The lion, king of beasts—Unbelievers in him—Aldrovandus on the
lion—The lion of the heralds—The “Blazon of Gentrie”—Guillim
as an authority—The lion’s medicine—The lion’s antipathies—Why
some lions are maneless—De Thaun’s symbolic lion—Lion’s cubs
born dead—The theory of Creation held during the Middle
Ages—Degenerate lions of Barbary—The Leontophonos—Hostility
between lion and unicorn—Literary references to the
unicorn—Martin’s “Philosophical Grammar”—How to capture
the unicorn—The value of the horn—The elephant—The capture
thereof—Feud between elephant and dragon—Use of elephant
in war—Performing elephants—Moon-worshippers—Knowledge
of the value of their tusks—The first elephant seen
in England—Sagacity of the elephant—Kindliness to
lost travellers—Ethiopian huntresses—Difference
between the creations of Fancy and of Nature—Elephants
cold-blooded—Hippopotamus prescribing himself blood-letting—The
river-horse of Munster—The panther—Powers of fascination—Beauty
of coat—Fragrance—Red panthers of Cathay—Aromatic spices
as diet—Antipathies between various animals—Antipathetic
medicines—Porta’s “Natural Magick”—The hyæna—Counterfeiting
human speech—The wolf—Producing speechlessness—The dragon’s
parentage—Enmity between wolf and sheep—Value of wolf-skin
garments—The stag-wolf—The bear—Licking cubs into shape—Bees
and honey—The hare—Cruelty of many mediæval remedies—The
hedgehog—The deer—Stories with morals—The boar—Swine-stone—The
ermine—The goat—The malevolent shrew-mouse—The horse—Why
oxen should drink before horses—The donkey—The sparrow’s
aversion—The dog—The cat—Rats and mice.
Having in the preceding chapters dealt with some few of the abnormal
forms of humanity, we propose now to give some little consideration to
the ideas that have clustered round various animals, dealing first
with the beasts, the royal lion, the elephant, and various others; then
passing through the various stages of birds, fishes, and reptiles, to the
conclusion of our labours.
The lion claims our first regard, since he has, by the naturalists,
poets, moralists, fable-writers, been unanimously crowned the King of
Beasts, and has been duly accredited with every royal virtue, such as
magnanimity, courage, generosity; while in art he has always taken
the same exalted position, crowning the gates of Mycenæ, flanking the
entrances of the palaces of Nineveh, enhancing the dignity of the
Pharaohs, guarding the steps of the throne of Solomon, typifying in the
lion of Lucerne undaunted bravery, and around the column of Nelson in
Trafalgar Square, or on the Royal Standard of England, symbolising all
that Britons associate with the grandeur and might of their country.
The lion alone of all wild beasts, we are told, is gentle to those that
humble themselves to him, and even when his wrath is awakened, and the
pangs of hunger call for relief, his chivalrous nature is such that he
will not attack a woman without the greatest provocation or necessity.
Another interesting fact that the ancient writers ascertained is that
the blood of the lion is black. That he is not in any derogatory sense
black-hearted, is one of the most heartily accepted articles of belief
since the magnanimity of the lion is the trait in his character that is
most fully dwelt upon.
There have, nevertheless, arisen unbelievers in these latter days who
have endeavoured to belittle the royal beast, and to make out that he
is, after all, not much better than a sneaking coward, that his courage
springs from a knowledge of his superior power, and that his forbearance
and generosity are but indications that the creature at the time he
displayed these estimable qualities had lately dined. Even in the
following passage from an early writer we get some little hint of this
feeling: “He despiseth the darts and defendeth himself by his terror
only, and, as if bearing witness that he is forced to his own defence,
he riseth up in fury, not as at last compelled by the peril, but is made
angry by their folly. But this more noble display of courage is shown in
that, however great may be the strength of hounds and hunters, while in
the open plains, and where he may be seen, he retireth only by degrees,
and with scorn; but when he hath got amongst the thickets and woods, then
he hurrieth away, as if the place concealed his shame.” Perhaps, however,
we should assign this strategic movement to the rear to the discretion
that we are proverbially told is such an excellent supplement to mere
valour, or a wise acquiescence in the dictum: “He that fights and runs
away will live to fight another day.”[34] The ideal lion, however, is a
very noble beast indeed, and very few of the early writers do aught but
sing his praises.
Aldrovandus in his book on animals—not the “Monstrorum Historia,” but
the volume that treats of matter-of-fact creatures—deals very fully with
his subject. The Lion stands first, and our readers will gather some
notion of the fulness of the treatment when we state that the royal beast
takes up sixty-three folio pages. The book is written wholly in Latin,
and the various details are arranged in sections. Amongst these we find
“Descriptio, Anatomica, Differentiæ, Locvs, Natvra, Mores, Magnanimitas,
Vox, Sympathia et Antipathia, Historica, Mystica et allegorica,
Hieroglyphica, Moralia, Nvmismata, Insignia Gentilitia et Militaria,
Simvlacra statvæ, Fabvlosa, Proverbia, Vsvs in Medicina, Vsvs in Lvdis
et Trivmphis, Vsvs in Venatione et in Bello.” Even this does not exhaust
the exceedingly comprehensive treatment, though amply sufficient to
illustrate it. The leopard, lynx, dog, and other beasts are in proportion
as fully treated of, though the subjects of the sections of course vary;
thus in the dog we find much information under the heading Fidelitas and
Amor, sections that would be entirely out of place in the description of
the wolf.
The Aldrovandus picture of the lion is rather a poor one, while the tiger
is very fairly good, and the wolf is capital. It is rather curious too
that the hippopotamus, the first living specimen of which, as far as we
know, came to Europe over two hundred years after the publication of the
book in question, is represented by very fair figures, by which it can
readily be identified. There are three of these altogether, and one of
them has seized a crocodile by the tail. Several of the beasts are also
given in skeleton form, thus we have the osteology of the wolf, squirrel,
mole, and many others carefully rendered. The effect is sometimes rather
quaint, thus, for instance, the skeleton of the hare is given, and the
creature in this osseous condition is represented as gnawing a plant.
The mole is figured with very conspicuous eyes. Any plant that can be
at all associated with an animal is always introduced, thus we have a
very good drawing of the rabbit nibbling clover, and the legend appended
“cuniculus cinereus cum trifolio pratensi, quo maxime delectatus,” a
statement that many a luckless farmer would very heartily endorse; then
we have the weasel standing by a plant of rue, and the legend “qua omnes
mustelæ adversus serpentes se defendunt,” in allusion to the old belief
that a weasel well fortified with rue was able to wage successful war
against venomous serpents. Many kinds of dogs are shown, the greyhound,
the water spaniel, the poodle with his collar, and so forth; one, to show
his fidelity to his master, carries two keys in his mouth, while another
is termed “canis bellicosus,” and certainly looks the character.
“The Lyon,” says Ferne, in his “Blazon of Gentrie, 1586,” “is the most
worthiest of all beastes; yea, he standeth as the king, and is feared
above all the beastes of the fielde. So that by the Lyon is signified
principallitie, dominion, and rule. Fortitude and magnanimity is denoted
in the Lyon.” Coats, another heraldic authority of somewhat later date,
affirms that “the lion is the most magnanimous, the most generous, the
most bold and fierce of all the four-footed race, and therefore he
has been chosen to represent the greatest heroes. This noble creature
represents also Command and Monarchical Dominion, as likewise the
Magnanimity of Majesty, at once exercising Awe and Clemency, subduing
those that resist, and sparing those that humble themselves.” In the
“Indice Armorial” of Geliot, published in Paris in the year 1635, we
read: “Si ca est auec raison que les anciens ont donné a l’aigle la
qualité de Roy des oyseaux et au dauphin celuy des poissons, il y a plus
de sujet de qualifier du nom de Roy le lyon, non seulement pour estre
plus fort et le plus genereux des animaux terrestres, mais principalement
à cause des qualitez royales qui sont en luy. Le lyon ne dort iamais, ou
bien s’il dort c’est auec si peu de repos qu’il ne laisse pas d’auoir les
yeux ouverts. C’est ce que l’on remarque de genereux au lyon que iamais
il n’offence ceux qui s’humilient deuant luy, qu’il ne touche point aux
petits enfants et porta qu’entre les hommes et les femmes il s’addresse
plutost aux hommes, et entre ceux qui les prouoquent il choisira
tousiours celuy qui l’aura blessé, comme mespriant les autres.” Guillim,
in his “Display of Heraldry,” a most popular book, running through many
editions, scarcely gives so exalted an idea of the king of beasts,
since he tells us that “the lion, when he mindeth to assail his enemy,
stirreth up himself by often beating of his back and sides with his tail,
and thereby stirreth up his courage to the end to do nothing faintly
or cowardly. The lion, when he is hunted, carefully provideth for his
safety, labouring to frustrate the pursuit of the hunters by sweeping out
his footsteps with his tail as he goeth, that no appearance of his track
may be discovered. When he hunteth after his prey he roareth vehemently,
whereat the beasts, being astonished, do make a stand, while he with his
tail makes a circuit around them in the sand, which circle they dare
not transgress, which done, out of them he maketh choice of prey at his
leisure.” Thus the lion’s tail is at once a stimulus to valour, an aid
to concealment when the valour has oozed away, and a ring-fence for the
enclosure of his prey.
Gerard Legh, author of the “Accedens of Armorie,” a book originally
published in 1562, and so popular that within half a century five
editions were called for, tells us that when lions are born “they sleepe
continually three long Egyptian daies. Whereat the Lyonesse, making such
terrible roring as the erth trembleth therewith, raiseth them by force
thereof out of that deadlie sleepe, ministering foode, which of sleepe
before they could not take. Aristotle writeth that in his marching he
setteth foorth his right pawe first, and beareth in himselfe a princelie
port. When he pursueth aunie beast he rampeth on them, for then he is
in most force. In nothing so much appeareth the princelie minde of the
haughtie Lyon as in this, that where other beastes do herd and rowte
together the Lyon will not do so, neither will hee haue any soueraigne,
such is the haughtie courage of his high stomache that he accomteth
himselfe without peere; when he is sicke he healeth himselfe with the
bloud of an Ape.[35] In age when his strength faileth him he becommeth
enemie to man, and not before, but neuer to children. There is little
marrow in his bones, for when they are smitten together fier flieth out
of them as from a flint stone. Therefore in the olde time they made
shields for horsemen of Lyon’s bones.” Another old writer tells us that
“the lion is never sick but of loathing.” This we may presume is a kind
of biliousness or sick headache, and a general disinclination for food.
Whatever it may be, the Faculty are equal to the occasion, as the simple
“way to cure him is to tie to him the apes, which with their wanton
mocking drive him to madness, and then when he hath tasted their blood
it acts as a remedy.” Legh’s remedy and this one do not quite agree, but
this latter is clearly intended for the lion in a state of captivity,
when his unnatural surroundings necessitate severer treatment.
When a lion is wounded we are told that he has a remarkable quickness
of observation in detecting which amongst the hunters is to be held
responsible for the injury, and, no matter what the size of the hunting
party, he singles out this particular individual for his attack, but if a
man has merely thrown a dart at him without wounding him it is sufficient
punishment for his audacity to be struck down and well shaken. Lions,
Pliny tells us, are destitute of craft and suspicion; “they never look
aslant, and they love not to be looked at in that manner.” The lion was
believed by the ancients to be afraid at the turning of a wheel, and
more especially at the crowing of a cock. These ancient naturalists had
excellent opportunities of studying the lion. For one thing he was found
in Greece, Palestine, and many other districts where he is now never
seen, and then, too, the sports and combats of the amphitheatre and the
desire of the rulers to gain popularity by pleasing the multitude with
various shows led to their free introduction. Thus we read that Pompey
the Great caused six hundred lions to be exhibited together to the
Roman people, while Cæsar the Dictator exhibited four hundred, and many
others in authority had smaller collections gathered together for the
gratification of the populace.
That there were maneless lions was a fact known to the ancient writers,
as they are mentioned by Pliny, Aristotle, and others, but the reason
they give for this peculiarity, that they had panthers as their sires,
is erroneous.[36] The lions found in Persia and Arabia are almost
maneless, and the lions of Gujerat have simply on the middle line of the
back of the neck some hairs that stand erect like the mane of a quagga.
