Book IV. of the treatise is devoted to the consideration of serpents
and insects. Amongst serpents and insects the dragon naturally takes the place of honour. The writer evidently has his doubts, and carefully qualifies his description by a free use of the responsibility evading formula "it is said." He gives three illustrations. One of them represents a biped monster, crested and winged; the second has lost his legs, though he retains crest and wings; while the third creature is of serpentine nature, has neither wings nor legs, and only differs from the serpent forms in the book by the addition of his crest. The description runs as follows:--"The dragon, as described in the numerous fables and stories of several writers, may be justly questioned whether he really exists. I have read of serpents bred in Arabia, called Sirenas, which have wings, being very swift, running and flying at pleasure; and when they wound a man he dieth instantly. These are supposed to be a kind of dragons. It is said there are divers sorts of dragons or serpents that are so called, which are distinguished partly by their countries, partly by their magnitude, and partly by the different form of their external parts. They are said to be bred in India and Africa; those of India are much the largest, being of an incredible length; and of these there are also said to be two kinds, one of them living in the marshes, which are slow of pace and without combs on their heads; the other in the mountains, which are bigger and have combs, their backs being somewhat brown and their bodies less scaled. Some of them are of a yellow fiery colour, having sharp backs like saws. These also have beards. When they set up their scales they shine like silver. The apples of their eyes are (it is said) precious stones, and as bright as fire, in which it is affirmed there is a great virtue against many diseases. Their aspect is very fierce and terrible. Some dragons are said to have wings and no feet; some, again, have both feet and wings; and others neither feet nor wings, and are only distinguished from the common sort of serpents by the combs growing upon their heads and by their beards. Some do affirm that the dragon is of a black colour, somewhat green beneath and very beautiful, that it has a triple row of teeth in each jaw, that it has also two dewlaps growing under the chin, which hang down like a beard of a red colour; and the body is set all over with sharp scales, and on the neck with thick hair, much like the bristles of a wild boar." It will be seen by the foregoing that the imagination of our ancestors was allowed free play, abundant variety of form, magnitude, colour, and so forth being possible.
The dragon or winged serpent has formed a part in many creeds, and the dragon-slayer has been the hero of countless legends. The legend varies with climate and country, and with the development of the race in which it is found; and yet the prophecies of the Bible of the ultimate bruising of the serpent's head and the final victory over the dragon ("That old serpent, which is the Devil and Satan" Rev. xx. 2); the legends of classic days, such as that of Perseus and Andromeda; the still older struggles recorded in the slabs of Nineveh and Persepolis; the stories narrated to awed rings of listeners in the stillness of the Eastern night, or listened to by our children with eager eyes and rapt attention in the homes of England; the mass of legend that in mediæval times clustered around the names of God's faithful ones; and the local traditions of every land, from the equator to the poles, all dwell on the mischievous presence of some evil principle and record the ultimate triumph of good. Beneath the mass of ever-varying fable stands the like foundation, the strife between the two antagonistic principles; and thus the wide world over, in every age and in every clime, the mind of man, in broken accents, it may be, and with faltering tongue, records with joy its upward struggle, feels the need of help in the sore conflict, registers its belief in final triumph. Though the dragon-conflict occurs in many literatures, the same incidents occur over and over again, and we find in almost all the power and subtlety of the monster, the innocence and helplessness of his victims, the suddenness of his attack on them, and the completeness of his final overthrow, the dragon-slayers being the conquerors over tyranny and wrong, over paganism and every form of godless evil.
In Egypt he was Typhon, in Greece, Python. In India he is Kalli Naga, the thousand-headed, the foe and the vanquished of Vishnu. In Anglo-Saxon chronicles he is Lig-draca, the fire-drake or godes-andsacan, the denier of God--always unsleeping, poison-fanged, relentless, the terrible enemy of man, full of subtlety and full of power.
On the advent of Christianity these ancient legends were not wholly discarded, but suggested others of a like character, and a slight alteration transferred to saint or martyr those feats and victories which had formerly been ascribed to gods and demigods. It only remained for the new religion to point out the analogy, and to incorporate into itself the lessons they taught, the conflict won, the abnegation of self for the good of others.
It would take up far too much space if we were to endeavour to give many of these legends in detail. In some cases they were doubtless intended as descriptions of an actual conflict, by force of arms, with some real monster; but in others the conflict is allegorical; thus St. Loup, St. Martin of Tours, St. Hilary, and St. Donatus are all notable dragon-slayers, though the conflict was a mythical one, and their claim to regard on this score is based really on their gallant fight with either the heathenism of those amongst whom they laboured or the heresy of false brethren. The popular saint, too, receives often more than his due at the hands of his admirers, and legends gather thickly round his name, and his so-called biography is often romance and hero-worship from beginning to end. St. Romanus at Rouen, St. Veran at Arles, and St. Victor of Marseilles are all accredited with feats of dragon-slaying; but leaving them, St. Martial, St. Marcel, and many others to other chroniclers, we content ourselves with referring to two illustrious saints alone--the first because she is a lady, and may therefore well claim our courtesy, the second because he is our own patron saint.
It may not be generally known that the sister of Lazarus, the St. Martha of our legend, together with Mary Magdalene and two companions, Maxime and Marcellus, wandered so far away from Palestine as the shores of France. How much farther they may have intended to go the history does not tell us, but the untoward accident that stranded them on the shores of Languedoc was a most fortunate circumstance for the people of the district. The inhabitants of that region had been for some time tormented by a monster who fed on human flesh and had a most draconic appetite, and they at once appealed to these strangers to help them. This alone would seem to indicate the extremity in which they found themselves, or they would scarcely have applied to four shipwrecked strangers, half of them women, for aid in the hour of their necessity. St. Martha, however, in pitying consideration for their sad plight, at once agreed to help them. She had hardly entered the wood where the monster dwelt before the most frightful bellowings were heard, at which all the people sorely trembled and naturally concluded that this unarmed woman had fallen a victim to her temerity; but this alarming bellowing shortly ceased, and soon after St. Martha reappeared, holding in one hand a little wooden cross, and in the other a ribbon, with which she led forth her interesting captive. She then advanced into the middle of the town and presented the people with the dragon, as embarrassing a present as the proverbial white elephant; but they seem to have risen to the occasion, for we find afterwards an annual festival held in honour of the Saint, while good King Réné of Anjou instituted an Order of the Dragon for the more effectual keeping alive of the memory of the event. As St. Martha is more especially set down in the "Lives of the Saints" as the patron saint of good housewives, she might well have been excused had she declined a service in itself so dangerous and so far removed from the daily round, the trivial task; but the overthrowing of the mighty by an instrument so weak gives additional point to the story, and vindicates triumphantly the power of faith over evil.
The "Legenda Aurea," written by Jacobus de Voraigne, Archbishop of Genoa, in the year 1260, is what Warton termed "an inexhaustible repository of religious fable." For some centuries it was considered to have an almost sacred character, and its popularity was so great that it passed through an immense number of editions in the Latin, Dutch, German, and French languages. It should have the more interest to us, too, from the fact that it was one of the earliest of English printed books, Caxton publishing the first English edition in 1493. This was followed by other editions by Wynkyn de Worde in the years 1498, 1512, and 1527. The following account of our patron saint is taken from this source, a much less favourable history being found in Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire."[4]
[4] Appendix A.
Once upon a time the neighbourhood of the city of Sylene was infested with an enormous dragon, who, making a "ponde, lyke a sea," which skirted the walls, his usual residence, was accustomed to envenom the miserable citizens with his pestiferous breath, and therefore they gave him every day two sheep for his dinner, and when these were spent they chose by lot a male and female, daily, whom they exposed to the monster. At length, after many of the rich had been compelled to sacrifice their offspring, the lot fell upon the king's daughter, a lovely maiden, and the idol of a fond father, who, in the bitterness of his grief, entreated his subjects for the love of the gods to take his gold and silver, and all that he had, and spare his child; but they replied that he had himself made the law, and that they had suffered in obeying it, and concluded by telling him that unless he complied with his own mandate, they would take off his head. This answer only increased the king's affliction; but being anxious to defer, if he could not avert, his daughter's death, he craved that a respite of eight days might be given her; and his people, moved, apparently, by the groans and tears of the sorrowful old man, granted his request. When the stipulated time had elapsed, they came and said to him, "Ye see how the city perisheth!" So the monarch bade his child array herself in her richest apparel, and led her forth to "the place where the dragon was, and left her there."
It chanced that St. George, who, like a true knight-errant, was travelling in quest of dangerous adventures, arrived at the spot not long after the king's departure, and was much astonished when he beheld so fair a lady lingering there alone and weeping bitterly, and riding up he asked the cause of her sorrow. But she, unwilling to detain him in a place so perilous, entreated him to leave her to her fate. "Go on your way, young man," she said, "lest ye perish also." But St. George would know the truth, so the maiden told him. Then was the knight's heart merry within him, and he rejoined, "Fayre doughter, doubte ye no thynge hereof, for I shall helpe thee in the name of Jesu Christe." She said, "For Goddes sake, good knyght, goo your waye, and abyde not wyth me, for ye may not deliver me." St. George, however, was of a different opinion, and indeed, had he resolved, upon second thoughts, to escape, he could not have done so, for the dragon, smelling human flesh from afar, emerged from the lake while the lady was speaking, and now came running towards his victim. Not a moment was to be lost, so St. George crossed himself, drew his sword, and placing his lance in the rest, rushed to meet the monster, who, little expecting such a rough greeting, received the weapon "in his bosom," and rolled over in the dust. Then said the victor to the rescued virgin, "Take thy girdle, and bind it round the dragon's neck;" and when the lady had obeyed her champion, the monster followed her as if it had been "a meek beeste and debonayre." And so she led him into the city; and when the people saw her coming they fled with affright, expecting to perish all of them; but St. George shouted, "Doubt nothing, believe in God Jesus Christ, consent to be baptized, and I will slay the dragon before your eyes." The citizens immediately consented, so the Saint attacked the monster, and smote off his head, and commanded that he should be thrown into the green fields, and they took four carts with oxen, and drew him out of the city. Then were fifteen thousand men baptized (without reckoning the women and children), and the king erected a church, and dedicated it to Our Lady and St. George, in which floweth "a founteyne of lyuying water which heleth seeke people that drynke therof." After this the prince offered the champion incalculable riches, but he refused them all, and enjoining the king to take care of the church, to honour the priests, and pity the poor, he kissed him and departed.
