Other Chimerical Creatures and Heraldic Beasts

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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.

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.

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.

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 ????a?a????t?? (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.

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.

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.

Pegasus salient.

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.

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 ?e?t?? (to hunt, or to pursue) and ta???? (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.


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.

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.

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 ???? (bous) an ox, and ???ta???? (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, phoenix, 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.

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.

A Griffin passant, wings raised.
(Early English.)
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.

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.”

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.

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]

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,’ ?at’ e?????, 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 ???p (????, 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 3½ 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

A Sphynx passant guardant, wings endorsed.

The Phoenix.

The Phoenix 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 phoenix 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 phoenix 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 phoenix) is one of the four symbolical animals supposed to preside over the destinies of the Chinese Empire; the sacred Ho-ho or phoenix 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 phoenix 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 phoenix 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 phoenix by monastic writers.

The Phoenix 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 Phoenix-tree is the palm. In Greek f????? (phoinix) means both phoenix and palm-tree. It is thus alluded to in Shakespeare:

“Now will I believe ... that in Arabia
There is one tree, the phoenix throne—one phoenix
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 phoenix to express in metaphor the idea they wished to convey regarding themselves. Thus we find the phoenix 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 phoenix on her medal.

Mary Queen of Scots used the impress of her mother, Mary of Lorraine, a phoenix in flames, and the motto: “En ma fin est mon commencement.” A phoenix in flames upon a castle was the badge of Queen Jane Seymour, the crest of the Seymours being a phoenix 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 phoenix lieth, whose death
To another phoenix gave birth.
It is to be lamented much
The world at once ne’er knew two such.”

Queen Elizabeth placed a phoenix upon her medals and tokens with her favourite motto: “Semper eadem” (“Always the same”), and sometimes with the motto “Sola phoenix omnis mundi” (“The sole phoenix 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 phoenix. 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 phoenix (deare Elizabeth)
A new true phoenix 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 phoenix,
Her ashes new create another heir,
As great in admiration as herself.”Shakespeare elsewhere uses the simile to denote a phoenix among women—a phoenix, 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 phoenix 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 phoenix is of frequent use in heraldry, and borne by many families in the United Kingdom. A phoenix 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 phoenix, 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 phoenix 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 phoenix 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 phoenix, 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 phoenix. 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 phoenix, “Bird of the Sun!” The sight of the magnificent creature carried conviction with it. Heliogabalus ate in faith, and went to his fathers contented.

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.

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.

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.

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.”

The character ascribed to the pelican is nearly as fabulous as that of the phoenix. 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.

A Pelican in her piety, wings displayed.

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.

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.

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.”


The natural Pelican.

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

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.”

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.

Alerion displayed. 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.

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.”

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]

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
Coeur de Lyon.”
Make the libbard stern
Leave roaring, when in rage he for revenge did yearn.
Spenser, “Faerie Queen,” Book i. canto vi.

A curious character, partly real and partly fictitious has been ascribed to the lybbard or leopard of heraldry. It was said to be the offspring of a lioness and a panther, the Northmen or Normans, according to some authorities, having adopted that beast of prey, noted for rashness, as typical of themselves, so characterised by boldness and impetuosity. The standard of Rollo, first Duke of Normandy, they say, bore a leopard. A second lion or leopard was added to the Norman shield when the county of Maine became annexed to the Duchy of Normandy; and the two lions or leopards—for they are indiscriminately so termed—were thus borne, it is said, upon the standard of William the Conqueror, and by his descendants. A third lion was added by Henry II. on his marriage with Eleanor of Aquitain, a lion being also the arms of that province.

A Leopard passant.

It has been keenly contested whether the three animals in the royal shield of England were lions or leopards. The subject has been ably treated by Mr. J. R. PlanchÉ in the “Pursuivant of Arms,” and also by Charles Boutell, M.A., in several of his works. The case seems to stand thus:

In ancient coats the name is believed to be given to the lion in certain attitudes. The French heralds call a lion passant a leopard. Thus Bertrand du Guesclin, the famous Breton, declared that men “devoyent bien honorer la noble fleur-de-lis, qu’ils ne faissaient le fÉlon liÉpard,” and Napoleon, strongly to excite the valour of his soldiers, exclaimed, “Let us drive these leopards (the English) into the sea!”

