by the cold of winter, throws it off in the spring, by the aid of the
juices of _fennel_, and thus becomes sleek and youthful in appearance.
First of all it disengages the head, and then it takes no less than a
day and a night in working itself out, and divesting itself of the
membrane in which it has been enclosed. The same animal, too, on finding
its sight weakened during its winter retreat, anoints and refreshes its
eyes by rubbing itself on the plant called _fennel_, or _marathrum_;
but, if any of the scales are slow in coming off, it rubs itself against
the thorns of the _juniper_. The dragon relieves the nausea which
affects it in spring, with the juices of the _lettuce_. The barbarous
nations go to hunt the panther, provided with meat that has been rubbed
with _Aconite_, which is a poison. Immediately on eating it, compression
of the throat overtakes them, from which circumstance it is, that the
plant has received the name of _pardalianches_ (_pard-strangler_). The
animal, however, has found an antidote against this poison in human
excrements; besides which, it is so eager to get at them, that the
shepherds purposely suspend them in a vessel, placed so high, that the
animal cannot reach them, even by leaping, when it endeavours to get at
them; accordingly, it continues to leap, until it has quite exhausted
itself, and at last expires: otherwise, it is so tenacious of life that
it will continue to fight, long after its intestines have been dragged
out of its body.
“When an elephant has happened to devour a chameleon, which is of the
same colour with the herbage, it counteracts this poison by means of the
_wild olive_. Bears, when they have eaten of the fruit of the
_Mandrake_, lick up numbers of Ants. The Stag counteracts the effect of
poisonous plants by eating the _artichoke_. Wood pigeons, jackdaws,
blackbirds, and partridges, purge themselves once a year by eating _bay_
leaves; pigeons, turtle-doves, and poultry, with _wall pellitory_, or
_helxine_; ducks, geese, and other aquatic birds of a similar nature,
with the _bulrush_. The raven, when it has killed a chameleon, a contest
in which even the conqueror suffers, counteracts the poison by means of
laurel.”
THE SU.
Topsell mentions a fearful beast called the Su. “There is a region in
the new-found world, called _Gigantes_, and the inhabitants thereof, are
called _Patagones_; now, because their country is cold, being far in the
South, they cloath themselves with the skins of a beast called in their
owne toong _Su_, for by reason that this beast liveth for the most part
neere the waters, therefore they cal it by the name of _Su_, which
signifieth water. The true image thereof, as it was taken by
_Thenestus_, I have heere inserted, for it is of a very deformed shape,
and monstrous presence, a great ravener, and an untamable wilde beast.
“When the hunters that desire her skinne, set upon her, she flyeth very
swift, carrying her yong ones upon her back, and covering them with her
broad taile; now, for so much as no dogge or man dareth to approach
neere unto her, (because such is the wrath thereof, that in the pursuit
she killeth all that commeth near her:) The hunters digge severall
pittes or great holes in the earth, which they cover with boughes,
sticks, and earth, so weakly, that if the beast chance at any time to
come upon it, she, and her young ones fall down into the pit, and are
taken.
[Illustration]
“This cruell, untamable, impatient, violent, ravening, and bloody beast,
perceiving that her natural strength cannot deliver her from the wit and
policy of men, her hunters, (for being inclosed, she can never get out
againe) the hunters being at hand to watch her downfall, and worke her
overthrowe, first of all to save her young ones from taking and taming,
she destroyeth them all with her own teeth; for there was never any of
them taken alive, and when she seeth the hunters come about her, she
roareth, cryeth, howleth, brayeth, and uttereth such a fearefull,
noysome, and terrible clamor, that the men which watch to kill her, are
not thereby a little amazed; but, at last, being animated, because
there can be no resistance, they approach, and with their darts and
speares, wound her to death, and then take off her skin, and leave the
Carcasse in the earth. And this is all that I finde recorded of this
most strange beast.”
THE LAMB-TREE.
As a change from this awful animal, let us examine the _Planta Tartarica
Borometz_--which was so graphically delineated by Joannes Zahn in 1696.
Although this is by no means the first picture of it, yet it is the best
of any I have seen.
[Illustration]
A most interesting book[37] on the “Vegetable Lamb of Tartary” has been
written by the late Henry Lee, Esq., at one time Naturalist of the
Brighton Aquarium, and I am much indebted to it for matter on the
subject, which I could not otherwise have obtained.
