Another strange fish believed in by our forefathers was the Acipenser, “a fish of an unnatural making and quality,” as an old writer terms him; and indeed he may very well do so, as we are told that “his scales are all turned towards his head.” We are not therefore much surprised to learn that “he ever swimmeth against the stream,” though we might well be more astonished if we ever found him swimming at all.
The amiable dolphin stands not alone in its friendship with man. The ray too, if we may believe a mediæval authority, is “a loving fish to man: for swimming in the waters, and being greedily pursued by the devouring Sea-dogs, the Ray defends him, and will not leave him untill he be out of danger.” Sometimes the friendship is with some other creature; thus Porta gives an unfailing recipe for catching a sargon, whatever that may be, by taking advantage of this kindly trait in its character. “The Sargi,” he declares, “love Goats unmeasurably: and they are so mad after them that when so much as the shadow of a Goat that feeds neer the shore shall appear neer unto them they presently leap for joy and swim to it in haste, and they imitate the goats, though they are not fit to leap, and thus they delight to come unto them. They are, therefore, catcht by those things that they so much desire. Whereupon the Fisher, putting on a Goat’s skin with the horns, lies in wait for them, having the Sunne behind his back and paste made wet with the decoction of Goat’s flesh: this he casts into the Sea where the Sargi are to come: and they, as if they were charmed, run to it, and are much delighted with the sight of the Goat’s skin and feed on the paste. Thus the Fishermen catcheth abundance of them.” Porta gives no suggestion that this affection is reciprocal.
Another mediæval writer has a still more extraordinary story of the kind, and in this case it is pleasant to know that the loving feeling is mutual. “Amongst the severall sort of shell fishes,” saith he, “the glistering Pearl-fish deserves remembrance, not only in respect of herself but also in regard of the Prawn, another fish and her companion: for between these two there is a most firm league of friendship, much kindnesse, and such familiaritie as cannot but breed admiration in the reader. They have a subtill kinde of hunting, which being ended, they divide their prey in loving manner: for seeing they one help the other in the getting of it, they likewise joyn in the equall sharing. And, in few words, thus it is—when the Pearl-fish gapeth wide, she hath a curious glistering within her shell, by which she allureth her small fry to come swimming unto her: which when her companion the Prawn perceiveth, he gives her a secret touch with one of his prickles, wherupon she shuts her gaping shell, and so incloseth her wished prey: then (as I said) they equally share them out and feed themselves. And thus, day by day, they get their livings, like a combined knot of cheaters, who have no other trade than the cunning deceit of quaint consenage: hooking in the simpler sort with such subtill tricks, that be their purses stuft with either more or less, they know a way to sound the bottome and send them lighter home: lighter in purse, though heavier in heart.” The moral seems perhaps needlessly severe, and we trust that henceforth our readers, after reading this romance of the deep, will have a kindlier feeling for these faithful friends, the artful oyster and the watchful prawn. The only drawback to the sentiment of the thing seems to be that this loving alliance has a somewhat low motive as its basis. One at least of the partners is capable of a more tender passion, as we have the authority of Sheridan for saying that an oyster may be crossed in love.
Olaus Magnus gives an awful example of voracity in the swam-fish, one of the most greedy cravens of the denizens of the sea, and cites many stories of it that amply justify the bad character bestowed on it. Another old writer affirms that when danger threatens “he will so winde up himselfe and cover his head with the skinne and substance of his own body that he is then bent like unto a piece of dead fish, and nothing like himself.” The plan however appears to have its drawbacks, as the venerable and veracious author goes on to say that this feat “he seldome doth without hurt or damage, for still fearing that there be those about him who will prey upon him and devoure him, he is compelled for lack of meat to feed upon the substance of his own body, choosing rather to be devoured in part than to be consumed by other more strong and powerful fishes”—at best a most painful alternative.
In the account of the Creation the forming of the whale is specially dwelt upon: “And God created great whales and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly after their kind.” Luther, commenting on this, says that the creation of whales is specified by name, lest affrighted with their greatness we should believe them to be only visions or fancies. Though later commentators have decided that the leviathan of the Bible is the crocodile, it was long held to be the whale. Milton, in the first book of the “Paradise Lost,” writes of that sea beast—
and the Jews had a legend that the first whales were so immense in bulk, so formidable in attack, so voracious, that there was considerable risk of their overtoppling the rest of creation; so while as yet there were but two of them in existence, one was destroyed in order that the race might not be continued and the general balance of Nature upset.
Our ancestors found apt moral against the scornful in the reason assigned for the mouth of the flounder being on one side. It appears that at one time the flounder’s mouth was as fair to see as any other, but that it lost all its beauty through contemptuous flouting of the herring, and it has borne this evil mark of its jealousy ever since, and will probably so bear it to the end of time. At the vague date known as once upon a time we are told that all the fishes of the sea assembled to choose a king, and that the herring was elected to this dignified position. The flounder, on account of his red spots and other features that were evidently more appreciated by himself than by the main body of electors, had strong hope that he should himself be chosen, and the unlovely grimace with which he saluted his sovereign was, as a judgment upon him, made a fixture for all time as a punishment to himself and a warning to others.
The tench was commonly called the physician, for it was believed by our forefathers that when the other fish were in any way hurt and required the aid of surgeon or physician, they healed themselves by rubbing against the tench, finding the slime of his body to be a “soveraigne salve” for their needs. For the sufferings of humanity the beasts, birds, and plants appear to have supplied a sufficient materia medica, and the less accessible creatures of the waters were but rarely pressed into the mediæval pharmacopœia. The blood of the eel was rubbed upon unwelcome warts, and a cruel remedy for bad eyes, the cruelty being, as we have seen over and over again in those old remedies, by no means an exceptional feature, was to capture a crab alive, cut out its eyes and then let it go.[135] The eyes were then bound upon the neck of the man, woman, or child, and a satisfactory result was speedily anticipated, though very possibly not so speedily forthcoming.