Lion LÉoparde” is the term used in French heraldry for the lion when borne passant guardant as in the royal shield of England. When rampant they call it “lÉoparde lionnÉ,” as if in this attitude the leopard assumed the position and bold character of the lion. The attitude passant guardant thus denoted the peculiar stealthy tread and cat-like watchfulness of the leopard and panther.

The Emperor Frederick II. (1235) sent King Henry of England three leopards as a present in token of his armorial bearings.


A Leopard’s Face,
jessant-de-lis.

It is a great argument in favour of the substitution of the lion for the leopard, Mr. Boutell thinks, that the latter should have almost disappeared from English heraldry, the face and head only retaining their place in modern coats.

A leopard’s head” should show part of the neck, couped or erased, as the case may be; guardant, affrontÉ or front face, is always to be understood of the leopard, and never in profile.

A leopard’s face” shows no part of the neck, and in conjunction with the term “jessant-de-lis” is used with respect to a leopard’s face having a fleur-de-lis passing through it.

The insignia of the See of Hereford is: gules three leopards’ heads reversed jessant-de-lis, or.

In heraldry the leopard represents those brave and generous warriors who have performed some bold enterprise with force, courage, promptitude, and activity. Thus Shakespeare alludes to the character of the bold soldier

“Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth.”

In Christian Art the leopard is employed to represent that beast spoken of in the Apocalypse, with seven heads and ten horns. Six of the heads are nimbed, but the seventh, being “wounded to death,” has lost its power, and consequently has no nimbus.

Three leopards passant guardant or, pelletÉe, appear on the arms of the Marquis of Downshire. It is also the sinister supporter.

The supporters of the town of Aberdeen are leopards.

Sable three leopards rampant argent spotted sable are given as the arms of Lynch. It is, however, probable that the lynx was the animal originally blazoned as “arms parlantes” for the name.

Ermine on a cross patonce sable, a leopard’s head, issuing out of a ducal coronet or, crest, a demi-leopard erect, proper.—Dickens.

A leopard’s face, breaking with his mouth a sword, is the crest of Disne.

The supporters of the Earl of Northesk are two leopards reguardant.The leopard or panther, says Dr. P. M. Duncan, F.R.S.,[22] was the only one of the greater feline animals, except the lion and tiger, which seems to have been known to the ancients. It is always represented as drawing the chariot of Bacchus, and the forlorn Ariadne is sculptured as riding on one of the spotted steeds of her divine lover. The panther was also constantly used in the barbarous sports of the amphitheatre, and, in common with the lion and tiger, has been both executioner and grave to many a bold-hearted martyr.

The leopard’s skin was a favourite mantle in the olden times in Greece. In the “Iliad,” Homer, speaking of Menelaus, says:

“With a pard’s spotted hide his shoulders broad
He mantled o’er,”

and the leopard, or panther, is given in the “Odyssey” as one of the forms assumed by Proteus, “the Ancient of the Deep.”

A curious ancient superstition about the leopard is embodied in its name. It was thought not to be actually the same animal as the panther or pard, but to be a mongrel or hybrid between the male pard and the lioness, hence it was called the lion-panther, or leopardus. This error, as Archbishop Trench tells us, “has lasted into modern times”; thus Fuller: “Leopards and mules are properly no creatures.”

Some writers, says Boutell, describe the leopard as the issue of the pard and lioness, and they assign the unproductiveness of such hybrids as a reason for its frequent adoption in the arms of abbots and abbesses. “Mulus et abbates sunt in honore pares.”

The leopard and panther are now acknowledged to be but slight varieties of the same species. In Wood’s “Natural History” some slight difference is mentioned as to the number of spots. “The panther is fawn-coloured above, white underneath, with six or seven ranges of patches resembling rosettes—that is to say, each composed of an assemblage of five or six simple black spots. It very much resembles the leopard, which inhabits the same region (but has ten rows of spots which are of smaller size), It is the wildest of the feline tribe, always retaining its fierce aspect and perpetual growl.”

The Panther “Incensed”

The panther, knowing that his spotted hide
Doth please all beasts, but that his looks them fray,
Within a bush his dreadful head doth hide
To let them gaze, while he on them doth prey.
Spenser, Sonnet.

