the two monarchies
the supporters of the arms of the English monarchs had been very
various, though in almost every case a lion had been one of the two
employed,[2] while in Scotland for several reigns before the
amalgamation of the two countries the supporters had been two
unicorns. It was very naturally arranged, therefore, when the two
kingdoms were fused together on the death of Elizabeth, that the joint
shield should be supported by the lion of England and the unicorn of
Scotland. The creature freely occurs as a device on the Scottish
coinage; one piece especially is by collectors called the unicorn,
from the conspicuous introduction of the national device.
[2] As for example:--Henry VI., Lion and Antelope; Edward IV., Lion
and Bull; Edward V., Two Lions; Richard III., Lion and Boar; Henry
VII., Lion and Dragon; Henry VIII., Lion and Dragon; Mary, Lion and
Greyhound; Elizabeth, Lion and Greyhound.
We have already indicated that potent virtues were believed to reside
in the horn of the unicorn. In the Comptes Royaux of France in 1391 we
find a golden cup with a slice of this horn in it for testing the food
of the Dauphin, and again in the inventory of Charles V.--"Une touche
de licorne, garnie d'or, pour faire essay." Decker, again, in 1609
speaks of "the unicorn, whose horn is worth a city." In Mrs. Bury
Palliser's most interesting work of "Historic Badges and Devices" we
find an illustration of the standard of Bartolomeo d'Alviano. He was a
great champion of the Orsini family, and took a leading part in all
the feuds that devastated Central Europe during his lifetime. His
standard bears the unicorn, surrounded by snakes, toads, and other
reptiles then rightly or wrongly held poisonous; these he is moving
aside with his horn, and above is the motto, "I expel poisons"--he,
d'Alviano, of course, being the lordly and potent unicorn, his foes
the creeping things to be driven from his face.[3]
[3] The English Cyclopædia of Natural History gives a description by
Ctesias of the Indian ass. He says that these animals are as large
as horses, and larger, having a horn on the forehead, one cubit
long, which for the extent of two palms from the forehead is
entirely white; above, it is pointed and red, being black in the
middle. Of this horn drinking-cups are formed, and those who use
them are said not to be subject to spasm or epilepsy, nor to the
effects of poison, provided, either before or after taking the
poison, they drink out of the cup wine, water, or any other liquid.
One of the Arabian annalists, El Kazwini, has much to say about the
magical and curative properties of these cups; and a yet fuller
notice of them appears in Lane's "Arabian Nights," chap. xx. note
32. It is also stated that most of the Eastern potentates possessed
one of these cups. In Hyder Ali's treasury at Tanjore was found a
specimen.
In "Uganda and the Egyptian Soudan," by the Rev. C. T. Wilson and
R. W. Felkin, vol. ii. p. 275, we read:--
"Cups made of rhinoceros horn are supposed to have the peculiar
virtue of detecting poison in coffee and sherbet. Often, when
drinking for the first time in a strange house, one of these cups is
offered to assure the visitor that no foul play is contemplated.
These are considered most valuable presents and a mark of lasting
friendship and esteem."
In the "Display of Heraldry" published by John Guillim in the year
1679 we read--"It hath been much questioned amongst naturalists, which
it is that is properly called the Unicorn; and some have made doubt
whether there be any such Beast as this or no. But the great esteem of
his horn (in many places to be seen) may take away that needless
scruple." Having thus satisfactorily established the existence of such
a creature he naturally feels at full liberty to group around the
central fact divers details, as, for instance, that "the wild Beasts
of the wilderness use not to drink of the Pools, for fear of venomous
Serpents there breeding, before the Unicorn hath stirred it with its
horn."
It seems to have been a debateable point whether the unicorn had ever
been taken alive, but Guillim decisively negatives the idea, and
naturally avails himself of it for the greater glorification of the
creature and of its service in his beloved science of heraldry. He
lays down the broad fact that the unicorn is never taken alive, and
here surely we can thoroughly go with him; but "the reason being
demanded, it is answered that the greatness of his mind is such that
he chuseth rather to die, wherein the unicorn and the valiant-minded
soldier are alike, which both contemn death, and rather than they will
be compelled to undergo any base servitude and bondage they will lose
their lives."
Philip de Thaun, on the other hand, not only admits the idea that the
unicorn may be captured alive, but gives the full receipt for doing
so. It would appear that, like Una's lion, the animal is of a
particularly impressionable nature, and is always prepared to do
homage to maiden beauty and innocence, and this amiable trait in its
character is basely taken advantage of. "When a man intends to hunt
and take 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."
The young ladies of that very indefinite date must have possessed
considerably more courage and nerve than some of their sisters of the
present day, who show symptoms of hysteria if they find themselves in
the same room with a spider--a considerably less severe test than an
interview in the dark shades of the forest with an amorous unicorn.
One cannot, however, help feeling that the victim of misplaced
confidence comes out of the transaction most creditably, and that both
man and maiden must have felt what schoolboys call "sneaks."
The unicorn, alive or dead, seems to have eluded observation in a
wonderful way, and the men of science were left to extract their facts
from the slightest hints, in the same way that distinguished
anatomists and geologists of these later days are enabled to build up
an entire animal from one or two isolated bones. The process, however,
does not seem, in the case of the earlier men, to have been a very
successful one, and there is consequently a great clashing amongst the
authorities, and one of the mediæval writers, feeling the difficulty
of drawing any very definite result from the chaos before him, adopts
the plan, in which we humbly follow him, of simply putting it all down
just as it comes to hand, and leaving his readers to make the best
they can of it. He writes as follows:--
"Pliny affirmeth it is a fierce and terrible creature, Vartomannus a
tame animal: those which Garcias ab Horto described about the Cape of
Good Hope were beheld with heads like horses, those which Vartomannus
beheld he described with the head of a Deere: Pliny, Ælian, Solinus,
and Paulus Venetus affirm the feet of the Unicorn are undivided and
like the Elephant's, but those two which Vartomannus beheld at Mecha
were, as he described, footed like a Goate. As Ælian describeth it, it
is in the bignesse of an Horse, that which Thevet speaketh of was not
so big as an Heifer, but Paulus Venetus affirmeth that they are but
little lesse than Elephants."
On turning to the records of a distinguished French Society
established in 1633 we come across many strange items. These records
are entitled "A general collection of the Discourses of the Virtuosi
of France, upon questions of all sorts of philosophy and other natural
knowledge, made in the Assembly of the Beaux Esprits at Paris by the
most ingenious persons of that nation." Their meetings were termed
conferences, and there are notes of two hundred and forty of these.
The subjects discussed covered a very wide field, the following being
some few amongst them--Of the end of all things, of perpetual motion,
of the echo, of how long a man may continue without eating, whether is
to be preferred a great stature or a small, of the loadstone, of the
origin of mountains, and who are the most happy in this world, wise
men or fools. Some of these subjects are now definitely settled, while
others are as open to discussion as ever, as, for example, the
questions whether it be expedient for women to be learned, and whether
it be better to bury or to burn the bodies of the dead. In this great
accumulation of the notions of the seventeenth century we find,
amongst other items that more especially concern our present purpose,
discussions on genii, on the phoenix, and on the unicorn.
In the early days of a similar institution, our own Royal Society--a
body which is now so staid, and which focuses all the most important
scientific results of the day to itself--many points were discussed in
perfect good faith that are now consigned to oblivion--the trees that
grow diamonds, the rivers that run precious gems, and the seeds that
fell from heaven being amongst these; while at another meeting we find
the Duke of Buckingham presenting the Society with a piece of the horn
of the unicorn.
The old writers had no very definite system, and though the author of
the "Book of the 300 Animals" may seem to have exercised a certain
fitness in discussing the unicorn directly after the lion, the
conjunction is probably wholly accidental, as the creatures dwelt on
succeed each other in all such books in the most arbitrary way. The
next animal to which we would refer is the wolf. He is not absolutely
the next in the series, but we manifestly cannot deal with the whole
three hundred, so we pick out here and there divers quaint examples of
what we may be allowed to term this unnatural history. We are told
that "the wolf is a very ravenous creature, and as dangerous to meet
with, when hungry, as any beast whatever, but when his stomach is
full, he is to men and beasts as meek as a lamb. When he falls upon a
hog or a goat, or such small beasts, he 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, that the wolves that
had nothing would have come with all the speed they could upon their
more successful companion; but if the old writer's story be true, it
opens out a fine trait of unselfishness in the character of this
maligned communard. It was an old belief, a fancy that we find in the
pages of Pliny, Theocritus, Virgil, and others, that a man becomes
dumb if he meets a wolf and the wolf sees him first. A mediæval writer
explains this as follows:--"The ground or occasionall originall hereof
was probably the amazement and sudden silence the unexpected
appearance of Wolves doe often put upon travellers, not by a supposed
vapour or venemous emanation, but a vehement fear which naturally
produceth obmutescence and sometimes irrecoverable silence. Thus birds
are silent in presence of an Hawk, and Pliny saith that Dogges are
mute in the shadow of an Hyæna, but thus could not the mouths of
worthy Martyrs be stopped, who being exposed not only unto the eyes
but the mercilesse teeth of Wolves, gave loud expressions of their
faith, and their holy clamours were heard as high as heaven." Scott
refers to the old belief in his "Quentin Durward." In the eighteenth
chapter our readers will find as follows:--"'Our young companion has
seen a wolf,' said Lady Hameline, 'and has lost his tongue in
consequence.'" The thirteenth animal is the "Rompo" or Man-eater; he
is "so called because he feeds upon dead men, to come at which he
greedily grubs up the earth off their graves, as if he had notice of
somebody there hid. He keeps in the woods; his body is long and
slender, being about three feet in length, with a long tail. The
negroes say that he does not immediately fall on as soon as he has
found the body, but goes round and round it several times as if afraid
to seize it. Its head and mouth are like a hare's, his ears like a
man's, his fore feet like a badger's, and his hinder feet like a
bear's. It has likewise a mane. This creature is bred in India and
Africa." Concerning the buffalo we read, "It is reported of this
creature that when he is hunted or put into a fright he'll change his
colour to the colour of everything he sees; as amongst trees he is
green, &c." The Manticora is one of the strange imaginings of our
forefathers. In the illustration in the book (of which our figure is a
reproduction) it has a human head and face and a body like that of a
lion; a thick mane covers the neck; its tail is much longer in
proportion than that of a lion, and has at its extremity a most
formidable collection of spiky-looking objects; these in the
description are said to be stinging and sharply-pointed quills. He is
as big as a lion. "His voice is like a small trumpet. He is so wild
that it is very difficult to catch him, and as swift as an hart. With
his tail he wounds the hunters, whether they come before him or behind
him. When the Indians take a whelp of this beast they bruise its tail
to prevent it bearing the sharp quills; then it is tamed without
danger."
[Illustration: THE MANTICORA]
[Illustration: THE LAMIA]
The Lamia, too, is an extraordinary creature, and one that our not
remote forefathers seem to have thoroughly believed in, for though the
author says that there are many fictitious stories respecting it, he
goes on to describe it, and gives an illustration. It is thought to be
the swiftest of all four-footed creatures, so that its prey can seldom
or never escape it. It is said to be bred in Libya, and to have a
face like a beautiful woman, while its voice is the hiss of a serpent.
The body is covered with scales. The old author tells us that they
sometimes devour their own young, and we may fairly hope that this
cannibal propensity of theirs is the cause of their disappearance. In
earlier times men believed in a monstrous spectre called an Empusa. It
could assume various forms, and it was believed to feed on human
flesh. The Lamiæ, who took the forms of handsome and graceful women
for the purpose of beguiling poor humanity, and then sucked their
blood like vampyres and devoured their flesh, were one form of Empusa.
