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

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

[Pg v]

nder 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 [Pg vi]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!”

[Pg vii]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[Pg viii] 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.

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“Angels and ministers of grace defend us.”—“Hamlet.”

he 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[Pg 2] 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[Pg 3] 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[Pg 4] 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,”[Pg 5] &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[Pg 6] 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[Pg 7] 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.[Pg 8] 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[Pg 9] 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[Pg 10] 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[Pg 11] 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[Pg 12] 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.

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Notes on Animated Beings
in Heraldic Art

eraldry 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[Pg 16] 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[Pg 17] “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]

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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[Pg 19] 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:

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[Pg 21] 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.

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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[Pg 23] 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.”

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ngels 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[Pg 28] 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.

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[Pg 29] 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.

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[Pg 30] 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.

[Pg 31]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.

 [Pg 32]

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—

[Pg 33] “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?”

[Pg 34]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.”

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[Pg 35] 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:

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.”

[Pg 36]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.[Pg 37] 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[Pg 38] 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.

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[Pg 39] 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,[Pg 40] 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.”

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,”[Pg 41] 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.

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[Pg 42] 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.

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.

[Pg 43]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]

“... 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 6s. 8d. to 10s.

 [Pg 44]

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.”

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[Pg 45] 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.

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[Pg 46] 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[Pg 47] 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.

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[Pg 48] 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.

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[Pg 49] 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[Pg 50] 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[Pg 51] 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.

 [Pg 52]

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.

[Pg 53]Cherubim and seraphim seem always vested in the alb or tunic, and a scarf tied in a knot round the neck.

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[Pg 54] 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.

St. Luke: Winged Ox, Passion.—The form of the ox, the beast of sacrifice, fitly sets forth the sacred[Pg 55] 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.

[Pg 56]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.

The Lion of St. Mark, Venice.

[Pg 57]

[Pg 58]

[Pg 59]

he 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[Pg 60] 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 [Pg 61]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.

[Pg 62]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.[Pg 63] 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[Pg 64] 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[Pg 65] 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.

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[Pg 66] 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[Pg 67] 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.

Japanese Imperial Device.
The Dragon, the Ho-Ho, or Phœnix, and the Chrysanthemum.

[Pg 68]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),[Pg 69] 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 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[Pg 70] 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[Pg 71] 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).

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[Pg 72] 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.”

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[Pg 73] 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.

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[Pg 74] 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.

St. George and the Dragon.

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[Pg 75] 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)[Pg 76] 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[Pg 77] 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;[Pg 78] 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 [Pg 79]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[Pg 80] 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.)

[Pg 81]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[Pg 82] 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[Pg 83] 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 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[Pg 84] 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[Pg 85] 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[Pg 86] dragons addorsed—that is, back to back—are ascribed to Arthur, as well as several other devices.

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:

[Pg 87] “‘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 [Pg 88]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[Pg 89] 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:

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[Pg 90] 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.

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.”

 [Pg 91]

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:[Pg 92] “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 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[Pg 93] 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.

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.

 [Pg 94]

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.

 [Pg 95]

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[Pg 96] 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 is represented in heraldry as a dragon with seven heads; it is not of frequent occurrence as a bearing in armory.

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[Pg 97] 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.

The Hydra.

[Pg 98]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.

A Wyvern holding a fleur-de-lis.

(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[Pg 99] 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.

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[Pg 100] case may be. A dragon or wyvern sans wings is termed a lindworm. (See page 80.)

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[Pg 101] 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.)

 [Pg 102]

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.

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.

[Pg 103]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.

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.

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[Pg 104] 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.”

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.

 [Pg 105]

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.

[Pg 106]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.

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.

 [Pg 107]

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[Pg 108] 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 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?”

[Pg 109]“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[Pg 110] 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[Pg 111] 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[Pg 112] 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.

[Pg 113]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.

[Pg 114]

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).

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[Pg 115] 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[Pg 116] 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[Pg 117] 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”[Pg 118] (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.

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”:

[Pg 119] “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.”

[Pg 120]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[Pg 121] 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.

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).

[Pg 122]Or, three serpents erect wavy sable (Codlen, or Cudlen).

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

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 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[Pg 123] sable; and another branch of the same family, argent a chevron gules between three scorpions reversed, sable.

