Book xi

. thus alludes to the dread creature:

"Lest Gorgon rising from the infernal lakes With horrors armed, and curls of hissing snakes, Should fix me stiffened at the monstrous sight, A stony image in eternal night."

And Shakespeare, in _Macbeth_, Act ii. sc. 3, uses the name to picture, in a word, the horrible discovery of the murdered Duncan:

"Approach the chamber, and destroy your sight With a new gorgon."

The Cockatrice

This chimerical creature was said to be produced from a cock's egg hatched by a serpent; hence its name. It differs from the wyvern of heraldry only in having a head like that of a dunghill cock. "This monster is of that nature," says an old writer, "that its look or breath is said to be deadly poison"; and this, in addition to the ordinary weapons of offence, would constitute it rather a difficult creature to be interfered with.

[Illustration: Cockatrice.]

The cockatrice is frequently referred to in the Scriptures as the type of something evil. "The weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice's den" (Isaiah xi. 8), meaning that the most noxious animal shall not hurt the most feeble of God's creatures.

And Jeremiah viii. 17: "For behold, I will send serpents, cockatrices, among you which will not be charmed, and they shall bite you, saith the Lord."

The cockatrice is a frequent emblem in heraldry, borne as a charge upon the shield and also as a supporter. To the mailed draconic form of the wyvern it had the hideous crested head with livid dangling wattles similar to the dunghill cock, its round glittering eyes dealing death; its barbed tongue and serpentine tail, with deadly sting, would no doubt render it a fearful object to behold, and terrific to its enemies. It is always borne in profile, the wings endorsed, or back to back, unless directed otherwise. The tail is frequently _nowed_, _i.e._, knotted.

_Sable, a cockatrice or, combed and wattled gules._--_Bothe._

_Sable, a cockatrice, displayed argent, crested, membered and jelloped gules._--_Baggine._

_Jelloped_, _jowlopped_, terms used to describe the comb or crest, and gills or wattles, when of a different tincture from the body. _Beaked_ and _membered_, in similar manner, have reference to the beak and legs.

Basilisk, or Amphysian Cockatrice

The amphysian cockatrice or basilisk in heraldry exactly resembles the cockatrice, but having an additional head (like that of a dragon) at the end of its tail instead of a barb or sting.

"With complicated monsters' head and tail Scorpion and Asp and Amphisbœna dire." MILTON.

_Amphisbœna_, or _Amphista_, is a creature sometimes referred to by old writers as having the dragon's body and wings, the head of a serpent, and the tail ending in a like head. Bossewelle, in "Armorie of Honour," folio 63, enlarging upon this idea, describes "a prodigious serpente called Amphybene, for that he hath a double head, as though one mouth were too little to custe his venyme."

_Earl Howe_ has for supporters _two cockatrices (amphysian), wings elevated, the tails nowed, and ending in a serpent's head or, combed, wattled and legged gules_.

_Argent, a basilisk, wings endorsed, tail nowed, sable._--_Langley_, Rathorpe Hall, Yorks.

[Illustration: Basilisk or Amphysian Cockatrice, tail nowed.]

_Basilisk_, the king of serpents (Greek, _Basileus_, a king), so called from having on his head a mitre-shaped crest. Old writers give wonderful accounts of the death-dealing power of this strange creature. Pliny says, "all other serpents do flee from and are afraid of it," and tells of the deadly effect of his breath and glittering eye. The Duke of Alva, the scourge of the Netherlands (1566-1575), where he left the eternal memory of his cruelties, had for a device a basilisk drawing out serpents, with the motto: "Tu nomine tantum" ("Thou dost so much by thy name alone"), a fitting emblem for so great a monster!

In allusion to its power of "looking any one dead on whom it fixed its eyes," Dryden makes Clytus say to Alexander, "Nay, frown not so; you cannot look me dead,"

"like a boar Plunging his tusk in mastiff's gore, Or basilisk, when roused, whose breath, Teeth, sting and eyeballs all are death." KING, _Art of Love_.

King Henry, when he hears of the death of his uncle Humphry, the good Duke of Gloucester, says to Suffolk:

"come basilisk And kill the innocent gazer with thy sight." _2 King Henry VI._ Act iii. 2.

Beaumont and Fletcher also speak of "the basilisk's death-dealing eye" in "The Woman Hater."

Its appearance was so dreadful, it was said, that if a mirror was placed so that it could see itself, it would instantly burst asunder with horror and fear.

In Christian Art it is the emblem of _deadly sin_ and _the spirit of evil_. St. Basil the Great uses it as the type of a depraved woman.

The Mythical Serpent

"The most remarkable remembrance," says Dean, "of the power of the paradisaical serpent is displayed in the position which he retains in Tartarus. A cuno-draconictic cerberus guards the gates; serpents are coiled upon the chariot wheels of Proserpine; serpents pave the abyss of torment; and even serpents constitute the caduceus of Mercury, the talisman which he holds in his hand when he conveys the soul to Tartarus. The image of the serpent is stamped upon every mythological fable connected with the realms of Pluto. Is it not probable that in the universal symbol of heathen idolatry we recognise the universal object of primitive worship, the serpent of paradise?"

"Speaking of the names of the snake tribe in the great languages," Ruskin says, "in Greek, OPHIS meant the seeing creature, especially one that sees all round it; and DRAKON, one that looks well into a thing or person. In Latin, ANGUIS, was the strangler; SERPENS, the winding creature; COLUBER, the coiling animal. In our own Saxon the SNAKE meant the crawling creature; and ADDER denoted the groveller."

The true serpents comprise the genera without a sternum or breastbone, in which there is no vestige of shoulder, but where the ribs surround a great part of the circumference of the trunk. To the venomous kind belong the rattlesnake, cobra de capello, spectacled or hooded snake, viper, &c. So the non-venomous, the boa constrictor, anaconda, python, black snake, common snake.

The minute viper, _V. Brashyura_, is celebrated for the intensity of its poison, and is truly one of the most terrible of its genus. The asp of Egypt, or Cleopatra's asp (_Coluber naja_, Lin.), was held in great veneration by the Egyptians; and it is this snake which the jugglers, by pressing on the nape of the neck with the finger, throw into a kind of catalepsy, which renders it stiff, or, as they term it, turns it into a rod.

All snakes, says the celebrated naturalist Waterton, take a motion from left to right or _vice versa_--but never up and down--the whole extent of the body being in contact with the ground, saving the head, which is somewhat elevated. This is equally observable both on land and in water. Thus, when we see a snake represented in an up-and-down attitude, we know at once that the artist is to blame.

Another misconception exploded by Waterton is the common and accepted notion that a snake can fascinate to their destruction and render powerless by a dead set of its eye the creatures it makes its prey. Snakes have no such power. The eyes, which are very beautiful, do not move, and they have no eyelids; they have been placed by nature under a scale similar in composition to the scales of the body, and when the snake casts it slough, this scale comes away with it, and is replaced by a new one on a new skin.

_Noli me tangere_--do not touch me with intent to harm me--is, continues Waterton, a most suitable motto for a snake, which towards man never acts on the offensive (except perhaps only the larger species which may be in waiting for a meal, when any creature, from a bull to a mouse, may be acceptable). But when roused into action by the fear of sudden danger, 'tis then that, in self-defence a snake will punish the intruder by a prick (not a laceration) from the poison-fang, fatal or not, according to its size and virulence.

A writer in the _Daily Telegraph_ of July 23, 1883, giving an account of the new reptile house in the Zoological Gardens, Regent's Park, dwells upon the surpassing beauty of a python that had just cast its skin, "a very miracle of reptilian loveliness. Watch it breathing; it is as gentle as a child, and the beautiful lamia head rests like a crowning jewel upon the softly heaving coils. Let danger threaten, however, and lightning is hardly quicker than the dart of those vengeful convolutions. The gleaming length rustles proudly into menace, and instead of the voluptuous lazy thing of a moment ago, the python, with all its terrors complete, erects itself defiantly, thrilling, so it seems, with eager passion in every scale, and measuring in the air, with threatening head, the circle within which is death. Once let those recurved fangs strike home, and there is no poison in them, all hope is gone to the victim. Coil after coil is rapidly thrown round the struggling object, and then with slow but relentless pressure life is throttled out of every limb. No wonder that the world has always held the serpent in awe, and that nations should have worshipped, and still worship, this emblem of destruction and death. It is fate itself, swift as disaster, deliberate as retribution, incomprehensible as destiny." It would be tedious to recapitulate the multitude of myths through which the "dire worm" has come to our times, dignified and made awful by the honours and fears of the past. A volume could hardly exhaust the snake-lore scattered up and down in the pages of history and fable.

"The python in the Zoological Gardens, however," adds the same writer, "though it may stand as the modern reality of the old-world fable of a gigantic snake that challenged the strength of the gods to overcome it, presents to us only one side of snake nature. It possesses a surprising beauty and prodigious strength; but it is not venomous. Probably the more subtle and fearful apprehensions of men originated really from the smaller and deadlier kinds, and were then by superstition, poetry and heraldry extended to the larger. The little basilisk, crowned king of the vipers; the horned 'cerastes dire,' a few inches in length; the tiny aspic, fatal as lightning and as swift; and the fabled cockatrice, that a man might hold in his hand, first made the serpent legend terrible; their venom was afterwards transferred, and not unnaturally, to the larger species. It was the small minute worms, that carried in their fangs such rapid and ruthless death, which first struck fear into the minds of the ancients, and invested the snake with the mysterious and horrid attributes whereunto antiquity from China to Egypt hastened to pay honours."

Cadmus and his wife Harmonia were by Zeus converted into serpents and removed to Elysium. Æsculapius, son of Apollo, god of medicine, assumed the form of a serpent when he appeared at Rome during a pestilence; therefore he is always represented with his staff entwined with a serpent, symbol of healing. Similarly represented was Hippocrates, a famous physician of Cos; who delivered Athens from a dreadful pestilence, in the beginning of the Peloponnesian War, and was publicly rewarded with a golden crown, and the privileges of a citizen. Therefore it is that the goddess of health bears in her hand a serpent.

The caduceus of Mercury was a rod adorned with wings, having a male and female serpent twisted about it, each kissing the other. With this in his hands, it was said, the herald of the Gods could give sleep to whomsoever he chose; wherefore Milton, in "Paradise Lost," styles it "his opiate rod."

"With his caduceus Hermes led From the dark regions of the imprisoned dead; Or drove in silent shoals the lingering train To night's dull shore and Pluto's dreary reign." DARWIN, _Loves of the Plants_, ii. 291.

Jupiter Ammon appeared to Olympias in the form of a serpent, and became the father of Alexander the Great:

"When glides a silver serpent, treacherous guest! And fair Olympia folds him to her breast." DARWIN, _Economy of Vegetation_, i. 2.