The belief in some such creature seems to have been widespread; the
myth of the Sirens is, for example, very similar in conception. In
Mansfield Parkyns' "Life in Abyssinia" we read--"There is an animal
which I know not where to class, as no European has hitherto succeeded
in obtaining a specimen of it. It is supposed by the natives to be far
more active, powerful, and dangerous than the lion, and consequently
held by them in the greatest possible dread. They look upon it more in
the light of an evil spirit, with an animal's form, than a wild beast;
they assert that its face is human." We learn, however, from the rest
of the description, that this creature possesses itself of its prey by
force alone; the human face is one further feature of terror, but does
not, as in the previous case, serve to beguile mankind and lure them
by its beauty to their fate.
The stag is said to be "a great enemy to all kinds of serpents, which
he labours to destroy whenever he finds any, but he is afraid of
almost all other creatures." Many of these old beliefs were simply
handed down from generation to generation without question, or the
opinions of the ancients accepted without experiment or inquiry. This
belief of the natural enmity of the stag to the serpent is at least as
old as Pliny, and may be found duly set forth in the thirty-third
chapter of his eighth book:--"This kind of deere make fight with
serpents, and are their natural and mortal enemies; they will follow
them to their verie holes, and then by the strength of drawing and
snuffing up their wind of their nostrils, force them out whether they
will or no. The serpent sometimes climbs upon its back and bites it
cruelly, when the stag rushes to some river or fountain and throws
itself into the water to rid itself of its enemy." This old belief
made the stag a favourite in the mediæval days of exaggerated
symbolism, its ruthless antipathy to the serpent rendering it not
inaptly an emblem of the Christian fighting to the death against sin,
and finding an antidote to its wounds in the fountain of living water.
It was also believed that stags "passe the seas swimming by flockes
and whole heards in a long row, each one resting his head upon his
fellow next before him; and this they do in course, so as the foremost
retireth behind to the hindmost by turnes, one after another." In this
supposed fact the seekers after symbol and hidden meaning found no
difficulty in recognising that comfort and support in all their trials
that all good men should at all times be ready to afford their
fellows.
The tusks of the wild boar, we are told, cut like sharp knives when
the animal is alive, but lose their keenness at his death. It is said
when this creature is hunted down his tusks are so inflamed that they
will burn and singe the hair of the dogs. The wild ox has a tongue so
hard and rough that it can draw a man to him, "whom by licking he can
wound to death." The elephant, we are told on the same authority, has
two tusks. "One of them it keeps always sharp to revenge injuries,
and with the other it roots up trees and plants for its meat. These
they lose once in ten years, which, falling off, they very carefully
bury in the earth on purpose that men may not find them." The liver of
a mouse our forefathers believed to increase and decrease with the
waxing and waning of the moon. "For every day of the moon's age there
is a fibre increase in their liver." This rash and random assertion it
would be manifestly impossible either to prove or disprove, though one
may have one's own strong opinion on the matter. It would be necessary
to kill the mouse to count the aforesaid fibres, and having killed it,
the morrow's extra age of the moon would bring no added fibres to the
victim of our credulity. Presently we come to the Potto, a creature
that is probably the same as we now call the sloth. The illustration
shows us a most hopelessly helpless-looking animal, and in the
description that accompanies it we are told that a whole day is little
enough for it to advance ten steps forward. We are also informed that
when he does climb a tree he does not leave it until he has eaten up
not only the fruit but all the foliage, when "he descends fat and in
good case, but before he can get up another tree he loses all the
advantages of his previous good quarters and often perishes of
hunger." Eighty-seven quadrupeds are dealt with, so it will be readily
seen how little we have drawn upon the wealth of information the book
affords.
[Illustration: {DRAGONS}]
Book IV. of the treatise is devoted to the consideration of serpents
and insects. Amongst serpents and insects the dragon naturally takes
the place of honour. The writer evidently has his doubts, and
carefully qualifies his description by a free use of the
responsibility evading formula "it is said." He gives three
illustrations. One of them represents a biped monster, crested and
winged; the second has lost his legs, though he retains crest and
wings; while the third creature is of serpentine nature, has neither
wings nor legs, and only differs from the serpent forms in the book by
the addition of his crest. The description runs as follows:--"The
dragon, as described in the numerous fables and stories of several
writers, may be justly questioned whether he really exists. I have
read of serpents bred in Arabia, called Sirenas, which have wings,
being very swift, running and flying at pleasure; and when they wound
a man he dieth instantly. These are supposed to be a kind of dragons.
It is said there are divers sorts of dragons or serpents that are so
called, which are distinguished partly by their countries, partly by
their magnitude, and partly by the different form of their external
parts. They are said to be bred in India and Africa; those of India
are much the largest, being of an incredible length; and of these
there are also said to be two kinds, one of them living in the
marshes, which are slow of pace and without combs on their heads; the
other in the mountains, which are bigger and have combs, their backs
being somewhat brown and their bodies less scaled. Some of them are of
a yellow fiery colour, having sharp backs like saws. These also have
beards. When they set up their scales they shine like silver. The
apples of their eyes are (it is said) precious stones, and as bright
as fire, in which it is affirmed there is a great virtue against many
diseases. Their aspect is very fierce and terrible. Some dragons are
said to have wings and no feet; some, again, have both feet and wings;
and others neither feet nor wings, and are only distinguished from the
common sort of serpents by the combs growing upon their heads and by
their beards. Some do affirm that the dragon is of a black colour,
somewhat green beneath and very beautiful, that it has a triple row of
teeth in each jaw, that it has also two dewlaps growing under the
chin, which hang down like a beard of a red colour; and the body is
set all over with sharp scales, and on the neck with thick hair, much
like the bristles of a wild boar." It will be seen by the foregoing
that the imagination of our ancestors was allowed free play, abundant
variety of form, magnitude, colour, and so forth being possible.
The dragon or winged serpent has formed a part in many creeds, and the
dragon-slayer has been the hero of countless legends. The legend
varies with climate and country, and with the development of the race
in which it is found; and yet the prophecies of the Bible of the
ultimate bruising of the serpent's head and the final victory over the
dragon ("That old serpent, which is the Devil and Satan" Rev. xx. 2);
the legends of classic days, such as that of Perseus and Andromeda;
the still older struggles recorded in the slabs of Nineveh and
Persepolis; the stories narrated to awed rings of listeners in the
stillness of the Eastern night, or listened to by our children with
eager eyes and rapt attention in the homes of England; the mass of
legend that in mediæval times clustered around the names of God's
faithful ones; and the local traditions of every land, from the
equator to the poles, all dwell on the mischievous presence of some
evil principle and record the ultimate triumph of good. Beneath the
mass of ever-varying fable stands the like foundation, the strife
between the two antagonistic principles; and thus the wide world over,
in every age and in every clime, the mind of man, in broken accents,
it may be, and with faltering tongue, records with joy its upward
struggle, feels the need of help in the sore conflict, registers its
belief in final triumph. Though the dragon-conflict occurs in many
literatures, the same incidents occur over and over again, and we find
in almost all the power and subtlety of the monster, the innocence and
helplessness of his victims, the suddenness of his attack on them, and
the completeness of his final overthrow, the dragon-slayers being the
conquerors over tyranny and wrong, over paganism and every form of
godless evil.
In Egypt he was Typhon, in Greece, Python. In India he is Kalli Naga,
the thousand-headed, the foe and the vanquished of Vishnu. In
Anglo-Saxon chronicles he is Lig-draca, the fire-drake or
godes-andsacan, the denier of God--always unsleeping, poison-fanged,
relentless, the terrible enemy of man, full of subtlety and full of
power.
On the advent of Christianity these ancient legends were not wholly
discarded, but suggested others of a like character, and a slight
alteration transferred to saint or martyr those feats and victories
which had formerly been ascribed to gods and demigods. It only
remained for the new religion to point out the analogy, and to
incorporate into itself the lessons they taught, the conflict won, the
abnegation of self for the good of others.
It would take up far too much space if we were to endeavour to give
many of these legends in detail. In some cases they were doubtless
intended as descriptions of an actual conflict, by force of arms, with
some real monster; but in others the conflict is allegorical; thus St.
Loup, St. Martin of Tours, St. Hilary, and St. Donatus are all notable
dragon-slayers, though the conflict was a mythical one, and their
claim to regard on this score is based really on their gallant fight
with either the heathenism of those amongst whom they laboured or the
heresy of false brethren. The popular saint, too, receives often more
than his due at the hands of his admirers, and legends gather thickly
round his name, and his so-called biography is often romance and
hero-worship from beginning to end. St. Romanus at Rouen, St. Veran at
Arles, and St. Victor of Marseilles are all accredited with feats of
dragon-slaying; but leaving them, St. Martial, St. Marcel, and many
others to other chroniclers, we content ourselves with referring to
two illustrious saints alone--the first because she is a lady, and may
therefore well claim our courtesy, the second because he is our own
patron saint.
It may not be generally known that the sister of Lazarus, the St.
Martha of our legend, together with Mary Magdalene and two companions,
Maxime and Marcellus, wandered so far away from Palestine as the
shores of France. How much farther they may have intended to go the
history does not tell us, but the untoward accident that stranded them
on the shores of Languedoc was a most fortunate circumstance for the
people of the district. The inhabitants of that region had been for
some time tormented by a monster who fed on human flesh and had a most
draconic appetite, and they at once appealed to these strangers to
help them. This alone would seem to indicate the extremity in which
they found themselves, or they would scarcely have applied to four
shipwrecked strangers, half of them women, for aid in the hour of
their necessity. St. Martha, however, in pitying consideration for
their sad plight, at once agreed to help them. She had hardly entered
the wood where the monster dwelt before the most frightful bellowings
were heard, at which all the people sorely trembled and naturally
concluded that this unarmed woman had fallen a victim to her temerity;
but this alarming bellowing shortly ceased, and soon after St. Martha
reappeared, holding in one hand a little wooden cross, and in the
other a ribbon, with which she led forth her interesting captive. She
then advanced into the middle of the town and presented the people
with the dragon, as embarrassing a present as the proverbial white
elephant; but they seem to have risen to the occasion, for we find
afterwards an annual festival held in honour of the Saint, while good
King Réné of Anjou instituted an Order of the Dragon for the more
effectual keeping alive of the memory of the event. As St. Martha is
more especially set down in the "Lives of the Saints" as the patron
saint of good housewives, she might well have been excused had she
declined a service in itself so dangerous and so far removed from the
daily round, the trivial task; but the overthrowing of the mighty by
an instrument so weak gives additional point to the story, and
vindicates triumphantly the power of faith over evil.
The "Legenda Aurea," written by Jacobus de Voraigne, Archbishop of
Genoa, in the year 1260, is what Warton termed "an inexhaustible
repository of religious fable." For some centuries it was considered
to have an almost sacred character, and its popularity was so great
that it passed through an immense number of editions in the Latin,
Dutch, German, and French languages. It should have the more interest
to us, too, from the fact that it was one of the earliest of English
printed books, Caxton publishing the first English edition in 1493.
This was followed by other editions by Wynkyn de Worde in the years
1498, 1512, and 1527. The following account of our patron saint is
taken from this source, a much less favourable history being found in
Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire."[4]
[4] Appendix A.
Once upon a time the neighbourhood of the city of Sylene was infested
with an enormous dragon, who, making a "ponde, lyke a sea," which
skirted the walls, his usual residence, was accustomed to envenom the
miserable citizens with his pestiferous breath, and therefore they
gave him every day two sheep for his dinner, and when these were spent
they chose by lot a male and female, daily, whom they exposed to the
monster. At length, after many of the rich had been compelled to
sacrifice their offspring, the lot fell upon the king's daughter, a
lovely maiden, and the idol of a fond father, who, in the bitterness
of his grief, entreated his subjects for the love of the gods to take
his gold and silver, and all that he had, and spare his child; but
they replied that he had himself made the law, and that they had
suffered in obeying it, and concluded by telling him that unless he
complied with his own mandate, they would take off his head. This
answer only increased the king's affliction; but being anxious to
defer, if he could not avert, his daughter's death, he craved that a
respite of eight days might be given her; and his people, moved,
apparently, by the groans and tears of the sorrowful old man, granted
his request. When the stipulated time had elapsed, they came and said
to him, "Ye see how the city perisheth!" So the monarch bade his child
array herself in her richest apparel, and led her forth to "the place
where the dragon was, and left her there."