It would probably be one or both of these varieties that had come under
the notice of the ancient authors. Amongst other mixed breeds that these
writers believed in was the camelopardilis, the reputed offspring of the
camel and the leopard or panther, and the hartebeest, springing from the
union of the antelope and the buffalo.
In the “Livre des Creatures,” the quaint old MS. of Philip de Thaun,
the lion is treated symbolically, and as this tone of thought greatly
influenced the art and literature of the period we may very legitimately
quote the passage. “The lion,” writes our old author, “in many ways rules
over many beasts, therefore is the lion king. He has a frightful face,
the neck great and hairy; he has the breast before square, hardy and
pugnacious; his shape behind is slender, his tail of large fashion, and
he has flat legs, and haired down to the feet; he has the feet large and
cloven, the claws long and curved. When he is hungry or ill-disposed he
devours animals without discrimination, as he does the ass which resists
and brays. Now hear, without doubt, the significance of this. The lion
signifies the Son of Mary. He is King of all people without any gainsay.
He is powerful by nature over every creature, and fierce in appearance,
and with fierce look He will appear to the Jews, when He shall judge
them. The square breast shows strength of the Deity. The shape which he
has behind, of very slender make, shows humanity, which He had with the
Deity. By the foot, which is cloven, is demonstrance of God, who will
clasp the world and hold it in His fist.” It is needless to follow De
Thaun any further in his laboured mysticism; the passage quoted suffices
to show the method adopted. The idea that the lion’s cubs were brought to
life three days after their birth was a belief that very readily became
transformed into a symbolism of the Resurrection of Christ from the sleep
of death,[37] while the notion that the lion always slept with its eyes
open made it a symbol of watchfulness, and led to its introduction in
the sculptures of early Christian churches, and especially those under
Lombard influence, where it is not infrequently found as a sentinel at
the doors, as the base to pillars, or at the foot of the pulpits.
[Illustration: FIG. 11.]
According to Burton, in his “Miracles of Art and Nature,” in Barbary
“’tis said they have Lyons so tame that they will gather up Bones in the
Street like Dogs, without hurting any Body; and other Lyons that are of
so cowardly a Nature that they will run away at the Voice of the least
child.” Munster’s notion of the African lion, fig. 11, is impressive,
though it is perhaps less nearly allied to the lion of real life than
to the lion of the herald, of which fig. 12, from the effigy of Prince
John of Eltham, brother of Edward III, in Westminster Abbey, may be
taken as a characteristic example. Munster’s lion[38] would satisfy
even the country heraldic painter, who was so irate when shown a lion
in a travelling menagerie. “What!” cried he, “tell me that’s a lion!
Why I’ve painted lions rampant, lions passant, and all soils of lions
these five-and-twenty years, and for sure I ought to know what a lion is
like better than that!” This lion of Munster is a very different beast
to the degenerate lions of Barbary that find a precarious sustenance
in collecting discarded bones from the gutter, and slink away at the
chiding-of some Arab brat who is inclined to break in upon their sordid
repast.
[Illustration: FIG. 12.]
Nature, when not interfered with by man, ever keeps the balance true:
hence “the Leontophonos is only bred where lions are found,” and if the
old writers may be trusted (and there is much virtue in an “if”), we have
in this an excellent antidote to the bane that a plague of lions would
undoubtedly be. The king of beasts, we are told, regards the leontophonos
with deadly hatred and crushes the life out of it with its paw, as the
smallest portion of its flesh is immediate death to him. To checkmate
this decisive action of the lion, we learn from our ancient author that
in districts that have a plague of lions the people of the place burn the
leontophonos and sprinkle the ashes on other pieces of flesh, and these
they lay about as a bait with fatal effect. By this happy arrangement
they are free at once of Leo and Leontophonos.
One of the greatest enemies of the lion would appear to be the unicorn;
for though the two appear to get on amicably enough as supporters of the
royal arms, appearances, it is well known, are often deceptive, and they
are really deadly foes. Gesner, in his “History of Animals,” gives the
whole story in a nutshell, for he tells us that “the Unicorn and the Lion
being enemies by nature, as soon as the lion sees the unicorn he betakes
himself to a tree.” This strikes one as being a rather feeble performance
on the part of the king of beasts—in fact, decidedly _infra dig._; but
the end is considered to justify the means, for “the unicorn in his fury,
and with all the swiftness of his course, running at him, sticks his
horn fast in the tree, and then the lion falls upon him and kills him.”
The indiscreet valour of the unicorn seems distinctly a nobler thing
than the calculating craft of the lion. Spenser, in the “Faerie Queene,”
introduces the story as evidently a well-known fact in natural history:—
“Like as a Lyon whose imperial powre
A proud rebellious unicorn defyes,
T’avoid the rash assault and wrathful stowre
Of his fiers foe, him to a tree applyes,
And when him ronning in full course he spyes
He slips aside: the whiles that furious beast
His precious horne, sought of his enemyes[39]
Strikes in the stocke, ne thence can be releast,
But to the mighty victor yields a bounteous feast.”[40]
In “Timon of Athens” Shakespeare writes: “Wert thou the Unicorn pride and
wrath would confound thee, and make thine own self the conquest of thy
fury;” and in “Julius Cæsar” we find the line: “Unicorns may be betray’d
with trees,” both passages evidently referring to this legend.
Most furious of all beasts was the Monoceros; or, as Ælian calls it, the
Cartazonos, a creature still having literary and heraldic existence as
the unicorn; though in some few points the beast, as described by Pliny
and others, does not altogether resemble in form the creature of the
heralds that is so well known to us as joint supporter with the lion of
our national arms. The ancient monoceros had the body of a horse, the
head of a stag, the feet of an elephant, and the tail of a boar, and from
the middle of his forehead projected a single horn.
The Monoceros, Unicornu, or Einhorn is described in Jonston’s “Historia
Naturalis,” published in 1657, and Munster, in his description of
Asia,[41] gives a picture of the unicorn, a beast in all respects like a
horse, save that it has one tremendous horn. Barrow, in his “Travels in
Southern Africa,” gives the figure of a head of a unicorn which he saw
drawn on the side of a cavern, and appears to entertain no doubt that
such an animal exists, while Burton tells us that in Æthiopia “some Kine
there are which have Horns like Stags, others but one Horn only, and that
in the Forehead, about a foot and a half long, but bending backwards,” a
departure this from the recognized type.
Figures of the unicorn are found on the archaic cylinder seals of Assyria
and Babylonia, and throughout the whole course of ancient and mediæval
history we find belief in the creature as much a matter of course as
belief in horse or elephant, and it would not be difficult to bring
forward a score or more of authors who have written even in comparatively
recent times on the existence of the unicorn.[42]
In a curious old book on our shelf, the “Philosophical Grammar” of
Benjamin Martin, published in 1753, the author raises the question as to
whether such creatures as the phœnix, syrens, dragons, mermaids, fairies,
and many others that he mentions really exist, and in the matter of the
unicorn he evidently suspends judgment. “Most naturalists,” he says,
“have affirmed that there have been such creatures and give descriptions
of them; but the sight of the creatures or credible relations of them
having been so rare, has occasioned many to believe there never were any
such animals in nature; at least it has made the history of them very
doubtful. In all such ambiguous pieces of history ’tis better not to be
positive, and sometimes to suspend our belief rather than credulously
embrace every current report.” In another book, however, published in
1786, and therefore not much more than a century ago, the unicorn is
described in all sober seriousness as having equine body, a voice like
the lowing of an ox, and his horn “as hard as iron and as rough as any
file” to the touch.
Guillim declares that the unicorn cannot be taken alive, “the greatness
of his mind is such that he chuseth rather to die,” while De Thaun gives
full directions for its capture. It would appear that the animal is of a
particularly impressionable nature, and is always prepared to pay homage
to maiden beauty and innocence, hence fierce as it is the wily hunter
by taking advantage of this amiable trait in its character effects its
capture, for “when a man intends to hunt and ensnare it he goes to the
forest where is its repair, and there places a virgin. Then it comes to
the virgin, falls asleep on her lap, and so comes to its death. The man
arrives immediately and kills it in its sleep, or takes it alive, and
does as he will with it.” As this must be rather a trying experience
for the young lady, “the Indian and Ethiopians,” says a later writer,
“catch of these unicornes which be in their country after the following
manner. They take a goodly-strong and beautifull young man, whom they
clothe in the apparell of a woman, besetting him with divers flowers and
odoriferous spices, setting him where the Unicornes use to come, and when
they see this young man they come very lovingly and lay their heads down
in his lap (for above all creatures they do great reverence to young
maids), and then the hunters having notice given them, suddenly come, and
finding him asleep, they will deal so with him, as that before he goeth
he must leave his horn behind him” and fall a victim to his guileful
foes. Spenser speaks of “the maiden Unicorne,” and Dallaway, too, refers
to “their inviolable attachment to virginity,” and many other writers
speak in the same sense, or shall we rather say lack of it!
The horn was in great demand as it was made into drinking vessels that
were held to possess the invaluable gift of detecting poison. Thus in the
“Speculum Mundi” we read of it that “it hath many soveraigne virtues,
insomuch that, being put upon a table furnished with many junkets and
banqueting dishes, it will quickly descrie whether there be any poyson or
venime among them, for if there be, the horne is presently covered with
a kinde of sweat or dew.” This belief in the efficacy of the horn of the
unicorn as a test for poisons is seen by the frequent appearance of it in
mediæval inventories. We gather from these no clue, no alternative name,
for instance, to guide us, as to what the material so valued really was.
In a book of travels by one Hentzner, a foreigner who visited England
in the year 1598, mention is made of a horn of the unicorn that he was
shown at Windsor Castle, and which he says was valued at over £1000, as
indeed it very well might be, if Decker’s line, “the unicorn whose horn
is worth a city,” written in 1609, gives anything like a fair estimate of
its worth. In the “Comptes Royaux” of France for 1391 we find the entry:
“Une manche d’or d’un essay de lincourne pour attoucher aux viandes de
Monseigneur le Dauphin,” and in the year 1536 in the inventory of the
treasures of Charles V., we have: “Une touche de licorne, garnie d’or,
pour faire essay.” Many other examples of a similar nature might readily
be brought forward. It seems strange that a belief in the efficacy of
the horn of the unicorn to detect the presence of poisons should have
endured for hundreds of years, when practical experiment would in half an
hour have convicted the thing, whatever it was, of being a mockery, a
delusion, and a snare.
Many curious beliefs have clustered around the elephant, his sagacity,
great strength, and association with the wonderful countries of Africa
and India giving occasion for much that is marvellous. One old writer
tells that “the elephant is a beast of great strength, but greater wit,
and greatest ambition; insomuch that some have written of them that if
you praise them they will kill themselves with labour, and if you command
another before them they will break their hearts with emulation. The
beast is so proud of his strength that he never bows himself to any,
and when he is once down (as it usually is with proud great ones) he
cannot rise up again.” The female elephant was supposed to rear her young
one in deep water, for fear lest the dragon should find and devour it.
Physiologus says that when the bone of an elephant shall be burnt, or his
hair singed, the smell of it shall drive away serpents and all poison.
Isidore informs us that the elephant is beyond measure great, and that
it has the form of a goat, a statement that leads us to imagine that
he writes rather from hearsay than from personal knowledge. He further
tells us that the creature cannot lie down, a statement that is entirely
opposed to fact, as they may be seen rolling to and fro with the greatest
ease when bathing, and after their ablutions recovering their feet with
great readiness. This supposed inability to lie down necessitated the
elephant’s leaning against a wall or tree while sleeping, and the people
of the land, when they desired to capture one, had only to fell the tree
or undermine the wall, while the elephant was in happy unconsciousness of
the rude awakening that they were preparing for him.
“The elephant so huge and strong to see
No perill fear’d but thought a sleepe to gaine;
But foes before had underminde the tree,
And down he falls, and so by them was slaine.