Jupiter Capitolinus in a similar form became the father of Scipio Africanus.

In the temple of Athena at Athens, a serpent was kept in a cage and called "The Guardian Spirit of the Temple." This serpent was supposed to be animated by the soul of Ericthonius. It was thus employed by the Greeks and Romans to symbolise a guardian spirit, and not unfrequently the figure of a serpent was depicted on their altars.

Upon the shields of Greek warriors, on ancient vases, &c., the serpent is often to be seen blazoned.

[Illustration: Greek Shield, from painted vase in the British Museum.]

The serpent monster Python, produced from the mud left on the earth after the deluge of Deucalion, lived in the caves of Mount Parnassus, but was slain by Apollo, who founded the Pythian games in commemoration of his victory. This and many similar solar myths are merely classic panegyrics on the conquering power exercised by the genial warmth of spring over the dark gloom of winter.

The serpent in Christian Art figures in Paradise as the tempter of Eve under that form, and is generally placed under the feet of the Virgin, in allusion to the promise made to Eve after the Fall: "The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head." The heart of the serpent being close to the head, renders a severe "bruise" there fatal. The serpent bruised the "heel" of man--_i.e._, being a cause of stumbling, it hurt the foot which tripped against it (Gen. iii. 15).

[Illustration]

The brazen serpent erected by Moses in the wilderness, which gave newness of life to those plague-stricken Israelites who were bitten by the fiery dragons and raised their eyes to this symbol (Numb. xxi. 8), as an emblem of healing, is represented in Christian art as coiled up on a tau cross, a symbol of which our Saviour did not disdain in some degree to admit the propriety when he compared himself to the healing serpent in the wilderness.

The serpent is placed under the feet of St. Cecilia, St. Euphemia, and many other saints, either because they trampled on Satan, or because they miraculously cleared some country of such reptiles. St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, is always represented habited as a bishop, his foot upon a viper, the head transfixed with the lower extremity of his pastoral staff, from his having banished snakes and all venomous reptiles from the soil of Ireland. As the symbol of the evil principle, a diminutive specimen of the dragon, guivre, or winged snake was more frequently used, wriggling under foot.

The serpent is emblematical of THE FALL; Satan is called the great serpent (Rev. xii. 9); of WISDOM: "Be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves" (Matt. x. 16); of SUBTLETY: "Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field" (Gen. iii. 1); of ETERNITY: a serpent in a circle with its tail in its mouth is the well understood symbol of unending time.

"The serpent figures largely in Byzantine Art as the instrument of the Fall, and one type of the Redemption. The cross planted on the serpent is found sculptured on Mount Athos; and the cross surrounded by the so-called runic knot is only a Scandinavian version of the original Byzantine image--the crushed snake curling round the stem of the avenging cross. The cross, with two scrolls at the foot of it typifying the snake, is another of its modifications, and a very common Byzantine ornament. The ordinary northern crosses, so conspicuous for their interlaced ornaments and grotesque monsters, appear to be purely modifications of this idea."[8]

Boniface, the Anglo-Saxon missionary, in his letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, inveighs against the luxuries of dress, and declares against those garments that are adorned with very broad studs and images of worms, announcing the coming of Antichrist.

In the wonderfully intricate interlacing of snake-like and draconic forms of celtic art which appear in the marvellously illuminated manuscripts executed in Ireland of the sixth and seventh centuries, the great sculptured crosses, as well as in gold and metal work, are seen unmistakable traces of the traditional ideas relating to the early serpent-worship.

"The serpent," says Mr. Planché, "the most terrible of all reptiles, is of rare occurrence in English heraldry. Under its Italian name of _Bisse_ it occurs in the Roll of Edward III.'s time, 'Monsire William Malbis _d'argent, a une chevron de gules, a trois testes de bys rases gules_' (_Anglicé_, argent, a chevron between three serpents' heads erased gules)."

The well-known historic device, the _Biscia_ or serpent devouring a child, of the dukedom of Milan is of much interest. There are many stories as to the origin of this singular bearing. Some writers assign it to Otho Visconti, who led a body of Milanese in the train of Peter the Hermit, and at the crusades fought and killed in single combat the Saracen giant Volux, upon whose helmet was this device, which Otho afterwards assumed as his own. Such is the version adopted by Tasso, who enumerates Otho among the Christian warriors:

"Otho fierce, whose valour won the shield That bears a child and serpent on the field." _Gerusalemme Liberata_, cant. i. st. 55. (Hoole's translation.)

From another legend we learn that when Count Boniface, Lord of Milan, went to the crusades, his child, born during his absence, was devoured in its cradle by a huge serpent which ravaged the country. On his return, Count Boniface went in search of the monster, and found it with a child in its mouth. He attacked and slew the creature, but at the cost of his own life. Hence it is said his posterity bore the serpent and child as their ensign. A third legend is referred to under Wyvern (which see).

Menestrier says that the first Lords of Milan were called after their castle in Angleria, in Latin _anguis_, and that these are only the _armes parlantes_ of their name.[9] Be this as it may, "_Lo Squamoso Biscion_" (the scaly snake) was adopted by all the Visconti lords, and by their successors of the House of Sforza.

"Sforza e Viscontei colubri." _Orlando Furioso_, cant. xiii. 63.

And again in the same poem (cant. iii. 26. Hoole's translation):

"Hugo appears with him, his valiant son Who plants his conquering snakes in Milan's town."

Dante also refers in "Purgatorio" to this celebrated device.

[Illustration: Arms of Whitby Abbey.]

The "_three coiled snakes_," which appear in the arms of Whitby Abbey, Yorkshire, really represent _fossil ammonites_, which are very plentiful in the rocky promontories of that part of the English coast, and on that account were no doubt adopted in the arms of the Abbey, and afterwards of the town of Whitby.

The arms are: _Azure three snakes coiled or encircled two and one, or_.

Popular legend, however, ascribes their origin to the transformation of a multitude of snakes into stone by _St. Hilda_, an ancient Saxon princess. The legend is referred to by Sir Walter Scott in "Marmion":

"_How of a thousand snakes each one Was changed into a coil of stone While Holy Hilda prayed._"

It is, however, more than likely that the arms suggested the legend of the miracle.

The ancient myth of the _deaf adder_ seems to have been a favourite illustration of the futility of unwelcome counsel.

"What, art thou, like the adder, waxen deaf? Be poisonous too." _2 King Henry VI._ Act ii. sc. 2.

"Pleasure and revenge have ears more deaf than adders To the voice of any true decision." _Troilus and Cressida_, Act ii. sc. 2.

"He flies me now--nor more attends my pain Than the deaf adder heeds the charmer's strain." _Orlando Furioso_, cant. xxxii. 19. (Hoole's translation.)

A serpent or adder stopping his ears, by some writers termed "_an adder obturant his ear_" from the Latin _obturo_, to shut or stop, is a very ancient idea. It is said that the asp or adder, to prevent his hearing unwelcome truths, puts one ear to the ground and stops the other with his tail, a device suggested by Psalm lviii. 4,5: "They are like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear; which will not hearken to the voice of charmers, charming never so wisely."

Alessandro d'Alessandri (+ 1523), a lawyer of Naples, of extensive learning, and a member of the Neapolitan Academy, took for device a serpent stopping its ears, and the motto, "Ut prudentia vivam" ("That I may live wisely"), implying that as the serpent by this means refuses to hear the voice of the charmer, so the wise man imitates the prudence of the reptile and refuses to listen to the words of malice and slander.

It is said that the _cerastes_ hides in sand that it may bite the horse's foot and get the rider thrown. In allusion to this belief, Jacob says, "Dan shall be ... an adder in the path, that his rider shall fall backward" (Gen. xlix. 17).

_Asp._--According to Sir Gardiner Wilkinson, the ancient Egyptian kings wore the asp, the emblem of royalty, as an ornament on the forehead. It appears on the front of the double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt.

Many terms have been invented by the heralds to express the positions serpents may assume in arms. Berry's "Encyclopædia of Heraldry" illustrates over thirty positions, the terms of blazon of which it is impossible to comprehend, and hardly worth the inquiry. Few of these terms are, however, met with in English heraldry.

Two serpents erect in pale, their tails "nowed" (twisted or knotted) together, are figured in the arms of Caius College, Cambridge. In the words of the old grant, they are blazoned "_gold, semied with flowers gentil, a sengreen_ (or houseleek) _in chief, over the heads of two whole serpents in pale, their tails knit together (all in proper colour), resting upon a square marble stone vert, between a book sable, garnish't gul, buckled, or_."

Fruiterers' Company of London.--_On a mount in base vert, the tree of Paradise environed with the serpent between Adam and Eve, all proper._ Motto: _Arbor vitæ Christus, fructus perfidem gustamus._

_Nowed_ signifies tied or knotted, and is said of a serpent, wyvern, or other creature whose body or tail is twisted like a knot.

_Annodated_, another term for nowed; bent in the form of the letter S, the serpents round the caduceus of Mercury may be said to be annodated.

_Torqued_, _torgant_, or _targant_ (from the Latin _torqueo_, to wreathe), the bending and rebending, either in serpents, adders or fish, like the letter S.

[Illustration: A Serpent, nowed, proper. Crest of Cavendish.]

_Voluted_, _involved_ or _encircled, gliding_, and several terms used in blazon explain themselves, as _erect_, _erect wavy_, &c.

In blazoning, the terms _snake_, _serpent_, _adder_, appear to be used indiscriminately.

_A serpent nowed, proper_, is the crest of Cavendish, Duke of Devonshire.

_Gules, three snakes nowed in triangle argent_ (Ednowain Ap Bradwen, Merionethshire).

_Or, three serpents erect wavy sable_ (Codlen, or Cudlen).

_Remora_ is an old term in heraldry for a serpent entwining.

[Illustration: Amphiptère, or flying serpent.]

Serpents are also borne entwined round pillars and rods, &c., and around the necks of children, as in the arms of Vaughan or Vahan Wales: _Azure, three boys' heads affronté, couped at the shoulders proper, crined or, each enveloped or enwrapped about the neck with a snake vert_. Entwisted and entwined are sometimes used in the same sense.

_The amphiptère_ is a winged serpent. _Azure, an amphiptère or, rising between two mountains argent_, are the arms of Camoens, the Portuguese poet.

As a symbol in heraldry the serpent does not usually have reference to the mythical creature, as in Early Christian Art, its natural qualities being more generally considered.

The Scorpion

The reptile of this name, carrying a virulent and deadly sting in its tail, is generally borne erect. When it is borne with the head downwards, it is described as reversed. One branch of the family of Cole bears: _argent, a fesse between three scorpions erect sable_; and another branch of the same family, _argent a chevron gules between three scorpions reversed, sable_.

[Illustration: Scorpion.]