The Cuttle fish is scarcely one’s ideal of beauty, yet it is by its vanity and belief in its personal attractions that it is most readily captured. Porta tells us that pieces of looking glass are let down by the fishermen into the waters, and that the Cuttle seeing his image reflected, clasps the glass around, and while he is still enamoured with the reflection of his charms is drawn to the surface by the wily fishermen. In the “Pathway to Knowledge,” published in the year 1685, we are told that if we take the juice of Nettles and Houseleek, and anoint our hands therewith, the fish will gather round and “you may take them out at your pleasure.” This seems almost as simple a method as the catching of birds by placing a pinch of salt on their tails.
If we may credit Maundevile, and the “if” is a most important point, in one favoured land instead of the people going for the fish, the fish come to the people. In a certain isle, or we may perhaps more truthfully say an uncertain isle, called Calonak, many wonderful things were to be seen, but one of these he especially, and very justly, calls “a gret Marvayle,” and when he goes on to add that “it is more to speke of than in ony partie of the World,” one is loath to gainsay his opinion. He tells us that “alle manere of Fissches that ther ben in the See abouten hem, comen ones in the Yeer, eche manere of dyverse Fissches, one maner of kynde aftre another; and thei casten hem selfe to the See Banke of that Yle in so gret plentee and multitude that no man may see but Fissche, and ther thei abyden thre dayes, and euerie man of the Countree takethe of hem als many as him lykethe, and that maner of Fissche aftre the thridde day departeth and gothe in to the See. And aftre hem comen another multitude of Fissches of anothre kynde and don in the same maner as the firste diden othre three dayes. And aftre hem another, tille alle the dyverse maner of Fissches have ben there, and that men have taken of hem that hem lykethe. And no man knowethe the cause wherfore it may ben. But thei of the Contree seyn that it is for to do reverence to here Kyng, that is the most worthi Kyng that is in the World, as thei seyn.” The reason assigned for the king’s special worthiness is a somewhat peculiar one, and though it is duly set forth at full length by the old author, other times have brought other manners and ideas, and one can scarcely insert in a book of the present day many things, and this amongst them, that were set forth in the greatest simplicity and directness of language in books of earlier date.
At all events this “most worthie Kyng” was so far under the special care of Providence that “God sendethe him so the Fissches of dyverse kyndes, of all that ben in the See, to be taken at his wille, for him and alle his peple. And therfore all the Fissches of the See comen to make him homage as the most noble and excellent Kyng of the World, and that is best beloved of God as thei seyn.” Well may Maundevile say, as he realized the idea of the various finny tribes of Ocean thus sacrificing themselves in so orderly a sequence, that “this me semethe is the most merveylle that evere I saughe. For this mervaylle is agenst kynde, that the Fissches that have fredom to environe all the Costes of the See at here owne list comen of hire owne wille to profren hem to the dethe with outen constreynynge of man.” It must have been an immense convenience to have known thus readily what was in season, and even if in this Hobson’s choice of diet one did not happen to be very partial to plaice or conger, there was always the happy knowledge that next Tuesday or possibly Thursday week, soles or turbot would be “in.” We may conclude that a fresh series of herrings, mackerel, or whatever they might be, would come ashore on each one of the three days that they were due, or by the termination of that period they would certainly all be smelt.
After this great marvel the cruel pontarf that beguiled children away to sport with them and finally to eat them, the silurus that at the rising of the dog-star is struck insensible, the dead crabs that turn to scorpions, the eels that rub themselves against stones, and, in so doing, scrape off fragments that come to life, and are the only cause and means of their increase, the fish that swim in the boiling water of some tropical stream that is now unknown, all sink as wonders into insignificance.
The whole world has now been so ransacked that there is little room in these times for the imagination to play; but in mediæval days travellers brought back such wonderful stories, some of them true, and others, perhaps, a little wanting in that respect, of the things that they had seen, that almost anything seemed a possibility. Of this our present pages may be considered some little indication, though it will be abundantly evident that we have not used up one hundredth part of the great store of folk-lore and ancient and mediæval science that is open to investigation.
FOOTNOTES
[1] The title pages of these old books should by no means be overlooked, as they are often full of interest and meaning. In the one before us we have at the top the Hebrew name for Jehovah within an equilateral triangle, and this again within a circle of rays. On one side is the sun shining in full splendour, on the other the moon and stars. From the triangle issues a narrow track that broadens as it goes, and finally returns to the triangle, its point of emergence being marked Alpha and the point of re-entry Omega. In the centre of this track is the world being rolled along by the foot of Time. On one side is a sitting figure, Theologia, book on knee, and having the tables of the law in one hand, and in the other a lantern, and on the other we find “Philosophia” with globe and compasses.
[2] The titles of many of these old books are sufficiently quaint and striking. Sometimes a spade is called a spade with the most startling directness; while at others the title is a mystical conceit that needs interpretation. The following are some few that we have come across:—“The flaming sword of Justice unsheathed,” “Matches lighted at the Divine Fire,” “The shop of the Spiritual Apothecary,” “The Scraper of Vanity, a Spiritual Pillow necessary to exterpate Vice and to plant Virtue.” There would appear to be here some little confusion of metaphor: anyone desiring to plant anything would scarcely find a pillow a serviceable tool for the purpose.
[3] Culver is derived from the Anglo-Saxon culfre, a pigeon. The Culver cliffs in the Isle of Wight are so called from the great numbers of wild pigeons that nest there, while the Columbine, Lat. Columba, a pigeon, so named from the resemblance of its flowers to a ring of birds, is also known as the Culverwort.
[4] Thus we find a Strasburg copy dated 1484; Bologna, 1488; Venice, 1491; Florence, 1492; Antwerp, 1494; Venice again, 1496; Milan, 1497; another Bologna edition, 1497; and so on.