It chanced that St. George, who, like a true knight-errant, was
travelling in quest of dangerous adventures, arrived at the spot not
long after the king's departure, and was much astonished when he
beheld so fair a lady lingering there alone and weeping bitterly, and
riding up he asked the cause of her sorrow. But she, unwilling to
detain him in a place so perilous, entreated him to leave her to her
fate. "Go on your way, young man," she said, "lest ye perish also."
But St. George would know the truth, so the maiden told him. Then was
the knight's heart merry within him, and he rejoined, "Fayre doughter,
doubte ye no thynge hereof, for I shall helpe thee in the name of
Jesu Christe." She said, "For Goddes sake, good knyght, goo your waye,
and abyde not wyth me, for ye may not deliver me." St. George,
however, was of a different opinion, and indeed, had he resolved, upon
second thoughts, to escape, he could not have done so, for the dragon,
smelling human flesh from afar, emerged from the lake while the lady
was speaking, and now came running towards his victim. Not a moment
was to be lost, so St. George crossed himself, drew his sword, and
placing his lance in the rest, rushed to meet the monster, who, little
expecting such a rough greeting, received the weapon "in his bosom,"
and rolled over in the dust. Then said the victor to the rescued
virgin, "Take thy girdle, and bind it round the dragon's neck;" and
when the lady had obeyed her champion, the monster followed her as if
it had been "a meek beeste and debonayre." And so she led him into the
city; and when the people saw her coming they fled with affright,
expecting to perish all of them; but St. George shouted, "Doubt
nothing, believe in God Jesus Christ, consent to be baptized, and I
will slay the dragon before your eyes." The citizens immediately
consented, so the Saint attacked the monster, and smote off his head,
and commanded that he should be thrown into the green fields, and they
took four carts with oxen, and drew him out of the city. Then were
fifteen thousand men baptized (without reckoning the women and
children), and the king erected a church, and dedicated it to Our Lady
and St. George, in which floweth "a founteyne of lyuying water which
heleth seeke people that drynke therof." After this the prince offered
the champion incalculable riches, but he refused them all, and
enjoining the king to take care of the church, to honour the priests,
and pity the poor, he kissed him and departed.
Some time after this marvellous event the Emperor Diocletian so
cruelly persecuted the Christians, that "twenty-two thousand were
martyred in the course of one month," and many others forsook God and
sacrificed to idols. When St. George heard this he laid aside his
arms, and sold his possessions, and took the habit of a "crysten-man,"
and went into the midst of the "paynims," and began to denounce their
gods as devils. "My God," cried he, "made heaven and earth, He only is
the true God." Then said they to him, "How dare ye defame our deities?
Who art thou?--what is thy name?"--"My name is George; I am a
gentleman and knight of Cappadocia, and I have left all to serve my
Lord," replied the Saint. Seeing that the stranger was no common man,
the ruler of that district endeavoured to gain him over with fair
words, but finding the knight inflexible, he tied him aloft on a
gibbet, and caused him to be cruelly beaten; and then, having rubbed
salt into his wounds, he bound him with heavy chains and thrust him
into a dark dungeon. But our Lord appeared to him that same night and
comforted him, "moche swetely," so that the warrior took good heart
and feared no torment which he might have to suffer. The chief
magistrate, whose name was Dacien, finding he could not shake his
prisoner's faith by the infliction of torture, consulted with an
enchanter, who agreed to lose his head should his "crafts" fail; and
taking strong poison, the wizard mingled it with wine and invoked his
gods and gave it to the Saint, who, making the sign of the cross,
thanked him kindly, and drank it off without injury. Astonished at the
failure of his plan, the magician made a draught still more venomous,
and finding that this also had no ill effect on the charmed warrior,
he himself acknowledged the might of Christ, embraced St. George's
knees, and entreated to be made a Christian,--and his request was
immediately granted.
The provost's fury knew no bounds when he witnessed these marvels. He
stretched the champion on the rack, but the engine broke in pieces; he
plunged him into boiling lead, and lo! the Saint came out "refreshed
and strengthened." When Dacien saw this he began to moderate his
anger, and again had recourse to flattery, praying the Saint to
renounce his faith and sacrifice to the idols, and, much to his
surprise, the knight questioned him with a smiling countenance why he
had not asked him before, and promised to do his bidding. Then the
provost was glad indeed, and assembled all the people to see the
champion sacrifice. So they thronged the temple where the Saint was
kneeling before the shrine of Jupiter, but he earnestly prayed a while
to the true God, entreating Him to destroy those accursed images and
convert the deluded Romans,--"and anone the fyre descended from heuens
and brente the temple and the ydolles and theyr prestes;" and
immediately after the earth opened and swallowed up all the ashes.
This last marvel only hardened the ruler's heart and strengthened him
in his infidelity; he caused the warrior to be brought before him, and
sternly reproved him for his duplicity. "Thenne sayd to him Saynt
George, 'Syr, beleue it not, but come wyth me and see how I shall
sacrefise.' Thenne said Dacyan to him, 'I see wel thy frawde and thy
treachery; thou wylt make the erthe to swalowe me lyke as thou hast
the temple and my goddes.'"
Then said St. George, "O catiff, tell me how thy gods help thee when
they cannot help themselves?" Then was the provost so enraged that he
ran to his wife, and, telling her that he should die of anger if he
could not master his prisoner, requested her counsel. "Cruel tyrant,"
replied his loving spouse, "instead of plotting against this
heaven-protected knight, I too am resolved to become a Christian!"
"Thou wilt!" returned her husband furiously, and taking her by her
flowing tresses, he dashed her against the pavement, when, feeling
herself in the agonies of death, she craved of St. George to know her
future lot, seeing she had not been christened. Then answered the
blessed Saint, "Doubt thee nothing, fair daughter, for thou shalt be
baptized in thine own blood." Then began she to worship our Lord Jesus
Christ, and so died and went to heaven. Thither the martyr followed
her very shortly, for Dacien caused St. George to be beheaded, and "so
he perished." But the cruel persecutor did not long survive his
victim, for as he was returning to his palace, says the legend, from
the place of execution, "fire came down from heaven and destroyed him
and all his followers."[5]
[5] Appendix B.
In the Middle Ages the dragon gave a title in Hungary to an order of
knighthood, that of "the dragon overthrown." This was established in
the year 1418, to perpetuate the memory of the condemnation of John
Huss and Jerome of Prague by the Council of Constance for heresy, and
to denote the overthrow of the doctrines these men propagated in
Hungary, Bohemia, and elsewhere in Germany, and for which they were
ultimately burnt at the stake. The badge of the order was a dragon
prostrate. In China the dragon is the symbol of the Imperial power,
and all our readers who are familiar with the appearance of the
Celestial pottery, bronzes, and so forth, will readily recall how
commonly the form is introduced. Some little time ago the Chinese
Government permitted coal-mines to be opened at Kai-ping, but they
were speedily closed again, as it was supposed that their continued
working would release the earth-dragon, disturb the Manes of the
Empress, and generally bring trouble upon the Imperial house and upon
the nation. Uncharitable people, however, have been found to declare
that the fear of the earth-dragon is all an excuse, and that, as the
Government set its face against the introduction of railways, so it
was equally prepared, in its rigid conservatism and hatred of
innovations, to forswear the mining operations. The dragon of the
Chinese designers is of the weirdest forms, and conceived with a
freedom and wildness of fancy that puts to shame our Western attempts,
powerful as they often are.
As a symbol and attribute the dragon is constantly appearing in
mediæval work, as carvings, illuminations, and the like, and we may
remind our readers that in the term gargoyle, used in speaking of the
strange and monstrous forms often found in our old cathedrals and
abbeys doing duty as water-shoots, we get the dragon idea again, as
the word is derived from an old French word signifying some such
draconic monster. While, however, we find ourselves thus classing the
dragon amongst the mythical and arbitrary forms of the stone-carver or
the herald, we must be careful to remember that its terror had not
thus in earlier days lost its sting, for the workman who sculptured it
on a capital or thrust its hideous form into any other noticeable
position not only regarded it as a symbol, but believed very really
and truly in its veritable existence. Albertus Magnus gives a long
account of the creature, an account altogether too elaborate for us to
here transcribe; but its capture, according to him, is an easy matter
enough if one only goes the right way to work. It was fortunately
ascertained that dragons are "greatly afraid of thunder, and the
magicians who require dragons for their enchantments get drums, on
which they roll heavily, so that the noise is mistaken for thunder by
the dragons, and they are vanquished." The thing is simplicity itself,
and rather detracts from the halo of heroism that has hitherto
surrounded dragon vanquishers. A man is scarcely justified in blowing
his trumpet when he has previously so cowed his antagonist by beating
his drum and deluding its dull brains with his fictitious thunder.
Pliny says that the eyes of a dragon, preserved dry, pulverised and
then made up with honey, cause those who are anointed therewith to
sleep securely from all dread of spirits of the darkness. 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 receipt--"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 and prize in running a race, and the nailes besides
of a dogs-feete: bind all these together with a piece of leather made
of a red deers skin, with the sinewes partly of a stag, partly of a
fallow deere, one with another: carry this about with you and it will
work wonders." 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 the troublesome and recurring question,
Wherefore? Mediæval medicine-men surely must have been somewhat chary
of adopting the now familiar legend "Prescriptions accurately
dispensed," when the onus of making up such a mixture could be laid
upon them. John Leo, in his "History of Africa" says that the dragon
is the progeny of the eagle and wolf. After describing its appearance,
he says--"This monster, albeit I myself have not seen it yet, the
common report of all Africa affirmeth that there is such a one." Other
writers affirm that the dragon is generated by the great heat of India
or springs from the volcanoes of Ethiopia; and one is tempted to take
the prosaic view that this dragon rearing and slaying is but a more
poetic way of dwelling on some miasmatic exhalation reduced to
harmlessness by judicious drainage; that the monster that had slain
its thousands was at last subdued by no glittering spear wielded by
knightly or saintly arm, but by the spade of the navvy and the
drain-pipes of the sanitary engineer. Father Pigafetta in his book
declares that "Mont Atlas hath plenty of dragons, grosse of body, slow
of motion, and in byting or touching incurably venomous. In Congo is a
kind of dragons like in biggnesse to 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." We cannot ourselves
help feeling that if we saw a dragon like in bigness to a ram we
should so far be disappointed in him. After having had our imagination
filled by legend after legend we should look for something decidedly
bulkier than that, and should feel that he really was not living up to
his reputation. Abundant illustrations of the most unnatural history
may be found in the works of Aldrovandus: his voluminous works on
animals are very curious and interesting, and 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; the various volumes range in date from 1602 to
1668, and are, with one exception (Venice), published at either
Bologna or Frankfort. If any of our readers can get an opportunity of
looking through them they will find themselves well repaid.
Amongst the Lansdowne MSS. in the British Museum will be found
Aubrey's "Gentilisme and Judaisme." His remarks on St. George and the
dragon are sufficiently quaint and interesting to justify insertion
here. "Dr. Peter Heylin," he says, "did write the Historie of St.
George of Cappadocia, which is a very blind business. When I was of
Trin. Coll. there was a sale of Mr. William Cartright's (poet) books,
many whereof I had: amongst others (I know not how) was Dr. Daniel
Featley's Handmayd to Religion, which was printed shortly after Dr.
