Fabulous Beasts and Where to Find Them

[dolorous_ett]

One of the nice things about term starting soon (OMG! Students! Lessons! Work! Oh teh angst!) is that the second-hand bookseller has set up his stall again outside one of the canteens. One impulse purchase later, I am now the proud owner of a Folio Society translated Bestiary (original circa 764 AD) for the princely sum of £3.50.

What a treasure! Everything you ever wanted to know about Manticores but were too afraid to ask on account of their scorpion tails and poisionous breath! Basilisks! Water-ouzels! Gryphons! And - best of all - Exhortations!

I couldn't resist sharing some of the choicer parts with you:

In Ireland there are many birds called barnacles, which nature produces in a way which contradicts her own laws. They are like marsh geese, but smaller. They first appear as growths on pine-logs floating on the water. Then they hang from seaweed on the log, their bodies protected by a shell so that they may grow more freely; they hold on by their beaks. In dues course they grow a covering of strong feathers and either fall inot the water or change to free flight in the air. They take their food from the sap of wood and from the sea in a mysterious way as they grow. I have seen them myself, with my own eyes, many times: thousands of these small birdlike bodies hanging from just one log on the seashore, in their shells and already formed. When they mate, they do not lay eggs, and no bird of this kind ever sits on eggs to hatch them. You will never have seen them anywhere on land, breeding or building nests. For this reason, in some parts of Ireland, bishops and men of religion eat them during times of fasting without committing a sin, because they are neither flesh nor born of flesh.

There is an animal called the ibex. This creature has two horns, which are so strong that if it falls from a high mountain down a precipice, its horns bear the whole weight of its body and it escapes unhurt. This beast represents those learned men who understand the harmony of the Old and New Testaments, and if anything untoward happens to them, they are supported as if on two horns by all the good they have derived from reading the witness of the Old Testament and the Gospels.

The best bit about this is the illustration, which shows a horse-like creature balanced perfectly upright on two long, straight horns, a look of intense concentration on its face. Above, on what is presumably the top of a cliff, are a series of rather nonplussed looking hunters, blowing horns and putting collars back on their dogs to go home.

Harz birds come from the Harz mountains in Germany, which give them their name. Their feathers shine in the darkness, so that, however dark the night,they shine brightly if they are thrown on the ground, and serve to light the way. With the help of their shining feathers, the way is plain.

There is an animal called the beaver, which is quite tame, whose testicles are excellent as medicine. The naturalists say of it that when it reaslises that hunters are pursuing it, it bites off its testicles and throws them down in front of the hunters, and thus takes flight and escapes. If it so happens that another hunter follows it, it stands up on its hind legs and shows its sexual organs. When the second hunter sees that it has no testicles, he goes away. In like fashion everyone who reforms his life and wants to live chastely in accordance with God's commandments should cut off all vices and shameless deeds and throw them in the devil's face. Then the devil will see that man has nothing belonging to him and will leave him, ashamed.

This entry includes a picture of an agonised-looking beaver in mid-bite.

Comments

[a-t-rain.livejournal.com]

Oh, that rocks. I love medieval lit; it's so surreal.

Believe it or not, I knew about the barnacle geese (including the Lent loophole) but "Exhortations" are a new one on me. More excerpts, please?

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

Believe it or not, I knew about the barnacle geese (including the Lent loophole)

I do believe you, because the Bestiary at no point calls them "barnacle geese", even in translation. Though I confess I'd never thought of the Lent loophole. How people do love their technicalities, to be sure.

I'll gladly post some more, since you like them. As soon as I have time.

[ignipes.livejournal.com]

That's awesome.

And, wow, the agony of learning chastity from a beaver...

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

Glad you liked them.

the agony of learning chastity from a beaver...

Indeed.

Also, I can't help feeling that the beaver has a pretty shaky grasp of human nature - the idea that showing that it has no testicles will make the hunter leave it in peace strikes me as more than a little naive. *is concerned for Bestiary beavers*

[swythyv.livejournal.com]

Wow! I wrote a paper long ago on mythical beasts with reference to the Bestiary, but have never seen it. Yes, more exerpts, please!

Majorly bizarre for the beaver. The American indians used beaver testicles to treat migraine headaches, for they do in fact contain some pertinent chemical. Not that I've ever seen any indication that they'll bite them off for you. And I do credit the Amerinds with a good deal of natural history observation. ;D

One that sticks in my mind was the account of the pelican, which some monastic nut or another decided pierced its own breast with its bill and fed its young with its own blood. In fact, I remember the narrator of some TV documentary on this topic (which also showed the barnacle geese) gently saying that one likely didn't find that the devout churchmen were standing in a blind actually watching the pelicans.

Is the antlion in that one?

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

I'm impressed that there's a mythical beast expert reading my LJ. Quite a coup for me!

I've heard the pelican legend too - it's quite a common heraldic symbol, and I believe it's called the Pelican in her Peity. There is a Bestiary entry for that, though I have yet to identify an ant-lion (there is no index - presumably to make it seem more olde-worlde and authentic).

[(Anonymous)]

I know this is coming in on the discussion rather late, but I think you're being a little unfair to Pious Pelican devotees, monks or otherwise...

Pelican (females) do excrete a nutritious, red fluid, through their breast (like a primitive mammary gland, only without as efficient an interface as the mouth/nipple one humans have), which they then feed to their young by beak.

OK, not involving actual blood or sacrifical self-mutilation, as a _close_ view or a dissection would prove, but you can see how someone standing a distance away would have got the idea... I'll grant that taking the pelican as a symbol of Christ is a very monastic idea, though the symbolism is quite obvious if you're accustomed to looking for typological references to Christ everywhere. (This also explains why Corpus Christi College Oxford is covered in pictures of mummy and baby pelicans).

kamikaze mediaevalist

[bufo-viridis.livejournal.com]

This entry includes a picture of an agonised-looking beaver in mid-bite.
Bah. I'd look agonised, too.

Do you have a scanner in the office? Not that I suggest anything, but a picture of an Exhortation would be nice.

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

I'd look agonised too

You're not the only one. Even the hunters in the picture look pretty squicked.

I don't have a scanner, though it occurs to me that some of these pictures might be online. Will attempt to find out (when I have time, ha ha!), and post a link if I succeed.

[hannahmarder.livejournal.com]

That's brilliant - amazing to think they were real and serious once! As for those beavers... ouch!

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

Glad you liked them!

It is amazing - though when you consider some of the odd creatures that really do exist - the angler fish, the octopus that can squeeze through any hole that's bigger than its eye to name but a few, mould used to fight disease - perhaps it's not so amazing as we tend to think...