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]

[Pg 124]

[Pg 125]

[Pg 126]

[Pg 127]

Unicorn salient.[11]

he 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[Pg 128] met with as a coat-of-arms. As a crest or supporter it is of more frequent occurrence. A unicorn’s head is a favourite bearing, either erased, or couped, at the shoulder, and always represented in profile.

Crest: A Unicorn’s head, couped.

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

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

“Unicorn” was the pursuivant of Lord Lyon King-at-Arms, the Royal Scottish Herald.

As a supporter to the Royal arms it is thus blazoned: A unicorn argent, armed, unguled, crined and gorged or, with a royal coronet (i.e., composed of crosses patée and fleurs-de-lis), having a chain[Pg 129] 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.

 [Pg 130]

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.

 [Pg 131]

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[Pg 132] 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.”

 [Pg 133]

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.

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[Pg 134] 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[Pg 135] 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[Pg 136] 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.

 [Pg 137]

Pegasus or Pegasos.

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[Pg 138] instructing Bellerophon in the mode of placing the bridle on the winged steed. The legend states that the hero caught this wonderful animal as it descended at the Acro-Corinthus to drink of the spring of Pirene. Mounted on his winged steed Pegasus, Bellerophon engaged the dire Chimera, and succeeded in destroying the monster by rising in the air and shooting it with arrows.

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

The Standard of Corinth was a winged horse, in consequence of the tradition connecting the fountain called Pirene, near the city, with Pegasus, the fiery winged steed of Apollo and the Muses. The same device was the leading type upon the ancient coins of the city of Corinth. The Corinthians founded the colony of Syracuse, in Sicily, which city likewise adopted the[Pg 139] winged horse and the head of Athena upon its coinage.

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

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

Pegasus salient.

[Pg 140]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.

[Pg 141]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.

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[Pg 142] are thus described by Nicholas Upton: “Scutum rubeum, in quo habuit trium leonum peditantium corpora, usque ad collum cum corporibus humanis superius, ad modum signi Sagittarii, de auro.” In this, as in some other early examples, it is represented as half man, half lion.

The Sagittary—Centaur.

The arms of Stephen are sometimes represented with but one sagittary, and is said to have been assumed by him in consequence of his having commenced his reign under the sign of Sagittarius. Others say because he gained a battle by the aid of his archers on entering the kingdom. Others, again,[Pg 143] 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[Pg 144] with surprising rapidity, gave rise in the minds of the vulgar to the idea that the man and the horse were one being.

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[Pg 145] animal forms similar to the sagittary is represented upon a necklace found in the Isle of Rhodes, and now in the Musée Cluny, Paris. It is formed of a series of thin gold plates whereon is represented in relief the complete human figure conjoined to the hinder part of a stag (or horse). This is alternated with another compound figure, human and bird, holding up two animals by the tails, both subjects, each in their own way, suggestive of the fleet and dexterous hunter.

Compound figures, gold necklace, Musée Cluny, Paris.

In Homer’s account the centaurs are obviously no monsters, but an old Thessalian mountain tribe, of great strength and savage ferocity. They are merely said to have inhabited the mountain districts of Thessaly, and to have been driven thence by the[Pg 146] Lapithæ into the higher mountains of Pindus. Their contest with the Lapithæ is generally conceived as a symbol of the struggle of Greek civilisation with the still existing barbarism of the Early Pelasgian period. This may be the reason why Greek art in its prime directed itself so especially to this subject.

Centaur, Greek sculpture.

The origin of this contest is referred to the marriage feast of Pirithous and Hippodamia, to which the principal centaurs were invited. The centaur Eurytion, heated with wine, attempted to carry off the bride. This gave rise to a struggle for supremacy which, after dreadful losses on both sides, ended in the complete defeat of the centaurs, who were driven out of the country. The custom of depicting the centaurs as half man, half horse arose in later times,[Pg 147] 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.

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[Pg 148] hydras and chimeras dire,” and other imaginary beings, that world of unreality grown up in the mind of man from the earliest times, the influence of whose terrors have exercised no little power in the progress of humanity.

A Griffin statant, wings endorsed.

