CHAPTER I.

Introduction--"A Description of 300 Animals"--Unicorn--The Bible Unicorn--The Heraldic Unicorn--The Horn as a Poison Test--The Unicorn of Mediæval Legend--Wolf Causing Dumbness--The Rompo or Man-eater--The Manticora--The Lamia--Stag Antipathies--Dragons--Dragon-slaying-- Legends of the Saints--The "Legenda Aurea"--St. George--Mediæval Recipes--The "Historia Monstrorum" of Aldrovandus--The Dragon in Heraldry--The Dragon of Wantley--Dragons' Teeth--The Dragonnades--The Dragons of Shakespeare--Guardians of Treasure--The Feud between the Dragon and the Elephant--The "Bestiare Divin" of Guillaume--The Cockatrice--The Basilisk--The Phoenix--Its Literary Existence from Herodotus to Shakespeare--The Dun-Cow of Warwick--Sir Guy, and Percie's "Reliques of Antient Poetry"--Old Ribs and other Bones in Churches--The Salamander--Breydenbach's Travels--The "Bestiary" of De Thaun--The Ylio--The Griffin--The Arimaspians--Burton's "Miracles of Art and Nature"--The Lomie--The Tartarian Vegetable Lamb--The Sea-Elephant--Pegasus--The Vampyre--The Chameleon.

All science is a gradual growth. Travellers as they toil up a long ascent turn round from time to time, and mark with satisfaction the ever-lengthening way that stretches between them and their distant starting-place, and derive a further encouragement from the sight to press onward to the yet unknown. So may we in this our day compare ourselves, in no offensive and vainglorious way, with the men of the past, and gain renewed courage in the future as we leave their ancient landmarks far behind us. Shame, indeed, would it be to us had we not thus advanced, for our opportunities of gaining knowledge are immeasurably greater than those of any preceding generation.

The old herbals and books of travels abound in curious examples of the quaint beliefs of our forefathers, while their treatises on natural history are a still richer storehouse. Many of the old tomes, again, on the science of heraldry give other curious notions respecting the different animals introduced. Some of these animals, as the dragon or the griffin, are undoubtedly of the most mythical nature, yet we find them described in the most perfect good faith, and without the slightest suspicion as to their real existence. We shall have occasion to refer to several of the works of these old writers, and we will, without further preface, take down from our book-shelf a little book entitled "A Description of 300 Animals."[1]

[1] The name of Thomas Bewick is to all book-collectors "familiar in their mouths as household words," and we rarely read the account of the dispersal of any large library or the choice collection of some bibliophile without finding that it contained a choice edition of Bewick's "quadrupeds" or "birds"--a "lot" that always calls for a keen competition. It is interesting to know that the book we have named above considerably influenced him, and in no slight degree led to the production of the works that will always remain his monument, for we find him writing to a friend of his--"From my first reading, when a boy at school, a sixpenny history of birds and beasts, and then a wretched composition called the 'History of Three Hundred Animals,' to the time I became acquainted with works of natural history written for the perusal of men, I was never without the design of attempting something of this kind myself."