First trye, then truste; like goulde the copper showes;
And Nero oft in Numa’s clothinge goes.”
WHITNEY’S _Emblems_.
They are provoked to madness at the sight of blood or of the juice of the
mulberry tree. They eat both leaves and stones, but if by inadvertence
they swallow a chameleon the result is fatal, unless they can immediately
afterwards eat some olives. As no elephant, being a vegetarian, would eat
a chameleon knowingly, we are reduced to the alternative that he must
eat him unconsciously, and would therefore feel nothing of the need of a
prompt administration of antidote until the olives came too late.
In the family feud which was held to exist between the elephant and the
dragon the reptile endeavoured to twist himself round the ponderous
beast’s feet and so bring him to the ground, but the sagacity of the
elephant here stood him in good stead, and when he saw that his fall was
inevitable, he also saw the great advantage of flattening the life out of
his foe by falling with all his huge bulk upon him. The blood produced
by these sanguinary combats soaked into the earth and thus yielded the
cinnabar of commerce. Possibly some early observer may have seen a deadly
struggle in the jungle between an elephant and some huge python or boa,
and being content to view from some little distance, may have filled
in the details from imagination and thus set the story afloat. When a
tale of this nature once gained credence, one old writer after another
inserted it in his work without further question. The elephant was said
to be afraid of a mouse, though the ancient authors unfortunately fail to
satisfy our very legitimate curiosity as to why this should be so; in an
old romance, dealing with the wars of the great Alexander, the elephants
of the enemy are put to rout by the squeaking of a herd of swine brought
for the nonce on to the tented field.
The elephant was first used in war by Pyrrhus, who, B.C. 280, employed
these animals in the war with Tarentum against the Romans. We learn also
that the Carthaginians, in the time of Hannibal, B.C. 210, employed them
in their wars; and we have modern illustrations of the like service
amongst the various princes of India. When the Romans in Leucania first
saw the elephants in the battle array of Pyrrhus, they called them
Leucanian oxen. “Next the Poeni taught the horrible Leucanian oxen, with
lowered body and snake-like head, to endure the wounds of war, and to
throw into confusion the mighty ranks of Mars.” Later on the Romans
introduced them into their own service, and in one of the triumphal
entries of Cæsar into Rome his chariot was drawn by forty elephants.
A little later on we read of their appearance in the arena, dancing and
wrestling with each other, walking on stretched ropes, four of them
carrying a fifth on their shoulders reposing on a litter or couch, and
generally going through those performances that from the earliest times
to the travelling show of to-day have been received by the vulgar with
such favour. Both Pliny and Plutarch tell us that if any one elephant
in such a gathering for any reason fails to do what is required of him
he will study by night, in what a workman would call “his own time,” to
achieve success, and go through the performance of his own accord when
the rest of the world is sleeping, until he has mastered it.
Sir John Maundevile, in his “Voiage and Travaile,” give’s an interesting
mediæval reference to an Eastern potentate having “14,000 Olifauntz or
mo. In cas that he had ony Werre agenst ony other Kynge aboute him than
he makethe certyn men of Armes for to gon up in to the Castelles of
Tree, made for the Werre, that craftily ben set uppe on the Olifauntes
Bakkes, for to fryghten agen hire Enemyes.” How very craftily these are
set up may be seen in our illustration, fig. 13, from an early edition
of the book. As we may reasonably assume from the look of the Castelle
of tree that it is built in two storeys, we may judge the bulk of the
elephant from imagining the size that the men must be who are quartered
in the upper storey. It will be noticed that there is no suggestion of
any method of fastening the Castelle to the Olifaunte. Were we amongst
the men of arms who were expected to take up a position in this fortress,
we should regard this as a peculiarly weak point in the arrangements. In
marked contrast with this massive beast Munster has a funny picture of a
man ploughing with an elephant, the elephant being, in proportion to the
man, of about the size of a Shetland pony.
The ancient writers believed, or taught, that the elephant indulged in
moon-worship. Ælian, amongst others, states that at the increase of the
moon these creatures gathered long branches of trees in the forest, and
held them up in adoration, with uplifted trunks, to the queen of night.
Pliny, too, writes that “they have withall religious reverence, with a
kind of devotion; not only the starres and planets but the sunne and
moone they also worship, and in very truth, writers there be who report
thus much of them—that when the new moone beginneth to appeare fresh and
bright,[43] they come doune by whole herds to a certaine river named
Amelus in the deserts and forests of Mauritania, where, after that they
are washed and solemnlie purified by sprinkling and dashing themselves
all over with the water, and have saluted and adored after their manner
their planet, they returne againe unto the woods and chases, carrying
before them their young calves that be wearied and tired”—a grand and
pious pilgrimage of pachyderms.
Another strange idea of the ancients was that the elephant when pursued
by the hunters beats its tusks against the trees until they drop off, as
he has a shrewd suspicion that it is his ivory rather than himself that
they want. The elephant, sagacious beast, would appear to have as good
a notion of the value of his tusks to the hunter as his pursuer himself
has. We are told that “when they chance to be environed and compassed
round with hunters they set foremoste in the ranke to bee seene those
of the heard that have the least teeth, to the end that their price
might not be thought worth the hazard and venture in chace for them. But
afterwards, when they see the hunters eager and themselves over-matched
and wearie, they breake them with running against the hard trees, and,
leaving them behind, escape by this ransome as it were, out of their
hands.” Another curious fact is that “their skin is covered neither with
haire nor bristle, no, not so much as in their taile, which might serve
them in goode steade to driue away the busie and troublesome flie (for as
vast and huge a beast as he is, the flie haunteth and stingeth him), but
full their skinne is of crosse wrinckles lattiswise: and besides that,
the smell thereof is able to draw and allure such vermine to it, and
therefore when they are laid stretched along, and perceive the flies by
whole swarmes settled on their skin, sodainly they draw those cranies and
crevices together close, and so crush them all to death. This serues them
instead of taile, maine and long haire,”—one striking instance the more
of the wonderful compensatory powers of Nature!
[Illustration: FIG. 13.]
It is by no means an incurious subject to trace the sources of
information possessed by our ancestors of subjects of natural history
that have now become so familiar as to create a surprise that fables
respecting them should so long have been currently received. In regard to
the elephant, the earliest notions the people of the Middle Ages had of
it must have been from the narratives of pilgrims and other travellers
from the East. The first instance, after classic times, of an elephant
being brought to the West occurred in the year 807, when one was sent
as a present from the famous Caliph Haroum al Raschid to the Emperor
Charlemagne, and must have occasioned no small degree of astonishment.
Matthew Prior mentions that the Soldan of Babylon, Malek el Kamel, sent
an elephant as a choice present to the Emperor Frederic II. in the year
1229, but it was not till 1255 that the first specimen was seen in
England: this was a present from the King of France to our Henry III.
The chronicler, John of Oxenedes, gives full details of the arrival of
this animal in London, and tells us of the enormous crowds that flocked
together to behold it. The writ is still existing that was sent to the
Sheriff of Kent, dated February 3rd, 1255, directing him to go in person
to Dover, together with John Gouch, the king’s servant, to arrange in
what manner the king’s present might most conveniently be brought over,
and to find for the said John a ship and all things necessary; and if,
by the advice of mariners and others, it could be brought by water,
directing it to be so conveyed. It was, however, eventually landed at
Sandwich, and walked thence to London. Another writ, dated the 26th of
the same month, ordered the Sheriffs of London to cause to be built at
the Tower a house for it, forty feet in length and twenty in breadth.
The elephant itself was ten feet in height and ten years old. It only
lived two years. Of this elephant Matthew Prior made a very good
representation and his original drawing may still be seen amongst the
Cottonian MSS. in the British Museum; this he expressly tells us was
taken from the life _ipso elephante exemplariter assistente_. An equally
good, but smaller, drawing occurs at the close of the chronicle of John
de Walingeford, a monk in the Abbey of St. Albans. This also may be seen
amongst the Cottonian collection. The historians of the time regarded the
new arrival as a perfect prodigy, as they very well might do, when we
remember how the British public, comparatively satiated with wild beasts,
flocked in hundreds of thousands some few years ago to see the first
hippopotamus. They gave long and detailed accounts of the habits of the
elephant in a wild state, details which were eagerly read by the great
multitude seeking for some information on this strange monster in their
midst; these more or less trustworthy facts, though mingled with many
obvious absurdities, would seem to show that a fair amount of knowledge
of the creature had penetrated thus far. Some of the information was at
least curious, as, for instance, that elephants will not enter a ship to
cross the sea until an oath is taken before them by their conductor that
they shall return, and that if they meet a man in the desert who has lost
his bearings they will very courteously conduct him to the right path.
Either of these indicate a high degree of sagacity, and a good knowledge
of human speech. The latter proceeding was probably a delicate way of
conveying to the wandering botanist or prospecting engineer that he was
a trespasser on their domain, and a gentle hint to him that he would-be
on the right path when he took his leave and left them in undisturbed
possession.[44]
There is no record in modern times of an African tribe endeavouring to
domesticate the wild elephant, or to utilize it in warfare, but Marco
Polo mentions that in the South-East of Africa the people are very
warlike, and fight—having no horses—upon elephants and camels. Upon
the backs of the former he tells us that they place castles capable
of containing from fifteen to twenty armed men, and that, previous to
the conflict, they give the elephants draughts of wine to make them
more spirited and furious in the assault.[45] “There is no creature,”
saith the writer of the “Speculum Mundi,” “amongst all the beasts of
the world which hath so great and ample demonstration of the power and
wisdom of Almighty God as the Elephant, both from proportion of body and
disposition of spirit; and it is admirable to behold the industrie of our
ancient forefathers, and noble desire to benefit us their posteritie, by
searching into the qualities of every beast, to discover what benefits
and harms may come by them to mankinde; having never been afraid of the
wildest, but they tamed them; and the greatest, but they also set upon
them: witness this beast of which we now speak, being like a living
mountaine in quantitie and outward appearance, yet by them so handled as
no little dog could be made more serviceable, tame, and tractable.”
According to the belief of one mediæval writer, at least, the capture of
the elephant is not a matter of much difficulty, though, having caught
him, he seems to find no better use for him than to kill him as so much
raw material for the dyer’s vat, instead of utilizing his gigantic
strength and magnificent willingness for work[46] in the service of
man. Nowadays, the men do most of the elephant-catching, but “among
the Ethiopians,” says one ancient authority on the subject, Bartholomew
Anglicus, “in some countries elephants be hunted in this wise. There
go in the desert two maidens, and one of them beareth a vessel and the
other a sword. And these maidens begin to sing alone; and the beast
hath liking when he heareth their song, and cometh to them, and falleth
asleep anon for liking of the song,” an explanation of the drowsiness
that would scarcely nowaday be held satisfactory at any concert or social
function of the kind; “then the one maid sticketh him in the throat or
in the side with a sword, and the other taketh his blood in a vessel.
And with that blood the people of the country dye cloth, and done colour
it therewith.” The writer prefaces his story by the assertion that it is
“full wonderful;” and so it is, when regarded from our modern standpoint,
but to anyone who could believe that unicorns could be captured in a very
similar way, we should have thought that the narrative would have seemed
most matter-of-fact and prosaic. The ladies of Ethiopia must have been of
considerably stouter heart than some fair maidens of the present day,
who dare not enter where the presence of mouse or cockroach is suspected.
Great good-natured beast as the elephant is, he has more than one most
merciless and vindictive foe. “There ben Bestes,” or Maundevile is in
error, “men clepen hem Loerancz, and thei han a blak Hed and thre longe
Hornes trenchant in the Front, scharpe as a Sword, and the body is
sclender. And he is a fulle felonous Best, and he chacethe and sleethe
the Olifaunt.” What can have ever prompted and suggested the idea of
such a very unpleasant tricorn it is impossible to say. In real life
the elephant and the rhinoceros are sometimes at feud, but clearly
the massive rhinoceros cannot be this very slender and objectionable
three-horned beast. We have seen, too, that the dragon cannot let the
elephant alone; he is to the full as “felonous” as the Loerancz. Pliny
held that this constant unpleasantness on the part of the reptile was
a “sport of nature.” In other words, that Nature,—personified, as the
Romans personified the winds, the mountain streams, and so forth,—felt
a real delight in seeing a downright fight between two such doughty
antagonists. As the dragon was always the aggressor, while the elephant
only wished to be let alone, and merely used his strength in self-defence
when so wantonly attacked, one’s sympathies must necessarily be with the
latter.