Some time after this marvellous event the Emperor Diocletian so cruelly persecuted the Christians, that "twenty-two thousand were martyred in the course of one month," and many others forsook God and sacrificed to idols. When St. George heard this he laid aside his arms, and sold his possessions, and took the habit of a "crysten-man," and went into the midst of the "paynims," and began to denounce their gods as devils. "My God," cried he, "made heaven and earth, He only is the true God." Then said they to him, "How dare ye defame our deities? Who art thou?--what is thy name?"--"My name is George; I am a gentleman and knight of Cappadocia, and I have left all to serve my Lord," replied the Saint. Seeing that the stranger was no common man, the ruler of that district endeavoured to gain him over with fair words, but finding the knight inflexible, he tied him aloft on a gibbet, and caused him to be cruelly beaten; and then, having rubbed salt into his wounds, he bound him with heavy chains and thrust him into a dark dungeon. But our Lord appeared to him that same night and comforted him, "moche swetely," so that the warrior took good heart and feared no torment which he might have to suffer. The chief magistrate, whose name was Dacien, finding he could not shake his prisoner's faith by the infliction of torture, consulted with an enchanter, who agreed to lose his head should his "crafts" fail; and taking strong poison, the wizard mingled it with wine and invoked his gods and gave it to the Saint, who, making the sign of the cross, thanked him kindly, and drank it off without injury. Astonished at the failure of his plan, the magician made a draught still more venomous, and finding that this also had no ill effect on the charmed warrior, he himself acknowledged the might of Christ, embraced St. George's knees, and entreated to be made a Christian,--and his request was immediately granted.
The provost's fury knew no bounds when he witnessed these marvels. He stretched the champion on the rack, but the engine broke in pieces; he plunged him into boiling lead, and lo! the Saint came out "refreshed and strengthened." When Dacien saw this he began to moderate his anger, and again had recourse to flattery, praying the Saint to renounce his faith and sacrifice to the idols, and, much to his surprise, the knight questioned him with a smiling countenance why he had not asked him before, and promised to do his bidding. Then the provost was glad indeed, and assembled all the people to see the champion sacrifice. So they thronged the temple where the Saint was kneeling before the shrine of Jupiter, but he earnestly prayed a while to the true God, entreating Him to destroy those accursed images and convert the deluded Romans,--"and anone the fyre descended from heuens and brente the temple and the ydolles and theyr prestes;" and immediately after the earth opened and swallowed up all the ashes. This last marvel only hardened the ruler's heart and strengthened him in his infidelity; he caused the warrior to be brought before him, and sternly reproved him for his duplicity. "Thenne sayd to him Saynt George, 'Syr, beleue it not, but come wyth me and see how I shall sacrefise.' Thenne said Dacyan to him, 'I see wel thy frawde and thy treachery; thou wylt make the erthe to swalowe me lyke as thou hast the temple and my goddes.'"
Then said St. George, "O catiff, tell me how thy gods help thee when they cannot help themselves?" Then was the provost so enraged that he ran to his wife, and, telling her that he should die of anger if he could not master his prisoner, requested her counsel. "Cruel tyrant," replied his loving spouse, "instead of plotting against this heaven-protected knight, I too am resolved to become a Christian!" "Thou wilt!" returned her husband furiously, and taking her by her flowing tresses, he dashed her against the pavement, when, feeling herself in the agonies of death, she craved of St. George to know her future lot, seeing she had not been christened. Then answered the blessed Saint, "Doubt thee nothing, fair daughter, for thou shalt be baptized in thine own blood." Then began she to worship our Lord Jesus Christ, and so died and went to heaven. Thither the martyr followed her very shortly, for Dacien caused St. George to be beheaded, and "so he perished." But the cruel persecutor did not long survive his victim, for as he was returning to his palace, says the legend, from the place of execution, "fire came down from heaven and destroyed him and all his followers."[5]
[5] Appendix B.
In the Middle Ages the dragon gave a title in Hungary to an order of knighthood, that of "the dragon overthrown." This was established in the year 1418, to perpetuate the memory of the condemnation of John Huss and Jerome of Prague by the Council of Constance for heresy, and to denote the overthrow of the doctrines these men propagated in Hungary, Bohemia, and elsewhere in Germany, and for which they were ultimately burnt at the stake. The badge of the order was a dragon prostrate. In China the dragon is the symbol of the Imperial power, and all our readers who are familiar with the appearance of the Celestial pottery, bronzes, and so forth, will readily recall how commonly the form is introduced. Some little time ago the Chinese Government permitted coal-mines to be opened at Kai-ping, but they were speedily closed again, as it was supposed that their continued working would release the earth-dragon, disturb the Manes of the Empress, and generally bring trouble upon the Imperial house and upon the nation. Uncharitable people, however, have been found to declare that the fear of the earth-dragon is all an excuse, and that, as the Government set its face against the introduction of railways, so it was equally prepared, in its rigid conservatism and hatred of innovations, to forswear the mining operations. The dragon of the Chinese designers is of the weirdest forms, and conceived with a freedom and wildness of fancy that puts to shame our Western attempts, powerful as they often are.
As a symbol and attribute the dragon is constantly appearing in mediæval work, as carvings, illuminations, and the like, and we may remind our readers that in the term gargoyle, used in speaking of the strange and monstrous forms often found in our old cathedrals and abbeys doing duty as water-shoots, we get the dragon idea again, as the word is derived from an old French word signifying some such draconic monster. While, however, we find ourselves thus classing the dragon amongst the mythical and arbitrary forms of the stone-carver or the herald, we must be careful to remember that its terror had not thus in earlier days lost its sting, for the workman who sculptured it on a capital or thrust its hideous form into any other noticeable position not only regarded it as a symbol, but believed very really and truly in its veritable existence. Albertus Magnus gives a long account of the creature, an account altogether too elaborate for us to here transcribe; but its capture, according to him, is an easy matter enough if one only goes the right way to work. It was fortunately ascertained that dragons are "greatly afraid of thunder, and the magicians who require dragons for their enchantments get drums, on which they roll heavily, so that the noise is mistaken for thunder by the dragons, and they are vanquished." The thing is simplicity itself, and rather detracts from the halo of heroism that has hitherto surrounded dragon vanquishers. A man is scarcely justified in blowing his trumpet when he has previously so cowed his antagonist by beating his drum and deluding its dull brains with his fictitious thunder. Pliny says that the eyes of a dragon, preserved dry, pulverised and then made up with honey, cause those who are anointed therewith to sleep securely from all dread of spirits of the darkness. In a mediæval work we are told that "the turning joint in the chine of a dragon doth promise an easy and favourable access into the presence of great lords." One can only wonder why this should be, all clue and thread of connection between the two things being now so hopelessly lost. We must not however forget that, smile now as we may at this, there was a time when our ancestors accepted the statement with the fullest faith, and many a man who would fain have pleaded his cause before king or noble bewailed with hearty regret his want of draconic chine, the "turning-point" of the dragon and of his own fortunes. Another valuable receipt--"Take the taile and head of a dragon, the haire growing upon the forehead of a lion, with a little of his marrow also, the froth moreover that a horse fomethe at the mouth who hath woon the victorie and prize in running a race, and the nailes besides of a dogs-feete: bind all these together with a piece of leather made of a red deers skin, with the sinewes partly of a stag, partly of a fallow deere, one with another: carry this about with you and it will work wonders." It seems almost a pity that the actual benefits to be derived from the possession of this compound are not more clearly defined, as there is no doubt that a considerable amount of trouble would be involved in getting the various materials together, and the zeal and ardour of the seeker after this wonder-working composition would be somewhat damped by the troublesome and recurring question, Wherefore? Mediæval medicine-men surely must have been somewhat chary of adopting the now familiar legend "Prescriptions accurately dispensed," when the onus of making up such a mixture could be laid upon them. John Leo, in his "History of Africa" says that the dragon is the progeny of the eagle and wolf. After describing its appearance, he says--"This monster, albeit I myself have not seen it yet, the common report of all Africa affirmeth that there is such a one." Other writers affirm that the dragon is generated by the great heat of India or springs from the volcanoes of Ethiopia; and one is tempted to take the prosaic view that this dragon rearing and slaying is but a more poetic way of dwelling on some miasmatic exhalation reduced to harmlessness by judicious drainage; that the monster that had slain its thousands was at last subdued by no glittering spear wielded by knightly or saintly arm, but by the spade of the navvy and the drain-pipes of the sanitary engineer. Father Pigafetta in his book declares that "Mont Atlas hath plenty of dragons, grosse of body, slow of motion, and in byting or touching incurably venomous. In Congo is a kind of dragons like in biggnesse to rammes with wings, having long tayles and divers jawes of teeth of blue and greene, painted like scales, with two feete, and feede on rawe fleshe." We cannot ourselves help feeling that if we saw a dragon like in bigness to a ram we should so far be disappointed in him. After having had our imagination filled by legend after legend we should look for something decidedly bulkier than that, and should feel that he really was not living up to his reputation. Abundant illustrations of the most unnatural history may be found in the works of Aldrovandus: his voluminous works on animals are very curious and interesting, and richly illustrated with engravings at least as quaint in character as the text. His "Monstrorum Historia," published in folio at Bologna in 1642, is a perfect treasure-house; the various volumes range in date from 1602 to 1668, and are, with one exception (Venice), published at either Bologna or Frankfort. If any of our readers can get an opportunity of looking through them they will find themselves well repaid.
Amongst the Lansdowne MSS. in the British Museum will be found Aubrey's "Gentilisme and Judaisme." His remarks on St. George and the dragon are sufficiently quaint and interesting to justify insertion here. "Dr. Peter Heylin," he says, "did write the Historie of St. George of Cappadocia, which is a very blind business. When I was of Trin. Coll. there was a sale of Mr. William Cartright's (poet) books, many whereof I had: amongst others (I know not how) was Dr. Daniel Featley's Handmayd to Religion, which was printed shortly after Dr. Heylin's Hist. aforesaid. In the Holyday Devotions he speaks of St. George, and asserts the story to be fabulous, and that there never was any such man. William Cartright writes in the margent--For this assertion was Dr. Featley brought upon his knees before William Laud, Abp. of Canterbury. See Sir Thomas Browne's 'Vulgar Errors' concerning St. George, where are good Remarks. He is of opinion that ye picture of St. George was only emblematical. Methinks ye picture of St. George fighting with ye Dragon hath some resemblance of St. Michael fighting with the Devil, who is pourtrayed like a Dragon. Ned Bagshaw of Chr. Ch. 1652, shewed me somewhere in Nicophorus Gregoras that ye picture of St. George's horse on a wall neighed on some occasion."
A vast amount of learning upon the subject of our patron saint may be found in Selden's "Titles of Honour," in which he treats of "The chiefest testimonies concerning St. George in the Western Church, and a consideration how he came to be taken for the patron saint of the English nation." Selden originally inclined to the idea that the saint first stepped into this exalted position in the reign of Edward III., but in "a most ancient Martyrologie" that he afterwards came across--one of Saxon date in the library of one of the Cambridge Colleges--he found a sufficient testimony that the position of the saint as patron of Britain dated from a much earlier time.
Peter Suchenwirt, a German poet of the fourteenth century, gives in one of his poems a very curious and striking illustration of the esteem in which at the battle of Poictiers the English soldiers held their patron saint:--
"Di Frantzois schrienn 'Nater Dam!' Das spricht Unser Fraw mit nam; Der chrey erhal; 'Sand Jors! Sand Jors!'"