This favourite bearing was very early adopted in English armory. So early indeed as 1167 A.D. we find it on a seal of Richard de Redvers, Earl of Exeter, attached to a charter at Newport, Isle of Wight. It also appears on a seal of Simon de Montacute (temp. Henry III. and Edward I.). It is one of the principal bearings in heraldry, either charged upon the shield, as the arms, or as the crest placed upon the helm, also as supporters to the shield[Pg 149] 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.

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.

[Pg 150]The arms of Trafford, Lancashire, are: Argent a griffin segreant gules. Motto: Gripe griffin hold fast. The supporters of the arms of Viscount Halifax are two griffins.

Sleeping Griffin, by John Tenniel, from “Alice in Wonderland.”
(By permission of Macmillan & Co., Limited, proprietors of the copyright.)

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

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

The description of the griffin by the old traveller,[Pg 151] Sir John Mandeville, is a wonderful record of credulity and belief in the marvellous; he states it to be a native of “Bacharie, where ben many griffones, more plentee than in any other countree. Sum men seyn that they have the body upwards of an egle and benethe as a lyonn, and truly they seyne soethe that thei ben of that schapp. But one griffoun hath the body more great and stronger than one hundred egles, such as we have amonges us. For one griffoun there will be flynge to his nest a great hors, or two oxen yoked togidre, as thei gon to the plowghe. For he hath his talouns so longe and so grete and large upon his feet as though thei were hornes of grete oxen, or of bugles (bulls), or of kygn, so that men maken cuppes of hem to drynke of, and of hire (their) ribbes and of the pennes of hire wenges men maken bowes fulle stronge to schote with arrews and quarell.” Gerard Leigh, an old heraldic writer, discoursing of the griffin, gives his reason for belief, he says, “I thinke they are of a great hugeness, for I have a clawe of one of their pawes, whiche should shewe them to be as bigge as two lyons.”

Griffin segreant, German version.

In the cathedral of Brunswick there is still preserved the horn of some kind of antelope, brought from the Holy Land as “a griffin’s claw,” by Henry the Lion. Three talons of the griffin were preserved at Bayeux, and fastened on high festival days to the altar, and there seems to be some curious legend concerning a cup formed of a gryphon’s claw dedicated to St. Cuthbert A gryphon’s egg was also [Pg 152]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,[Pg 153] 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.

[Pg 154] “As when a gryphon, through the wilderness ...
Pursues the Arimaspian, who by stealth
Had from his wakeful custody purloined
The guarded gold.”
Paradise Lost, ii.

Gold Flying Griffin, found by Dr. Schliemann at Mycenæ.

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

Herodotus relates that the Teians, dreading the encroachments of the Persians in Ionia, abandoned their city and founded Abdera in Thrace. The coinage of the latter place bears the same type (the griffin) as the[Pg 155] parent city, but with a slight difference in treatment. This consists in the form of the wings of the griffin, which are pointed on the coins of Abdera, while in those of Teos they are rounded. The griffin was sacred to Apollo, to whom an especial worship was devoted in most of the Ionian cities, but more particularly in Teos.[13]

Colossal Griffins, Burmah.

In the Illustrated London News of October 21, 1876, is an engraving of two gigantic wingless griffons, and also a description by the traveller who visited that strange place. “At Thyetmo, 250 miles up the river Irrawaddy from Rangoon in British Burmah, are two colossal ‘chin thay’ or figures of[Pg 156] 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[Pg 157] 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[Pg 158] 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.
[Pg 159]As the sun strikes a mirror, even thus
Within those orbs the twyfold being shone;
For ever varying, in one figure now
Reflected, now in other. Reader! muse
How wondrous in my sight it seem’d, to mark
A thing, albeit steadfast in itself,
Yet in its imaged semblance mutable.”
Cary’s Dante, Purgatory, c. xxix.

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

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

A curious example of this compound form of bird[Pg 160] and beast occurs on an Italian bronze medal of the fifteenth century, about 3½ in. in diameter (No. 57.51 in the fine collection in South Kensington Museum). On one side it bears a portrait of Niccolo Picininus of Perugia, a celebrated mercenary soldier—and on the reverse a griffin, the eagle’s head, wings, and feet united to the Roman she-wolf, with Romulus and Remus suckling. Dante’s emblem of the Popedom is here apparently adapted to the peculiarly Roman national symbol—the nursing mother of nations and the Catholic religion.

Carved panel, a Griffin segreant.