Heylin's Hist. aforesaid. In the Holyday Devotions he speaks of St.
George, and asserts the story to be fabulous, and that there never was
any such man. William Cartright writes in the margent--For this
assertion was Dr. Featley brought upon his knees before William Laud,
Abp. of Canterbury. See Sir Thomas Browne's 'Vulgar Errors' concerning
St. George, where are good Remarks. He is of opinion that ye picture
of St. George was only emblematical. Methinks ye picture of St. George
fighting with ye Dragon hath some resemblance of St. Michael fighting
with the Devil, who is pourtrayed like a Dragon. Ned Bagshaw of Chr.
Ch. 1652, shewed me somewhere in Nicophorus Gregoras that ye picture
of St. George's horse on a wall neighed on some occasion."
A vast amount of learning upon the subject of our patron saint may be
found in Selden's "Titles of Honour," in which he treats of "The
chiefest testimonies concerning St. George in the Western Church, and
a consideration how he came to be taken for the patron saint of the
English nation." Selden originally inclined to the idea that the saint
first stepped into this exalted position in the reign of Edward III.,
but in "a most ancient Martyrologie" that he afterwards came
across--one of Saxon date in the library of one of the Cambridge
Colleges--he found a sufficient testimony that the position of the
saint as patron of Britain dated from a much earlier time.
Peter Suchenwirt, a German poet of the fourteenth century, gives in
one of his poems a very curious and striking illustration of the
esteem in which at the battle of Poictiers the English soldiers held
their patron saint:--
"Di Frantzois schrienn 'Nater Dam!'
Das spricht Unser Fraw mit nam;
Der chrey erhal;
'Sand Jors! Sand Jors!'"
"The French shout forth 'Notre Dame,'
Thus calling on our Lady's name;
To which the English host reply,
'St. George! St. George!' their battle cry."
The Celtic use of the word dragon for a chieftain is curious: in time
of danger a sort of dictator was appointed under the title of
pen-dragon. Hence any of the English knights who slew a chieftain in
battle were dragon vanquishers, and it has been suggested that the
military title was at times confused with that of the fabulous
monster, and that a man thus got an added credit that did not belong
to him. The theory is not, however, really tenable, as all the
veritable dragon-slayers had the great advantage of living a long time
ago, and no such halo of romance could well have attached itself to
men of comparatively modern times. In any case, too, the use of the
Celtic word is very local, and does not meet the case of a tithe of
the histories of such deeds of valour. The red dragon was the ensign
of Cadwallader, the last of the British kings. The Tudors claimed
descent from this ancient monarch, and Henry VII. adopted this device
for his standard at the battle of Bosworth Field. There is a place in
Berkshire called Dragon Hill, near Uffington, and the more famous
White Horse Hill, that is in local legend the scene of the encounter
between St. George and the dragon; and for full confirmation a bare
place is shown on the hillside where nothing will grow, because there
the poisonous blood of the creature was shed. We learn, however, in
the Saxon annals that Cedric, the West-Saxon monarch, overthrew and
slew here the pen-dragon Naud, with five thousand of his men. The name
of the hill, therefore, commemorates this ancient victory; but the
common folk of the district, who know nothing of pen-dragons,
erroneously ascribe the battle won there to the more familiar St.
George.
The dragon of Wantley deserves a passing word, since he supplies a
good illustration of how the mythical and the material are often mixed
up. Wantley is merely a corruption of Wharncliffe, a delightful
spot[6] near Sheffield, and here, of all places in the world, this
very objectionable dragon took up his abode. One ordinarily expects to
hear of such creatures uncoiling their monstrous forms in some dense
morass or lurking in the dark recesses of some wide-stretching and
gloomy forest; possibly he may have found the choice of such an
attractive locality may have helped him to an occasional tourist. On
the opposite side of the Don to the crag that held the cave of the
dragon stood the desirable residence of More Hall; and its owner,
doubtless feeling that the presence of such an objectionable neighbour
was a great depreciation of his property, determined one day to bring
matters to a crisis; so he walked up to the mouth of the cave clad in
a suit of armour thickly covered with spikes, and administered such a
vigorous kick in the dragon's mouth, the only place where he was
vulnerable, that the whole transaction was over almost at once, and he
was back again in ample time for lunch. Dr. Percy, the editor of
"Reliques of Antient English Poetry," holds that we must not accept
this story too seriously; that, in fact, the old ballad in which it is
set forth is a burlesque, and that the real facts are as
follows:--that the dragon was an overbearing and rascally lawyer who
had long availed himself of his position and influence to oppress his
poorer neighbours, but he capped a long series of dishonest and
disreputable actions by depriving three orphan children of an estate
to which they were entitled. A Mr. More generously took up their
cause, brought all the armoury of the law to bear upon the spoiler,
and completely defeated him, and the thievish attorney shortly
afterwards died of chagrin and vexation.
[6] Lady Mary Wortley Montagu lived here for some time. Writing
afterwards from Avignon, and dwelling on the exquisite landscape
there spread out before her when standing on the Castle height, she
exclaims that "it is the most beautiful land prospect I ever saw,
except Wharncliffe."
"Old stories tell how Hercules
A dragon slew at Lerna,
With seven heads and fourteen eyes,
To see and well discern-a;
But he had a club this dragon to drub,
Or he had ne'er done it, I warrant ye;
But More of More Hall, with nothing at all,
He slew the dragon of Wantley.
This dragon had two furious wings,
Each one upon each shoulder;
With a sting in his tayl, as long as a flayl,
Which made him bolder and bolder.
He had long claws, and in his jaws
Four-and-forty teeth of iron;
With a hide as tough as any buff,
Which did him round environ.
Have you not heard how the Trojan horse
Held seventy men in his belly?
This dragon was not quite as big,
But very near, I tell ye.
Devouréd he poor children three,
That could not with him grapple;
And at one sup, he eat them up,
As one would eat an apple.
All sorts of cattle this dragon did eat,
Some say he did eat up trees,
And that the forests sure he could
Devour up by degrees:
For houses and churches were to him geese and turkeys:
He eat all, and left none behind,
But some stones, dear Jack, that he could not crack,
Which on the hills you will find.
In Yorkshire, near fair Rotherham,
The place I know it well;
Some two or three miles, or thereabouts,
I vow I cannot tell;
But there is a hedge, just on the hill edge,
And Matthew's house hard by it;
O there and then was this dragon's den,
You could not chuse but spy it.
Hard by a furious knight there dwelt,
Of whom all towns did ring;
For he could wrestle, play quarterstaff, kick and cuff,
And any such kind of a thing;
By the tail and the main with his hands twain
He swung a horse till he was dead,
And that which is stranger, he in his anger
Eat him all up but his head.
These children, as I told, being eat;
Men, women, girls and boys,
Sighing and sobbing, came to his lodging,
And made a hideous noise:
'O save us all, More of More Hall,
Thou peerless knight of these woods;
Do but slay this dragon, who won't leave us a rag on,
We'll give thee all our goods.'
'Tut, tut,' quoth he, 'no goods I want;
But I want, I want, in sooth,
A fair maid of sixteen that's brisk and keen,
And smiles about the mouth:
Hair black as sloe, skin white as snow,
With blushes her cheeks adorning;
To anoynt me o'er night, ere I go out to fight,
And to gird me in the morning.'
This being done, he did engage
To hew the dragon down;
But first he went, new armour to
Bespeak at Sheffield town;
With spikes all about, not within but without,
Of steel so sharp and strong;
Both behind and before, arms, legs, and all o'er,
Some five or six inches long.
Had you but seen him in this dress,
How fierce he looked and how big,
You would have thought him for to be
Some Egyptian porcupig:
He frighted all, cats, dogs, and all,
Each cow, each horse, and each hog;
For fear they did flee, for they took him to be
Some strange outlandish hedge-hog.
It is not strength that always wins,
For wit doth strength excell;
Which made our cunning champion
Creep down into a well,
Where he did think this dragon would drink,
And so he did in truth;
And as he stooped low he rose up and cried 'boh!'
And hit him in the mouth.
Our politick knight, on the other side
Crept out upon the brink,
And gave the dragon such a crack,
He knew not what to think.
'Aha,' quoth he, 'say you so, do you see?'
And then at him he let fly
With hand and with foot, and so they both went to't,
And the word it was, hey, boys, hey!
'Oh,' quoth the dragon with a deep sigh,
And turned six times together,
Sobbing and tearing, cursing and swearing,
Out of his throat of leather;
'More of More Hall! O thou rascàl!
Would I had seen thee never;
With that thing at thy foot thou hast pricked me sore,
And I'm quite undone for ever.'
'Murder, murder,' the dragon cried,
'Alack, alack, for grief;
Had you but missed that place, you could
Have done me no mischief.'
Then his head he shaked, he trembled and quaked,
And down he laid and cried;
First on one knee, then on back tumbled he,
And groaned, and kicked, and died."
We sometimes see allusions in poetry and the press to the sowing of
dragons' teeth. The reference is always to some subject of civil
strife, to some burning question that rouses the people of a state to
take up arms against each other.
The incident is derived from the old classic legend of the founding of
Thebes by Kadmos. Arriving on the site of the future city, he proposed
to make a sacrifice to the protecting goddess Athene, but on sending
his men to a not far distant fountain for water, they were attacked
and slain by a terrible dragon. Kadmos thereupon went himself and slew
the monster, and at the command of Athene sowed its teeth in the
ground, from whence immediately sprang a host of armed giants. These
on the instant all turned their arms against each other, and that too
with such fury that all were presently slain save five. Kadmos invoked
the aid of these giants in the building of the new city, and from
these five the noblest families of Thebes hereafter traced their
lineage. The myth has been the cause of much perplexity to scholars
and antiquaries, but it has been fairly generally accepted that the
slaying of the dragon after it had destroyed many of the followers of
Kadmos indicates the final reduction of some great natural obstacle,
after some few or more had been first vanquished by it. We may imagine
such an obstacle to colonisation as a river hastily rising and
sweeping all before it in its headlong flood, or an aguish and
fever-breeding morass. The springing-up of the armed men from the soil
has been construed as signifying that the Thebans in after times
regarded themselves as the original inhabitants of the country--no
mere interlopers, but sons of the soil from time immemorial; while
their conflicts amongst themselves, as their city rose to fame, have
been too frequently reflected time after time elsewhere to need any
very special exposition.
Another literary allusion in which the dragon bears its part is seen
in the dragonnades, those religious persecutions which drove so many
thousands of Protestants out of France during the Middle Ages. Their
object was to root heresy out of the land. Those who were willing to
recant were left in peaceable possession of their goods, while the
others were handed over to the tender mercies of the soldiery let
loose upon them. These were chiefly dragoons; hence the origin of the
term dragonnade; and these dragoons were so called because they were
armed with a short musket or carbine called a dragon, while the gun in
turn was so called because it spouted out fire like the dreadful
monsters of the legends were held to do. On many of the early muskets
this idea was emphasised by having the head of a dragon wrought on the
muzzle, the actual flash of the piece on its discharge issuing from
its mouth.
One naturally turns to Shakespeare for an apt illustration of any
conceivable point that may arise. The lover finds in him his tender
sonnets, the lawyer his quillets of the law, the soldier the
glorification of arms, and the philosopher rich mines of wisdom. The
antiquary finds in him no less a golden wealth of allusion to all the
customs and beliefs of his day. In "Midsummer Night's Dream" we find
the lines--
"Night's swift dragons cut the clouds full fast,
And yonder comes Aurora's harbinger."
We get much the same idea again in the line in "Cymbeline"--"Swift,
swift you dragons of the night," and in "Troilus and Cressida"--"The
dragon wing of night o'erspreads the earth." "Scale of dragon, tooth
of wolf," and many other horrible ingredients are found in the
witches' caldron in "Macbeth," while in "King Lear" we are advised not
to come "between the dragon and his wrath." King Richard III. rushes
to his fate with the words, "Our ancient word of courage, fair St.