[5] The Emperor Titus Vespasian, to whom the book was dedicated.
[6] “I conceive it,” he says, “to be courteous, and to indicate an ingenious modesty, to acknowledge the source whence we have derived assistance, and not act as most of those have done whom I have examined. For I must inform you that in consulting various authors I have discovered that some of the most grave and of the latest writers, have transcribed word for word, from former works without making any acknowledgment.”
[7] He only used one pen throughout, a circumstance which he deemed sufficiently remarkable to be celebrated in these lines which are prefixed to his book:—
[8] “I would rather be a poor man in a garret with plenty of books than a king who did not love reading.”—Macaulay. Sir John Herschell in like manner tells us—“Were I to pay for a taste that should stand me in stead under every variety of circumstances, and be a source of happiness and cheerfulness to me during life, and a shield against its ills, however things might go amiss and the world frown upon me, it would be a taste for reading. Give a man this taste and the means of gratifying it, and you can hardly fail of making him a happy man; unless, indeed, you put into his hands a most perverse selection of books. You place him in contact with the best society in every period of history—with the wisest, the wittiest, the tenderest, the bravest, and the purest characters who have adorned humanity. You make him a denizen of all nations, a contemporary of all ages. The world has been created for him.” But we must bear in mind, while we subscribe to the dictum of Carlyle, “Of all things which men do or make here below, by far the most momentous, wonderful, and worthy are the things we call books,” the wise line of Shakespeare: “Learning is but an adjunct to oneself,” lest haply we be classed with “the bookful blockhead” of Pope—ignorantly read, “with loads of learned lumber in his head.”
[9] There are separate maps for the leading countries, giving towns, rivers, forests, mountains, and other features. The towns are not only named, but have actual buildings represented. We notice that in the map of Germany “Holand” and “Flandria” are at the bottom right-hand corner, but this arises from the reversal of the whole thing, the north being at the bottom of the page instead of the top. It is as Germany would look if we imagine the point of view in Southern Denmark. Italy in the same way shows Venice at the bottom of the map and Sicily at the top. In the description of Spain the so-called pillars of Hercules are treated as two actual pillars and in the illustration look very like two pawns from a set of chessmen.
[10] His accounts were at the time considered so incredible, that the Venetians gave him the sobriquet of “Millioni,” from the frequent recurrence of millions in his statements; and amongst other traducers Herbert says that “Geographers have filled their maps and globes with the names of Tenduc, Tangutt, Tamfur, Cando, Camul, and other hobgobling words obtruded upon the World by those three arrant Monks, Haython, Marc Parc the Venetian, and Vartoman, who fearing no imputations make strange discoveries as well as descriptions of places.” This from the sea-monsterist of the Azores!
[11] Ferdinand Mendez Pinto was a celebrated Portuguese navigator, who published a description of his travels of so marvellous a nature that his name became a synonym for extravagant fiction. We meet with him, for instance, in Congreve’s play of “Love for Love,” where the passage occurs: “Ferdinand Mendez Pinto was but a type of thee, thou liar of the first magnitude.”
[12] “Beefe is a good meate for an Englysshe man, so be it the beest be yonge, and that it be not kowe-flesshe: for olde beefe and kowe-flesshe doth ingender melancholye and leperouse humoures. Yf it be moderatly powderyd, that the groose blode by salte may be exhaustyd it doth make an Englysshe man stronge.”—Andrew Boorde’s “Dyetary.”
[13] There can be little question but that the ancient fictions of satyrs, cynocephali and other supposed monstrous forms of humanity arose in vague accounts of different species of apes.
[15] The word is spelt sometimes as pigmy, and at others as pygmy; the latter is the more correct, as the word is from the Greek name for them, the pygmaioi.
[16] These great anthropoid apes are found in the forests that extend southward for a thousand miles or so from the gulf of Guinea. The gorilla is not found beyond this limit.
[17] Burton probably got this notion from Megasthenes, an old writer who, not to be outdone in the introduction of the marvellous, tells us of a nation in the extreme East of India that are wholly mouthless, and that live only by the smells that they draw in at their nostrils, partaking of no food whatever, but flourishing on the pleasant odours given off by various roots, blossoms, and fruits that they are careful to carry about with them when travelling. Unfortunately, if the scent be too strong it deprives them of life and they die as effectually of a surfeit of good things as the famous British sovereign who overdid his devotion to lamprey stew.
[18] These doubtless would be some of the larger apes, that, sufficiently human in general form to suggest the notion of a man, drop upon their fore-paws and travel across the open spaces of the forest as quadrupeds.
[20] Robertson, in his “History of America,” Vol. II., p. 525, says of the Spaniards, “that they and their horses were objects of the greatest astonishment to all the people of New Spain. At first they imagined the horse and his rider, like the centaurs of the ancients, to be some monstrous animal of a terrible form. Even after they had discovered the mistake they believed the horses devoured men in battle, and when they neighed, thought that they were demanding their prey.”
[21] In the “Eastern Travels of John of Hesse,” amongst perils of voyage, we read:—“We came to a stony mountain, where we heard syrens singing, meermaids who draw ships into danger by their songs. We saw there many horrible monsters and were in great fear.”
[22] As the old adage hath it:—
[24] Allusive to Mary Queen of Scots and to the Duke of Norfolk, and the Earls of Westmoreland and Northumberland, who fell from their allegiance to Elizabeth by the witchery of Mary. She was celebrated for the melody of her singing. The reference to the dolphin alludes to her marriage with the Dauphin of France.
[25] See some good figures, too, in the “Book of Emblems” of Alciatus, 1551.
