The internet, in my estimation, is among the most important inventions of the 20th century. I would not enter an argument with you if you insisted that it is the most important invention. Sadly, daily, far too many who have access to it misuse and abuse it. I’ve already said my piece on that and will not return to it now.
A friend recently introduced me – as he often does – to a most fascinating website called The Medieval Bestiary. It shows how, in the absence of accurate information, the human mind has the capability to imagine and invent things, a capacity as far as we know that is not given to any other creature.
This website focuses mainly on what medieval folks imagined certain animals looked like.
Indeed, there is the parallel of no more than perhaps a century or so ago when doctors’ first response to an ailing patient was to “bleed” that person because the blood was thought to be the main culprit in the transport of many diseases. Unfortunately, many patients died from the loss of blood rather than from the ailment complained of.
At The Medieval Bestiary, for example, images are shown of honey bees (I have already prepared a column about those fascinating creatures but keep holding it back) and this explanation of their origin: “Bees are the smallest of birds. They are born from the bodies of oxen, or from the decaying flesh of slaughtered calves; worms form in the flesh and then turn into bees.
“Bees live in community, choose the most noble among them as king, have wars, and make honey. Their laws are based on custom, but the king does not enforce the law; rather, the lawbreakers punish themselves by stinging themselves to death. Bees are excited by noise.”
Pliny the Elder noted that after mating, female horses (mares) would run either north or south, depending on the sex of the foal they had conceived.
The crocodile is described as “a four-footed beast, about 20 cubits long, that is born in the Nile River. Its skin is very hard, so that it is not hurt when struck by stones. It spends the day on land and the night in the water. It is armed with cruel teeth and claws; it is the only animal that can move the upper part of its jaw while keeping the lower part still. Its dung can be used to enhance a person’s beauty: the excrement (or the contents of the intestines) is smeared on the face and left there until sweat washes it off. Crocodiles always weep after eating a man”.
Medieval folks did not find dogs very smart: “When a dog is swimming across a river while holding meat in its mouth, if it sees its own reflection it will drop the meat it is carrying while trying to get the meat it sees in the reflection.”
Modern day dog-lovers are not amused, I’m sure.
The giraffe is described as a camel with the spots of a leopard.
“It is so tall in front and so short in back that it looks like it is sitting down.”
In medieval times sailors were said to have mistaken whales for islands.
Little is said about the peacock’s beauty; rather, “that bird’s flesh is so hard that it does not rot, and can hardly be cooked in fire or digested by the liver. Its voice is terrible, causing fear in the listener when the bird unexpectedly begins to cry out”.
Here is one that most Barbadians have long included into the local lexicon and would describe in exactly the same way as Isidore of Seville, who lived in the seventh century: “The ass (asinus) takes its name from ‘sitting’ (sedendo). It resists commands for no reason, and is a slow animal.”
Of course, Popsicle has always known that!
How the world has changed since the Middle Ages.