Fictitious & Symbolic Creatures in Art
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Title: Fictitious & Symbolic Creatures in Art
Author: John Vinycomb
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FICTITIOUS & SYMBOLIC CREATURES IN ART ***
FICTITIOUS AND SYMBOLIC CREATURES IN ART
FICTITIOUS & SYMBOLIC CREATURES IN ART
WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THEIR
USE IN BRITISH HERALDRY
BY JOHN VINYCOMB
MEMBER OF THE ROYAL IRISH ACADEMY, FELLOW
OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES OF IRELAND,
A VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE EX-LIBRIS SOCIETY
[Illustration: ST. GEORGE AND THE DRAGON]
_ILLUSTRATED_
CHAPMAN AND HALL, LIMITED
11 HENRIETTA STREET, LONDON, W. C.
MCMVI
Printed by BALLANTYNE & CO. LIMITED
Tavistock Street, London
PREFACE
Under the title of this book it is proposed to describe and illustrate
only those fictitious and symbolic creatures which appear in British
Heraldry. The list will include all those beings of whose existence we
have not the direct evidence of our senses, and those exaggerations and
combinations of natural forms which have been adopted in the system of
symbolic heraldry handed down to us from the Middle Ages. Many of the
ideas of the writers of that period were undoubtedly derived from still
earlier sources, namely, classic story, sacred and legendary art, and the
marvellous tales of early travellers; others were the coinage of their own
fancies and their fears.
As these unreal beings are constantly met with in symbolic art, of which
heraldry is the chief exponent, it may be assumed that they have been
adopted in each case with some obvious or latent meaning, as in the case
of real animals; they may, therefore, equally lay claim to our
consideration as emblems or types, more especially as less attention has
been devoted to them and the delineation of their forms by competent
artists. The writer has been led into considering and investigating the
subject with some degree of attention, from finding the frequent need of
some reliable authority, both descriptive and artistic, such as would
enable any one to depict with accuracy and true heraldic spirit the forms
and features of these chimerical beings. Books of reference on heraldry
unfortunately give but a meagre description of their shapes, with scarcely
a hint as to their history or meaning, while the illustrations are usually
stiff and awkward, representing a soulless state of art.
It cannot be said that artists at any period have succeeded, even in a
remote degree, in embodying the highly wrought conceptions of the poets
concerning these terrible creatures of the imagination. Milton seems to
have carried poetic personification to its utmost limits. Who, for
instance, could depict a being like this:
"Black it stood as night,
Fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell!"
Out of the ambiguous and often conflicting accounts of different authors
and the vagaries of artists it became no easy task to arrive at a clear
conception of many of the forms of these ideal monsters. The poet's pen
may turn them to shapes, shadowy at the best; but the artist who follows
the poet in endeavouring to realise and give tangible shape to these ideas
finds it beyond his art to give material form and expression to his
personifications with anything like photographic fidelity. Such shadowy
beings prefer the dim light of allegory to the clear sunlight of reason,
and shrink from closer inspection. Like all spectres they are ever most
effective in the dark. In the childhood of the world, from the dawn of
history, and all through the dim and credulous ages past, many such
illusions have performed an important part in influencing the thought and
lives of mankind. Over many lands these inherited ideas still exercise a
paramount influence, but in the enlightenment of the coming time it is
probable their power, like that of an evil dream, will fade entirely away
with the dawn of a brighter day, and the memories of their name and
influence alone remain. At present we are chiefly concerned with them as
symbols, and with their mode of representation, breathing for a brief
moment the breath of life into their old dead skins. These mythical
creatures may be gazed upon, shorn of all their terrors, in the
illustrations I have been enabled to make, and if it is found that from
each creature I have not "plucked out the heart of its mystery" it is
probably because there is no mystery whatever about it, only what to us
now appears as an ingenious fiction engendered by a credulous, imaginative
and superstitious past. And so we find the old horrors and pleasing
fictions, after figuring for ages as terrible or bright realities in the
minds of entire peoples, reduced at length to the dead level of a figure
of speech and a symbol merely.
J. VINYCOMB.
HOLYWOOD,
COUNTY DOWN,
_April 1906_.
CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION 1
NOTES ON ANIMATED BEINGS IN HERALDIC ART 13
THE SYMBOLISM OF ATTITUDE OR POSITION 18
THE HERALDIC SPIRIT--EFFECTIVE DECORATIVE QUALITY ESSENTIAL
IN HERALDRY 22
CELESTIAL BEINGS 25
ANGELS 27
MISTAKEN MODERN CONCEPTION OF ANGELS 32
MEDIÆVAL ART TREATMENT OF ANGELS 34
CHERUBIM AND SERAPHIM IN HERALDRY 44
THE CHERUBIM AND SERAPHIM OF SCRIPTURE 47
EMBLEMS OF THE FOUR EVANGELISTS 53
CHIMERICAL CREATURES OF THE DRAGON AND SERPENT KIND 57
THE DRAGON 59
THE DRAGON IN CHRISTIAN ART 69
THE DRAGON IN THE ROYAL HERALDRY OF BRITAIN 83
THE CROCODILE AS THE PROTOTYPE OF THE DRAGON 91
THE HERALDIC DRAGON 92
THE HYDRA 96
THE WYVERN 98
THE CHIMERA 102
THE LION-DRAGON 103
THE GORGON 103
THE COCKATRICE 104
BASILISK, OR AMPHYSIAN COCKATRICE 106
THE MYTHICAL SERPENT 108
THE SCORPION 122
OTHER CHIMERICAL CREATURES AND HERALDIC BEASTS 125
THE UNICORN 127
MEDIÆVAL CONCEPTION OF THE UNICORN 130
THE HORN OF THE UNICORN 133
THE PEGASUS 137
SAGITTARY, CENTAUR, SAGITTARIUS, CENTAURUS, HIPPOCENTAUR 141
GRIFFIN OR GRYPHON 147
THE MALE GRIFFIN 160
OTHER VARIETIES OF THE GRIFFIN 161
THE OPINICUS, OR EPIMACUS 162
THE SPHYNX 163
THE PHŒNIX BIRD OF THE SUN 171
THE HARPY 179
THE HERALDIC PELICAN 182
THE MARTLET 186
THE ALERION 188
THE LIVER (CORMORANT) 189
THE HERALDIC TIGRE OR TYGER 190
THE ROYAL TIGER 193
LEOPARD, OR PANTHER, FELIS PARDUS, LYBBARDE 194
THE PANTHER "INCENSED" 199
THE LYNX 203
CAT-A-MOUNTAIN--TIGER CAT OR WILD CAT 205
THE SALAMANDER 209
HERALDIC ANTELOPE 213
THE HERALDIC IBEX 215
BAGWYN 216
THE CAMELOPARD, CAMEL-LEOPARD 216
MUSIMON, TITYRUS 217
THE ENFIELD 217
MANTIGER, MONTEGRE OR MANTICORA SATYRAL 218
LAMIA OR EMIPUSA 220
BAPHOMET 221
APRES 221
STELLIONES 221
FICTITIOUS CREATURES OF THE SEA 223
INTRODUCTORY NOTES 225
POSEIDON, OR NEPTUNE 237
MERMAN OR TRITON 239
THE MERMAID OR SIREN 243
THE SIRENS OF CLASSIC MYTHOLOGY 249
THE DOLPHIN OF LEGEND AND OF HERALDRY 254
THE DAUPHIN OF FRANCE 265
THE HERALDIC DOLPHIN 267
THE SEA-HORSE 270
SEA-LION 274
SEA-DOG 275
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
CELESTIAL BEINGS:
Angel holding Shield 27
Egyptian Winged Deity 28
Hawk-headed and winged figure, emblem of Osiris 29
Angel with Cloud Symbol 38
Angel Supporter 40
Kneeling Angel Supporter 41
Arms of the Abbey of St. Albans 42
Gloria in Excelsis Deo 43
Cherubs' Heads 44
A Seraph's Head 44
Arms--Azure a chevron argent between three cherubs' heads of the
last 45
Cherubim and Seraphim of Scripture 47
Angel crest of Tuite, Bart., co. Tipperary 48
Tetramorph 52
Symbols of the Four Evangelists 54
The Lion of St. Mark, Venice 56
CHIMERICAL CREATURES OF THE DRAGON AND SERPENT KIND:
The Dragon 59
Japanese Dragon 65
Japanese Imperial Device 67
The Dragon of the Apocalypse 71
St. Michael and the Old Dragon 72
St. Margaret. From ancient carving 73
St. George and the Dragon 74
Dragon Standard. From the Bayeux Tapestry 86
A Dragon passant 90
Crest, a Dragon's Head erased collared and chained 93
Arms of the City of London 94
Sinister supporter of the arms of Viscount Gough 95
Hercules and the Lernean Hydra. From Greek vase 96
The Hydra 97
A Wyvern holding a fleur-de-lis 98
A Wyvern, wings endorsed, tail nowed 99
Wyvern from the Garter plate of Sir John Gray, 1436 A.D. 99
Wyvern, or Lindworm (German version) 100
Wyvern, wings displayed (early example) 101
Wyvern, wings depressed 101
Chimera, from a Greek coin 102
Cockatrice 105
Basilisk or Aphasian Cockatrice, tail nowed 107
Greek Shield, from painted vase in the British Museum 114
Brazen Serpent 114
Arms of Whitby Abbey 118
A Serpent, nowed, proper. Crest of Cavendish 121
Amphiptère, or flying Serpent 122
Scorpion 123
OTHER CHIMERICAL CREATURES AND HERALDIC BEASTS:
Unicorn salient 127
Crest, a Unicorn's Head, couped 128
The Legend of the Unicorn 131
Pegasus or Pegasos 137
Coins of Corinth and Syracuse 138
Pegasus salient 139
The Sagittary--Centaur 142
Ipotane, from Mandeville's travels 144
Compound figures, gold necklace 145
Centaur, Greek Sculpture 146
A Griffin statant, wings endorsed 148
A Griffin passant, wings raised. (Early English) 149
A Griffin segreant, wings displayed. (German) 149
Sleeping Griffin 150
Griffin segreant (German version) 152
Gold Flying Griffin 154
Colossal Griffins, Burmah 155
Carved panel, a Griffin segreant 160
Male Griffin 161
Opinicus statant 162
Egyptian Sphynx 163
Theban, or Greek Sphynx 164
A Sphynx passant guardant, wings endorsed 170
The Phœnix 171
A Harpy, wings disclosed 179
The Harpy, Greek sculpture 180
A Harpy displayed and crowned (German version) 181
Shield of Nüremberg 181
A Pelican in her piety, wings displayed 182
Heraldic Pelican in her piety 183
Crest, a Pelican vulning herself proper, wings endorsed 184
The natural Pelican 186
The Martlet 186
Alerion displayed 188
Heraldic Eagle 188
An Heraldic Tigre passant 190
Supporter, an Heraldic Tigre, collared and lined 191
Tigre and Mirror 193
A Leopard passant 195
A Leopard's Face, jessant-de-lis 196
Panther "Incensed" 200
The Lynx 203
Cat-a-Mountain saliant, collared and lined 205
Crest, a Cat-a-Mountain, sejant, collared and lined 206
The crowned Salamander of Francis I. 209
Salamander crest of James, Earl of Douglas 212
Heraldic Antelope 214
The Heraldic Ibex 215
Musimon, Tityrus 217
Mantygre, Satyral 218
Manticora. From ancient Bestiaria 219
Lamia. From old Bestiary 220
FICTITIOUS CREATURES OF THE SEA:
Poseidon. Dexter Supporter of Baron Hawke 237
Merman or Triton 240
Triton, with two tails (German) 240
Mermaid and Triton supporters 241
Mermaid 242, 243
Crest of Ellis 244
Die Ritter, of Nuremberg 245
Ulysses and the Sirens 249, 250
The Dolphin 254, 255
Dolphin of classic art 259
Coin of Ægina 262
Sign of the Dolphin 263
Banner of the Dolphin 265
Example--Dolphin embowed 267
Dolphin hauriant, urinant, naiant, torqued 268
Sea-horse naiant 270
Sea-horse erect 271
Arms of the city of Belfast 273
Sea-lion erect 275
Sea-dog rampant 276
INTRODUCTION
"_Angels and ministers of grace defend us._"--"Hamlet."
The human mind has a passionate longing for knowledge even of things past
comprehension. Where it cannot know, it will imagine; what the mind
conceives it will attempt to define. Are facts wanting, poetry steps in,
and myth and song supply the void; cave and forest, mountain and valley,
lake and river, are theatres peopled by fancy, and
"as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name."
Traditions of unreal beings inhabit the air, and will not vanish be they
ever so sternly commanded; from the misty records of antiquity and the
relics of past greatness as seen sculptured in stupendous ruins on the
banks of the Nile and the plains of Assyria, strange shapes look with
their mute stony eyes upon a world that knows them but imperfectly, and
vainly attempts to unriddle the unfathomable mystery of their being.
Western nations, with their growing civilisations, conjured up monsters of
benign or baneful influence, or engrafted and expanded the older ideas in
a manner suited to their genius and national characteristics.
The creatures of the imagination, "Gorgons and Hydras and Chimeras dire,"
shapes lovely and shapes terrible begot of unreason in the credulous minds
of the imaginative, the timid and the superstitious,--or dreamy poetic
fancies of fairies and elves of whom poets sing so sweetly:
"Shapes from the invisible world unearthly singing
From out the middle air, from flowery nests
And from the pillowy silkiness that rests
Full in the speculation of the stars,--"
KEATS.
"or fairy elves,
Whose midnight revels, by the forest side
Or fountain, some belated peasant sees,
Or dreams he sees,--"
MILTON, _Paradise Lost_, Book i.
the nameless dreads and horrors of the unknown powers of darkness, the
pestiferous inhabitants of wastes and desert places where loneliness
reigns supreme, and imaginary terrors assault the traveller on every hand,
assuming forms more various and more to be dreaded than aught of mortal
birth,--such vague and indefinable ideas, "legends fed by time and
chance," like rumours in the air, in the course of time assume tangible
shape, receiving definite expression by the poet and artist until they
become fixed in the popular mind as stern realities influencing the
thoughts and habits of millions of people through successive generations.
We see them in the rude fetish of the South Sea Islander, the myriad gods
and monsters of heathen mythology, as well as in the superstitions of
mediæval Europe, of which last the devil with horned brow, cloven hoofs
and forked tail is the most "unreal mockery" of them all. The days of
Diabolism and the old witch creed are, however, passed away; but under the
dominance of these ideas during centuries, in Protestant and Catholic
lands alike, hundreds of thousands of innocent victims of all ages and
both sexes were accused of the most absurd and impossible crimes, and
subjected to almost inconceivable torture and death.
The dying Christian about to pass through the valley of the shadow of
death, in the words of the poet, expresses his faith in the nearness of
the spirit world:
"I see a form ye cannot see
I hear a voice ye cannot hear."
To the spiritually minded other forms, with more of the beautiful and less
of the hideous and frightful, revealed themselves; the solitary recluse,
his body and mind reduced to an unnatural condition by fasting and
penance, in mental hallucination beheld his celestial visitants with awe
and adoration, and saw in visions angels and archangels, cherubim and
seraphim towering in a blaze of glory to illimitable height and extremest
space. The rapt seraph and the whole angelic host of heaven to his
ecstatic gaze was a revelation and a reality as tangible as were the
powers of darkness seen and felt by more sordid natures, incapable of the
higher conceptions, and whose minds were accessible chiefly through their
terrors.
To classic fable we are indebted for very many of the fictitious animals
which heralds have introduced into coats armorial. In all ages man has
sought to explain by myths certain phenomena of nature which he has been
unable to account for in a more rational manner. _Earthquakes_ were the
awakening of the earth tortoise which carried the earth on its back; _the
tides_ were the pulses of the ocean; _lightning_ was the breath of demons,
the thunderbolt of Jupiter, the hammer of Thor; _volcanoes_ were the
forges of the infernal deities. In the old Norse legends we read of
_waterspouts_ being looked upon as sea serpents, and wonderful stories are
related of their power and influence. The Chinese imagine _eclipses_ to be
caused by great dragons which seek to devour the sun. Innumerable beliefs
cluster round the _sun_, _moon_, and _stars_. We may trace from our own
language the extent of power which these peculiar beliefs have had over
the human mind. We still speak of mad people as lunatics, gloomy people as
saturnine, sprightly people we term mercurial; we say, "Ill-starr'd
event," &c. &c. The ships of the early navigators, with masts and sails
and other requisites for directing their motion or influencing their
speed, would be objects of astonishment to the inhabitants of the
countries they visited, causing them to be received with the utmost
respect and veneration. The ship was taken for a living animal, and hence
originated, some say, the fables of winged dragons, griffons, flying
citadels, and men transformed into birds and fishes. The winged Pegasus
was nothing but a ship with sails and hence was said to be the offspring
of Neptune.
"In reality," says Southey, in his preface to the "Morte d'Arthur," vol.
ii. 1817, "mythological and romantic tales are current among all savages
of whom we have any full account; for man has his intellectual as well as
his bodily appetite, and these things are the food of his imagination and
faith. They are found wherever there is language and discourse of reason;
in other words, wherever there is man. And in similar states of society
the fictions of different people will bear a corresponding resemblance,
notwithstanding the differences of time and scene." And Sir Walter Scott,
in his "Essay on Romance and Chivalry," following up the same idea, adds,
"that the usual appearances and productions of nature offer to the fancy,
in every part of the world, the same means of diversifying fictitious
narrative by the introduction of prodigies. If in any romance we encounter
the description of an elephant, we may reasonably conclude that a
phenomenon unknown in Europe must have been borrowed from the East; but
whoever has seen a serpent and a bird may easily aggravate the terrors of
the former by conferring on a fictitious monster the wings of the latter;
and whoever has seen or heard of a wolf, or lion and an eagle, may, by a
similar exercise of invention, imagine a griffon or a hippogriff."
Beyond the common experiences of every-day life the popular mind
everywhere cares very little about simple commonplace practical truths.
Human nature seems to crave mystery, to be fond of riddles and the
marvellous, and doubtless it was ever so and provided for in all the old
faiths of the world.
"The multitude of dragons, diverse as they are, reflecting the fears and
fancies of the most different races, it is more than probable is a relic
of the early serpent-worship which, according to Mr. Fergusson, is of such
remote antiquity that the religion of the Jews was modern in comparison,
the curse laid on the serpent being, in fact, levelled at the ancient
superstition which it was intended to supersede. Notwithstanding the
various forms under which we find the old dragon he ever retains something
of the serpent about him, if no more than the scales. In the mediæval
devil, too, the tail reveals his descent." (Louis F. Day.)
The fictitious beings used as symbols in heraldry may be divided into two
classes: (1) Celestial beings mentioned in Holy Writ, and those creatures
of the imagination which, from the earliest ages, have held possession of
men's minds, profound symbols unlike anything in the heavens or in the
earth beneath or in the waters under the earth. They may be abstract ideas
embodied in tangible shape, such as the terrible creature, the type of
some divine quality, that stands calm, immovable, and imperishable within
the walls of our National Museum; such forms as the dragon, of the purely
imaginative class, and those creatures compounded of parts of different
real animals, yet unlike any one of them, each possessing special symbolic
attributes, according to the traditional ideas held concerning them. (2)
Animals purely heraldic, such as the heraldic tiger, panther incensed,
heraldic antelope, &c., owe their origin and significance to other ideas,
and must be accounted for on other grounds, namely, the mistaken ideas
resulting from imperfect knowledge of these objects in natural history by
early writers and herald painters, to whom they were no doubt real animals
with natural qualities, and, as such, according to their knowledge, they
depicted them; and although more light has been thrown upon the study of
natural history since their time, and many of their conceptions have been
proved to be erroneous, the well-known heraldic shapes of many of these
_lusus naturæ_ are still retained in modern armory. These animals were
such as they could have little chance of seeing, and they probably
accepted their descriptions from "travellers' tales," always full of the
marvellous--and the misleading histories of still earlier writers. Pliny
and many of the writers of his day describe certain animals in a way that
appears the absurdest fable; even the lion described by him is in some
points most unnatural. Xenophon, for instance, describing a boar hunt,
gravely tells us: "So hot are the boar's tusks when he is just dead that
if a person lays hairs upon them the hairs will shrivel up; and when the
boar is alive they--that is, the tusks--are actually red hot when he is
irritated, for otherwise he would not singe the tips of the dogs' hair
when he misses a blow at their bodies." The salamander in flames, of
frequent occurrence in heraldry, is of this class. Like the toad, "ugly
and venomous," the salamander was regarded by the ancients with the utmost
horror and aversion. It was accredited with wondrous qualities, and the
very sight of it "abominable and fearful to behold." Elian, Nicander,
Dioscorides and Pliny all agree in that it possessed the power of
immediately extinguishing any fire into which it was put, and that it
would even rush at or charge the flame, which it well knew how to
extinguish. It was believed that its bite was certainly mortal, that
anything touched by its saliva became poisonous, nay, that if it crept
over a tree all the fruit became deleterious. Even Bacon believed in it.