No one person appears on the title-page as author, but it is stated that it is extracted from the best authorities and adapted to the use of all capacities. It is also illustrated with copper-plates "whereon is curiously engraven every beast, bird, fish, serpent, and insect, described in the whole book." The word "curiously" is very happily chosen, and most happily describes the extraordinary nature of the illustrations. The preface shows us that the primary intention of the book was the instruction and entertainment of the young, and after wading painfully through the cumbrous Roman figures, the long array of C's, X's, and the like, we find that the date of the treatise was 1786, or just a hundred years ago. Let us, then, dip here and there into it and see what "the best authorities" could teach our grandfathers when their youthful minds would know something of the wonders of creation. The lion, as the king of beasts, heads the list. "He is generally of a dun colour, but not without some exceptions, as black, white, and red, in Ethiopia and some other parts of Africa." The red lion, then, it would appear, is no mere creation of the licensed victualler or Garter King-at-Arms, no mere fancy to deck a signboard withal or emblazon on a shield of honour, but a living verity; and we may pause to remark that almost all the most wonderful things in the book have their home in Africa, not as now the playground of the Royal Geographical Society, but an unknown land full of wonder and mystery, of which nothing is too marvellous to be impossible. We are told, too, that the lion sleeps with his eyes open, and many other curious details follow. On the next page the unicorn is in all sober seriousness described. "His head resembles a hart's, his feet an elephant's, his tail a boar's, and the rest of his body a horse's. The horn is about a foot and a half in length, his voice is like the lowing of an ox, his horn is as hard as iron and as rough as any file." Burton in his "Miracles of Art and Nature," published in 1678, says that in Ethiopia "some Kine there are which have Horns like Stags; other but one Horn only, and that in the Forehead, about a foot and a half long, but bending backward." It will be seen that Burton does not identify these with the so-called unicorn, but the passage is in some degree suggestive. Any one who has noticed the fine series of antelopes in the collection of the Zoological Society of London will scarcely have failed to observe the length and straightness of the horns of some of the species, while they are often so close together and so nearly parallel in direction, that any one seeing the animals at a little distance away, and so standing that one of their horns covers the other, might well be excused for starting the idea of single-horned animals. Great virtues are attributed to the horn of the unicorn, as the expelling of poison and the curing of many diseases. The unicorn is very familiar to us as one of the supporters of the royal arms, but the form we know so well does not altogether agree with that described. The heraldic unicorn is in all respects a horse save and except the horn, while our old author tells us of the head of a stag and the feet of an elephant. The creature is sometimes referred to in our English version of the Bible, and has thus become one of the animals introduced in symbolic and religious art. In some of the passages it would clearly seem to indicate that in the very early days dealt with in some of the books of the Bible there was a general belief in some such creature, while in others probably the word is rather introduced in error by our translators--an error that may very well be pardoned when we find the animal gravely described in the much more recent book before us. In the book of Job, the earliest in point of time in the whole Bible, the belief in some such animal seems very distinctly indicated in the words, "Will the unicorn be willing to serve thee or abide by thy crib? Canst thou bind the unicorn with his band in the furrow, or will he harrow the valleys after thee?" In the 92d Psalm the peculiar feature that gives the creature its name is especially referred to in the words, "My horn shalt thou exalt like the horn of a unicorn." The reference is always to some wild and powerful animal; thus in Exodus we read, "His horns are like the horns of unicorns;" and again in one of the psalms we find David crying, "Save me from the lion's mouth, for Thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns." Other passages might be quoted, but these will amply suffice to indicate the very early belief in some such creature. The form is frequently seen in the earliest Christian art, as in the catacombs of Rome, the havens of refuge for the living and the resting-places of the dead followers of the new faith. Our illustration is a facsimile of that in the "Description of 300 Animals."

For some reason that we cannot now discover, the unicorn was an especial favourite with the Scotch heralds, and it is from them that we derive it in our royal arms. Before the union of the two monarchies the supporters of the arms of the English monarchs had been very various, though in almost every case a lion had been one of the two employed,[2] while in Scotland for several reigns before the amalgamation of the two countries the supporters had been two unicorns. It was very naturally arranged, therefore, when the two kingdoms were fused together on the death of Elizabeth, that the joint shield should be supported by the lion of England and the unicorn of Scotland. The creature freely occurs as a device on the Scottish coinage; one piece especially is by collectors called the unicorn, from the conspicuous introduction of the national device.

[2] As for example:--Henry VI., Lion and Antelope; Edward IV., Lion and Bull; Edward V., Two Lions; Richard III., Lion and Boar; Henry VII., Lion and Dragon; Henry VIII., Lion and Dragon; Mary, Lion and Greyhound; Elizabeth, Lion and Greyhound.

We have already indicated that potent virtues were believed to reside in the horn of the unicorn. In the Comptes Royaux of France in 1391 we find a golden cup with a slice of this horn in it for testing the food of the Dauphin, and again in the inventory of Charles V.--"Une touche de licorne, garnie d'or, pour faire essay." Decker, again, in 1609 speaks of "the unicorn, whose horn is worth a city." In Mrs. Bury Palliser's most interesting work of "Historic Badges and Devices" we find an illustration of the standard of Bartolomeo d'Alviano. He was a great champion of the Orsini family, and took a leading part in all the feuds that devastated Central Europe during his lifetime. His standard bears the unicorn, surrounded by snakes, toads, and other reptiles then rightly or wrongly held poisonous; these he is moving aside with his horn, and above is the motto, "I expel poisons"--he, d'Alviano, of course, being the lordly and potent unicorn, his foes the creeping things to be driven from his face.[3]

[3] The English Cyclopædia of Natural History gives a description by Ctesias of the Indian ass. He says that these animals are as large as horses, and larger, having a horn on the forehead, one cubit long, which for the extent of two palms from the forehead is entirely white; above, it is pointed and red, being black in the middle. Of this horn drinking-cups are formed, and those who use them are said not to be subject to spasm or epilepsy, nor to the effects of poison, provided, either before or after taking the poison, they drink out of the cup wine, water, or any other liquid.