This beast, like the leopard, has been the object of much mistaken or fictitious history. Pliny, who is responsible for many of the errors in natural history since his time, says of the panther: “It is said that all four-footed beasts are wonderfully delighted and enticed by the smell of panthers; but their hideous looke and crabbed countenance which they bewray so soon as they show their heads skareth them as much again: therefore their manner is to hide their heads, and when they have trained other beasts within their reach by their sweet savour, they fall upon them and worry them.”[23] And again, Sir William Segar, Garter King-of-Arms, following the same credulous historian, says: “The panther is admired of all other beasts for the beauty of his skyn, being spotted with variable colours, and beloved of them for the sweetness of his breath that streameth forth of his nostrils and ears like smoke which our paynters mistaking, corruptly do make fire.”[24]

Panther incensed.

It is, however, more probable that the creature was represented emitting flame and smoke to denote and give characteristic expression to the native savagery of the brute when irritated. If one can imagine the terror inspired by remorseless and unpitying fury, sudden and impetuous, we see its object fairly typified in the panther “incensed.” The idea of fire and smoke darting from its mouth, eyes and ears was doubtless suggested by that habit peculiar to the feline race, observable even in the domestic cat, to “spit fire” and “swear” when rudely attacked, and as an emblem in this sense it is extremely well indicative of sudden fury.

Guillam says: “Some authors are of opinion that there are no panthers bred in Europe; but in Africa, Lybia and Mauritania they are plentiful. The panther is a beast of a beautiful aspect, by reason of the manifold variety of his divers coloured spots wherewith his body is overspread. As a lion doth in most things resemble the nature of a man, so, after a sort, doth the panther of a woman; for it is a beautiful beast, and fierce, yet very loving to their young ones, and will defend them with the hazard of their own lives; and if they miss them, they bewail their loss with loud and miserable howling.”

The Lancastrian badge “the panther,” says PlanchÉ, “which is attributed by Sir William Segar to Henry VI. and blazoned passant guardant argent spotted of all colours with vapour issuant from her mouth and ears; but there is no authority quoted for it, and there is no example extant, the only collateral evidence being the supporters of the Somerset Dukes of Beaufort, who are supposed to have used it as a token of their Lancastrian descent.” The dexter supporter of the Duke of Beaufort thus is blazoned: Dexter, a panther argent, semÉe of torteaux, hurts and pomies alternately, flames issuant from the mouth and ears proper, gorged with a plain collar, chained, or.

The heraldic panther, or as it is more frequently termed, a panther incensed, is always borne guardant, i.e., full-faced; and “incensed,” that is to say, it is depicted with flames and smoke issuing from its mouth and ears. Its coat is spotted of various tinctures as the blazon may state.

Odet de Foix, Sieur de Lautrec, Marshal of France (+ 1528) being considered a person of fierce appearance, took for device a panther, with the motto “Allicit ulterius” (“He entices further”), alluding to the attractive power of that animal notwithstanding its fierce exterior, “an evidence,” remarks a modern writer, “that he had as much vanity as ambition.”

The town of Lucca for arms bears a panther: “La pantera, che Lucca abbraccia e onora.”

Gian Giacomo Trivulzio, surnamed the Great (+ 1518), a celebrated Italian soldier, bore a panther on his standard, with the motto, “Mens sibi conscia facti” (“The mind conscious to itself of the deed”), the panther signifying foresight (providence) from the number of eyes in his coat. Others said he wished to imply that he knew how to manage for himself in the various changes of his capricious fortune.[25]

The Lynx.

The Lynx

Felis Lynx, or mountain cat, is found in the northern parts of Europe, Asia and America, and climbs the highest trees. He preys on squirrels, deer, hares, &c. He is fond of blood and kills great numbers of animals to satisfy his unconquerable thirst. He is smaller than the panther, about three feet and a half in length, his tail is much shorter and black at the extremity. His ears are erect with a pencil of black hair at the tips. The fur is long and thick, the upper part of the body is a pale grey, the under parts white.

The sight of the lynx is said to be so piercing that the ancients attributed to it the faculty of seeing through stone walls: it may, however, be asserted with truth that it distinguishes its prey at a greater distance than any other carnivorous quadruped. On this account it is frequently employed in heraldry, symbolising watchfulness, keenness of vision, and also the ability to profit by it.