_Scorpion._--Luigi di Gonzaga, styled Rodomonte for his great intrepidity and strength, was a favourite general of Emperor Charles V. in his army with Bourbon at the sack of Rome. When Charles made his public entry into Mantua, Rodomonte wore a blue surcoat made in squares. Upon one was embroidered a scorpion; upon the other his motto, "_Qui vivens lædit morte meditur_" ("Who living wounds, in death is healed"). It being the property of the scorpion when killed and laid over the wound to cure the poison, so Rodomonte, if any one presumed to offend him, would clear himself of the injury by the death of his enemy.

"If a man be stung with a scorpion, and drink the powder of them in wine, it is thought to be present remedie."[10]

Other Chimerical Creatures and Heraldic Beasts

[Illustration: Unicorn salient.[11]]

The Unicorn

"_Yon lion placed two unicorns between That rampant with a silver sword is seen Is for the king of Scotland's banner known._" ARIOSTO (Hoole's translation).

"_The lion and the unicorn fighting for the crown._" Old Nursery Rhyme.

The unicorn is represented by heraldic usage as having the head and body of a horse, with the tail of a lion, and the limbs and hoofs of a stag; a twisted horn grows out from the centre of its forehead. It is rarely met with as a coat-of-arms. As a crest or supporter it is of more frequent occurrence. A unicorn's head is a favourite bearing, either _erased_, or _couped_, at the shoulder, and always represented in profile.

[Illustration: Crest: A Unicorn's head, couped.]

The unicorn was a famous device all over Europe, and symbolised the virtue of the mind and the strength of the body. It is well known as a supporter of the Royal Arms of England, a position it has occupied since the accession of James VI. of Scotland to the English throne as James I. _Two silver unicorns_ were the supporters to the arms of that kingdom. On the legislative union with England, the _red dragon of Wales_, introduced by Henry VII., gave place to the unicorn as the sinister supporter.

James III. of Scotland had it figured on coins which were thence called "unicorns." James V. first used it with the national arms as supporters. Although the silver unicorn came into England with James I., Queen Jane Seymour had already adopted it.

"_Unicorn_" was the pursuivant of Lord Lyon King-at-Arms, the Royal Scottish Herald.

As a supporter to the Royal arms it is thus blazoned: _A unicorn argent, armed, unguled, crined and gorged or, with a royal coronet_ (_i.e._, composed of crosses patée and fleurs-de-lis), _having a chain affixed thereto, and reflexed over his back of the last_. The term "_armed_" has reference to his horn, "_unguled_" to his hoofs, and "_crined_" to his flowing mane. "_Gorged_" implies that the coronet encircles his "gorge" or throat. The term "_or_" (that is, the metal gold or the tincture of it) being only mentioned after the several parts implies that they are all alike to be gold. "_Of the last_" means of the last colour mentioned.

In "The History of Caricature and Grotesque in Literature and Art," by Thomas Wright, M.A., F.S.A. (p. 8), appears a curious illustration from an Egyptian papyrus of the Roman period, in the British Museum. It represents a lion and a unicorn playing a game resembling draughts, perhaps the earliest instance of the two animals depicted in conjunction. As the author says: "The lion has evidently gained the victory and is fingering the money; his bold air of swaggering superiority as well as the look of surprise and disappointment of his vanquished opponent are by no means ill-pictured."

The animosity which existed between the lion and unicorn is referred to by Spenser, and is allegorical of the animosity which once existed between England and Scotland:

"Like as a lyon whose imperiall powre A proud rebellious unicorne defyes." _Faerie Queen_, ii. 5.

Mediæval Conception of the Unicorn

The mediæval conception of the unicorn as the water-conner of the beasts was doubtless suggested by that belief of earlier ages which made the unicorn not merely symbolical of virtue and purity, but the more immediate emblem of Christ as the horn of our salvation (Psalms xcii. 10 and lxxxix. 17, 24), expressly receiving its general fulfilment in him (St. Luke i. 69). The horn, as an antidote to all poison, was also believed to be emblematical of the conquering or destruction of sin by the Messiah, and as such it appears in the catacombs at Rome. The unicorn is the companion of St. Justiana, as an emblem betokening in the beautiful legend her pure mind, resisting all the Geraldine-like dreams sent by magic art to haunt her, till she converted her tormentor himself.

He is remarkable, say the old writers, for his great strength, but more for his great and haughty mind, as he would rather die than be brought into subjection (Job xxxix. 10-12).

It was believed the only way to capture him was to leave a beautiful young virgin in the place where he resorted. When the animal perceived her, he would come and lie quietly down beside her, resting his head upon her lap, and fall asleep, when he would be surprised by the hunters who lay in wait to destroy him.

[Illustration: The Legend of the Unicorn.]

The unicorn is one of the most famous of all the chimerical monsters of antiquity. The Scriptures make repeated mention of such a creature, but of its shape we can form little conception. In Early Christian Art the unicorn symbolised the highest and purest virtue; not only was it one of the noblest bearings in the heraldry of the Middle Ages, but was viewed as the immediate emblem of our Blessed Lord. Philippe de Thaun says in his "Bestiarius":

"Monocéros est beste Une corne a en la tête Cette beste en verité nous signifie Dieu."

Whence comes the unicorn? It is older than the days of Job. Among the hieroglyphics of Ancient Egypt this wonderful creature is depicted. Sometimes the body is that of an ass, sometimes that of a bull, sometimes that of a horse with the long twisted frontal horn for which he is noted. Is the myth derived from some mysterious single-horned antelope, as has been said, or is the one-horned rhinoceros the prototype of the legendary unicorn? As an emblem it figures on the obelisks of Nimroud and the catacombs of Rome. We read of this strange creature in Herodotus, and in Aristotle, who calls it the "wild ass"; Pliny calls it the "Indian ass," describing it as like a horse with a horn fixed in the front of his head. Cæsar counts it among the fauna of the Hyrcinian Forest. The earliest author who describes it is Ctesias (B.C. 400), who derives it from India. According to an Eastern legend the unicorn is found in Abyssinia. Lobo also describes it in his history of that country: there the animals are undisturbed by man, and live after their own laws. "Of the many ancient and famous men," says a modern writer, "who have written about the unicorn, no two seem to agree except when they copy from one another."

"Some writers" (says Guillim, p. 175) "have made doubt whether there be any such beast as this or no. But the great esteem of his horn (in many places to be seen) may take away that needless scruple."

The Horn of the Unicorn

"_The unicorn whose horn is worth a city._" DECKER, "Gull's Hornbook."

_The horn_ of the unicorn was supposed to be the most powerful antidote against, as it was a sure test of, poisons. He was therefore invested by the other beasts of the forest with the office of "water-conner," none daring to taste of fountain or pool until he had stirred the water with his horn, to discover whether any dragon or serpent had deposited his venom therein, and render it innocuous. So complete was the faith in the efficacy of the wonder-working horn as a test of poisons, that fabulous store was set upon the possession of even a portion. In old inventories the "Essai" of Unicorn's horn is frequently mentioned.

1391. Un manche d'or d'un essai de licourne pour attoucher aux viandes de monsigneur le Dauphin.--"Comptes Royaux."

1408. Une pièce de licorne à pour faire essai, à ung bou. d'argent.--Inv. des ducs de Bourgogne.

1536. Une touche de licorne, garni d'or, pour faire essai.--Inv. de Charles Quint.

An Italian author who visited England in the reign of Henry VII., speaking of the wealth of the religious houses in this country, says: "And I have been informed that, amongst other things, many of these monasteries possess unicorns' horns of an extraordinary size." Hence such a horn was worthy to be placed among the royal jewels. At the head of an inventory taken in the first year of Queen Elizabeth and preserved in the Harleian Library (No. 5953) we read "Imprimis, a piece of unicorn's horn," which, as probably the most important object, is named first. This was no doubt the piece seen by the German traveller Hentzner, at Windsor: "We were shown here, among other things, the horn of a unicorn of about eight spans and a half in length, valued at about £10,000." Peacham places "that horne of Windsor, of an unicorn very likely," amongst the sights worth seeing.

"One little cup of unicorn's horn" was also in possession of Queen Elizabeth, and was subsequently given by James I. to his Queen.

Alviano, a celebrated general of the Venetian Republic, when he took Viterbo, and dispersed the Gatesca faction, whom he called the poison of the city, caused to be embroidered upon his standard a unicorn at a fountain surrounded by snakes and toads and other reptiles, and stirring up the water with his horn before he drinks, with the motto or legend "Venene pello" (I expel poison). Although the unicorn has not been seen and described by any modern writer, its horn has been occasionally found, sometimes preserved in museums, but alas! the cherished horn, whenever it is examined, turns out to be a narwhal's tooth. To this, Wood's "Natural History" makes special reference: "In former days, an entire tusk of a narwhal was considered to possess an inestimable value, for it was looked upon as the weapon of the veritable unicorn reft from his forehead in despite of his supernatural strength and intellect. Setting aside the rarity of the thing, it derived a practical value from its presumed capability of disarming all poisons of their terrors, and of changing the deadliest draught into a wholesome beverage."

This antidotal potency was thought to be of vital service to the unicorn, whose residence was in the desert among all kinds of loathsome beasts and poisonous reptiles, whose touch was death and whose look was contamination. The springs and pools at which such monsters quenched their thirst were saturated with poison by their contact, and would pour a fiery death through the veins of any animal that partook of them. But the unicorn, by dropping the tip of his horn into the pool, neutralised the venom and rendered the deadly waters harmless. This admirable quality of the unicorn's horn was a great recommendation in days when the poisoned chalice crept too frequently upon the festive board, and a king could receive no worthier present than a goblet formed from such valuable material.

Even a few shavings of the unicorn's horn were purchased at high prices, and the ready sale for such antidotes led to considerable adulteration--a fact which is piteously recorded by an old writer, who tells us that "some wicked persons do make a mingle-mangle thereof, as I saw among the Venetians, being, as I here say, compounded with lime and sope, or peradventure with earth or some stone (which things are apt to make bubbles arise), and afterwards sell it for the unicorn's horn." The same writer, however, supplies an easy test, whereby the genuine substance may be distinguished from the imposition. "For experience of the unicorn's horn to know whether it be right or not; put silk upon a burning coal, and upon the silk the aforesaid horn, and if so be that it be true, the silk will not be a whit consumed."

EXAMPLES.--_Argent, a unicorn rampant_ (_sometimes sejant sable armed and unguled or_), is borne by _Harling_, Suffolk.

Another of the name bears the unicorn _courant in chief_ with additional charges upon the shield.

_Azure, a unicorn couchant, argent between twelve cross crosslets, or._--_Doon._

_Argent a chevron engrailed gules between three unicorns' heads, erased azure._--_Horne._

Religious emblems were in great favour with the early printers; some of them for this reason adopted the unicorn as their sign. Thus John Harrison lived at the Unicorn and Bible in Paternoster Row, 1603.