One of the Arabian annalists, El Kazwini, has much to say about the magical and curative properties of these cups; and a yet fuller notice of them appears in Lane's "Arabian Nights," chap. xx. note 32. It is also stated that most of the Eastern potentates possessed one of these cups. In Hyder Ali's treasury at Tanjore was found a specimen.

In "Uganda and the Egyptian Soudan," by the Rev. C. T. Wilson and R. W. Felkin, vol. ii. p. 275, we read:--

"Cups made of rhinoceros horn are supposed to have the peculiar virtue of detecting poison in coffee and sherbet. Often, when drinking for the first time in a strange house, one of these cups is offered to assure the visitor that no foul play is contemplated. These are considered most valuable presents and a mark of lasting friendship and esteem."

In the "Display of Heraldry" published by John Guillim in the year 1679 we read--"It hath been much questioned amongst naturalists, which it is that is properly called the Unicorn; and some have made doubt whether there be any such Beast as this or no. But the great esteem of his horn (in many places to be seen) may take away that needless scruple." Having thus satisfactorily established the existence of such a creature he naturally feels at full liberty to group around the central fact divers details, as, for instance, that "the wild Beasts of the wilderness use not to drink of the Pools, for fear of venomous Serpents there breeding, before the Unicorn hath stirred it with its horn."

It seems to have been a debateable point whether the unicorn had ever been taken alive, but Guillim decisively negatives the idea, and naturally avails himself of it for the greater glorification of the creature and of its service in his beloved science of heraldry. He lays down the broad fact that the unicorn is never taken alive, and here surely we can thoroughly go with him; but "the reason being demanded, it is answered that the greatness of his mind is such that he chuseth rather to die, wherein the unicorn and the valiant-minded soldier are alike, which both contemn death, and rather than they will be compelled to undergo any base servitude and bondage they will lose their lives."

Philip de Thaun, on the other hand, not only admits the idea that the unicorn may be captured alive, but gives the full receipt for doing so. It would appear that, like Una's lion, the animal is of a particularly impressionable nature, and is always prepared to do homage to maiden beauty and innocence, and this amiable trait in its character is basely taken advantage of. "When a man intends to hunt and take and ensnare it he goes to the forest where is its repair, and there places a virgin. Then it comes to the virgin, falls asleep on her lap, and so comes to its death. The man arrives immediately and kills it in its sleep, or takes it alive and does as he will with it." The young ladies of that very indefinite date must have possessed considerably more courage and nerve than some of their sisters of the present day, who show symptoms of hysteria if they find themselves in the same room with a spider--a considerably less severe test than an interview in the dark shades of the forest with an amorous unicorn. One cannot, however, help feeling that the victim of misplaced confidence comes out of the transaction most creditably, and that both man and maiden must have felt what schoolboys call "sneaks."

The unicorn, alive or dead, seems to have eluded observation in a wonderful way, and the men of science were left to extract their facts from the slightest hints, in the same way that distinguished anatomists and geologists of these later days are enabled to build up an entire animal from one or two isolated bones. The process, however, does not seem, in the case of the earlier men, to have been a very successful one, and there is consequently a great clashing amongst the authorities, and one of the mediæval writers, feeling the difficulty of drawing any very definite result from the chaos before him, adopts the plan, in which we humbly follow him, of simply putting it all down just as it comes to hand, and leaving his readers to make the best they can of it. He writes as follows:--

"Pliny affirmeth it is a fierce and terrible creature, Vartomannus a tame animal: those which Garcias ab Horto described about the Cape of Good Hope were beheld with heads like horses, those which Vartomannus beheld he described with the head of a Deere: Pliny, Ælian, Solinus, and Paulus Venetus affirm the feet of the Unicorn are undivided and like the Elephant's, but those two which Vartomannus beheld at Mecha were, as he described, footed like a Goate. As Ælian describeth it, it is in the bignesse of an Horse, that which Thevet speaketh of was not so big as an Heifer, but Paulus Venetus affirmeth that they are but little lesse than Elephants."

On turning to the records of a distinguished French Society established in 1633 we come across many strange items. These records are entitled "A general collection of the Discourses of the Virtuosi of France, upon questions of all sorts of philosophy and other natural knowledge, made in the Assembly of the Beaux Esprits at Paris by the most ingenious persons of that nation." Their meetings were termed conferences, and there are notes of two hundred and forty of these. The subjects discussed covered a very wide field, the following being some few amongst them--Of the end of all things, of perpetual motion, of the echo, of how long a man may continue without eating, whether is to be preferred a great stature or a small, of the loadstone, of the origin of mountains, and who are the most happy in this world, wise men or fools. Some of these subjects are now definitely settled, while others are as open to discussion as ever, as, for example, the questions whether it be expedient for women to be learned, and whether it be better to bury or to burn the bodies of the dead. In this great accumulation of the notions of the seventeenth century we find, amongst other items that more especially concern our present purpose, discussions on genii, on the phoenix, and on the unicorn.

In the early days of a similar institution, our own Royal Society--a body which is now so staid, and which focuses all the most important scientific results of the day to itself--many points were discussed in perfect good faith that are now consigned to oblivion--the trees that grow diamonds, the rivers that run precious gems, and the seeds that fell from heaven being amongst these; while at another meeting we find the Duke of Buckingham presenting the Society with a piece of the horn of the unicorn.

The old writers had no very definite system, and though the author of the "Book of the 300 Animals" may seem to have exercised a certain fitness in discussing the unicorn directly after the lion, the conjunction is probably wholly accidental, as the creatures dwelt on succeed each other in all such books in the most arbitrary way. The next animal to which we would refer is the wolf. He is not absolutely the next in the series, but we manifestly cannot deal with the whole three hundred, so we pick out here and there divers quaint examples of what we may be allowed to term this unnatural history. We are told that "the wolf is a very ravenous creature, and as dangerous to meet with, when hungry, as any beast whatever, but when his stomach is full, he is to men and beasts as meek as a lamb. When he falls upon a hog or a goat, or such small beasts, he does not immediately kill them, but leads them by the ear, with all the speed he can, to a crew of ravenous wolves, who instantly tear them to pieces." We should have thought that the reverse had been more probable, that the wolves that had nothing would have come with all the speed they could upon their more successful companion; but if the old writer's story be true, it opens out a fine trait of unselfishness in the character of this maligned communard. It was an old belief, a fancy that we find in the pages of Pliny, Theocritus, Virgil, and others, that a man becomes dumb if he meets a wolf and the wolf sees him first. A mediæval writer explains this as follows:--"The ground or occasionall originall hereof was probably the amazement and sudden silence the unexpected appearance of Wolves doe often put upon travellers, not by a supposed vapour or venemous emanation, but a vehement fear which naturally produceth obmutescence and sometimes irrecoverable silence. Thus birds are silent in presence of an Hawk, and Pliny saith that Dogges are mute in the shadow of an Hyæna, but thus could not the mouths of worthy Martyrs be stopped, who being exposed not only unto the eyes but the mercilesse teeth of Wolves, gave loud expressions of their faith, and their holy clamours were heard as high as heaven." Scott refers to the old belief in his "Quentin Durward." In the eighteenth chapter our readers will find as follows:--"'Our young companion has seen a wolf,' said Lady Hameline, 'and has lost his tongue in consequence.'" The thirteenth animal is the "Rompo" or Man-eater; he is "so called because he feeds upon dead men, to come at which he greedily grubs up the earth off their graves, as if he had notice of somebody there hid. He keeps in the woods; his body is long and slender, being about three feet in length, with a long tail. The negroes say that he does not immediately fall on as soon as he has found the body, but goes round and round it several times as if afraid to seize it. Its head and mouth are like a hare's, his ears like a man's, his fore feet like a badger's, and his hinder feet like a bear's. It has likewise a mane. This creature is bred in India and Africa." Concerning the buffalo we read, "It is reported of this creature that when he is hunted or put into a fright he'll change his colour to the colour of everything he sees; as amongst trees he is green, &c." The Manticora is one of the strange imaginings of our forefathers. In the illustration in the book (of which our figure is a reproduction) it has a human head and face and a body like that of a lion; a thick mane covers the neck; its tail is much longer in proportion than that of a lion, and has at its extremity a most formidable collection of spiky-looking objects; these in the description are said to be stinging and sharply-pointed quills. He is as big as a lion. "His voice is like a small trumpet. He is so wild that it is very difficult to catch him, and as swift as an hart. With his tail he wounds the hunters, whether they come before him or behind him. When the Indians take a whelp of this beast they bruise its tail to prevent it bearing the sharp quills; then it is tamed without danger."