Lynx-eyed, “oculis lynceis,” originally referred to Lynceus, the argonaut, who was famed for the keenness of his vision; then it was transferred to the lynx and gave rise to the fable that it could see through a wall (notes to “Philobiblon,” by E. C. Thomas).

The Accademia de Lincei, founded in Rome in 1603, with the object of encouraging a taste for natural history, adopted the name and device of the lynx because the members should have the eyes of a lynx to penetrate the secrets of nature. Galileo, Fabio Colonna, and Gianbattista Porta were among the members of the academy, the latter philosopher and mathematician, who was the inventor of the camera obscura, bore the device of the academy, the lynx, and the motto “Aspicit et inspicit” (“Looks at and looks into”).

Charles IV. of Luxemburg, Emperor of Germany, adopted the lynx for his impress, with the motto, “Nullius pavit occursum” (“He fears not meeting with any one”).

The Lizard Lynx is an animal of the lynx or wild cat kind of a dark brown colour, spotted black; the ears and tail are short. They are frequent in the woods of Sweden, Denmark and Norway, where they are usually termed lizards.

Cat-a-Mountain saliant, collared and lined.

Cat-a-Mountain—Tiger Cat or Wild Cat

The Clan Chattan, who gave their name to the county of Caithness, bore as their cognisance the wild mountain cat, and called their chieftain, the Earl of Sutherland, “Mohr an chat” (The Great Wild Cat). The Mackintoshes still bear as their crests and supporters these ferocious cats, with the appropriate warning as a motto, “Touch not the cat but a glove.”

The whole is a pun upon the word “Catti,” the Teutonic settlers of Caithness, i.e., Catti-ness, and means “Touch not the Clan Cattan (or mountain cat) without a glove.” Here “but” is used in the original meaning, beout, i.e., without. For another example of “but” meaning without, see Amos iii. 7. The same words are also used as the motto of several Scottish families.

None will forget how the cat-a-mountain showed her claws to the Clan Kay, in the Wynds of Perth in Sir Walter Scott’s “Fair Maid of Perth.”

Crest, a Cat-a-Mountain, sejant, collared and lined.

The Heraldic Musion.—Bossewell, in his work on heraldry published 1572, describes a musion as “a beaste that is enimie to myse and rattes.” He adds also that he is “slye and wittie, and seeth so sharply, that he overcommeth darkness of the nighte by the shyninge lighte of his eyne. In the shape of body, he is like unto a leoparde, and hath a greate mouthe. He doth delighte that he enjoyeth his libertie, and in his youthe he is swifte, plyante, and merrie. He maketh a rufull noyse, and a gastefull when he proffereth to fighte with another. He is a cruel beaste when he is wilde and falleth on his owne feet from moste high places, and uneth (scarce) is hurte therewith. When he hathe a fayre skinne, he is, as it were, prowde thereof, and then he goeth fast aboute to be seene.”

Childebert, King of France, in token of his having taken captive Gondomar of Bourgogne, assumed the device of a tiger-cat or ounce behind a grating or troillis, gules clouÉ argent. This recalls the famous scene between Sanglier Rouge and Toison d’Or in “Quentin Durward,” when Charles the Bold’s jester professes to help the unhappy envoy of De la Marck by describing it as a cat looking out of a dairy window.

The cat, though domesticated, is considered as possessed of ingratitude; in its friendship so uncertain and so vicious in its nature, “that,” say old writers, “it is only calculated for destroying the obnoxious race of rats and other small game.”

From the mediÆval superstition that Satan’s favourite form was a black cat, it was superstitiously called “a familiar.” Hence witches were said to have a cat as their familiar.

The Cat: A symbol of liberty.—The Roman goddess of Liberty was represented as holding a cup in one hand, a broken sceptre in the other, and a cat lying at her feet. No animal is so great an enemy to all constraint as a cat.