Again, _the reputed power of the horn_ caused the animal to be taken as a supporter for the Apothecaries' arms, and as a constant signboard by chemists.

The great value set upon unicorn's horn caused the Goldsmiths of London to adopt this animal as their sign.

[Illustration: Pegasus or Pegasos.]

The Pegasus

"_The cheval volant--the pegasus-- He bounds from the earth; he treads the air._"

A poetic creation of the ancients, a winged horse captured by Bellerophon, the great hero of Corinthian legend. In this he was assisted by the goddess Minerva, who also taught him how to tame and use it. At Corinth there was a temple erected to Αθηναχαλινίτις (Minerva the Bridler), in allusion to that part of the myth which describes Minerva as instructing Bellerophon in the mode of placing the bridle on the winged steed. The legend states that the hero caught this wonderful animal as it descended at the Acro-Corinthus to drink of the spring of Pirene. Mounted on his winged steed Pegasus, Bellerophon engaged the dire Chimera, and succeeded in destroying the monster by rising in the air and shooting it with arrows.

[Illustration: Coins of Corinth and Syracuse.]

Pegasus is the steed of the Muses, and classic story ascribes to it the origin of the Castalian fountain "Hippocrene," situated on Mount Helicon, part of Parnassus, a mountain range in Greece. When the Muses contended with the daughters of Pieros, "Helicon rose heavenward with delight"; but Pegasus gave it a kick, stopped its rise, and there gushed out of the mountain "the soul-inspiring waters of Hippocrene."

The Standard of Corinth was a winged horse, in consequence of the tradition connecting the fountain called Pirene, near the city, with Pegasus, the fiery winged steed of Apollo and the Muses. The same device was the leading type upon the ancient coins of the city of Corinth. The Corinthians founded the colony of Syracuse, in Sicily, which city likewise adopted the winged horse and the head of Athena upon its coinage.

[Illustration: Pegasus salient.]

Pindar, who grandly relates the feat of the hero Bellerophon, says that he incurred the enmity of the gods by attempting to fly to heaven on his winged horse. Zeus sent a gadfly to sting the horse, who thereupon cast its rider and flew of his own accord to the stables of Zeus, whose thunder-chariot he has ever since drawn.

The pegasus is of frequent occurrence in heraldry. In its classic allusions it denotes fame, eloquence, poetic study, contemplation.

Some modern heraldic writers, however, discarding its classic references, regard it merely in the matter-of-fact light as an emblem of swiftness. But it is impossible to disassociate the old and well-known ideas respecting the horse of Apollo and the Muses. In fancy the poet mounts his winged steed to bear his soaring spirit in its wayward flight through the realms of fancy.

As a type of the perfect horseman, Shakespeare pictures Prince Henry as able to--

"Turn and wind a fiery pegasus And witch the world with noble horsemanship." _1 King Henry IV._, Act 4, sc. 1.

Elsewhere he takes up the later interpretation of the myth, which connects it with Perseus:

"The strong-ribbed bark through liquid mountains cut Like Perseus' horse." _Troilus and Cressida_, Act i. sc. 3.

Cardinal Bembo, poet and historian, secretary to Pope Leo X., used as his impress a pegasus and a hand issuing from a cloud holding a wreath of laurel and palm, with the motto, "Si te fata vocant" ("If the fates call thee").

_Azure, a pegasus salient, the wings expanded argent_, is borne as the arms of the Society of the Inner Temple, London.

A very early seal of the Knights Templars exhibits two knights riding upon one horse.

A recent writer remarks upon this strange device that "it is exceedingly probable that some rude and partially defaced representation of this device was mistaken by the lawyers of the reign of Queen Elizabeth for a pegasus. The fact that the Middle Temple adopted the device which appears upon the other seal of the ancient Knights strongly confirms this view."

One of the supporters of the arms of Oliver Cromwell is a horse having the wings and tail of a dragon.

Sagittary, Centaur, Sagittarius, Centaurus, Hippocentaur

"_... the dreadful sagittary Appals our numbers._" "Troilus and Cressida," Act v. sc. 5.

"_Feasts that Thessalian centaurs never knew._" THOMSON, "Autumn."

Under these names is blazoned a fabled monster of classic origin, half man, half horse, holding an arrow upon a bended bow. It is one of the twelve signs of the Zodiac, commonly called Sagittarius, otherwise Arcitenens, and marked by the hieroglyph ♐. In its signification in arms it may properly be applied to those who are eminent in the field.

The arms traditionally assigned to King Stephen are thus described by Nicholas Upton: "_Scutum rubeum, in quo habuit trium leonum peditantium corpora, usque ad collum cum corporibus humanis superius, ad modum signi Sagittarii, de auro_." In this, as in some other early examples, it is represented as half man, half lion.

[Illustration: The Sagittary--Centaur.]

The arms of Stephen are sometimes represented with but one sagittary, and is said to have been assumed by him in consequence of his having commenced his reign under the sign of Sagittarius. Others say because he gained a battle by the aid of his archers on entering the kingdom. Others, again, say that the City of Blois used the ensign of a sagittary as an emblem of the chase; and Stephen, son of the Compte de Blois, assumed that ensign in his contest with the Empress Maude or Matilda. There is no contemporary authority, however, it must be confessed, for any of these derivations. A sagittary is seen upon the seal of William de Mandeville (_temp._ Henry III.), but not as an heraldic bearing.

The crest of Lambart, Earl of Cavan, is: _On a mount vert, a centaur proper, drawing his bow gules, arrow or_. It also appears as the crest of Askelom, Bendlowes, Cromie, Cruell, Lambert, Petty, Petty-Fitzmaurice.

The term _Centaur_ is most probably derived from the words κεντέω (to hunt, or to pursue) and ταῦρος (a bull), the Thracians and Thessalians having been celebrated from the earliest times for their skill and daring in hunting wild bulls, which they pursued mounted on the noble horses of those districts, which were a celebrated breed even in the later times of the Roman Empire. A centaur carrying a female appears on a coin of Lete, which, according to Pliny and Ptolemy, was situated on the confines of Macedonia, and the fables of the centaurs, &c., in that and neighbouring districts abounding in a noble breed of horses, arose no doubt from the feats performed by those who first subjugated the horse to the will of man, and who mounted on one of these beautiful animals and guiding it at will, to approach or retreat with surprising rapidity, gave rise in the minds of the vulgar to the idea that the man and the horse were one being.

[Illustration: Ipotane, from Mandeville's travels.]

Sir John de Mandeville in his travels (printed by Wynken de Worde, 1499), tells us that in Bacharie "ben many Ipotanes that dwellen sometime in the water and sometime on the land; and thei ben half men and half hors and thei eten men when thei may take him."

We have in modern history a singular and interesting example of a similar superstition. When the natives of South America--where the horse was unknown--first saw their invaders, the Spaniards, mounted on these animals and in complete armour, they imagined that the cavalier and steed formed but one being of supernatural powers and endowments.

Such groups as those exhibited on the rude money of Lete and other places were doubtless the first steps toward the treatment of similar subjects by Phidias, the celebrated Greek sculptor, whose works illustrating the battle of the Lapithæ and the Centaurs adorned the metopes of the Parthenon at Athens, to which they also bear a striking affinity in the simplicity of their conception.

A curious example of the compounded human and animal forms similar to the sagittary is represented upon a necklace found in the Isle of Rhodes, and now in the Musée Cluny, Paris. It is formed of a series of thin gold plates whereon is represented in relief the complete human figure conjoined to the hinder part of a stag (or horse). This is alternated with another compound figure, human and bird, holding up two animals by the tails, both subjects, each in their own way, suggestive of the fleet and dexterous hunter.

[Illustration: Compound figures, gold necklace, Musée Cluny, Paris.]

In Homer's account the centaurs are obviously no monsters, but an old Thessalian mountain tribe, of great strength and savage ferocity. They are merely said to have inhabited the mountain districts of Thessaly, and to have been driven thence by the Lapithæ into the higher mountains of Pindus. Their contest with the Lapithæ is generally conceived as a symbol of the struggle of Greek civilisation with the still existing barbarism of the Early Pelasgian period. This may be the reason why Greek art in its prime directed itself so especially to this subject.

[Illustration: Centaur, Greek sculpture.]

The origin of this contest is referred to the marriage feast of Pirithous and Hippodamia, to which the principal centaurs were invited. The centaur Eurytion, heated with wine, attempted to carry off the bride. This gave rise to a struggle for supremacy which, after dreadful losses on both sides, ended in the complete defeat of the centaurs, who were driven out of the country. The custom of depicting the centaurs as half man, half horse arose in later times, and became a favourite subject of the Greek poets and artists.

Amongst the centaurs, Chiron, who was famous alike for his wisdom and his knowledge of medicine, deserves mention as the preceptor of many of the heroes of antiquity. Homer, who knew nothing of the equine shape of the centaurs, represents him as the most upright of the centaurs, makes him the friend of Achilles, whom he instructed in music, medicine and hunting. He was also the friend of Heracles, who, by an unlucky accident, wounded him with a poisoned arrow. The wound being incurable, he voluntarily chose to die in the place of Prometheus. Jupiter placed him among the stars, where he is called Sagittarius.

_Bucentaur_, from Greek Βοῦς (bous) an ox, and κένταυρος (kentauros) a centaur, was, in classic mythology, a monster of double shape, half man, half ox. The state barge of the Doge of Venice was so termed.

The _Minotaur_ slain by Theseus had the body of a man and the head of a bull.

Griffin or Gryphon

The griffin, gryfin, or gryphon, as it is variously termed by old writers, is best known as one of the chimerical monsters of heraldry--the mediæval representative of the ancient symbolic creature of Assyria and the East. It may be classed with the dragon, wyvern, phœnix, sphynx, "gorgons and hydras and chimeras dire," and other imaginary beings, that world of unreality grown up in the mind of man from the earliest times, the influence of whose terrors have exercised no little power in the progress of humanity.

[Illustration: A Griffin statant, wings endorsed.]

This favourite bearing was very early adopted in English armory. So early indeed as 1167 A.D. we find it on a seal of Richard de Redvers, Earl of Exeter, attached to a charter at Newport, Isle of Wight. It also appears on a seal of Simon de Montacute (_temp._ Henry III. and Edward I.). It is one of the principal bearings in heraldry, either charged upon the shield, as the arms, or as the crest placed upon the helm, also as supporters to the shield of arms of many noble and eminent families in this country and the continent.

The _griffin_, "sacred to the sun," combines the bodily attributes of the "cloud-cleaving eagle" and the "king of beasts," that is, it has the head, neck, wings, and talons of an eagle, conjoined to the hinder parts of a lion. It is usually represented with projecting ears, indicating an acute sense of hearing, in addition to its other supposed extraordinary qualities.

[Illustration: A Griffin passant, wings raised. (Early English.)]