The word _Borometz_ is supposed to be derived from a Tartar word
signifying a lamb, and this plant-animal was thoroughly believed in,
many centuries ago--but there seem to have been two distinct varieties
of plant, that on which little lambs were found in pods, and that as
represented by Zahn, with a living lamb attached by its navel to a short
stem. This stalk was flexible, and allowed the lamb to graze, within
its limits; but when it had consumed all the grass within its reach, or
if the stalk was severed, it died. This lamb was said to have the actual
body, blood, and bones of a young sheep, and wolves were very fond of
it--but, luckily for the lamb-tree, these were the only carnivorous
animals that would attack it.
In his “Histoire Admirable des Plantes” (1605) Claude Duret, of Moulins,
treats of the Borometz, and says: “I remember to have read some time
ago, in a very ancient Hebrew book entitled in Latin the _Talmud
Ierosolimitanum_, and written by a Jewish Rabbi Jochanan, assisted by
others, in the year of Salvation 436, that a certain personage named
Moses Chusensis (he being a native of Ethiopia) affirmed, on the
authority of Rabbi Simeon, that there was a certain country of the earth
which bore a zoophyte, or plant-animal, called in the Hebrew _Jeduah_.
It was in form like a lamb, and from its navel, grew a stem or root by
which this Zoophyte, or plant-animal, was fixed attached, like a gourd,
to the soil below the surface of the ground, and, according to the
length of its stem or root, it devoured all the herbage which it was
able to reach within the circle of its tether. The hunters who went in
search of this creature were unable to capture, or remove it, until they
had succeeded in cutting the stem by well-aimed arrows, or darts, when
the animal immediately fell prostrate to the earth, and died. Its bones
being placed with certain ceremonies and incantations in the mouth of
one desiring to foretell the future, he was instantly seized with a
spirit of divination, and endowed with the gift of prophecy.”
Mr. Lee then says: “As I was unable to find in the Latin translation of
the Talmud of Jerusalem, the passage mentioned by Claude Duret, and was
anxious to ascertain whether any reference to this curious legend
existed in the Talmudical books, I sought the assistance of learned
members of the Jewish community, and, amongst them, of the Rev. Dr.
Hermann Adler, Chief Rabbi Delegate of the United Congregations of the
British Empire. He most kindly interested himself in the matter, and
wrote to me as follows: ‘It affords me much gratification to give you
the information you desire on the Borametz. In the Mishna _Kilaim_,
chap. viii. § 5 (a portion of the Talmud), the passage occurs:
“Creatures called _Adne Hasadeh_ (literally ‘lords of the field’) are
regarded as beasts.” There is a variant reading, _Abne Hasadeh_ (stones
of the field). A commentator, Rabbi Simeon, of Sens (died about 1235),
writes as follows, on this passage: ‘It is stated in the Jerusalem
Talmud that this is a human being of the mountains: it lives by means of
its navel: if its navel be cut, it cannot live. I have heard in the name
of Rabbi Meir, the son of Kallonymos of Speyer, that this is the animal
called _Jeduah_. This is the _Jedoui_ mentioned in Scripture (lit.
_wizard_, Lev. xix. 31); with its bones witchcraft is practised. A kind
of large stem issues from a root in the earth on which this animal,
called _Jadua_, grows, just as gourds and melons. Only the _Jadua_ has,
in all respects, a human shape, in face, body, hands, and feet. By its
navel it is joined to the stem that issues from the root. No creature
can approach within the tether of the stem, for it seizes and kills
them. Within the tether of the stem it devours the herbage all around.
When they want to capture it, no man dares approach it, but they tear at
the stem until it is ruptured, whereupon the animal dies.’ Another
commentator, Rabbi Obadja, of Berbinoro, gives the same explanation,
only substituting ‘They aim arrows at the stem until it is ruptured,’
&c.
“The author of an ancient Hebrew work, _Maase Tobia_ (Venice, 1705),
gives an interesting description of this animal. In Part IV. c. 10, page
786, he mentions the Borametz found in Great Tartary. He repeats the
description of Rabbi Simeon, and adds, that he has found, in ‘A New Work
on Geography,’ namely, that ‘the Africans (_sic_) in Great Tartary, in
the province of Sambulala, are enriched by means of seeds, like the
seeds of gourds, only shorter in size, which grow and blossom like a
stem to the navel of an animal which is called _Borametz_ in their
language, i.e. _lamb_, on account of its resembling a lamb in all its
limbs, from head to foot; its hoofs are cloven, its skin is soft, its
wool is adapted for clothing, but it has no horns, only the hairs of its
head, which grow, and are intertwined like horns. Its height is half a
cubit and more. According to those who speak of this wondrous thing, its
taste is like the flesh of fish, its blood as sweet as honey, and it
lives as long as there is herbage within reach of the stem, from which
it derives its life. If the herbage is destroyed or perishes, the animal
also dies away. It has rest from all beasts and birds of prey, except
the wolf, which seeks to destroy it.’ The author concludes by expressing
his belief that this account of the animal having the shape of a lamb is
more likely to be true than it is of human form.”