Quoth he: "The salamander liveth in the fire and hath the power to
extinguish it." There is, too, a lingering popular belief that if a fire
has been burning for seven years there will be a salamander produced from
it. Such is the monstrous character given to one of the most harmless of
little creatures: the only basis of truth for all this superstructure of
fable is the fact that it exudes an acrid watery humour from its skin when
alarmed or in pain.
Spenser, in the "Fairy Queen," Book 1, cant. v. 18, according to the
mistaken notions of his time, compares the dangerous dissimulation and
treacherous tears of Duessa (or Falsehood) to the crocodile:
"As when a weary traveller that strays
By muddy shore of broad seven-mouthed Nile,
Unweeting of the perilous wand'ring ways,
Doth meet a cruel, crafty crocodile,
Which in false guise hiding his harmful guile,
Doth weep full sore, and shedding tender tears;
The foolish man, that pities all the while
His mournful plight, is swallowed unawares
Forgetful of his own that minds another's cares."
And Shakespeare, _2 Henry VI_. iii. 1:
"as the mournful crocodile
With sorrow snares relenting passengers."
Quarles, too, in his "Emblems":
"O what a crocodilian world is this,
Compos'd of treach'ries and insnaring wiles!"
Bossewell, an heraldic writer of the sixteenth century, after the model of
his forerunner, Gerard Leigh, edified his readers with comments on natural
history in such a delightful manner (according to his friend Roscarrocke)
as to provoke the envy of Pliny in Elysium, though now these descriptions
in many instances only serve to call up a smile from their very absurdity.
With "veracious" histories of this description, is it to be wondered at
that such beings as those referred to were made use of in heraldry and
accepted as types or emblems of some particular quality in man? As an
instance of how an error in the form of an animal may be perpetuated
unperceived, it may be mentioned that even in the best books on heraldry,
natural history, and in other illustrated publications, the elephant is
rarely to be seen correctly delineated. A peculiarity in his formation is
that the hind legs bend in the same manner as the fore legs, so that,
unlike other quadrupeds, it can kneel and rest on its four knees, whereas
it is usually depicted with the hind legs to bend in the same way as those
of the horse or the cow. When artists and herald-painters continue to
commit this blunder unobserved, some palliation may be afforded to the old
heralds for their offences against zoology in the errors and delusions
arising from lack of information. They could have little opportunity of
acquiring a correct knowledge of the rarer kinds of animals; they had not
the advantage of seeing menageries of wild beasts, or of consulting books
on natural history with excellent illustrations, as the modern herald may
do. Only when their scanty information fell short did they venture to draw
on their imaginations for their beasts, after the manner of an ancient
worthy, who "where the lion's skin fell short, eked it out with the
fox's."
Some writers, however, maintain that these monstrosities are not so much
the result of ignorance of the real forms of the beasts as that they were
intended to typify certain extraordinary qualities, and therefore
exaggeration of the natural shapes and functions was needful to express
such qualities. This may be true in some instances. Under this idea the
noble form of the lion may have been distorted to resemble the wild cat in
the fury of its contortions. _The Panther incensed_, breathing fire and
smoke out of its mouth, nose and ears, seems as if taken from some
misleading history--like that of the boar, by Xenophon, already referred
to--or the result of the erroneous description of some terrified
traveller. This is a natural and probable mode of accounting for its
unnatural appearance. It may, however, fairly be said that the natural
ferocity of the brute, and also its destructive qualities, are most fitly
typified by the devouring flame issuing from the head of this bloodthirsty
and treacherous beast of prey.
_The Heraldic Pelican_, again, is evidently a mistake of the early
artists, similar to the heraldic tiger, heraldic antelope, &c., and the
persistent following of the traditional "pattern" by the heralds when once
established. Early Christian painters always represented this emblem of
devoted self-sacrifice, _A Pelican in her piety_--that is, feeding her
young with her own blood--as having the head and beak of an eagle or bird
of prey such as they must have believed it to possess, and with which it
would be possible that it could lacerate its own breast; and not with the
clumsy and ungainly "bill" peculiar to this species of bird, which we know
is more suited to gobble up small reptiles than to "_vulning_" itself.
Some symbols, again, are neither real nor do they pretend to be fabulous,
such as the _two-headed eagle_, but are pure heraldic inventions that have
each their special signification. _The tricorporate lion_ lays no claim to
be other than the symbol of a powerful triune body under one guiding head;
the _three legs conjoined_--the arms of the Isle of Man--is an old Greek
sign for expedition. Many other instances will, no doubt, occur to the
reader of similar emblems of this class.
Notes on Animated Beings in Heraldic Art
[Illustration]
Notes on Animated Beings in Heraldic Art
"_One chief source of illustration is to be found in the most
brilliant, and in its power on character, hitherto the most effective
of the Arts--HERALDRY._"
RUSKIN,
"Relation of Wise Art and Wise Science."
Heraldry is _par excellence_ the science of symbols. A pictorial device is
subject to no exact or regular law, provided it carries its meaning with
it. Heraldry, on the contrary, insists on the observance of certain
definite and easily understood rules constituting it a science, by the
observance of which any one acquainted with heraldic language may, from a
concise written description (or _blazon_ as it is termed), reconstruct at
any time the symbol or series of symbols intended, and with perfect
accuracy; for a heraldic emblem once adopted remains unchangeable, no
matter with what amount of naturalness or conventionality it may be done,
or with what quaintness or even grotesqueness it may be treated; the
symbol remains intact. "_A lion rampant_," "_a dragon_," or any other
heraldic figure is, therefore, a fixed and immutable idea, and not to be
confounded with any other, no matter what the style of artistic or
decorative treatment it may receive.
Notwithstanding the evident intention everywhere in heraldry to be
symbolic, in attitude as well as in tinctures, we find the greatest errors
and absurdities constantly perpetrated. To many it seems as if it was not
considered essential to acquire a knowledge of the rudiments of the
science. Heraldry is a living language, and when the attempt is made to
express it without proper knowledge the result can only be unmitigated
nonsense. By inattention to those principles which regulate the
_attitude_, the _tinctures_, and the disposition of every part of an
armorial achievement, discredit is brought upon the subject, which should
fall upon the head of the ignorant designer alone. No matter what heraldic
position of an animal may be blazoned (though it admits of only one
interpretation), we find the most unwarrantable latitude frequently taken
by otherwise skilful artists in depicting it. The designer becomes a law
unto himself, and it is posed and treated in a way to suit the fancy of
the moment. A lion is only a lion to him, and it is nothing more. To the
true herald it is very much more. As a mild instance, see the unkind
treatment meted out to the supporters of the Royal Arms. The lion and
unicorn are both "rampant," and the head of the lion is turned towards
the spectator (termed _guardant_). Not content to be represented in the
regulation positions, they will be found depicted in most strange and
fantastic attitudes not recognised in heraldry--not supporting or guarding
the shield, which is their special function. At the head of the _Times_
newspaper they are represented playing at hide and seek round the shield;
elsewhere we see them capering and prancing, or we find them sitting, like
begging dogs, as if ashamed of themselves and their vocation.
I may here quote from a most admirable work: "That the decorative beauty
of heraldry, far from being that of form and colour alone, was also an
imaginative one depending much on the symbolic meaning of its designs,
there can be no doubt.... Early Christian Art was full of symbols, whose
use and meaning were discussed in treatises from the second century
onwards. By the eleventh it had become systemised and ranged under various
heads,--Bestiaria for beasts, Volucaria for birds, and Lapidaria for
stones. It permeated the whole life of the people in its religious uses,
and entered romantically into the half-religious, half-mystical
observances of chivalry, the very armour of the valiant knight being full
of meanings which it was his duty to know."[1]
The Symbolism of Attitude or Position
It must be evident to every one who has given any thought to the subject
that a definite idea is meant to be conveyed to the mind by the attitude
in which an animal is depicted; and such figures are not mere arbitrary
signs, like the letters of the alphabet, which of themselves convey no
meaning whatever. "_A lion rampant_" is, as the term suggests, a lion in
the act of fighting, rearing on his hind legs to meet his antagonist. He
is therefore depicted with wildly tossed mane, staring eyes, and _guly_
mouth; his muscular limbs and distended claws braced up for the combat
betoken the energy and power of the noble brute. How different is the idea
conveyed by the lion _statant_ in the firm majesty of his pose, calmly
looking before him; or _couchant_, fit emblem of restful vigilance and
conscious power, prepared on the instant alike to attack or defend.
Should any reasons be needed to enforce the necessity of adhering strictly
to the heraldic law in which attitude plays such an important part, it may
be needful only to refer to one or two examples, and cite as an instance
in point the noblest of all created beings, and ask whether, of the many
acts in which imperious man himself may be heraldically portrayed, the
action or position in which he is to be depicted should not indicate
distinctly the idea that is to be associated with the representation?
whether vauntingly, like the old kings,--
"with high exacting look
Sceptred and globed"
--attributes of his power,--or as a bishop or saint in the act of
benediction,--kneeling in prayer as on mediæval seals,--the three savage
men _ambulant_ on the shield of Viscount Halifax,--or the dead men strewn
over the field on the seal of the city of Lichfield--in each the primary
idea is _man_, but how different the signification! It will therefore be
understood that the particular action or posture, or any of the various
forms in which real or imaginary creatures may be blazoned in heraldry,
gives the keynote to its interpretation, which, in this respect, is
nothing if not symbolic.
It will be seen that to interpret the meaning implied in any particular
charge, the _tinctures_, as well as the _attitude_, must be considered.
These, taken in combination with the _qualities_ or _attributes_ we
associate with the creature represented, indicate in a threefold manner
the complete idea or phase of meaning intended to be conveyed by the
composition, and may be thus formulated:
(1) THE CREATURE.--The primary idea in the symbol is in the particular
being represented, whether real or fictitious, as _a man_, _a lion_,
_an eagle_, _a dragon_, &c., of the form and accepted character for
some particular quality or attribute of mind or body, as
_fierceness_, _valour_, _fleetness_, &c.
(2) ATTITUDE.--The various attitudes or positions in which it may be
depicted in heraldry, each denoting some special meaning, as
_rampant_, _sejant_, _dormant_, &c.
(3) TINCTURE.--Whether blazoned _proper_ (that is, according to
nature) or of some of the heraldic tinctures, as _or_ (gold), _gules_
(red), _azure_, _vert_, &c., each tincture, according to the old
heralds, bearing a particular and special signification.
Tinctures in armorial devices were, however, not always introduced on
these scientific principles or adopted from any symbolic meaning, but as
arbitrary variations of colour for distinction merely, and as being in
themselves equally honourable; colour alone in many instances serving to
distinguish the arms of many families that would otherwise be the same.
Hence the necessity for accuracy in blazoning.
Guillam lays down some general rules regarding the symbolic meaning by
which all sorts of creatures borne in arms or ensigns are to be
interpreted, and by which alone a consistent system can be regulated.
"They must," he says, "be interpreted in the best sense, that is,
according to their most generous and noble qualities, and so to the
greatest honour of their bearers.... The _fox_ is full of wit, and withal
given wholly to filching for his prey. If, then, this be the charge of an
escutcheon, we must conceive the quality represented to be his wit and
cunning, but not his pilfering and stealing;" and so of other beasts. Even
in wild and ruthless animals and fictitious creatures, symbolic heraldry
delights in setting forth their most commendable qualities, as fierceness
and courage in overcoming enemies, though they may also possess most
detestable qualities.
In like manner all sorts of peaceable or gentle-natured creatures must be
set forth in their most noble and kindly action, each in its disposition
and that which is most agreeable to nature, rather than of an opposite
character. Heraldic art thus stamps a peculiar note of dignity for some
particular respect in the emblematic figures it accepts, as for some
special use, quality or action in the thing depicted; and this dignity or
nobility may have a twofold relation, one betwixt creatures of divers
kinds, as _a lion_ or _a stag_, _a wolf_ and _a lamb_; the other between
beings of one and the same kind, according to their various attitudes or
positions in which they may be represented, as a stag _courant_ or _at
speed_, and a stag _lodged_ or _at bay_; a lion _rampant_ and a lion
_coward_--one will keep the field, the other seek safety in flight, just
as one attitude conveys a different signification from another.
The Heraldic Spirit--Effective decorative Quality essential in Heraldry
It will be observable that in the hands of a capable designer imbued with
the true heraldic spirit, all objects, animate and inanimate, conform
after their kind to decorative necessities, and assume shapes more or less
conventional, and, as far as is consistent with effective display of the
charge, are made to accommodate themselves to the space they must occupy.
Fierce and savage beasts are made to look full of energy and angry power,
while gentle-natured creatures are made to retain their harmless traits.
In a monster of the dragon tribe, strong leathern wings add to his
terrors; his jaws are wide, his claws are strong and sharp; he is clothed
in impenetrable armour of plates and scales, his breath is fire and flame,
lightning darts from his eyes, he lashes his tail in fury; and all the
while the artist is most careful so to spread the creature out on shield
or banner that all his powers shall be displayed at once.
Whatever liberty the artist may take in his interpretation of the form of
bird, beast, or monster, there is, however, a limit to his licence beyond
which he may not go. He may not alter the recognised symbolic attitude,
nor change the tincture; he is scarcely at liberty to add a feature. He
may curl the mane of his lion, fancifully develop its tongue and tail,
and display its claws in a manner for which there is little or no
authority in nature; but if he add wings, or endow it with a plurality of
heads or tails, it instantly becomes another creature and a totally
different symbol.[2] A wise reticence in treatment is more to be commended
than such fanciful extravagance.
The early artists and heralds, in their strivings to exaggerate in a
conventional manner the characteristics of animals for their most
effective display, appear to have reached the limits of which their art
was capable, and important lessons may be gained from their works. With
the extended knowledge of natural history, and the advanced state of art
at the present day, decorative and symbolic heraldry should take a leading
place in the twentieth century, as in the words of Ruskin, it has been
"hitherto the most brilliant" and "most effective of the Arts."
Celestial Beings
[Illustration: Angels]
"_They boast ethereal vigour and are form'd
From seeds of heavenly birth._"--VIRGIL.
"_Down hither prone in flight
He speeds, and through the vast ethereal sky
Sails between world and world with steady wings:
Now on the polar wind, then with quick fan
Winnows the buxom air._"--MILTON.
Angels and Archangels the mind loves to contemplate as the ministers of
God's omnipotence and beneficence, and delights in believing these
celestial beings to be endowed with a higher and purer intelligence, and
as being nearer to the divine nature. In all ages civilised man has
thought of them and represented them in art as of form like to his own,
and with attributes of volition and power suggested by wings. Scripture
itself justifies the similitude; the Almighty is sublimely represented as
"walking upon the wings of the wind." Wings have always been the symbol or
attribute of _volition_, of _mind_, or of the _spirit_ or _air_. No apter
emblem could be found for a rapid and resistless element than birds or the
wings of birds; and however incongruous such appendages may be, and
anatomically impossible, it is figuratively as the messengers of God's
will to man that we have come to view these celestial habitants.
[Illustration: Egyptian Winged Deity.]
The idea of adding wings to the human form has existed from remote
antiquity, and for the earliest suggestion of celestial beings of the
winged human type we must look to the art works of Egypt and Assyria. In
Egyptian art, Neith, the goddess of the heavens, was sometimes represented
with wings, and in the marbles of Nineveh we find human figures displaying
four wings.[3] In classic art wings are given to certain divinities and
genii. The Jews probably borrowed the idea from the Egyptians, and the
early Christians adopted--in this as in many other instances--existing
ideas in their symbolical art to express the attribute of swiftness and
power, and the sanction of the practice doubtless fixed it for acceptance
through all future epochs of Christian Art.
[Illustration: Hawk-headed and winged figure, emblem of Osiris, which,
having of all birds the most piercing eye and the most rapid flight,
serves to express the divine intelligence and activity. (Palace of Nimrod
in the Louvre.)]
In holy writ and Jewish tradition angels are usually spoken of as men, and
their wings appear to be implied rather than expressed, as when Abraham in
the plains of Mamré addresses his celestial visitors as "my lord," when
Jacob wrestles with the angel, and more particularly when the Angel at the
Sepulchre is described by St. Matthew, "His countenance was like the
lightning and his raiment white as snow," and by St. Mark as "A young man
clothed in a long white garment."
The Seraphim and Cherubim as winged beings are more perfectly described in
the Scriptures.
_The Wings Variously Coloured._--Not content with a simple departure in
form from all natural wings, the early and Middle Age artists resorted to
many expedients to invest their angels' wings with unearthly
characteristics. Colour was a fertile field for their ingenuity, and they
lavished all their brilliant hues in accentuating or separating the
several orders of feathers comprising the wings; now rivalling the
rainbow, now applying the startling contrasts of the most gorgeous
tropical butterfly; at other times sprinkling or tipping the richly
painted feathers with burnished gold, or making them appear alive with
brilliant eyes.
_Vesture._--In Early Christian Art the white vesture spoken of by St.
Matthew and St. John, almost invariably adopted, consisted of garments
resembling the classic tunica and pallium, sometimes bound with the
"golden girdle" of Revelation. During the mediæval period they were clad
in every brilliant colour. Angels do not often appear in the works of art
executed during the first six centuries of the Church; and previous to the
fifth century they were invariably represented without the nimbus--that
attribute of divinity with which they were almost always invested
throughout the whole range of Middle Age art.
_Nimbus._--The nimbi given to all the orders of the angelic hierarchy are
circular in form, with their fields either plain or covered with numerous
radiating lines or rays, sometimes with broad borders of ornament, but
never with the _tri-radiate_ form, which was specially reserved for the
persons of the trinity.
Lord Bacon ("Advancement of Learning," Book i.) says we find, as far as
credit is to be given to the ecclesiastical hierarchy of the supposed
Dionysius, the Senator of Athens, that the first place or degree is given
to the angels of love, which are termed _Seraphim_; the second to the
angels of light, which are termed _Cherubim_; and the third, and so
following places, to thrones, principalities, and the rest, which are all
angels of power and ministry, so that the angels of knowledge and
illumination are placed before the angels of office and domination.
_Fallen Angels._--We learn from Tradition that many angels, originally
holy like the rest, fell from their pristine purity, becoming so
transformed in character that all their powers are now used for the
purpose of doing evil instead of doing good. These are to be identified
with the devils so frequently mentioned in holy writ. By the artists of
the Middle Ages they are depicted in as hideous a manner as could be
conceived, more generally of the Satyr form with horns and hoofs and tail,
which last connects them with the Dragon of the Apocalypse, the
impersonation of the Supreme Spirit of evil (_see_ Dragon). In Milton's
conception Satan--the fallen Angel--assumes noble and magnificent
proportions.
Mistaken Modern Conception of Angels
Many poets and artists of modern times appear to have lost sight of the
traditions of sacred art, and in their endeavours to spiritualise the
character of angelic beings have in this respect been led to portray them
as altogether feminine in form and appearance. This error should be
carefully avoided, because in a spiritual as well as in a human sense the
vigorous active principle they represent, besides having the warrant of
Scripture, is more fitly represented by man than by woman.
Mahomet, who borrowed his ideas mostly from the Christians, in this
instance, possibly to guard his followers from some latent form of
idolatry, said of angels with some show of reason, that "they were too
pure in nature to admit of sex," but to meet the ideas of his followers he
invented another race of celestial beings for the delight and solace of
the faithful in the paradise to which he lured them.
_Ministering Spirits or Guardian Angels._--These form a frequent theme of
poets and artists. The idea was apparently evolved from the mention of
"ministering spirits" before the throne of God in holy writ, and from the
ecclesiastical legends and traditions of the Christian mythology of early
date, derived from still earlier sources. Thus Milton speaks of--
"one of the Seven
Who in God's presence, nearest to the throne
Stand ready at command, and are his eyes
That run thro' all the heavens, and down to earth
Bear his swift errands."
_Paradise Lost_, iii.
According to ancient Jewish belief, each person had his or her guardian
angel, and a spirit could assume the aspect of some visible being:
"But she constantly affirmed that it was even so.
Then said they, 'It is _his angel_.'"
_Acts_ xii. 15.
"Brutus as you know was Cæsar's _Angel_:
Judge, O ye God, how dearly Cæsar loved him."
SHAKESPEARE, _Julius Cæsar_, Act iii. sc. 2.
Spenser finely expresses the idea of the good and evil influences
continually warring unseen about us, and his gratitude for the effective
protection of the guardian spirits:
"How oft do they their silver bowers leave,
To come to succour us that succour want!
How oft do they with golden pinions cleave
The flitting skies, like flying pursuivant,
Against fowle fiends to ayde us militant!
They for us fight, they watch, and dewly ward,
And their bright squadrons round about us plant;
And all for love, and nothing for reward:
O why should heavenly God to men have such regard?"