The cat was held in veneration by the Egyptians as sacred to the goddess Bubastis. This deity is represented with a human body and a cat’s head. Diodorus tells us that whoever killed a cat, even by accident, was by the Egyptians punished with death. According to Egyptian tradition, Diana assumed the form of a cat, and thus excited the fury of the giants. The London Review says: “The Egyptians worshipped the cat as a symbol of the moon, not only because it is more active after sunset, but from the dilation and contraction of its orb, symbolical of the waxing and waning of the night goddess.”

In heraldry it should always be represented full-faced like the leopard.

Erminois three cats-a-mountain passant gardant, in pale azure, each charged on the body with an ermine spot or. Crest: a demi cat-a-mountain gardant, azure, gorged with a collar gemel, and charged with ermine spots, two and one.—Tibbets.

The supporters of the Earl of Clanricarde are wild cats, and also those of the Earl of Belmore. It is the crest of De Burgh.

Æneas.—His mantle was the lion’s,
With all its tawny bars,
His falchion, like Orion’s,
Was gemmed with golden stars.
Upon his lofty helmet
A brazen terror rode;
No sword could overwhelm it
When in the fight it glowed.
For like a wild cat brindled,
It spat with eyes on fire,
And in the battle kindled
Immortal rage and ire,
Now in the sunshine sleeping,
How gently it reposed;
But still in wisdom keeping
A single eye unclosed.”
Queen Dido, by T. S.

The Crowned Salamander of Francis I.

The Salamander

The salamander has been immemorially credited with certain fabulous powers. Less than a century ago the creature was seriously described as a “spotted lizard, which will endure the flames of fire.” Divested of its supernatural powers it is simply a harmless little amphibian of the “newt” family, from six to eight inches in length, with black skin and yellow spots. The skin was long thought to be poisonous, though it is in reality perfectly harmless; but the moist surface is so extremely cold to the touch that, from this peculiar quality in the creature, the idea must have arisen, not only that it could withstand any heat to which it was exposed, but it would actually subdue and put out fire.

This was a widespread belief long before the time of Pliny, whose account of the creature is thus paraphrased by Swift:

“Further, we are by Pliny told
This serpent is extremely cold;
So cold that, put it in the fire,
’Twill make the very flames expire.”

Marco Polo, the early Venetian traveller, who tells of many strange and wonderful things seen and heard of in his journeyings, was not a believer in the fabulous stories of the salamander, for he dismisses the subject with the curt remark, “Everybody knows that it could be no animal’s nature to live in fire.” An early heraldic writer of a somewhat later period, with greater credulity, stoutly maintains its reality, and in describing the creature states that he actually possessed some of the hair or down of the salamander. “This,” he goes on to say, “I have several times put in the fire and made it red-hot, and after taken out; which, being cold, yet remaineth perfect wool, or fine downy hair.”

Marco Polo further on assures his readers that the true salamander is nothing but an incombustible substance found in the earth, “all the rest being fabulous nonsense.” He tells of a mountain in Tartary, “there or thereabouts,” in which a “vein” of salamander was found; and so we arrive at the fact that this salamander’s wool was nothing but the “asbestos” of the ancients. It is easy to see why asbestos became known as “salamanders’ wool.” The name resulted from the juxtaposition of ideas, and shows how deeply impressed was the belief in the salamander’s mysterious powers. A late writer tells us that some of the lizard tribe are known to enjoy warmth, and alligators are said to revel in hot water. It needed only that an insignificant member of the genus should have been found among the dead embers of a fire to prove at once the invulnerability of the reptile and its ability to extinguish the flames.

The salamander of mediÆval superstition was a creature in the shape of a man, which lived in fire (Greek, salambeander, chimney-man), meaning a man that lives in a chimney. It was described by the ancients as bred by fire and existing in flames, an element which must inevitably prove destructive of life. Pliny describes it as “a sort of lizard which seeks the hottest fire to breed in, but quenches it with the extreme frigidity of its body.” He tells us he tried the experiment once, but the creature was soon reduced to powder.[26]

Gregory of Nazianzen says that the salamander not only lived in and delighted in flames, but extinguished fire. St. Epiphanius compares the virtues of the hyacinth and the salamander. The hyacinth, he states, is unaffected by fire, and will even extinguish it as the salamander does. “The salamander and the hyacinth were symbols of enduring faith, which triumphs over the ardour of the passions. Submitted to fire the hyacinth is discoloured and becomes white. We may here perceive,” says M. Portal, “a symbol of enduring and triumphant faith.”