"The French shout forth 'Notre Dame,' Thus calling on our Lady's name; To which the English host reply, 'St. George! St. George!' their battle cry."
The Celtic use of the word dragon for a chieftain is curious: in time of danger a sort of dictator was appointed under the title of pen-dragon. Hence any of the English knights who slew a chieftain in battle were dragon vanquishers, and it has been suggested that the military title was at times confused with that of the fabulous monster, and that a man thus got an added credit that did not belong to him. The theory is not, however, really tenable, as all the veritable dragon-slayers had the great advantage of living a long time ago, and no such halo of romance could well have attached itself to men of comparatively modern times. In any case, too, the use of the Celtic word is very local, and does not meet the case of a tithe of the histories of such deeds of valour. The red dragon was the ensign of Cadwallader, the last of the British kings. The Tudors claimed descent from this ancient monarch, and Henry VII. adopted this device for his standard at the battle of Bosworth Field. There is a place in Berkshire called Dragon Hill, near Uffington, and the more famous White Horse Hill, that is in local legend the scene of the encounter between St. George and the dragon; and for full confirmation a bare place is shown on the hillside where nothing will grow, because there the poisonous blood of the creature was shed. We learn, however, in the Saxon annals that Cedric, the West-Saxon monarch, overthrew and slew here the pen-dragon Naud, with five thousand of his men. The name of the hill, therefore, commemorates this ancient victory; but the common folk of the district, who know nothing of pen-dragons, erroneously ascribe the battle won there to the more familiar St. George.
The dragon of Wantley deserves a passing word, since he supplies a good illustration of how the mythical and the material are often mixed up. Wantley is merely a corruption of Wharncliffe, a delightful spot[6] near Sheffield, and here, of all places in the world, this very objectionable dragon took up his abode. One ordinarily expects to hear of such creatures uncoiling their monstrous forms in some dense morass or lurking in the dark recesses of some wide-stretching and gloomy forest; possibly he may have found the choice of such an attractive locality may have helped him to an occasional tourist. On the opposite side of the Don to the crag that held the cave of the dragon stood the desirable residence of More Hall; and its owner, doubtless feeling that the presence of such an objectionable neighbour was a great depreciation of his property, determined one day to bring matters to a crisis; so he walked up to the mouth of the cave clad in a suit of armour thickly covered with spikes, and administered such a vigorous kick in the dragon's mouth, the only place where he was vulnerable, that the whole transaction was over almost at once, and he was back again in ample time for lunch. Dr. Percy, the editor of "Reliques of Antient English Poetry," holds that we must not accept this story too seriously; that, in fact, the old ballad in which it is set forth is a burlesque, and that the real facts are as follows:--that the dragon was an overbearing and rascally lawyer who had long availed himself of his position and influence to oppress his poorer neighbours, but he capped a long series of dishonest and disreputable actions by depriving three orphan children of an estate to which they were entitled. A Mr. More generously took up their cause, brought all the armoury of the law to bear upon the spoiler, and completely defeated him, and the thievish attorney shortly afterwards died of chagrin and vexation.
[6] Lady Mary Wortley Montagu lived here for some time. Writing afterwards from Avignon, and dwelling on the exquisite landscape there spread out before her when standing on the Castle height, she exclaims that "it is the most beautiful land prospect I ever saw, except Wharncliffe."
"Old stories tell how Hercules A dragon slew at Lerna, With seven heads and fourteen eyes, To see and well discern-a; But he had a club this dragon to drub, Or he had ne'er done it, I warrant ye; But More of More Hall, with nothing at all, He slew the dragon of Wantley.
This dragon had two furious wings, Each one upon each shoulder; With a sting in his tayl, as long as a flayl, Which made him bolder and bolder. He had long claws, and in his jaws Four-and-forty teeth of iron; With a hide as tough as any buff, Which did him round environ.
Have you not heard how the Trojan horse Held seventy men in his belly? This dragon was not quite as big, But very near, I tell ye. Devouréd he poor children three, That could not with him grapple; And at one sup, he eat them up, As one would eat an apple.
All sorts of cattle this dragon did eat, Some say he did eat up trees, And that the forests sure he could Devour up by degrees: For houses and churches were to him geese and turkeys: He eat all, and left none behind, But some stones, dear Jack, that he could not crack, Which on the hills you will find.
In Yorkshire, near fair Rotherham, The place I know it well; Some two or three miles, or thereabouts, I vow I cannot tell; But there is a hedge, just on the hill edge, And Matthew's house hard by it; O there and then was this dragon's den, You could not chuse but spy it.
Hard by a furious knight there dwelt, Of whom all towns did ring; For he could wrestle, play quarterstaff, kick and cuff, And any such kind of a thing; By the tail and the main with his hands twain He swung a horse till he was dead, And that which is stranger, he in his anger Eat him all up but his head.
These children, as I told, being eat; Men, women, girls and boys, Sighing and sobbing, came to his lodging, And made a hideous noise: 'O save us all, More of More Hall, Thou peerless knight of these woods; Do but slay this dragon, who won't leave us a rag on, We'll give thee all our goods.'
'Tut, tut,' quoth he, 'no goods I want; But I want, I want, in sooth, A fair maid of sixteen that's brisk and keen, And smiles about the mouth: Hair black as sloe, skin white as snow, With blushes her cheeks adorning; To anoynt me o'er night, ere I go out to fight, And to gird me in the morning.'
This being done, he did engage To hew the dragon down; But first he went, new armour to Bespeak at Sheffield town; With spikes all about, not within but without, Of steel so sharp and strong; Both behind and before, arms, legs, and all o'er, Some five or six inches long.
Had you but seen him in this dress, How fierce he looked and how big, You would have thought him for to be Some Egyptian porcupig: He frighted all, cats, dogs, and all, Each cow, each horse, and each hog; For fear they did flee, for they took him to be Some strange outlandish hedge-hog.
It is not strength that always wins, For wit doth strength excell; Which made our cunning champion Creep down into a well, Where he did think this dragon would drink, And so he did in truth; And as he stooped low he rose up and cried 'boh!' And hit him in the mouth.
Our politick knight, on the other side Crept out upon the brink, And gave the dragon such a crack, He knew not what to think. 'Aha,' quoth he, 'say you so, do you see?' And then at him he let fly With hand and with foot, and so they both went to't, And the word it was, hey, boys, hey!
'Oh,' quoth the dragon with a deep sigh, And turned six times together, Sobbing and tearing, cursing and swearing, Out of his throat of leather; 'More of More Hall! O thou rascàl! Would I had seen thee never; With that thing at thy foot thou hast pricked me sore, And I'm quite undone for ever.'
'Murder, murder,' the dragon cried, 'Alack, alack, for grief; Had you but missed that place, you could Have done me no mischief.' Then his head he shaked, he trembled and quaked, And down he laid and cried; First on one knee, then on back tumbled he, And groaned, and kicked, and died."
We sometimes see allusions in poetry and the press to the sowing of dragons' teeth. The reference is always to some subject of civil strife, to some burning question that rouses the people of a state to take up arms against each other.
The incident is derived from the old classic legend of the founding of Thebes by Kadmos. Arriving on the site of the future city, he proposed to make a sacrifice to the protecting goddess Athene, but on sending his men to a not far distant fountain for water, they were attacked and slain by a terrible dragon. Kadmos thereupon went himself and slew the monster, and at the command of Athene sowed its teeth in the ground, from whence immediately sprang a host of armed giants. These on the instant all turned their arms against each other, and that too with such fury that all were presently slain save five. Kadmos invoked the aid of these giants in the building of the new city, and from these five the noblest families of Thebes hereafter traced their lineage. The myth has been the cause of much perplexity to scholars and antiquaries, but it has been fairly generally accepted that the slaying of the dragon after it had destroyed many of the followers of Kadmos indicates the final reduction of some great natural obstacle, after some few or more had been first vanquished by it. We may imagine such an obstacle to colonisation as a river hastily rising and sweeping all before it in its headlong flood, or an aguish and fever-breeding morass. The springing-up of the armed men from the soil has been construed as signifying that the Thebans in after times regarded themselves as the original inhabitants of the country--no mere interlopers, but sons of the soil from time immemorial; while their conflicts amongst themselves, as their city rose to fame, have been too frequently reflected time after time elsewhere to need any very special exposition.
Another literary allusion in which the dragon bears its part is seen in the dragonnades, those religious persecutions which drove so many thousands of Protestants out of France during the Middle Ages. Their object was to root heresy out of the land. Those who were willing to recant were left in peaceable possession of their goods, while the others were handed over to the tender mercies of the soldiery let loose upon them. These were chiefly dragoons; hence the origin of the term dragonnade; and these dragoons were so called because they were armed with a short musket or carbine called a dragon, while the gun in turn was so called because it spouted out fire like the dreadful monsters of the legends were held to do. On many of the early muskets this idea was emphasised by having the head of a dragon wrought on the muzzle, the actual flash of the piece on its discharge issuing from its mouth.
One naturally turns to Shakespeare for an apt illustration of any conceivable point that may arise. The lover finds in him his tender sonnets, the lawyer his quillets of the law, the soldier the glorification of arms, and the philosopher rich mines of wisdom. The antiquary finds in him no less a golden wealth of allusion to all the customs and beliefs of his day. In "Midsummer Night's Dream" we find the lines--
"Night's swift dragons cut the clouds full fast, And yonder comes Aurora's harbinger."
We get much the same idea again in the line in "Cymbeline"--"Swift, swift you dragons of the night," and in "Troilus and Cressida"--"The dragon wing of night o'erspreads the earth." "Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf," and many other horrible ingredients are found in the witches' caldron in "Macbeth," while in "King Lear" we are advised not to come "between the dragon and his wrath." King Richard III. rushes to his fate with the words, "Our ancient word of courage, fair St. George, inspire us with the spleen of fiery dragons." In "Coriolanus" we find another admirable allusion--
"Though I go alone, like to a lonely dragon that his fen Makes feared and talked of more than seen."
In the play of "Pericles" we have the lines--
"Golden fruit, but dangerous to be touched, For death-like dragons here affright thee hard."
And there are other references in "Romeo and Juliet" and other plays--references that it is needless here to give, as enough has been quoted to show our great poet's realisation of this scaly monster of the marsh and forest. In the last extract we have given, that from "Pericles," the golden fruit are the apples of the Hesperides, guarded by the dragon Ladon, foul offspring of Typhon and Echidna. Allusions to this golden fruit are very common amongst the poets, so we content ourselves with quoting as an illustration one that is less well known than many, from a poem by Robert Greene in the year 1598:--
"Shew thee the tree, leafed with refinèd gold, Whereon the fearful dragon held his seat, That watched the garden called Hesperides."
