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25 chapters
MYTH-LAND.
MYTH-LAND.
BY F. EDWARD HULME, F.L.S., F.S.A. AUTHOR OF “FAMILIAR WILD FLOWERS,” ETC. ETC. LONDON SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE, & RIVINGTON, CROWN BUILDINGS, 188 FLEET STREET. 1886. [ All rights reserved. ] LONDON SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE, & RIVINGTON, CROWN BUILDINGS, 188 FLEET STREET. 1886. [ All rights reserved. ] THE nucleus of the following pages was originally written in the form of two short papers to be read at the meetings of a Public School Natural History Society. Since then,
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PREFACE.
PREFACE.
Our subject naturally divides itself into two very obvious sections—the one dealing with wholly untrue and impossible creatures of the fancy, the other with the strange beliefs and fancies that have clustered round the real creatures we see around us. It will readily be discovered that we have confined ourselves in the present volume almost entirely to the first of these sections. Should our present labours prove acceptable they may readily be followed by a companion volume, at least as entertai
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CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER I.
ALL science is a gradual growth. Travellers as they toil up a long ascent turn round from time to time, and mark with satisfaction the ever-lengthening way that stretches between them and their distant starting-place, and derive a further encouragement from the sight to press onward to the yet unknown. So may we in this our day compare ourselves, in no offensive and vainglorious way, with the men of the past, and gain renewed courage in the future as we leave their ancient landmarks far behind u
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CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER II.
THE creatures we have hitherto been considering—the griffin, the phœnix, the manticora or the sea-horse—have either been unmitigated monsters of the fancy, or else, like the salamander or the chameleon, so transformed by legend as to be scarcely less monstrous and unreal. Having the fear of Pope’s oft-quoted line upon us, “The proper study of mankind is man,” we leave for a while these fantastic imaginings, and turn to another class of forms scarcely less grotesque, but all agreeing in this, the
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CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER III.
WHILE we find numerous extraordinary beliefs clustering round the so-called natural history of various birds, such as the legend of the pelican nourishing its young with its own blood, or the eagle teaching its offspring to gaze on the brightness of the mid-day sun, it is curious to note how little of absolute myth-creation has been developed in the direction of strange forms of bird life. On the other hand, many of the weird creations of fancy, such as the dragon or the phoca, have their terror
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B.
B.
As we have already in the body of the text given in full detail the accepted prose version of the conflict of St. George with the dragon, it seemed scarcely advisable to repeat these details in metrical form. As we feel, at the same time, that such old ballads will probably possess interest for some, at least, of our readers, we, instead of banishing the story from our book entirely, dismiss it to the Appendix merely, where it can be equally readily read or ignored in accordance with individual
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C.
C.
In Hippeau’s comments on the non-reliability of much of the natural history of Guillaume he points out that not only was it difficult for these early writers to ascertain the truth, but that the truth in its lower sense was not really much striven after or valued. He says—“N’oublions pas que les pères de l’Église se préoccupèrent toujours beaucoup plus de la pureté des doctrines qu’ils avaient à développer, que de l’exactitude scientifique des notions sur lesquelles ils les appuyaient. L’object
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D.
D.
The palm was by old writers called the phœnix-tree, and in Greek the same word is used to express both the bird and the tree. Back to text...
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E.
E.
“The story of Guy is so obscured with fable that it is difficult to ascertain its authenticity. He was the hero of succeeding Earls of Warwick. William Beauchamp called his eldest son after him. Thomas by his last will bequeathed the sword and coat-of-mail of this worthy to his son. Another christened a younger son after him, and dedicated to him a noble tower, whose walls are ten feet thick, the circumference 126, and the height 113 feet from the bottom of the ditch. Another left as an heirloom
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F.
F.
Of the “Bestiary” of Philip de Thaun only one copy of the MS. is known, that in the Cottonian Collection, though of another of his quaint treatises, the “Livre des Créatures,” there are seven copies extant. Three of these are in the Vatican Library, and in England one may be seen in the Sloane Library, and another in the Cottonian. The author had as his great patron Adelaide of Louvain, the second queen of King Henry I. He dedicates his “Bestiary” to her in the following lines:— His poems are th
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G.
G.
As the limited space at our disposal prevents anything like an exhaustive account of the wonders narrated by Mandeville and others, we give the titles of some few old works, in case the reader may care to dive into them at greater length than is here at all possible. The first we would mention is Richard Hackluyt’s black-letter folio, published in 1589. Its full title runs as follows:—“The Principal Navigations; Voiages and Discoveries of the English Nation, made by Sea or over Land to the most
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H.
H.
The sphinx is described in Bacon’s book, “The Wisdom of the Ancients, Written in Latin by the Right Honourable Sir Francis Bacon Knt. Baron of Verulam and Lord Chancellor of England, and done into English by Sir Arthur Gorges Knt.” After narrating the story, he expounds it as follows:—“This Fable contains in it no less Wisdom than Elegancy, and it seems to point at Science, especially that which is joyn’d with Practice, for Science may not absurdly be call’d a Monster, as being by the ignorant a
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I.
