The same manuscript has furnished us with the cut No. 63. Here the combat takes place between a monkey and a stag, the latter having the claws of a griffin. They are mounted, too, on rather nondescript animals--one having the head and body of a lion, with the forefeet of an eagle; the other having a head somewhat like that of a lion, on a lion's body, with the hind parts of a bear. This subject may, perhaps, be intended as a burlesque on the mediæval romances, filled with combats between the Christians and the Saracens; for the ape--who, in the moralisations which accompany the _Bestiaries_, is said to represent the devil--is here armed with what are evidently intended for the sabre and shield of a Saracen, while the flag carries the shield and lance of a Christian knight. [Illustration: _No. 63. A Feat of Arms._] The love of the mediæval artists for monstrous figures of animals, and for mixtures of animals and men, has been alluded to in a former chapter. The combatants in the accompanying cut (No. 64), taken from the same manuscript, present a sort of combination of the rider and the animal, and they again seem to be intended for a Saracen and a Christian. The figure to the right, which is composed of the body of a satyr, with the feet of a goose and the wings of a dragon, is armed with a similar Saracenic sabre; while that to the left, which is on the whole less monstrous, wields a Norman sword. Both have human faces below the navel as well as above, which was a favourite idea in the grotesque of the middle ages. Our mediæval forefathers appear to have had a decided taste for monstrosities of every description, and especially for mixtures of different kinds of animals, and of animals and men. There is no doubt, to judge by the anecdotes recorded by such writers as Giraldus Cambrensis, that a belief in the existence of such unnatural creatures was widely entertained. In his account of Ireland, this writer tells us of animals which were half ox and half man, half stag and half cow, and half dog and half monkey.[34] It is certain that there was a general belief in such animals, and nobody could be more credulous than Giraldus himself. [34] See Girald. Cambr., Topog. Hiberniæ, dist. ii. cc. 21, 22; and the Itinerary of Wales, lib. ii. c. 11. [Illustration: _No. 64. A Terrible Combat._] [Illustration: _No. 65. Fashionable Dress._]