Milton beautifully assumes the pure nature of saintly chastity attended by
ministering spirits:
"A thousand liveried angels lackey her,
Driving far off each thing of sin and guilt,
And in clear dream and solemn vision,
Tell her of things that no gross ear can hear;
Till oft converse with heavenly habitants
Begins to cast a beam on the outward shape."
"Comus."
And Scott, in figurative language, apostrophising woman in her higher and
more spiritual sphere, says in "Marmion":
"When pain and anguish wring the brow,
A ministering angel thou!"
Shakespeare expresses a prevailing idea that the pure in heart will become
ministering angels in heaven; Laertes, at the grave of Ophelia, fiercely
thunders forth:
"I tell thee, churlish priest,
A ministering angel shall my sister be
When thou liest howling."
Mediæval Art Treatment of Angels
According to ecclesiastical legend and tradition there are nine degrees of
angelic beings. St. Dionysius relates that there are three hierarchies of
angels and three orders in each; and by wise allegories each had his
special mission, and they were each depicted with certain insignia by
which they were recognised in art representations, which vary somewhat in
examples of different periods.
The nine choirs of angels are classed as follow, with the name of the
chief of each, according to ancient legend:
_Cherubim_ Jophiel
_Seraphim_ Uriel
_Thrones_ Zaphkiel
_Dominions_ Zadchiel
_Virtues_ Haniel
_Powers_ Raphael
_Principalities_ Camiel
_Archangels_ Michael
_Angels_ Gabriel
According to A. Welby Pugin's "Glossary of Architectural Ornament and
Costume," and other authorities, we learn the mediæval conception of these
beings.
The following emblems are borne by angels: FLAMING SWORDS, denoting "the
wrath of God"; TRUMPETS, "the voice of God"; SCEPTRES, "the power of God";
THURIBLES, or censers, the incense being the prayers of saints;
INSTRUMENTS OF MUSIC, to denote their felicity.
The APPARELS, or borders of their robes, are jewelled with SAPPHIRE for
"celestial contemplation"; RUBY, "divine love"; CRYSTAL, "purity";
EMERALD, "unfading youth."
ARCHANGELS are the principal or chief angels, and are extraordinary
ambassadors. Among these the name of GABRIEL--the angel of the
annunciation, the head of the entire celestial hierarchy--denotes "the
power of God"; MICHAEL, "who is like God"; RAPHAEL, "the healing of God";
URIEL, "the fire of God."
ANGEL is the name, not of an order of beings, but of an office, and means
messenger: wherefore angels are represented YOUNG to show their continued
strength, and WINGED to show their unweariedness; WITHOUT SANDALS, for
they do not belong to the earth; and GIRT, to show their readiness to go
forth and execute the will of God. Their garments are either WHITE, to
denote their purity, or GOLDEN, to show their sanctity and glory, or they
are of any of the symbolical colours used in Christian Art.
A writer in the _Ecclesiastical Art Review_, May 1878, I. Lewis André,
architect, says that "we seldom find angels clad in any other
ecclesiastical vestments than the ALB (or tunic of various colours), and
the amice. The AMICE is sometimes like a mere loose collar; at other times
it has richly embroidered APPARELS (or borders), and is exactly like the
priestly vestment as worn in the Middle Ages. Instead of the amice we
sometimes find a scarf or cloth tied in a knot around the neck, the ends
falling down in front.
"In Anne of Brittany's prayer-book is a beautiful figure of St. Michael.
He has a rayed nimbus, a cross on a circlet round his head, a richly
embroidered _dalmatic_ (a long robe with sleeves partly open at the
sides), and holds a sword in his left hand. The emblems of St. Michael are
a crown, a sword, a shield charged with a cross of St. George, or a spear
with the banner of the cross, or else with scales in his hand. Sometimes,
as at South Leigh, Oxon., he is in complete armour.
"The archangels are often figured with a trumpet in the right hand, scarfs
round neck and loins; six wings, sometimes four at the shoulders and two
at the hips, the legs bare from the thighs. The four archangels are
frequently represented in complete armour and with swords.
"The angels in the Benedictional of St. Ethelwold nearly resemble much
later representations; they have wings and the nimbus or aureole, long
hair and girded loins, whilst the feet are bare, as is generally the case
at all periods of Gothic Art; but the characteristic drapery is loose and
flowing as in the Saxon figures of saints; the wings are short and broad,
the nimbus is generally rayed like the spokes of a wheel (a form seen in
the work of Giotto, with whom it seems to have been a favourite). The alb
or vesture has loose sleeves, and at times a mantle or cope envelops the
figure; both sleeves and mantles have embroideries or apparels."
"The modern taste," says the same writer, "for giving angels pure white
vesture does not appear to be derived from the Middle Ages, and certainly
not from the best period when angels were clad in every brilliant colour,
as a beautiful example at St. Michael's, York, shows. Here an angel
swinging a golden censer has a green tunic covered with a white cloak or
mantle. The nimbus is bright blue, and the wings have the upper parts
yellow, and are tipped with green. At Goodnestowe church, St. Michael has
a deep crimson tunic, a white mantle edged with a rich gold border, green
wings, and a light crimson nimbus," and mention is here made of the white
vesture of the angel at the Sepulchre, and that nowhere else does the
Gospel mention any angel clad in white but in the narratives of Our Lord's
resurrection.
[Illustration: Angel with Cloud Symbol.]
"Often the angels' wings are feathered red and blue alternately, as on the
pulpit at Cheddar, Somerset. Sometimes the wings have feathers like those
of a peacock, on the Chapter House, Westminster; round the Wall Arcade,
angels have their wings inscribed with a text on every feather. This
corresponds with the French 'hours' of Anne of Brittany, where an angel
(St. Gabriel) wears a mantle with a text running along the border."
It was not uncommon to represent angels in carving and stained glass in
the latter part of the fifteenth century as feathered all over like birds.
_Cloud Symbol of the_ "Sky" _or_ "Air."--Artists of the Mediæval and
Renaissance periods, following classical authority, employed the cloud
symbol of the sky or air in their allegories and sacred pictures of
divine persons, saints, and martyrs, to denote their divine or celestial
condition, as distinguished from beings "of the earth--earthy." The
adoption of _the little cloud_ underneath the feet, when the figure is not
represented flying, naturally suggested itself as the most fitting emblem
for a support, and avoided the apparent incongruity of beings in material
human shape _standing_ upon _nothing_. The suggestion of the aerial
support here entirely obviates any thought of the outrage on the laws of
gravity.
Another distinguishing attribute is the Nimbus--an emblem of divine power
and glory--placed behind or over the head. The crown is an insignia of
civil power borne by the laity; the nimbus is ecclesiastical and
religious. The pagans were familiar with the use of the nimbus, which
appears upon the coins of some of the Roman Emperors. It was widely
adopted by the Early Christian artists, and up till the fifteenth century
was represented as a circular disc or plate behind the head, of gold or of
various colours, and, according to the shape and ornamentation of the
nimbus, the elevation or the divine degree of the person was denoted. It
was displayed behind the heads of the Persons of the Trinity and of
angels. It is also worn as a mark of honour and distinction by saints and
martyrs. At a later period, when the traditions of early art were to some
extent laid aside, _i.e._, from the fifteenth century until towards the
end of the seventeenth century, as M. Dideron informs us, a simple
unadorned ring, termed a "circle of glory," "takes the place of the nimbus
and is represented as hovering over the head. It became thus idealised and
transparent, showing an outer circle only; the field or disc is altogether
omitted or suppressed, being drawn in perspective and formed by a simple
thread of light as in the _Disputer_ of Raphael. Sometimes it is only an
uncertain wavering line resembling a circle of light. On the other hand,
the circular line often disappears as if it were unworthy to enclose the
divine light emanating from the head. It is a shadow of flame, circular in
form but not permitting itself to be circumscribed."
[Illustration: Angel Supporter.]
Although the forms of angels are of such frequent occurrence in Mediæval
Art they seem to abound more especially in the fifteenth century. Angels
are seen in every possible combination, with ecclesiastical and domestic
architecture, and form the subject of many allusions in heraldry. They are
frequently used as supporters.
Charles Boutell, M.A., "English Heraldry," p. 247, says, regarding angels
used as supporters to the armorial shield: "The introduction of angelic
figures which might have the appearance of acting as 'guardian angels' in
their care of shields of arms, was in accordance with the feelings of the
early days of English heraldry; and, while it took a part in leading the
way to the systematic use of regular supporters, it served to show the
high esteem and honour in which armorial insignia were held by our
ancestors in those ages." And reference is made to examples sculptured in
the noble timber roof of Westminster Hall and elsewhere. As an example we
give the shield of arms of the Abbey of St. Albans.
[Illustration: Kneeling Angel Supporter.]
Figures of angels holding shields of arms, each figure having a shield in
front of its breast, are frequently sculptured in Gothic churches. They
appear on seals, as on that of Henry of Lancaster about 1350, which has
the figure of an angel on each side of it. The shield of Richard II. at
Westminster Hall, bearing the arms of France ancient and England
quarterly, is supported by angels, which, if not rather ornamental than
heraldic, were possibly intended to denote his claim to the crown of
France, being the supporters of the Royal arms of that kingdom. Upon his
Great Seal other supporters are used. There are also instances of the
shield of Henry VI. being supported by angels, but they are by some
authorities considered as purely religious symbols rather than heraldic.
[Illustration: Arms of the Abbey of St. Albans.]
The supporters of the King of France were two angels standing on clouds,
all proper, vested with taberts of the arms, the dexter _France_, the
sinister _Navarre_, each holding a banner of the same arms affixed to a
tilting-spear, and the _cri de guerre_ or motto, "Mont-joye et St. Denis."
The shield bears the impaled arms of France and Navarre with several
orders of knighthood, helmet, mantling and other accessories, all with a
pavilion mantle.
Although Francis II., Charles IX., Henry III. and IV. and Louis XIII. had
special supporters of their arms, yet they did not exclude the two angels
of Charles VI., which were considered as the ordinary supporters of the
kingdom of France. Louis XIV., Louis XV. and Louis XVI. never used any
others.
Verstegan quaintly says that Egbert was "chiefly moved" to call his
kingdom England "in respect of Pope Gregory changing the name of Engelisce
into Angellyke," and this "may have moved our kings upon their best gold
coins to set the image of an angel."[4]
[Illustration: Gloria Excelsis Deo]
"... Shake the bags
Of hoarding abbots; their imprisoned _angels_
Set them at liberty."
SHAKESPEARE, _King John_, iii. 3.
The gold coin was named from the fact that on one side of it was a
representation of the archangel in conflict with the dragon (Rev. xii. 7).
The reverse had a ship. It was introduced into England by Edward IV. in
1456. Between his reign and that of Charles I. it varied in value from
6_s._ 8_d._ to 10_s._
Cherubim and Seraphim in Heraldry
"_On cherubim and seraphim
Full royally he rode._"
STEENHOLD.
"_What, always dreaming over heavenly things,
Like_ angel heads _in stone wish pigeon wings_."
COWPER, "Conversation."
In heraldry A CHERUB (plural Cherubim) is always represented as the head
of an infant between a pair of wings, usually termed a "cherub's head."
[Illustration: Cherubs' Heads.]
[Illustration: A Seraph's Head.]
A SERAPH (plural Seraphim), in like manner, is always depicted as the head
of a child, but with three pairs of wings; the two uppermost and the two
lowermost are contrarily crossed, or in saltire; the two middlemost are
displayed.
_Clavering_, of Callaby Castle, Northumberland, bears for crest a cherub's
head with wings erect. Motto: CŒLOS VOLENS.
On funereal achievements, setting forth the rank and circumstance of the
deceased, it is usual to place over the lozenge-shaped shield containing
arms of a woman, whether spinster, wife, or widow, a cherub's head, and
knots or bows of ribbon in place of crests, helmets, or its mantlings,
which, according to heraldic law, cannot be borne by any woman, sovereign
princesses only excepted.
[Illustration: Arms--Azure a chevron argent between three cherubs' heads
of the last.]
In representing the cherubim by infants' winged heads, the early painters
meant them to be emblematic of a pure spirit glowing with love and
intelligence, the head the seat of the soul, and the wings attribute of
swiftness and spirit alone retained.
The body or limbs of the cherub and seraph are never shown in heraldry,
for what reason it is difficult to say, unless it be from the ambiguity of
the descriptions in the sacred writings and consequent difficulty of
representing them. The heralds adopted the figure of speech termed
synecdoche, which adopts a part to represent the whole.
Sir Joshua Reynolds has embodied the modern conception in his exquisite
painting of cherubs' heads, _Portrait Studies of Frances Isabella Ker,
daughter of Lord William Gordon_, now in the National Collection. It
represents five infants' heads with wings, in different positions,
floating among clouds. This idea of the cherub seems to have found ready
acceptance with poets and painters. Shakespeare sings:
"Look how the floor of heaven
Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold:
There's not the smallest orb which thou beholdest
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubim--
Such harmony is in immortal souls:
But while this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it."
Many of the painters of the period of the Renaissance represented the
cherub similarly to those in Reynolds' picture. They were also in the
habit of introducing into their pictures of sacred subjects nude youthful
winged figures, "celestial loves," sporting in clouds around the principal
figure or figures, or assisting in some act that is being done. Thus
Spenser invests "The Queen of Beauty and of Love the Mother" with a troop
of these little loves, "Cupid, their elder brother."
"And all about her neck and shoulders flew
A flock of little loves, and sports and joys
With nimble wings of gold and purple hue;
Whose shapes seemed not like to terrestrial boys,
But like to angels playing heavenly toys."
_Faerie Queen_, Book x. cant. x. p. 153.
These must not, however, be confounded with the cherub and seraph of
Scripture. It was a thoroughly pagan idea, borrowed from classic
mythology, and unworthy of Christian Art. It soon degenerated into
"earthly loves" and "cupids," or amorini as they were termed and as we now
understand them.
[Illustration]
Cherubim and Seraphim of Scripture
In Ecclesiastical Art literal renderings of the descriptions contained in
the Old Testament and the Apocalypse are not of unfrequent use. A more
lengthened reference to these great Hebrew symbolic beings will not be
considered out of place, as there is great doubt and uncertainty as to
their forms.
These mystic symbolic beings were familiar to all the patriarchs--from
Adam, who gazed upon them in Paradise, and against whom on his expulsion
they stood with flaming sword, turning every way to bar his return--to
Moses, who trembled before it on Mount Sinai; while to the Priests and
Levites, the custodians of the Ark of the Covenant in the Tabernacle, the
cherubim remained the sacred guardians in the Holy of Holies of the
palladium of the national faith and liberties during the brightest and, as
it has been termed, the most heroic period of Jewish history.
[Illustration: Angel crest of Tuite, Bart. co. Tip.]
Josephus, the more effectually to excite respect for the great Hebrew
symbol in the minds of his readers, purposely throws over it the veil of
obscurity. He says: "The cherubim are winged creatures, but the form of
them does not resemble that of any living creature seen by man." In the
works of Philo Judæus there is an express dissertation upon the cherubim.
The learned Brochart and many others have attempted to elucidate the
subject to little purpose. The ambiguity which always accompanies a
written description of objects with which we are imperfectly acquainted
applies with greater force to this mysterious being combining so many
apparently conflicting attributes.
To the prophetic vision of Ezekiel, the description of which, in the
opinion of competent critics, excels in grandeur of idea and energy of
expression the most celebrated writers of ancient and modern times, the
reader is referred, as it supplies at first hand almost all that can be
known concerning the fearful form of the cherubim.
The four living creatures that support the throne of God exhibited to
Ezekiel a fourfold aspect; they had each the face of _a man_, the face of
_a lion_, and the face of _an ox_; they also had the face of _an eagle_.
They had each four wings; they had the hands of a man under their wings.
"Two wings of every one were joined one to the other, and two covered
their bodies." They were accompanied by wheels which "went upon their four
sides, and they turned not when they went"; "and their whole body, and
their backs, and their hands, and their wings, and their wheels were full
of eyes"; "and the living creatures ran and returned as the appearance of
a flash of lightning." Such is a concise description of their appearance
as set forth in Ezekiel (chap. i.).
"This wonderful and mysterious hieroglyph must be considered as a striking
and expressive emblem of the guardian vigilance of providence, all-seeing
and omniscient; while the number of wings exhibit to us direct symbols of
that powerful, that all-pervading spirit which, while it darts through
nature at a glance, is everywhere present to protect and defend us"
(Dideron).
So attached were the Jews to this celestial symbol that when Solomon
erected that stupendous temple which continued the glory and boast of the
Hebrew nation for so many ages, we are told (1 Kings, vi. 29, viii. 6, 7),
he carved all the walls of the house round about with the sculptured
figures of the cherubim, and on each side of the ark was a cherub of gold
plated upon olive wood fifteen feet high, with their faces to the light,
their expanded wings embracing the whole space of the sacred enclosure,
serving as a visible sign or symbol of God's immediate presence, whence
the saying of David, "God sitteth between the cherubim" (Ps. xcix. 1). In
this place God perpetually resided in the form of a bright cloud or
shining luminous body, termed "shechinah," whence the divine oracles were
audibly delivered.
Milton gives the following description of the Seraph Raphael:
"At once on the eastern cliff of Paradise
He lights, and to his proper shape returns
A seraph wing'd; six wings he wore to shade
His lineaments divine; the pair that clad
Each shoulder broad came mantling o'er his breast
With regal ornament: the middle pair
Girt like a starry zone his waist, and round
Skirted his loins and thighs with downy gold
And colours dipped in heaven; the third, his feet
Shadows from either heel with feather'd mail
Sky tinctured grain. Like Maia's son he stood
And shook his plumes, that heavenly fragrance fill'd
The circuit wide."
_Paradise Lost_, Book v.
The _cherub_ is traditionally regarded as a celestial spirit which in the
hierarchy is placed next in order to the seraphim. All the several
descriptions which the Scripture gives us of cherubim differ from one
another, as they are described in the shapes of men, eagles, oxen, lions,
and in a composition of all these figures put together. The hieroglyphical
representations in the embroidery upon the curtains of the tabernacle were
called by Moses (Ex. xxvi. 1) "cherubim of cunning work" (Calmet).
The _seraphim_ are regarded as an order of angels distinguished for
fervent zeal and religious ardour. The word means "burning," _i.e._, with
Divine Love.
The seraphim are described by Isaiah (vi. 1-3): "I saw also the Lord
sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the
temple. Above it stood the seraphim: each one had six wings; with twain he
covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he
did fly. And one cried to another and said, Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord
of Hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory." And in Revelation (iv.
6): "Round about the throne were four beasts full of eyes before and
behind, and the first beast was like a lion, and the second beast like a
calf, and the third beast had a face as a man, and the fourth beast was
like a flying eagle. And the four beasts had each of them six wings about
him, and they were full of eyes within." It will be noticed that these
descriptions differ from that of Ezekiel, not only in the number of wings,
but also in the individuality of each beast being separate and
independent, not compounded of the four.
[Illustration: Tetramorph.]
Several forms of these mystical creatures, says Audsley, have been devised
by the early mediæval artists; those which display the entire forms of
_the man_, _the lion_, _the ox_, and _the eagle_, all winged and invested
with the nimbus, appear to have been most frequently made use of. They are
to be met with formed of the _heads of the mystical creatures_ on bodies
or half-bodies of _winged human figures_; at other times we find them
comprised in the heads and wings only of the four symbolic creatures.
Sometimes they are found united and forming one mysterious being called
the _Tetramorph_ with four heads and numerous wings covered with eyes, the
feet resting on wheels, which are also winged. The example is taken from a
Byzantine mosaic in the convent of Vatopedi, on Mount Athos.
Pugin's "Glossary of Ecclesiastical Ornament and Costume" says the
cherubim are frequently represented of a bright red colour to set forth
the intensity of divine love, and usually standing upon wheels, in
reference to the vision of the prophet Ezekiel.
Cherubim and seraphim seem always vested in the alb or tunic, and a scarf
tied in a knot round the neck.
Emblems of the Four Evangelists
The winged living figures, symbols of the evangelists, which are most
frequently met with, and which have ever been most in favour with Early
Christian artists, appear to have been used at a very early date. They are
taken from the vision of Ezekiel and the Revelation of St. John. "The
writings of St. Jerome," says Audsley, "in the beginning of the fifth
century gave to artists authority for the appropriation of the four
creatures to the evangelists," and for reasons which are there given at
length.
ST. MATTHEW: _Winged Man_, Incarnation.--To St. Matthew was given the
creature in human likeness, because he commences his gospel with the human
generation of Christ, and because in his writings the human nature of Our
Lord is more dwelt upon than the divine.
ST. MARK: _Winged Lion_, The Resurrection.--_The Lion_ was the symbol of
St. Mark, who opens his gospel with the mission of John the Baptist, "the
voice of one crying in the wilderness." He also sets forth the royal
dignity of Christ and dwells upon His power manifested in the resurrection
from the dead. The lion was accepted in early times as a symbol of the
resurrection because the young lion was believed always to be born dead,
but was awakened to vitality by the breath, the tongue, and roaring of its
sire.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
ST. LUKE: _Winged Ox_, Passion.--The form of the ox, the beast of
sacrifice, fitly sets forth the sacred office, and also the atonement for
sin by blood, on which, in his gospel, he particularly dwells.