The griffin is sometimes borne sans wings and termed a male griffin, as in the supporters to the[Pg 161] arms of the Marquis of Ormond, but spikes or rays proceed from various parts of its body; sometimes it has two long straight horns.

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

Male Griffin.

Hippogryph, or Hippogrif, the winged horse whose father was a griffin and mother a filly (Greek, hippos, a horse, and gryps, a griffin)—a symbol of love.[17]

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

[Pg 162]Milton also makes allusion to this mythical creature:

“So saying he caught him up, and without wing
Of hippogrif, bore through the air sublime
Over the wilderness and o’er the plain.”
Paradise Regained, iv.

Opinicus statant.

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

Such a monster with wings endorsed or, was the crest of the Barber Surgeons of London.

Two opinici vert, purfled or, beaked sable, wings gules, support the insignia of the Plasterers’ Company.

 [Pg 163]

Egyptian Sphynx.

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

It frequently figures in heraldry as a convenient hieroglyph to commemorate some service in Egypt. It is the crest of British families of Asgill, Baronets[Pg 164] Lambert, Goatley, &c., and appears in the arms of Sir John Moore, the hero of Corunna.

Theban, or Greek Sphynx.

The strange combination of human and animal features in the figure known as the sphynx is of frequent occurrence in both Greek and Egyptian mythology and art. The Egyptian sphynx is supposed to represent the combination of physical power, or the kings, as incarnations of such attributes. They are also associated with the special forms and attributes of the great Egyptian deities Osiris and Ammon, Neph or Jupiter, and Phreh or Helios. That is, we have the man-sphynx, the ram-sphynx, and the hawk-sphynx, or the lion’s body with the head of the man, the ram, or the hawk, according to the deity worshipped. The sphynx itself was probably a religious symbol of the Egyptians, which was [Pg 165]transferred to Greece, and subsequently underwent a change of meaning. Among the Egyptians the sphynx seems to have been a symbol of Royal dignity betokening a combination of wisdom and strength. By the Greeks, however, it appears to have been regarded as the symbol of the burning pestilence-breeding heat of the summer sun. The form of the Theban sphynx was that of a lion, generally in a recumbent position, with the breast and upper part of a beautiful woman, and was in imitation of the original male sphynxes of Egypt. Greek Art was only acquainted with the sphynx in its female form, and also departed from the Egyptian type by adding wings to the lion’s body.

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

In the Greek story the monster was sent by Hera (Juno) to devastate the land of Thebes. Seated on a rock close to the town, she put to every one that passed by the riddle, “What walks on four legs in the morning, on two legs at noon, and on three legs in the evening?” Whoever was unable to solve the riddle was cast by the sphynx from the rock into a deep abyss. Œdipus succeeded in answering[Pg 166] it, and thus delivered the country from the monster, who cast herself into the abyss.

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

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

Maurice (“Oriental Trinities,” p. 315) says the sphynx was the Egyptian symbol of profound theological mystery, and was therefore placed on either side of the dromoi, or paths leading to the temples[Pg 167] of the gods. “They are black,” he says, “in allusion to the obscure nature of the deity and his attributes. The white head-dress may allude to the linen tiaras wrapped round the heads of the priests.” The origin of the myth was not definitely known even to the ancients. Some early writers say it was symbolical of the overflowing of the Nile, which happened when the sun was in the signs of Leo and Virgo; and that it had its name from this circumstance. “For,” they say, “the word sphynx in the Chaldæan language signifies overflowing.” The fact of the Egyptian sphynx being always male does not, however, accord with this derivation.

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

The same writer says: “The sphynx appears on the reverses of some coins of Cunobeline (Cymbeline,[Pg 168] of Shakespeare), struck in the city of Camalodunum (Colchester).”