[26] A writer in the Gentleman’s Magazine, in the year 1771, says of Browne’s book on “Vulgar Errors,” “Of all the books recommended to our youth after their academical studies, I do not know a better than this of Sir Thomas’s to excite their curiosity, to put them upon thinking and inquiring, and to guard them against taking anything upon trust from opinion and authority. His language has, indeed, a little air of affectation which is apt to disgust young persons, and it would be doing a very great service to that class if some gentlemen of learning would take the pains to smooth and adapt it a little more to modern ears,”—a comment which we do not at all endorse, as the individual style of the old writer has a quaint charm of its own.
[27] “There is scarce any tradition or popular error but stands also delivered by some good authors, who though excellent and usefull, yet being merely transcriptive, or following common relations, their accounts are not to be swallowed at large, or entertained without a prudent circumspection. In whome the ipse dixit, though it be no powerfull argument in any, is yet lesse authentick than in many others, because they deliver not their own experiences, but others’ affirmations.”—Browne.
[28] “Dagon his name, sea-monster, upward man, and downward, fish.”—Milton.
[29] A very similar figure may be seen amongst the designs of the mosaic pavements at the Roman villa discovered at Brading.
[30] Agriopas tells a gruesome story of a man who, at the sacrifice of a human being to the gods, surreptitiously tasted a piece of the flesh and was turned into a wolf. Whether as a punishment for his cannibalism, or because by abstracting a portion of the victim he was sacrilegiously robbing the altar, we are not informed.
[31] Such hallucinations are often very contagious. A nun in a large convent got the idea into her head that she was a cat, and began to mew. Shortly afterwards other nuns also mewed, until at last the great majority of them were mewing for hours at a time. The matter got to the ears of the town authorities, and on the removal of the monomaniac and the promise of a good whipping to anyone who mewed again, the concert at once died out.
[32] “There is a book, De Mirabilibus narrationibus, written by Antigonus, another also of the same title by Trallianus, which make good the promise of their titles, and may be read with caution, which if any man shall likewise observe in the Lecture of Philostratus, or not only in ancient Writers but shall carry a wary eye on Paulus Venetus, Olaus Magnus, and many another, I think his circumspection laudable, and he may hereby decline occasion of Error.”—Browne.
[33] The first edition of Scot’s book was published in the year 1584.
[34] “The Lion is not so fierce as painted.”—Thos. Fuller.
“The Lion is not so fierce as they paint him.”—Herbert.
[35] “A lion being sick of a quartane Ague eats and devours Apes, and so is healed; hence we know that Apes’ blood is good against an ague.”—Porta.
[36] A much later writer, Porta, includes some strange animals in his treatise: thus the leopard is the offspring, according to him, of the panther and lioness: the crocuta of the hyæna and lioness; the thoes of the panther and the wolf; the jumar of the bull and ass; the musinus of the goat and ram; the cinirus of the he-goat and ewe. The figures of-these are sufficiently curious.
[37] “However erroneous it may now be considered, the theory of creation held during the Middle Ages, was both beautiful and noble, and in a fairly accurate manner may be summarized as follows: On the fall of the tenth legion of the citizens of heaven, God resolved to create man to take the place of the fallen angels. He evolved this world for the home of the new creation, and all things that He then made. The celestial bodies, the vegetable and animal kingdoms were formed solely and entirely for man alone, as the centre round which the whole of creation revolved. There was no idea then that the world in which man was placed formed only one of many such inhabited homes, and that our sphere was simply an insignificant fragment of a vast universe. The celestial bodies, it was held, were created not only to give light and heat to generate metals and precious stones, but to govern the affairs of men, and enable them to foretell events. The vegetable kingdom was to furnish food and medicine not only for man’s body but likewise for his mind. Lastly, the animal creation provided him with servants, with food for his bodily wants, and with moral lessons and examples for those of his soul. This I venture to advance as a tolerably accurate summary of the theory of creation held during the Middle Ages and until nearly the close of the seventeenth century, and, if correct, it will appear from it that each part of creation was viewed not only in an outward and material manner, but also in an interior and spiritual one.”—André.
[38] “De leonibus, quaram copia est in Africa.” The illustration is a facsimile of the one given in this section of Munster’s book.
[39] Bussy D’Amboise, 1607, writes—
[40] Ctesias says that its flesh is so bitter that it cannot be eaten.
[41] “Topsell nameth two kingdomes in India (the one called Niem, the other Lamber), which he likewise stored with them.”—Speculum Mundi.
[42] As for example: Bacci’s book “Discorso dell’ Alicorno,” published at Florence in 1573, and the “De Unicornu Observationes novæ” of Thomas Bartholinus, bearing date 1645. Caspar Bartholinus had already, in 1628, written “De Unicornu ejusque affinibus.” Then we have Bereus’ “De Monoceroti,” 11667; Catelan’s “Histoire de la Licorne,” 1624; Frenzel, “De Unicornu,” 1675; Stolbergk’s “Exercitatio de Unicornu,” 1652; Sachs’ “Monocerologia,” 1676; and the “Notice en refutation de la non-existence de la Licorne” of Laterrade, bearing the very recent date of 1826.
[43] Mutianus tells us that when the moon is on the wane the monkeys are sad, but that they adore the new moon with liveliest manifestations of delight.
[44] “When trauaylers are out of their way the Oliphaunt will do all that hee can by familiar tokens to bring them in again. He is of much vertue and verie seruiceable with loue towardes man.”—Legh. “Even the wilde ones living in deserts will direct and defend strangers and travellers. For if an Elephant shall finde a man wandering in his way, first of all that he may not be affrighted, the Elephant goeth a little wide out of the path and standeth still, then by little and little going before him, he shews him the way; and if a Dragon chance to meet this man thus travelling, the Elephant then opposeth himself to the Dragon and powerfully defendeth the helplesse man who is not able to defend himself.”—Speculum Mundi.
[45] “And to the end they might provoke the elephants to fight they shewed them the blood of grapes and mulberries.”—1 Maccabees vi. 34.