George, inspire us with the spleen of fiery dragons." In "Coriolanus"
we find another admirable allusion--
"Though I go alone, like to a lonely dragon that his fen
Makes feared and talked of more than seen."
In the play of "Pericles" we have the lines--
"Golden fruit, but dangerous to be touched,
For death-like dragons here affright thee hard."
And there are other references in "Romeo and Juliet" and other
plays--references that it is needless here to give, as enough has been
quoted to show our great poet's realisation of this scaly monster of
the marsh and forest. In the last extract we have given, that from
"Pericles," the golden fruit are the apples of the Hesperides, guarded
by the dragon Ladon, foul offspring of Typhon and Echidna. Allusions
to this golden fruit are very common amongst the poets, so we content
ourselves with quoting as an illustration one that is less well known
than many, from a poem by Robert Greene in the year 1598:--
"Shew thee the tree, leafed with refinèd gold,
Whereon the fearful dragon held his seat,
That watched the garden called Hesperides."
The dragon, like the griffin, is oftentimes the fabled guardian of
treasure: we see this not only in the classic story of the garden of
the Hesperides, but more especially in the tales of Eastern origin.
Any of our readers who have duly gone through much of the "Arabian
Nights' Entertainments" will scarcely have failed to notice the
employment of the dragon as a defender of gold and other hoarded
wealth. Guillim, in his quaint book on heraldry, says that these
treasures are committed to their charge "because of their admirable
sharpness of sight, and for that they are supposed of all other living
things to be the most valiant." He goes on to add that "they are
naturally so hot that they cannot be cooled by drinking of water, but
still gape for the air to refresh them, as appeareth in Jeremiah xiv.
6, where it saith that the 'wild asses did stand in the high places,
they snuffed up the wind like dragons.'" Any one who has been in any
mountainous district in hot weather will no doubt have noticed the
cattle fringing the ridges of the hills like a row of sentinels. When
we first observed this, and wondered at it, in North Wales, we were at
once told that it was a regular habit of the creatures, that they did
it partly to avoid the plague of flies that haunted the lower levels
and the woodlands, but more especially to get the benefit of any
breeze that might be stirring. While Guillim is willing to admit that
even a dragon can render valuable service to those who are so
fortunate as to be able to procure his kind offices, and induce him to
play the part of watchdog, he very properly regards him, and such like
monsters, as something decidedly uncanny. "Another sort there is," he
says, "of exorbitant Animals much more prodigious than all the former.
Such are those creatures formed, or rather deformed, with the confused
shapes of creatures of different kinds and qualities. These monsters
(saith St. Augustine) cannot be reckoned amongst those good Creatures
that God created before the transgression of Adam, for those did God,
when He took the survey of them, pronounce to be _valde bona_, for
they had in them neither excess nor defect, but were the perfect
workmanship of God's creation. If man had not transgressed the Law of
his Maker this dreadful deformity (in likelihood) had not happened in
the creation of animals which some Philosophers do call _Peccata
Naturæ_."
The dragon, though, as we have seen, at times induced to mount guard
over other people's property, is ordinarily a very Ishmaelite; his
hand is against everybody, and everybody's hand against him; yet would
he appear, if we may credit Pliny, to bear an excess and maximum of
ill-will against the elephant. The elephant always strikes one as
being such a great good-natured beast, as one who could do so much
mischief if he would, yet spends his strength instead for the good of
others, that it is difficult to understand how he should in so
pre-eminent a degree have earned the ill-will of so potent an enemy.
The dragon would appear to be always the aggressor, and the elephant
has to defend himself as well as he can against the uncalled-for
attack: it is satisfactory in this case to know that the scaly
assailant sometimes fully meets his match. In Book VIII. of Pliny's
history we read that "India bringeth forth the biggest elephants, as
also the dragons, that are continually at variance with them, and
evermore fighting, and those of such greatnesse that they can easily
clasp and wind them round the elephants, and withall tie them fast
with a knot. In this conflict they die, both the one and the other;
the elephant hee falls downe dead as conquered, and with his great and
heavie weight crusheth and squeaseth the dragon that is wound and
wreathed about him. Also the dragon assaileth him from an high tree,
and launceth himselfe upon him, but the elephant knowing well enough
he is not able to withstand his windings and knottings about him,
seeketh to come close to some trees or hard rocks, and so for to crush
and squeese the dragon between him and them. The dragons ware hereof,
entangle and snare his feet and legs first with their taile; the
elephants on the other side undoe those knots with their trunke as
with a hand, but to prevent that againe, the dragons put in their
heads into their snout, and so stop their wind, and withall fret and
gnaw the tenderest parts that they find there." One does not quite
understand how this last counter-plan of the dragon is effected, but
it is evidently to be understood as equivalent to "checkmate."
In the "Bestiare Divin" of Guillaume this antagonism of the elephant
and dragon is again referred to, and indeed we find it an accepted
belief throughout the Middle Ages. Pliny's work was held for centuries
in the greatest admiration, and to add "as Pliny saith" to any
statement, no matter how wild, was considered amply sufficient.
Guillaume's description of the dragon is as follows--"C'est le plus
grand des animaux rampants. Il nait en Éthiopie: il a la gueule petit,
le corps long et reluisant comme or fin. C'est l'ennemie de
l'éléphant; c'est avec sa queue qu'il triomphe de lui: là est, en
effet, le principe de sa force; sa gueule ne porte point venin de
mort." The book of Guillaume is a fair type of several books of the
sort written by ecclesiastics during the Middle Ages. Such books were
an attempt to show that all the works of nature were symbols and
teachers of great Scriptural truths; hence, while much that they give
is interesting, their statements always require to be received with
great caution. If the facts of the case got at all in the way of a
good moral, so much the worse for the facts; and if a little or a
great modification of the true state of the case could turn a good
moral into one much better, the goodness of the intention was held to
amply justify the departure from the hampering influence of the real
facts. The MS. of Guillaume dates from the thirteenth century, and is
at present preserved in the National Library in Paris. The writer was
a Norman priest. The work has been very well reproduced in a French
dress by Hippeau, a compatriot of the writer.[7] As we simply wish in
our extract to bring out the belief in the antagonism between the
elephant and the dragon, we forbear to add any moral teachings that a
more or less morbid symbolism was able to deduct from the
supposititious fact; but we shall have occasion to quote again more
than once from the "Bestiare," and doubtless the peculiar connection
between scientific error and religious truth will have an opportunity
of making itself felt in one or more of these extracts.
[7] Appendix C.
Referring back to the "300 Animals," the natural history that was
considered good enough for the people living in the year of grace
1786, we find, after the account of the Dart, "so called from his
flying like an arrow from the tops of trees and hedges upon men, by
which means he stings and wounds them to death," the following
description:--"The Cockatrice is called the king of serpents, not from
his bigness--for he is much inferior in this respect to many
serpents--but because of his majestic pace, for he does not creep upon
the ground, like other serpents, but goes half upright, for which
cause all other serpents avoid him; and it seems nature designed him
that pre-eminence, by the crown or coronet upon his head. Writers
differ concerning the production of this animal. Some are of opinion
that it is brought forth of a cock's egg sat upon by a snake or toad,
and so becomes a cockatrice. It is said to be half a foot in length,
the hinder part like a serpent, the fore part like a cock. Others are
of opinion that the cock that lays the egg sits upon and hatches it
himself. These monsters are bred in Africa and some parts of the
world." In England it would appear, so far as we have observed the
matter, that 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, for
we shall see that the advent of a cockatrice is no laughing matter.
The book goes on to tell us that authors differ about the bigness of
it, for some say it is a span in compass and half a foot long, while
others, with a truer sense of the marvellous, realise more fully that
bulk is a potent element in all such matters, and at once make it four
feet long. Its poison is so strong that there is no cure for it, and
the air is in such a degree affected by its presence that no creature
can live near it. It kills, we are assured, not only by its touch, but
even the sight of the cockatrice, like that of the basilisk, is 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 to 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." After
this we can scarcely wonder at a certain vagueness of description, as
those who never saw the animal have full licence of description, while
those, less fortunate, who have had an opportunity of studying from
the life have forfeited their own in doing so. The only hope of
getting an idea of it would be the discovery of a dead specimen, for
we read that "as all other serpents are afraid of the sight and
hissing of a cockatrice, so is the cockatrice itself very fearful of a
weasel, which after it has eaten rue will set upon and destroy the
cockatrice. Besides this little creature, it is said there is no
other animal in the world able to contend with it." We can well
imagine the indignant astonishment of the cockatrice, after being for
years the monarch of all it surveyed, when the gallant little weasel,
strong in the triple armour which makes a quarrel just, and duly
fortified by the internal application of rue, charges boldly home and
takes him, _monstrorum rex_, by the throat. At the time that our
authorised version of the Old Testament was made there was a
sufficient belief in the creature to make the translation of some
Hebrew word seem correctly rendered by the word cockatrice, for we
read in the book of Isaiah that one sign of the millennial peace shall
be that the child shall put his hand, unharmed, upon the den of the
cockatrice; and a little farther on we find the passage, "For out of
the serpent's root shall come forth a cockatrice, and his fruit shall
be a fiery flying serpent." In the fifty-ninth chapter the workers of
iniquity are described as hatching the cockatrice egg, and amongst the
judgments pronounced upon the impenitent Jews by the prophet Jeremiah
we find the verse, "Behold, I will send serpents, cockatrices, amongst
you, which will not be charmed, and they shall bite you." The heraldic
cockatrice is represented as having the head and legs of a cock, a
scaly and serpent-like body, and the wings of a dragon.
Guillim[8] in his "Heraldry" says that "the Cockatrice is called in
Latin Regulus, for that he seemeth to be a little King among Serpents:
not in regard of his Quantity, but in respect of the Infection of his
pestiferous and poisonous Aspect wherewith he poisoneth the Air. Not
unlike those devillish Witches that do work the Destruction of silly
Infants, as also of the Cattel of such their Neighbours whose
prosperous Estate is to them a most grievous Eye-sore. Of such Virgil
in his Bucolicks makes mention, saying, I know not what wicked Eye
hath bewitched my tender Lambs." The belief in the evil eye has been
almost universal, and may be found in tribes the most remote from each
other either in distance or in time. If it were not that Guillim is so
ostentatiously loyal, and, like all heralds, a zealous upholder of
rank and state, one might suspect him almost of a touch of bitter
sarcasm in ascribing royal rank to the cockatrice, not from his
magnanimity, not from his noble bearing, not from his beauty, but from
the power of inflicting injuries that he so especially displays. When
we consider what sort of a sovereign politically, socially, and every
way the second Charles was, Guillim's dedication of his book to him
errs somewhat, perhaps, on the side of fulsome and sickening
adulation:--"To the most August Charles the Second, King of Great
Britain, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, &c. Dread
Sovereign, Here is a Firmament of Stars that shine not without your
Benign Beam; you are the Sun of our Hemisphere that sets a splendour
on the Nobility: For as they are Jewels and Ornaments to your Crown,
so they derive their lustre and value from thence. From your Breast,
as from a Fountain, the young Plants of honour are cherisht and nurst
up. Your vertuous Atcheivements are their Warrant and Example, and
your Bounty the Guerdon of their Merit. And as all the Roman Emperors
after Julius Cæsar, were desirous to be called Imperatores and Cæsares
after him, so shall all succeeding Princes in this our Albion (in
emulation of your Vertues) be ambitious to bear your Name to
Posterity."
[8] The reader must notice the near approach to similarity of name
in the Frenchman Guillaume, author of "Le Bestiare Divin," and in
the Englishman Guillim, the writer on heraldry, and at the same time
make due discrimination. They are men of widely different periods,
and approach our subject from wholly different directions.