[Illustration: FIG. 14.]
As this view degraded Nature to the level of an emperor feasting his
eyes on the sanguinary horrors of a gladiatorial show, or to that of
a bull-baiter or other member of “the fancy,” it was not altogether
acceptable to thinking men, as it must have been difficult to worship at
the shrine of the Creator and Sustainer of all, and yet feel that one was
in the grasp of a power so capricious, relentless, and unfair. Nor was
the narration even fair to the dragon, as there was no suggestion in it
that the attack was made for the legitimate purpose of obtaining food;
the story as it stood pointed to a depth of sheer vindictiveness that
even a dragon with any self-respect would resent the imputation of. The
theory therefore was started that while during the great heats of the
dry season the dragon’s blood was almost at boiling point the blood of
the elephant was singularly and exceptionally cold, and thus made the
creature a most welcome prey. The dragon, with parched throat and molten
veins, therefore went as naturally for an elephant as the members of a
picnic-party in July go for the iced lemonade or claret-cup.
Our ancestors had immense faith in blood-letting, but there is nothing
new under the sun, and Pliny tells us that a hippopotamus, when good
living has told upon him and he is suffering from plethora, goes
ashore to where he has seen that the river reeds have been newly cut,
and presses one of the sharp edges of a stem into his leg, and thus
vigorously bleeds himself. When the process has given him the desired
relief, and there is no immediate fear of gout or apoplexy, he smears the
wound over with the Nile mud and quickly heals it. Munster’s idea of the
hippopotamus, as shown in his book, from which we have made the facsimile
fig. 14, is a much more genuine notion of a river-horse than the beast as
we see him in the Zoological Gardens. The way he is dashing up the stream
around him as he gallops through the water is a caution.
The panther was believed to have an especial power of fascination, a gift
ascribed by some to the beauty of his coat and by others to his odour.
The savour of the larger species of felidæ, as we find it in zoological
collections, is malodorous rather than fascinating, though the creatures
could doubtless plead in their own defence that they were placed under
artificial circumstances. In one of Spenser’s sonnets we find the first
theory upheld in the lines:—
“The panther knowing that his spotted hide
Doth please all beasts, but that his looks them fray,
Within a bush his dreadful head doth hide
To let them gaze, while he on them may prey.”
In the eighth book of Pliny’s “Natural History,” the second theory is
maintained. “It is said that all four-footed beasts are wonderfully
delighted and enticed by the smell of panthers; but their hideous looke
and crabbed countenance, which they bewray so soone as they show their
heads, skareth them as much againe; and therefore their manner is to hide
their heads, and when they have trained other beasts within their reach
by their sweet savour, they flee upon them and worrie them.”[47] In a MS.
presented by Sir William Segar to King James I. and now No. 6085 in the
Harleian collection, we come across a combination of the theories, the
result being a fascination of the most killing description:—“The panther
is admired of all beasts for the beauty of his skyn, being spotted with
variable colours, and beloued and followed of them for the sweetnesse of
his breath, that streameth forth of his nostrils and ears like smoke,
which our paynters mistaking corruptlie, doe make fire.” This detail
is given in the manuscript in explanation of one of the badges of King
Henry VI.—a panther passant guardant argent, spotted of all colours, with
vapour issuant from his mouth and ears.[48]
Sir John Maundevile professed to see in the capital of far Cathay a
palace with its halls “covered with red skins of animals called panthers,
fair beasts and well-smelling; so that for the sweet odour of the skins
no evil air may enter into the palace. The skins are as red as blood and
shine so bright against the sun that a man may scarce look at them. And
many people worship the beasts when they meet them first in a morning,
for their great virtue and for the good smell that they have; and the
skins they value more than if they were plates of fine gold.” This is
very clearly not a statement springing from personal observation. Some
old writers of imaginative turn of mind regarded the panther as the
emblem of providence and foresight, the number of eye-like spots on his
coat suggesting the idea that he was well able to look before, behind,
and around him; while others declared that he bore on his shoulder one
particular spot of the shape of the moon, and that this passed through
the various phases of form from crescent to full circle simultaneously
with the moon itself.
The tastes of the panther would appear to be considerably more refined
than those of the other great carnivoræ—an idea that we base on the
statement of the author of the “Speculum Mundi.” “Now, the reason why
these beasts have such a sweet breath is in regard that they are so
much delighted with the kinde of spices and daintie aromaticall trees;
insomuch that (as some affirm) they will go many hundred miles in time of
the yeare when these things are in season, and all for the love they bear
to them. But above all, their chief delight is in the gumme of camphire,
watching that tree very carefully, to the end they may preserve it for
their owne use.” The notion of the panther prowling round and keeping his
eye on the camphor the while is distinctly quaint.
Porta tells us that the hyæna and the panther are in continual enmity,
and that even the skin of a dead hyæna makes the panther run away, though
we should ourselves have thought that the live hyæna, skin and all, would
have been no match for the panther. Nay, this feeling is so intense, that
one old author tells us that even if one hangs up the two skins together
the antipathy outlives death itself, and the panther’s skin will lose all
the hair.
This notion of antipathy between various animals is a very strong point
with old writers. “A lion’s skin wasteth and eating out the skins of
other beasts; and so doth the wolves skin eat up the lambs skin.
Likewise the feathers of other fowles, being put among eagles feathers
do rot and consume of themselves. The beast Florus and the bird Ægithus
are at such mortal enmity that when they are dead their blood cannot
be mingled together.” Porta is very learned on this matter, and tells
us that an elephant is afraid of a ram. This must clearly be from some
invincible feeling of antipathy, for there is little doubt but that in
fair fight the ram would be nowhere; yet we learn that, unmanageable as
an elephant may be, “as soon as ever he seeth a ram he waxeth meek, and
his fury ceaseth.” One can only wonder, over and over again, how it comes
that such ideas should gain credence for centuries, when the whole matter
could so readily be brought to the touchstone of experience.
The doctrine of sympathy and antipathy, and more especially the latter
half of it, was of immense value in mediæval medicine. As an example of
sympathy we may instance the affection that was held to exist between the
goat and the partridge; hence for whatever one of them was a remedy the
other became equally available. The prescriptions were interchangeable,
and one used one or the other in full faith that either was equally
valuable, as indeed might very possibly be the case. As examples of the
antipathetic treatment, one may instance the following:—“The Ape of all
things cannot abide a Snail; now the Ape is a drunken beast, for they are
wont to take an Ape by making him drunk and a Snail well wash’d is a
remedy against drunkenesse. The Wolf is afraid of the Urchin; thence if
we wash our mouth and throat with Urchin’s blood it will make our voice
shrill, though before it were hoarse and dull like a Wolves voice. The
Hart and the Serpent are at continuall enemity; the Serpent as soon as he
seeth the Hart gets him into his hole, but the Hart draws him out again
with the breath of his nostrils and devours him; hence it is that the
fat and the blood of Harts, and the stones that grow in their eyes, are
ministered as fit remedies against the biting and stinging of Serpents.
Likewise the breath of Elephants draws Serpents out of their dens, and
therefore the members of Elephants burned, drive away Serpents. So also
the crowing of a Cock affrights the Basilisk, and he fights with Serpents
to defend his hens, hence the broth of a Cock is good remedy against the
poison of Serpents. The Stellion, which is a beast like a Lyzard, is an
enemy to the Scorpions, and therefore the Oyle of him being purified is
good to anoint the place which is stricken by the Scorpion. A Swine eats
up a Salamander without danger, and is good against the poison thereof.”
All these and many other hints of like value may be found in the pages of
Porta.
The edition of “Natural Magick,” by John Baptist Porta, from which we
have made these extracts, is a somewhat late one,[49] as the preface
begins:—“Courteous Reader,—If this work made by me in my youth, when
I was hardly fifteen years old, was so generally received, and with so
great applause, that it was forthwith translated into many Languages,
as Italian, French, Spanish, Arabick; and passed through the hands of
incomparable men; I hope that now coming forth from me that am fifty
years old, it shall be more dearly entertained. For when I saw the first
fruits of my Labours received with so great Alacrity of mind, I was moved
by these good Omens, and therefore have adventured to send it once more
forth, but with an Equipage more Rich and Noble. From the first time it
appeared it is now thirty-five years, and (without any derogation of my
Modesty be it spoken) if ever any man laboured earnestly to disclose the
secrets of Nature it was I.”[50] After nearly forty years, therefore, of
reflection, observation, and criticism he feels that his medical hints on
this subject of antipathy have borne the test of time, and may well take
their place amongst the other secrets of Nature divulged for the benefit
of humanity.
The hyæna was held to possess the power of counterfeiting man’s speech,
and of turning the gift to profitable account by going up at night to a
shepherd’s or woodman’s hut and calling out the man’s name.[51] Upon the
man’s going forth to see who wanted him, he was promptly torn to pieces.
The Manticora also, according to Juba, possessed this uncanny power of
imitating human speech, and turned its conversational powers to the
same treacherous use. It was also held that if a hyæna made a circuit
three times round any animal its victim lost all power of escape, and
could not stir a foot. According to some ancient writers the animal had
a stone called hyænia in its eye, and this being placed under a man’s
tongue imparted to him the gift of prophecy. Aristotle taught that the
eyes of this creature could change colour a thousand times a day, and
this is but a sample of many other curious and absurd stories concerning
the beast. Sir Gardner Wilkinson mentions a strange fancy believed in by
the Abyssinians that a race of people who inhabited their country had
the power of changing their form at pleasure, being sometimes men and at
others hyænas.
In the Middle Ages the wolf seems to have been in decidedly bad odour;
he was probably too well-known to be respected, and in the long dreary
nights of winter proved himself a terribly bad neighbour, and a very
undesirable travelling companion for those who had to cross amidst the
snows the almost trackless wastes. Amongst the Scandinavians the wolf
held a conspicuous place in tradition and mythology. Eclipses of the sun
and moon were held to be caused by two great wolves that were always
pursuing them through the heavens.[52] The wolf, too, was the companion
of Odin, the god of war, and at his feet these creatures crouched while
he fed them with the flesh of his enemies.
It was an accepted belief that if a man encountered a wolf, and the
creature caught sight of him before he saw it, he became dumb. Scott
refers to this old notion in his “Quentin Durward,” where, in the
eighteenth chapter, Lady Hameline exclaims, “Our young companion has
seen a wolf, and has lost his tongue in consequence.” “The ground or
occasionall originall thereof,” Browne in his “Exposure of Vulgar
Errors” would endeavour to persuade us, “was probably the amazement
and sudden silence the unexpected appearance of wolves doe often put
upon travellers, not by a supposed vapour or venomous emanation, but
a vehement fear which naturally produceth obmutescence, and sometimes
irrecoverable silence”; but it would appear to be a still simpler
procedure, and one with a good deal to recommend it, to deny that there
is an atom of truth in the story. In another old natural history before
us, we read that “the wolf when he falls upon a hog or a goat, or such
small beast, does not immediately kill them, but leads them by the ear,
with all the speed he can, to a crew of ravenous wolves, who instantly
tear them to pieces.” We should have thought that the reverse had been
more probable, and that the wolves that had nothing would have come with
all the speed they could upon their more successful comrade; but if
the old writer’s story be true, it opens out a fine trait of hitherto
unsuspected unselfishness in the character of the wolf.
John Leo, in his “History of Africa,” declares that the dragon is the
progeny of the eagle and wolf. Perhaps this may be so, but probably the
conception that most of our readers have of the dragon is that he was a
considerably more formidable beast than such a parentage, fierce as it
is, quite suggests.