The gigantic statue of the sphynx half buried in the sand near the Great Pyramids, at Gizeh, is hewn and sculptured out of a spur of solid rock, to which masonry was added in places to complete the form. The actual age of the great sphynx is not known, but it is supposed to have been commenced under Cheops and finished by order of King Chefren, under whose reign also was probably built the second great pyramid. The able author of “Eothen” thus describes the appearance of the sphynx of Egypt, and the sentiments to which its contemplation gave rise in his mind: “And near the Pyramids, more numerous and more awful than all else in the land of Egypt, there rests the lonely sphynx. Comely the creature is, but the comeliness is not of this world. The once worshipped beast is a deformity and a monster to this generation, and yet you can see that these lips, so thick and heavy, were fashioned according to some ancient mould of beauty—some mould of beauty now forgotten—forgotten because that Greece drew forth Cytheræa from the flashing bosom of the Ægean, and in her image created new forms of beauty, and made it a law among men that the short and proudly wreathed lips should stand for the sign and main condition of loveliness through all generations to come! Yet there still lives on the race of those who were beautiful in the fashion of the elder world; and[Pg 169] Christian girls of Coptic blood will look on you with sad, curious gaze, and kiss your charitable hand with the big pouting lips of the very sphynx. Laugh and mock if you will at the worship of stone idols; but mark ye this, ye breakers of images, that in one regard the stone idol bears awful semblance of deity—unchangefulness in the midst of change—the same seeming will and intent for ever inexorable! Upon ancient dynasties of Ethiopian and Egyptian kings—upon Greek and Roman, upon Arab and Ottoman conquerors—upon Napoleon dreaming of an Eastern empire—upon battle and pestilence—upon the ceaseless misery of the Egyptian race—upon keen-eyed travellers—Herodotus yesterday and Warburton to-day—upon all, and more, this unworldly sphynx has watched, and watched like a Providence, with the same earnest eyes and the same sad, tranquil mien. And we shall die, and Islam shall wither away; and the Englishman, straining far over to hold his loved India, will plant a firm foot on the banks of the Nile, and sit on the seats of the faithful; and still that sleepless rock will lie watching and earnest the work of the new busy race with those same sad eyes and the same tranquil mien everlasting. You dare not mock at the sphynx.” The conclusion of this rhapsody at the present time sounds almost like a half-fulfilled prophecy.

The sphynx is the special device of several British regiments which landed in Egypt, in the Bay of Aboukir, in the face of the French Army; and borne[Pg 170] as a memento of the battle of Alexandria, when General Sir Ralph Abercrombie fell in the moment of victory. It also appears upon the war medals of the English occupation of Egypt, resulting in the battle of Tel-el-Kebir, 1882, and subsequent victories. In heraldry the sphynx is usually couchant; it is, however, borne in other positions, sometimes winged, and when so borne the wings are always endorsed, i.e., back to back.

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

A Sphynx passant guardant, wings endorsed.

 [Pg 171]

The Phœnix.

“Rara avis in terris.”

An imaginary bird, described by ancient writers as in form like an eagle, but more beautiful in its plumage. Among the ancient classical writers it was an emblem of those existing in paradise, enjoying eternal youth and never-ending pleasure. Tacitus describes the phœnix as a singular bird, consecrated to the sun, and distinguished by its rich appearance and variegated colours. Herodotus naïvely says: “I[Pg 172] never saw one, indeed, but in a picture, but if he is like his picture his plumage is partly golden and partly red.” Philippe de Thaun says: “The phœnix lives five hundred years and a little more, when it will become young again and leave its old age.” It was said to be sometimes seen in Egypt, and only one was believed to exist at a time. When it is advanced in age and its time of change is at hand, it hides itself away somewhere in Arabia, and makes itself a nest of the rarest spices, which, by the heat of the sun or other secret agency, and the fanning of the sacred bird’s own wings, soon rises into flames and consumes it. Out of its ashes rises another with new life and vigour to pursue the same never-ending life and re-birth.

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

From the pagans the Early Christians adopted the[Pg 173] symbol, and with them its significance had reference to the resurrection and immortality. Like the pelican “in her piety,” it was peculiarly an emblem of our Saviour in His resurrection. As the phœnix when old and wearied seeks the rays of the sun to consume its body, again to be revived in life and vigour, so the Christian, worn and exhausted by worldly labour and suffering, turns to the Son of Righteousness for regeneration and newness of life. Tertullian makes the phœnix an image of the resurrection.

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

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

Tacitus in the “Annales,” vi. 28, mentions the first three of these appearances.

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

“Now will I believe ... that in Arabia
There is one tree, the phœnix throne—one phœnix
At this hour reigneth there.”
The Tempest, Act iii. sc. 3.