The Basilisk, to whom also was given the title of king of the
serpents, was another of the stern, very stern realities of our
forefathers, though, like the cockatrice, it has fallen a victim to
the march of intellect. Its royal rank was bestowed upon it not from
its pestiferous qualities, but from the crest or coronet it wears, or
rather wore, as the species may now be considered extinct. Like the
monstrous kraken of the Norway seas and the classic harpy or minotaur,
down to the sheeted spectre that clanked its chains last century in
churchyard or corridor, it has failed to make good its claims to our
credence; and even the great sea-serpent, that from time to time
appears in the columns of the newspapers when Parliament is not
sitting, will have to appear very visibly elsewhere as well, or the
scepticism of the nineteenth century will disestablish it. The
basilisk was by some old writers described as a huge lizard, but in
later times it became a crested serpent. Exact accuracy on this point
was impossible, as, like the cockatrice, the glance of its eye was
death. Pliny says, "We come now to the basiliske, whom all other
serpents do flie from and are afraid of; albeit he killith them with
his very breath and smell that passeth from him: yea, and by report,
if he do but set his eye on a man it is enough to take away his life."
Readers of Shakespeare will recall the passage in King Henry VI.,
"Come, basilisk, and kill the innocent gazer with thy sight;" and
again where the Lady Anne exclaims to Richard III., with reference to
her eyes, "Would that they were basilisk's, to strike thee dead."
Beaumont and Fletcher, too, in their "Woman Hater," speaks of "The
basilisk's death-doing eye." Dryden avails himself of the same old
belief, and makes Clytus say to Alexander, "Nay, frown not so; you
cannot look me dead;" and in another old poem, King's "Art of Love,"
we find the lines, "Like a boar plunging his tusk in mastiff's gore,
or basilisk, when roused, whose breath, teeth, sting, and eyeballs all
are death." The only way to kill the basilisk was held to be to cause
it to gaze on its own image in a mirror, when its glance would be as
fatal to itself as it had hitherto been to others. To effect this,
however, evidently presents many practical difficulties, and he must
have been a bold man who ventured on so perilous an errand, where the
least nervousness or mismanagement of the mirror would be literally
fatal in bringing the basilisk to a proper state of reflection.
The basilisk is mentioned by most of the old writers, by Dioscorides,
by Galen, Pliny, Solinus, Ælian, Ætius, Avicen, Ardoynus, Grevinus,
and many others. Aristotle makes no mention of it. Scaliger gravely
describes one that was found in Rome in the days of Leo IV., while
Sigonius and others are so far from denying the possibility of such a
beast that they have duly set forth various kinds or sub-species.
Pliny, for instance, describes a thing he calls the Catoblepas, while
Ætius gives details of another called Dryinus, each being only
modifications of the basilisk idea. Where, of course, the whole thing
was purely a figment of the imagination, the multiplication of species
presents no difficulty at all, and it really makes little difference
whether all the peculiarities and properties be focussed on one
creature, or whether they be divided by a three or a four, and due
distribution of them made to a like number of slightly varying
monsters. There is no doubt but that if Baron Munchausen had turned
his attention to this branch of natural history, we should have had
many more species to record, and some of them probably still more
wonderful than any at present described. The very indefiniteness of
the descriptions gives them an added charm and affords full scope for
romancing. Familiarity is undoubtedly likely to lead to contempt, and
probably if the Zoological Society of London are ever able to add a
basilisk to their fine collection of reptiles it will be a very
disappointing feature.
The Phoenix had what we may be allowed to call a literary existence
amongst the Greeks and Romans, but scarcely became a visible creation
of the artist until the mythic fowl was accepted by the early
Christians as a type of the resurrection of the body--an association
of ideas that afterwards rendered its use very common, and Tertullian,
amongst other early writers, thus refers to its symbolic use.
According to a tale narrated to Herodotus on his visit to Heliopolis,
the phoenix visited that place once every 500 years, bringing with it
the body of its predecessor, and burning it with myrrh in the
sanctuary of the Sun-god; but the version on which the Christian moral
and application is based is somewhat different. It is founded on the
old belief that the phoenix, when it arrived at the age of 1461 years,
committed itself to the flames that burst, at the fanning of its
wings, from the funeral pyre that it had itself constructed of costly
spices, and that from its ashes a new phoenix arose to life. This
belief, which appears to us so absurd, was for hundreds of years as
accepted a fact as any other point in natural history. The home of the
phoenix was said to be at that delightfully vague address, somewhere
in Arabia.
In Hoole's translation of the "Orlando Furioso" of Ariosto we have
both the mystic bird and its very indefinite home thus referred to:--
"Arabia, named the Happy, now he gains;
Incense and myrrh perfume her grateful plains;
The Virgin Phoenix there in seek of rest,
Selects from all the world her balmy nest."
We get the same idea again in Fletcher's poem of "The Purple
Island":--
"So that love bird in fruitful Arabie,
When now her strength and waning life decays,
Upon some airy rock or mountain high,
In spicy bed (fix'd by near Phoebus' rays),
Herself and all her crooked age consumes.
Straight from her ashes and those rich perfumes,
A new-born phoenix flies, and widow'd place resumes."
These two extracts speak respectively of the virgin and widowed
phoenix. The latter idea can scarcely be correct; widowhood implies
the loss of a mate, and the phoenix, we are told, is unique and alone
in the world. Pliny and Ovid use the masculine pronoun. The former
writer's account of him, her, or it will be found in the second
chapter of his tenth book, and runs as follows:--"It is reported that
never man was knowne to see him feeding; that in Arabie hee is held a
sacred bird, dedicated unto the Sunne; that he liveth six hundred
years, and when he groweth old and begins to decay, he builds himselfe
a nest with the twigs and branches of the cannell or cinnamon and
frankincense trees; and when he hath filled it with all sort of sweet
aromiticall spices, yieldeth up his life thereupon. He saith,
moreover, that of his bones and marrow there breedeth at first, as it
were, a little worme, which afterwards proveth to bee a pretie bird.
And the first thing that this young phoenix doth is to performe the
obsequies of the former phoenix late deceased; to translate and carie
away his whole nest into the citie of the Sunne, near Panchæ, and to
bestow it there full devoutly upon the altar."
It was one of the venerable jokes of our fathers that a man hearing
that a goose would live one hundred years, determined to buy one and
see whether this really was so; but this simple plan does not seem to
have occurred to any of the ancients, for while Herodotus affirms that
the phoenix lives five hundred years, Pliny as plumply and roundly
asserts as a matter beyond doubt or contradiction that it is six
hundred. Another authority, more precise, though perhaps not more
accurate, brings it, we see, to just one thousand four hundred and
sixty one, the odd unit giving a delightful appearance of extreme
accuracy and precision that seems to challenge one to gainsay it if he
dare.
In Ovid the fable is given with the fullest detail. The following
lines from Dryden's translation let us into the secret of how the
whole thing is managed. "Our special correspondent" could hardly be
more precise:--
"All these receive their birth from other things,
But from himself the phoenix only springs;
Self-born, begotten by the parent flame
In which he burn'd, another and the same;
Who not by corn or herbs his life sustains,
But the sweet essence Amomum he drains;
And watches the rich gums Arabia bears,
While yet in tender dews they drop their tears.
He (his five centuries of life fulfill'd)
His nest of oaken boughs begins to build,
On trembling tops of palms:[9] and first he draws
The plan with his broad bill and crooked claws,
Nature's artificers: on this the pile
Is formed and rises round: then with the spoil
Of Cassia, Cynamon, and stems of Nard
(For softness strewed beneath) his funeral bed is reared.
Funeral and bridal both: and all around
The borders with corruptless myrrh are crowned.
On this incumbent, till ethereal flame;
First catches then consumes the costly frame;
Consumes him, too, as on the pile he lies:
He lived on odours, and on odours dies.
An infant phoenix from the former springs,
His father's heir, and from his tender wings
Shakes off his parent dust, his method he pursues,
And the same lease of life on the same terms renews.
When grown to manhood he begins his reign,
And with stiff pinions can his flight sustain;
He lightens of his load the tree that bore
His father's royal sepulchre before,
And his own cradle: this with pious care
Placed on his back, he cuts the buxom air,
Seeks the Sun's city, and his sacred church,
And decently lays down his burden in the porch."
[9] Appendix D.
The phoenix was a good deal employed during the Middle Ages, like the
griffin, salamander, and other mythical creatures, as a badge or
heraldic device, one of the most interesting illustrations being its
use by Jane Seymour. Queen Elizabeth then adopted it, and thereby gave
the court poets a grand opportunity of yielding her that highly spiced
flattery that was so much to her liking. Sylvester, in his "Corona
Dedicatoria," a poem written at a slightly later period, thus
introduces the title:--
"As when the Arabian (only) bird doth burne
Her aged body in sweet flames to death,
Out of her cinders a new bird hath breath,
In whom the beauties of the first return;
From spicy ashes of the sacred urne
Of our dead phoenix (deere Elizabeth)
A new true phoenix lively flourisheth."
Shakespeare frequently employs the ideas associated with the mythical
bird in his writings, and seems to have thoroughly mastered all that
could be said on the subject. Some half-dozen passages may readily be
quoted as illustrations of this. In "As you Like It," for example, we
find the line, "She could not love me, were man as rare as phoenix;"
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 pile and the resurrection of its successor therefrom is
several times referred to. In 1 Henry VI. we read, "But from their
ashes shall be reared a phoenix that shall make all France afeared;"
and in 3 Henry VI., "My ashes, as the phoenix, may bring forth a bird
that will revenge upon you all;" while as a final example we may quote
the line in Henry VIII., "But as, when the bird of wonder dies, the
maiden phoenix, her ashes new create another heir."
Richardson ascribes an age of one thousand years to the phoenix, and
adds a detail that many of the older writers seem to have missed;
according to him the bird has fifty orifices in his bill, and when he
has built his funeral pyre he treats the world to a melodious ditty
through this novel wind instrument, flaps his wings with an energy
that soon sets fire to the pile, and so perishes. There seems a hint
of this vocal and instrumental performance in "Paradise and the Peri"
where the poet Moore refers to
"The enchanted pile of that lonely bird,
Who sings at the last his own death lay,
And in music and perfume dies away."
The Alchemists employed the phoenix as a symbol of their hopes and
vocation, and in Paracelsus and other writers many curious details of
its association with alchemy may be found.
In the annals of Tacitus we find references to what is termed the
phoenix period. According to him the phoenix appeared on five
occasions in Egypt--in the reign of Sesostris, B.C. 866; in the reign
of Am-Asis B.C. 566; in the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphos, B.C. 266;
in the reign of Tiberius, A.D. 34; and in the reign of Constantine,
A.D. 334. It will seem from this that the phoenix cycle consisted of
periods of about 300 years (another variation from the estimates of
Pliny and other writers quoted). The old monastic writers draw
ingenious parallels between our Saviour and the phoenix, both
sacrificing themselves when their career is over, and both rising
again in glory from their temporary resting-place. The fourth of the
dates given above is at once the alleged date of one of these
appearances of the phoenix and also that of the great sacrifice on
Calvary.