The Lamia, too, is an extraordinary creature, and one that our not remote forefathers seem to have thoroughly believed in, for though the author says that there are many fictitious stories respecting it, he goes on to describe it, and gives an illustration. It is thought to be the swiftest of all four-footed creatures, so that its prey can seldom or never escape it. It is said to be bred in Libya, and to have a face like a beautiful woman, while its voice is the hiss of a serpent. The body is covered with scales. The old author tells us that they sometimes devour their own young, and we may fairly hope that this cannibal propensity of theirs is the cause of their disappearance. In earlier times men believed in a monstrous spectre called an Empusa. It could assume various forms, and it was believed to feed on human flesh. The Lamiæ, who took the forms of handsome and graceful women for the purpose of beguiling poor humanity, and then sucked their blood like vampyres and devoured their flesh, were one form of Empusa. The belief in some such creature seems to have been widespread; the myth of the Sirens is, for example, very similar in conception. In Mansfield Parkyns' "Life in Abyssinia" we read--"There is an animal which I know not where to class, as no European has hitherto succeeded in obtaining a specimen of it. It is supposed by the natives to be far more active, powerful, and dangerous than the lion, and consequently held by them in the greatest possible dread. They look upon it more in the light of an evil spirit, with an animal's form, than a wild beast; they assert that its face is human." We learn, however, from the rest of the description, that this creature possesses itself of its prey by force alone; the human face is one further feature of terror, but does not, as in the previous case, serve to beguile mankind and lure them by its beauty to their fate.

The stag is said to be "a great enemy to all kinds of serpents, which he labours to destroy whenever he finds any, but he is afraid of almost all other creatures." Many of these old beliefs were simply handed down from generation to generation without question, or the opinions of the ancients accepted without experiment or inquiry. This belief of the natural enmity of the stag to the serpent is at least as old as Pliny, and may be found duly set forth in the thirty-third chapter of his eighth book:--"This kind of deere make fight with serpents, and are their natural and mortal enemies; they will follow them to their verie holes, and then by the strength of drawing and snuffing up their wind of their nostrils, force them out whether they will or no. The serpent sometimes climbs upon its back and bites it cruelly, when the stag rushes to some river or fountain and throws itself into the water to rid itself of its enemy." This old belief made the stag a favourite in the mediæval days of exaggerated symbolism, its ruthless antipathy to the serpent rendering it not inaptly an emblem of the Christian fighting to the death against sin, and finding an antidote to its wounds in the fountain of living water. It was also believed that stags "passe the seas swimming by flockes and whole heards in a long row, each one resting his head upon his fellow next before him; and this they do in course, so as the foremost retireth behind to the hindmost by turnes, one after another." In this supposed fact the seekers after symbol and hidden meaning found no difficulty in recognising that comfort and support in all their trials that all good men should at all times be ready to afford their fellows.

The tusks of the wild boar, we are told, cut like sharp knives when the animal is alive, but lose their keenness at his death. It is said when this creature is hunted down his tusks are so inflamed that they will burn and singe the hair of the dogs. The wild ox has a tongue so hard and rough that it can draw a man to him, "whom by licking he can wound to death." The elephant, we are told on the same authority, has two tusks. "One of them it keeps always sharp to revenge injuries, and with the other it roots up trees and plants for its meat. These they lose once in ten years, which, falling off, they very carefully bury in the earth on purpose that men may not find them." The liver of a mouse our forefathers believed to increase and decrease with the waxing and waning of the moon. "For every day of the moon's age there is a fibre increase in their liver." This rash and random assertion it would be manifestly impossible either to prove or disprove, though one may have one's own strong opinion on the matter. It would be necessary to kill the mouse to count the aforesaid fibres, and having killed it, the morrow's extra age of the moon would bring no added fibres to the victim of our credulity. Presently we come to the Potto, a creature that is probably the same as we now call the sloth. The illustration shows us a most hopelessly helpless-looking animal, and in the description that accompanies it we are told that a whole day is little enough for it to advance ten steps forward. We are also informed that when he does climb a tree he does not leave it until he has eaten up not only the fruit but all the foliage, when "he descends fat and in good case, but before he can get up another tree he loses all the advantages of his previous good quarters and often perishes of hunger." Eighty-seven quadrupeds are dealt with, so it will be readily seen how little we have drawn upon the wealth of information the book affords.