[Pg 174]Pliny[20] gives minute particulars concerning the natural history of this rara avis in terris. But the ancient fable is most fully given by Ovid and translated by Dryden. Ariosto, also, and many early writers refer to the wonderful creature with fullest faith in its reality. It is no wonder then, that it became a favourite emblem in an age when it was the fashion among persons of distinction to have an impress or device with its accompanying legend or motto. Many persons of historical importance employed the phœnix to express in metaphor the idea they wished to convey regarding themselves. Thus we find the phœnix in flames painted for the device of Jeanne d’Arc, in the Gallery of the Palais Royal, with the motto: “Invito funere vivat” (“Her death itself will make her live”).

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

Mary Queen of Scots used the impress of her mother, Mary of Lorraine, a phœnix in flames, and the motto: “En ma fin est mon commencement.” A phœnix in flames upon a castle was the badge of Queen Jane Seymour, the crest of the Seymours being a phœnix in flames issuing from a ducal coronet. Her son, Edward VI., added the motto, “Nascatur ut alter” (“That another may be born”), alluding to the nature of her death. She lies buried in St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, with a Latin[Pg 175] epitaph by Bishop Godwin, which has been thus translated by his son Morgan:

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

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

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

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

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

[Pg 176]Shakespeare elsewhere uses the simile to denote a phœnix among women—a phœnix, a paragon, unique, because alone of its kind:

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

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

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

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

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

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

A phœnix in flames proper, gorged with a mural coronet, is the allusive crest of the Fenwicks; the motto over the crest is the cri de guerre, “A Fenwick! a Fenwick!” They were a family noted in border warfare. “The house of Percy,” says Mrs. Bury Palliser, “ever ranked the Fenwicks among the most valiant of its retainers, and in border warfare the[Pg 178] banner of the gorged phœnix in the burning flame always appeared with that of the silver crescent of the Percys.”

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

 [Pg 179]

A Harpy, wings disclosed.

A poetical monstrosity of classical origin, described as “winged creatures having the head and breasts of a woman, and the body and limbs of a vulture; very fierce and loathsome, living in an atmosphere of filth and stench, and contaminating anything which they[Pg 180] come near. Pale and emaciated, they were continually tormented with insatiable hunger.” They are best known from the story of the Argonauts, where they appear as the tormentors of the blind king Phineus, whose table they robbed of its viands, which they either devoured or spoiled. They were regarded by the ancients as ministers of sudden death.

The Harpy, Greek sculpture.

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

“I will ... do any embassage ... rather than
Hold three words’ conference with this harpy.”
Much Ado About Nothing, Act ii. sc. 1.
[Pg 181]
“Bravely the figure of this harpy hast thou
Performed, my Ariel; a grace it had devouring.”
Tempest, Act iii. sc. 3.

A Harpy displayed and crowned. German version.

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

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

Shield of Nüremberg.

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

 [Pg 182]

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

A Pelican in her piety, wings displayed.

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

[Pg 183]The “Bestiarum” says that Physiologus tells us that the pelican is very fond of its brood, but when the young ones begin to grow they rebel against the male bird and provoke his anger, so that he kills them; the mother returns to the nest in three days, sits on the dead birds, pours her blood over them, and they feed on the blood.

Heraldic Pelican in her piety.

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

The Romans called filial love piety, hence Virgil’s[Pg 184] hero is called the “pious Æneas,” because he rescued his father from the flames of Troy.

Crest, a Pelican vulning herself proper, wings endorsed.

The myth that pelicans feed their young with their blood arose from the following habit, on which the whole superstructure of fable has been erected: They have a large bag attached to their under-bill. When the parent bird is about to feed its brood, it[Pg 185] macerates small fish in this bag or pouch; then, pressing the bag against its breast, transfers the macerated food to the mouths of the young ones.

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

Examples.—Gules, a pelican in her piety, or.—Chauntrell.

Azure, three pelicans argent, vulning themselves proper.—Pelham, Somerset, &c.

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

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

Alphonso the Wise, King of Castile (+ 1252). A pelican in its piety. Motto: “Pro lege et grege.”

William of Nassau, founder of the Republic of the United Provinces, one of the noblest characters of modern history. He bore on some of his[Pg 186] standards the pelican, and on others the motto: “Pro lege, grege et rege.”

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

Other mottoes for the pelican: