Mediaeval Lore from Bartholomew AnglicusBartholomaeus, Anglicus, active 13th century
History
Mediaeval Lore from Bartholomew Anglicus
Bartholomaeus, Anglicus, active 13th century
Civilization, Medieval; Science, Medieval
arear him with wonder affection and love, they bend themselves with
all their might and strength. ... Also there is another thing said
that is full wonderful: among the Ethiopians in some countries
elephants be hunted in this wise: there go in the desert two maidens
all naked and bare, with open hair of the head: and one of them
beareth a vessel, and the other a sword. And these maidens begin to
sing alone: and the beast hath liking when he heareth their song, and
cometh to them, and licketh their teats, and falleth asleep anon for
liking of the song, and then the one maid sticketh him in the throat
or in the side with a sword, and the other taketh his blood in a
vessel, and with that blood the people of the same country dye cloth,
and done colour it therewith.
Satyrs be somewhat like men, and have crooked nose and horns in the
forehead, and like to goats in their feet. Saint Anthony saw such a
one in the wilderness, as it is said, and he asked what he was, and he
answered Anthony, and said: "I am deadly, and one of them that
dwelleth in the wilderness." These wonderful beasts be divers: for
some of them be called Cyno[ce]phali, for they have heads as hounds,
and seem by the working, beasts rather than men, and some be called
Cyclops, and have that name, for one of them hath but one eye, and
that in the middle of the forehead, and some be all headless and
noseless, and their eyen be in the shoulders, and some have plain
faces without nostrils, and the nether lips of them stretch so, that
they hele therewith their faces when they be in the heat of the sun:
and some of them have closed mouths, in their breasts only one hole,
and breathe and suck as it were with pipes and veins, and these be
accounted tongueless, and use signs and becks instead of speaking.
Also in Scythia be some with so great and large ears, that they spread
their ears and cover all their bodies with them, and these be called
Panchios.... And other be in Ethiopia, and each of them have only one
foot so great and so large, that they beshadow themselves with the
foot when they lie gaping on the ground in strong heat of the sun; and
yet they be so swift, that they be likened to hounds in swiftness of
running, and therefore among the Greeks they be called Cynopodes. Also
some have the soles of their feet turned backward behind the legs, and
in each foot eight toes, and such go about and stare in the desert of
Lybia. The griffin is a beast with wings, and is four footed: and
breedeth in the mountains Hyperborean, and is like to the lion in all
the parts of the body, and to the eagle only in the head and wings.
And griffins keep the mountains in which be gems and precious stones,
and suffer them not to be taken from thence.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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