I.
The spaces in the frieze of the Parthenon, known architectively as the metopes, were filled with sculptures illustrating the struggle between the Lapithæ and the Centaurs. Thirty-nine of these slabs remain in their original position in the temple, while seventeen are in the British Museum and one in the Louvre. In their beauty and bold design they are some of the grandest monuments of Greek art. Other very fine examples may be seen in the fragments in our national collection from the frieze of t
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J.
J.
Centaury is so called from an old myth that Chiron, the centaur, cured himself from a wound given by a poisoned arrow by using some plant that Pliny, therefore, calls Centaurium ; but whether it was this plant, or a knapweed, or any plant at all, or whether there even ever was a centaur named Chiron, or a centaur named anything else, are points we must be content to leave. Linnæus called the plant the Chironia ; its modern generic name merely signifies red, as most of the flowers in the genus ha
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K.
K.
A good illustration of this may be seen in Brathwait’s book, published in 1621, and entitled “Nature’s Embassie, or the Wilde-Man’s Measures danced by twelve Satyres,” the dance itself being very quaintly represented on the curious old woodcut title. Back to text...
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L.
L.
An old author whose voluminous works on natural history are very interesting and curious, and richly illustrated with engravings at least as quaint in character as the text. The “Historia Monstrorum,” was published in folio at Bologna in 1642, and is full of the most extraordinary animal forms. His various works range in date from 1602 to 1668, and are, with one exception—Venice—published either at Bologna or Frankfort. All are very curious, and will well repay our readers if they can get an opp
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M.
M.
Bacon, in his “Wisdom of the Ancients,” writes as follows:—“The Fable of the Syrens seems rightly to have been apply’d to the pernicious Allurements of Pleasure, but in a very vulgar and gross manner. And therefore to me it seems that the Wisdom of the Ancients have with a farther reach or insight strained deeper Matter out of them, not unlike the Grapes ill press’d; from which though some Liquor were drawn, yet the best was left behind. This Fable hath relation to Men’s Manners, and contains in
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N.
N.
“A Scorneful Image or Monstrous Shape of a Marvellous Strange Fygure called Sileni Alcibiadis presentyng ye state and condio of this present world, and inespeciale of the Spirituallte how farre they be from ye perfite trade and life of Criste, wryte in the later tonge by that famous Clerke Erasmus and lately translated into Englyshe.” A rare old black-letter book. Back to text...
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P.
P.
Before finally dismissing the Fairies we would just refer our readers to a very curious book amongst the Lansdowne MSS. (No. 231) in the British Museum. It was written by John Aubrey, in the year 1686, and is entitled “Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme.” The title, however, is no guide whatever to the character of the book, which seems to be merely a note-book for the writing down, without any apparent system or order, of any curious matters that came before him. Scattered throughout these not
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Q.
Q.
Where several sons are contemporaneous, and all have the right to bear the paternal arms, they are thus distinguished—the eldest son adds to them what is known as a label; the second, a crescent; the third, a five-pointed star; the fourth, a martlet; the fifth, an annulet; the sixth, a fleur-de-lys; the seventh, a rose; and so on. A very good and easily accessible example of this “differencing” of the arms may be seen in those borne by the Prince of Wales, the silver label stretching across the
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R.
R.
Bruce tells us, for instance, that the horned viper, or Cerastes, the “worm of Nile” that was the cause of the death of Cleopatra, has a way of creeping until it is alongside its victim, and then making a sudden sidelong spring at the object of its attack. In his book he narrates a curious instance that came under his notice at Cairo, where several of these reptiles had been placed in a box. “I saw one crawl up the side, and there lie still, as if hiding himself, till one of the people who broug
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S.
S.
Amongst the things displayed in the case are portions of a wreath from the coffin of Rameses II. (1100-1200 B.C. ), composed of sepals and petals of Nymphæa cærulea on strips of leaves of the date-palm, and another wreath made from the N. Lotus . Another wreath is from the coffin of Aahmes I. (1700 B.C. ), composed of leaves of willow and flowers of the Acacia Nilotica . There are also two garlands from the tomb of the Princess Nzi Khonsou (1000 B.C. ), composed in the one case of willow leaves
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T.
T.
The Bay enters very largely into the various extraordinary compounds—astrological, medicinal, and the like—of the ancients. Thus—to quote but one instance out of many that might be given—Albertus Magnus, in his treatise “De Virtutibus Herbarum,” tells us that if any one gathers some bay leaves and wraps them up with the tooth of a wolf, no one can speak an angry word to the bearer; while, put under the pillow at night, it will bring in a vision before the eyes of a man who has been robbed, the t
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