The dragon, like the griffin, is oftentimes the fabled guardian of treasure: we see this not only in the classic story of the garden of the Hesperides, but more especially in the tales of Eastern origin. Any of our readers who have duly gone through much of the "Arabian Nights' Entertainments" will scarcely have failed to notice the employment of the dragon as a defender of gold and other hoarded wealth. Guillim, in his quaint book on heraldry, says that these treasures are committed to their charge "because of their admirable sharpness of sight, and for that they are supposed of all other living things to be the most valiant." He goes on to add that "they are naturally so hot that they cannot be cooled by drinking of water, but still gape for the air to refresh them, as appeareth in Jeremiah xiv. 6, where it saith that the 'wild asses did stand in the high places, they snuffed up the wind like dragons.'" Any one who has been in any mountainous district in hot weather will no doubt have noticed the cattle fringing the ridges of the hills like a row of sentinels. When we first observed this, and wondered at it, in North Wales, we were at once told that it was a regular habit of the creatures, that they did it partly to avoid the plague of flies that haunted the lower levels and the woodlands, but more especially to get the benefit of any breeze that might be stirring. While Guillim is willing to admit that even a dragon can render valuable service to those who are so fortunate as to be able to procure his kind offices, and induce him to play the part of watchdog, he very properly regards him, and such like monsters, as something decidedly uncanny. "Another sort there is," he says, "of exorbitant Animals much more prodigious than all the former. Such are those creatures formed, or rather deformed, with the confused shapes of creatures of different kinds and qualities. These monsters (saith St. Augustine) cannot be reckoned amongst those good Creatures that God created before the transgression of Adam, for those did God, when He took the survey of them, pronounce to be _valde bona_, for they had in them neither excess nor defect, but were the perfect workmanship of God's creation. If man had not transgressed the Law of his Maker this dreadful deformity (in likelihood) had not happened in the creation of animals which some Philosophers do call _Peccata Naturæ_."
The dragon, though, as we have seen, at times induced to mount guard over other people's property, is ordinarily a very Ishmaelite; his hand is against everybody, and everybody's hand against him; yet would he appear, if we may credit Pliny, to bear an excess and maximum of ill-will against the elephant. The elephant always strikes one as being such a great good-natured beast, as one who could do so much mischief if he would, yet spends his strength instead for the good of others, that it is difficult to understand how he should in so pre-eminent a degree have earned the ill-will of so potent an enemy. The dragon would appear to be always the aggressor, and the elephant has to defend himself as well as he can against the uncalled-for attack: it is satisfactory in this case to know that the scaly assailant sometimes fully meets his match. In Book VIII. of Pliny's history we read that "India bringeth forth the biggest elephants, as also the dragons, that are continually at variance with them, and evermore fighting, and those of such greatnesse that they can easily clasp and wind them round the elephants, and withall tie them fast with a knot. In this conflict they die, both the one and the other; the elephant hee falls downe dead as conquered, and with his great and heavie weight crusheth and squeaseth the dragon that is wound and wreathed about him. Also the dragon assaileth him from an high tree, and launceth himselfe upon him, but the elephant knowing well enough he is not able to withstand his windings and knottings about him, seeketh to come close to some trees or hard rocks, and so for to crush and squeese the dragon between him and them. The dragons ware hereof, entangle and snare his feet and legs first with their taile; the elephants on the other side undoe those knots with their trunke as with a hand, but to prevent that againe, the dragons put in their heads into their snout, and so stop their wind, and withall fret and gnaw the tenderest parts that they find there." One does not quite understand how this last counter-plan of the dragon is effected, but it is evidently to be understood as equivalent to "checkmate."
In the "Bestiare Divin" of Guillaume this antagonism of the elephant and dragon is again referred to, and indeed we find it an accepted belief throughout the Middle Ages. Pliny's work was held for centuries in the greatest admiration, and to add "as Pliny saith" to any statement, no matter how wild, was considered amply sufficient. Guillaume's description of the dragon is as follows--"C'est le plus grand des animaux rampants. Il nait en Éthiopie: il a la gueule petit, le corps long et reluisant comme or fin. C'est l'ennemie de l'éléphant; c'est avec sa queue qu'il triomphe de lui: là est, en effet, le principe de sa force; sa gueule ne porte point venin de mort." The book of Guillaume is a fair type of several books of the sort written by ecclesiastics during the Middle Ages. Such books were an attempt to show that all the works of nature were symbols and teachers of great Scriptural truths; hence, while much that they give is interesting, their statements always require to be received with great caution. If the facts of the case got at all in the way of a good moral, so much the worse for the facts; and if a little or a great modification of the true state of the case could turn a good moral into one much better, the goodness of the intention was held to amply justify the departure from the hampering influence of the real facts. The MS. of Guillaume dates from the thirteenth century, and is at present preserved in the National Library in Paris. The writer was a Norman priest. The work has been very well reproduced in a French dress by Hippeau, a compatriot of the writer.[7] As we simply wish in our extract to bring out the belief in the antagonism between the elephant and the dragon, we forbear to add any moral teachings that a more or less morbid symbolism was able to deduct from the supposititious fact; but we shall have occasion to quote again more than once from the "Bestiare," and doubtless the peculiar connection between scientific error and religious truth will have an opportunity of making itself felt in one or more of these extracts.
[7] Appendix C.
Referring back to the "300 Animals," the natural history that was considered good enough for the people living in the year of grace 1786, we find, after the account of the Dart, "so called from his flying like an arrow from the tops of trees and hedges upon men, by which means he stings and wounds them to death," the following description:--"The Cockatrice is called the king of serpents, not from his bigness--for he is much inferior in this respect to many serpents--but because of his majestic pace, for he does not creep upon the ground, like other serpents, but goes half upright, for which cause all other serpents avoid him; and it seems nature designed him that pre-eminence, by the crown or coronet upon his head. Writers differ concerning the production of this animal. Some are of opinion that it is brought forth of a cock's egg sat upon by a snake or toad, and so becomes a cockatrice. It is said to be half a foot in length, the hinder part like a serpent, the fore part like a cock. Others are of opinion that the cock that lays the egg sits upon and hatches it himself. These monsters are bred in Africa and some parts of the world." In England it would appear, so far as we have observed the matter, that the hens have entirely usurped the egg-laying department, and we are therefore spared the mortification of finding that our hoped-for chick has assumed the less welcome form of a cockatrice, for we shall see that the advent of a cockatrice is no laughing matter. The book goes on to tell us that authors differ about the bigness of it, for some say it is a span in compass and half a foot long, while others, with a truer sense of the marvellous, realise more fully that bulk is a potent element in all such matters, and at once make it four feet long. Its poison is so strong that there is no cure for it, and the air is in such a degree affected by its presence that no creature can live near it. It kills, we are assured, not only by its touch, but even the sight of the cockatrice, like that of the basilisk, is death. We read, for instance, in "Romeo and Juliet" of "the death-darting eye of cockatrice;" and again in "King Richard III."--"A cockatrice hast thou hatched to the world whose unavoided eye is murtherous;" while in "Twelfth Night" we find the passage, "This will so fright them both, that they will kill one another by the look, like cockatrices." After this we can scarcely wonder at a certain vagueness of description, as those who never saw the animal have full licence of description, while those, less fortunate, who have had an opportunity of studying from the life have forfeited their own in doing so. The only hope of getting an idea of it would be the discovery of a dead specimen, for we read that "as all other serpents are afraid of the sight and hissing of a cockatrice, so is the cockatrice itself very fearful of a weasel, which after it has eaten rue will set upon and destroy the cockatrice. Besides this little creature, it is said there is no other animal in the world able to contend with it." We can well imagine the indignant astonishment of the cockatrice, after being for years the monarch of all it surveyed, when the gallant little weasel, strong in the triple armour which makes a quarrel just, and duly fortified by the internal application of rue, charges boldly home and takes him, _monstrorum rex_, by the throat. At the time that our authorised version of the Old Testament was made there was a sufficient belief in the creature to make the translation of some Hebrew word seem correctly rendered by the word cockatrice, for we read in the book of Isaiah that one sign of the millennial peace shall be that the child shall put his hand, unharmed, upon the den of the cockatrice; and a little farther on we find the passage, "For out of the serpent's root shall come forth a cockatrice, and his fruit shall be a fiery flying serpent." In the fifty-ninth chapter the workers of iniquity are described as hatching the cockatrice egg, and amongst the judgments pronounced upon the impenitent Jews by the prophet Jeremiah we find the verse, "Behold, I will send serpents, cockatrices, amongst you, which will not be charmed, and they shall bite you." The heraldic cockatrice is represented as having the head and legs of a cock, a scaly and serpent-like body, and the wings of a dragon.
Guillim[8] in his "Heraldry" says that "the Cockatrice is called in Latin Regulus, for that he seemeth to be a little King among Serpents: not in regard of his Quantity, but in respect of the Infection of his pestiferous and poisonous Aspect wherewith he poisoneth the Air. Not unlike those devillish Witches that do work the Destruction of silly Infants, as also of the Cattel of such their Neighbours whose prosperous Estate is to them a most grievous Eye-sore. Of such Virgil in his Bucolicks makes mention, saying, I know not what wicked Eye hath bewitched my tender Lambs." The belief in the evil eye has been almost universal, and may be found in tribes the most remote from each other either in distance or in time. If it were not that Guillim is so ostentatiously loyal, and, like all heralds, a zealous upholder of rank and state, one might suspect him almost of a touch of bitter sarcasm in ascribing royal rank to the cockatrice, not from his magnanimity, not from his noble bearing, not from his beauty, but from the power of inflicting injuries that he so especially displays. When we consider what sort of a sovereign politically, socially, and every way the second Charles was, Guillim's dedication of his book to him errs somewhat, perhaps, on the side of fulsome and sickening adulation:--"To the most August Charles the Second, King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, &c. Dread Sovereign, Here is a Firmament of Stars that shine not without your Benign Beam; you are the Sun of our Hemisphere that sets a splendour on the Nobility: For as they are Jewels and Ornaments to your Crown, so they derive their lustre and value from thence. From your Breast, as from a Fountain, the young Plants of honour are cherisht and nurst up. Your vertuous Atcheivements are their Warrant and Example, and your Bounty the Guerdon of their Merit. And as all the Roman Emperors after Julius Cæsar, were desirous to be called Imperatores and Cæsares after him, so shall all succeeding Princes in this our Albion (in emulation of your Vertues) be ambitious to bear your Name to Posterity."
[8] The reader must notice the near approach to similarity of name in the Frenchman Guillaume, author of "Le Bestiare Divin," and in the Englishman Guillim, the writer on heraldry, and at the same time make due discrimination. They are men of widely different periods, and approach our subject from wholly different directions.