ST. JOHN: _The Eagle_, Ascension.--The eagle was allotted to St. John
because, as the eagle soars towards heaven, he soared in spirit upwards to
the heaven of heavens to bring back to earth revelation of sublime and
awful mysteries.
Independently of their reference to the four evangelists these figures
sometimes refer to _the Incarnation_, _the Passion_, _the Resurrection_,
and _the Ascension_.
Sedulius, a priest and poet of the fifth century, says much the same in
the following verse:
Hoc Matthæus agens, Hominem generaliter implet:
Marcus ut alta fremit vox per deserta Leonis:
Jura sacerdotis Lucas tenet ore Juvenci:
More volens Aquilæ verbo petit astra Johannes.
THE LION OF ST. MARK.--In the ninth century the rapidly rising State of
Venice was dignified by the reception of the relics of St. Mark,
transported thither from Alexandria. "Few patron saints," says Theodore A.
Buckley, "enjoy a greater popularity, whether socially or locally
exemplified. His lion was emblazoned on the standard of the Republic, and
stamped on the current coins, while his name was identified with the
pride, the power, and glory of all Venice."[5]
Emblems of the evangelists do not often appear in heraldry.
Walter Reynolds, Archbishop of Canterbury, according to a manuscript at
Lambeth (executed for Archbishop Laud), bore _azure on a cross or, between
the symbols of the evangelists of the last, four lions rampant gules_.
The Freemasons appear to use a similar coat of arms upon their seal, viz.,
_a cross between the emblems of the four evangelists, and for supporters
two cherubims, all proper_.
[Illustration: The Lion of St. Mark, Venice.]
Chimerical Creatures of the Dragon and Serpent kind
[Illustration]
The Dragon
"_The scaly monster of a dragon, coiled
Full in the central field--unspeakable,
With eyes oblique retorted, that askant
Shot gleaming fire._"
HESIOD.--"The Shield of Hercules."
The dragon is the most interesting and most frequently seen of all
chimerical figures, and it is a remarkable fact that such a creature
appears at an early period of the world's history to have been known in
the East and in countries widely separated. Long anterior to the dawn of
civilisation in the West of Europe, even in far-off China and Japan in the
extreme East of Asia we find the dragon delineated in very much the same
form in which it appears in our national heraldry.
The ancients conceived it as the embodiment of malignant and destructive
power, and with attributes of the most terrible kind. Classic story makes
us acquainted with many dreadful monsters of the dragon kind, to which
reference will afterwards be more particularly made.
It is often argued that the monsters of tradition are but the
personification of solar influences, storms, the desert wind, the great
deeps, rivers inundating their banks, or other violent phenomena of
nature, and so, no doubt, they are, and have been; but the strange fact
remains that the same draconic form with slight modifications constantly
appears as the type of the thing most dreaded, and instead of melting into
an abstraction and dying out of view, it has remained from age to age, in
form, distinctly a ferocious flying reptile, until in the opinion of many
the tradition has been justified by prosaic science. It is surprising to
find that the popular conception of the dragon--founded on tradition,
passed on through hundreds of generations--not only retains its identity,
but bears a startling resemblance to the original antediluvian saurians,
whose fossil remains now come to light through geological research, almost
proving the marvellous power of tradition and the veracity of those who
passed it on.
Mr. Moncure Conway ("Demonology, or Devil Lore") says: "The opinion has
steadily gained that the conventional dragon is the traditional form of
some huge saurian. It has been suggested that some of those extinct
saurians may have been contemporaneous with the earliest men, and that
traditions of conflicts with them, transmitted orally and pictorially,
have resulted in preserving their forms in fable proximately."
"Among the geological specimens in the British Museum," says Hugh Miller,
"the visitor sees shapes that more than rival in strangeness the great
dragons and griffins of mediæval legends; enormous jaws, bristling with
pointed teeth, gape horrid, in stone, under staring eye-sockets a foot in
diameter; and necks that half equal in length the entire body of a
boa-constrictor. And here we see a winged dragon that, armed with sharp
teeth and strong claws, has careered through the air on leathern wings
like those of a bat." We are also told in the sacred Scriptures by Moses
of "fiery serpents," and by Isaiah of "a fiery flying serpent." Other
monsters--dragons, cockatrices, and some of whose form we have no
conception--are also mentioned. Euripides describes a dragon or snake
breathing forth fire and slaughter, and rowing its way with its wings. It
is evident that such a creature may at one time have existed. Looking at
the widespread belief in dragons, there seems little doubt that the
semi-myth of to-day is the traditional successor of a really once-existent
animal, whose huge size, snake-like appearance, and possibly dangerous
powers of offence made him so terrible that the earlier races of mankind
adopted him unanimously as the most fearful embodiment of animal ferocity
to be found.
One of the latest acquisitions in the Natural History Museum, South
Kensington, is the skeleton of that enormous creature the long-limbed
dinosaur (_Diplodicus Carnegii_), recently discovered in America,
eighty-nine feet in length from the head to the tip of the tail, the huge
bulky framework of the monster measuring eleven feet in height at the
shoulder. The enormous length of its neck and tail, with relatively small
head, would indicate it to be an amphibious inhabitant of the waters,
feeding on the vegetation growing in its depths.
Mr. Moncure Conway, in his remarkable work, "Demonology, or Devil Lore,"
describes all intermediate stages between demon and devil under the head
of dragon. This he believes to be the only fabulous form which accurately
describes all the transitions. Throughout all the representations of the
dragon one feature is common, and that is the idealised serpent. The
dragon possesses all the properties of the demon along with that of
harmfulness, but differs from the devil in not having the desire of doing
evil. The dragon in mythology is the combination of every bad feature in
nature, all of which is combined into one horrible whole. "The modern
conventional dragon," says Mr. Conway, "is a terrible monster. His body is
partially green, with memories of the sea and of slime, and partly brown
or dark, with lingering shadows of storm-clouds. The lightning flames
still in his red eyes, and flashes from his fire-breathing mouth. The
thunderbolt of Jove, the spear of Woden, are in the barbed point of his
tail. His huge wings--bat-like and spiked--sum up all the mysteries of
extinct harpies and vampires. Spine of crocodile is on his neck, tail of
the serpent and all the jagged ridges of rocks and sharp thorns of jungles
bristle round him, while the ice of glaciers and brassy glitter of
sunstrokes are in his scales. He is ideal of all that is hard,
destructive, perilous, loathsome, horrible in nature; every detail of him
has been seen through and vanquished by man, here or there; but in
selection and combination they rise again as principles, and conspire to
form one great generalisation of the forms of pain, the sum of every
creature's worst."
"THE EXTERNAL FORMS OF DRAGONS are greatly dependent on the nature of the
country in which they originate. In the far north, where exist the legends
of the swan and pigeon, maidens and vampires, exists the swan-shaped
dragon. As demons of excessive heat principally existed in the south, so
in the north the great enemy of man was excessive cold. In the northern
countries is found also the serpent element, but as serpents are there
frequently harmless, this feature does not enter much into their
composition. The CUTTLEFISH is supposed to have helped in the formation of
the HYDRA, which in its turn assisted in forming the dragon of the
Apocalypse. Assyrian ideas also seem to have assisted in the pictorial
impersonations of the hydra. This many-headed monster is a representation
of a torrent, which being cut off in one direction breaks out in another.
The conflicts of Hercules with the hydra are repeated in those of the
Assyrian Bel with Trinant (the deep), and also in the contentions of St.
Michael with the dragon. The old dragon myths left in Europe were
frequently utilised by the Christians. Other saints besides St. Michael
were invested with the feats of Hercules; St. Margaret, St. Andrew, and
many others are pictured as trampling dragons under their feet. The
Egyptian dragon is based on the crocodile, and this form being received
into Christian symbolism did greatly away with other pagan monsters. The
hideousness of the crocodile and the alligator could easily be exaggerated
so as to suit the most horrible contortions of the human imagination.
Amongst the most terrible dragons is Typhon, the impersonation of all the
terrors of nature. Son of Tartarus, father of the harpies and of the
winds, he lives in the African deserts; from thence fled in fear, to
escape his terrible breath, all the gods and goddesses. He is coiled in
the whirlwind, and his many heads are symbolical of the tempest, the
scrive, the hurricane, and the tornado."
Under the head of THE COLONIAL DRAGON Mr. Conway has embodied all the
horrors and difficulties with which the early colonists would be beset.
Amongst these he places the GORGON and the CHIMERA. The most widely spread
of all is the last named, and from it is supposed that all Christian and
British dragons are descended. The Christian myth of ST. GEORGE AND THE
DRAGON is but a variation of BELLEROPHON AND THE CHIMERA, in which the
last has given place to the dragon and the pagan hero to St. George.
[Illustration: Japanese Dragon.]
"In ancient families there are usually traditions of some far-distant
ancestor having slain a desperate monster. It is always the colonial
dragon that has been borrowed by poets and romancers. THE DRAGON killed by
Guy of Warwick is but another variation of the chimera. There is again the
SOCKBURN WORM, slain by Sir John Conyers for the devouring of the people
of the neighbourhood; the well-known tradition of the LAMBTON WORM is in
reality a modification of the ARYAN DRAGON OF THE STORMCLOUD; smaller than
a man's hand he swells out to prodigious dimensions."
A favourite subject for Chinese and Japanese painting and sculpture is a
dragon very much of the same type, and a monstrous representation of a
dragon in the form of a huge Saurian still forms the central object at
Japanese festivals.
Among the Chinese the dragon is the representation of sovereignty, and is
the imperial emblem borne upon banners, and otherwise displayed as the
national ensign. To the people of that vast country it represents
everything powerful and imposing; and it plays an important part in many
religious ceremonies and observances. Dr. S. Wells Williams, the eminent
sinalogue, describes the fabulous monster of Chinese imagination in the
following passage: "There are three dragons--the _lung_ in the sky, the
_li_ in the sea, and the _kiau_ in the marshes. The first is the only
_authentic_ species according to the Chinese; it has the head of a camel,
the horns of a deer, eyes of a rabbit, ears of a cow, neck of a snake,
belly of a frog, scales of a carp, claws of a hawk, and palm of a tiger.
On each side of the mouth are whiskers, and its beard contains a bright
pearl; the breath is sometimes changed into water and sometimes into fire,
and its voice is like the jingling of copper pans. The dragon of the sea
occasionally ascends to heaven in waterspouts, and is the ruler of all
oceanic phenomena." The fishermen and sailors before venturing away from
land or returning to port, burn joss-sticks and beat gongs to ward off the
evil influences of the dragon, and it is worshipped in a variety of ways.
According to a fable current in China, the Celestial Emperor Hoang-ti was
carried up to heaven, along with seventy other persons, by a great
dragon; those who were only able to catch at his moustaches were shaken
off and thrown on the ground. It is still the custom when an emperor dies
to say that the dragon has ascended to heaven. An eclipse the simple
Celestials believe to be caused by a great dragon that seeks to devour the
sun or moon. A great noise is made by firing guns, beating drums, and the
rattling and jangling of pairs of discordant instruments to frighten the
monster away. A frequent subject of their artists is the dreadful dragon
sprawling through masses of curling clouds in the act of grasping at or
swallowing the great luminary, a subject which no doubt bears a deeper
meaning than we see, and one intimately connected with their mythology.
[Illustration: JAPANESE IMPERIAL DEVICE. The Dragon, the Ho-Ho, or
Phœnix, and the Chrysanthemum.]
In some of their splendid festivals the worship of the dragon is
celebrated with great excitement and furore. On the Canton river a boat of
immense length formed like a dragon in many wondrous folds, rowed by fifty
or more natives, with wild music and dancing, and accompanied by a crowd
of junks; the unfurling of sails and the streaming of flags from the
masts, the beating of drums, the noise and smoke from the firing of guns,
all exhibit the fondness of a people for the pleasures of a national
holiday.
_Dragon's Teeth._--Cadmus slew the dragon that guarded the well of Ares,
and sowed some of the teeth, from which sprang up the armed men who all
killed each other except five, who were the ancestors of the Thebans.
Those teeth which Cadmus did not sow, came to the possession of Ætes, King
of Colchis; and one of the tasks he enjoined on Jason was to sow these
teeth and slay the armed warriors that rose therefrom. The frequent
allusion to the classic term _dragon's teeth_ refers to subjects of civil
strife; whatever rouses citizens to rise in arms.
The mythical dragon has left the lasting impress of his name in various
ways in our language and literature, as in the art of nearly every
country.
Ω _Dragon's Head_ and ℧ _Dragon's Tail_.--In astronomy _Nodes_ are the
opposite points in which the orbit of a planet, or of a moon, crosses the
ecliptic. The ascending node marked by the character (Ω), termed the
_Dragon's head_, is where the planet or moon ascends from the south to the
north side of the ecliptic, and the descending node indicated by the
character (℧) the _Dragon's tail_ is where it passes from the north to the
south side.
_Draco_, a constellation in the northern hemisphere, representing the
monster that watched the golden apples in the garden of the Hesperides,
slain by Hercules, and set as a constellation in the heavens.
_Draco volens_, a meteor sometimes visible in marshy countries--_Ignus
fatuus_, or will-o'-the-wisp.
_Draco volens_, or flying dragon, a curious class of saurian reptiles
peculiar to the East Indies, having membranous attachments to their limbs,
which give them the appearance of flying as they leap from tree to tree.
_Dragon's blood_, a vegetable balsam of a dark red colour brought from
India, Africa, and South America. So called from its resemblance to dried
and hardened masses of blood.
The Dragon in Christian Art
(The symbol of the Supreme Spirit of Evil, or the Evil One)
It was believed that in the gloomy land of the Cimmerians and the confines
of Hades strange monsters were to be met; and not only there, but in any
part of the universe which was conceived to be beyond the pale of human
habitation these weird creatures might be encountered. The same idea is
recognised in the Semitic belief, that uncanny beings lurked in the outer
deserts, where men did not penetrate at all, or did so only at great
danger. The "place of dragons" is associated with "the shadow of death"
(Ps. xliv. 19). Dragons are also associated with the waters of the deep
(Ps. lxxiv. 13) and are called upon to praise Jehovah (Ps. cxlviii. 7);
and Isaiah (xxxiv.), describing in vivid and picturesque language the
destruction and utter desolation which shall come on Zion's enemies,
prophesies that her palaces and fortresses "shall be a habitation for
dragons."
The term dragon is applied by the translators of the Scriptures to some
monsters of which we have no knowledge. The word is used by ecclesiastics
of the Middle Ages as the symbol of sin in general and paganism in
particular, though ofttimes heresy is denoted. The metaphor is derived
from Rev. xii. 9, where Satan is termed the Great Dragon; in Psalm xci.
13, it is said "the saints shall trample the dragon under their feet."
In the book of Job we recognise in Leviathan a creature more like the
extinct saurians of the old world than any crocodile recorded in historic
times; and this leviathan is treated as still existing in the days of
David. In Psalm lxxiv. 13, 14, Jehovah is spoken of as having broken the
heads of the dragons in the waters; in Isaiah li. 9, as having wounded
the dragon; and pæans are sung on the punishment of "Leviathan, that
crooked serpent," and the slaying of "the dragon that is in the sea" (Is.
xxvii. 1). Finally, in the Apocalyptic vision, "there appeared another
wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads, and
ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads, and his tail drew the third
part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to earth" (Rev. xii. 3, 4);
"I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless
pit and a great chain in his hand, and he laid hold on the dragon, that
old serpent, which is the Devil and Satan, and bound him" (Rev. xx. 1, 2).
[Illustration: The Dragon of the Apocalypse. By Albert Dürer.]
As a Christian emblem the dragon may be taken to symbolise the supreme
spirit of evil, a veritable devil whom it was the special mission of
militant saints to slay, as it had been the glory of the heroes of the
pagan mythology to conquer. "In pictures of sacred and legendary
subjects," says a late writer, "the dragon usually formed an important
feature. The evil thing was invariably depicted writhing under the foot of
the saint, or transfixed with his triumphant spear. In like manner _the
virtues_ trampled tranquilly each on her complementary vice, embodied in
the form of some impossible creature; and if the rigid virtues were
sometimes insipid, it must be allowed that the demons were usually
grotesquely characteristic, and often delightful in colour."
[Illustration: St. Michael and the Old Dragon. Arms of the Royal Burgh of
Dumfries.]
The prostrate attitude usually signifies the triumph of Christianity over
Paganism, as in pictures of St. George and St. Sylvester; or over heresy
and schism, as when it was adopted as the emblem of the Knights of the
Order of the Dragon, in Hungary, which was instituted for the purpose of
contending against the adherents of John Huss and Jerome of Prague.
The dragon in Christian Art is often very variously represented, sometimes
as a serpent, at other times as a dragon or wyvern, or again in the
symbolic figure partly human, under which form we find the "old serpent"
(the Devil) often represented, as in the conflict of St. Michael the
Archangel. The numerous legends of saints who have fought and overcome
dragons prove the symbolic light in which the impersonation of evil was
generally viewed.
[Illustration: From ancient carving.]
St. Margaret is the patron saint of the borough of LYNN REGIS, and on the
old corporation seal she is represented standing on a dragon and wounding
it with a cross. The Latin inscription on the seal is "Sub Margaret
teritur draco stat cruce læta." The modern shield of the town is now
blazoned: _azure three conger's_ (or dragon's) _heads erased and erect,
the jaws of each pierced with a cross crosslet fitchée or_. In paintings
St. Margaret is represented as a young woman of great beauty bearing the
martyr's palm and olive crown, or with the dragon chained and helpless at
her feet as an attribute. Sometimes she is depicted coming from the
dragon's mouth, for the legend says the monster swallowed her, but on her
making the sign of the cross he was compelled to free her again. A legend
states that Olybus, Governor of Antioch, captivated by the beauty of
Margaret, wished to marry her; as she rejected him with scorn he threw her
into a dungeon, where the devil appeared to her in the form of a horrible
dragon and endeavoured to frighten her from her path. Margaret held up the
cross and the dragon fled. Other legends say he burst asunder.
[Illustration: St. George and the Dragon.
"In many a church his form is seen,
With sword, and shield, and helmet sheen:
Ye know him by his steed of pride,
And by the dragon at his side."
CHR. SCHMID.]
ST. GEORGE, the patron saint of England, in his legendary combat with the
monster, is a subject which occurs frequently in English sculpture and
painting, and enters largely into the language and literature of the
nation. St. George appears to have been selected as the patron saint of
England not long after the Norman conquest. We find the anniversary of
his martyrdom (April 23) was ordered to be observed as a festival by the
National Synod of Oxford in 1222 A.D.
The "Golden Legend," printed by Pynson in 1507 (fol. cxix.), thus refers
to "Saynt George": "This blyssed and holy martyr Saynt George is patrone
of this realme of Englōd: and ye crye of mē of warre; and in ye
worsyp of whome is founded ye noble order of a garter: and also ye noble
college in ye castell of Wyndsore, by Kynges of Englond. In whyche college
is ye herte of Saynt George: whyche Sygysmond ye Emperour of Alamayn
brought: and gaf it for a grete and precyous relyque to kynge Harry the
fifte. And also the said Sygysmond was broder of the sayd garter. And also
there is a piece of his head; which college is nobly endowed to thonour
and worshippe almighty God and his blyssed Martyr Saynt George. Then late
us praye vnto hym that he be specyel protectour and defendour of this
royaume."
The emblems commonly given to St. George, martyr, and patron saint of
England are: a dragon, a shield bearing a red cross on a white field, and
a spear. He is usually represented on horseback in the act of spearing the
monster which is vomiting fire; or as standing with the slain dragon at
his feet.
That St. George is a veritable character is beyond all reasonable doubt,
and there seems no reason to deny that he was born in Armorica, and was
beheaded in Diocletian's persecution by order of Datianus, April 23, 303.
St. Jerome (331-420) mentions him in one of his martyrologies; in the
next century there were many churches erected to his honour. St. Gregory
(540-604) has in his sacramentary a "Preface for St. George's Day"; and
the Venerable Bede (672-735) in his martyrology, says: "At last St. George
truly finished his martyrdom by decapitation, although the gests of his
passion are numbered among the apocryphal writings."
According to the old ballad given in Bishop Percy's "Reliques of Ancient
Poetry," St. George was the son of Lord Albert of Coventry. His mother
died in giving him birth, and the new-born babe was stolen away by the
weird lady of the woods, who brought him up to deeds of arms. His body had
three marks: a dragon on the breast, a garter round one of the legs, and a
blood-red cross on the arm. When he grew to manhood he first fought
against the Saracens, and then went to Sylene, a city of Libya, where was
a stagnant lake infested by a huge dragon, whose poisonous breath "had
many a city slain," and whose hide "no spear nor sword could pierce."