An old heraldic author tells us “how that the wolfe procureth all other
beasts to fight and contention. He seeketh to deuour the sheepe, that
beaste which is of all others the most hurtlesse, simple, and void of
guile, thirsting continually after their blood. Yea, Nature hath planted
so inveterate an hatred atweene the wolfe and the sheepe, that being
dead, yet in the secrete operation of nature appeareth there a sufficient
trial of their discording natures, so that the enimity betweene them
seemeth not to dye with their bodies; for if there be put vpon a harp
or any such like instrument strings made of the intrailles of a sheepe,
and amongst them but onely one made of the intraills of a wolfe, be the
musician never so cuning in his skil, yet can he not reconcile them to an
vnity and concorde of sounds, so discording alwayes is that string of the
wolfe.” The inveterate enmity between the two creatures is scarcely in
accordance with the facts, for the wolf, from its appreciation of mutton
as an article of diet, is really partial to the sheep, and is always glad
to make its acquaintance.
Another old herald tells us that “the wolfe loveth to plaie with a
child, and will not hurt it till it be extreme hungrie, what time he
will not spare to devour it.” He dwells also upon some of the animal’s
prejudices, as that “he watcheth much, and feareth fier and stones to be
wherled at him,” a feeling that one finds no difficulty in sympathizing
with, and adds that “there is nothing that he hateth so much as the
knocking togither of two flint stones, the which he feareth more than the
hunters.” He also mentions the curious physiological fact that “the wolf
may not bend his neck backward in no moneth of the yere but in May,” but
gives us no inkling as to the reason for this.
The wearing of wolf-skin was held to be a valuable preservative against
epilepsy, but those who were unable to procure this, found an equally
serviceable remedy in wearing a small portion of an ass’s hoof in a
ring. The wolf-skin coat also was in request as a preservative against
hydrophobia, and there was nothing better in the good old times than
a wolfs head under the pillow to secure a good night’s rest. Albertus
Magnus, in his work “De Virtutibus Herbarum,” tells us that if we wrap
the tooth of a wolf in a bay leaf and carry it about with us no one will
have the power to vex or annoy us.
According to Porta—and he, we have seen, professes to have gone into the
secrets of nature as deeply as most men who pose as authorities[53]—the
rook is killed by eating “the reliques of flesh the wolf hath fed on.”
This would appear to be a discovery of Porta’s own: we do not find any
suggestion of it, so far as we are aware, in any other author.
A creature called the stag-wolf, if we may credit these ancient authors
(and there is much saving virtue in this if), had the curious peculiarity
that if, while he was devouring his prey, he chanced to look backward,
he straightway forgot that he was already provided with a dinner, and
would at once start off for one with all the zeal that his supposititious
famishing condition called for.
The bear has not escaped the observation of the lover of the marvellous,
though we should have thought that our forefathers, with their
bear-baiting proclivities, would have had a sufficient knowledge of the
creature to protect them from falling into gross error. One of the most
firmly accepted beliefs in ancient and mediæval days was that the cubs
were born a merely shapeless mass, and owed what after-beauty of form
they possessed to the assiduous care of their mother. Hence, an ancient
scribe hath it, “At the firste they seeme to be a lumpe of white flesh
without any forme, little bigger than rattons, without eyes, and wanting
hair. This rude lumpe, with licking, they fashion by little and little
into some shape.” Shakespeare it will be remembered compares Gloucester,
in King Henry VI., to “an unlick’d bear-whelp,” while Dryden writes:—
“The cubs of bears a living lump appear
When whelp’d, and no determined figure wear.
The mother licks them into shape, and gives
As much of form as she herself receives.”
The device of the great Venetian painter, Titian, was a she-bear licking
her cubs into shape.[54] Our readers will probably recall the lines in
“Hudibras”:—
“A bear’s a savage beast, of all
Most ugly and unnatural;
Whelp’d without form, until the dam
Has lick’d it into shape and frame.”
“Which opinion notwithstanding,” quoth Browne in his assault on the
vulgar errors of his day, “is not only repugnant unto the sense of
everyone that shall enquire into it, but of exact and deliberate
experiment. It is, moreover, injurious unto reason, and much impugneth
the course and providence of nature to conceive a birth should be
ordained before there is a formation. Besides, what few take notice of,
men do hereby in a high measure vilifie the works of God, imputing that
unto the tongue of a Beast.” Browne’s ideas were, we have already seen,
far in advance of his time, and he took the trouble to do what many who
wrote on the subject before him failed to do, went to look at some young
bears. Though the belief in the idea has died away, the remembrance of
the superstition still survives in the notion of licking youngsters
into shape at school by such appeals to body or mind as may seem most
efficacious and persuasive.
It was held that the bear found no little nutriment in sucking his own
paws, and in old books on natural history he may often be found thus
figured. Beaumont and Fletcher embody the old belief in their “Bonduca,”
where we read of those—
“Just like a brace of bear-whelps, close and crafty,
Sucking their fingers for their food.”
It has long been an accepted belief in rural England, that a child who
has had a ride upon a bear will escape whooping cough, a belief that
has had great pecuniary value to the Savoyards and others, who take a
dancing bear through the villages, as the rustics gladly fee them for
the privilege of a ride for their children, and the attendant immunity
from one of the most infectious and distressing of the minor ailments of
childhood.
We have long been familiar with the idea that bears attacked bee-hives,
but we have accepted the notion that the bears did so from an
appreciation of the honey that they found therein. It appears, however,
that the bear does it really as a kind of stimulant, the stinging of the
angry bees giving him just a welcome titillation, and arousing him from
a certain torpidity that at times oppresses him, and which he rightly
feels should be fought against. Others tell us that the outraged bees,
justly angry at the overturning of their home and the pillage of their
store, supply, by the energy of their attack and the keenness of their
stings, just that pleasant piquant set-off to the epicurean bear that
the over-richness and cloying sweetness of the honey seems to call for.
Yet a third theory is that “they are many times subject to dimnesse of
sight, for which cause especially they seeke after honeycombes, that the
bees might settle upon them, and with their stings make them bleed about
the head, and by that meanes discharge them of that heavinesse which
troubleth their eyes.” Possibly three more equally reasonable theories
might be forthcoming on searching for them in the various old tomes in
which the wisdom of our forefathers is enshrined.
A considerable amount of folk-lore has gathered round the hare. It was
held to be a favourable omen to meet certain beasts early in the morning,
but it was especially unfortunate to meet a hare. “Sume Bestes han gode
meetynge, that is to seye for to meete with him first at Morne; and
sume Bestes wykked meetynge: and that thei han proved ofte tyne tat the
Hare hathe fulle evylle meetynge, and Swyn, and many othere Bestes. The
Sparhauke and other Foules of Raveyne whan thei fleen aftre here preye
and take it before men of Armes, it is a gode Signe; and if he fayle of
takynge his preye it is an evylle sygne, and also to such folke it is
an eville meetynge of Ravennes.” Carew, in his “Survey of Cornwall,”
mentions that “to talk of hares or such uncouth things” was regarded as
omnious of coming ill by the fishermen; and at some places on the coast
until quite recently—or possibly even till to-day, for such notions die
out very slowly—if a fisherman going down to his boat were to see a hare
cross his path, he would not that day go to sea.
“How superstitiously we mind our evils!
The throwing down of salt, or crossing of a hare,
Bleeding at nose, the stumbling of a horse,
Or singing of a cricket, are of power
To daunt whole man in us.”
This superstition arose from the belief that witches sometimes
transformed themselves into hares. In Ellison’s “Trip to Benwell,” we
find the following congratulatory lines:—
“Nor did we meet, with nimble feet,
One little fearful lepus;[55]
That certain sign, as some divine,
Of fortune bad to keep us.”
In Aubrey’s “Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme,” written in the year
1586, it is stated, as “found by Experience, that when one keepes a Hare
alive and feedeth him till he have occasion to eat him, if he telles
before he killes him that he will doe so the hare will thereupon be found
dead, having killed himself.” One really scarcely sees what the creature
gains by this proceeding.
Old writers tell us that when the hare is fainting with the heat, a
state of things that one may hope does not often occur, it recruits
its strength by munching up sowthistle. Topsell says that there is no
leporine ailment that this plant will not cure, and that directly the
hare feels a little unwell he seeks sowthistle and goes in for a course
of diet. Askham goes so far as to say that “yf a hare eate of this herbe
in somer when he is mad he shal be hole,” but as hares are proverbially
held to be specially _non compos mentis_ in March, the treatment seems
to come a little late. All boys who have kept rabbits will recall how
appreciatively they nibble up the succulent sowthistle leaves and stems,
and probably it is just as welcome to the hares, not as a medicinal herb
or a help to sanity, but as a toothsome item in the daily fare.
It will be remembered that in 1 Henry IV. i. 2, Shakespeare uses the
expression “Melancholy as a hare,” and as it was believed in mediæval
days that those who partook of the flesh of any animal thereby partook
also of its nature, the flesh of the hare was supposed to generate
melancholia, and was therefore avoided. Why the hare should be considered
of a desponding temperament no one seemed to know.
It seems curious in face of such an expression as “Mad as a March Hare”
and such an epithet as “hare-brained” applied to anything especially
wild and foolhardy, to find the great Bacon in his “Natural History”
recommending the brains of hares as invaluable for strengthening
the memory[56] and brightening up the faculties. Those who have
“frekels,”[57] and would like to get rid of them, should “take the bloude
of an hare, anoynte them with it, and it will doe them awaye.” Another
eccentric prescription is for the benefit of sufferers from rheumatism,
and if it were only efficacious, its simplicity would be a great point in
its favour, as it merely consists in the carrying in the pocket of the
right fore-foot of a hare, the only caution to be exercised being that in
the case of a man it must be the foot of a female hare, while a male hare
must supply the remedy if the patient be a woman. Cogan, in his “Haven
of Health,” declares “thus much will I say as to the commendation of the
hare, and of the defense of hunters’ toyle, that no beast, be it never
so great, is profitable to so many and so diverse uses in Physicke as
the hare,” and he then proceeds to give numerous prescriptions in which
it is the principal feature. “The knee-bone of an Hare taken out alive
and worne abute the necke is excellent against Convulsion fitts,”[58] we
are told, and perhaps it may be so, but the point that more especially
strikes us, and it impresses one over and over again in these mediæval
recipes, is the cold-blooded cruelty and indifference to animal suffering
that is shown in so many of them. Fried mice were considered a specific
in small-pox, but it was necessary that they should be fried alive; while
for cataract a fox should be captured, his tongue cut out, and the animal
released; the member thus barbarously procured was placed in a bag of
red cloth and hung round the man’s neck. For erysipelas a favourite old
remedy was to cut off one-half of the ear of a cat and let the blood
drop on the part affected, while for fits one popular recipe was to take
a mole alive, cut the tip of his nose off, and let nine drops of the
blood fall on to a lump of sugar: the swallowing of this was held to
be a certain cure. It would be easy to multiply these illustrations of
atrocious cruelty by the score, since one comes across such barbarities
in abundance.
Edward Topsell, in his “Historic of Foure-footed Beastes,” published in
the year 1607, discusses thus quaintly and pleasantly of the Hedgehog:
“It is about the bignesse of a Cony, but more like to a Hogge, being
beset and compassed all ouer with sharpe thorney haires, as well on the
face as on the feete. When she is angred or gathereth her foode, she
striketh them vp by an admirable instinct of nature, as sharp as pinnes
or needles: these are haire at the beginning, but afterwards grow to be
prickles, which is the lesse to be maruelled at, because there be Mise in
Egypt which haue haire like Hedgehogs. His meate is Apples, Wormes, and
Grapes. When he findeth Apples or Grapes on the earth he rowleth himselfe
vppon them, vntill he haue filled all his prickles, and then carrieth
them home to his den. And if it fortun that one of them fall off by the
way, he likewise shaketh off all the residue and waloweth vpon them
afresh vntill they all be settled vpon his backe againe, so foorthe he
goeth, makyng a noyse like a cart wheele. And if there be any young ones
in his nest they pull off his load wherewithall he is loaded, eating
thereof what they please, and laying uppe the residue for the time to
come.”
In the “Workes of Armorie” of Bossewell, published some thirty years
or so before Topsell’s book, we find an account so similar that we may
conclude that some one or other wrote a sketch of the hedgehog that
was considered so satisfactory that it became the nucleus for anybody
else who wanted to deal with the subject. “The little Hiricion, with
his sharpe pykes, is almost the least of all other Beastes. And of vs
Englishmen he is termed an Irchin or Urcheon, a beast so-called for the
roughness and sharpnesse of his pykes, which nature hath giuen him in
steade of haire. And such hys pykes couereth his skinne, as the haire
doth the other beastes, and be his weapon or armour wherewith he pricketh
and greeveth them that take or touch him. He is a beaste of witte and
good puruciance, for he clymeth vpon a Vine or an Apple tree, and biteth
of their branches and twiggs, and when they be fallen doune he waloweth
on them, and so they sticke to his prickles, and he beareth them into a
hollow tree, or some other hole, and keepeth them for meate for himselfe
and his young ones. If after he is so charged there happe any to fal from
his pricks, then for indignation he throweth from his backe all the other
and eftsoones returneth to the tree to charge him againe of newe.”
These two old authors both refer, too, to the belief that the hedgehog
had distinct gifts as a wind and weather prophet. Bossewell asserts that
“the Urcheon is witty and wise in his knowledge of comming of Winds,
North and South, for he changeth his Denne or hole, when he is ware that
such windes come;” while Topsell has it that “when they hide themselves
in their den they haue a naturall vnderstanding of the turning of the
wind. They have two holes in their caue, the one North, the other South,
obseruing to stop the mouth against the winde, as the skilful mariner to
stiere and turn the rudder and sailes, for which some haue held opinion
that they do naturally foreknow the change of weather.”
“The hedgehogge hath a sharp quicke thorned garment,
That on his backe doth serue him for defence;
He can presage the winds incontinent,
And hath good knowledge in the difference
Between the southerne and the northerne wind.
These virtues are allotted him by kind,
Whereon in Constantinople, that great city,
A merchant in his garden gaue one nourishment;
By which he knew that winds true certainty,
Because the hedgehog gaue him just presagement.”
So at all events declares Chester in his “Love’s Martyr”; and Bodenham in
the “Belvedere, or Garden of the Muses,” A.D. 1600, testifies to the same
belief in the lines:—
“As hedgehogs doe foresee ensuinge stormes,
So wise men are for fortune still prepared.”
The author of “Poor Robin’s Almanack,” at the much more recent date of
1733, takes what one may consider quite a professional interest in the
hedgehog as a weather prophet, and exclaims:—
“If by some secret art the hedgehog know,
So long before, which way the winds will blow,
She has an art which many a person lacks,
That thinks himself fit to make almanacks.”
A remark that is certainly most true, though for the honour of the craft
we should hardly have expected a calendar-maker to admit as much.
The medicinal virtues of the hedgehog were held to be very considerable
in the days of faith, and some of the preparations were abominably nasty.
“The flesh being stale,” says one of these old authorities, “giuen to a
madde man cureth him.” Putrid hedgehog fetched out of a ditch and given
as food or medicine to a man! The flesh salted, dried, beaten to a powder
and then drank in vinegar was held in high repute as a remedy for dropsy,
and for “Leprosie, the Crampe, and all sicknesse in the nerves,” and the
fat beaten up with honey was deemed an excellent strengthener for a weak
voice.
Topsell states that “the left eie of a Hedgehog being fried with oyle,
yealdeth a liquor which causeth sleep, if it bee infused into the
eares with a quill. Warts of al sorts are likewise taken away by the
same. If the right eie be fryed with the oile of lineseed and put in a
vessell of red brasse, and afterward anoint his eies therewith, as with
an eie-salue, he shal see as well in the darke as in the light.” The
distinction is often a very important one in these old recipes between
left or right, hind leg or front, male or female, and the like, and an
error in any of these details completely upsets all hope of any benefit
being derived; thus we see in this last receipt that a man might fry the
left eye for ever, and never get any nearer the gift of nocturnal vision.
In the same way “tenne sprigs of Laurell, seauen graines of Pepper, and
the skin of the ribs of an hedgehog dryed and beaten, cast into three
cups of water and warmed, so being drunk of one that hath the Collicke,
and let rest, he shall be in perfect health; but with this exception,
that for a man it must bee the membrane of a male hedgehog, and for a
woman a female.”
Porta declares that the ancients made their hair grow by using the
ashes of a land-hedgehog. As no one ever heard of a water-hedgehog this
stipulation seems almost needlessly precise. In another recipe we are
told to “take the body of a hedgehog burnt to powder,[59] and if you
adde thereto Beares-grease it will restore unto a bald man his heade of
haire againe, if the place be rubbed vntil it be ready to bleed.” Bear’s
grease pure and simple has long had a reputation amongst hair-dressers,
and if this be as potent as they would have us believe, the rest of the
prescription can scarcely claim much of the credit. The writer adds that
“some mingle red Snailes,” but this is clearly optional, and we should
certainly avail ourselves of the option.
Epilepsy was to be cured by wearing a ring in which a portion of the
hoof of a deer was enclosed. It may interest anyone with a partiality
for venison to know that “Deer’s flesh that is catcht in Summer is
poyson; because then they feed on Adders and serpents: these are venemous
creatures, and by eating of them they grow thirsty; and this they know
naturally, for if they drink before they have digested them they are
killed by them; wherefore they will abstain from water, though they burn
with thirst. Wherefore Stag’s flesh eaten at that time is venemous and
very dangerous.” Shakespeare refers to the weeping of the deer, and tells
how
“The big round tears
Cours’d one another down his innocent nose
In piteous chace.”
It was an old belief that the deer wept every year for the loss of their
horns, “a likeness of those who grieve for the loss of their worldly
possessions. So, too, should a penitent and watchful sinner not cease
to weep when he is overtaken.” This straining after a moral, as we have
already seen, is a very marked feature amongst the old writers. Sometimes
the moral sentiment flows fairly naturally, but more often it is terribly
laboured. Thus, for example, we read that “the ferret is a bold and
audacious beast (though little), and an enemie to all other, and when
they take a prey their custome and manner is onely to suck the bloud as
they bite it, and not to eat the flesh; and if at any time their prey
shall be taken from them they fall a squeaking and crying. Such are the
rich men of this world, who yell and crie out when they part with their
riches, weeping and wailing for the losse of such things as they have
hunted after with as much greedinesse as want of pitie.”
In like manner we learn that “when the Squirrell is hunted she cannot
be driven to the ground, unlesse extremitie of faintnesse cause her to
do so through an unwilling compulsion, for such is the stately mind of
this little beast that while her limbes and strength lasteth she tarrieth
and saveth herself in the tops of tall trees, disdaining to come down
for every harm or hurt which she feeleth; knowing, indeed, her greatest
danger to rest below amongst the dogs and busie hunters. From whence
may be gathered a perfect pattern for us, to be secured from all the
wiles and hungrie chasings of the treacherous devil: namely, that we
keep above in the loftie palaces of heavenlie meditations, for there is
small securitie in things on earth; and greatest ought to be our fear of
danger, when we leave to look and think of heaven.”
The fabulists and moralists of ancient and mediæval days regarded
animals as so much raw material to be modelled into whatever form best
suited their ends. They were little, if at all, concerned in giving a
true picture of animal life, but used the various creatures in such
conventional and allegorical way as most readily adapted itself to the
moral or political end in view in their writings. Art has often pursued
much the same course, and instead of giving us the real animal nature has
introduced an entirely foreign element, and represented the creatures
as swayed by purely human considerations. Æsop and La Fontaine make
the animals speak as though they were influenced by human feelings and
motives, while Landseer, for example, in some of his noble pictures
employs his dogs and other animals to simulate humanity, as in “Laying
Down the Law,” “Alexander and Diogenes,” and other well-known works of
the master. The result is quaint, grotesque, delicious, humorous; but
these law-givers, philosophers, and so forth, are canine in form alone,
and are but puppets acting a part that is a good-natured satire on
humanity.
It was a very old belief that when the wild boar was hunted its tusks
grew so hot in its rage and excitement as to actually burn the dogs if
they came within the terrible sweep of them. Xenophon tells us in his
description of the chase of the boar that hairs laid upon the tusks
shrivel up even after the brute is slain. This belief has been handed
down from generation to generation of writers on so-called natural
history, and even in a book in our possession, published in London in
1786, we find the statement only very slightly qualified by a preliminary
“it is said.” “It is said that when this creature is hunted down his
tusks are so inflamed that they will burn and singe the hair of the
dogs.” Shakespeare says that the “ireful boar” does not even fear the
lion, and Guillim says that “he is counted the most absolute Champion
amongst Beasts, for that he hath weapons to wound his foe, which are his
strong and sharp Tusks, and also his Target to defend himself: for which
he useth oft to rub his shoulders and sides against Trees, wherewith to
harden them against the stroke of his Adversary.”
Herbert states in his book of travels that there are on the African
coast, opposite Madagascar, vast herds of wild swine that are greatly
esteemed by the natives of those parts, not only for their flesh, but
more especially for a stone that is found often within them, which is
“very soveraign against poison.” The Spaniards, he tells us, call it
Pietro del Porco. The virtue of this stone is supposed to arise from
their feeding upon certain medical herbs.
The ermine was believed to prefer death to defilement, and if placed
within a wall or ring of mud, would kill itself rather than contaminate
its spotless fur. It is on this account that ermine is selected as the
robe of prince and judge—an emblem of unspotted purity. Beaumont and
Fletcher, in their “Knight of Malta,” refer to this in the line:—
“Whose honour, ermine-like, can never suffer spot.”
In a portrait of Queen Elizabeth at Hatfield, an ermine is represented as
running up her arm, as a delicate compliment to the Virgin Queen.
It was reported that goats see as well by night as by day, hence those
people who are unable to see after dark can be cured of their infirmity
by eating the liver of a goat; while for those who suffered from
insomnia no remedy was held in better repute than the horn of a goat:
this placed beneath the head of the patient speedily brought refreshing
sleep. Porta affirms that “goats, when their eyes are blood-shotten,
let out the blood; the she-goat by the point of a bullrush, the he-goat
by the pricking of a thorn.” Such examples of animal sagacity have a
great attraction for this old author, and he gives many instances in
support of his contention, that “living creatures, though they have no
understanding, yet their senses are quicker than ours, and by their
actions they teach us Physick, Husbandry, the art of Building, the
disposing of Household Affairs, and almost all Arts and Sciences. The
beasts that have no reason, do by their nature strangely shun the eyes
of witches and hurtfull things; the Doves, for a preservative against
inchantment, first gather some little Bay-tree boughs, and then lay them
upon their nests to preserve their young; so do the Kites use brambles,
the Turtles swordgrasse, the Crows withy, the Lapwings Venus-hair, the
Ravens ivy, the Herns carrot, the Blackbirds myrtle, the Larkes grasse,
for the same purpose. In lyke manner they have shewed us preservatives
against poysons; the Elephant having by chance eaten a Chameleon,
against the poyson thereof eats of the wilde Olive; the Tortoise, having
eaten a Serpent, dispels the poyson by eating the herb Origan. There is
a kind of Spider which destroyeth the Harts, except permitting they eat
wilde Ivy; and whensoever they light upon any poysonous food they cure
themselves with the artichoke; and against Serpents they prepare and arm
themselves with wilde Parsneps.” We need not further pursue matters with
our author. Suffice it to say, that he brings forward an enormous number
of examples, and amply proves his case to his satisfaction, as indeed he
should have no difficulty in doing, when it is once understood that facts
are of secondary importance.
One strange notion of antiquity was that the blood of the goat would
dissolve the diamond. The statement is found in Pliny, Solinus,
Albertus, Cyprian, Isidore, and many other writers, right away down
to comparatively recent days. Legh, for instance, states, without
hesitation, “The Diamonde, which neither iron nor fier wil daunt, the
bloud of the gote softneth to the breaking.” Maundevile, of course,
receives it as an undoubted truth; while even Browne writes: “We hear it
in every mouth, and in many good Authors reade it, that a Diamond, which
is the hardest of stones, not yeelding unto Steele, Emery or any other
thing, is yet made soft and broke by the bloud of a Goat.”