“And upon the beasts there were strong towers of wood, which covered every one of them, and were girt fast unto them with devices; there were also upon every one two and thirty strong men that fought upon them, besides the Indian that ruled him.”—1 Macc. vi. 37.
[46] Miss Cobbe, in discussing the moral difference between the creatures of Fancy and those of Nature, remarks very truly that “the instincts which man has lent to the offspring of his imagination are infinitely worse and lower than those which are to be found in real eagles and tigers, which slay and eat their natural prey to satisfy their hunger, and there make an end. But the perfidious and cruel Sphinxes, and Harpies, and Gorgons, and Gnomes, and Dragons, do mischief for mischief’s sake, and are altogether merciless. The brutes of Fancy are merely brutal, with a spice of human malignity superadded. Man has created filthy Harpies, and relentless Hydras, and subtle and vindictive Sphinxes, but he has never, even in thought, created such an animal as the sagacious and friendly elephant, the kindly-natured horse, or the affectionate dog.”
[47] The panther was one of the beasts that was brought in great numbers to Rome. Pompey, for instance, exhibited to the citizens over four hundred of them on one occasion. The beast is figured in mosaic pavements, in the fresco paintings of Pompeii, &c., and was evidently so well under observation that it is remarkable how such erroneous ideas concerning it could have become current or stood their ground as articles of belief even for a day.
[48] At a state banquet given by Gaston the Fifth we read that “there was brought in (for an enter-course) the shape of a beast called a Tiger, which by cunning art disgorged fire from his mouth and nostrils.”
[49] It is dated 1658. The author was a Neapolitan.
[50] The “Natural Magick” is divided into what is called twenty Books, equivalent really to chapters, and they receive various headings according to their contents, but the twentieth Porta calls “Chaos,” and he explains it by saying: “I determined from the beginning of my Book to unite Experiments that are contained in all Natural Sciences, but by my business that called me off, my mind was hindered, so that I could not accomplish what I attended. Since, therefore, I could not do what I would, I must be willing to do what I can. Therefore, I shut up in this Book those Experiments that could be included in no Classes, which were so diverse and various that they could not make up a Science or a Book; and, therefore, I have here them altogether confusedly as what I had over-passed, and, if God please, I will another time give you a more perfect Book. Now you must rest content with these.”
[51] We see this notion so lately as in a book entitled “An English Expositour,” issued in 1680 by John Hayes, Printer to the University of Cambridge.
[52] The northern peoples believed also in an enormous wolf, called Fernris, who was the offspring of Loki, the evil principle. This creature until the end of the world would be the cause of unnumbered ills to humanity, but at the crack of doom would, after a fearful struggle, be vanquished by the Gods, and a reign of universal peace would succeed his overthrow.
[53] “Wherefore, studious Readers, accept my long Labours, that cost me much Study, Travel, Expense, and much Inconvenience, with the same Mind that I publish them; and remove all Blindness and Malice, which are wont to dazle the sight of the Minde, and hinder the Truth; weigh these Things with a right Judgement when you try what I have Written, for finding both Truth and Profit, you will (it may be) think better of my Pains.”—End of the Preface to Porta’s “Natural Magick.”
[54] In Dryden’s poem, “The Hind and Panther,” we find the reference:—
[55] The scientific name of the hare is Lepus timidus. Dryden, in the “Hind and Panther,” places “amongst the timerous kind the quaking hare.”
[56] Magliabechi, the learned librarian, pinned his faith upon treacle to make his memory retentive. Grataroli, a famous physician of the sixteenth century, wrote a Latin treatise, “The Castle of Memory,” wherein, amongst an enormous number of recipes, we find the internal application of bear’s grease, a hazelnutful of mole’s fat, and calcined human hair, strongly recommended by the learned author.
[57] It was held by our ancestors that freckles came in the early part of the year when the birds were laying their eggs, and that the same mysterious influence of Nature that spotted the eggs of the chaffinch, wren, robin, thrush, and other birds, freckled the human skin.
[58] In another popular remedy for “fitts” one has to “take the furr of a living Bear’s belly, boil it in Aqua Vitæ, take it out, squeeze it, and wrap it upon ye soales of ye Feete.”
[59] A mole skinned, dried in the oven, and then powdered, was held in the fen districts to be a specific for ague. It may still be in vogue—it certainly was in use twenty years ago. The mole must be a male. As much of the powder as would lie on a shilling was to be taken every day, for nine days, in gin. Nine days were then to be omitted, and then the remedy was to be resumed for nine days, by which time a cure was supposed to be effected.
[60] The “Lusiad”; Camoens.
[61] Published therefore in the reign of Charles II., “Our most undoubted and lawful King.” We have most of us formed an opinion on the character of this wearer of the spotless ermine; and the fulsome verse of Winstanley, written, not when the reign was commencing and the national hopes were high, but as it neared its end, is somewhat startling:—
[62] Gay’s Fables.
[63] “In the Rabbinical book it saith the dogs howl when with icy breath Great Sammael, the Angel of Death, takes through the town his flight.”—Longfellow, Golden Legend.
[64] The butter made from the milk of a cow fed in a churchyard was held to be a potent remedy for consumption.
[65] As this led to vigorous protests from the cat, and very possibly a good scratching, a gold ring or coin was often substituted, and found to be equally beneficial.
[66] “It is also watchful, dextrous, swift, pliable, and has such good nerves that if it falls from never so high it still lights upon its feet, and therefore may denote those that have so much foresight that whatever befalls them they are still upon their guard.”—Coats, A.D. 1747.
[67] The skin of the cat is the only portion of the animal that can be turned to any use. According to mediæval belief, Satan once thought he could make a man, but only succeeded in turning out a skinless cat. St. Peter, filled with compassion for the miserable object, bestowed on it a fur coat, its only valuable possession, and a queer-tempered beast it has turned out.