Every day a virgin was sacrificed to it, and at length it came to the lot
of Sabra, the king's daughter, to become its victim. Decked out in bridal
array she went out to meet the dragon; she was tied to the stake, and left
to be devoured, when St. George appeared in full panoply and mounted on
his charger. He vowed to take her cause in hand, and when the dragon came
on the scene it was encountered by the hero, who wounded it, and binding
it to the lady's girdle it was led like a "meek beast" into the city. St.
George there attacked it, thrusting his lance into its mouth, killed it on
the spot, and a church dedicated to Our Lady and St. George was built to
commemorate the event. After many adventures he carried off Sabra to
England, where they were wedded, and at Coventry lived happily till their
death.
In his history of the Order of the Garter Mr. Antis warmly censures those
who would doubt the traditionary history of that saint, and says "he who
would credit St. Ambrose will not detract from the honour of our George,
the soldier and martyr of Christ, concerning the dragon and the
deliverance of the beautiful royal virgin, which is related in so many
pictures," adding that "he shall not contradict those who make an allegory
of it, so that they do not deny the certainty of this history.... Suppose
every one George, who being clothed with the virtue of baptism and armour
of faith, keeps his earthly body in subjection by the due exercise of
religion and piety, and by the armour of the Spirit overcomes, and by the
true spiritual art crushes and confounds the serpent's poison, the snares
of the old Dragon, and his diabolical arts and stratagems."
The dragon slain by St. George is simply a common allegory to express the
triumph of the Christian hero over evil, which St. John the Evangelist
beheld under the figure of a dragon. Similarly St. Michael, St. Margaret,
St. Sylvester and St. Martha are all depicted as slaying dragons; the
Saviour and the Virgin as treading them under foot; and St. John the
Evangelist as charming a winged dragon from a poisoned chalice given him
to drink. Even John Bunyan avails himself of the same figure, when he
makes Christian encounter Apollyon and prevail against him.
A learned Frenchman, M. Clermont Ganneau, in a treatise lately published,
traces the legend of St. George and the dragon to a very remote antiquity.
In the Louvre at Paris he found an Egyptian bas-relief, which he
identified as the combat of Horus against Set, or Typhon, in the
well-known Egyptian legend. It represents a man on horseback in Roman
armour slaying a crocodile with a spear; but for the fact that the rider
has a hawk's head, the group might easily be mistaken for the traditional
combat of St. George and the dragon. Extending his investigations, M.
Ganneau has brought to light some most startling proofs of the connection
between the eastern and western mythologies. We have therefore, he
considers, evidence as clear and convincing as evidence from deduction can
be, that the Egyptian "Horus and Typhon"; the Greek "Perseus and
Andromeda"; the "Bel and Dragon" of the Apocrypha; the Archangel Michael
of Christian legend who also slays the old dragon, are all one and the
same story with that of our own St. George. We pass over the intermediate
steps by which he reconciles the divergent names and qualities of the
personages identified, and also the ingenious arguments as to the real
meaning of the symbolism in the worship of DAGON THE FISH-GOD.
In all the old romances dealing with feats of chivalry and knight-errantry
the dragon plays an essential if not a leading part; and a romance without
some dragon or monster was as rare as one without a valiant knight or a
beautiful lady. But of all the malignant creatures dreaded of gods and
men, the most hateful and wicked is that prime dragon personified by
Spenser under the type of the "blatant beast," and which confronts his
hero, the Red Cross Knight, at every turn: "a dreadful fiend, of gods and
men ydrad," who has a thousand tongues, speaks things most shameful, most
unrighteous, most untrue, and with his sting steeps them in poison.
As an example of the inception and development of a dragon legend from
slender materials, the following is related in Figuer's "World before the
Deluge":
In the city of Klagenfurth, in Carinthia, is a fountain on which is
sculptured a monstrous dragon with six feet, and a head armed with a stout
horn. According to popular tradition this dragon lived in a cave, whence
it issued from time to time to ravage the country. A bold and venturous
knight at last kills the monster, paying with his life the forfeit of his
rashness. The head of the pretended dragon is preserved in the Hotel de
Ville, and this head has furnished the sculptor for a model of the dragon
on the fountain. A learned professor of Vienna on a visit to the city
recognised it at a glance as the cranium of the fossil rhinoceros. Its
discovery in some cave had probably originated the fable of the knight and
the dragon--and all similar legends are capable of some such explanation
when we trace them back to their sources and reason the circumstances on
which they are founded. The famous bird, the roc, which played so
important a part in the myths of the people of Asia, is also believed to
have originated in the discovery of some gigantic bones.
Chief among DRAGON-SLAYERS of Christian legend we find the following:
_St. Philip the Apostle_ is said to have destroyed a huge dragon at
Hierapolis, in Phrygia.
_St. Michael_, _St. George_, _St. Margaret_, _Pope Sylvester_, _St.
Samson_, Archbishop of Dol; _Donatus_ (fourth century), _St. Clement_ of
Metz, all killed dragons--if we may trust old legends.
_St. Keyne_ of Cornwall slew a dragon.
_St. Florent_ killed a terrible dragon who haunted the Loire.
_St. Cado_, _St. Maudet_ and _St. Paull_ did similar feats in Brittany.
The town of WORMS (famous as the place at which the Diet of Worms was held
before which the reformer Luther was summoned) owes its name to the
"Lind-wurm" or dragon there conquered by the hero Siegfried as related in
the "Nibelungen Lied." (_See_ p. 100.)
Drachenfels, on the Rhine (Dragon Rocks), is so called from the same
monster; and at Arles and Rouen legends are preserved of victories gained
by saints over the _Tarasque_ and _Gargouille_, both local names for the
dragon. St. Martha conquered the fabulous Tarasque of the city of
Languedoc, which bears the name of "Tarascon." Gargouille (waterspout) was
the great dragon that lived in the Seine, ravaged Rouen, and was slain by
St. Romanus, Bishop of Rouen, in the seventh century. The latter name has
come down to us in the term "gargoyle," applied to the monstrous heads
which often decorate the waterspouts of old churches.
A strange relic of the ancient faith is perpetuated in the remains of
early Celtic art in the curiously wrought interlaced monsters which form
the chief ornament of ancient Irish crosses, and particularly in the
borders and initials of illuminated manuscripts, whose spirals and
interminable interlacements of the most complex character, often allied
with equally strange colouring, form a style perfectly unique in itself,
and unlike any other; the elaborate knots terminating in draconic heads,
and with wings and animal extremities in wonderfully ingenious patterns
that seem almost beyond the limits of human ingenuity. In the kindred art
of Scandinavia we find similar decoration founded on serpentine forms.
Another survival of the dragon myth exists in the name given to some of
our fighting men on the introduction of firearms. A kind of blunderbus
gave to the troops who used it the name of "dragoniers," whence is
derived the well-known term dragoons. They used to be armed with
_dragons_--_i.e._, short muskets--which spouted fire, like the fabulous
beast so named. The head of a dragon was wrought on the muzzles of these
muskets. We have all heard of the Dragonades, a series of persecutions by
Louis XIV., which drove many thousands of Protestants out of France--and
out of the world. Their object was to root out "heresy." A bishop, with
certain ecclesiastics, was sent to see if the heretics would recant; if
not they were left to the tender mercies of the Dragonniers, who followed
these "ministers of peace and good will to men." The same game of
conversion was practised by the Reformed Church upon the Presbyterians of
Scotland, with its accompaniment of "dragons let loose"--in which
Claverhouse took a leading part.
"In mediæval alchemy the dragon seems to have been the emblem of Mercury;
hence the dragon became one of the 'properties' of the chemist and
apothecary, was painted upon his drug pots, hung up as his sign, and some
dusty stuffed crocodile hanging from the ceiling in the laboratory had to
do service for the monster, and inspire the vulgar with a profound awe of
the mighty man who had conquered the vicious reptile."[6]
When apothecaries' signs were not derived from heraldry, they were used to
typify certain chemical actions. In an old German work on alchemy one of
the plates represents a dragon eating his own tail; underneath are the
words which, translated, signify: "This is a great wonder and very
strange; the dragon contains the greatest medicament," and much more of
similar import.
The Dragon in the Royal Heraldry of Britain
"_Advance our standards, set upon our foes,
Our ancient word of courage fair Saint George
Inspire us with the spleen of fiery dragons._"
"Richard III.," Act v. sc. 3.
"_Come not between the dragon and his wrath._"
"King Lear," Act i. sc. 2.
The dragon does not seem to have been a native emblem with the Romans, and
when they adopted it it was only as a sort of subordinate emblem--the
eagle still holding the first place. It seems to have been in consequence
of their intercourse with other nations either of Pelasgic or Teutonic
race. Amongst all the new races which overran Europe at the termination of
the classical period the dragon seems to have occupied nearly the same
place that it held in the earlier stages of Greek life. Among the Teutonic
tribes which settled in England the dragon was from the first a principal
emblem, and the custom of carrying the dragon in procession with great
jollity on May eve to Burford is referred to by old historians. The custom
is said by Brand also to have prevailed in Germany, and was probably
common in other parts of England.
Nor was the dragon peculiar to the Teutonic races. Amongst the Celts it
was the symbol of sovereignty, and as such was borne on the sovereign's
crest. Mr. Tennyson's "Idylls" have made us familiar with "the dragon of
the great Pendragonship" blazing on Arthur's helmet as he rode forth to
his last battle, and "making all the night a stream of fire." The fiery
dragon or drake and the flying dragon of the air were national phenomena
of which we have frequent accounts in old books.
The Irish _drag_ means "fire," and the Welsh _dreigiaw_ (silent flashes of
lightning) "fiery meteors"; hence Shakespeare says:
"Swift, swift, ye dragons of the night!--that dawning
May bare the raven's eye."
_Cymbeline_, ii. 2.
A principal source of the Dragon legends in these countries is the Celtic
use of the word "_dragon_" for "a chief." Hence Pen-dragon (_sumus rex_),
a sort of dictator in times of danger. Those knights who slew a chief in
battle slew a dragon, and the military title soon got confounded with the
fabulous monster. The name or title _Pendragon_ (dragon's head) was among
British kings and princes what Bretwalda was among the Saxons; and his
authority or supremacy over the confederation was greater or less
according to his valour, ability, and good fortune. Arthur succeeded his
father Uther, and was raised to the pendragonship in the first quarter of
the sixth century.
The dragon was a symbol among the heathen. One of the sons of Odin was
thus invoked: "Child of the Dragon, Son of Conquest, arise! grasp thy
silver spear; thy snowy steed prepare and haste thee to the strife of the
shield! Uprise thou Dragon of Onslaught!" And again:
"Wave high the dragon's flaming sign,
Roll wide the shout of glee;
Ho! conquest ope thy crimson gates
This day I give to thee."
"The Dragon of the Shield struck his sounding war-board with his ponderous
spada. The fierce-browed children of Hilda gathered round at the signal."
Maglocue, a British king who was a great warrior and of a remarkable
stature, whose exploits had rendered him terrible to his foes, as a
surname was called "The Dragon of the Isle," perhaps from his seat in
Anglesey.
Cuthred, King of Wessex, bore a dragon on his banner. A dragon was also
the device of the British King Uther Pendragon, or Dragon's-head, father
of that King Arthur of chivalric memory, who so bravely withstood the
incursions of the Saxons. _Two dragons addorsed_--that is, back to
back--are ascribed to Arthur, as well as several other devices.
[Illustration: Dragon Standard. From the Bayeux Tapestry.]
Dragon's Hill, Berkshire, is where the legend says St. George killed the
dragon. A bare place is shown on the hill where nothing will grow, and
there the blood ran out. In Saxon annals we are told that Cedric, founder
of the West Saxon kingdom, slew there Naud, the pendragon, with 5000 men.
This Naud is called Natan-leod, a corruption of Naud-an-ludh; Naud, the
people's refuge.[7]
"It has sometimes been thought," says Miss Millington, "that the royal
Saxon banner bore a dragon; certain it is, that on the Bayeux tapestry a
dragon raised upon a pole is constantly represented near a figure, whilst
the words 'Hic Harold' prove to be intended for Harold; yet Matthew of
Westminster, in describing a battle fought in the time of Edward I., says
that the place of the king was 'between the dragon and the standard,'
which seems to imply that the standard or banner had some other device.
The dragon was perhaps a kind of standard borne to indicate the presence
of the king. Henry III. carried one at the Battle of Lewes, fought against
Simon de Montfort in 1264:
"'Symoun com to the feld,
And put up his banere;
The king schewed forth his scheld,
His dragon full austere.'
It was not, however, at that time restricted to the King, for Simon
himself in the same battle
"'Displaied his banere, lift up his dragoun.'
The English at the Battle of Crecy carried a 'burning dragon, made of red
silk adorned and beaten with very broad and fair lilies of gold, and
broidered about with gold and vermilion.' This banner," adds Miss
Millington, "perhaps resembled that used by the Parthians and Dacians,
which is described by Ammianus Marcellinus as 'a dragon, formed of purple
stuff, resplendent with gold and precious stones fixed on a long pike, and
so contrived that when held in a certain manner, with its mouth to the
wind, the entire body became inflated, and stretched its sinuous length
upon the air.'"
"The dragon," says Mr. Planché, "was the customary standard of the kings
of England from the time of the Conquest. It was borne in the battle
between Canute and Edmund Ironside; it is figured in the Bayeux tapestry,
and there are directions for making one in the reign of Henry III., but it
never formed a portion of their armorial bearings, _i.e._, as a charge
upon the shield of arms."
Henry VII., first of the Tudor line, assumed as one of his badges the red
dragon of Cadwallader--"Red dragon dreadful." Henry claimed an
uninterrupted descent from the aboriginal princes of Britain, Arthur and
Uther, Caradoc, Halstan, Pendragon, &c. His grandfather, Owen Tudor, bore
a dragon as his device in proof of his descent from Cadwallader, the last
British prince and first King of Wales (678 A.D.), the dragon being the
ensign of that monarch. At the Battle of Bosworth Field Henry bore the
dragon standard. After the battle of Bosworth Field Henry went in state to
St. Paul's, where he offered three standards. On one was the image of St.
George, on the other a "red fierce dragon beaten upon green and white
sarsenet" (the livery colours of the House of Tudor); on the third was
painted a dun cow upon yellow tartan,--the dun cow, in token of his
descent from Guy Earl of Warwick, who had slain
"A monstrous wyld and cruelle beaste
Called ye dun cow of Dunsmore Heath."
The dun cow is still one of the badges of the Guards. This monarch founded
the office of _Rouge dragon pursuivant_ on the day before his coronation
(October 29, 1485). Henry VII., Henry VIII., Edward V., Mary and Elizabeth
all carried the dragon as a supporter to the royal arms, but varied in
position, and at times superseded by a greyhound. (A greyhound argent,
collared or, the collar charged with a rose gules, was a Lancastrian
badge.) Henry VIII. used for supporters the _red dragon and white
greyhound_ of his family; _a red dragon_ and _a lion gardant gold_,
sometimes crowned; at other times _a silver greyhound_ and _a golden
lion_, _an antelope_, _a white bull_, _a cock_, &c. On the union of
Scotland and England under King James, the Scottish _unicorn_ was
substituted for the sinister supporter, while the _lion gardant_, first
adopted by Henry VIII., appears to have permanently superseded the red
dragon of Wales, the white greyhound, &c., as the other supporter of the
royal arms, the dragon being relegated to be the special badge of the
principality of Wales, which position it still retains. The present royal
badges, as settled at the union, 1801, are:
_A white rose within a red_ ENGLAND.
_A thistle_ SCOTLAND.
_A harp or, stringed argent,
and a trefoil or shamrock vert_ IRELAND.
_Upon a mount vert, a dragon
passant, wings expanded
and endorsed, gules_ WALES.
Richard III. as a badge had a black dragon. "_The bages that he beryth by
the Earldom of Wolst{r} (Ulster) ys a blacke dragon_," derived through his
mother from the De Burghs, Earls of Ulster.
Mallet, in his "Northern Antiquities," states "that the thick misshapen
walls winding round a rude fortress at the summit of a rock were called by
a name signifying dragon, and as women of distinction were, during the
ages of chivalry, commonly placed in such castles for security, thence
arose the romances of princesses of great beauty being guarded by dragons,
and afterwards delivered by young heroes who could not achieve their
rescue until they had overcome their terrible guardians." The common
heraldic signification of a dragon is one who has successfully overcome
such a fortress, or it denotes the protection afforded to the helpless by
him to whom it was granted, and the terror inspired in his foes by his
doughty or warlike bearing. It was a title of supreme power among the
early British.
[Illustration: A Dragon passant.]
The dragon has always been an honourable bearing in British armoury, in
some instances to commemorate a triumph over a mighty foe, or merely for
the purpose of inspiring the enemy with terror. This seems to have been
especially the case with the dragon standard--the "red dragon dreadful" of
Wales (_y Ddraig Coch_) described as:
"A dragon grete and grimme
Full of fyre and eke venymme."
The Crocodile as the Prototype of the Dragon
In the existing representatives of the antediluvian saurians, the
crocodile and alligator, we see the prototypes of the dragons and hydras
of poetic fancy. The crocodile is a well-known huge amphibious reptile, in
general contour resembling a great lizard covered with large horny scales
that cannot be easily pierced, except underneath, and reaching twenty-five
to thirty feet in length. The crocodile was held sacred by the ancient
Egyptians, the Nile was and is its best-known habitat; it is also found in
the rivers of the Indian seas. Though an awkward creature upon land, it
darts with rapidity through the water after fish, which is its appropriate
food, but it is dangerous also to dogs and other creatures, as well as to
human beings entering the water or lingering incautiously on the bank.
It is the _Lacerta crocodilus_ of Linnæus, from Greek κροκοδειλος
(_krokodeilos_) a word of uncertain origin. The Alligator, the American
crocodile, takes its name from the Spanish _El Legarto_, the lizard. The
Latin form is _Lacertus_ or _Lacerta_.
Miss Millington, in her "Heraldry in History, Poetry and Romance," says
that both dragon and crocodile seem anciently to have been confounded
under one name, and that Philip de Thaun, in his "Bestiarus," says that
"crocodille signifie diable en ceste vie." Guillim, an old heraldic
writer, says: "The dragons are naturally so hot that they cannot be
cooled by drinking of waters, but still gape for the air to refresh them,
as appeareth in Jeremiah xiv. 6."
Young, author of "Night Thoughts," in a footnote appended to the
magnificent description of the leviathan (crocodile), in his paraphrase of
part of the book of Job says: "The crocodile, say the naturalists, lying
under water, and being there forced to hold its breath, when it emerges,
the breath long repressed is hot, and bursts out so violently that it
resembles fire and smoke. The horse suppresses not his breath by any means
so long, neither is he so fierce and animated," yet the most correct of
poets ventures to use the same metaphor regarding him:
"Collectumque premens volvit sub naribus ignem."
The Heraldic Dragon
The mythical dragon is represented in heraldic art with the huge body of
the reptile saurian type covered with impenetrable mail of plates and
scales, a row of formidable spines extending from his head to his tail,
which ends in a great and deadly sting; his enormous jaws, gaping and
bristling with hideous fangs, belch forth sparks and flame; his round
luminous eyes seem to shoot gleaming fire; from his nose issues a dreadful
spike. He is furnished with sharp-pointed ears and a forked tongue, four
sturdy legs terminating in eagle's feet strongly webbed, clawing and
clutching at his prey. Great leathern bat-like wings armed with sharp
hook's points, complete his equipment. The wings are always "endorsed,"
that is, elevated and back to back.
[Illustration: Crest, a Dragon's Head erased collared and chained.]
The dragon of our modern books of heraldry is a miserable impostor, a
degenerate representative of those "dragons of the prime, that tore each
other in their slime." It is curious to note in this the gradual
degradation from the magnificent saurian type of the best period of
heraldic art to a form not far removed from that given to an ordinary
four-legged creature covered with plates and scales. His legs are longer
and weaker, his mighty caudal appendage, shrunk to insignificant and
useless proportion, and most unlike his ancient prototype the crocodile.
This error of our modern heraldic artists displays remarkable lack of
proper knowledge of this mythical creature and his attributes. Such a
splendid creation of the fancy should not be represented in such a weak
and meaningless form by the hands of twentieth-century artists. The
ancient form is infinitely to be preferred as a work of symbolic art.
[Illustration: Domine dirige nos]
ARMS OF THE CITY OF LONDON.--Two dragons are the supporters of the arms of
the City of London, the crest a dragon's sinister wing. They are thus
blazoned: _Argent a cross gules, in the first quarter, a sword in pale
point upwards of the last. Supporters, on either side a dragon with wings
elevated and addorsed, argent, and charged on the wing with a cross
gules._
The crest is a _dragon's sinister wing charged with a similar cross_.
THE COUNTY OF CHESTER has for its supporters two dragons, each holding an
ostrich feather.