Salamander crest of James, Earl of Douglas.
From garter-plate.

This imaginary creature is generally represented as a small wingless dragon or lizard, surrounded by and breathing forth flames. Sometimes it is represented somewhat like a dog breathing flames. A golden salamander is so represented on the garter-plate of James, Earl of Douglas, K.G., the first Scottish noble elected into the Order of the Garter, and who died 1483 A.D. Tinctured vert; and in flames proper it is the crest of Douglas, Earl of Angus.

FranÇois I. of France adopted as his badge the salamander in the midst of flames, with the legend, “Nutrisco et extinguo” (“I nourish and extinguish”). The Italian motto from which this legend was borrowed was, “Nudrisco il buono e spengo il reo” (“I nourish the good and extinguish the bad;” “Fire purifies good metal, but consumes rubbish”). In his castle of Chambord, the galleries of the Palace of Fontainebleau, and the HÔtel St. Bourg Thoroulde at Rouen, this favourite device of the crowned salamander, with the motto, may be everywhere seen.

Azure, a salamander or, in flames proper, is the charge on the shield of the Italian family of Cennio.

The “lizards” which form the crest of the Ironmongers’ Company, were probably intended for salamanders on the old seal of the company in 1483, but are now blazoned as lizards.

The heraldic signification of the salamander was that of a brave and generous courage that the fire of affliction cannot destroy or consume.

In the animal symbolism of the ancients the salamander may be said to represent the element of Fire; the eagle, Air; the lion, Earth; the dolphin, Water.

Heraldic Antelope

This fictitious animal, when depicted in heraldry, has a body like that of a stag, the tail of a unicorn, a head like the heraldic tiger, with two serrated horns, and a tusk growing from the tip of his nose, a row of tufts down the back of his neck, and the like on his tail, chest and thighs. Thus represented it is termed an heraldic antelope to distinguish it from the real or natural antelope, which is also borne in modern coats of arms.

Heraldic Antelope.

The old heralds, with their scant knowledge of the rarer kinds of foreign animals, represented the antelope as a fierce beast of prey, and totally unlike in appearance and in disposition to the beautiful small-limbed gentle creature with which we are acquainted. That such was the prevailing opinion in the time of Spenser is evident. In the “Faerie Queen” he makes the stout Sir Satyrane—

“In life and manners wild,
Amongst wild beasts and woods from laws of man exiled.”

—more than a match for the most ferocious brutes, all of whom he subdues:

“Wild beasts in iron yokes he would compel;
The spotted panther, and the tuskÈd boar;
The pardale swift, and the tiger cruel,
The antelope and wolf, both fierce and fell;
And them constrain in equal team to draw.”

Some authorities give the heraldic antelope with two straight horns, but as the ancient badge of the House of Lancaster it was represented with two serrated horns curving backward.

In blazon, the term “heraldic antelope” should always be used unless the natural antelope is intended.

The Heraldic Ibex

is an imaginary beast resembling the heraldic antelope in appearance, with the exception of the horns projecting from his forehead, which are serrated like a saw. Perhaps it would not be erroneous to consider it identical with the heraldic antelope.

The Heraldic Ibex.

The real or natural ibex is a native of the Alps, the Pyrenees and the Grecian mountains, where they abound in defiance of the hunters. It resembles a goat, but the horns are much larger, bent backwards, and full of knots, one of which is added every year.

Bagwyn

A fabulous beast like the heraldic antelope, but having the tail of a horse, and long horns of a goat curved backwards. The dexter supporter of the arms of Carey, Lord Hundson, in Westminster Abbey, is a Bagwyn.

The Camelopard, Camel-leopard

The Giraffe figures a few times in blazon under these names. It is described by old heralds as half camel and half leopard. A curious word-combination was made by the Romans when wishing to find a name for the giraffe. “It is,” says Archbishop Trench, “a creature combining, though with infinitely more grace, yet some of the height and even the proportions of a camel, with the spotted skin of the pard.” They called it “camelopardus,” the camel-panther.

There are two heraldic creatures based upon the above which are referred to in heraldic works, viz., the Allocamelus or ass-camel, having the body of the camel conjoined to the head of an ass; and the Camelopardel, which is like the camelopard, but with two long horns curved backwards.