[68] He does not specify what dogs—
though this is clearly not an unimportant detail.
[69] The name is said by Sir E. Tennent, in his “Natural History of Ceylon,” to be from the Telegu words: Pandi-koku, the pig-rat.
[70] A.U.C. 787, equivalent to A.D. 34.
[71] Heliopolis.
[72] Even so comparatively recently as the time of Maundevile we meet with the same symbolic significance, as we find this author declaring that “men may well lykne that Brid unto God: because that there hys no God but on; and also that oure Lord aroos fro Dethe to Lyve the thridde Day.”
[73] “I know,” writes Izaak Walton, in his “Complete Angler,” “we islanders are averse to the belief of wonders, but there be so many strange creatures to be now seen, collected by John Tradescant, who keeps them carefully and methodically at his house near to Lambeth. I will tell you some of the wonders you may now see, and not till then believe, unless you think fit. You may see there the hog-fish, the dogfish, the dolphin, the coney fish, the parrot fish, the shark, the poison fish, the swordfish; and not only other incredible fish, but you may there see the salamander, several sorts of barnacles, of Solan geese, and the bird of paradise; such sorts of snakes, and such birds’ nests, and of so various forms, and so wonderfully made, as may beget wonder and amazement in any beholder.” Walton, as an enthusiastic angler naturally, it will be noted, dwells most upon the strange fish. Charles I. and his queen, together with Archbishop Laud, and many others of rank and influence, visited the museum and assisted by contributing to its stores, and we find in Evelyn’s Diary, September 17th, 1657, that he, too, visited it. The brothers Tradescant were the first well-known collectors of natural curiosities in England, and portraits of them may be seen in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. The Tradescant collection was on December 15th transferred to Elias Ashmole. The botanical genus, Tradescantia, is so called in honour of John Tradescant.
[74] Madagascar.
[75] The Eastern love of the wonderful may be readily seen in the well-known “Arabian Nights,” in the Koran, and in Oriental literature generally. Mohammed tells us, in his sacred book, that he saw in Heaven infinite companies of angels, each a thousand times bigger than the globe of the earth: each had ten thousand heads; every head threescore and ten thousand tongues; and every one of those tongues praised God in seven hundred thousand languages. The throne of Allah was supported by seven angels, each so great that a falcon, if he were to fly a thousand years, could not get so far as the distance from one of their eyes to the other. Gabriel, the doorkeeper of Paradise, has seventy thousand keys which pertain to his office, every key being seven thousand miles long. This exaggerated balderdash is but childish stuff; it contains no element of grandeur or sublimity; and, in reading it, one only wonders, when astonishment and awe were to be excited by an artifice so commonplace, that, while he was about it, all the numbers were not doubled, quadrupled, multiplied ten or a hundred fold; so that we finally come to the conclusion that, with all the arithmetical possibilities open to him, he was but a poor bungler at his business after all.
[76] “She dwelleth and abideth on the rock, upon the crag of the rock, and the strong place. From thence she seeketh the prey and her eyes behold afar off.”—Job xxxix. 28, 29.
[77] “The nature of the Eagle is to bend her eyes full into the sunne beams. So strong is her sighte that she can even see into the great and glaring sunne.”—Ferne, The Blazon of Gentrie.
[79] Dryden.
[80] Hence Dante terms the Saviour of the World “Nostro pelicano;” and an enthusiastic admirer of Charles I., and an evident believer in the idea that he shed his blood for his people, wrote in the year 1649, a book on that king, entitling him “the Princely Pelican.”
[81] Byron.
[82] It is curious that until this species was discovered at the Antipodes a black swan was regarded both by ancient and mediæval writers as the very emblem and type of extravagant impossibility, so that those who found no difficulty in believing in centaurs, mermaids, and fifty other extravagances, felt that they really must draw the line at this.
[83] In “Camden” we read that the device of Anne, queen of Richard II., was “an ostrich with a nayle in his beake.”
[84] Thalaba.
[85] While actual incorporation was doubtless regarded as the most effectual, mere possession was not by any means to be despised. Thus Porta tells us that “if you would have a man become bold and impudent, let him carry about him the skin or eyes of a Lion or a Cock, and he will be fearlesse of his enemies—nay, he will be very terrible unto them.” Scores of equally valuable hints may be gathered from these old authors.
[86] In another book we consulted, “Notes for Cookerie, gathered from experienced Cookes,” published in 1593, it is equally emphatic that “a Cock to be stewed to renew the weake” must be a red one. There is naturally here a connection suggested between the colour of the bird and the ruddy hue of health that is to be hoped for after such a dietary.
[87] MS. No. 10,074 in the Royal Library, Brussels.
[88] In the Middle Ages animals were frequently haled before the judges for various offences. In 1266 a pig was burnt at Fontaney, near Paris, for having killed a child, and in 1386, at Falaise, a sow was condemned to death for a similar offence. Horses and cattle were solemnly tried before the magistrates for manslaughter, and either expiated their offence on the gallows or were burned.
[89] Aubrey tells us that in his younger days people had “some pious ejaculation when the cock did crow, which put them in mind of ye Trumpet at ye Resurrection.”
[91] Spenser.
[92] Macbeth.
[93] An old writer, one Fulgentius, declares that so far from this croak being monotonous “the Raven hath sixty-four sundry chaunges of her voice.” No other observer seems to have detected this.
[94] A fourteenth-century MS., the “Cursor Mundi,” says of the raven’s exit from the ark:—
[95] This notion of the sightlessness of the young swallow was a very popular one. The chelidonium, or swallow wort, according to Aristotle and Dioscorides was so called because the swallows use it to give sight to their young. Goldfinches, linnets, and other birds, in like manner were believed to use the eyebright; while the hawks strengthened their vision, we are told, by means of the plant that was hence called the hawkweed, and still retains that name.