[Illustration: A Griffin segreant, wings displayed. (German.)]

The griffin is rarely borne in other than two positions, viz., _passant_ and _segreant_. The latter term is peculiar to the griffin, and seems to refer to the expanded wings. When called _segreant_ only, it means the same as rampant applied to a lion. As a crest, it is not unfrequently borne _sejant_, _i.e._, sitting. Parts of the creature, as a _demi-griffin_, a _griffin's head_, &c., are also of common use.

The arms of _Trafford_, Lancashire, are: _Argent a griffin segreant gules_. Motto: _Gripe griffin hold fast_. The supporters of the arms of Viscount Halifax are two griffins.

[Illustration: Sleeping Griffin, by John Tenniel, from "Alice in Wonderland." (By permission of Macmillan & Co., Limited, proprietors of the copyright.)]

Old heralds gravely relate of this creature that when he attains his full growth he will never be taken, hence he is a fit emblem of a valiant hero, who, rather than yield himself to his enemy, exposes himself to the worst of dangers. As a general symbol in heraldry the griffin expresses strength and vigilance.

Sir Thomas Browne says it is emblematical of watchfulness, courage, perseverance and rapidity of execution.

The description of the griffin by the old traveller, Sir John Mandeville, is a wonderful record of credulity and belief in the marvellous; he states it to be a native of "Bacharie, where ben many griffones, more plentee than in any other countree. Sum men seyn that they have the body upwards of an egle and benethe as a lyonn, and truly they seyne soethe that thei ben of that schapp. But one griffoun hath the body more great and stronger than one hundred egles, such as we have amonges us. For one griffoun there will be flynge to his nest a great hors, or two oxen yoked togidre, as thei gon to the plowghe. For he hath his talouns so longe and so grete and large upon his feet as though thei were hornes of grete oxen, or of bugles (bulls), or of kygn, so that men maken cuppes of hem to drynke of, and of hire (their) ribbes and of the pennes of hire wenges men maken bowes fulle stronge to schote with arrews and quarell." Gerard Leigh, an old heraldic writer, discoursing of the griffin, gives his reason for belief, he says, "I thinke they are of a great hugeness, for I have _a clawe_ of one of their pawes, whiche should shewe them to be as bigge as two lyons."

[Illustration: Griffin segreant, German version.]

In the cathedral of Brunswick there is still preserved the horn of some kind of antelope, brought from the Holy Land as "a griffin's claw," by Henry the Lion. Three talons of the griffin were preserved at Bayeux, and fastened on high festival days to the altar, and there seems to be some curious legend concerning a cup formed of a gryphon's claw dedicated to St. Cuthbert A gryphon's egg was also considered a valuable curiosity, being used as a goblet in old times when natural history was greatly misunderstood and grossly exaggerated. As an example of the absurd misstatements of the earlier writers and naturalists who so delighted our wonder-loving forefathers, a writer in the "Museum of Animated Nature" refers to a large species of vulture, the Condor (_Sarcoramphus Gryphus_), which was painted as rivalling the Rukh of Oriental fable. He adds that "such descriptions have given place to the moderate details of sober-minded observers, and we no longer look upon this creature as the winged guardian of mountain mines within whose depths were entombed 'gems and barbaric gold,' we no longer imagine it the giant of the winged race, dimming the light of the sun by its widespread pinions, and by the mighty rushing sound as it sweeps down from some lofty pinnacle or the upper regions of the sky deafening and stupefying the terror-stricken beholders."

As the stern avenger of human crimes, the dreaded Nemesis appears in Roman Art, as a young woman with wings, in a chariot drawn by griffins, with a whip or sword in her hand.[12]

Smith's "Classical Dictionary" gives the following: "Gryps or gryphus, a fabulous monster dwelling in the Rhiphæan mountains between the Hyperboreans and the one-eyed Arimaspians, and guarding the treasures of the north. The Arimaspians mounted on horseback attempted to steal the gold, and hence arose the hostility between the horse and the griffin. The body of the griffin was that of a lion, while the head, fore-feet and wings were those of an eagle. It is probable that the origin of the belief in griffins must be looked for in the East, where it seems they have been very ancient. They are also mentioned among the fabulous beasts which guarded the gold of India."

The Arimaspians were a one-eyed people of Scythia who adorned their hair with gold. They were constantly at war with the Gryphons who guarded the gold mines.

"As when a gryphon, through the wilderness ... Pursues the Arimaspian, who by stealth Had from his wakeful custody purloined The guarded gold." _Paradise Lost_, ii.

[Illustration: Gold Flying Griffin, found by Dr. Schliemann at Mycenæ.]

That the form of the griffin must have been a well understood symbol is evident from the frequency with which it is met in ancient art. Dr. Schliemann, in his explorations of the ancient city of Mycenæ, among other treasures found a gold-winged griffin, about two inches in length, in one of the sepulchres of the kings (Figure No. 272 in his book), which in every particular as to shape is identical with the heraldic griffin of to-day; the same may be said of a coin of Abdera, a city in Thrace, which bears the device of a griffin. Abdera was a place of importance when Xerxes invaded Greece B.C. 554.

Herodotus relates that the Teians, dreading the encroachments of the Persians in Ionia, abandoned their city and founded Abdera in Thrace. The coinage of the latter place bears the same type (the griffin) as the parent city, but with a slight difference in treatment. This consists in the form of the wings of the griffin, which are pointed on the coins of Abdera, while in those of Teos they are rounded. The griffin was sacred to Apollo, to whom an especial worship was devoted in most of the Ionian cities, but more particularly in Teos.[13]

[Illustration: Colossal Griffins, Burmah.]

In the _Illustrated London News_ of October 21, 1876, is an engraving of two gigantic wingless griffons, and also a description by the traveller who visited that strange place. "At Thyetmo, 250 miles up the river Irrawaddy from Rangoon in British Burmah, are two colossal 'chin thay' or figures of sacred griffins, standing at the entrance to one of the great pagodas dedicated to the worship of Gautama Buddha; the outer terraces and steps of these temples are frequently adorned with such mythical monsters. Near the ancient ruined city of Paghan, which flourished a thousand years ago, the bank of the river for a length of eight miles is lined with the remains of this quaint architecture and sculpture, covering a space of two miles in breadth from the water's edge. It is not known by what nation of old times they were constructed, for Burmese history is apocryphal or at least very obscure."

The symbolic use of images of living creatures was in the instance of the cherubim permitted under the Mosaic dispensation, and on this will be found to turn the distinction between the symbolic use and its forbidden and dangerous use as a supposed means of assisting devotion. Mr. Henry Hayman in "Smith's Dictionary," _s.v._, "cherub," as quoted by Tyrwhit, says: "On the whole it seems likely that the word 'cherub' meant not only the composite creature-form of which the man, lion, ox, and eagle were the elements, but further, some peculiar and mystical form which Ezekiel, being a priest, would know and recognise as 'the face of a cherub,' κατ' εξοχήν, but which was kept secret from all others.... Such were probably those on the ark, which when moved was always covered, though those on the hangings and panels might be of the popular device. The griffin of northern fable, watching the gold in the wilderness, has been compared with the cherub both as regards his composite form and his functions as guardian of a treasure. He goes on to point out the possible affinity between the Greek root γρυπ (γρυψ, gryps, griffin), and the Hebrew and Arabic derivation of the word 'cherub,' which gives it the original meaning of 'carved image,' and says that though the exact form is uncertain, it must have borne a general resemblance to the composite religious figures found upon the monuments of Egypt, Assyria, Babylonia and Persia."

Mr. Ruskin,[14] describing the emblematical griffins on the front of the Duomo of Verona, points out that the Lombard carver was enabled to form so intense a conception, mainly by the fact that his griffin is a great and profoundly felt symbolism. Two wheels are under its eagle's wings, which connect it with the living creatures of the vision of Ezekiel, "where they went the wheels went by them, and whithersoever the spirit was to go, they went, and the wheels were lifted up over against them, for the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels." The winged shape thus became at once one of the acknowledged symbols of the divine nature. Elsewhere, we think in the "Stones of Venice," the connection is pointed out between the Assyrian and Gothic personations.

Gian-Paolo Baglione (+ 1520), who usurped the sovereignty of Perugia, bore a _silver griffin_ on a red field with the motto, "_Unguibus et rostro atque alis armatus in hostem_" ("Armed against the enemy with talons and beak and wings"), which means of defence proved of no avail when he was seized by Pope Leo X., who, pretending to consult Baglione on affairs of importance, sent him a safe conduct to Rome, but when he arrived, he caused him to be tortured and beheaded, and afterwards took possession of his states. This gave occasion to his enemies to say, "This ugly bird has not used his wings as at other times, to flee from the snare which has been laid for him."[15]

In Dante's description of the triumph of the Church, in the "Purgatorio," we have the mediæval conception of this wondrous creature, the gryphon. "The mystic shape that joins two natures in one form"--as he is called by the noble Italian poet--draws the car to which he is harnessed, and

"He above Stretched either wing uplifted 'tween the midst

* * * * *

And out of sight they rode. The members, far As he was bird, were golden; white the rest, With vermeil interveined."

And when the eyes of Beatrice

"stood Still, fix'd toward the gryphon, motionless. As the sun strikes a mirror, even thus Within those orbs the twyfold being shone; For ever varying, in one figure now Reflected, now in other. Reader! muse How wondrous in my sight it seem'd, to mark A thing, albeit steadfast in itself, Yet in its imaged semblance mutable." Cary's Dante, _Purgatory_, c. xxix.

"Some commentators of Dante," says M. Dideron,[16] "have supposed the griffin to be the emblem of Christ, who, in fact, is one single person with two natures; of Christ in whom God and man are combined. But in this," says M. Dideron, "they are mistaken. There is, in the first place, a manifest impropriety in describing the car as drawn by God as a beast of burden." "Commentators," it is added, "have been misled by the two-fold nature of the gryphon, but that difficulty is removed by recollecting that the Pope resembles the eagle in his spiritual character, and in his temporal authority the lion. The Pope is one person, but of two natures and two distinct forms. Thus considered the allegory of Dante becomes clear and intelligible."

The gryphon is very frequently seen sculptured in Gothic churches, more especially in those of the Lombard and early Norman style, and is evidently intended to refer to the union of the divine and human natures.

A curious example of this compound form of bird and beast occurs on an Italian bronze medal of the fifteenth century, about 3-1/2 in. in diameter (No. 57.51 in the fine collection in South Kensington Museum). On one side it bears a portrait of Niccolo Picininus of Perugia, a celebrated mercenary soldier--and on the reverse a griffin, the eagle's head, wings, and feet united to the Roman she-wolf, with Romulus and Remus suckling. Dante's emblem of the Popedom is here apparently adapted to the peculiarly Roman national symbol--the nursing mother of nations and the Catholic religion.