As I have said, there are several delineations of this Borametz or
Borometz, but there is one, a frontispiece to the 1656 edition of the
_Paridisi in Sole--Paradisus Terrestris_, of John Parkinson, Apothecary
of London, in which, together with Adam and Eve, the _lamb-tree_ is
shown as flourishing in the Garden of Eden; and Du Bartas, in “His
_divine WEEKES And WORKES_” in his poem of Eden, (the first day of the
second week), makes Adam to take a tour of Eden, and describes his
wonder at what he sees, especially at the “lamb-plant.”
“Musing, anon through crooked Walks he wanders,
Round-winding rings, and intricate Meanders,
Fals-guiding paths, doubtfull beguiling strays,
And right-wrong errors of an end-less Maze:
Not simply hedged with a single border
Of _Rosemary_, cut-out with curious order,
In _Satyrs_, _Centaurs_, _Whales_, and _half-men-Horses_,
And thousand other counterfaited corses;
But with true Beasts, fast in the ground still sticking,
Feeding on grass, and th’ airy moisture licking:
Such as those _Bonarets_, in _Scythia_ bred
Of slender seeds, and with green fodder fed;
Although their bodies, noses, mouthes and eys,
Of new-yean’d Lambs have full the form and guise;
And should be very Lambs, save that (for foot)
Within the ground they fix a living root,
Which at their navell growes, and dies that day
That they have brouz’d the neighbour grass away.
O wondrous vertue of God onely good!
The Beast hath root, the Plant hath flesh and blood
The nimble Plant can turn it to and fro;
The nummed Beast can neither stir nor go:
The Plant is leaf-less, branch-less, void of fruit;
The Beast is lust-less, sex-less, fire-less, mute;
The Plant with Plants his hungry panch doth feed;
Th’ admired Beast is sowen a slender seed.”
Of the other kind of “lamb-tree,” that which bears lambs in pods, we
have an account, in Sir John Maundeville’s Travels. “Whoso goeth from
Cathay to Inde, the high and the low, he shal go through a Kingdom that
men call Cadissen, and it is a great lande, there groweth a manner of
fruite as it were gourdes, and when it is ripe men cut it a sonder, and
men fynde therein a beast as it were of fleshe and bone and bloud, as
it were a lyttle lambe without wolle, and men eate the beaste and fruite
also, and sure it seemeth very strange.”
And in the “Journall of Frier Odoricus,” which I have incorporated in my
edition of “The Voiage and Travayle of Syr John Maundeville, Knight,” he
says: “I was informed also by certaine credible persons of another
miraculous thing, namely, that in a certaine Kingdome of the sayd Can,
wherein stand the mountains called Kapsei (the Kingdomes name is Kalor)
there groweth great Gourds or Pompions, (_pumpkins_) which being ripe,
doe open at the tops, and within them is found a little beast like unto
a yong lambe.”
THE CHIMÆRA.
[Illustration]
Aldrovandus gives us the accompanying illustration of a Chimæra, a
fabulous Classical monster, said to possess three heads, those of a
lion, a goat, and a dragon. It used so to be pictorially treated, but in
more modern times as Aldrovandus represents. The mountain _Chimæra_, now
called Yanar, is in ancient Lycia, in Asia Minor, and was a burning
mountain, which, according to Spratt, is caused by a stream of
inflammable gas, issuing from a crevice. This monster is easily
explained, if we can believe Servius, the Commentator of Virgil, who
says that flames issue from the top of the mountain, and that there are
lions in the vicinity; the middle part abounds in goats, and the lower
part with serpents.
THE HARPY AND SIREN.
[Illustration]
The conjunction of the human form with birds is very easy, wings being
fitted to it, as in the case of angels--and as applied to beasts, this
treatment is very ancient, _vide_ the winged bulls of Assyria, and the
classical Pegasus, or winged horse. With birds, the best form in which
it is treated in Mythology is the Harpy. This is taken from Aldrovandus,
and fully illustrates the mixture of bird and woman, described by
Shakespeare in _Pericles_ (iv. 3):--
“_Cleon._ Thou’rt like the harpy,
Which to betray, dost, with thine angel’s face,
Seize with thine eagle’s talons.”