[96] “He was but as a cuckoo is in June,” says Shakespeare in reference to Richard II., that is to say, he had lost the power to attract, his utterances no longer commanded attention.
[97] Thus Christopher Marlowe enshrines the old belief in the lines:—
While Shakespeare, in King Lear, refers to the time-servers who “turn their halcyon beaks with every gale and vary of their masters.”
[98] The idea is at least as old as Pliny, as he mentions it in his “Natural History” as a recognized fact too well-known to need any apology or explanation. Theocritus in his seventh idyll dwells on it, and it is found in the writings of Pliny and many other ancient authors.
[99] A quaint little octavo on this subject is that of Dr. Warder, “The true Amazons or the Monarchy of Bees,” being a new discovery and Improvement of those wonderful creatures. The book went through several editions. The one that came under our notice is the third; it is dated 1716.
[100] Ammianus Marcellinus has put it upon record that in imitation of the ingenuity of the crane in assuring vigilance, Alexander the Great was accustomed to rest with a silver ball in his hand, so that on the slightest movement it might fall and wake him. This is certainly heroic treatment, since even such an one as Alexander might fairly claim the necessity that other mortals feel of uninterrupted rest. It reminds one of the dictum of the great Duke of Wellington in defence of his camp-bedstead, accommodation so confined that one could scarcely turn round in it, that directly a man begins to think of turning round it is time to turn out.
[101] In “A Mirror for Mathematics, a Golden Gem for Geometricians, a sure Safety for Saylers, and an auncient Antiquary for Astronomers and Astrologians,” by Robert Tanner, Gent, Practitioner in Astrologie and Physic, a book published in the year 1587, we find an “Epistle dedicatourie” to Lord Howard of Effingham, commencing:—“The Cranes when they fly out of Cilicia, over the mountain Taurus, carrie in their mouths a pebble stone, lest by their chattering they should be ceased upon by the eagles, which birds, Right Honourable, might teach me silence,” &c., &c.
[102] “This creature is in thicknesse as big as a man’s wrist, and of length proportionable to that thicknesse.”—Speculum Mundi.
[103] The “Annals of Winchester,” for the year 1177, inform us that “in this yeare Dragons were sene of many in England.” In 1274 it is recorded that there was an earthquake on the Eve of St. Nicholas’ Day, and that there appeared “a fiery dragon which frightened the English.”
[104] In the “Magick of Kirani,” a Persian book that appeared in an English dress in 1685, we find the representation of a dragon employed as a charm. “If therefore any man engrave a woodpecker on the stone dentrites, and a sea-dragon under its feet, every gate will open unto him; savage beasts will also obey him and come to tameness; he shall also be loved and observed of all, and whatever he hath a mind to, he shall perform.”
[105] On its noble title-page we see on either side of the title of the book a powerful dragon, beneath one is inscribed Dominium, and below the other Vigilantia. At the base a third dragon supports two shields. On one is represented the serpent twining round a staff, the well-known symbol of Æsculapius, inscribed Salus, and on the other the equally familiar symbol of eternity, the serpent with its tail in its mouth, inscribed Immortalitatis.
[106] Thus Lyte tells us that in his day, 1578, it had “none other knowen name than this.”
[107] “Wherein is contained the most excellent Secretes of Phisicke and Philosophie deuided into fower Bookes. In the which are the best approued remedies for the diseases as well inwarde as outwarde, of all the partes of Man’s bodie: treating very amplie of all Dystillacions of Waters, of Oyles, Balmes, Quintessences, with the vse and preparation of Antimonie and Potable Gold.”
[108] The “holy” has, of course, no reference to the sacred character of the mess in question: it is merely the free and easy mediæval way of spelling the word wholly.
[109] Extracted from the “Arcana Fairfaxiana,” a facsimile reproduction of a manuscript book of recipes some three hundred years old, found in an old lumber room at the ancestral seat of the Fairfax family.
[110] Our readers will remember the use that Longfellow makes of this fancy in his “Evangeline:”—
In the diary of Elias Ashmole we find that on May 11th, 1651, he was suffering from ague. He writes: “I took early in the morning a good dose of elixir, and hung three spiders about my neck, ague away, Deo Gratias!” Sometimes a pill made up of spider web is taken, and in some parts of the south of England a favourite remedy for jaundice was the living spider itself rolled up with butter into a pill.
[111] Another of these ancient authorities affirmed that mud engendered frogs that lack feet. In other words, he made acquaintance with tadpoles!
[112] It will be noted on turning back to our quotation from Porta, that this “scarce one” is altogether too favourable to the belief in the jewelled cranium of the toad. Porta, it will be seen, says, “nor could I finde one,” an entirely different state of things.
[113] It will be seen from this that the state of things involved in the too familiar legend, “Made in Germany,” is of ancient date.
[114] Act iii., sc. 9.
[115] Book I., Canto V.
[116] A very good illustration of this treatment may be seen in the statement that “the dogs in Egypt use to lap their water running when they come to Nilus, for fear of the crocodiles there, which cannot but be a fit pattern for us in the use of pleasures; for true it is, we may not stand to take a heartie draught, for then delights be dangerous, howbeit we may refresh ourselves with them as we go on our way, and may take them, but may not be taken by them; for when they detain us, and cause us to stand still, then their sweet waters have fierce Crocodiles; or if not so, they have strange Tarantulas, whose sting causeth to die laughing.”
[117] We meet a like precision of statement in Cockeram’s Dictionary, a quaint old volume, wherein “all such as desire to know the plenty of the English” will find some very strange illustrations of it. He says, edition of 1623, that “the crocodile having eaten the body of a man, will, in fine, weep over the head.”