The Basilisk, to whom also was given the title of king of the serpents, was another of the stern, very stern realities of our forefathers, though, like the cockatrice, it has fallen a victim to the march of intellect. Its royal rank was bestowed upon it not from its pestiferous qualities, but from the crest or coronet it wears, or rather wore, as the species may now be considered extinct. Like the monstrous kraken of the Norway seas and the classic harpy or minotaur, down to the sheeted spectre that clanked its chains last century in churchyard or corridor, it has failed to make good its claims to our credence; and even the great sea-serpent, that from time to time appears in the columns of the newspapers when Parliament is not sitting, will have to appear very visibly elsewhere as well, or the scepticism of the nineteenth century will disestablish it. The basilisk was by some old writers described as a huge lizard, but in later times it became a crested serpent. Exact accuracy on this point was impossible, as, like the cockatrice, the glance of its eye was death. Pliny says, "We come now to the basiliske, whom all other serpents do flie from and are afraid of; albeit he killith them with his very breath and smell that passeth from him: yea, and by report, if he do but set his eye on a man it is enough to take away his life." Readers of Shakespeare will recall the passage in King Henry VI., "Come, basilisk, and kill the innocent gazer with thy sight;" and again where the Lady Anne exclaims to Richard III., with reference to her eyes, "Would that they were basilisk's, to strike thee dead." Beaumont and Fletcher, too, in their "Woman Hater," speaks of "The basilisk's death-doing eye." Dryden avails himself of the same old belief, and makes Clytus say to Alexander, "Nay, frown not so; you cannot look me dead;" and in another old poem, King's "Art of Love," we find the lines, "Like a boar plunging his tusk in mastiff's gore, or basilisk, when roused, whose breath, teeth, sting, and eyeballs all are death." The only way to kill the basilisk was held to be to cause it to gaze on its own image in a mirror, when its glance would be as fatal to itself as it had hitherto been to others. To effect this, however, evidently presents many practical difficulties, and he must have been a bold man who ventured on so perilous an errand, where the least nervousness or mismanagement of the mirror would be literally fatal in bringing the basilisk to a proper state of reflection.
The basilisk is mentioned by most of the old writers, by Dioscorides, by Galen, Pliny, Solinus, Ælian, Ætius, Avicen, Ardoynus, Grevinus, and many others. Aristotle makes no mention of it. Scaliger gravely describes one that was found in Rome in the days of Leo IV., while Sigonius and others are so far from denying the possibility of such a beast that they have duly set forth various kinds or sub-species. Pliny, for instance, describes a thing he calls the Catoblepas, while Ætius gives details of another called Dryinus, each being only modifications of the basilisk idea. Where, of course, the whole thing was purely a figment of the imagination, the multiplication of species presents no difficulty at all, and it really makes little difference whether all the peculiarities and properties be focussed on one creature, or whether they be divided by a three or a four, and due distribution of them made to a like number of slightly varying monsters. There is no doubt but that if Baron Munchausen had turned his attention to this branch of natural history, we should have had many more species to record, and some of them probably still more wonderful than any at present described. The very indefiniteness of the descriptions gives them an added charm and affords full scope for romancing. Familiarity is undoubtedly likely to lead to contempt, and probably if the Zoological Society of London are ever able to add a basilisk to their fine collection of reptiles it will be a very disappointing feature.
The Phoenix had what we may be allowed to call a literary existence amongst the Greeks and Romans, but scarcely became a visible creation of the artist until the mythic fowl was accepted by the early Christians as a type of the resurrection of the body--an association of ideas that afterwards rendered its use very common, and Tertullian, amongst other early writers, thus refers to its symbolic use. According to a tale narrated to Herodotus on his visit to Heliopolis, the phoenix visited that place once every 500 years, bringing with it the body of its predecessor, and burning it with myrrh in the sanctuary of the Sun-god; but the version on which the Christian moral and application is based is somewhat different. It is founded on the old belief that the phoenix, when it arrived at the age of 1461 years, committed itself to the flames that burst, at the fanning of its wings, from the funeral pyre that it had itself constructed of costly spices, and that from its ashes a new phoenix arose to life. This belief, which appears to us so absurd, was for hundreds of years as accepted a fact as any other point in natural history. The home of the phoenix was said to be at that delightfully vague address, somewhere in Arabia.
In Hoole's translation of the "Orlando Furioso" of Ariosto we have both the mystic bird and its very indefinite home thus referred to:--
"Arabia, named the Happy, now he gains; Incense and myrrh perfume her grateful plains; The Virgin Phoenix there in seek of rest, Selects from all the world her balmy nest."
We get the same idea again in Fletcher's poem of "The Purple Island":--
"So that love bird in fruitful Arabie, When now her strength and waning life decays, Upon some airy rock or mountain high, In spicy bed (fix'd by near Phoebus' rays), Herself and all her crooked age consumes. Straight from her ashes and those rich perfumes, A new-born phoenix flies, and widow'd place resumes."
These two extracts speak respectively of the virgin and widowed phoenix. The latter idea can scarcely be correct; widowhood implies the loss of a mate, and the phoenix, we are told, is unique and alone in the world. Pliny and Ovid use the masculine pronoun. The former writer's account of him, her, or it will be found in the second chapter of his tenth book, and runs as follows:--"It is reported that never man was knowne to see him feeding; that in Arabie hee is held a sacred bird, dedicated unto the Sunne; that he liveth six hundred years, and when he groweth old and begins to decay, he builds himselfe a nest with the twigs and branches of the cannell or cinnamon and frankincense trees; and when he hath filled it with all sort of sweet aromiticall spices, yieldeth up his life thereupon. He saith, moreover, that of his bones and marrow there breedeth at first, as it were, a little worme, which afterwards proveth to bee a pretie bird. And the first thing that this young phoenix doth is to performe the obsequies of the former phoenix late deceased; to translate and carie away his whole nest into the citie of the Sunne, near Panchæ, and to bestow it there full devoutly upon the altar."
It was one of the venerable jokes of our fathers that a man hearing that a goose would live one hundred years, determined to buy one and see whether this really was so; but this simple plan does not seem to have occurred to any of the ancients, for while Herodotus affirms that the phoenix lives five hundred years, Pliny as plumply and roundly asserts as a matter beyond doubt or contradiction that it is six hundred. Another authority, more precise, though perhaps not more accurate, brings it, we see, to just one thousand four hundred and sixty one, the odd unit giving a delightful appearance of extreme accuracy and precision that seems to challenge one to gainsay it if he dare.
In Ovid the fable is given with the fullest detail. The following lines from Dryden's translation let us into the secret of how the whole thing is managed. "Our special correspondent" could hardly be more precise:--
"All these receive their birth from other things, But from himself the phoenix only springs; Self-born, begotten by the parent flame In which he burn'd, another and the same; Who not by corn or herbs his life sustains, But the sweet essence Amomum he drains; And watches the rich gums Arabia bears, While yet in tender dews they drop their tears. He (his five centuries of life fulfill'd) His nest of oaken boughs begins to build, On trembling tops of palms:[9] and first he draws The plan with his broad bill and crooked claws, Nature's artificers: on this the pile Is formed and rises round: then with the spoil Of Cassia, Cynamon, and stems of Nard (For softness strewed beneath) his funeral bed is reared. Funeral and bridal both: and all around The borders with corruptless myrrh are crowned. On this incumbent, till ethereal flame; First catches then consumes the costly frame; Consumes him, too, as on the pile he lies: He lived on odours, and on odours dies. An infant phoenix from the former springs, His father's heir, and from his tender wings Shakes off his parent dust, his method he pursues, And the same lease of life on the same terms renews. When grown to manhood he begins his reign, And with stiff pinions can his flight sustain; He lightens of his load the tree that bore His father's royal sepulchre before, And his own cradle: this with pious care Placed on his back, he cuts the buxom air, Seeks the Sun's city, and his sacred church, And decently lays down his burden in the porch."
[9] Appendix D.
The phoenix was a good deal employed during the Middle Ages, like the griffin, salamander, and other mythical creatures, as a badge or heraldic device, one of the most interesting illustrations being its use by Jane Seymour. Queen Elizabeth then adopted it, and thereby gave the court poets a grand opportunity of yielding her that highly spiced flattery that was so much to her liking. Sylvester, in his "Corona Dedicatoria," a poem written at a slightly later period, thus introduces the title:--
"As when the Arabian (only) bird doth burne Her aged body in sweet flames to death, Out of her cinders a new bird hath breath, In whom the beauties of the first return; From spicy ashes of the sacred urne Of our dead phoenix (deere Elizabeth) A new true phoenix lively flourisheth."
Shakespeare frequently employs the ideas associated with the mythical bird in his writings, and seems to have thoroughly mastered all that could be said on the subject. Some half-dozen passages may readily be quoted as illustrations of this. In "As you Like It," for example, we find the line, "She could not love me, were man as rare as phoenix;" and the idea of its unique character is again brought out in "Cymbeline," in the passage, "If she be furnished with a mind so rare, she is alone the Arabian bird." The destruction of the bird on its own funeral pile and the resurrection of its successor therefrom is several times referred to. In 1 Henry VI. we read, "But from their ashes shall be reared a phoenix that shall make all France afeared;" and in 3 Henry VI., "My ashes, as the phoenix, may bring forth a bird that will revenge upon you all;" while as a final example we may quote the line in Henry VIII., "But as, when the bird of wonder dies, the maiden phoenix, her ashes new create another heir."
Richardson ascribes an age of one thousand years to the phoenix, and adds a detail that many of the older writers seem to have missed; according to him the bird has fifty orifices in his bill, and when he has built his funeral pyre he treats the world to a melodious ditty through this novel wind instrument, flaps his wings with an energy that soon sets fire to the pile, and so perishes. There seems a hint of this vocal and instrumental performance in "Paradise and the Peri" where the poet Moore refers to
"The enchanted pile of that lonely bird, Who sings at the last his own death lay, And in music and perfume dies away."
The Alchemists employed the phoenix as a symbol of their hopes and vocation, and in Paracelsus and other writers many curious details of its association with alchemy may be found.
In the annals of Tacitus we find references to what is termed the phoenix period. According to him the phoenix appeared on five occasions in Egypt--in the reign of Sesostris, B.C. 866; in the reign of Am-Asis B.C. 566; in the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphos, B.C. 266; in the reign of Tiberius, A.D. 34; and in the reign of Constantine, A.D. 334. It will seem from this that the phoenix cycle consisted of periods of about 300 years (another variation from the estimates of Pliny and other writers quoted). The old monastic writers draw ingenious parallels between our Saviour and the phoenix, both sacrificing themselves when their career is over, and both rising again in glory from their temporary resting-place. The fourth of the dates given above is at once the alleged date of one of these appearances of the phoenix and also that of the great sacrifice on Calvary.