[Illustration]
Then, also, we have the Siren, shown by this illustration, taken from
Pompeii. These Sea Nymphs were like the Harpies, depicted as a compound
of bird and woman. Like them also, there were three of them; but,
unlike them, they had such lovely voices, and were so beautiful, that
they lured seamen to their destruction, they having no power to combat
the allurements of the Sirens; whilst the Harpies emitted an infectious
smell, and spoiled whatever they touched, with their filth, and
excrements.
[Illustration]
Licetus, writing in 1634, and Zahn, in 1696, give the accompanying
picture of a monster born at Ravenna in 1511 or 1512. It had a horn on
the top of its head, two wings, was without arms, and only one leg like
that of a bird of prey. It had an eye in its knee, and was of both
sexes. It had the face and body of a man, except in the lower part,
which was covered with feathers.
Marcellus Palonius Romanus made some Latin verses upon this prodigy,
which may be thus rendered into English:--
A Monster strange in fable, and deform
Still more in fact; sailing with swiftest wing,
He threatens double slaughter, and converts
To thy fell ruin, flames of living fire.
Of double sex, it spares no sex, alike
With kindred blood it fills th’ Æmathian plain;
Its corpses strew alike both street and sea.
There hoary Thetis and the Nereids
Swim shudd’ring through the waves, while floating wide
The fish replete on human bodies----. Such,
Ravenna, was the Monster which foretold
Thy fall, which brings thee now such bitter woe,
Tho’ boasting in thy image triumph-crowned.
THE BARNACLE GOOSE.
Of all extraordinary beliefs, that in the Barnacle Goose, which obtained
credence from the eleventh to the seventeenth centuries, is as wonderful
as any. The then accepted fact that the Barnacle Goose was generated on
trees, and dropped alive in the water, dates back a hundred years before
Gerald de Barri. Otherwise Giraldus Cambrensis wrote in 1187, about
these birds, the following being a translation:--
“There are here many birds which are called Bernacæ, which nature
produces in a manner contrary to nature, and very wonderful. They are
like marsh-geese, but smaller. They are produced from fir timber tossed
about at sea, and are at first like geese upon it. Afterwards they hang
down by their beaks, as if from a sea-weed attached to the wood, and are
enclosed in shells that they may grow the more freely. Having thus, in
course of time, been clothed with a strong covering of feathers, they
either fall into the water, or seek their liberty in the air by flight.
The embryo geese derive their growth and nutriment from the moisture of
the wood or of the sea, in a secret and most marvellous manner. I have
seen with my own eyes more than a thousand minute bodies of these birds
hanging from one piece of timber on the shore, enclosed in shells, and
already formed. The eggs are not impregnated _in coitu_, like those of
other birds, nor does the bird sit upon its eggs to hatch them, and in
no corner of the world have they been known to build a nest. Hence the
bishops and clergy in some parts of Ireland are in the habit of
partaking of these birds, on fast days, without scruple. But in doing so
they are led into sin. For, if any one were to eat of the leg of our
first parent, although he (Adam) was not born of flesh, that person
could not be adjudged innocent of eating flesh.”
We see here, that Giraldus speaks of these barnacles being developed on
wreckage in the sea, but does not mention their growing upon trees,
which was the commoner belief. I have quoted both Sir John Maundeville,
and Odoricus, about the lamb-tree, which neither seem to consider very
wonderful, for Sir John says: “Neverthelesse I sayd to them that I held
y^t for no marvayle, for I sayd that in my countrey are trees y^t beare
fruit, y^t become byrds flying, and they are good to eate, and that that
falleth on the water, liveth, and that that falleth on earth, dyeth,
and they marvailed much thereat.” And the Friar, in continuation of his
story of the _Borometz_, says: “Even as I my selfe have heard reported
that there stand certaine trees upon the shore of the Irish Sea, bearing
fruit like unto a gourd, which at a certaine time of the yeere doe fall
into the water, and become birds called Bernacles, and this is most
true.”
[Illustration]
Olaus Magnus, in speaking of the breeding of Ducks in Scotland, says:
“Moreover, another _Scotch_ Historian, who diligently sets down the
secret of things, saith that in the _Orcades_, (_the Orkneys_) Ducks
breed of a certain Fruit falling in the Sea; and these shortly after,
get wings, and fly to the tame or wild ducks.” And, whilst discoursing
on Geese, he affirms that “some breed from Trees, as I said of Scotland
Ducks in the former Chapter.” Sebastian Müenster, from whom I have taken
the preceding illustration, says in his _Cosmographia Universalis_:--“In
Scotland there are trees which produce fruit, conglomerated of their
leaves; and this fruit, when, in due time, it falls into the water
beneath it, is endowed with new life, and is converted into a living
bird, which they call the ‘tree goose.’ This tree grows in the Island
of Pomonia, which is not far from Scotland, towards the North. Several
old Cosmographers, especially Saxo Grammaticus, mention the tree, and it
must not be regarded as fictitious, as some new writers suppose.”