Musimon, Tityrus

A fictitious animal mentioned by Guillim and others. It nearly resembles a goat, with the head and horns of a ram, but has besides the horns of that beast, a pair of goat’s horns. It is also mentioned in Guillim’s “Display,” where it is said to be a bigenerous beast, of unkindly procreation, engendered between a goat and a ram, like the Tityrus, the offspring of a sheep and goat, as noted by Upton.

Musimon, Tityrus.

The Enfield

An imaginary hybrid animal with the head of a fox, chest of a greyhound, talons of an eagle, and body of a lion; the hind legs and tail of a wolf. It occurs as the crest of some Irish families of the name of Kelly.

Mantygre—Satyral.

Mantiger, Montegre or Manticora Satyral

A chimerical creature of mediÆval invention, having the body of an heraldic tiger with mane, and the head of an old man with long spiral horns. Some heraldic authorities make the horns more like those of an ox, and the feet like a dragon’s.

The Satyral is apparently identical with the man-tiger.

The belief that certain persons have the power of assuming the shape of the tiger is common in India, and the Khonds say that a man-killing tiger is either an incarnation of the Earth’s goddess or a transfigured man. It is thus with the Lavas of Birma, supposed to be the broken-down remains of a cultured race and dreaded as man-tigers.[27]

Two satyrals supported the arms of the Lords Stawell.

The supporters of the arms of the Earl of Huntingdon are mantigers, but are represented without horns.

Manticora. From ancient Bestiaria.

From a mediÆval “Bestiaria” we have a description and illustration of a gruesome creature of this name (manticora), evolved no doubt from some traveller’s marvellous tale. We are told that it is “bred among the Indians,” has a triple row of teeth, in bigness and roughness like a lion’s, face and ears like a man’s, a tail like a scorpion’s “with a sting and sharp-pointed quills,” and that “his voice is like a small trumpet,” and that he is “very wild,” and that after having his tail bruised, he can be tamed without danger.

There are several other fictitious creatures, which, if we may believe certain old writers, excited the minds of our credulous wonder-loving forefathers. Of these little need be said, as they rarely, if ever, appear in modern works on heraldry, and may therefore be classed as extinct monsters.

Lamia or Emipusa

A curious creature of the imagination is the lamia, of which we are told many fictitious stories. It is said to be “the swiftest of all four-footed creatures, that it is very treacherous and cruel to men. It is stated to be bred in Lybia, and sometimes devours its own young.” It is represented in an ancient “Bestiaria” as having the head and breasts of a woman, and the body of a four-footed animal with flowing tail, the hind feet having divided hoofs. It is “thought to be the creature mentioned in Isaiah xxxiv., called in Hebrew Lilith, as also the same which is mentioned in Lamentations iv.”

Lamia. From old Bestiary.

In Dr. Brewer’s “Dictionary of Phrase and Fable,” Lamia is “a female phantom whose name was used by the Greeks and Romans as a bugbear to children, from the classic fable of a Lybian Queen beloved by Jupiter, but robbed of her children by Juno; and in consequence she vowed vengeance against all children, whom she delighted to entice and murder.” They are again described as spectres of Africa, who attracted strangers and then devoured them. In the story of “MachatËs and Philemon,” a young man is represented as marrying an Empusa, who sucks his blood at night. Goethe borrowed his ballad of the “Bride of Corinth” from this tale.

Beyond casual mention this mythical creature does not appear in heraldry.

Baphomet

A fictitious creature having two heads, male and female, the rest of the body female; said to be used as an idol or symbol by the Templars in their mysterious rites. The word is a corruption of Mahomet. Though mentioned in old works it does not now appear in British heraldry.

Apres

A fictitious animal resembling a bull, with a short tail like that of a bear. It is the sinister supporter of the arms of the Company of Muscovy Merchants.

Stelliones

The supporters of the Ironmongers’ Company of London are two lizards. Bossewell describes beasts of similar shape—“Stelliones” as he terms them, evidently in allusion to steel. He says, “Stellio is a beaste like a lysard, having on his back spotts like starres.”[28]

Stellione-serpent, a serpent with the head of a weasel, borne by the name of Baume.


                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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