From: mfp+@CS.CMU.EDU (Michael Polis)
Newsgroups: alt.mythology,rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Re: Questions...
Date: 16 Dec 92 02:26:13 GMT
Article-I.D.: cs.BzByrr.4tr.2
Organization: Carnegie Mellon University

In article <1gebthINN6v5@agate.berkeley.edu>, c188-cr@po.berkeley.edu (Chua Hak Lien) writes:
|> In article <By31J2.9s6@watdragon.uwaterloo.ca> cpshelle@jeeves.uwaterloo.ca (cameron shelley) writes:
|> >t00022@TIGGER.STCLOUD.MSUS.EDU writes:
|> >> In times of famine, the pelican will tear strips of flesh off her own breast
|> >> to feed her young.  I don't remember if this is all a bunch of baloney or
|> >> if pelicans actually do this.
|> No they don't, of course. Anyway, some excerpts from T.H. White's translation
|> from a Latin Bestiary of the 12th Century. _The_Book_Of_Beasts_, Dover
|> Publications 1984. ISBN 0-486-24609-4.
|> "The Pelican is excessively devoted to its children. But when these have
|> been born and begin to grow up, they flap their parents in the face with their
|> wings, and the parents, striking them, kill them. Three days afterward the 
|> mother pierces her breast, opens her side, and lays herself across her
|> young, pouring out her blood over the dead bodies. This brings them to life
|> again." ( p 132 ).
|> An analogy is made with Christ, and how his side after being pierced,
|> came from it blood and water for "our salvation and eternal life." ( p. 133 ).

I have a book which is best described as a bestiary written for a modern
audience, which draws upon medieval and classical bestiaries. _The_Bestiary_
_of_Christ_, 467 pp., Arkana 1992. ISBN 0-14-019449-5
	"A very old legend says that sometimes the young pelicans are
hatched in such a feeble state as to be almost lifeless; or else the
parent bird on returning to the nest finds them killed by a snake; or it
may happen that the chicks are quite lively, but that they treat the
father bird shamefully, striking him in the face with their wings and
beaks, so that he, justly enraged, kills them on the spot.  But however
the young ones come to their death, after three days their father, seeing
them dead, is touched to the heart; he cries aloud with grief and bending
over their bodies he tears his breast with his beak so that his blood
pours over them.  Under this warm shower very soon the dead baby birds
begin to stir and come back to life..." (p. 258-9)


|> >
|> >There was an interesting bit of heraldry I saw once in Britian on the
|> >subject of beavers.  One coat of arms depicted a beaver biting off its
|> >testicles.  Apparently, someone had seen a beaver using its musk
|> >glands to oil its fur and came to the conclusion that beavers bite off
|> >their testicles in order to shake off other animals that pursue
|> >beavers to obtain these.  I would say this tells us less about beavers
|> >than their observers at the time...
|> 
|> "There is an animal called CASTOR, the Beaver, none more gentle, and
|> his testicles make a capital medicine. For this reason, so Physiologus
|> says, when he notices that he is being pursued by the hunter, he removes
|> his own testicles with a bite, and casts them before the sportsman, and
|> thus escapes by flight. What is more, if he should again happen to be chased
|> by a second hunter, he lifts himself up and shows his members to him. And
|> the altter, when he perceives the testicles to be missing, leaves the
|> beaver alone." ( p 29 ).
|> 
|> Another religious analogy is made here. Testicles represent "vices", and
|> the Devil here is the hunter. Cutting off the testicles represents 
|> cutting off all vices and "all motions of lewdness", into "the Devil's
|> face", thus confusing the Devil.

I can't find anything in my book about the beaver.

|> Very interesting book. Lots of reference to other animals and the
|> beliefs surronding them as well. Highly reccomended to anyone interested in
|> folklore, or Middle Ages role-players... =)

I can make the same recommendation for my book.  "Mundane" animals no
longer have to be.  The hyena, for example, supposedly had knowledge
of magical arts and the ability the affect peoples minds in order to
draw them to itself.  One thing which strikes me as particularly
interesting for role playing is dragon's blood:
	"Ceaselessly attacked by 'evil dragons,' the 'good dragons,'
it was said, were often overcome by the terrible teeth and claws of
their adversaries; but then their blood, fallng on the hot desert sand
or the burning rocks of the mountains, took on a resinous appearance,
dark crimson in color, and became one of the most precious remedies
known to man: _dragon's-blood_, which healed the most frightful wounds
suffered by knights in combat, and the bites of wild animals, as
effective as dittany [an herbal remedy] and better than any other
medication." (p. 411)