MYTHICAL BEASTS

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 20054, 11 March 1935, Page 11

MYTHICAL BEASTS

FANCIES OF THE PAST THE APPETITE FOR WONDERS In the days when much of the world was unknown, when travelling was difficult, when books were scarce, and devices which now bring strange places close to the untravelled—photographs and moving-pictures were never dreamed of, people had fewer facts to occupy their thoughts, writes “P.R.” in the “Christian Science Monitor.” Those were happy days for the imagination, which hurried in to fill the gap. Legends sprang up, which have been well called “the weeds of history,” for they choke out and strangle facts. The more fantastic the tale, the more eagerly w'as it accepted. What, for one thing, was the animal world of our ancestors composed of? Outside of those specimens that found their way into the immediate vicinity, their ideas about animals were of the haziest. Even if an animal really did exist, tradition, inaccuracy, and later on poetic license or ignorance, sanctioned his behaving so queerly, and fastened upon him so many attributes, that he might just as well have been mythical from head to tail. Take one version of the panther, and his great liking for the camphor tree. Forehanded, we should call him, with what looks like this premonition that his coat would one day need protection from moths (though he never put it that way). Or the traditional lion, always ready for a fight, which obviously he is not. But this is an easy mistake to fall into; any animal with a head many sizes too big for him can put up a bluff. As shown in myths and poetry, he roars when pursued, which is certainly a thing much too silly for him to do.

Poets and Natural History Certain poets have gone considerably astray in their ornithology, when they refer to a bittern as a bird who finds a perch on “the sails of commerce,” or take for granted that a carrier-pigeon is the sort of messangerboy who can be trusted to wait and bring back an answer. How to classify the ostrich—the “sparrow-camel” —was always a puzzle. Was it a bird or a beast? Pliny felt pretty sure it was a beast; Aristotle came out strongly for its being half-an-half. This was all in the early days, it is true; but there is Buff on, great man that he was, and not so long ago, either, who was almost ready to call the crocodile an insect! There is no end to the pleasant fictions that were current: because the ermine hated mud, its fur was chosen to trim the cloaks of purity; the crane’s conscientious idea that, while on sentry duty he must stand on one foot, with a pebble held in the other, which, if he fell asleep, would drop and rouse him. But, if an animal really exists, there is a limit to the fanciful qualities that can be attached to him. Some day the fact himself will surely be met face to face, and that is inconvenient. An easy way out of this difficulty, a way that must have occurred to someone at an early date, was to find some animals that did not exist at all, who would cramp nobody’s powers of invention by characteristics of their own. Not everyone, however, can invent an animal that will last. It is not often nowadays that we find a Lewis Carroll who can make up a whole new set of fabulous creatures, his Looking-glass Insects, the “Rocking-horse Fly,” the “Snap-dragon Fly,” the “Bread-and-butter Fly,” and then throw in a Mockturtle for good measure. (I wonder whether it was Lewis Carroll or John Tenniel who had most to do with their definitive form.) In the old, old days people were better at this business. Carroll himself uses some time-worn specimens, the gryphon and the unicorn, and borrows his notions about March hares and the cats of Cheshire. But the best inventions were earlier still.

It is far back among the myths of Egypt that the dragon is probably first heard of. He turned up in Babylon in the days of Nebuchadnezzar, found his way to Persia, and really settled down in China. Nevertheless, he came north and west, too. He must have been in Greece in early times; certainly his teeth appear in the legend of Cadmus, and they could hardly have got there ahead of him. And I suppose it is he who figures under a variety of names, such as the Python at Delphi, and Bellerophon’s Chimaera. Wherever he went, he had the misfortune to arouse a dragonslayer, from Buddha and Perseus to St. George. He was no beauty—we all know more or less what he looked like. But he was a pretty good invention; for pure sticking-power he cannot be surpassed. If his traits varied a bit from country to country as his vogue spread, that was not inconsistency on his part. He was openminded in adapting himself to his surroundings. Up north, where shortage of rain was not a sore spot with the inhabitants, droughts were not held against him, as in his dry, eastern haunts; nor was he so demanding of maidens in sacrifice as in the romantic south, where fancy turns naturally towards the rescue of a pretty girl. Of the other imaginary creatures, some were part human, part animal, like the Sphinx or the Lorelei, and no end of mermaids and centaurs and harpies. But the straightaway mythical beasts, even the worst of them, are much better company than these mixtures. As for the best of them—we should all like to catch a glimpse of the shy, chivalrous unicorn; follow the phoenix with our eyes as he flies upward from his own ashes; or gaze at the beauty of the winged horse, Pegasus. The Fauna of Heraldry Birds and animals have been flaunted on shields and banners; great families and cities and countries have assumed their names, as if along with the image and the title went their qualities and prowess. Probably, the eagle—the royal bird of Greece —has appeared on the crest of more nations than any other creature, though the lion shares his honours. Bears have given their name to cities (Berne', and to great families (Orsini). The House of Orleans chose the porcupine. In Africa the leopard is a badge of royalty. The fox and' the wolf have many well-known people of various nationalities as namesakes. Nor have mythical animals been excluded from heraldry. Their frequent presence shows how pleased our ancestors were with their own inventions. A dragon decorated King Arthur’s helmet, just as it floated above the armies of Persia, Assyria, and Scythia, and the legions of Marcus Aurelius and Constantine the Great. It appears on the arms of the City of London, and of the House of Tudor. And it is pleasant to run across once more that delightful fellow, the unicorn. In heraldry, wherever the lion is, you are likely to find him. He does not seem abashed, just because the lion happens to be real; and, after all, this armorial lion has become so conventional and affected, with his studied pose and his smile, that the unicorn may n&t have an idea who he really is, though they have stood together ever since James I brought his Scottish unicorn to join the English lion on the coat of arms of Great Britain.

In Europe during the Middle Ages, heraldic designs appeared on every sort of woven stuff; in embroideries, laces, jewellery; on seals, tiles, glazing. Even on weathervanes, used as garden decorations, we find pictures of those glittering creatures “the King’s Beasts,” perched on low painted posts at the corners of flower-beds in the gardens at Windsor Castle and Hampton Court, What a good time the people in medieval days must have had over their heraldic creatures, and the queer terms that grew up around them; lions “crined and unguled,” or “queveefourchee” fork-tailed), and all the rest of them. Those posing, grimacing beasts, sitting stiffly in pairs confronting each other, or back to back, their necks craned so as to bring their faces round front again—an attitude quickly disposed of in heraldic language by the two words: "addorsed regardant.” Many a piece of European brocade still exists, which Is patterned with these foolish-looking animals in beautiful unnatural colours.