Basingstoke, Linlithgow and Dumfries on the town seals have St. Michael
overthrowing the dragon (_see_ p. 72).
The dragon appears in various forms in the arms of many towns, and also in
those of some peers.
[Illustration: Sinister supporter of the arms of Viscount Gough.]
One of the most extraordinary and elaborate coats of arms of modern times
is that of Viscount Gough. The sinister supporter of the shield is a
dragon (intended to represent the device upon a Chinese flag). _A dragon
or, gorged with a mural crown sable, inscribed with the word "China," and
chained gold._
Examples vary considerably in the form of the dragon, some early examples
represent it to have four legs, others with only two, when it is properly
a wyvern. The pendent "George" in the Order of the Garter represents it
with a body similar to a crocodile, winged and covered with plates and
scales.
A similar device to that of the George noble of Henry VIII. was the St.
George slaying the dragon by Pistrucci, a foreigner employed at the mint.
This handsome reverse, says Mr. Noel Humphrey, "Coin Collector's Manual,"
is nearly a copy from a figure in a battle-piece on an antique gem in the
Orleans collection, but several Greek coins might equally well have
furnished the model. Old George III. sovereigns and five-shilling pieces
have this most finely conceived and executed device on the reverse of the
coins. It also appears upon some sovereigns of Queen Victoria. Prominence
is naturally given to the figure of St. George, the dragon in consequence
being diminished in its relative size.
The Hydra
"_Seven great heads out of his body grew,
An iron breast, and back of scaly brass;
And all imbrued in blood his eyes did shine as glass,
His tail was stretched out in wondrous length._"
SPENSER, "Faerie Queen," Book i. c. vii.
The hydra is represented in heraldry as a dragon with seven heads; it is
not of frequent occurrence as a bearing in armory.
[Illustration: Hercules and the Lernean Hydra. From Greek vase.]
The terrible dragon, with one hundred heads, that guarded the golden
apples of the Hesperides, slain by Hercules, was celebrated in classic
mythology; so was the Lernean hydra, a monster of the marshes that ravaged
the country of Lerna in Argolis, destroying both men and beasts. The
number of its heads varies with the poets, though ancient gems usually
represent it with seven or nine. Hercules was sent to kill it as one of
his twelve labours. After driving the monster from its lair with arrows he
attacked it with his sword, and in place of each head he struck off two
sprang up. Setting fire to a neighbouring wood with the firebrands he
seared the throat of the Hydra until he at length succeeded in slaying it.
The fable is usually referred to in illustration of a difficulty which
goes on increasing as it is combated. (_See_ page 63.)
"Whereon this Hydra son of war is born
Whose dangerous eyes may well be charmed asleep."
_Henry IV._ part ii. sc. 2.
[Illustration: The Hydra.]
The Lernean hydra, the watchful dragon of the garden of the Hesperides,
the many-headed Naga or snake of the Hindu religion, are, say learned
writers, only some of the many forms under which the relics of the ancient
serpent-worship exhibited itself.
_A hydra, wings endorsed vert, scaled or_, is the crest of _Barret_ of
Avely, Essex. It is also borne by the names _Crespine_ and _Downes_.
[Illustration: A Wyvern holding a fleur-de-lis.]
The Wyvern
(SAXON, _Wivere_, a serpent) said to represent a flying serpent, an
imaginary creature resembling the dragon, but having only two legs, which
are like an eagle's, and a serpent-like tail, barbed, sometimes
represented nowed after the manner of serpents. It is figured on one of
the standards in the Bayeux tapestry (_see_ Dragon, p. 86). It is
erroneously termed a dragon by some writers, though perhaps they may both
be classed together. Old heralds say of these imaginary monsters that they
are emblems of pestilence, and are represented as strong and fierce
animals covered with invulnerable mail, and fitly typify viciousness and
envy. In armory they are properly applied to tyranny or the overthrow of a
vicious enemy.
[Illustration: A Wyrvern, wings endorsed, tail nowed.]
[Illustration: Wyvern from the Garter plate of Sir John Gray, 1436 A.D.]
Occasionally a wyvern is borne with the tail nowed and without wings.
_Lindworm._--It is not usual to say a wyvern "without wings" or "without
legs," but _sans wings_ or _sans legs_, as the case may be. A dragon or
wyvern sans wings is termed a lindworm. (_See_ page 80.)
[Illustration: Wyvern, or Lindworm. (German version.)]
_Argent, a wyvern, wings endorsed gules_, are the arms of _Drake_, of
Ashe, Devon (Bart.), 1600.
The town of Leicester has for crest a _wyvern, wings expanded, sans legs,
strewed with wounds, gules_.
_Argent on a bend sable, between two lions rampant of the last, a wyvern
volant in bend of the field, langued gules, Ruddings._
_Two wyverns, wings endorsed and emitting flames_, are the supporters of
Viscount _Arbuthnot_.
The arms of the King of Portugal are supported by _two wyverns erect on
their tails or_, each holding a banner, the crest is a _demi-wyvern_ out
of a ducal coronet.
_Guivre._--The wyvern or serpent in the arms of the Visconti, Lords of
Milan, _argent a guivre d'azure couronnée d'or, issante de gules_ (GUIVRE
is represented as a serpent or wingless dragon sans feet, with a child's
body issuing from its mouth), is said to commemorate the victory of a lord
of that house over a fiery dragon or guivre which inhabited a cavern under
the church of St. Denis in that place. "It is hardly possible," says Miss
Millington, "not to think that the story of the dragon as well as its
adoption in the coat-of-arms bears allusion rather to the dragon of
paganism, expelled from the city, as it might seem, by the church built
upon the site of the cave, in which too, by the rite of Holy Baptism,
_children_ especially were delivered from the power of Satan. Indeed, the
innumerable legends of saints who have fought and overcome dragons
sufficiently prove the symbolic light in which that creature was anciently
viewed." (_See_ also Serpent Biscia, p. 117.)
[Illustration: Wyvern, wings displayed. (Early example.)]
[Illustration: Wyvern, wings depressed.]
The Chimera
An imaginary fire-breathing monster of great swiftness and strength,
invented by the ancient Greek poets. Though mentioned by heraldic
authorities, it is not met with in British coat armour; it is described as
having the head, mane and legs of a lion, the body of a goat, and the tail
of a dragon. From this creature the term "chimerical" is applied to all
such figures as have no other existence but in the imagination. It is
represented upon the coins of Sycion during the Achæan League.
[Illustration: Chimera, from a Greek coin.]
The origin of the story of the chimera is ascribed to a mountain in Lycia
which had a volcano on its top and nourished lions; the middle part
afforded pasture for goats, and the bottom was infested with serpents;
according to Hesiod it had three heads, that of a lion, a goat, and a
dragon. Bellerophon destroyed the monster by raising himself in the air on
his winged steed Pegasus, and shooting it with his arrows.
"Amid the troops, and like the leading god,
High o'er the rest in arms the graceful Turnus rode;
A triple pile of plumes his crest adorned,
On which with belching flames chimera burned:
The more the kindled combat rises higher,
The more with fury burns the blazing fire."
VIRGIL, _Æneid_, Book vii.
Phillip II. of Spain, after his marriage with Queen Mary of England,
assumed as a device, Bellerophon fighting with the chimera, and the motto,
"Hinc vigilo," the monster being intended by him for a type of England's
heresies which he waited his time to destroy.
The family of _Fada_ of Verona have for arms: Gules a winged chimera
argent, the head and breasts carnation (or proper), and the wings and feet
of an eagle. The illustration, however, has the head and breasts of a
woman, and eagle's wings and feet, and makes it a different creature
entirely, and should more properly be blazoned _harpy_.
The Lion-Dragon
is compounded of the forepart of a lion conjoined to the hinder part of a
dragon.
_Or, a lion-dragon gules armed, langued and crowned of the first_, is the
_Bretigni_ family.
_Party per chevron gules and or, three lion-dragons ducally crowned and
countercharged._--_Easton._
The Gorgon
Reference has already been made to the gorgon in a quotation from Milton.
The name now denotes anything unusually hideous. In classic story there
were three gorgons, with serpents on their heads instead of hair. Medusa
was the chief of the three, and the only one that was mortal. So hideous
was her face that whoever set eyes on it was instantly turned to stone.
She was slain by Perseus, and her head placed upon _the shield of Minerva_
(termed the Ægis of Minerva). Homer, in the "Odyssey," Book xi. thus
alludes to the dread creature:
"Lest Gorgon rising from the infernal lakes
With horrors armed, and curls of hissing snakes,
Should fix me stiffened at the monstrous sight,
A stony image in eternal night."
And Shakespeare, in _Macbeth_, Act ii. sc. 3, uses the name to picture, in
a word, the horrible discovery of the murdered Duncan:
"Approach the chamber, and destroy your sight
With a new gorgon."
The Cockatrice
This chimerical creature was said to be produced from a cock's egg hatched
by a serpent; hence its name. It differs from the wyvern of heraldry only
in having a head like that of a dunghill cock. "This monster is of that
nature," says an old writer, "that its look or breath is said to be deadly
poison"; and this, in addition to the ordinary weapons of offence, would
constitute it rather a difficult creature to be interfered with.
[Illustration: Cockatrice.]
The cockatrice is frequently referred to in the Scriptures as the type of
something evil. "The weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice's
den" (Isaiah xi. 8), meaning that the most noxious animal shall not hurt
the most feeble of God's creatures.
And Jeremiah viii. 17: "For behold, I will send serpents, cockatrices,
among you which will not be charmed, and they shall bite you, saith the
Lord."
The cockatrice is a frequent emblem in heraldry, borne as a charge upon
the shield and also as a supporter. To the mailed draconic form of the
wyvern it had the hideous crested head with livid dangling wattles similar
to the dunghill cock, its round glittering eyes dealing death; its barbed
tongue and serpentine tail, with deadly sting, would no doubt render it a
fearful object to behold, and terrific to its enemies. It is always borne
in profile, the wings endorsed, or back to back, unless directed
otherwise. The tail is frequently _nowed_, _i.e._, knotted.
_Sable, a cockatrice or, combed and wattled gules._--_Bothe._
_Sable, a cockatrice, displayed argent, crested, membered and jelloped
gules._--_Baggine._
_Jelloped_, _jowlopped_, terms used to describe the comb or crest, and
gills or wattles, when of a different tincture from the body. _Beaked_ and
_membered_, in similar manner, have reference to the beak and legs.
Basilisk, or Amphysian Cockatrice
The amphysian cockatrice or basilisk in heraldry exactly resembles the
cockatrice, but having an additional head (like that of a dragon) at the
end of its tail instead of a barb or sting.
"With complicated monsters' head and tail
Scorpion and Asp and Amphisbœna dire."
MILTON.
_Amphisbœna_, or _Amphista_, is a creature sometimes referred to by old
writers as having the dragon's body and wings, the head of a serpent, and
the tail ending in a like head. Bossewelle, in "Armorie of Honour," folio
63, enlarging upon this idea, describes "a prodigious serpente called
Amphybene, for that he hath a double head, as though one mouth were too
little to custe his venyme."
_Earl Howe_ has for supporters _two cockatrices (amphysian), wings
elevated, the tails nowed, and ending in a serpent's head or, combed,
wattled and legged gules_.
_Argent, a basilisk, wings endorsed, tail nowed, sable._--_Langley_,
Rathorpe Hall, Yorks.
[Illustration: Basilisk or Amphysian Cockatrice, tail nowed.]
_Basilisk_, the king of serpents (Greek, _Basileus_, a king), so called
from having on his head a mitre-shaped crest. Old writers give wonderful
accounts of the death-dealing power of this strange creature. Pliny says,
"all other serpents do flee from and are afraid of it," and tells of the
deadly effect of his breath and glittering eye. The Duke of Alva, the
scourge of the Netherlands (1566-1575), where he left the eternal memory
of his cruelties, had for a device a basilisk drawing out serpents, with
the motto: "Tu nomine tantum" ("Thou dost so much by thy name alone"), a
fitting emblem for so great a monster!
In allusion to its power of "looking any one dead on whom it fixed its
eyes," Dryden makes Clytus say to Alexander, "Nay, frown not so; you
cannot look me dead,"
"like a boar
Plunging his tusk in mastiff's gore,
Or basilisk, when roused, whose breath,
Teeth, sting and eyeballs all are death."
KING, _Art of Love_.
King Henry, when he hears of the death of his uncle Humphry, the good
Duke of Gloucester, says to Suffolk:
"come basilisk
And kill the innocent gazer with thy sight."
_2 King Henry VI._ Act iii. 2.
Beaumont and Fletcher also speak of "the basilisk's death-dealing eye" in
"The Woman Hater."
Its appearance was so dreadful, it was said, that if a mirror was placed
so that it could see itself, it would instantly burst asunder with horror
and fear.
In Christian Art it is the emblem of _deadly sin_ and _the spirit of
evil_. St. Basil the Great uses it as the type of a depraved woman.
The Mythical Serpent
"The most remarkable remembrance," says Dean, "of the power of the
paradisaical serpent is displayed in the position which he retains in
Tartarus. A cuno-draconictic cerberus guards the gates; serpents are
coiled upon the chariot wheels of Proserpine; serpents pave the abyss of
torment; and even serpents constitute the caduceus of Mercury, the
talisman which he holds in his hand when he conveys the soul to Tartarus.
The image of the serpent is stamped upon every mythological fable
connected with the realms of Pluto. Is it not probable that in the
universal symbol of heathen idolatry we recognise the universal object of
primitive worship, the serpent of paradise?"
"Speaking of the names of the snake tribe in the great languages," Ruskin
says, "in Greek, OPHIS meant the seeing creature, especially one that sees
all round it; and DRAKON, one that looks well into a thing or person. In
Latin, ANGUIS, was the strangler; SERPENS, the winding creature; COLUBER,
the coiling animal. In our own Saxon the SNAKE meant the crawling
creature; and ADDER denoted the groveller."
The true serpents comprise the genera without a sternum or breastbone, in
which there is no vestige of shoulder, but where the ribs surround a great
part of the circumference of the trunk. To the venomous kind belong the
rattlesnake, cobra de capello, spectacled or hooded snake, viper, &c. So
the non-venomous, the boa constrictor, anaconda, python, black snake,
common snake.
The minute viper, _V. Brashyura_, is celebrated for the intensity of its
poison, and is truly one of the most terrible of its genus. The asp of
Egypt, or Cleopatra's asp (_Coluber naja_, Lin.), was held in great
veneration by the Egyptians; and it is this snake which the jugglers, by
pressing on the nape of the neck with the finger, throw into a kind of
catalepsy, which renders it stiff, or, as they term it, turns it into a
rod.
All snakes, says the celebrated naturalist Waterton, take a motion from
left to right or _vice versa_--but never up and down--the whole extent of
the body being in contact with the ground, saving the head, which is
somewhat elevated. This is equally observable both on land and in water.
Thus, when we see a snake represented in an up-and-down attitude, we know
at once that the artist is to blame.
Another misconception exploded by Waterton is the common and accepted
notion that a snake can fascinate to their destruction and render
powerless by a dead set of its eye the creatures it makes its prey. Snakes
have no such power. The eyes, which are very beautiful, do not move, and
they have no eyelids; they have been placed by nature under a scale
similar in composition to the scales of the body, and when the snake casts
it slough, this scale comes away with it, and is replaced by a new one on
a new skin.
_Noli me tangere_--do not touch me with intent to harm me--is, continues
Waterton, a most suitable motto for a snake, which towards man never acts
on the offensive (except perhaps only the larger species which may be in
waiting for a meal, when any creature, from a bull to a mouse, may be
acceptable). But when roused into action by the fear of sudden danger,
'tis then that, in self-defence a snake will punish the intruder by a
prick (not a laceration) from the poison-fang, fatal or not, according to
its size and virulence.
A writer in the _Daily Telegraph_ of July 23, 1883, giving an account of
the new reptile house in the Zoological Gardens, Regent's Park, dwells
upon the surpassing beauty of a python that had just cast its skin, "a
very miracle of reptilian loveliness. Watch it breathing; it is as gentle
as a child, and the beautiful lamia head rests like a crowning jewel upon
the softly heaving coils. Let danger threaten, however, and lightning is
hardly quicker than the dart of those vengeful convolutions. The gleaming
length rustles proudly into menace, and instead of the voluptuous lazy
thing of a moment ago, the python, with all its terrors complete, erects
itself defiantly, thrilling, so it seems, with eager passion in every
scale, and measuring in the air, with threatening head, the circle within
which is death. Once let those recurved fangs strike home, and there is no
poison in them, all hope is gone to the victim. Coil after coil is rapidly
thrown round the struggling object, and then with slow but relentless
pressure life is throttled out of every limb. No wonder that the world has
always held the serpent in awe, and that nations should have worshipped,
and still worship, this emblem of destruction and death. It is fate
itself, swift as disaster, deliberate as retribution, incomprehensible as
destiny." It would be tedious to recapitulate the multitude of myths
through which the "dire worm" has come to our times, dignified and made
awful by the honours and fears of the past. A volume could hardly exhaust
the snake-lore scattered up and down in the pages of history and fable.
"The python in the Zoological Gardens, however," adds the same writer,
"though it may stand as the modern reality of the old-world fable of a
gigantic snake that challenged the strength of the gods to overcome it,
presents to us only one side of snake nature. It possesses a surprising
beauty and prodigious strength; but it is not venomous. Probably the more
subtle and fearful apprehensions of men originated really from the smaller
and deadlier kinds, and were then by superstition, poetry and heraldry
extended to the larger. The little basilisk, crowned king of the vipers;
the horned 'cerastes dire,' a few inches in length; the tiny aspic, fatal
as lightning and as swift; and the fabled cockatrice, that a man might
hold in his hand, first made the serpent legend terrible; their venom was
afterwards transferred, and not unnaturally, to the larger species. It was
the small minute worms, that carried in their fangs such rapid and
ruthless death, which first struck fear into the minds of the ancients,
and invested the snake with the mysterious and horrid attributes whereunto
antiquity from China to Egypt hastened to pay honours."
Cadmus and his wife Harmonia were by Zeus converted into serpents and
removed to Elysium. Æsculapius, son of Apollo, god of medicine, assumed
the form of a serpent when he appeared at Rome during a pestilence;
therefore he is always represented with his staff entwined with a serpent,
symbol of healing. Similarly represented was Hippocrates, a famous
physician of Cos; who delivered Athens from a dreadful pestilence, in the
beginning of the Peloponnesian War, and was publicly rewarded with a
golden crown, and the privileges of a citizen. Therefore it is that the
goddess of health bears in her hand a serpent.
The caduceus of Mercury was a rod adorned with wings, having a male and
female serpent twisted about it, each kissing the other. With this in his
hands, it was said, the herald of the Gods could give sleep to whomsoever
he chose; wherefore Milton, in "Paradise Lost," styles it "his opiate
rod."
"With his caduceus Hermes led
From the dark regions of the imprisoned dead;
Or drove in silent shoals the lingering train
To night's dull shore and Pluto's dreary reign."
DARWIN, _Loves of the Plants_, ii. 291.
Jupiter Ammon appeared to Olympias in the form of a serpent, and became
the father of Alexander the Great:
"When glides a silver serpent, treacherous guest!
And fair Olympia folds him to her breast."
DARWIN, _Economy of Vegetation_, i. 2.
Jupiter Capitolinus in a similar form became the father of Scipio
Africanus.
In the temple of Athena at Athens, a serpent was kept in a cage and called
"The Guardian Spirit of the Temple." This serpent was supposed to be
animated by the soul of Ericthonius. It was thus employed by the Greeks
and Romans to symbolise a guardian spirit, and not unfrequently the figure
of a serpent was depicted on their altars.
Upon the shields of Greek warriors, on ancient vases, &c., the serpent is
often to be seen blazoned.
[Illustration: Greek Shield, from painted vase in the British Museum.]
The serpent monster Python, produced from the mud left on the earth after
the deluge of Deucalion, lived in the caves of Mount Parnassus, but was
slain by Apollo, who founded the Pythian games in commemoration of his
victory. This and many similar solar myths are merely classic panegyrics
on the conquering power exercised by the genial warmth of spring over the
dark gloom of winter.
The serpent in Christian Art figures in Paradise as the tempter of Eve
under that form, and is generally placed under the feet of the Virgin, in
allusion to the promise made to Eve after the Fall: "The seed of the woman
shall bruise the serpent's head." The heart of the serpent being close to
the head, renders a severe "bruise" there fatal. The serpent bruised the
"heel" of man--_i.e._, being a cause of stumbling, it hurt the foot which
tripped against it (Gen. iii. 15).
[Illustration]
The brazen serpent erected by Moses in the wilderness, which gave newness
of life to those plague-stricken Israelites who were bitten by the fiery
dragons and raised their eyes to this symbol (Numb. xxi. 8), as an emblem
of healing, is represented in Christian art as coiled up on a tau cross, a
symbol of which our Saviour did not disdain in some degree to admit the
propriety when he compared himself to the healing serpent in the
wilderness.