That things are not always what they seem must have been a mere truism
in the Middle Ages. Thus Aubrey in his “Remains of Gentilisme and
Judaism,” introduces the goat in an entirely new character. “A conceit
there is that ye devil commonly appeareth with a cloven hoof, wherein
though it seem excessively ridiculous there may be something of truth,
and ye ground at first might be his frequent appearing in the shape of
a goat, which answers that description. This was the opinion of ancient
Xtians concerning ye apparition of Fauns and Satyrs. The devil most
often appears in the shape of a goat, nor did he only assume this shape
in olden times, but commonly in later times, especially in ye place of
his worship, if there be any truth in the confession of witches. And
therefore a goat is not improperly made an hieroglyphic of ye devil.”
The shrew-mouse, one of the most inoffensive of creatures, was by
our ancestors held to be of terribly poisonous nature. Its bite was
thought to be most venomous, and even contact with it in any way was
accounted extremely dangerous. Cattle and horses seized with any malady
that appeared to cause any numbness of the legs were at once reputed
shrew-struck. “It is a ravening beast,” quoth Topsell, “feigning itself
gentle and tame, but being touched it biteth deep and poysoneth deadly.
It beareth a cruel minde, desiring to hunt anything, neither is there any
creature that it loveth.” On whatever limb it crept was “cruel anguish,”
often ending in paralysis. These calumnies have prevailed in many
countries and for many ages, the Romans being as firmly convinced of the
deadly nature of the shrew-mouse, as any British rustic of a century ago.
The shrew-mouse, according to the author of the “Speculum Mundi,” “hath
a long and sharp snout like a mole. In Latine it is called Mus araneus,
because it containeth in it poison or venime like a spider, and if at any
time it bite either man or beast the truth of this will be too apparent.
But commonly it is called a Shrew-mouse, and from the venimous biting of
this beast we have an English imprecation, I beshrew thee; in which words
we do, indeed, wish some such evil. And again, because a curst scold or
brawling wife is esteemed none of the least evils; we, therefore, call
such a one a Shrew.” Hence Shakespeare, dealing with such a character,
entitled one of his plays the Taming of the Shrew.
Happily there was a certain antidote against the evil wrought by this
malevolent beast. A large ash-tree being chosen, a deep hole was made
in its trunk, and after certain incantations were made a shrew-mouse
was thrust alive into the opening, and the hole securely plugged. “A
shrew-ash,” says Gilbert White in his “Natural History of Selborne,”
“is an ash whose twigs or branches, when gently applied to the limbs of
cattle, will immediately relieve the pain which a beast suffers from the
running of a shrew-mouse over the part affected. Against this accident,
to which they were continually liable, our provident forefathers always
kept a shrew-ash at hand, which when once medicated would maintain its
virtue for ever.” One of these shrew-ashes, now but a fragment of what
was evidently once a massive stately tree, may still be seen near the
Sheen Gate in Richmond Park, and there are those still living who can
remember cattle and horses being brought to it for its healing virtues.
The horse does not seem to have so much unnatural history associated with
him as we might have anticipated, such stories as that of the feeding
of the horses of Diomed with human flesh, or of the milk-white steed,
Al Borak, of Mohammed, each of whose strides was equal to the furthest
range of human vision, being altogether fabulous and mythical. Diomed,
the tyrant of Thrace, seems to have held out very little encouragement to
immigrants or wandering tourists, if the legend be true that he utilized
them as fodder.
“Here such dire welcome is for thee prepared
As Diomed’s unhappy strangers shared;
His hapless guests at silent midnight bled,
On their torn limbs his snorting coursers fed.”[60]
One meets with many famous steeds in classical and mediæval literature,
but these, of course, are individual examples of the race, and anything
told of them can scarcely be considered as testifying to the general
though erroneous notions entertained on the subject of horses generally.
The horse Bayard, for example, the property of the four Sons of Aymon,
had a most useful peculiarity in that he grew larger or smaller in fair
proportion to his rider, according as the big stalwart brother of six
feet high, or the little fellow not yet in his teens got astride him. One
of the horses of Achilles is said to have announced to his master his
impending death. It is sufficiently evident that expanding, contracting,
and talkative horses are altogether outside the ordinary pale.
According to a small manuscript of the twelfth century, called “Mappæ
clavicula,” “if oxen drink first, then there will be enough water for
both oxen and horses: but if the horses drink first there will not be
sufficient either for horses or oxen.” Horses are afraid of elephants
until they get used to them, and there is also some little antipathy
between camels, bears and horses. Porta declares that “Horses will burst
if they tread upon the Wolf’s footing. If Drums be made of an Elephant,
Camel, or Wolves skin, and one beat them, the Horses will then run away
and dare not stand. By the same reason, if you will drive away Bears, a
Horse hath a capital hatred with a Bear: he will know his enemy that he
never saw before, and presentlie provide himself to fight with him, and
I have heard that Bears have been driven away in the Wildernesse by the
sound of a Drum, when it was made of Horse’s skin.”
It has for centuries been a belief in many parts of the country that the
hairs from a horse’s tail, when dropped in the water, become endued with
life, and turn into small eels. A horsehair tied round a wart has been
held to be of potent efficacy for its removal; and horsehair spread on
bread and butter has been prescribed as a remedy, even in quite recent
times, for worms. For sciatica, according to one Dr. Floyer, once on a
time one of the shining lights of the medical profession, the finest
preparation is “the marrow of a horse (kill’d by chance, not dying of any
disease) mixed with some rose-water. Chafe it in with a warme hand for a
quarter of an houre, then putt on a Scarlett cloth, broad enough to cover
ye part affected, and go into a warme Bed.” As personal experience is so
valuable in all such cases, he adds: “It cured my Aunt Lakes, who went
yearly to the Bath for ye Sciatica, but never went after she knew and
used this medicine.”
In Winstanley’s “Book of Knowledge,” a book that went through several
editions (our copy we see is dated 1685),[61] he deals with many strange
matters, and gives receipts for various extraordinary requirements: to
make men seem headless, to make it that men shall not find the door, and
so forth; but amongst rather more reasonable items we find, “to make one
dance.” The _modus operandi_ is sufficiently simple, though perhaps a
trifle disgusting; it is as follows:—“Cut the Hoof of a Horse in pieces,
seethe it with Oyl and anoint the Table or any other place, and lay his
head thereon, when you would have him to dance.” Such is a sample of the
best that this storehouse of knowledge could yield to those who sought
its help.
Horse-shoes were at one time often nailed on doors as a protection
against witches and malignant spirits, and “The horse-shoe nailed, each
threshold’s guard”[62] may often still be seen on old country houses.
John Aubrey, writing some two hundred years ago, says: “Most houses at
the West End of London have a horse-shoe on the threshold.” Dwellers in
town, however, have not the same dread of the mysterious as the more
lonely dwellers in the country, though many a man who is brave enough on
the gas-lighted pavement would feel a little “creepy” when the shrill
scream of a trapped hare, or the wild cry of the peewit, broke upon the
stillness of the night and found him in some country lane or on the open
downland. It is a firm article of belief, however, with all who have
faith in the efficacy of the horse-shoe that it must be picked up, not
bought. Whatever virtue may reside in one that is found is wholly wanting
in one that is purchased.
The humble donkey has its share of quaint associations. The conspicuous
cross upon its back is popularly supposed to date from the day that our
Saviour rode in Jerusalem upon an ass. It is, however, more probable that
the ass that brayed and browsed in Eden bore a similar mark.
Amongst the ancient Egyptians the ass was dedicated to the evil spirit
Typho, and once a year, if we may believe Plutarch, the people sacrificed
an ass to this foul deity by hurling it over a precipice. The people of
Lycopolis carried their antipathy so far that they excluded the trumpet
from their festivals and military service from a fancy that its sound
was a little too suggestive of the asinine vocal performances. The asses
of the East are of a more tawny colour than those with which we are
familiar in England; as this red tint was associated in people’s minds
with a creature devoted to the Evil One, it was but a step further to
ascribe an evil association to the colour itself; hence anyone who was
so unfortunate as to have an especially ruddy countenance, or a more
than usually deep shade of red in the hair, was at once held to be in
an uncomfortably close relationship with Typho. The dun-colour of our
British specimens gave them their name. Chaucer, for instance, calls the
donkey the dun, as we may see in the “Canterbury Tales”—“Dun is in the
mire.”
According to De Thaun, “The wild Ass, when March in its course has
completed twenty-five days, brays twelve times, and also in the night,
for this reason, that that season is the equinox—days and nights are of
equal length. By the twelve times that it makes its braying and crying
it shows that night and day have twelve hours in their circuit. The ass
is grieved when he makes his cry that the night and the day have equal
length, for he likes better the length of the night than of the day.” One
can only read such an extract as this with a feeling of utter wonder;
in the first place, how De Thaun could believe such a thing himself,
and in the second place, how he could expect anyone else to do so. The
exact accuracy of the wild ass as to the day of the month, and his
twelvefold bray of regret as each recurring year brings it round again,
are triumphs of the imaginative faculty. We may probably infer that when
the twenty-ninth day of September has come round again the balance is
redressed, hope springs again, and the twelve brays this time are of a
peculiarly jubilant and sonorous character.
Asses’ hair was in the Middle Ages held to be a sterling remedy for
ague, though one must have been credulous indeed to try it. It is
interesting more especially perhaps as a foreshadowing of that doctrine
of homœopathy which deals with the cure of like by like. Great healing
powers are attributed to the hairs from the cross on the donkey’s back:
hairs cut from it and suspended in a bag round a child’s neck were a
potent influence in the prevention of fits and convulsions. Another
famous remedy was the cure of whooping cough by passing the sufferer
three times under the belly and three times over the back of a donkey. In
Sussex a standard remedy for the same distressing complaint was procured
by cutting some of the hair out of the cross, chopping it up finely,
and spreading it on bread and butter for the breakfast of the patient;
while in Dorsetshire prevention was rightly considered better than cure,
and though the rustics may have doubted the efficacy of vaccination as
a remedy against small-pox, they had no hesitation whatever in getting
their children astride on the donkey’s back as early as possible as a
preventative to their ever catching whooping cough. One meets with remedy
after remedy of the same general nature, and all owing their efficacy
to some mysterious connection between this particular complaint and
donkey-hair, but what this occult influence can be is wholly unknown to
us.
The old herald, Legh, says of the ass—“As he is not the wisest so is
he the least sumptuous, especially in his diet, for his feeding is on
Thistles, Nettles, and Briers, and therefore small birdes hate him,
especially the Sparrowe is most enemie unto him,” as they see him
stolidly devouring the plants that they visit for their own sustenance.
The ancient author with ponderous humour finishes his account of the
ass by saying, “I could write much of this beast, but that it wolde be
thought it were to mine owne glorie.”
The dog, the friend and companion of man, was said to see ghosts, and
their howling at untoward times portended death or conflagration or some
such grave event, and has, therefore, for many centuries been held of
evil omen, and no doubt in remote country districts the feeling still
remains. The cries were said to be often in terror of sights invisible
to man. Rabbi Menachem declares in his exposition of the Pentateuch
that “when the Angel of Death enters into a city the dogs do howl,”[63]
and he records an instance of a dog that fled in terror from before the
angel, and that someone kicked it back and it died, but whether from the
effects of a too vigorous kick, or from being thrust into the path of the
destroying angel, he does not venture to pronounce.
If a child has whooping cough some of its hair must be placed between
slices of bread and given to a dog. Should the dog cough, as he most
probably will, it is an indication that the disease has passed from the
child to the dog. The same idea may be seen in the old custom of giving
some of the hair of anyone attacked with scarlet fever to a donkey.
Should the animal swallow it the disease was supposed then and there to
pass from the one ass to the other.
Coles, in his “Art of Simpling,” says that “the herb called Hound’s
tongue will tye the Tongues of Houndes, so that they shall not bark at
you, if it be laid under the bottom of your foot.” A little hare’s fur
somewhere about the person was held to be equally valuable, and no doubt
it was. One authority hath it that a dog will not bark if another dog’s
tongue be carried under the great toe, and the carrying of a dog’s heart
in one’s pocket is another capital idea to the same end. “The tail of
a young Wheezel put under your foot is also recommended,” and if none
of these methods are available, the dog may be equally well silenced by
giving him a frog to eat, artfully secreted in a piece of meat.