Though it seems a tremendous drop from the mythical phoenix of Arabia and its dissolution in fragrant spices to the old Dun Cow in Warwickshire, yet the latter proved herself, if legends may be credited, a foe fully worthy of the prowess of a right knightly arm, and as deserving of our notice as the dragon-slaying of that valiant brother star of chivalry St. George himself. Sir Guy of Warwick takes a high place amongst the famous ancient champions, and Dugdale and other good authorities hold that the stories connected with his name are not wholly apocryphal, though doubtless the monks and other early chroniclers drew the long bow at a venture sometimes. Dugdale, in his "Warwickshire," A.D. 1730, writes--"Of his particular adventures, lest what I say should be suspected for fabulous, I will onely instance that combat betwixt him and the Danish champion, Colebrand, whom some (to magnifie our noble Guy the more) report to have been a giant. The storie whereof, however it may be thought fictitious by some, forasmuch as there be those that make a question whether there was ever really such a man, yet those that are more considerate will neither doubt the one nor the other, inasmuch as it hath been so usual with our ancient Historians, for the encouragement of after ages unto bold attempts, to set forth the exploits of worthy men with the highest encomiums possible; and therefore, should we be for that cause so conceited as to explode it, all history of those times might as well be vilified.[10] And having said thus much to encounter with the prejudicate fancies of some and the wayward opinions of others, I come to the story." We do not ourselves propose to "come to the story," though it is all duly set down in Dugdale; though if the fact of Guy's Danish antagonist being a giant could be fully substantiated, he might perhaps claim a place in our pages. The date of the combat seems to have been the year 929. The exploits of Guy were long held in high favour not only in England but abroad; we find a French version dated 1525, and the British hero is referred to in a Spanish romance which was written almost a hundred years before this. Chaucer evidently knew the story well, for he tells us that
"Men speken of romances of price, Of Horne Childe and Ippotis, Of Bevis and Sir Guy;"
while Shakespeare, in "King Henry VIII.," makes one of his characters say, "I am not Samson, nor Sir Guy, nor Colbrand, to mow them down before me."
[10] Appendix E.
In Percie's "Reliques of Antient Poetry" is a long black letter ballad upon the exploits of Guy. It seems unnecessary to quote it _in extenso_, so we pick out a verse here and there, sufficient at least to show how doughty a champion our hero must have been:--
"I slew the gyant Amarant In battle fiercelye hand to hand: And doughty Barknard killed I, A treacherous knight of Pavye land.
Then I to England came againe, And here with Colbronde fell I fought: An ugly gyant whom the Danes Had for their champion hither brought.
I overcame him in the field, And slewe him soone right valliantlye; Wherebye this land I did redeeme From Danish tribute utterlye.
And afterwards I offered upp The use of weapons solemnlye At Winchester, whereas I fought, In sight of manye farr and nye.
But first, near Winsor, I did slaye A bore of passing might and strength; Whose like in England never was For hugenesse both of bredth and length.
Some of his bones in Warwicke yet, Within the castle there do lye, One of his shield-bones to this day Hangs in the citye of Coventrye.
On Dunsmore heath I alsoe slewe A monstrous wyld and cruell beast, Called the Dun-Cow of Dunsmore heath, Which manye people had opprest.
Some of her bones in Warwicke yett Still for a monument doe lye; Which unto every lookers viewe As wondrous strange, they may espye.
A dragon in Northumberland, I alsoe did in fight destroye, Which did both man and beast oppresse, And all the countrye sore annoye.
My body that endured this toyle, Though now it be consumed to mold; My statue faire engraven in stone, In Warwicke still you may behold."
The origin of the story of the mythical dun cow is lost in obscurity, but in the north-west of Shropshire will be found an eminence known locally as the Staple Hill, and on this a ring of stones of the rude Druidic type seen in various parts of England, and most notably at Avebury, in Wiltshire. This circle is some ninety feet or so in diameter, and legend has it that this enclosure was used by a giant as a cow-pen. This cow was no ordinary creature, but yielded her milk miraculously, filling any vessel that was brought to her. She seems to have deeply resented the act of an old crone in bringing her a sieve thus to fill, construed it into a direct insult to her powers (though one scarcely sees on what ground), broke loose from her enclosure, and wandered into Warwickshire, doing enormous mischief, until her career was cut short by the redoubtable Guy. Bones of the dun cow may be seen in many places, a circumstance that is explained by telling us that on the victory of the knight over the cow he sent its bones far and wide over the district it had ravaged, as tokens of victory and a manifest proof that the monster was no longer to be dreaded. At Warwick a rib is exhibited: this is some seven feet long, and at Coventry there is a gigantic blade-bone some eleven feet round. In some cases these probably are the bones of whales, and in others of the wild bonasus or urus; but it must be distinctly understood that they do not give credibility to the legend, but only, in fact, derive an added glory from being associated with it. In the fine old church of Chesterfield is another gigantic rib some seven feet or more in length and a foot in circumference. This rests on the altar-tomb of a now unknown knight, whose marble effigy is represented clothed in a suit of armour, and local tradition has naturally bestowed on the once nameless warrior the proud title of Guy, Earl of Warwick. Another big rib may be seen in the grand church of St. Mary Redcliff at Bristol. Near it used to be suspended a grimy old picture representing a fierce-looking dun cow, and, though the inference was sufficiently obvious, the sexton, in showing people round, used to boldly affirm that this undoubtedly was one of the ribs of the monster slain by Sir Guy. Both rib and picture may now possibly be removed in deference to more modern ideas, but they certainly were there within a very recent period. A third rib may be seen at Caerleon, once a place of much importance, but now an insignificant little town, and chiefly interesting from its association with the history of the great King Arthur. Caerleon boasts a museum containing a very valuable collection of Roman and old British relics, and here too is the rib in question. It has only recently been removed from the church, and it is, by the way, curious to note the association of these bones with churches in almost every case. In the church of Pennant Melangell, in Montgomeryshire, is another gigantic rib said by some of the natives to be that of a giant, while others affirm that it is one of the ribs of St. Monacella, to whom the church is dedicated. As the bone is over four feet long, her stature must have been something considerable altogether. Another big bone is in the church at Mallwyd, in the same county. In Buckland's "Curiosities of Natural History" it is stated that "the ribs of the dun cow at Warwick and the gigantic rib at St. Mary's, Bristol, are the bones of whales;" and in his interesting account of the whale he mentions that he found whale-bones in all parts of the country, one of them being a large blade-bone hanging from a ceiling in Seven Dials. Assuming, as we probably may, that most if not all of these big bones scattered over the country are those of whales, one is still at a loss to know how or why they got so scattered, and more especially why they were placed in the churches. The legend of the dun cow appears to afford a very convenient popular explanation of them, but one feels that there is a mystery that this account does not dissipate.
The Salamander received its full mythical development during mediæval times, though the older writers refer to it occasionally. We see in the writings of such men as Pliny the first steps taken towards the erection of that fabric of fancy and superstition that in the Middle Ages was reared on so slight a foundation. Pliny asserts that the Salamander is made in the fashion of a lizard and marked with spots like stars; that it is never seen during fair weather, but only in heavy rain; and that it is of so cold a nature that if it do but touch fire it will as effectually quench it as if ice were placed thereon. He, moreover, declares its poisonous nature--a nature that, according to later writers, is so noxious that the mere climbing of the tree by the animal poisons all the fruit, so that all who afterwards eat thereof perish without remedy, and that if one enters a river the stream is effectually poisoned, and all who drink therefrom for an indefinite date thereafter must die. Glanvil, a learned English Cordelier monk who lived in the thirteenth century, goes so far as to declare roundly, as though undoubted and historic fact, that 4000 men of the army of Alexander the Great and 2000 of the beasts of burden were lost through drinking at a stream that had been thus infected. It was in the Middle Ages an article of belief that the salamander was bred and nourished in fire, and we have ourselves been gravely told that if the fires at the ironworks in the Midland Counties were not occasionally extinguished, an uncertain but fearful something would be created in them. When the salamander is represented it is always placed in the midst of flames. We see that the book to which we have already frequently referred as that to which our grandfathers went for instruction puts the poisonous nature of the salamander in the following graphic way:--"A man bit by a salamander should have as many physicians to cure him as the salamander has spots."
The salamander is the well-known device of Francis I. of France, A.D. 1515-1547, the monarch who met our own King Henry VIII. at "the field of the cloth of gold." On this occasion the French Guard had the salamander embroidered on their uniform, and we also find the device freely in the sculpture, wall paintings, and stained glass at Fontainebleau, Chambord, Orleans, in fact in all the palaces of Francis I. The motto adopted with it was _Nutrisco et extinguo_, "I nourish and extinguish," a somewhat contradictory saying based on a somewhat contradictory story, for while we are told on the one hand that the salamander is reared and nourished in flame, we are also told that "he is of so cold a complexion that if he doe but touch the fire he will quench it as presently as if yce were put into it." John, king of Aragon, had, almost a hundred years before, adopted the same device, adding to it the motto, _Durabo_, "I will endure." Asbestos, though really, of course, of a mineral nature, was, from its incombustible property, held in the Middle Ages to be the wool of the salamander. We are told that the Roman emperors had napkins of this material, and that if they became at all soiled they were thrown into the fire, the fierce heat quickly destroying all foreign matter. As the testing flames purified the good while they destroyed the bad, so we presume King Francis intended to hold himself up as a terror to evil-doers and a rewarder of the loyal and faithful. The motto is none the less faulty, however; for while we find the king claiming both functions, it will be noticed in the legend that it is the fire which nourishes and the creature which extinguishes.
The writings of Pliny abound in strange ideas; some of these he evidently set down without putting the statements to the test, but in many cases he shattered the old beliefs by bringing them to the crucial test of experiment. The story of the extreme frigidity of the salamander's body at once putting out the fiercest fire was a matter that he thus brought to the testing-point, the result being that the unfortunate victim of science was quickly shrivelled up and consumed. Another old statement, equally capable of being brought to the trial, was that if even the foot of a man came in contact with the liquid exuded from the skin of the salamander all his hair would fall off. Perhaps the reason why one statement was tested and not the other was that in the first case any ill consequences that might arise would affect the reptile, while the second would come home more closely to the experimenter himself.
In Breydenbach's travels we find a salamander included amongst the other animals, a position that it probably owed to its association with legend, for we also find in the same old author that the unicorn is frankly accepted as a beast that may be met with by the traveller. The book is interesting, too, as giving the first figure that had then been made of a giraffe, or, as he terms it, seraffa.[11] The existence of the giraffe was long afterwards denied by naturalists, and his seraffa was for a very lengthened period held to be but a myth. Breydenbach was a canon of the cathedral of Mentz, and seems to have been of a somewhat adventurous spirit, for despite all the difficulties of the undertaking--difficulties that in these days of steam-boats, railways, and through bookings we cannot at all realise--we find him visiting Sinai and the Holy Land. His travels were first printed as a folio volume at Mentz in 1486. This was a Latin edition; but two years later we find one in German, and in less than ten years six different editions were called for in Germany, besides others printed in Holland and elsewhere for the benefit of those to whom both Latin and German were unknown tongues. The book is full of quaint woodcuts, and is altogether a treasure-house of history, natural and unnatural.
[11] Representations of the giraffe are to be found in the ancient monuments of Egypt, the animal being part of the annual tribute brought by the vassal Ethiopians to the king of Egypt. These representations were, we need scarcely say, unknown to the naturalists of the Middle Ages.