[Illustration: Carved panel, a Griffin segreant.]

The Male Griffin

The griffin is sometimes borne sans wings and termed a _male griffin_, as in the supporters to the arms of the Marquis of Ormond, but spikes or rays proceed from various parts of its body; sometimes it has two long straight horns.

Other Varieties of the Griffin

Two other varieties of the griffin family, the "_Hippogriff_" and the "_Simoorgh_" appear in the highly wrought imaginings of the poets, and may here be very briefly alluded to. They do not, however, appear in British Heraldry.

[Illustration: Male Griffin.]

HIPPOGRYPH, or HIPPOGRIF, the winged horse whose father was a griffin and mother a filly (Greek, _hippos_, a horse, and _gryps_, a griffin)--a symbol of love.[17]

SIMOORGH, a sort of griffin or hippogryph, which took some of its breast feathers for Tahmura's helmet. This creature forms a very striking figure in the epic poems of Saadi and Ferdusi, the Persian poets.

Milton also makes allusion to this mythical creature:

"So saying he caught him up, and without wing Of hippogrif, bore through the air sublime Over the wilderness and o'er the plain." _Paradise Regained_, iv.

[Illustration: Opinicus statant.]

The Opinicus, or Epimacus

This creature appears to be a variety of the griffin family. Authorities blazon it as having its body and four legs like those of a lion; the head and neck and wings like an eagle, and the short tail of a camel, sometimes borne sans wings.

Such a monster with wings endorsed or, was the crest of the _Barber Surgeons of London_.

_Two opinici vert, purfled or, beaked sable, wings gules_, support the insignia of the _Plasterers' Company_.

[Illustration: Egyptian Sphynx.]

The Sphynx

"_That monster whom the Theban knight

* * * * *

Made kill herself for very heart's despite That he had read her riddle, which no wight Could ever loose, but suffered deadly doole._" SPENSER'S "Faerie Queen," Bk. v. cxi.

According to some heraldic writers, the sphynx should possess the head and bust of a woman, the paws of a lion, the body of a dog, and the tail of a dragon. In Lord Chancellor Bacon's book on "The Wisdom of the Ancients," there is an exposition of the meaning of the sphynx, which, says Dr. Woodward, is as curious as the creature itself.

It frequently figures in heraldry as a convenient hieroglyph to commemorate some service in Egypt. It is the crest of British families of _Asgill_, Baronets _Lambert_, _Goatley_, &c., and appears in the arms of _Sir John Moore_, the hero of Corunna.

[Illustration: Theban, or Greek Sphynx.]

The strange combination of human and animal features in the figure known as the sphynx is of frequent occurrence in both Greek and Egyptian mythology and art. The Egyptian sphynx is supposed to represent the combination of physical power, or the kings, as incarnations of such attributes. They are also associated with the special forms and attributes of the great Egyptian deities Osiris and Ammon, Neph or Jupiter, and Phreh or Helios. That is, we have the _man-sphynx_, the _ram-sphynx_, and the _hawk-sphynx_, or the lion's body with the head of the man, the ram, or the hawk, according to the deity worshipped. The sphynx itself was probably a religious symbol of the Egyptians, which was transferred to Greece, and subsequently underwent a change of meaning. Among the Egyptians the sphynx seems to have been a symbol of Royal dignity betokening a combination of wisdom and strength. By the Greeks, however, it appears to have been regarded as the symbol of the burning pestilence-breeding heat of the summer sun. The form of the Theban sphynx was that of a lion, generally in a recumbent position, with the breast and upper part of a beautiful woman, and was in imitation of the original male sphynxes of Egypt. Greek Art was only acquainted with the sphynx in its female form, and also departed from the Egyptian type by adding wings to the lion's body.

"There is a great difference," says Sir Gardiner Wilkinson in his account of the sphynx,[18] "between the Greek and Egyptian sphynxes. The latter is human-headed, ram-headed, or hawk-headed, and is always male; while the Greek is female, with the head of a woman, and always has wings, which the Egyptian never has."

In the Greek story the monster was sent by Hera (Juno) to devastate the land of Thebes. Seated on a rock close to the town, she put to every one that passed by the riddle, "What walks on four legs in the morning, on two legs at noon, and on three legs in the evening?" Whoever was unable to solve the riddle was cast by the sphynx from the rock into a deep abyss. Œdipus succeeded in answering it, and thus delivered the country from the monster, who cast herself into the abyss.

The sphynx occurs upon a coin of Chios (B.C. 478-412). It is represented seated before an amphore, above which is a bunch of grapes. Chios was famed for its wine, and the sphynx was a symbol of Dionysius.[19]

The Emperor Augustus, on his seal, used the device of the sphynx--"maid's face, bird's wings, and lion's paws"--"implying," says Mrs. Bury Palliser ("Historical Devices," &c.), "that the secret intentions of a prince should not be divulged. When Augustus was in Asia, he authorised Agrippa and Mecænas, who administered affairs during his absence, to open and read the letters he addressed to the Senate before any one else; and for this purpose he gave them a seal upon which was engraved a sphynx, the emblem of secrecy. The device gave occasion to ridicule, and to the saying that it was not surprising if the sphynx proposed riddles; upon which Augustus discontinued it, and adopted one with Alexander the Great, to show that his ideas of dominion were not inferior to Alexander's. Subsequently Augustus used his own effigy, which practice was continued by his successors."

Maurice ("Oriental Trinities," p. 315) says the sphynx was the Egyptian symbol of profound theological mystery, and was therefore placed on either side of the _dromoi_, or paths leading to the temples of the gods. "They are black," he says, "in allusion to the obscure nature of the deity and his attributes. The white head-dress may allude to the linen tiaras wrapped round the heads of the priests." The origin of the myth was not definitely known even to the ancients. Some early writers say it was symbolical of the overflowing of the Nile, which happened when the sun was in the signs of Leo and Virgo; and that it had its name from this circumstance. "For," they say, "the word sphynx in the Chaldæan language signifies overflowing." The fact of the Egyptian sphynx being always male does not, however, accord with this derivation.

A statue of the Theban sphynx found in Colchester, and now in the museum of that town, gives the Greek conception of that creature. It is carved in oolite, twenty-five inches high, evidently a relic of the Roman occupation of Britain. It represents the monster seated over the mangled remains of one of its victims. Llewellin Jewett, in the _Art Journal_ 1871, p. 113, describes it as "combining the five-fold attributes of a virgin, a lion, a bird, a dog, and a serpent. The head, breast and arms are those of a beautiful virgin; the body and teats of a female dog; hinder parts, hind legs and fore paws are those of a lioness; the tail doubled in short folds is serpent, and the wings those of a bird."

The same writer says: "The sphynx appears on the reverses of some coins of Cunobeline (Cymbeline, of Shakespeare), struck in the city of Camalodunum (Colchester)."

The gigantic statue of the sphynx half buried in the sand near the Great Pyramids, at Gizeh, is hewn and sculptured out of a spur of solid rock, to which masonry was added in places to complete the form. The actual age of the great sphynx is not known, but it is supposed to have been commenced under Cheops and finished by order of King Chefren, under whose reign also was probably built the second great pyramid. The able author of "Eothen" thus describes the appearance of the sphynx of Egypt, and the sentiments to which its contemplation gave rise in his mind: "And near the Pyramids, more numerous and more awful than all else in the land of Egypt, there rests the lonely sphynx. Comely the creature is, but the comeliness is not of this world. The once worshipped beast is a deformity and a monster to this generation, and yet you can see that these lips, so thick and heavy, were fashioned according to some ancient mould of beauty--some mould of beauty now forgotten--forgotten because that Greece drew forth Cytheræa from the flashing bosom of the Ægean, and in her image created new forms of beauty, and made it a law among men that the short and proudly wreathed lips should stand for the sign and main condition of loveliness through all generations to come! Yet there still lives on the race of those who were beautiful in the fashion of the elder world; and Christian girls of Coptic blood will look on you with sad, curious gaze, and kiss your charitable hand with the big pouting lips of the very sphynx. Laugh and mock if you will at the worship of stone idols; but mark ye this, ye breakers of images, that in one regard the stone idol bears awful semblance of deity--unchangefulness in the midst of change--the same seeming will and intent for ever inexorable! Upon ancient dynasties of Ethiopian and Egyptian kings--upon Greek and Roman, upon Arab and Ottoman conquerors--upon Napoleon dreaming of an Eastern empire--upon battle and pestilence--upon the ceaseless misery of the Egyptian race--upon keen-eyed travellers--Herodotus yesterday and Warburton to-day--upon all, and more, this unworldly sphynx has watched, and watched like a Providence, with the same earnest eyes and the same sad, tranquil mien. And we shall die, and Islam shall wither away; and the Englishman, straining far over to hold his loved India, will plant a firm foot on the banks of the Nile, and sit on the seats of the faithful; and still that sleepless rock will lie watching and earnest the work of the new busy race with those same sad eyes and the same tranquil mien everlasting. You dare not mock at the sphynx." The conclusion of this rhapsody at the present time sounds almost like a half-fulfilled prophecy.

The sphynx is the special device of several British regiments which landed in Egypt, in the Bay of Aboukir, in the face of the French Army; and borne as a memento of the battle of Alexandria, when General Sir Ralph Abercrombie fell in the moment of victory. It also appears upon the war medals of the English occupation of Egypt, resulting in the battle of Tel-el-Kebir, 1882, and subsequent victories. In heraldry the sphynx is usually couchant; it is, however, borne in other positions, sometimes winged, and when so borne the wings are always endorsed, _i.e._, back to back.

_A sphynx passant, wings endorsed argent crined or_, is the crest of Asgill (Bart. 1701).

[Illustration: A Sphynx passant guardant, wings endorsed.]

[Illustration: The Phœnix.]

The Phœnix Bird of the Sun

"_Rara avis in terris._"

An imaginary bird, described by ancient writers as in form like an eagle, but more beautiful in its plumage. Among the ancient classical writers it was an emblem of those existing in paradise, enjoying eternal youth and never-ending pleasure. Tacitus describes the phœnix as a singular bird, consecrated to the sun, and distinguished by its rich appearance and variegated colours. Herodotus naïvely says: "I never saw one, indeed, but in a picture, but if he is like his picture his plumage is partly golden and partly red." Philippe de Thaun says: "The phœnix lives five hundred years and a little more, when it will become young again and leave its old age." It was said to be sometimes seen in Egypt, and only one was believed to exist at a time. When it is advanced in age and its time of change is at hand, it hides itself away somewhere in Arabia, and makes itself a nest of the rarest spices, which, by the heat of the sun or other secret agency, and the fanning of the sacred bird's own wings, soon rises into flames and consumes it. Out of its ashes rises another with new life and vigour to pursue the same never-ending life and re-birth.