The serpent is placed under the feet of St. Cecilia, St. Euphemia, and
many other saints, either because they trampled on Satan, or because they
miraculously cleared some country of such reptiles. St. Patrick, the
patron saint of Ireland, is always represented habited as a bishop, his
foot upon a viper, the head transfixed with the lower extremity of his
pastoral staff, from his having banished snakes and all venomous reptiles
from the soil of Ireland. As the symbol of the evil principle, a
diminutive specimen of the dragon, guivre, or winged snake was more
frequently used, wriggling under foot.
The serpent is emblematical of THE FALL; Satan is called the great serpent
(Rev. xii. 9); of WISDOM: "Be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless
as doves" (Matt. x. 16); of SUBTLETY: "Now the serpent was more subtil
than any beast of the field" (Gen. iii. 1); of ETERNITY: a serpent in a
circle with its tail in its mouth is the well understood symbol of
unending time.
"The serpent figures largely in Byzantine Art as the instrument of the
Fall, and one type of the Redemption. The cross planted on the serpent is
found sculptured on Mount Athos; and the cross surrounded by the so-called
runic knot is only a Scandinavian version of the original Byzantine
image--the crushed snake curling round the stem of the avenging cross. The
cross, with two scrolls at the foot of it typifying the snake, is another
of its modifications, and a very common Byzantine ornament. The ordinary
northern crosses, so conspicuous for their interlaced ornaments and
grotesque monsters, appear to be purely modifications of this idea."[8]
Boniface, the Anglo-Saxon missionary, in his letter to the Archbishop of
Canterbury, inveighs against the luxuries of dress, and declares against
those garments that are adorned with very broad studs and images of worms,
announcing the coming of Antichrist.
In the wonderfully intricate interlacing of snake-like and draconic forms
of celtic art which appear in the marvellously illuminated manuscripts
executed in Ireland of the sixth and seventh centuries, the great
sculptured crosses, as well as in gold and metal work, are seen
unmistakable traces of the traditional ideas relating to the early
serpent-worship.
"The serpent," says Mr. Planché, "the most terrible of all reptiles, is of
rare occurrence in English heraldry. Under its Italian name of _Bisse_ it
occurs in the Roll of Edward III.'s time, 'Monsire William Malbis
_d'argent, a une chevron de gules, a trois testes de bys rases gules_'
(_Anglicé_, argent, a chevron between three serpents' heads erased
gules)."
The well-known historic device, the _Biscia_ or serpent devouring a child,
of the dukedom of Milan is of much interest. There are many stories as to
the origin of this singular bearing. Some writers assign it to Otho
Visconti, who led a body of Milanese in the train of Peter the Hermit, and
at the crusades fought and killed in single combat the Saracen giant
Volux, upon whose helmet was this device, which Otho afterwards assumed as
his own. Such is the version adopted by Tasso, who enumerates Otho among
the Christian warriors:
"Otho fierce, whose valour won the shield
That bears a child and serpent on the field."
_Gerusalemme Liberata_, cant. i. st. 55.
(Hoole's translation.)
From another legend we learn that when Count Boniface, Lord of Milan, went
to the crusades, his child, born during his absence, was devoured in its
cradle by a huge serpent which ravaged the country. On his return, Count
Boniface went in search of the monster, and found it with a child in its
mouth. He attacked and slew the creature, but at the cost of his own life.
Hence it is said his posterity bore the serpent and child as their ensign.
A third legend is referred to under Wyvern (which see).
Menestrier says that the first Lords of Milan were called after their
castle in Angleria, in Latin _anguis_, and that these are only the _armes
parlantes_ of their name.[9] Be this as it may, "_Lo Squamoso Biscion_"
(the scaly snake) was adopted by all the Visconti lords, and by their
successors of the House of Sforza.
"Sforza e Viscontei colubri."
_Orlando Furioso_, cant. xiii. 63.
And again in the same poem (cant. iii. 26. Hoole's translation):
"Hugo appears with him, his valiant son
Who plants his conquering snakes in Milan's town."
Dante also refers in "Purgatorio" to this celebrated device.
[Illustration: Arms of Whitby Abbey.]
The "_three coiled snakes_," which appear in the arms of Whitby Abbey,
Yorkshire, really represent _fossil ammonites_, which are very plentiful
in the rocky promontories of that part of the English coast, and on that
account were no doubt adopted in the arms of the Abbey, and afterwards of
the town of Whitby.
The arms are: _Azure three snakes coiled or encircled two and one, or_.
Popular legend, however, ascribes their origin to the transformation of a
multitude of snakes into stone by _St. Hilda_, an ancient Saxon princess.
The legend is referred to by Sir Walter Scott in "Marmion":
"_How of a thousand snakes each one
Was changed into a coil of stone
While Holy Hilda prayed._"
It is, however, more than likely that the arms suggested the legend of the
miracle.
The ancient myth of the _deaf adder_ seems to have been a favourite
illustration of the futility of unwelcome counsel.
"What, art thou, like the adder, waxen deaf?
Be poisonous too."
_2 King Henry VI._ Act ii. sc. 2.
"Pleasure and revenge have ears more deaf than adders
To the voice of any true decision."
_Troilus and Cressida_, Act ii. sc. 2.
"He flies me now--nor more attends my pain
Than the deaf adder heeds the charmer's strain."
_Orlando Furioso_, cant. xxxii. 19.
(Hoole's translation.)
A serpent or adder stopping his ears, by some writers termed "_an adder
obturant his ear_" from the Latin _obturo_, to shut or stop, is a very
ancient idea. It is said that the asp or adder, to prevent his hearing
unwelcome truths, puts one ear to the ground and stops the other with his
tail, a device suggested by Psalm lviii. 4,5: "They are like the deaf
adder that stoppeth her ear; which will not hearken to the voice of
charmers, charming never so wisely."
Alessandro d'Alessandri (+ 1523), a lawyer of Naples, of extensive
learning, and a member of the Neapolitan Academy, took for device a
serpent stopping its ears, and the motto, "Ut prudentia vivam" ("That I
may live wisely"), implying that as the serpent by this means refuses to
hear the voice of the charmer, so the wise man imitates the prudence of
the reptile and refuses to listen to the words of malice and slander.
It is said that the _cerastes_ hides in sand that it may bite the horse's
foot and get the rider thrown. In allusion to this belief, Jacob says,
"Dan shall be ... an adder in the path, that his rider shall fall
backward" (Gen. xlix. 17).
_Asp._--According to Sir Gardiner Wilkinson, the ancient Egyptian kings
wore the asp, the emblem of royalty, as an ornament on the forehead. It
appears on the front of the double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt.
Many terms have been invented by the heralds to express the positions
serpents may assume in arms. Berry's "Encyclopædia of Heraldry"
illustrates over thirty positions, the terms of blazon of which it is
impossible to comprehend, and hardly worth the inquiry. Few of these terms
are, however, met with in English heraldry.
Two serpents erect in pale, their tails "nowed" (twisted or knotted)
together, are figured in the arms of Caius College, Cambridge. In the
words of the old grant, they are blazoned "_gold, semied with flowers
gentil, a sengreen_ (or houseleek) _in chief, over the heads of two whole
serpents in pale, their tails knit together (all in proper colour),
resting upon a square marble stone vert, between a book sable, garnish't
gul, buckled, or_."
Fruiterers' Company of London.--_On a mount in base vert, the tree of
Paradise environed with the serpent between Adam and Eve, all proper._
Motto: _Arbor vitæ Christus, fructus perfidem gustamus._
_Nowed_ signifies tied or knotted, and is said of a serpent, wyvern, or
other creature whose body or tail is twisted like a knot.
_Annodated_, another term for nowed; bent in the form of the letter S, the
serpents round the caduceus of Mercury may be said to be annodated.
_Torqued_, _torgant_, or _targant_ (from the Latin _torqueo_, to wreathe),
the bending and rebending, either in serpents, adders or fish, like the
letter S.
[Illustration: A Serpent, nowed, proper. Crest of Cavendish.]
_Voluted_, _involved_ or _encircled, gliding_, and several terms used in
blazon explain themselves, as _erect_, _erect wavy_, &c.
In blazoning, the terms _snake_, _serpent_, _adder_, appear to be used
indiscriminately.
_A serpent nowed, proper_, is the crest of Cavendish, Duke of Devonshire.
_Gules, three snakes nowed in triangle argent_ (Ednowain Ap Bradwen,
Merionethshire).
_Or, three serpents erect wavy sable_ (Codlen, or Cudlen).
_Remora_ is an old term in heraldry for a serpent entwining.
[Illustration: Amphiptère, or flying serpent.]
Serpents are also borne entwined round pillars and rods, &c., and around
the necks of children, as in the arms of Vaughan or Vahan Wales: _Azure,
three boys' heads affronté, couped at the shoulders proper, crined or,
each enveloped or enwrapped about the neck with a snake vert_. Entwisted
and entwined are sometimes used in the same sense.
_The amphiptère_ is a winged serpent. _Azure, an amphiptère or, rising
between two mountains argent_, are the arms of Camoens, the Portuguese
poet.
As a symbol in heraldry the serpent does not usually have reference to the
mythical creature, as in Early Christian Art, its natural qualities being
more generally considered.
The Scorpion
The reptile of this name, carrying a virulent and deadly sting in its
tail, is generally borne erect. When it is borne with the head downwards,
it is described as reversed. One branch of the family of Cole bears:
_argent, a fesse between three scorpions erect sable_; and another branch
of the same family, _argent a chevron gules between three scorpions
reversed, sable_.
[Illustration: Scorpion.]
_Scorpion._--Luigi di Gonzaga, styled Rodomonte for his great intrepidity
and strength, was a favourite general of Emperor Charles V. in his army
with Bourbon at the sack of Rome. When Charles made his public entry into
Mantua, Rodomonte wore a blue surcoat made in squares. Upon one was
embroidered a scorpion; upon the other his motto, "_Qui vivens lædit morte
meditur_" ("Who living wounds, in death is healed"). It being the property
of the scorpion when killed and laid over the wound to cure the poison, so
Rodomonte, if any one presumed to offend him, would clear himself of the
injury by the death of his enemy.
"If a man be stung with a scorpion, and drink the powder of them in wine,
it is thought to be present remedie."[10]
Other Chimerical Creatures and Heraldic Beasts
[Illustration: Unicorn salient.[11]]
The Unicorn
"_Yon lion placed two unicorns between
That rampant with a silver sword is seen
Is for the king of Scotland's banner known._"
ARIOSTO (Hoole's translation).
"_The lion and the unicorn fighting for the crown._"
Old Nursery Rhyme.
The unicorn is represented by heraldic usage as having the head and body
of a horse, with the tail of a lion, and the limbs and hoofs of a stag; a
twisted horn grows out from the centre of its forehead. It is rarely met
with as a coat-of-arms. As a crest or supporter it is of more frequent
occurrence. A unicorn's head is a favourite bearing, either _erased_, or
_couped_, at the shoulder, and always represented in profile.
[Illustration: Crest: A Unicorn's head, couped.]
The unicorn was a famous device all over Europe, and symbolised the virtue
of the mind and the strength of the body. It is well known as a supporter
of the Royal Arms of England, a position it has occupied since the
accession of James VI. of Scotland to the English throne as James I. _Two
silver unicorns_ were the supporters to the arms of that kingdom. On the
legislative union with England, the _red dragon of Wales_, introduced by
Henry VII., gave place to the unicorn as the sinister supporter.
James III. of Scotland had it figured on coins which were thence called
"unicorns." James V. first used it with the national arms as supporters.
Although the silver unicorn came into England with James I., Queen Jane
Seymour had already adopted it.
"_Unicorn_" was the pursuivant of Lord Lyon King-at-Arms, the Royal
Scottish Herald.
As a supporter to the Royal arms it is thus blazoned: _A unicorn argent,
armed, unguled, crined and gorged or, with a royal coronet_ (_i.e._,
composed of crosses patée and fleurs-de-lis), _having a chain affixed
thereto, and reflexed over his back of the last_. The term "_armed_" has
reference to his horn, "_unguled_" to his hoofs, and "_crined_" to his
flowing mane. "_Gorged_" implies that the coronet encircles his "gorge" or
throat. The term "_or_" (that is, the metal gold or the tincture of it)
being only mentioned after the several parts implies that they are all
alike to be gold. "_Of the last_" means of the last colour mentioned.
In "The History of Caricature and Grotesque in Literature and Art," by
Thomas Wright, M.A., F.S.A. (p. 8), appears a curious illustration from an
Egyptian papyrus of the Roman period, in the British Museum. It represents
a lion and a unicorn playing a game resembling draughts, perhaps the
earliest instance of the two animals depicted in conjunction. As the
author says: "The lion has evidently gained the victory and is fingering
the money; his bold air of swaggering superiority as well as the look of
surprise and disappointment of his vanquished opponent are by no means
ill-pictured."
The animosity which existed between the lion and unicorn is referred to by
Spenser, and is allegorical of the animosity which once existed between
England and Scotland:
"Like as a lyon whose imperiall powre
A proud rebellious unicorne defyes."
_Faerie Queen_, ii. 5.
Mediæval Conception of the Unicorn
The mediæval conception of the unicorn as the water-conner of the beasts
was doubtless suggested by that belief of earlier ages which made the
unicorn not merely symbolical of virtue and purity, but the more immediate
emblem of Christ as the horn of our salvation (Psalms xcii. 10 and lxxxix.
17, 24), expressly receiving its general fulfilment in him (St. Luke i.
69). The horn, as an antidote to all poison, was also believed to be
emblematical of the conquering or destruction of sin by the Messiah, and
as such it appears in the catacombs at Rome. The unicorn is the companion
of St. Justiana, as an emblem betokening in the beautiful legend her pure
mind, resisting all the Geraldine-like dreams sent by magic art to haunt
her, till she converted her tormentor himself.
He is remarkable, say the old writers, for his great strength, but more
for his great and haughty mind, as he would rather die than be brought
into subjection (Job xxxix. 10-12).
It was believed the only way to capture him was to leave a beautiful young
virgin in the place where he resorted. When the animal perceived her, he
would come and lie quietly down beside her, resting his head upon her lap,
and fall asleep, when he would be surprised by the hunters who lay in wait
to destroy him.
[Illustration: The Legend of the Unicorn.]
The unicorn is one of the most famous of all the chimerical monsters of
antiquity. The Scriptures make repeated mention of such a creature, but of
its shape we can form little conception. In Early Christian Art the
unicorn symbolised the highest and purest virtue; not only was it one of
the noblest bearings in the heraldry of the Middle Ages, but was viewed as
the immediate emblem of our Blessed Lord. Philippe de Thaun says in his
"Bestiarius":
"Monocéros est beste
Une corne a en la tête
Cette beste en verité nous signifie Dieu."
Whence comes the unicorn? It is older than the days of Job. Among the
hieroglyphics of Ancient Egypt this wonderful creature is depicted.
Sometimes the body is that of an ass, sometimes that of a bull, sometimes
that of a horse with the long twisted frontal horn for which he is noted.
Is the myth derived from some mysterious single-horned antelope, as has
been said, or is the one-horned rhinoceros the prototype of the legendary
unicorn? As an emblem it figures on the obelisks of Nimroud and the
catacombs of Rome. We read of this strange creature in Herodotus, and in
Aristotle, who calls it the "wild ass"; Pliny calls it the "Indian ass,"
describing it as like a horse with a horn fixed in the front of his head.
Cæsar counts it among the fauna of the Hyrcinian Forest. The earliest
author who describes it is Ctesias (B.C. 400), who derives it from India.
According to an Eastern legend the unicorn is found in Abyssinia. Lobo
also describes it in his history of that country: there the animals are
undisturbed by man, and live after their own laws. "Of the many ancient
and famous men," says a modern writer, "who have written about the
unicorn, no two seem to agree except when they copy from one another."
"Some writers" (says Guillim, p. 175) "have made doubt whether there be
any such beast as this or no. But the great esteem of his horn (in many
places to be seen) may take away that needless scruple."
The Horn of the Unicorn
"_The unicorn whose horn is worth a city._"
DECKER, "Gull's Hornbook."
_The horn_ of the unicorn was supposed to be the most powerful antidote
against, as it was a sure test of, poisons. He was therefore invested by
the other beasts of the forest with the office of "water-conner," none
daring to taste of fountain or pool until he had stirred the water with
his horn, to discover whether any dragon or serpent had deposited his
venom therein, and render it innocuous. So complete was the faith in the
efficacy of the wonder-working horn as a test of poisons, that fabulous
store was set upon the possession of even a portion. In old inventories
the "Essai" of Unicorn's horn is frequently mentioned.
1391. Un manche d'or d'un essai de licourne pour attoucher aux viandes
de monsigneur le Dauphin.--"Comptes Royaux."
1408. Une pièce de licorne à pour faire essai, à ung bou.
d'argent.--Inv. des ducs de Bourgogne.
1536. Une touche de licorne, garni d'or, pour faire essai.--Inv. de
Charles Quint.
An Italian author who visited England in the reign of Henry VII., speaking
of the wealth of the religious houses in this country, says: "And I have
been informed that, amongst other things, many of these monasteries
possess unicorns' horns of an extraordinary size." Hence such a horn was
worthy to be placed among the royal jewels. At the head of an inventory
taken in the first year of Queen Elizabeth and preserved in the Harleian
Library (No. 5953) we read "Imprimis, a piece of unicorn's horn," which,
as probably the most important object, is named first. This was no doubt
the piece seen by the German traveller Hentzner, at Windsor: "We were
shown here, among other things, the horn of a unicorn of about eight spans
and a half in length, valued at about £10,000." Peacham places "that horne
of Windsor, of an unicorn very likely," amongst the sights worth seeing.
"One little cup of unicorn's horn" was also in possession of Queen
Elizabeth, and was subsequently given by James I. to his Queen.
Alviano, a celebrated general of the Venetian Republic, when he took
Viterbo, and dispersed the Gatesca faction, whom he called the poison of
the city, caused to be embroidered upon his standard a unicorn at a
fountain surrounded by snakes and toads and other reptiles, and stirring
up the water with his horn before he drinks, with the motto or legend
"Venene pello" (I expel poison). Although the unicorn has not been seen
and described by any modern writer, its horn has been occasionally found,
sometimes preserved in museums, but alas! the cherished horn, whenever it
is examined, turns out to be a narwhal's tooth. To this, Wood's "Natural
History" makes special reference: "In former days, an entire tusk of a
narwhal was considered to possess an inestimable value, for it was looked
upon as the weapon of the veritable unicorn reft from his forehead in
despite of his supernatural strength and intellect. Setting aside the
rarity of the thing, it derived a practical value from its presumed
capability of disarming all poisons of their terrors, and of changing the
deadliest draught into a wholesome beverage."
This antidotal potency was thought to be of vital service to the unicorn,
whose residence was in the desert among all kinds of loathsome beasts and
poisonous reptiles, whose touch was death and whose look was
contamination. The springs and pools at which such monsters quenched their
thirst were saturated with poison by their contact, and would pour a fiery
death through the veins of any animal that partook of them. But the
unicorn, by dropping the tip of his horn into the pool, neutralised the
venom and rendered the deadly waters harmless. This admirable quality of
the unicorn's horn was a great recommendation in days when the poisoned
chalice crept too frequently upon the festive board, and a king could
receive no worthier present than a goblet formed from such valuable
material.
Even a few shavings of the unicorn's horn were purchased at high prices,
and the ready sale for such antidotes led to considerable adulteration--a
fact which is piteously recorded by an old writer, who tells us that "some
wicked persons do make a mingle-mangle thereof, as I saw among the
Venetians, being, as I here say, compounded with lime and sope, or
peradventure with earth or some stone (which things are apt to make
bubbles arise), and afterwards sell it for the unicorn's horn." The same
writer, however, supplies an easy test, whereby the genuine substance may
be distinguished from the imposition. "For experience of the unicorn's
horn to know whether it be right or not; put silk upon a burning coal, and
upon the silk the aforesaid horn, and if so be that it be true, the silk
will not be a whit consumed."
EXAMPLES.--_Argent, a unicorn rampant_ (_sometimes sejant sable armed and
unguled or_), is borne by _Harling_, Suffolk.
Another of the name bears the unicorn _courant in chief_ with additional
charges upon the shield.
_Azure, a unicorn couchant, argent between twelve cross crosslets,
or._--_Doon._
_Argent a chevron engrailed gules between three unicorns' heads, erased
azure._--_Horne._
Religious emblems were in great favour with the early printers; some of
them for this reason adopted the unicorn as their sign. Thus John Harrison
lived at the Unicorn and Bible in Paternoster Row, 1603.
Again, _the reputed power of the horn_ caused the animal to be taken as a
supporter for the Apothecaries' arms, and as a constant signboard by
chemists.
The great value set upon unicorn's horn caused the Goldsmiths of London to
adopt this animal as their sign.