Though it seems a tremendous drop from the mythical phoenix of Arabia
and its dissolution in fragrant spices to the old Dun Cow in
Warwickshire, yet the latter proved herself, if legends may be
credited, a foe fully worthy of the prowess of a right knightly arm,
and as deserving of our notice as the dragon-slaying of that valiant
brother star of chivalry St. George himself. Sir Guy of Warwick takes
a high place amongst the famous ancient champions, and Dugdale and
other good authorities hold that the stories connected with his name
are not wholly apocryphal, though doubtless the monks and other early
chroniclers drew the long bow at a venture sometimes. Dugdale, in his
"Warwickshire," A.D. 1730, writes--"Of his particular adventures, lest
what I say should be suspected for fabulous, I will onely instance
that combat betwixt him and the Danish champion, Colebrand, whom some
(to magnifie our noble Guy the more) report to have been a giant. The
storie whereof, however it may be thought fictitious by some,
forasmuch as there be those that make a question whether there was
ever really such a man, yet those that are more considerate will
neither doubt the one nor the other, inasmuch as it hath been so usual
with our ancient Historians, for the encouragement of after ages unto
bold attempts, to set forth the exploits of worthy men with the
highest encomiums possible; and therefore, should we be for that cause
so conceited as to explode it, all history of those times might as
well be vilified.[10] And having said thus much to encounter with the
prejudicate fancies of some and the wayward opinions of others, I come
to the story." We do not ourselves propose to "come to the story,"
though it is all duly set down in Dugdale; though if the fact of Guy's
Danish antagonist being a giant could be fully substantiated, he might
perhaps claim a place in our pages. The date of the combat seems to
have been the year 929. The exploits of Guy were long held in high
favour not only in England but abroad; we find a French version dated
1525, and the British hero is referred to in a Spanish romance which
was written almost a hundred years before this. Chaucer evidently knew
the story well, for he tells us that
"Men speken of romances of price,
Of Horne Childe and Ippotis,
Of Bevis and Sir Guy;"
while Shakespeare, in "King Henry VIII.," makes one of his characters
say, "I am not Samson, nor Sir Guy, nor Colbrand, to mow them down
before me."
[10] Appendix E.
In Percie's "Reliques of Antient Poetry" is a long black letter ballad
upon the exploits of Guy. It seems unnecessary to quote it _in
extenso_, so we pick out a verse here and there, sufficient at least
to show how doughty a champion our hero must have been:--
"I slew the gyant Amarant
In battle fiercelye hand to hand:
And doughty Barknard killed I,
A treacherous knight of Pavye land.
Then I to England came againe,
And here with Colbronde fell I fought:
An ugly gyant whom the Danes
Had for their champion hither brought.
I overcame him in the field,
And slewe him soone right valliantlye;
Wherebye this land I did redeeme
From Danish tribute utterlye.
And afterwards I offered upp
The use of weapons solemnlye
At Winchester, whereas I fought,
In sight of manye farr and nye.
But first, near Winsor, I did slaye
A bore of passing might and strength;
Whose like in England never was
For hugenesse both of bredth and length.
Some of his bones in Warwicke yet,
Within the castle there do lye,
One of his shield-bones to this day
Hangs in the citye of Coventrye.
On Dunsmore heath I alsoe slewe
A monstrous wyld and cruell beast,
Called the Dun-Cow of Dunsmore heath,
Which manye people had opprest.
Some of her bones in Warwicke yett
Still for a monument doe lye;
Which unto every lookers viewe
As wondrous strange, they may espye.
A dragon in Northumberland,
I alsoe did in fight destroye,
Which did both man and beast oppresse,
And all the countrye sore annoye.
My body that endured this toyle,
Though now it be consumed to mold;
My statue faire engraven in stone,
In Warwicke still you may behold."
The origin of the story of the mythical dun cow is lost in obscurity,
but in the north-west of Shropshire will be found an eminence known
locally as the Staple Hill, and on this a ring of stones of the rude
Druidic type seen in various parts of England, and most notably at
Avebury, in Wiltshire. This circle is some ninety feet or so in
diameter, and legend has it that this enclosure was used by a giant as
a cow-pen. This cow was no ordinary creature, but yielded her milk
miraculously, filling any vessel that was brought to her. She seems to
have deeply resented the act of an old crone in bringing her a sieve
thus to fill, construed it into a direct insult to her powers (though
one scarcely sees on what ground), broke loose from her enclosure, and
wandered into Warwickshire, doing enormous mischief, until her career
was cut short by the redoubtable Guy. Bones of the dun cow may be seen
in many places, a circumstance that is explained by telling us that on
the victory of the knight over the cow he sent its bones far and wide
over the district it had ravaged, as tokens of victory and a manifest
proof that the monster was no longer to be dreaded. At Warwick a rib
is exhibited: this is some seven feet long, and at Coventry there is a
gigantic blade-bone some eleven feet round. In some cases these
probably are the bones of whales, and in others of the wild bonasus or
urus; but it must be distinctly understood that they do not give
credibility to the legend, but only, in fact, derive an added glory
from being associated with it. In the fine old church of Chesterfield
is another gigantic rib some seven feet or more in length and a foot
in circumference. This rests on the altar-tomb of a now unknown
knight, whose marble effigy is represented clothed in a suit of
armour, and local tradition has naturally bestowed on the once
nameless warrior the proud title of Guy, Earl of Warwick. Another big
rib may be seen in the grand church of St. Mary Redcliff at Bristol.
Near it used to be suspended a grimy old picture representing a
fierce-looking dun cow, and, though the inference was sufficiently
obvious, the sexton, in showing people round, used to boldly affirm
that this undoubtedly was one of the ribs of the monster slain by Sir
Guy. Both rib and picture may now possibly be removed in deference to
more modern ideas, but they certainly were there within a very recent
period. A third rib may be seen at Caerleon, once a place of much
importance, but now an insignificant little town, and chiefly
interesting from its association with the history of the great King
Arthur. Caerleon boasts a museum containing a very valuable collection
of Roman and old British relics, and here too is the rib in question.
It has only recently been removed from the church, and it is, by the
way, curious to note the association of these bones with churches in
almost every case. In the church of Pennant Melangell, in
Montgomeryshire, is another gigantic rib said by some of the natives
to be that of a giant, while others affirm that it is one of the ribs
of St. Monacella, to whom the church is dedicated. As the bone is over
four feet long, her stature must have been something considerable
altogether. Another big bone is in the church at Mallwyd, in the same
county. In Buckland's "Curiosities of Natural History" it is stated
that "the ribs of the dun cow at Warwick and the gigantic rib at St.
Mary's, Bristol, are the bones of whales;" and in his interesting
account of the whale he mentions that he found whale-bones in all
parts of the country, one of them being a large blade-bone hanging
from a ceiling in Seven Dials. Assuming, as we probably may, that most
if not all of these big bones scattered over the country are those of
whales, one is still at a loss to know how or why they got so
scattered, and more especially why they were placed in the churches.
The legend of the dun cow appears to afford a very convenient popular
explanation of them, but one feels that there is a mystery that this
account does not dissipate.
The Salamander received its full mythical development during mediæval
times, though the older writers refer to it occasionally. We see in
the writings of such men as Pliny the first steps taken towards the
erection of that fabric of fancy and superstition that in the Middle
Ages was reared on so slight a foundation. Pliny asserts that the
Salamander is made in the fashion of a lizard and marked with spots
like stars; that it is never seen during fair weather, but only in
heavy rain; and that it is of so cold a nature that if it do but touch
fire it will as effectually quench it as if ice were placed thereon.
He, moreover, declares its poisonous nature--a nature that, according
to later writers, is so noxious that the mere climbing of the tree by
the animal poisons all the fruit, so that all who afterwards eat
thereof perish without remedy, and that if one enters a river the
stream is effectually poisoned, and all who drink therefrom for an
indefinite date thereafter must die. Glanvil, a learned English
Cordelier monk who lived in the thirteenth century, goes so far as to
declare roundly, as though undoubted and historic fact, that 4000 men
of the army of Alexander the Great and 2000 of the beasts of burden
were lost through drinking at a stream that had been thus infected. It
was in the Middle Ages an article of belief that the salamander was
bred and nourished in fire, and we have ourselves been gravely told
that if the fires at the ironworks in the Midland Counties were not
occasionally extinguished, an uncertain but fearful something would be
created in them. When the salamander is represented it is always
placed in the midst of flames. We see that the book to which we have
already frequently referred as that to which our grandfathers went for
instruction puts the poisonous nature of the salamander in the
following graphic way:--"A man bit by a salamander should have as many
physicians to cure him as the salamander has spots."
The salamander is the well-known device of Francis I. of France, A.D.
1515-1547, the monarch who met our own King Henry VIII. at "the field
of the cloth of gold." On this occasion the French Guard had the
salamander embroidered on their uniform, and we also find the device
freely in the sculpture, wall paintings, and stained glass at
Fontainebleau, Chambord, Orleans, in fact in all the palaces of
Francis I. The motto adopted with it was _Nutrisco et extinguo_, "I
nourish and extinguish," a somewhat contradictory saying based on a
somewhat contradictory story, for while we are told on the one hand
that the salamander is reared and nourished in flame, we are also told
that "he is of so cold a complexion that if he doe but touch the fire
he will quench it as presently as if yce were put into it." John, king
of Aragon, had, almost a hundred years before, adopted the same
device, adding to it the motto, _Durabo_, "I will endure." Asbestos,
though really, of course, of a mineral nature, was, from its
incombustible property, held in the Middle Ages to be the wool of the
salamander. We are told that the Roman emperors had napkins of this
material, and that if they became at all soiled they were thrown into
the fire, the fierce heat quickly destroying all foreign matter. As
the testing flames purified the good while they destroyed the bad, so
we presume King Francis intended to hold himself up as a terror to
evil-doers and a rewarder of the loyal and faithful. The motto is none
the less faulty, however; for while we find the king claiming both
functions, it will be noticed in the legend that it is the fire which
nourishes and the creature which extinguishes.
The writings of Pliny abound in strange ideas; some of these he
evidently set down without putting the statements to the test, but in
many cases he shattered the old beliefs by bringing them to the
crucial test of experiment. The story of the extreme frigidity of the
salamander's body at once putting out the fiercest fire was a matter
that he thus brought to the testing-point, the result being that the
unfortunate victim of science was quickly shrivelled up and consumed.
Another old statement, equally capable of being brought to the trial,
was that if even the foot of a man came in contact with the liquid
exuded from the skin of the salamander all his hair would fall off.
Perhaps the reason why one statement was tested and not the other was
that in the first case any ill consequences that might arise would
affect the reptile, while the second would come home more closely to
the experimenter himself.
In Breydenbach's travels we find a salamander included amongst the
other animals, a position that it probably owed to its association
with legend, for we also find in the same old author that the unicorn
is frankly accepted as a beast that may be met with by the traveller.
The book is interesting, too, as giving the first figure that had then
been made of a giraffe, or, as he terms it, seraffa.[11] The existence
of the giraffe was long afterwards denied by naturalists, and his
seraffa was for a very lengthened period held to be but a myth.
Breydenbach was a canon of the cathedral of Mentz, and seems to have
been of a somewhat adventurous spirit, for despite all the
difficulties of the undertaking--difficulties that in these days of
steam-boats, railways, and through bookings we cannot at all
realise--we find him visiting Sinai and the Holy Land. His travels
were first printed as a folio volume at Mentz in 1486. This was a
Latin edition; but two years later we find one in German, and in less
than ten years six different editions were called for in Germany,
besides others printed in Holland and elsewhere for the benefit of
those to whom both Latin and German were unknown tongues. The book is
full of quaint woodcuts, and is altogether a treasure-house of
history, natural and unnatural.
[11] Representations of the giraffe are to be found in the ancient
monuments of Egypt, the animal being part of the annual tribute
brought by the vassal Ethiopians to the king of Egypt. These
representations were, we need scarcely say, unknown to the
naturalists of the Middle Ages.
The salamander is commonly to be met with in many parts of Europe, but
the real and the ideal creature are two very different things--as
different as the deer-eyed cows quietly ruminating in their verdant
pasturage are to the dun cow that taxed all the heroism of Sir Guy of
Warwick, or as old grey Dobbin to Pegasus. The real creature is very
similar in form to the newts that are so commonly to be found in
ponds, but the salamander of Francis I. is more like a wingless
dragon, while some of the mediæval heralds made it a quadruped
something like a dog. Such a creature, breathing forth flames, may be
seen in the crest of Earl Douglas A.D. 1483.