_Fum_ or _Fung_ (the phœnix) is one of the four symbolical animals supposed to preside over the destinies of the Chinese Empire; the sacred _Ho-ho_ or phœnix also figures with the dragon largely in Japanese mythology, and bears a striking analogy to the bird of classic fame. It is fabled to have a miraculous existence, and is sent on earth for the performance of extraordinary works in the manifestation of the Divinity and in the development of humanity and nature. It appears at different stages of the world's progress and in successive ages; after the accomplishment of which it reascends to heaven to come down again at the commencement of a new era.

From the pagans the Early Christians adopted the symbol, and with them its significance had reference to the resurrection and immortality. Like the pelican "in her piety," it was peculiarly an emblem of our Saviour in His resurrection. As the phœnix when old and wearied seeks the rays of the sun to consume its body, again to be revived in life and vigour, so the Christian, worn and exhausted by worldly labour and suffering, turns to the Son of Righteousness for regeneration and newness of life. Tertullian makes the phœnix an image of the resurrection.

In corroboration of this it must be borne in mind that Jesus Christ, who died A.D. 34, is termed _the phœnix_ by monastic writers.

The Phœnix period or cycle is said to consist of 300 years. "The bird of wonder" is said to have appeared in Egypt five times:

1. In the reign of Sesostris, B.C. 866.

2. In the reign of Amasis, B.C. 566.

3. In the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus, B.C. 266.

4. In the reign of Tiberius, 34 A.D.

5. In the reign of Constantine, 334 A.D.

Tacitus in the "_Annales_," vi. 28, mentions the first three of these appearances.

The _Phœnix-tree_ is the palm. In Greek φοίνιξ (_phoinix_) means both phœnix and palm-tree. It is thus alluded to in Shakespeare:

"Now will I believe ... that in Arabia There is one tree, the phœnix throne--one phœnix At this hour reigneth there." _The Tempest_, Act iii. sc. 3.

Pliny[20] gives minute particulars concerning the natural history of this _rara avis in terris_. But the ancient fable is most fully given by Ovid and translated by Dryden. Ariosto, also, and many early writers refer to the wonderful creature with fullest faith in its reality. It is no wonder then, that it became a favourite emblem in an age when it was the fashion among persons of distinction to have an impress or device with its accompanying legend or motto. Many persons of historical importance employed the phœnix to express in metaphor the idea they wished to convey regarding themselves. Thus we find the phœnix in flames painted for the device of Jeanne d'Arc, in the Gallery of the Palais Royal, with the motto: "Invito funere vivat" ("Her death itself will make her live").

Vittoria Colonna (+ 1547) the beautiful and accomplished wife of the Marquis of Pescara, used the device of a phœnix on her medal.

Mary Queen of Scots used the impress of her mother, Mary of Lorraine, a phœnix in flames, and the motto: "En ma fin est mon commencement." A phœnix in flames upon a castle was the badge of Queen Jane Seymour, the crest of the Seymours being a phœnix in flames issuing from a ducal coronet. Her son, Edward VI., added the motto, "Nascatur ut alter" ("That another may be born"), alluding to the nature of her death. She lies buried in St. George's Chapel, Windsor, with a Latin epitaph by Bishop Godwin, which has been thus translated by his son Morgan:

"Here a phœnix lieth, whose death To another phœnix gave birth. It is to be lamented much The world at once ne'er knew two such."

Queen Elizabeth placed a phœnix upon her medals and tokens with her favourite motto: "Semper eadem" ("Always the same"), and sometimes with the motto "Sola phœnix omnis mundi" ("The sole phœnix of the whole world"); and on the other side, "Et Angliæ gloria" ("And the glory of England"), with her portrait full-faced. By the poets of the time, Elizabeth was often compared to the phœnix. Sylvester, in his "Corona Dedicatoria," says:

"As when the Arabian (only) bird doth burne Her aged bodie in sweet flames to death, Out of her cinders a new bird hath birth, On whom the beauties of the first return; From spicy ashes of the sacred urne Of our dead phœnix (deare Elizabeth) A new true phœnix lively flourisheth."

And Shakespeare, in the prophecy which he puts into the mouth of Cranmer at the baptism of the Princess Elizabeth, her great and glorious reign is foreshadowed, and finally:

"... as when The bird of wonder dies, the maiden phœnix, Her ashes new create another heir, As great in admiration as herself."

Shakespeare elsewhere uses the simile to denote a phœnix among women--a phœnix, a paragon, unique, because alone of its kind:

"If she be furnished with a mind so rare, She is alone the Arabian bird." _Cymbeline_, Act i. sc. 7.

Many other heraldic mottoes have been associated with this celebrated device. The following are from "Historic Devices, Badges," &c., by Mrs. Bury Palliser:

Eleanor, Queen of Francis I. of Austria: "Non est similis illi" ("There is none like her"). She afterwards changed her motto, either showing how much she was neglected, or to express her determination to remain single: "Unica semper avis" ("Always a solitary bird").

Bona of Savoy: "Sola facta solum deum sequor."

Cardinal Trent: "Ut vivat" ("That it may live").

Linacre: "Vivat post funera virtus" ("Virtue survives death").

"De mi muerte ma vida" ("From my death my life").

"De mort à vie" ("From death to life").

"Et morte vitam protulit" ("And by death has prolonged his life").

"Ex morte, immortalitas" ("Out of death, immortality").

"Murio y nacio" ("I die and am born").

"Ne pereat" ("That it should not perish").

"O mors, ero mors tua" ("O death, I shall be thy death").

"Se necat ut vivat" ("Slays himself that he may live").

"Trouva sol nei tormenti il suo gioire" ("It finds alone its joy in its suffering").

"Vivre pour mourir, mourir pour vivre" ("Live to die, die to live").

"Uror, morior, orior" ("I am burnt, I die, I arise").

The phœnix in heraldry is never represented in other than in one position, _rising from flames_, that is, with expanded wings and enveloped in flames of fire in which it is being consumed. It is usually represented exactly as an eagle in shape, but may be of any of the heraldic tinctures.

The phœnix is of frequent use in heraldry, and borne by many families in the United Kingdom. A phœnix issuing from a ducal coronet is the crest of the Duke of Somerset.

Linacre, founder of the College of Physicians, and honorary physician to four sovereigns has on his tomb in Westminster Abbey the device of the phœnix, with the motto, "Vivat post funera virtus" ("Virtue survives death").

From the association of this fabulous bird with alchemy, Paracelsus wrote concerning it, and several alchemists employed it to symbolise their vocation. It was adopted by the Apothecaries' Company as crest, and is a frequent sign over chemists' shops.

_A phœnix in flames proper, gorged with a mural coronet_, is the allusive crest of the Fenwicks; the motto over the crest is the _cri de guerre_, "A Fenwick! a Fenwick!" They were a family noted in border warfare. "The house of Percy," says Mrs. Bury Palliser, "ever ranked the Fenwicks among the most valiant of its retainers, and in border warfare the banner of the gorged phœnix in the burning flame always appeared with that of the silver crescent of the Percys."

The bird of paradise is interesting as having for a time been accepted as the veritable phœnix, a fact which has escaped Gibbon. That luxurious Emperor, Heliogabalus, having eaten, as he thought, of every known delicacy, bethought him one day of the fabled phœnix. What mattered it that only one bird existed at a time; _that one_, the imperial gourmand must have, and was inconsolable that he had not thought of it before. The zeal of proconsuls was equal to the great occasion, and from all parts of the earth came strange and wondrous birds, each affirmed with confidence to be "the sacred solitary bird, that knows no second, knows no third." The cankerworm of doubt remains! At last, one day there was brought to Rome from the far islands of the Eastern seas a bird, the like of which for the glory of its plumage had never been seen out of paradise, the veritable phœnix, "Bird of the Sun!" The sight of the magnificent creature carried conviction with it. Heliogabalus ate in faith, and went to his fathers contented.

[Illustration: A Harpy, wings disclosed.]

The Harpy

"_Of monsters all, most monstrous this; no greater wrath God sends 'mongst men; it comes from depth of pitchy hell: And virgin's face, but womb like gulf unsatiate hath, Her hands are griping claws, her colour pale and fell._" VIRGIL.

"_Thou art like the harpy, Which to betray, doth wear an angel's face, Seize with an eagle's talons._" "Pericles Prince of Tyre," Act iv. sc. 4.

A poetical monstrosity of classical origin, described as "winged creatures having the head and breasts of a woman, and the body and limbs of a vulture; very fierce and loathsome, living in an atmosphere of filth and stench, and contaminating anything which they come near. Pale and emaciated, they were continually tormented with insatiable hunger." They are best known from the story of the Argonauts, where they appear as the tormentors of the blind king Phineus, whose table they robbed of its viands, which they either devoured or spoiled. They were regarded by the ancients as ministers of sudden death.

[Illustration: The Harpy, Greek sculpture.]

In Miss Millington's admirable book, "Heraldry in History, Poetry and Romance," it is stated that unlike the generality of such mythical beings, the harpies appear originally, as in Homer's "Odyssey," as persons instead of personations; while later authors for the most part reduced them to whirlwinds and whirlpools. Homer mentions but one harpy. Hesiod gives two, later writers three. The names indicate that these monsters were impersonations of whirlwinds and storms. The names were: _Ocypeta_ (rapid), _Celeno_ (blackness), _Aello_ (storm).

"I will ... do any embassage ... rather than Hold three words' conference with this harpy." _Much Ado About Nothing_, Act ii. sc. 1.

"Bravely the figure of this harpy hast thou Performed, my Ariel; a grace it had devouring." _Tempest_, Act iii. sc. 3.

[Illustration: A Harpy displayed and crowned. German version.]

_Azure, a harpy with her wings disclosed, her hair flotant, or, armed of the same._ This coat existed in Huntingdon Church in Guillam's time.

The arms of the City of Nuremberg are: _azure, a harpy displayed armed, crined and crowned, or_. It occurs as the city device as early as 1243. In German heraldry it is termed _jungfraundler_.

[Illustration: Shield of Nüremberg.]

A creature very similar to the harpy (a combination of several badges), was one of the favourite devices of Richard III., viz., a falcon with the head of a maiden holding the white rose of York.

The Heraldic Pelican

"_Then sayd the pellycane When my byrats be slayne With my bloude I them reuyue (revive) Scrypture doth record, The same dyd our Lord, And rose from deth to lyue._" SKELTON, "Armory of Birds."

[Illustration: A Pelican in her piety, wings displayed.]

The character ascribed to the pelican is nearly as fabulous as that of the phœnix. From a clumsy, gluttonous, piscivorous water-bird, it was by the growth of legends transformed into a mystic emblem of Christ, whom Dante terms "Nostro Pelicano." St. Hieronymus gives the story of the pelican restoring its young ones destroyed by serpents as an illustration of the destruction of man by the old Serpent, and his salvation by the blood of Christ.