During the Middle Ages it was held that the head of a mad dog pounded
up and drank in wine was a specific for jaundice. If, on the other
hand, the head was burnt and the powdered ashes put to a cancer, it
was held a sure remedy, and, naturally, on the homœopathic principle
of like to like, these ashes, if given to a man who had been bitten by
a rabid dog, “casteth out all the venom and the foulness, and healeth
the maddening bites.” The liver of the dog was equally efficacious. A
gipsy preventative of hydrophobia was to take some hairs from the dog
that gave the bite, a very risky operation by the way, and fry them in
oil, applying them with a little green rosemary to the wound. To eat
churchyard grass[64] was esteemed also a good thing in the case of anyone
bitten by a rabid dog. So lately as the year 1866 it came out at the
inquest held on the body of a child that had died of hydrophobia, that
one of the relatives fished up out of the river the dead body of the dog
that had done the mischief, in order that its liver might be cooked and
eaten by the child. In spite of this the patient died.
It was held that if a cat were in a cart, a state of things that need
rarely happen one would imagine, the horses would soon tire if the wind
blew from Pussy to them, and that in like manner the steed would soon
flag that was ridden by a man who had any cat’s fur in his dress, and
that anyone swallowing the hair of a cat would be subject to fainting
fits. On the other hand, it was believed that nothing was better as a
cure for whitlow than to put the ailing finger for a quarter of an hour
each day into the ear of a cat. Anything that touches a cat’s ear is
received with such marked disfavour that we imagine this remedy is simply
unworkable, as the cat would never be a consenting party. Three drops
of blood from a cat’s tail were held to be a cure for epilepsy, while a
sovereign remedy for those who would preserve their sight was to burn the
head of a black cat to ashes, and then blow a little of the dust three
times a day into the eyes. This, we imagine, should rather be classed
amongst the methods of injuring the sight.
To cure a stye our forefathers had great faith in rubbing it with hairs
from a cat’s tail,[65] two essential points being that the cat should be
a black one, and that the operation should take place on the first night
of the new moon; but to cure warts the hairs must be taken from the tail
of a tortoiseshell cat, and even then the remedy is only efficacious
during the month of May. Another strange belief was that a cat having
three colours in its fur was a great protection against fire. It is an
old idea that the brains of cats are of destructive malignity, and that
anyone desiring to quietly get rid of an enemy has only to invite him to
a repast in which some of the delicacies have an imperceptible fragment
of this poison added.
Cats see well by night, and were often, and especially black ones,
believed to be the witches’ familiars, and therefore regarded with fear
and aversion. It was held that they had power to raise a gale, and on
board ship the malevolent disposition with which they were credited has
made them in an especial degree unpopular shipmates. Pussy was thought
to particularly provoke a storm by playing with any article of wearing
apparel, by rubbing her face, or by licking her fur the wrong way; she
was sheltered from rough usage however by the belief that provoking her
would bring a gale, while drowning her would cause a regular tempest.
In Germany there is a belief that anyone who makes a cat his enemy will
be attended at his funeral by rats, and heavy rain. As cats see well
by night, and are given to wandering abroad at unholy hours, they were
connected with the baleful influences of the moon. Freye, the Norse
goddess, was attended by cats, and Friday, her especial day, was always
considered unlucky. The ruffling of the water by the rising wind is
called a cat’s paw, and cats are said to smell a coming gale, while all
must be familiar with that tempestuous state of affairs known as “raining
cats and dogs.” In Cornwall, and on some other parts of the coast, the
people say that a spectral dog, called Shony, is sometimes seen, and
that this always predicts a storm.
Some persons have a marked antipathy to cats. Henry III. of France
fainted if he caught sight of one, and Napoleon I. had almost as strong
a feeling and failing. Shylock, in the Merchant of Venice it will be
remembered, says:—
“Some men there are that love not a gaping pig,
Some that are mad if they behold a cat.”
It is well known that cats have a wonderful knack of falling on their
feet, and they are so tenacious of life that they are ordinarily credited
with having nine lives, though it is proverbially held that care will
kill even a cat. Not only does Shakespeare refer to cat-lore in Macbeth
in “the poor cat i’ the adage,” but in Romeo and Juliet this old belief
in the strong hold that Pussy has on life is distinctly referred to in
the first scene of the third act:—
“What would’st thou have with me?
Good king of cats, nothing but one of your nine lives.”
The cat again appears in the legend of the indomitable cats of Kilkenny
that fought till a little fluff was all the record of that sanguinary
struggle, and we have all of us heard of the special power of facial
expression of the cats of Cheshire.
The Grimalkin of Shakespeare’s Macbeth was one of the witch’s familiar
spirits, and the cat, the reputed companion of these unlovely and unloved
personages, often therefore receives this name. Aubrey, writing in 1686,
tells a story that smacks strongly of witchcraft and the black cat. “Mrs.
Clarke, a Herefordshire woman, told me,” he says, “to bury the head of
a black Catt with a Jacobus or a piece of gold in it, and put into the
eies two black beanes (what was to be done with the beanes she hath
forgott), but it must be done on a Tuesday at twelve o’clock at night,
and that time nine nights after the piece of gold must be taken out, and
whatsoever you buy with it (always reserving some part of the money) you
will have money brought into your pockett, perhaps the same piece of gold
again.” Unfortunately, he does not seem to have tried it, so we never
learn what success might have attended the experiment.
The description of pussy by Bartholomew Anglicus is most graphic, and is
an evident study from the life. “He is a full lecherous beast in youth,”
saith he, “swift, pliant, and merry, and leapeth and reseth on everything
that is afore him, and is led by a straw and played therewith, and is
a right heavy beast in age and full sleepy, and lieth slyly in wait
for mice, and is aware where they be more by smell than by sight, and
hunteth and reseth on them in privy places, and when he taketh a mouse he
playeth therewith, and eateth him after the play. In time of love is hard
fighting for wives, and one scratcheth and rendeth the other grievously
with biting and with claws; and he maketh a rueful noyse and ghastful
when one proffereth to fight with another, and hardly is he hurt when he
is thrown down off an high place.[66] And when he hath a fair skin he
is, as it were, proud thereof, and goeth fast about, and is oft for his
fair skin taken of the skinner and slain and flayed.”[67] This is clearly
the description of a close and accurate observer.
The description in the “Speculum Mundi,” though much shorter, is almost
equally happy. “The common or vulgar Cat is a creature well known, and
being young it is very wanton and sportfull: but waxing older is very sad
and melancholy. It is called a Cat from the Latine word signifying wary,
for a Cat is a watchfull and warie beast, seldome overtaken, and most
attendant to her sport and prey.” John Bossewell says of the cat that “he
is slie and wittie and seeth so sharply that he overcommeth darknesse of
the nyghte by the shynynge lyghte of his eyne. He doth delighte that he
enjoyeth his libertie.” Men may come and men may go, but cat-nature is
evidently unchanging.
Cats naturally suggest rats and mice. It was an ancient belief that
these sprang spontaneously from any mass of putrefaction. “Mice excell
all living creatures,” writes one of the ancient authorities, “in the
knowledge and experience of things to come: for when any old house,
habitation, tenement, or other dwelling place waxeth ruinous and ready to
fall, they perceive it first, and out of that their foresight they make
present avoidance from their holes, and betake themselves to flight even
as fast as their little legs will give them leave, and so they seek some
other place wherein they may dwell with more securitie.” Our readers will
naturally recall the proverbial belief that rats desert the sinking ship.
Swift, in his epistle to Mr. Nugent, writes of those that “fly like rats
from sinking ships,” and the desertion of the losing side has received
the opprobrious name of “ratting” on this account.
Maundevile, amongst many other wonderful things that he saw or heard of
in his travels, came to a place where the rats were as large as dogs;[68]
requiring great mastiffs for their capture, as they were altogether
beyond the power of the cats of the place to deal with. “And ther ben
Myse als grete as Houndes, and yalowe Myse als grete as Ravennes.” If the
rats and mice kept the proportion between their respective sizes that we
are familiar with, and the mice were as big as hounds, we can readily
understand that the rats must have been very formidable creatures
indeed, and quite beyond the power of ordinary terrier or pussy to cope
with.
Jordanus brought home a story of rats in India as large as foxes. The
creatures he saw were probably bandicoots,[69] very rat-like animals,
though not quite so big as foxes, even though the Indian foxes are
much smaller than the species we have in England. A bandicoot is about
twenty-one inches long, full measure, about five inches of this being
tail. According to Herodotus, it was not the rats that were equal in size
to foxes in India, but the ants. We can recall an absurd picture of these
in one of the mediæval natural history books, where a couple of Europeans
stand at a very respectful distance from a large mound that is covered
with ants as big as cats, the effect of the ant-form when thus magnified
being very quaint.
It was a very ancient belief that oysters, mussels, cockles, and all
shell fishes grew or diminished according to the phases of the moon.
“Some have found it out by diligent search that the fibres in the livers
of rats and mice answer in number to the days of the month’s age.” This
was really a very curious discovery to make, or shall we rather say—a
very curious assertion to be responsible for?
It is impossible to mention a tithe of the strange facts got together by
the industry of the men of science of the past; sometimes introducing
to our notice the most extraordinary creatures, at others presenting
the most ordinary creatures in an extraordinary way. What can we say,
for instance, of the Catoblepas, a beast bred in Lybia, “a fearful and
terrible beast to look upon”? His eyes “very fierie, as it were of a
bloudie colour, and he never useth to look directly forward, nor upward,
but always down to the earth.” He has a long mane and cloven feet,
and his body covered with scales. “As for his meat, it is deadly and
poysonfull herbes, and he sendeth forth a horrible breath which poysoneth
the aire over his head and about him, inasmuch that such creatures as
draw in the breath of that aire are grievously afflicted, and losing both
voice and sight, they fall into deadly convulsions.” What shall we say of
the Oryges, the only beast in creation that has his hair growing reversed
and turning towards the head? Or of the Lomie in the forests of Bohemia,
“which hath hanging under its neck a Bladder always full of scalding
water, with which, when she is hunted, she so tortureth the Dogs that
she thereby maketh her escape”? Or of the wonderful Eale of Ethiopia as
large as a hippopotamus, and having horns that he can incline backwards
or forwards at any angle to suit the exigencies of conflict? Or of the
Manticora, having the face of a man and the body of a lion, and voice
like the blending of flute and of trumpet? Or of fifty other creatures
equally extraordinary? It is painful to think that such stories were
deliberate inventions, and that knaves devised them and fools accepted
them; and we must, we believe, conclude that almost every story had a
grain of truth in it, but that the love of the marvellous, the tendency
to exaggeration, the change that took place as the story travelled, and
received almost unconsciously here an additional graphic touch and there
a little more fully developed detail, made the fully matured statement an
entirely different thing to the modest seed from which it sprang.
We have already encountered many instances of how the most ordinary
creatures are described in a way that leads one to suppose that the two
great virtues in a naturalist, observation and experiment, were almost
entirely wanting at any period for the last two thousand years or more.
How else could such a belief as that the badger has his two legs on one
side shorter than the other two have ever gained credence? or that the
ram “when he slepeth, from spring-time till harvest he lyeth on the one
side, and from harvest till spring-time againe on the other side”? Or, to
travel a little further afield, that the whiskers of a tiger are mortal
poison, causing men to die mad if given to them in meat? Or that the
camel is so ashamed of its ugliness that before drinking in a stream it
always fouls the water so that it may not see the reflection of itself?
Or fifty other statements equally at variance with the facts? The respect
for those who by the vigour and uncompromising directness of their
assertions became regarded as great authorities was so tremendous and
all-embracing that no one seemed to dare to challenge statements made
by them, while the ease and comfort to subsequent writers of having all
responsibility taken off their own shoulders by merely copying instead of
testing had a fatal fascination, the result being that many assertions
have had a vigorous vitality for centuries that could have been readily
disproved in a week or even an hour of honest personal investigation.