The latter, we are told, inhabits desert places in India, where it can find nothing for its young to eat. It flies away to other regions to seek food, and is sufficiently strong to carry off an ox.
Thus it symbolises the devil, who is ever anxious to carry away our souls to the deserts of hell. Fig. 37 illustrates an example of the use of this symbolic beast in church architecture.
The mantichora is described by PLINY (whose statements were unquestioningly accepted by the mediaeval naturalists), on the authority of CTESIAS(_fl_. 400 B.C.), as having "A triple row of teeth, which fit into each other like those of a comb, the face and ears of a man, and azure eyes, is the colour of blood, has the body of the lion, and a tail ending in a sting, like that of the scorpion.
Its voice resembles the union of the sound of the flute and the trumpet;it is of excessive swiftness, and is particularly fond of human flesh."[1]
[1] PLINY: _Natural History_, bk. viii. chap. xxx. (BOSTOCK and RILEY'Strans., vol. ii., 1855, p. 280.)
Concerning the unicorn, in an eighteenth-century work on natural history we read that this is "a Beast, which though doubted of by many Writers, yet is by others thus described:
He has but one Horn, and that an exceedingly rich one, growing out of the middle of his Forehead. His Head resembles an Hart's, his Feet an Elephant's, his tail a Boar's, and the rest of his Body an Horse's. The Horn is about a Foot and half in length.
His Voice is like the Lowing of an Ox. His Mane and Hair are of a yellowish Colour. His Horn is as hard as Iron, and as rough as any File, twisted or curled, like a flaming Sword; very straight, sharp, and every where black, excepting the Point. Great Virtues are attributed to it, in expelling of Poison and curing of several Diseases. He is not a Beast of prey."[2] The method of capturing the animal believed in by mediaeval writers was a curious one.
The following is a literal translation from the _Bestiary_of PHILIPPE DE THAUN (12th century):--
[2] [THOMAS BOREMAN]: _A Description of Three Hundred Animals_(1730), p. 6.
"Monosceros is an animal which has one horn on its head, Therefore it is so named; it has the form of a goat, It is caught by means of a virgin, now hear in what manner.
When a man intends to hunt it and to take and ensnare it He goes to the forest where is its repair;There he places a virgin, with her breast uncovered, And by its smell the monosceros perceives it;Then it comes to the virgin, and kisses her breast, Falls asleep on her lap, and so comes to its death;The man arrives immediately, and kills it in its sleep, Or takes it alive and does as he likes with it.
It signifies much, I will not omit to tell it you.
"Monosceros is Greek, it means _one horn_ in French:
A beast of such a description signifies Jesus Christ;One God he is and shall be, and was and will continue so;He placed himself in the virgin, and took flesh for man's sake, And for virginity to show chastity;To a virgin he APPEARED and a virgin conceived him, A virgin she is, and will be, and will remain always.
Now hear briefly the signification.
"This animal in truth signifies God;
Know that the virgin signifies St Mary;
By her breast we understand similarly Holy Church;And then by the kiss it ought to signify, That a man when he sleeps is in semblance of death;God slept as man, who suffered death on the cross, And his destruction was our redemption, And his labour our repose, Thus God deceived the Devil by a proper semblance;Soul and body were one, so was God and man, And this is the signification of an animal of that description."[1]
[1] _Popular Treatises on Science written during the Middle Ages in Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-Norman, and English_, ed.
by THOMAS WRIGHT (Historical Society of Science, 1841), pp.
81-82.
This being the current belief concerning the symbolism of the unicorn in the Middle Ages, it is not surprising to find this animal utilised in church architecture; for an example see fig. 35.
The belief in the existence of these fabulous beasts may very probably have been due to the materialising of what were originally nothing more than mere arbitrary symbols, as I have already suggested of the phoenix.[1]
Thus the account of the mantichora may, as BOSTOCK has suggested, very well be a description of certain hieroglyphic figures, examples of which are still to be found in the ruins of Assyrian and Persian cities.
This explanation seems, on the whole, more likely than the alternative hypothesis that such beliefs were due to mal-observation; though that, no doubt, helped in their formation.
[1] "Superstitions concerning Birds."
It may be questioned, however, whether the architects and preachers of the Middle Ages altogether believed in the strange fables of the Bestiaries. As Mr COLLINS says in reply to this question:
"Probably they were credulous enough. But, on the whole, we may say that the truth of the story was just what they did not trouble about, any more than some clergymen are particular about the absolute truth of the stories they tell children from the pulpit.
The application, the lesson, is the thing!" With their desire to interpret Nature spiritually, we ought, I think, to sympathise.
But there was one truth they had yet to learn, namely, that in order to interpret Nature spiritually, it is necessary first to understand her aright in her literal sense.