[118] Readers of Shakespeare will recall how Falstaff rails at Bardolph, calling him the “Knight of the Burning Lamp,” and other sarcasms inspired by the effects of strong liquor on his rubicund countenance. “Thou hast saved me a thousand marks in links and torches, walking with thee in the night. I have maintained that Salamander of yours with fire any time this two-and-thirty years.”
[119] Galen, in one of his prescriptions, includes the ashes of a salamander, an ingredient impossible to obtain if fire had no power to destroy the creature.
[120] A parallel idea is that if the body of a crab be laid in the sunshine while the sun is in Cancer it will generate scorpions.
[121] “Andromachus a voulu changer le nom de Mithridate en celuy de Theriaque, à cause des vipères, auxquelles il a attribué le nom, et lesquelles il a ajouté pour la base principale de cette composition.” (Chares, “l’histoire des Animaux etc. qui entrent dans la Theriaque,” Paris, 1868.) See also Heberden’s “Antitheriaca.”
[122] A viper drowned in a bowl of wine gave the draught great healing virtues for leprosy. This happy discovery, like many others of still greater value, was the result of accident. Some mowers found on going to their provisions that a viper had got into the wine, so they, very naturally, “contented themselves with water; but when they had finished their day’s work, and were to go out of the field, as it were out of pity they gave a leprous man the wine wherein the viper was drowned, supposing it better for him to die than to live on in that misery, but he, when he had drank it, was miraculously cured,” at least, so we read in the “Miracles of Art and Nature,” Galen being referred to as the original authority for the story. The first essential in many of these ancient remedies appeared to be that they should be most improbable and unreasonable, and, secondly, that they should be as repulsive as possible.
[123] Spenser.
[124] In “the Ceremonies to be observed at the Coronation of His most Excellent Majesty King George IV.,” the order of the procession is given, the first item of all being “the King’s Herbwoman with her six maids, strewing the way with Herbs.”
[125] In this mysterious isle also “there ben wylde gees that han two Hedes, and ther ben Lyouns all white and als grete as oxen, and many othere dyverse Bestes.”
[126] There is a notion in Cheshire that this complaint can be cured by holding a toad or frog for a few minutes within the child’s mouth, at the imminent risk, one would imagine, of choking the patient. In Norfolk, they had greater faith in giving the child milk to drink that a ferret had previously lapped at.
[127] “The knops or heads are holow within, and for the most part hauing wormes in them, the which you shall find in cleaning the heads. The small wormes that are founde within the knops of teasels do cure and heale the quartaine ague, to be worne or tied about the necke or arme.”—Lyte’s translation of Dodœns, A.D. 1586.
[128] Judges, chap. xiv.
[129] Dryden’s Translation.
[130] This old writer, not being aware of the various stages of egg, larva, pupa, and imago through which butterflies and moths pass, is much perplexed over the silkworm, “whether I may name it a worme or a flie,” he says, “I cannot tell. For sometimes it is a worm, sometimes a flie, and sometimes neither worm nor flie, but a little seed which the dying flies leave behinde them.”
[131] Apart from these various monsters, and the hundreds of others that bear them company, Aldrovandus seems to have been always accessible to anyone who would bring him one wonder the more; hence he also figures a bunch of grapes terminating in a long beard; representations of cloud-warriors in conflict in the sky; comets like blazing swords, and many other wonderful things that set our ancestors wondering in fear and amazement as to what such portents should signify.
[132] “To be shewn at the Royal Infirmary of this city, price sixpence, the largest and most beautiful lion that was ever seen in this country. Also an Egyptian mummy, lately sent as a present to the Infirmary by Alexander Drummond, Esq., Consul of the Turkey Company at Aleppo. Likewise a very large horn of a sea unicorn, which all connoisseurs acknowledge to be a remarkable curiosity.
“N.B.—As the money collected on this occasion is to be applied solely for the relief of the Indigent Sick in the said Hospital, therefore if persons of Substance and Distinction shall give more, it will be thankfully accepted on behalf of the distressed Patients.”—Edinburgh Chronicle, 1758.
[133] In the travels of Boullaye le Gouz, published in 1657, we find a reference to this notion. He says, “I had among my baggage the hand of a Syren, or fisherwoman, which I threw, on the sly, into the sea, because the captain, seeing that we could not make way, asked me if I had not got some mummy or other in my bags which hindered our progress, in which case we must return to Egypt to carry it back again. Most of the Provençals have the opinion that the vessels which transport the mummies from Egypt have great difficulty in arriving safe at port: so that I feared, lest coming to search my goods, they might take the hand of this fish for a mummy’s hand, and insult me on account of it.”
[134] “That dolphins are crooked is not only affirmed by the hand of the painter, but commonly conceived their naturall or proper figure, which is not only the opinion of our times, but seems the belief of older times before us: for besides the expressions of Ovid and Pliny, their Portraicts in ancient Coynes are framed in this figure, as will appear in some thereof in Gesner, others in Goltzius, and Lævinus Hulsius in his description of Coynes. Notwithstanding, to speak strictly, in their naturall Figure they are streight, nor have they their spine convexed or more considerably embowed than Sharkes, Porposes, or Whales, and therefore what is delivered of their incurvity must either be taken Emphatically, that is, not really, but in appearance; which happeneth when they leap above water or suddenly shoot down again: which is a fallacy of vision, whereby streight bodies in a sudden motion protruded obliquely downward appear to the eye crooked, and this is the construction of Bellonius: or, if it be taken really, it must not be universally and perpetually, that is, not when they swimme and remaine in their proper figures, but only when they leape or impetuously whirle their bodies anyway: and this is the opinion of Gesnerus. Or, lastly, it must be taken neither really nor emphatically, but only emblematically; for being the Hieroglyphic of Celerity, and swifter than other animalls, men best expressed their velocity by incurvity, and under some figure of a bowe, and in this sense probably do Heralds also receive it.”—Browne.
[135] In Sussex no better remedy could be found for tooth-ache than the application of a paw cut from a living mole.