The Pelican in Christian Art is an emblem of Jesus Christ, by "whose blood we are healed." It is also a symbol of charity.

The "Bestiarum" says that Physiologus tells us that the pelican is very fond of its brood, but when the young ones begin to grow they rebel against the male bird and provoke his anger, so that he kills them; the mother returns to the nest in three days, sits on the dead birds, pours her blood over them, and they feed on the blood.

[Illustration: Heraldic Pelican in her piety.]

Heralds usually represent this bird with wings endorsed and neck embowed, wounding her breast with her beak. Very many early painters mistakenly represented it similar to an eagle, and not as a natural pelican, which has an enormous bag attached to the lower mandible, and extending almost from the point of the bill to the throat. When in her nest feeding her young with her blood, she is said to be IN HER PIETY.

The Romans called filial love piety, hence Virgil's hero is called the "pious Æneas," because he rescued his father from the flames of Troy.

[Illustration: Crest, a Pelican vulning herself proper, wings endorsed.]

The myth that pelicans feed their young with their blood arose from the following habit, on which the whole superstructure of fable has been erected: They have a large bag attached to their under-bill. When the parent bird is about to feed its brood, it macerates small fish in this bag or pouch; then, pressing the bag against its breast, transfers the macerated food to the mouths of the young ones.

The pelican in her piety is not an uncommon symbol upon monumental brasses. That of William Prestwick, Dean of Hastings, in Warbleton Church, Sussex, has it with the explanatory motto: "Sic Xtus dilexit nos."

EXAMPLES.--_Gules, a pelican in her piety, or._--_Chauntrell._

_Azure, three pelicans argent, vulning themselves proper._--_Pelham_, _Somerset_, &c.

A pelican's head erased, or otherwise detached from the body, must always be drawn in the same position and vulning itself. It should always be separated as low as the upper part of the breast.

It is said naturalists of old, observing that the pelican had a crimson stain on the tip of its beak, reported that it was accustomed to feed its young with the blood flowing from its breast, which it tore for the purpose. In this belief the Early Christians adopted the pelican to figure Christ, and set forth the redemption through His blood, which was willingly shed for us His children.

ALPHONSO THE WISE, King of Castile (+ 1252). A pelican in its piety. Motto: "Pro lege et grege."

WILLIAM OF NASSAU, founder of the Republic of the United Provinces, one of the noblest characters of modern history. He bore on some of his standards the pelican, and on others the motto: "Pro lege, grege et rege."

POPE CLEMENT IX. One of his devices was the pelican in its piety. Motto: "Aliis non sibi clemens" ("Tender-hearted to others, not himself").

[Illustration: The natural Pelican.]

Other mottoes for the pelican:

"Ut vitam habeant" ("That they may have life").

"Immemor ipse sui" ("Unmindful herself of herself").

"Mortuos vivificat" ("Makes the dead live").

"Nec sibi parcit" ("Nor spares herself").

The Martlet

"_The guest of summer, The temple-haunting martlet._" "Macbeth."

[Illustration]

The Martlet (_Merlette_ or _Merlot_, French; _Merula_, Latin). The house-marten or swallow is a favourite device in heraldry all over Europe, and has assumed a somewhat unreal character from the circumstance that it catches its food on the wing and never appears to alight on the ground as other birds do. It builds its nest frequently under the eaves of houses, from whence it can take flight readily, rarely alighting, as it gains its food while on the wing; the length of its wings and the shortness of its legs preventing it from rising should it rest on the ground.

"No jutty friese, Buttress, nor coign of vantage, but this bird Hath made his pendant bed, and procreant cradle." _Macbeth_, Act i. sc. 6.

It is depicted in armory with wings close, and in profile, with thighs, but with no visible legs or feet.

The martlet is the appropriate "difference" or mark of cadency for the fourth son. Sylvanus Morgan says: "It modernly used to signify, as that bird seldom lights on land, so younger brothers have little land to rest on but the wings of their own endeavours, who, like the swallows, become the travellers in their seasons."

The swallow (_hirondelle_) is the punning cognisance for Arundell. The seal of the town of Arundel is a swallow, Baron Arundell of Wardour bears six swallows for his arms. The great Arundells have as motto, "De Hirundine" ("Concerning the swallow"), and "Nulli præda" ("A prey to none"). A Latin poem of the twelfth century is thus rendered:

"Swift as the swallow, whence his arms' device And his own arms are took, enraged he flies Thro' gazing troops, the wonder of the field, And strikes his lance in William's glittering shield."

"We find it in Glovers' roll," says Planché, "borne by Roger de Merley, clearly as 'armes parlantes,' although in a border." Roger de Merley: "_barée d'argent et de goulz à la bordure d'azur, et merlots d'or en le bordure_"; showing it was some difference of a family coat.

The Alerion

is a heraldic bird, represented as an eaglet displayed, but without beak or claws. Some writers confound it with the martlet, stating that the alerion is the same bird with its wings displayed or extended. They are first found in the arms of Lorraine, which are blazoned _or, on a bend gules, three Alerions argent_, and are said to be assumed in commemoration of an extraordinary shot made by Godfrey de Boulogne, "who at one draught of his bow, shooting against David's Tower in Jerusalem, broched three feetless birds called Alerions, which the House of Lorraine, decending from his race, continued to this day." It is impossible, says Planché, who broached this wonderful story, but it is perfectly evident that the narrator was the party who drew the longbow, and not the noble Godfrey.

[Illustration: Alerion displayed.]

[Illustration: Heraldic Eagle.]

The letters of the word ALERION appear to be merely an anagram formed by the same letters LORAINE, and may account for the birds on the shield (probably eaglets) being called alerions.

The eagle displayed and the two-headed eagle are but extreme conventionalised representations of the natural bird.

The Liver (Cormorant)

Liver, a fabulous bird, supposed to have given its name to Liverpool and commemorated in the arms of that city. It is traditionally described as a bird that frequented _the pool_, near which the town was afterwards founded. The arms granted in 1797 are thus blazoned: _Argent a cormorant, in the beak a branch of seaweed all proper_, and for crest, _on a wreath of the colours, a cormorant, the wings elevated, in the beak a branch of Laver proper_. It is more than probable that the bird on the arms suggested the name "Liver" being applied to it. The fiction naturally arose from the desire to find a derivation for the name of the town. It is, however, always depicted as a cormorant. On the shield the bird is always depicted with the wings _close_, and on the crest the wings are _elevated_.

[Illustration: An Heraldic Tigre passant.]

The Heraldic Tigre or Tyger

"_A savage tygress on her helmet lies; The famous badge Clorinda us'd to wear._" FAIRFAX'S "Tasso."

The tigre or tyger of the old heralds still holds its place in English armory, retaining the ancient name to distinguish it from the natural tiger, to which it bears but little resemblance except the name. The early artists probably had no better authority for the strange creature they depicted than the wild tales of Eastern travel and their own lively imaginations. The habit of drawing in a conventional manner may also have assisted in producing such a monster. This type of wild and ruthless ferocity, approaching the draconic in its power and destructiveness, was to their minds fitly suggested by exaggerations of those attributes of savageness and bloodthirstiness with which it was supposed to be endowed. Shakespeare makes King Henry V., when urging on his "noblest English" and "good yeomen" to the assault at Harfleur, declare that

"When the blast of war blows in our ears Then imitate the action of the tiger; Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, Disguise fair Nature with hard-favoured rage."

[Illustration: Supporter, an Heraldic Tigre, collared and lined.]

"The tyger," says Bossewell, "is a beast wonderful in strength, and most swift in flight as it were an arrow. For the Persians call an arrow tygris. He is distinguished with diverse speckes; and of him the floode Tygris tooke the name. It is said Bacchus used these beastes in his chariot, for their marveilous swiftness in conveying of the same."

_The heraldic tigre_, the invention of the early heralds, is depicted as having the body similar to a wolf, but more strong and massive; powerful jaws armed with prominent canine tusks, and with a short curved horn or spike at the end of his nose. A row of knotted tufts of hair adorn the back of his neck as a mane; tufts also on his breast and thighs, and with strong claws; the tail of a lion completes his equipment. He is a most effective creature in a heraldic emblazonment, especially when "_armed_" and "_tufted_" of tinctures differing from his body.

The sinister supporter of the Marquess of Dufferin and Ava is _an heraldic tigre ermine, gorged with a tressure flory counter flory or_.

_Gules a chevron argent, between three tigres_, &c., _of the second_.--_Butler_, Calais.

_Vert, a tigre passant or, maned and tufted argent._--_Love_, Norfolk (granted 1663).

_Or, a tigre passant gules._--_Lutwych_, Lutwich, Salop.

Baron Harlech has for dexter supporter, and also for crest, _an heraldic tigre argent, maned and tufted sable_.

_The tigre and mirror_ is an uncommon but very remarkable bearing. Amongst other remarkable ideas which our ancestors entertained respecting foreign animals, "some report that those who rob the tigre of her young use a policy to detaine their damme from following them by casting sundry looking-glasses in the way, whereat she useth to long to gaze, whether it be to beholde her owne beauty or because when she seeth her shape in the glasse she thinketh she seeth one of her young ones; and so they escape the swiftness of her pursuit."[21]

[Illustration: Tigre and Mirror.]

"_Argent, a tigre passant regardant looking into a mirror lying fessways, the handle to the dexter all proper_," is said to have been the coat of Hadrian de Bardis (probably an Italian), Prebendary of Oxfordshire. These arms still remain, or were lately remaining, in a window of Thame Church. Only two other examples occur, viz.:

"_Argent a tigre and mirror_ (as before) _gules_."--_Sibell_, Kent.

The Royal Tiger

Next to the lion in power is the tiger, an animal not possessed of the noble qualities of the lion, being fierce without provocation, and cruel without cause. The chief difference of the tiger from every other animal of the mottled kind is in the shape of the spots on the skin, which run in streaks or bands in the direction of the ribs. The leopard, panther and the ounce are all, in a certain degree, marked like this animal, except that the lines are broken by round spots, which cover the whole surface of the skin. The use of the _royal tiger_ in modern coats of arms is frequent, and has reference to services in the East.

Outram, Bart., has for supporters: _two royal Bengal tigers guardant proper, gorged with a wreath of laurel vert, crowned with an Eastern crown_.

_Note._--In a heraldic description (or blazon as it is termed) it is necessary for the sake of greater clearness, and to prevent confusion, to name the older mythical creature the "HERALDIC TIGRE," that it may not be confounded with its natural representative usually called the "ROYAL TIGER."

Leopard, or Panther, Felis Pardus, Lybbarde

"_Upon his shoulders a scheld of stele With the lybbardes painted wele._" "The Metrical Romance of Richard Cœur de Lyon."

"_Make the libbard stern Leave roaring, when in rage he for revenge did yearn._" SPENSER, "Faerie Queen,"