To the ostrich was accredited the power of digesting iron. How such an idea could have arisen, it is now impossible to explain. In allusion to this myth the bird, when introduced in blazonry, as in fig. 18, from a mediæval flagon, ordinarily has a horse-shoe in its mouth.[83] The artist who thus represented the bird was evidently by no means oblivious of the fact that the plumage of the ostrich was another very characteristic feature. Shakespeare, in his Henry VI., makes Jack Cade declare “I’ll make thee eat iron like an ostrich, and swallow my sword like a great pin;” while Munster, in his “Cosmography,” gravely gives a picture of an ostrich with an immense key in his mouth, and at his feet, as second course, a horse-shoe. Cogan, the author of the very popular “Haven of Health,” finds apt simile herein. “The fat of flesh,” he says, “alone without leane is unwholesome and cloyeth the stomack and causeth lothsomnes, yet have I knowne a country man that would feed onely of the fat of Bacon or Pork, without leane, but that is not to bee marvelled at, considering that many of them have stomackes like the bird that is called an Ostridge, which can digest hard Iron.” It was held that the ostrich never hatches her eggs by sitting upon them, but by the rays of warmth and light from her eyes. Southey alludes, it will be remembered, to this old fancy in the lines:— “With such a look as fables say, The mother ostrich fixes on her eggs, Till that intense affection Kindle its light of life.”[84] A considerable body of folk-lore is associated with the cock. One strange notion that crops up in the books of the mediæval writers is that the lion has a strong antipathy to this bird, and that the crowing of chanticleer will effectually put to the rout the king of beasts. One can readily imagine that the lion, prowling in the darkness round some human habitation, would naturally resent the shrill clarion of the cock, and that this idea might, with the delight in mysticism and symbolism of the Middle Ages, be readily transferred to the roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour, thwarted by the vigilance of which the cock is the emblem. Even so early, however, as the pre-Christian days of Pliny we find this belief in the antagonism between the two creatures in full operation, for this ancient author prescribes the broth from a stewed cock as an excellent outward application for those in peril from wild beasts, declaring confidently that whosoever shall bathe himself in this shall fear no harm from lion or panther.