In Camden’s “Britannia” (translated by Edmund Gibson, Bishop of London)
he says, speaking of Buchan:--“It is hardly worth while to mention the
clayks, a sort of geese; which are believed by some, (with great
admiration) to grow upon the trees on this coast and in other places,
and, when they are ripe, to fall down into the sea; because neither
their nests nor eggs can anywhere be found. But they who saw the ship,
in which Sir Francis Drake sailed round the world, when it was laid up
in the river Thames, could testify, that little birds breed in the old
rotten keels of ships; since a great number of such, without life and
feathers, stuck close to the outside of the keel of that ship; yet I
should think, that the generation of these birds was not from the logs
of wood, but from the sea, termed by the poets ‘the parent of all
things.’”
[Illustration]
In “Purchas, his Pilgrimage,” is the voyage of Gerat de Veer to China,
&c., in 1569--and he speaks of the Barnacle goose thus:--“Those geese
were of a perfit red colour, such as come to Holland about Weiringen,
and every yeere are there taken in abundance, but till this time, it was
never knowne where they hatcht their egges, so that some men have taken
upon them to write that they sit upon trees in Scotland, that hang over
the water, and such eggs that fall from them downe into the water,
become young geese, and swim there out of the water: but those that fall
upon the land, burst asunder, and are lost; but that is now found to be
contrary, that no man could tell where they breed their egges, for that
no man that ever wee knew, had ever beene under 80°; nor that land under
80° was never set downe in any card, much lesse the red geese that
breede therein.” He and his sailors declared that they had seen these
birds sitting on their eggs, and hatching them, on the coasts of Nova
Zembla.
Du Bartas thus mentions this goose:--
“So, slowe Boötes underneath him sees,
In th’ ycie iles, those goslings hatcht of trees;
Whose fruitfull leaves, falling into the water,
Are turned, (they say) to living fowls soon after.
So, rotten sides of broken ships do change
To barnacles; O transformation strange!
’Twas first a green tree, then a gallant hull,
Lately a mushroom, now a flying gull.”
I could multiply quotations on this subject. Gesner and every other
naturalist believed in the curious birth of the Barnacle goose--and so
even did Aldrovandus, writing at the close of the seventeenth century,
for from him I take this illustration. But enough has been said upon the
subject.
REMARKABLE EGG.
[Illustration]
No wonder that a credulous age, which could see nothing extraordinary in
the Barnacle goose, could also, metaphorically, swallow such an egg, as
Licetus, first of all, and Aldrovandus, after him, gives us in the
accompanying true picture. The latter says that a goose’s egg was found
in France, (he leaves a liberal margin for locality,) which on being
broken appeared exactly as in the picture. Comment thereon is useless.
MOON WOMAN.
[Illustration]
One would have imagined that this Egg would be sufficient to test the
credulity of most people, but Aldrovandus was equal to the occasion, and
he gives us a “Moon Woman,” who lays eggs, sits upon them, and hatches
Giants; and he gives this on the authority of Lycosthenes and Ravisius
Textor.
THE GRIFFIN.
There always has been a tradition of birds being existent, of far
greater size than those usually visible.
The Maoris aver that at times they still hear the gigantic Moa in the
scrub--and, even, if extinct, we know, by the state of the bones found,
that its extinction must have been of comparatively recent date. But no
one credits the Moa with the power of flight, whilst the Griffin, which
must not be confounded with the gold-loving Arimaspian Gryphon, was a
noble bird. Mandeville knew him:--“In this land (_Bactria_) are many
gryffons, more than in other places, and some say they have the body
before as an Egle, and behinde as a Lyon, and it is trouth, for they be
made so; but the Griffen hath a body greater than viii Lyons, and stall
worthier (_stouter_, _braver_) than a hundred Egles. For certainly he
wyl beare to his nest flying, a horse and a man upon his back, or two
Oxen yoked togither as they go at plowgh, for he hath longe nayles on
hys fete, as great as it were hornes of Oxen, and of those they make
Cups there to drynke of, and of his rybes they make bowes to shoote
with.”
[Illustration]
Olaus Magnus says they live in the far Northern mountains, that they
prey upon horses and men, and that of their nails drinking-cups were
made, as large as ostrich eggs. These enormous birds correspond in many
points to the Eastern Ruc or Rukh, or the Rok of the “Arabian Nights,”
of whose mighty powers of flight Sindbad took advantage.