Shakespearian students will recall how Falstaff rails at Bardolph,
calling him the "Knight of the Burning Lamp," "admiral, bearing
lantern in the poop," "ball of wildfire," and so forth, all
compliments called forth from the effects of strong liquor on the
rubicund countenance of Bardolph. He winds up by saying, "Thou hast
saved me a thousand marks in links and torches, walking with thee in
the night betwixt tavern and tavern, but the sack that thou hast drunk
me would have bought me lights as good cheap, at the dearest
chandler's in Europe. I have maintained that salamander of yours with
fire any time this two and thirty years."
The salamander, like the toad, the slow-worm, or the water newt, is
still held to be decidedly uncanny. In our younger days our seeking
after such small objects of natural history was always held by
wondering rustics as a foolish tempting of Providence, and we have
repeatedly been told the most moving stories of the poisonous nature
of all such creatures, and especially how newts developed the most
alarming properties if interfered with, biting out pieces of the
captor's flesh, and then spitting fire into the wound. Prompt
amputation or death was the dire alternative offered, though in our
own case matters never reached so dread a climax. "Them pisonous
effets" were many a time in those by-gone days held in the hand that
now guides our pen. The belief in such fatal powers must have a very
disquieting influence on the rustics who hold it. When farm animals,
as calves or colts, die mysteriously, some one is sure to start the
theory that they have been bitten by an effet while drinking; and in
view of such a belief even the fetching of a pail of water from the
pond that too often supplies the drinking water in country places must
appear attended with no little risk. The following graphic and amusing
letter from one of the correspondents of the _Field_ newspaper shows
how the salamander is still regarded in rural France:--
"Returning homeward a few evenings ago from a country walk in the
environs of D----, I discovered in my path a strange-looking reptile,
which, after regarding me steadfastly for a few moments, walked slowly
to the side of the road, and commenced very deliberately clambering up
the wall. Never having seen a similar animal, I was rather doubtful as
to its properties; but, reassured by its tranquil demeanour, I put my
pocket-handkerchief over it, and it suffered itself to be taken up
without resistance, and was thus carried to my domicile. On arriving
_chez moi_, I opened the basket to show my captive to the servants,
when, to my surprise and consternation, they set up such a screaming
and hullabaloo that I thought they would have gone into fits.
"'_Oh! la, la, la, la, la!--Oh! la, la, la, la, la!_' and then a
succession of screams in altissimo, which woke up the children and
brought out the neighbours to see what could be the matter.
"'_Oh, monsieur a rapporté un sourd!_'
"'_Un sourd!_' cried one.
"'UN SOURD!' echoed another.
"'UN S-O-U-R-D!!!' cried they all in chorus; and then followed a
succession of shrieks.
"When they calmed down into a mild sample of hysterics, they began to
explain that I had brought home the most venomous animal in creation.
"'_Oh! le vilaín bête!_' cried Phyllis.
"'_Oh! le méchant!_' chimed in Abigail; 'he kills everybody that
comes near him; I have known fifty people die of his bite, and no
remedy in the world can save them. As soon as they are bitten they
_gonflent_, _gonflent_, and keep on swelling till they burst, and are
dead in a quarter of an hour.'
"Here I transferred my curiosity from the basket to a glass jar, and
put a saucer on the top to keep it safe.
"'_O Monsieur!_ don't leave him so; if he puts himself in a rage,
nothing can hold him. He has got such force that he can jump up to the
ceiling; and wherever he fastens himself he sticks like death.'
"'Ah! it's all true,' cried my landlady, joining the circle of gapers;
'_Oh! la la! Ça me fait peur; ça me fait tr-r-r-r-embler!_'
"'Once I saw a man in a haycart try to kill one, and the _bête_ jumped
right off the ground at a bound and fastened itself on the man's face,
when he stood on the haycart, and nothing could detach it till the man
fell dead.'
"'_Ah! c'est bien vrai_,' cried Abigail; 'they ought to have fetched a
mirror and held it up to the _bête_, and then it would have left the
man and jumped at its _image_.'
"The end of all this commotion was that, while I went to inquire of a
scientific friend whether there was any truth in these tissue of
_bêtises_, the whole household was in an uproar, _tout en émoi_, and
they sent for a _commissionnaire_, and an ostler with a spade and
mattock, and threw out my poor _bête_ into the road and foully
murdered it, chopping it into a dozen pieces by the light of a stable
lantern; and then they declared that they could sleep in peace!--_les
miserables!_
"But there were sundry misgivings as to my fate, and, as with the
Apostle, 'they looked when I should have swollen or fallen down dead
suddenly;' and next morning the maids came stealthily and peeped into
my room to see whether I was alive or dead, and were not a little
surprised that I was not even _gonflé_, or any the worse for my
_rencontre_ with a _sourd_.
"And so it turned out that my poor little _bête_ that had caused such
a disturbance was nothing more nor less than a salamander--a poor,
inoffensive, harmless reptile, declared on competent authority to be
noways venomous, but whose unfortunate appearance and somewhat Satanic
livery have exposed it to obloquy and persecution."
As the French word _sourd_ primarily means one who is deaf, we get a
curious parallelism of ideas between the salamander deaf to all sense
of pity, and insensible to all but its own fell purpose, and the old
idea of the deafness of the poisonous adder. "Deaf as an adder" is a
common country saying, and the passage in the Psalms of David where we
read that "the deaf adder stoppeth her ears, and will not heed the
voice of the charmer, charm he never so wisely," naturally rises to
one's mind. The deafness, it will be noted, is no mere lack of the
hearing faculty, but a wilful turning away from gentle influence. It
was an old belief that when the asp heard the voice of the
serpent-charmer it stopped its ears by burying one of them in the sand
and coiling its folds over the other.
In turning over the quaint pages of the "Bestiary" of De Thaun we find
allusion made to a creature that is evidently the salamander again,
though we cannot quite make out the reference to King Solomon. Like
all such books written in the Middle Ages, everything is introduced to
point some moral or religious truth, though it may at first seem
difficult for our readers to realise what possible connection there
can be between the dreaded "sourd" and any spiritual instruction. The
reference is as follows:--"Ylio is a little beast made like a lizard.
Of it says Solomon that in a king's house it ought to be and to
frequent, to give an example. It is of such 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, and as was Misael, who served God
fairly: these three issued from the fire praising God. He who has
faith only will never have hurt from fire."[12]
[12] Appendix F.
Like the salamander, the Griffin was to our forefathers no mere
creature of the imagination. Ctesias describes them in all sober
earnestness as "birds with four feet, of the size of a wolf, and
having the legs and claws of a lion. Their feathers are red on the
breast and black on the rest of the body." Glanvil says of them, "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. In like manner he
can carry off a horse or an ox, or any other beast in his flight." The
creature is, if anything, still more terrible when met with in the
description given by Sir John Mandeville:--"Thai have the body upward
as an egle, and benethe as a lyoun, but a griffonne hath the body more
gret, and is more strong than eight lyouns, and more grete and
strongere than an hundred egles such as we have among us. For he hath
his talouns so large and so longe and grete upon his fete as though
thei weren homes of grete oxen, so that men maken cuppes of them to
drinken of." Oriental writers, who appear to have an especial delight
in the marvellous, go even beyond this, and the creature becomes with
them the roc, the terrible creature we read of, for example, in the
wonderful adventures of "Sindbad the Sailor." Milton introduces the
creature very finely in his noble poem, as for instance:--
"As when a gryphon through the wilderness
With wingèd course o'er hill and moory dale
Pursues the Arimaspian, who by stealth
Has from his watchful custody purloin'd
The guarded gold: so eagerly the fiend
O'er bog, or steep, through strait, rough, dense, or rare,
With head, hands, wings, or feet, pursues his way,
And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies."
The Arimaspians were a one-eyed people of Scythia, who braided their
hair with gold and drew their supplies of the precious metal as best
they could from the stores guarded by the griffins. The griffin has
long been employed as a symbol of watchfulness, courage, and
perseverance, on account of this fabled treasure-guarding. But Browne,
who, as we have seen, took great delight in vivisecting the vulgar
errors of his day and generation, discourses as follows on the
matter--"Aristeus affirmed that neer the Arimaspi, or one-eyed nation,
griffins defended the mines of gold, but this, as Herodotus
delivereth, he wrote from hearsay, and Michovius, who hath expressly
written of those parts, plainly affirmeth that there is neither gold
nor griffins in that country, nor any such Animall extant, for so doth
he conclude, 'Ego vero contra veteres authores, gryphes nec in illa
septentrionis nec in alius orbis partibus inveniri affirmarim.'"
Like the dragon, the griffin seems to have been a good sort of fellow
to deal with if you only took him the right way, and though a terrible
monster to encounter if one had any burglarious intentions, he seems
to have served his masters with a singleness of purpose and bull-dog
tenacity that were very much to his credit. In Ariosto's "Orlando
Furioso" we read of a griffin-steed that flew through the air with its
master on its back, and landed him wheresoever he listed.
The griffin was fabled to be the offspring of the union of the lion
and the eagle; it has the leonine body and stout claws of one parent,
the hooked beak, keen eye, and wings of the other. The form is very
often met with in heraldry, past and present, either as a crest or as
a supporter to the arms. A very familiar example of their employment
in this latter service will be seen in the arms of the city of London.
It is also a very common form in Roman and Renaissance painting and
sculpture. Gryphius, a celebrated French printer, adopted the creature
as his device, and on his decease the following epitaph was written:--
"La grande griffe
Qui tout griffe
A griffé le corps de Gryphe."
Though ordinarily written as griffin or griffon, the alternative
rendering gryphon is somewhat more correct, as the word is derived
from the Greek _grypos_, or hook-nosed, in evident allusion to its
eagle-beak. Shakespeare frequently refers to the creature, but the
only instance we need here refer to is where a considerable difference
in the spelling of the word might lead some of our readers astray. The
passage to which we allude will be found in "The Rape of Lucrece,"
where she
"Like a white hind under the grype's sharp claws
Pleads in a wilderness, where are no laws."
In the forests of Bohemia, we are told by Burton in his "Miracles of
Art and Nature," there is a little beast called the Lomie, "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
easily makes her escape." Elsewhere he tells of four-footed serpents,
strange creatures that, unlike many of his wonders--only to be found
in Peru or India, or such like distant lands--are to be seen as near
home as Poland. The people of Poland, we are told, are "boysterous,
rude, and barbarous; nourishing amongst them a kind of four-footed
serpent, above three handfuls in length, which they worship as their
household gods, tending them with fear and reverence when they call
them out to their repasts; and if any mischance do happen to any of
their family it is imputed presently to some want of due observations
of these ugly creatures."
Vegetable Lambs were another of the wonders of our forefathers. The
credulous Sir John Mandeville says that in Cathay a gourd-like fruit
is found that when ripe contains "as though it were a lytylle lomb
withouten wolle." In the twenty-sixth chapter of his book the
lamb-tree is duly figured, and its peculiar fruit development
graphically delineated. In many old books of natural history we find
representations of some such creature under the names of the Scythian
or Tartarian lamb. According to some old writers it was said to be
purely an animal, and although rooted to the ground, was held to have
so deadly an effect on vegetation in its neighbourhood that it
effectually prevented the growth of all herbage within the scope of
its baleful influence. So singular a creature naturally provoked
attention and curiosity, and in the earlier days of the Royal Society
the matter was considered quite worthy of their notice. Naturally,
also, the supply endeavoured to keep pace with the demand, and as the
belief in mermaids led to their fabrication and exhibition, so also
the myth of the Scythian lamb took visible shape. One of these
impositions was formerly preserved in the British Museum, not from any
belief in it, of course, but as an illustration of the old belief.[13]
[13] Appendix G.