Mediaeval Lore from Bartholomew AnglicusBartholomaeus, Anglicus, active 13th century
History
Mediaeval Lore from Bartholomew Anglicus
Bartholomaeus, Anglicus, active 13th century
Civilization, Medieval; Science, Medieval
The editor has been obliged to reduce some of these extracts to make
room for others. Among these the reader will find many examples of
those legends, which made up the popular Natural History of early
days, originally imported from the East through Spain and Italy. The
memory of these survives even now in our popular locutions. "Licked
into shape" refers to the tale we give in our account of the bear. The
royal nature of the lion is a commonplace: Jonson and Spenser speak of
the sweet breath of the panther. Drayton, in his "Heroical Epistles,"
quotes the siren and the hyena as examples:
"To call for aid, and then to lie in wait,
So the hyena murthers by deceit,
By sweet enticement sudden death to bring,
So from the rocks th' alluring mermaids sing."
Trevisa has invented an adjective for us that expresses the midnight
caterwaul--"ghastful." Bartholomew probably suffered from those two
minor curses of humanity--the amorous cat and the wandering cur. But
he has preserved for us a noble eulogy of the dog, and has a reference
to the tale of the dog of Montargis, the standing example of canine
fidelity among a chivalrous folk.
It is said, that in India is a beast wonderly shapen, and is like to
the bear in body and in hair, and to a man in face. And hath a right
red head, and a full great mouth, and an horrible, and in either jaw
three rows of teeth distinguished atween. The outer limbs thereof be
as it were the outer limbs of a lion, and his tail is like to a wild
scorpion, with a sting, and smiteth with hard bristle pricks as a wild
swine, and hath an horrible voice, as the voice of a trumpet, and he
runneth full swiftly, and eateth men. And among all beasts of the
earth is none found more cruel, nor more wonderly shape, as Avicenna
saith. And this beast is called Baricos in Greek.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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