[Illustration: Pegasus or Pegasos.]
The Pegasus
"_The cheval volant--the pegasus--
He bounds from the earth; he treads the air._"
A poetic creation of the ancients, a winged horse captured by Bellerophon,
the great hero of Corinthian legend. In this he was assisted by the
goddess Minerva, who also taught him how to tame and use it. At Corinth
there was a temple erected to Αθηναχαλινίτις (Minerva the Bridler), in
allusion to that part of the myth which describes Minerva as instructing
Bellerophon in the mode of placing the bridle on the winged steed. The
legend states that the hero caught this wonderful animal as it descended
at the Acro-Corinthus to drink of the spring of Pirene. Mounted on his
winged steed Pegasus, Bellerophon engaged the dire Chimera, and succeeded
in destroying the monster by rising in the air and shooting it with
arrows.
[Illustration: Coins of Corinth and Syracuse.]
Pegasus is the steed of the Muses, and classic story ascribes to it the
origin of the Castalian fountain "Hippocrene," situated on Mount Helicon,
part of Parnassus, a mountain range in Greece. When the Muses contended
with the daughters of Pieros, "Helicon rose heavenward with delight"; but
Pegasus gave it a kick, stopped its rise, and there gushed out of the
mountain "the soul-inspiring waters of Hippocrene."
The Standard of Corinth was a winged horse, in consequence of the
tradition connecting the fountain called Pirene, near the city, with
Pegasus, the fiery winged steed of Apollo and the Muses. The same device
was the leading type upon the ancient coins of the city of Corinth. The
Corinthians founded the colony of Syracuse, in Sicily, which city likewise
adopted the winged horse and the head of Athena upon its coinage.
[Illustration: Pegasus salient.]
Pindar, who grandly relates the feat of the hero Bellerophon, says that he
incurred the enmity of the gods by attempting to fly to heaven on his
winged horse. Zeus sent a gadfly to sting the horse, who thereupon cast
its rider and flew of his own accord to the stables of Zeus, whose
thunder-chariot he has ever since drawn.
The pegasus is of frequent occurrence in heraldry. In its classic
allusions it denotes fame, eloquence, poetic study, contemplation.
Some modern heraldic writers, however, discarding its classic references,
regard it merely in the matter-of-fact light as an emblem of swiftness.
But it is impossible to disassociate the old and well-known ideas
respecting the horse of Apollo and the Muses. In fancy the poet mounts his
winged steed to bear his soaring spirit in its wayward flight through the
realms of fancy.
As a type of the perfect horseman, Shakespeare pictures Prince Henry as
able to--
"Turn and wind a fiery pegasus
And witch the world with noble horsemanship."
_1 King Henry IV._, Act 4, sc. 1.
Elsewhere he takes up the later interpretation of the myth, which connects
it with Perseus:
"The strong-ribbed bark through liquid mountains cut
Like Perseus' horse."
_Troilus and Cressida_, Act i. sc. 3.
Cardinal Bembo, poet and historian, secretary to Pope Leo X., used as his
impress a pegasus and a hand issuing from a cloud holding a wreath of
laurel and palm, with the motto, "Si te fata vocant" ("If the fates call
thee").
_Azure, a pegasus salient, the wings expanded argent_, is borne as the
arms of the Society of the Inner Temple, London.
A very early seal of the Knights Templars exhibits two knights riding upon
one horse.
A recent writer remarks upon this strange device that "it is exceedingly
probable that some rude and partially defaced representation of this
device was mistaken by the lawyers of the reign of Queen Elizabeth for a
pegasus. The fact that the Middle Temple adopted the device which appears
upon the other seal of the ancient Knights strongly confirms this view."
One of the supporters of the arms of Oliver Cromwell is a horse having the
wings and tail of a dragon.
Sagittary, Centaur, Sagittarius, Centaurus, Hippocentaur
"_... the dreadful sagittary
Appals our numbers._"
"Troilus and Cressida," Act v. sc. 5.
"_Feasts that Thessalian centaurs never knew._"
THOMSON, "Autumn."
Under these names is blazoned a fabled monster of classic origin, half
man, half horse, holding an arrow upon a bended bow. It is one of the
twelve signs of the Zodiac, commonly called Sagittarius, otherwise
Arcitenens, and marked by the hieroglyph ♐. In its signification in arms
it may properly be applied to those who are eminent in the field.
The arms traditionally assigned to King Stephen are thus described by
Nicholas Upton: "_Scutum rubeum, in quo habuit trium leonum peditantium
corpora, usque ad collum cum corporibus humanis superius, ad modum signi
Sagittarii, de auro_." In this, as in some other early examples, it is
represented as half man, half lion.
[Illustration: The Sagittary--Centaur.]
The arms of Stephen are sometimes represented with but one sagittary, and
is said to have been assumed by him in consequence of his having commenced
his reign under the sign of Sagittarius. Others say because he gained a
battle by the aid of his archers on entering the kingdom. Others, again,
say that the City of Blois used the ensign of a sagittary as an emblem of
the chase; and Stephen, son of the Compte de Blois, assumed that ensign in
his contest with the Empress Maude or Matilda. There is no contemporary
authority, however, it must be confessed, for any of these derivations. A
sagittary is seen upon the seal of William de Mandeville (_temp._ Henry
III.), but not as an heraldic bearing.
The crest of Lambart, Earl of Cavan, is: _On a mount vert, a centaur
proper, drawing his bow gules, arrow or_. It also appears as the crest of
Askelom, Bendlowes, Cromie, Cruell, Lambert, Petty, Petty-Fitzmaurice.
The term _Centaur_ is most probably derived from the words κεντέω (to
hunt, or to pursue) and ταῦρος (a bull), the Thracians and Thessalians
having been celebrated from the earliest times for their skill and daring
in hunting wild bulls, which they pursued mounted on the noble horses of
those districts, which were a celebrated breed even in the later times of
the Roman Empire. A centaur carrying a female appears on a coin of Lete,
which, according to Pliny and Ptolemy, was situated on the confines of
Macedonia, and the fables of the centaurs, &c., in that and neighbouring
districts abounding in a noble breed of horses, arose no doubt from the
feats performed by those who first subjugated the horse to the will of
man, and who mounted on one of these beautiful animals and guiding it at
will, to approach or retreat with surprising rapidity, gave rise in the
minds of the vulgar to the idea that the man and the horse were one being.
[Illustration: Ipotane, from Mandeville's travels.]
Sir John de Mandeville in his travels (printed by Wynken de Worde, 1499),
tells us that in Bacharie "ben many Ipotanes that dwellen sometime in the
water and sometime on the land; and thei ben half men and half hors and
thei eten men when thei may take him."
We have in modern history a singular and interesting example of a similar
superstition. When the natives of South America--where the horse was
unknown--first saw their invaders, the Spaniards, mounted on these animals
and in complete armour, they imagined that the cavalier and steed formed
but one being of supernatural powers and endowments.
Such groups as those exhibited on the rude money of Lete and other places
were doubtless the first steps toward the treatment of similar subjects by
Phidias, the celebrated Greek sculptor, whose works illustrating the
battle of the Lapithæ and the Centaurs adorned the metopes of the
Parthenon at Athens, to which they also bear a striking affinity in the
simplicity of their conception.
A curious example of the compounded human and animal forms similar to the
sagittary is represented upon a necklace found in the Isle of Rhodes, and
now in the Musée Cluny, Paris. It is formed of a series of thin gold
plates whereon is represented in relief the complete human figure
conjoined to the hinder part of a stag (or horse). This is alternated with
another compound figure, human and bird, holding up two animals by the
tails, both subjects, each in their own way, suggestive of the fleet and
dexterous hunter.
[Illustration: Compound figures, gold necklace, Musée Cluny, Paris.]
In Homer's account the centaurs are obviously no monsters, but an old
Thessalian mountain tribe, of great strength and savage ferocity. They are
merely said to have inhabited the mountain districts of Thessaly, and to
have been driven thence by the Lapithæ into the higher mountains of
Pindus. Their contest with the Lapithæ is generally conceived as a symbol
of the struggle of Greek civilisation with the still existing barbarism of
the Early Pelasgian period. This may be the reason why Greek art in its
prime directed itself so especially to this subject.
[Illustration: Centaur, Greek sculpture.]
The origin of this contest is referred to the marriage feast of Pirithous
and Hippodamia, to which the principal centaurs were invited. The centaur
Eurytion, heated with wine, attempted to carry off the bride. This gave
rise to a struggle for supremacy which, after dreadful losses on both
sides, ended in the complete defeat of the centaurs, who were driven out
of the country. The custom of depicting the centaurs as half man, half
horse arose in later times, and became a favourite subject of the Greek
poets and artists.
Amongst the centaurs, Chiron, who was famous alike for his wisdom and his
knowledge of medicine, deserves mention as the preceptor of many of the
heroes of antiquity. Homer, who knew nothing of the equine shape of the
centaurs, represents him as the most upright of the centaurs, makes him
the friend of Achilles, whom he instructed in music, medicine and hunting.
He was also the friend of Heracles, who, by an unlucky accident, wounded
him with a poisoned arrow. The wound being incurable, he voluntarily chose
to die in the place of Prometheus. Jupiter placed him among the stars,
where he is called Sagittarius.
_Bucentaur_, from Greek Βοῦς (bous) an ox, and κένταυρος (kentauros) a
centaur, was, in classic mythology, a monster of double shape, half man,
half ox. The state barge of the Doge of Venice was so termed.
The _Minotaur_ slain by Theseus had the body of a man and the head of a
bull.
Griffin or Gryphon
The griffin, gryfin, or gryphon, as it is variously termed by old writers,
is best known as one of the chimerical monsters of heraldry--the mediæval
representative of the ancient symbolic creature of Assyria and the East.
It may be classed with the dragon, wyvern, phœnix, sphynx, "gorgons and
hydras and chimeras dire," and other imaginary beings, that world of
unreality grown up in the mind of man from the earliest times, the
influence of whose terrors have exercised no little power in the progress
of humanity.
[Illustration: A Griffin statant, wings endorsed.]
This favourite bearing was very early adopted in English armory. So early
indeed as 1167 A.D. we find it on a seal of Richard de Redvers, Earl of
Exeter, attached to a charter at Newport, Isle of Wight. It also appears
on a seal of Simon de Montacute (_temp._ Henry III. and Edward I.). It is
one of the principal bearings in heraldry, either charged upon the shield,
as the arms, or as the crest placed upon the helm, also as supporters to
the shield of arms of many noble and eminent families in this country and
the continent.
The _griffin_, "sacred to the sun," combines the bodily attributes of the
"cloud-cleaving eagle" and the "king of beasts," that is, it has the head,
neck, wings, and talons of an eagle, conjoined to the hinder parts of a
lion. It is usually represented with projecting ears, indicating an acute
sense of hearing, in addition to its other supposed extraordinary
qualities.
[Illustration: A Griffin passant, wings raised. (Early English.)]
[Illustration: A Griffin segreant, wings displayed. (German.)]
The griffin is rarely borne in other than two positions, viz., _passant_
and _segreant_. The latter term is peculiar to the griffin, and seems to
refer to the expanded wings. When called _segreant_ only, it means the
same as rampant applied to a lion. As a crest, it is not unfrequently
borne _sejant_, _i.e._, sitting. Parts of the creature, as a
_demi-griffin_, a _griffin's head_, &c., are also of common use.
The arms of _Trafford_, Lancashire, are: _Argent a griffin segreant
gules_. Motto: _Gripe griffin hold fast_. The supporters of the arms of
Viscount Halifax are two griffins.
[Illustration: Sleeping Griffin, by John Tenniel, from "Alice in
Wonderland." (By permission of Macmillan & Co., Limited, proprietors of
the copyright.)]
Old heralds gravely relate of this creature that when he attains his full
growth he will never be taken, hence he is a fit emblem of a valiant hero,
who, rather than yield himself to his enemy, exposes himself to the worst
of dangers. As a general symbol in heraldry the griffin expresses strength
and vigilance.
Sir Thomas Browne says it is emblematical of watchfulness, courage,
perseverance and rapidity of execution.
The description of the griffin by the old traveller, Sir John Mandeville,
is a wonderful record of credulity and belief in the marvellous; he states
it to be a native of "Bacharie, where ben many griffones, more plentee
than in any other countree. Sum men seyn that they have the body upwards
of an egle and benethe as a lyonn, and truly they seyne soethe that thei
ben of that schapp. But one griffoun hath the body more great and stronger
than one hundred egles, such as we have amonges us. For one griffoun there
will be flynge to his nest a great hors, or two oxen yoked togidre, as
thei gon to the plowghe. For he hath his talouns so longe and so grete and
large upon his feet as though thei were hornes of grete oxen, or of bugles
(bulls), or of kygn, so that men maken cuppes of hem to drynke of, and of
hire (their) ribbes and of the pennes of hire wenges men maken bowes fulle
stronge to schote with arrews and quarell." Gerard Leigh, an old heraldic
writer, discoursing of the griffin, gives his reason for belief, he says,
"I thinke they are of a great hugeness, for I have _a clawe_ of one of
their pawes, whiche should shewe them to be as bigge as two lyons."
[Illustration: Griffin segreant, German version.]
In the cathedral of Brunswick there is still preserved the horn of some
kind of antelope, brought from the Holy Land as "a griffin's claw," by
Henry the Lion. Three talons of the griffin were preserved at Bayeux, and
fastened on high festival days to the altar, and there seems to be some
curious legend concerning a cup formed of a gryphon's claw dedicated to
St. Cuthbert A gryphon's egg was also considered a valuable curiosity,
being used as a goblet in old times when natural history was greatly
misunderstood and grossly exaggerated. As an example of the absurd
misstatements of the earlier writers and naturalists who so delighted our
wonder-loving forefathers, a writer in the "Museum of Animated Nature"
refers to a large species of vulture, the Condor (_Sarcoramphus Gryphus_),
which was painted as rivalling the Rukh of Oriental fable. He adds that
"such descriptions have given place to the moderate details of
sober-minded observers, and we no longer look upon this creature as the
winged guardian of mountain mines within whose depths were entombed 'gems
and barbaric gold,' we no longer imagine it the giant of the winged race,
dimming the light of the sun by its widespread pinions, and by the mighty
rushing sound as it sweeps down from some lofty pinnacle or the upper
regions of the sky deafening and stupefying the terror-stricken
beholders."
As the stern avenger of human crimes, the dreaded Nemesis appears in Roman
Art, as a young woman with wings, in a chariot drawn by griffins, with a
whip or sword in her hand.[12]
Smith's "Classical Dictionary" gives the following: "Gryps or gryphus, a
fabulous monster dwelling in the Rhiphæan mountains between the
Hyperboreans and the one-eyed Arimaspians, and guarding the treasures of
the north. The Arimaspians mounted on horseback attempted to steal the
gold, and hence arose the hostility between the horse and the griffin. The
body of the griffin was that of a lion, while the head, fore-feet and
wings were those of an eagle. It is probable that the origin of the belief
in griffins must be looked for in the East, where it seems they have been
very ancient. They are also mentioned among the fabulous beasts which
guarded the gold of India."
The Arimaspians were a one-eyed people of Scythia who adorned their hair
with gold. They were constantly at war with the Gryphons who guarded the
gold mines.
"As when a gryphon, through the wilderness ...
Pursues the Arimaspian, who by stealth
Had from his wakeful custody purloined
The guarded gold."
_Paradise Lost_, ii.
[Illustration: Gold Flying Griffin, found by Dr. Schliemann at Mycenæ.]
That the form of the griffin must have been a well understood symbol is
evident from the frequency with which it is met in ancient art. Dr.
Schliemann, in his explorations of the ancient city of Mycenæ, among other
treasures found a gold-winged griffin, about two inches in length, in one
of the sepulchres of the kings (Figure No. 272 in his book), which in
every particular as to shape is identical with the heraldic griffin of
to-day; the same may be said of a coin of Abdera, a city in Thrace, which
bears the device of a griffin. Abdera was a place of importance when
Xerxes invaded Greece B.C. 554.
Herodotus relates that the Teians, dreading the encroachments of the
Persians in Ionia, abandoned their city and founded Abdera in Thrace. The
coinage of the latter place bears the same type (the griffin) as the
parent city, but with a slight difference in treatment. This consists in
the form of the wings of the griffin, which are pointed on the coins of
Abdera, while in those of Teos they are rounded. The griffin was sacred to
Apollo, to whom an especial worship was devoted in most of the Ionian
cities, but more particularly in Teos.[13]
[Illustration: Colossal Griffins, Burmah.]
In the _Illustrated London News_ of October 21, 1876, is an engraving of
two gigantic wingless griffons, and also a description by the traveller
who visited that strange place. "At Thyetmo, 250 miles up the river
Irrawaddy from Rangoon in British Burmah, are two colossal 'chin thay' or
figures of sacred griffins, standing at the entrance to one of the great
pagodas dedicated to the worship of Gautama Buddha; the outer terraces and
steps of these temples are frequently adorned with such mythical monsters.
Near the ancient ruined city of Paghan, which flourished a thousand years
ago, the bank of the river for a length of eight miles is lined with the
remains of this quaint architecture and sculpture, covering a space of two
miles in breadth from the water's edge. It is not known by what nation of
old times they were constructed, for Burmese history is apocryphal or at
least very obscure."
The symbolic use of images of living creatures was in the instance of the
cherubim permitted under the Mosaic dispensation, and on this will be
found to turn the distinction between the symbolic use and its forbidden
and dangerous use as a supposed means of assisting devotion. Mr. Henry
Hayman in "Smith's Dictionary," _s.v._, "cherub," as quoted by Tyrwhit,
says: "On the whole it seems likely that the word 'cherub' meant not only
the composite creature-form of which the man, lion, ox, and eagle were the
elements, but further, some peculiar and mystical form which Ezekiel,
being a priest, would know and recognise as 'the face of a cherub,' κατ'
εξοχήν, but which was kept secret from all others.... Such were probably
those on the ark, which when moved was always covered, though those on the
hangings and panels might be of the popular device. The griffin of
northern fable, watching the gold in the wilderness, has been compared
with the cherub both as regards his composite form and his functions as
guardian of a treasure. He goes on to point out the possible affinity
between the Greek root γρυπ (γρυψ, gryps, griffin), and the Hebrew and
Arabic derivation of the word 'cherub,' which gives it the original
meaning of 'carved image,' and says that though the exact form is
uncertain, it must have borne a general resemblance to the composite
religious figures found upon the monuments of Egypt, Assyria, Babylonia
and Persia."
Mr. Ruskin,[14] describing the emblematical griffins on the front of the
Duomo of Verona, points out that the Lombard carver was enabled to form so
intense a conception, mainly by the fact that his griffin is a great and
profoundly felt symbolism. Two wheels are under its eagle's wings, which
connect it with the living creatures of the vision of Ezekiel, "where they
went the wheels went by them, and whithersoever the spirit was to go, they
went, and the wheels were lifted up over against them, for the spirit of
the living creatures was in the wheels." The winged shape thus became at
once one of the acknowledged symbols of the divine nature. Elsewhere, we
think in the "Stones of Venice," the connection is pointed out between the
Assyrian and Gothic personations.
Gian-Paolo Baglione (+ 1520), who usurped the sovereignty of Perugia,
bore a _silver griffin_ on a red field with the motto, "_Unguibus et
rostro atque alis armatus in hostem_" ("Armed against the enemy with
talons and beak and wings"), which means of defence proved of no avail
when he was seized by Pope Leo X., who, pretending to consult Baglione on
affairs of importance, sent him a safe conduct to Rome, but when he
arrived, he caused him to be tortured and beheaded, and afterwards took
possession of his states. This gave occasion to his enemies to say, "This
ugly bird has not used his wings as at other times, to flee from the snare
which has been laid for him."[15]
In Dante's description of the triumph of the Church, in the "Purgatorio,"
we have the mediæval conception of this wondrous creature, the gryphon.
"The mystic shape that joins two natures in one form"--as he is called by
the noble Italian poet--draws the car to which he is harnessed, and
"He above
Stretched either wing uplifted 'tween the midst
* * * * *
And out of sight they rode. The members, far
As he was bird, were golden; white the rest,
With vermeil interveined."
And when the eyes of Beatrice
"stood
Still, fix'd toward the gryphon, motionless.
As the sun strikes a mirror, even thus
Within those orbs the twyfold being shone;
For ever varying, in one figure now
Reflected, now in other. Reader! muse
How wondrous in my sight it seem'd, to mark
A thing, albeit steadfast in itself,
Yet in its imaged semblance mutable."
Cary's Dante, _Purgatory_, c. xxix.
"Some commentators of Dante," says M. Dideron,[16] "have supposed the
griffin to be the emblem of Christ, who, in fact, is one single person
with two natures; of Christ in whom God and man are combined. But in
this," says M. Dideron, "they are mistaken. There is, in the first place,
a manifest impropriety in describing the car as drawn by God as a beast of
burden." "Commentators," it
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