The salamander is commonly to be met with in many parts of Europe, but the real and the ideal creature are two very different things--as different as the deer-eyed cows quietly ruminating in their verdant pasturage are to the dun cow that taxed all the heroism of Sir Guy of Warwick, or as old grey Dobbin to Pegasus. The real creature is very similar in form to the newts that are so commonly to be found in ponds, but the salamander of Francis I. is more like a wingless dragon, while some of the mediæval heralds made it a quadruped something like a dog. Such a creature, breathing forth flames, may be seen in the crest of Earl Douglas A.D. 1483.
Shakespearian students will recall how Falstaff rails at Bardolph, calling him the "Knight of the Burning Lamp," "admiral, bearing lantern in the poop," "ball of wildfire," and so forth, all compliments called forth from the effects of strong liquor on the rubicund countenance of Bardolph. He winds up by saying, "Thou hast saved me a thousand marks in links and torches, walking with thee in the night betwixt tavern and tavern, but the sack that thou hast drunk me would have bought me lights as good cheap, at the dearest chandler's in Europe. I have maintained that salamander of yours with fire any time this two and thirty years."
The salamander, like the toad, the slow-worm, or the water newt, is still held to be decidedly uncanny. In our younger days our seeking after such small objects of natural history was always held by wondering rustics as a foolish tempting of Providence, and we have repeatedly been told the most moving stories of the poisonous nature of all such creatures, and especially how newts developed the most alarming properties if interfered with, biting out pieces of the captor's flesh, and then spitting fire into the wound. Prompt amputation or death was the dire alternative offered, though in our own case matters never reached so dread a climax. "Them pisonous effets" were many a time in those by-gone days held in the hand that now guides our pen. The belief in such fatal powers must have a very disquieting influence on the rustics who hold it. When farm animals, as calves or colts, die mysteriously, some one is sure to start the theory that they have been bitten by an effet while drinking; and in view of such a belief even the fetching of a pail of water from the pond that too often supplies the drinking water in country places must appear attended with no little risk. The following graphic and amusing letter from one of the correspondents of the _Field_ newspaper shows how the salamander is still regarded in rural France:--
"Returning homeward a few evenings ago from a country walk in the environs of D----, I discovered in my path a strange-looking reptile, which, after regarding me steadfastly for a few moments, walked slowly to the side of the road, and commenced very deliberately clambering up the wall. Never having seen a similar animal, I was rather doubtful as to its properties; but, reassured by its tranquil demeanour, I put my pocket-handkerchief over it, and it suffered itself to be taken up without resistance, and was thus carried to my domicile. On arriving _chez moi_, I opened the basket to show my captive to the servants, when, to my surprise and consternation, they set up such a screaming and hullabaloo that I thought they would have gone into fits.
"'_Oh! la, la, la, la, la!--Oh! la, la, la, la, la!_' and then a succession of screams in altissimo, which woke up the children and brought out the neighbours to see what could be the matter.
"'_Oh, monsieur a rapporté un sourd!_'
"'_Un sourd!_' cried one.
"'UN SOURD!' echoed another.
"'UN S-O-U-R-D!!!' cried they all in chorus; and then followed a succession of shrieks.
"When they calmed down into a mild sample of hysterics, they began to explain that I had brought home the most venomous animal in creation.
"'_Oh! le vilaín bête!_' cried Phyllis.
"'_Oh! le méchant!_' chimed in Abigail; 'he kills everybody that comes near him; I have known fifty people die of his bite, and no remedy in the world can save them. As soon as they are bitten they _gonflent_, _gonflent_, and keep on swelling till they burst, and are dead in a quarter of an hour.'
"Here I transferred my curiosity from the basket to a glass jar, and put a saucer on the top to keep it safe.
"'_O Monsieur!_ don't leave him so; if he puts himself in a rage, nothing can hold him. He has got such force that he can jump up to the ceiling; and wherever he fastens himself he sticks like death.'
"'Ah! it's all true,' cried my landlady, joining the circle of gapers; '_Oh! la la! Ça me fait peur; ça me fait tr-r-r-r-embler!_'
"'Once I saw a man in a haycart try to kill one, and the _bête_ jumped right off the ground at a bound and fastened itself on the man's face, when he stood on the haycart, and nothing could detach it till the man fell dead.'
"'_Ah! c'est bien vrai_,' cried Abigail; 'they ought to have fetched a mirror and held it up to the _bête_, and then it would have left the man and jumped at its _image_.'
"The end of all this commotion was that, while I went to inquire of a scientific friend whether there was any truth in these tissue of _bêtises_, the whole household was in an uproar, _tout en émoi_, and they sent for a _commissionnaire_, and an ostler with a spade and mattock, and threw out my poor _bête_ into the road and foully murdered it, chopping it into a dozen pieces by the light of a stable lantern; and then they declared that they could sleep in peace!--_les miserables!_
"But there were sundry misgivings as to my fate, and, as with the Apostle, 'they looked when I should have swollen or fallen down dead suddenly;' and next morning the maids came stealthily and peeped into my room to see whether I was alive or dead, and were not a little surprised that I was not even _gonflé_, or any the worse for my _rencontre_ with a _sourd_.
"And so it turned out that my poor little _bête_ that had caused such a disturbance was nothing more nor less than a salamander--a poor, inoffensive, harmless reptile, declared on competent authority to be noways venomous, but whose unfortunate appearance and somewhat Satanic livery have exposed it to obloquy and persecution."
As the French word _sourd_ primarily means one who is deaf, we get a curious parallelism of ideas between the salamander deaf to all sense of pity, and insensible to all but its own fell purpose, and the old idea of the deafness of the poisonous adder. "Deaf as an adder" is a common country saying, and the passage in the Psalms of David where we read that "the deaf adder stoppeth her ears, and will not heed the voice of the charmer, charm he never so wisely," naturally rises to one's mind. The deafness, it will be noted, is no mere lack of the hearing faculty, but a wilful turning away from gentle influence. It was an old belief that when the asp heard the voice of the serpent-charmer it stopped its ears by burying one of them in the sand and coiling its folds over the other.
In turning over the quaint pages of the "Bestiary" of De Thaun we find allusion made to a creature that is evidently the salamander again, though we cannot quite make out the reference to King Solomon. Like all such books written in the Middle Ages, everything is introduced to point some moral or religious truth, though it may at first seem difficult for our readers to realise what possible connection there can be between the dreaded "sourd" and any spiritual instruction. The reference is as follows:--"Ylio is a little beast made like a lizard. Of it says Solomon that in a king's house it ought to be and to frequent, to give an example. It is of such nature that if it come by chance where there shall be burning fire it will immediately extinguish it. The beast is so cold and of such a quality that fire will not be able to burn where it shall enter, nor will trouble happen in the place where it shall be. A beast of such quality signifies such men as was Ananias, as was Azarias, and as was Misael, who served God fairly: these three issued from the fire praising God. He who has faith only will never have hurt from fire."[12]
[12] Appendix F.
Like the salamander, the Griffin was to our forefathers no mere creature of the imagination. Ctesias describes them in all sober earnestness as "birds with four feet, of the size of a wolf, and having the legs and claws of a lion. Their feathers are red on the breast and black on the rest of the body." Glanvil says of them, "The claws of a griffin are so large and ample that he can seize an armed man as easily by the body as a hawk a little bird. In like manner he can carry off a horse or an ox, or any other beast in his flight." The creature is, if anything, still more terrible when met with in the description given by Sir John Mandeville:--"Thai have the body upward as an egle, and benethe as a lyoun, but a griffonne hath the body more gret, and is more strong than eight lyouns, and more grete and strongere than an hundred egles such as we have among us. For he hath his talouns so large and so longe and grete upon his fete as though thei weren homes of grete oxen, so that men maken cuppes of them to drinken of." Oriental writers, who appear to have an especial delight in the marvellous, go even beyond this, and the creature becomes with them the roc, the terrible creature we read of, for example, in the wonderful adventures of "Sindbad the Sailor." Milton introduces the creature very finely in his noble poem, as for instance:--
"As when a gryphon through the wilderness With wingèd course o'er hill and moory dale Pursues the Arimaspian, who by stealth Has from his watchful custody purloin'd The guarded gold: so eagerly the fiend O'er bog, or steep, through strait, rough, dense, or rare, With head, hands, wings, or feet, pursues his way, And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies."
The Arimaspians were a one-eyed people of Scythia, who braided their hair with gold and drew their supplies of the precious metal as best they could from the stores guarded by the griffins. The griffin has long been employed as a symbol of watchfulness, courage, and perseverance, on account of this fabled treasure-guarding. But Browne, who, as we have seen, took great delight in vivisecting the vulgar errors of his day and generation, discourses as follows on the matter--"Aristeus affirmed that neer the Arimaspi, or one-eyed nation, griffins defended the mines of gold, but this, as Herodotus delivereth, he wrote from hearsay, and Michovius, who hath expressly written of those parts, plainly affirmeth that there is neither gold nor griffins in that country, nor any such Animall extant, for so doth he conclude, 'Ego vero contra veteres authores, gryphes nec in illa septentrionis nec in alius orbis partibus inveniri affirmarim.'"
Like the dragon, the griffin seems to have been a good sort of fellow to deal with if you only took him the right way, and though a terrible monster to encounter if one had any burglarious intentions, he seems to have served his masters with a singleness of purpose and bull-dog tenacity that were very much to his credit. In Ariosto's "Orlando Furioso" we read of a griffin-steed that flew through the air with its master on its back, and landed him wheresoever he listed.
The griffin was fabled to be the offspring of the union of the lion and the eagle; it has the leonine body and stout claws of one parent, the hooked beak, keen eye, and wings of the other. The form is very often met with in heraldry, past and present, either as a crest or as a supporter to the arms. A very familiar example of their employment in this latter service will be seen in the arms of the city of London. It is also a very common form in Roman and Renaissance painting and sculpture. Gryphius, a celebrated French printer, adopted the creature as his device, and on his decease the following epitaph was written:--
"La grande griffe Qui tout griffe A griffé le corps de Gryphe."
Though ordinarily written as griffin or griffon, the alternative rendering gryphon is somewhat more correct, as the word is derived from the Greek _grypos_, or hook-nosed, in evident allusion to its eagle-beak. Shakespeare frequently refers to the creature, but the only instance we need here refer to is where a considerable difference in the spelling of the word might lead some of our readers astray. The passage to which we allude will be found in "The Rape of Lucrece," where she
"Like a white hind under the grype's sharp claws Pleads in a wilderness, where are no laws."
In the forests of Bohemia, we are told by Burton in his "Miracles of Art and Nature," there is a little beast called the Lomie, "which hath hanging under its neck a bladder always full of scalding water, with which, when she is hunted, she so tortureth the dogs that she thereby easily makes her escape." Elsewhere he tells of four-footed serpents, strange creatures that, unlike many of his wonders--only to be found in Peru or India, or such like distant lands--are to be seen as near home as Poland. The people of Poland, we are told, are "boysterous, rude, and barbarous; nourishing amongst them a kind of four-footed serpent, above three handfuls in length, which they worship as their household gods, tending them with fear and reverence when they call them out to their repasts; and if any mischance do happen to any of their family it is imputed presently to some want of due observations of these ugly creatures."
Vegetable Lambs were another of the wonders of our forefathers. The credulous Sir John Mandeville says that in Cathay a gourd-like fruit is found that when ripe contains "as though it were a lytylle lomb withouten wolle." In the twenty-sixth chapter of his book the lamb-tree is duly figured, and its peculiar fruit development graphically delineated. In many old books of natural history we find representations of some such creature under the names of the Scythian or Tartarian lamb. According to some old writers it was said to be purely an animal, and although rooted to the ground, was held to have so deadly an effect on vegetation in its neighbourhood that it effectually prevented the growth of all herbage within the scope of its baleful influence. So singular a creature naturally provoked attention and curiosity, and in the earlier days of the Royal Society the matter was considered quite worthy of their notice. Naturally, also, the supply endeavoured to keep pace with the demand, and as the belief in mermaids led to their fabrication and exhibition, so also the myth of the Scythian lamb took visible shape. One of these impositions was formerly preserved in the British Museum, not from any belief in it, of course, but as an illustration of the old belief.[13]
[13] Appendix G.
The reference to the mermaid reminds us that the sea no less than the land bore in ancient and mediæval days its full share of wonders. Of the mermaids we shall have occasion to say more presently, as we propose to class together all those forms that are more or less human, and to deal with them separately; but the sculptures of classic antiquity or the fancies of the mediæval herald afford us illustrations of the sea-horse, the sea-lion, and many other quaint imaginings. On an antique seal we once even saw a sea-elephant, a creature having the fore-legs, tusks, trunk, and great flapping ears of the African elephant, yet terminating in the body of a fish, and duly furnished with piscine tail and fins. The combination was of the most outrageous character, and would seem to indicate the limit possible to absurdity in this direction. When the ancient writers would desire to people the vast unknown of air or sea their thoughts naturally turned to those creatures of the land with which they were more familiar; hence the denizens of the air or ocean are not really creations at all, but adaptations, wings or fins being added to horses, lions, and the like according to the new element in which they were to figure. Of these, the sea-horses that draw the chariot of Neptune through the waves and the winged-horse Pegasus are examples that at once occur to one's mind.
Pegasus or Pegasos, the offspring of Medusa and Poseidon, was the symbol of poetic inspiration. Its association with Perseus and Bellerophon, with the fountain of Peirene and the heights of Olympus, may all be found duly set forth in classic story and engraved or sculptured on the gems and marbles of antiquity. It is also introduced in mediæval heraldry, but there seems to be no reference in any book of this period to lead us to suppose that it was then regarded as a living verity. Shakespeare refers to it from time to time, but in one case it is only as an inn-sign, and in another the very terms employed indicate that the reference to it must be taken in a poetic rather than a literal sense. The first of the two to which we allude will be found in the "Taming of the Shrew," and runs as follows:--
"Signior Baptista may remember me, Near twenty years ago, in Genoa, Where we were lodgers at the Pegasus."
The second will be met with in the first part of "King Henry IV.;" it will probably be very familiar to many of our readers:--
"I saw young Harry, with his beaver on, His cuisses on his thighs, gallantly arm'd, Rise from the ground like feather'd Mercury, And vaulted with such ease into his seat As if an angel dropp'd down from the clouds, To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus, And witch the world with noble horsemanship."
The arms of the Barrister Templars of the present day consist of the Pegasus on an azure shield. The original devices of the Templars were the Agnus Dei, a device that may still be seen carved on the Temple buildings in London, and two knights riding one behind the other on the same horse. This badge or device was originally chosen to denote the poverty of the order in its earlier days, but at a later day, when the symbol was misunderstood, these two rude figures of knights were taken for wings, and hence we get the modern device of the winged steed or Pegasus.
The Vampyre was another of the strange imaginings of our forefathers. It was thought that men and women sometimes returned, body and soul, from the other world after their death, and wandered about the earth doing all kinds of mischief to the living, one of their favourite pursuits being to suck the blood of those who were asleep, and these became vampyres in turn. The superstition took deepest hold in Eastern Europe, and is still an article of firm faith in Hungary and Servia. One reads ghastly stories of men unconsciously entertaining and sheltering vampyres and perishing miserably, of lonely travellers pining suddenly away, of the bodies of the dead being disinterred and the corpse found with the tell-tale stains of blood around its mouth, and the like; and we can easily see how such beliefs as this, or the wehr-wolf or loup-garou of the Germans and French, or the ghoul of the Arabs and Persians, would have a terrible effect on the minds of the superstitious. The vampyre was a terror of the night, since the corpse then, after lying in the stillness of the grave throughout the day, awoke to a fearful vitality. The forms it assumed were not always human, but were believed to be at times those of the dog, frog, toad, cat, flea, spider, and many other innocent creatures. Hence the contemptuous expression one sometimes hears used to deride a needless anxiety, "a mere flea-bite," could have had no counterpart in mediæval days, for the anxiety such a misadventure might create would be of the most alarming and harassing description. In old books one finds the most circumstantial details as to how to detect when one has been bitten, or to prevent further mischief. To this end the grave of the suspected vampyre was opened during daylight when his powers of evil were quiescent, the corpse was decapitated and the head buried elsewhere, a stake was driven through the body, and many other elaborate and horrible precautions were taken to prevent a recurrence of the nightly resurrection. On the whole, we may well congratulate ourselves that we do not live in "the good old times." Even now in country districts and amongst the uneducated one comes across such striking instances of superstitious belief and thraldom as suffice to enable us to faintly realise what it must have been when all alike were enwrapped in a dreadful bondage to unseen powers of evil far more intense than is now possible even to the few.
The vampyre bat, a native of South America, is so called from its blood-sucking propensities. It is the legend of the vampyre that has given the name to the bat, not the habits of the bat that originated the fable of the vampyre, for at the time that these legends of the destroyer were articles of faith in Europe, the American animal was quite unknown. The natural tendency towards exaggeration surrounded the vampyre bat with a mysterious horror, and having once gained its name of ill-omen, it became easy to rear upon it a superstructure of morbid fancy. The researches on the spot of Waterton, Darwin, and other reliable authorities show that the name is not altogether ill bestowed, as both Europeans and natives suffer severely from its attacks during the night, and the horses and cattle that are out in the pastures frequently return in the morning with their flanks covered with blood.
Though the Chameleon, unlike the phoenix, the griffin, or the basilisk, is a living verity, so large a body of fable has grown up around it that the animal is almost as mythical as those creatures of the imagination. The name is derived from two Greek words signifying "ground-lion," a name singularly inappropriate in every way, as it has nothing leonine in look or nature, while its organisation fits it especially for living on trees. When we consider the singularity of its appearance and the peculiarity of its habits, it is by no means surprising that it should have attracted attention; and when we recall the numerous erroneous beliefs current amongst our rustics in England in this nineteenth century in the matter of frogs, newts, slow-worms, and the like, we can hardly wonder at the superstitions that have surrounded it. The eyes of the creature are quite expressionless, and are worked perfectly independently of each other, so that one may be directed upwards and the other downwards at the same time, or turned simultaneously to front and rear. Its exceeding slowness of movement is another curious feature, and though this exposes them to easy capture when seen, for "_un Caméléon aperçu est un Caméléon perdu_," it has its advantages in another direction, for a creature that takes some hours to advance a yard or so will certainly not attract attention by any sudden movement; and the assimilation in colour of its skin with the surrounding foliage is another great protection. The creature has a singular habit of puffing out its body until it is nearly as large again, and in this state it will sometimes remain for hours. The best known fact, however, is its capacity for changing colour, passing from green to violet, blue, or yellow; but this power of varying the tint has been greatly exaggerated. We have been told that if the creature be placed on any colour, as bright scarlet, it will assume that colour; but this is one of those fragments of unnatural history that will not bear putting to the test. The following lines of Prior convey aptly enough this popular but erroneous notion:--
"As the chameleon, who is known To have no colours of its own, But borrows from his neighbour's hue His white or black, his green or blue."
Aristotle was acquainted with the singular motions of the eyes of the creature, and his description may well have been taken from nature. At the same time, these old writers knew nothing of comparative anatomy or dissection and conducted no scientific _post-mortem_ examinations; hence in all matters of internal structure they are often ludicrously in error, while the weakness of their statements is only perhaps equalled by the strength with which they are asserted. We are, therefore, not surprised to read in Aristotle that the chameleon has no blood except in its head. Pliny re-states all the errors made by Aristotle, and further adds that it lives without either eating or drinking, deriving its nourishment wholly from the air, and that, though ordinarily harmless, it becomes terrible during the greatest summer heats. Even Pliny, however, could not believe everything that was told him, though his powers of imbibing outrageous notions were of the keenest, and whenever any old writers deal with something more than usually incredible they fortify their statement and evade personal responsibility by adding "as Plinie saith." Pliny, then, rejects the still older idea that its right leg artfully cooked with certain herbs conveys the power of invisibility on the eater, and will not believe that the thigh of its left leg boiled in sow's milk will induce gout in any one so injudicious as to bathe their feet in this peculiar broth. Neither will he credit that a man may be made to incur the hatred of all his fellow-citizens by having his gate-posts anointed with another nasty preparation of chameleon. As a set-off to all this very unusual incredulity he hastens to adopt the statement of another wise man, Democritus, that it has the power of attracting to the earth birds of prey, so that they in turn become the prey of other animals--a most unselfish proceeding on the part of the creature, as its own food consists of flies and such like small matters. Democritus also asserts, and Pliny confirms him in the assertion, that if the head and neck of the chameleon be burned on oak charcoal it will cause thunder and heavy rain. One is lost in astonishment at the fertility of the imagination in these old naturalists; and though it is now easy when one has once been put on the track of discovery to surmise that the tail of a chameleon burnt on walnut charcoal might produce snow or possibly fog, much of the credit of the discovery should go to the man who first gave the clue to these physiologico-meteorological influences. Aldrovandus, another man of science gifted with a strong imagination and the power of assimilating the fancies of others, informs us that if a viper passes beneath a tree in the branches of which a chameleon is resting, the latter will eject from its mouth a poisonous secretion that effectually rids the world of the equally venomous snake; and he further adds that elephants sometimes unknowingly eat a chameleon in the midst of the foliage on which they are browsing, a mishap that is rapidly fatal to them unless they can at once have recourse to the wild olive-tree as a remedy and antidote.
Many other strange beasts might engage our attention were it not that we have much new ground yet to explore, for not only might we discourse of the strange beliefs that have clustered round these monsters, but of the equally strange fancies that have been associated with such familiar creatures as cats and dogs, hares and spiders, goats and mice, while in another section we must dwell on the equally unnatural fancies that have been associated with various plants. Before, however, passing to these we must refer to those strange imaginings, such as the troglodytes, centaurs, and pigmies, that owe more or less to the combination of the human with other forms--a large class that deserves a measure of attention that may well suggest the advisability of opening a new chapter for its benefit.
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