The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-09-20
TABLED MONSTERS.
Wondefful Stories 4Old OF Serpenes with
Legs and Lions with snake Tails.


Legs and Lions with Snake Tails.
New York star.
AT what period fancy began its work in zoot-
oGy Is q question which is disereetly avoided or
acknowledged a puzzle by those writer's who
have diligently delyed through the records Of
All people for traces of fabulous denizens of the
earth, the sea and the air. That fascinating
terror, OF the nursery, the fiery dragon, it Is
agreed rs probably the degenerated offspring Of
the awful iehthyosauri and ptesiosauri Of pre-
historic ages. Chiseled on the earliest stone
monuments of Egypt and Assyria and India
exact representations are found of the dragon
which ST. George ovefcatne in a mighty battle.
and which the annals of Winchester say existed
in England in such numbers in Iii as to be a
great danger and scourge.
Diod0rus saw one which was sixty feet long.
brought to Alexandria by a slave to please
Ptolemy II. st, MichaeIs dragon, the monkish
Chronicle says, was much larger than this.
Marco folo says he saw a roc whose out
stretched wings measured sixteen PAGES from
UP TO tip. Not to be outdone by the latter. that
adventurous Englishman, Sir John MandeviIle,
relates that he behelde one in the Chinese seas
which was, beside Polos, like a hawk TO a spar
row. FL Wardee, the Persian, writes that upon
an island. in an unnamed sea, there was in his
time q roc's egg 100 eubits high-a firm, white,
gllstenlng dome, big enough to serve as shelter
for an army. An island in the Chinese sea was
marked out as the home of these great birds.
OF all tabled birds the most interesting was
the phoenix. This is a beautiful legend, a yearn
ing, It has been eloquently said, for a visible
sign OF immortality. st Cyril wrote. 'God
knows mans unbelief, and provides the phoenix
as an emblem of the resurrection Clement
said TINS bird goes to the land of Egypt once in
800 years, not to the desert. but to a notable
city, to show forth the resurrection, that as the
Lord was killed and rose again, so the phoenix
immolates itself in a FIRE Of hemlock bouehs. and
from its ashes comes a worm, which straight
way grows into the bird of golden plumage with
q purple body. The polished literature Of the
Latlns from Its birth until it's immersion in the
fogs OF the Dark Ages, CLOVIS with the descrip-
ton OF the phoenix as a reality. Pliny knew the
bird we'll. The populaee believed in it The
grave Manlius rose in the Senate to mourn the
departure of a phoenix which had resided near
his house for 500 years. Among other flying
creatures which existed IN the popular belief Of
the Latins were the flying pig. an enormous hog
with an appetite that ravaged the growing crops
OF Glazomense; and the griffin. a lion with an
eagles head and wings. Sir John Vaudeville
saw a griffin fly into a field, and carry off q yoke
of oxen. The Romans firmly believed in the
satyr. Pliny said they lived IN India; Albertius
Magnus, that they inhabited tho woods of Sax
ony; another writer, that their home was in The
Atlas mountains, and another, that they were to
be found in what is now Little Russia. There is
no record that a satyr was ever seen alive. Al
bertius Magnus, however, wrote that he once
saw a satyr picked in brine at Alexandria,
where the Ptolemys reigned, and collected such
curiosities.
Imagination has sonnded the mysterious
depths OF the ocean and brought up the terrible
kraken or kraxen. There are thousands of Nor
wegian fishermen, it is said, to whom this mon
ster is no fable. They can tell its presence by
the water rising when it rises to the surface in
warm weather. Bishop Pontippidan's kraken
measured a mile and a nalf across its back, and
its arms were as long as the mast of a man-of-
WAL. Though the fear its has inspired has ex-
aggerated its size, there is good reason to believe
that the kraken, which is doubtless the great
cutie fish, grows to an enormous size.
In the age Of the Crusaders, jewellers on the
coast of the Mediterranean believed in the ziti-
rom, a fish with its head and breast clad in steel
afrnor. The Arabians had the zedrusus, a fish
so big that its bones were sawed into planks.
h pretty fable Of the mermaid and
the siren is slow in dying. Less than fifty years
ago the people Of the country for miles around
swarmed at a little seaport, in the south Of Eng
land, at a rumor that a mermaid had been seen
sitting on aToek, combing its luxurfant locks in
the moonlight. The sea satyr and the triton
were familiar beliefs with the a~neients. About
200 years ago one of the latter was alleged to
have been captured off the cost of Portugal in
the very act Of blowing his eonch. Barnacle
geese was a curious and strong belief in the mid
die ages. Sir John Vaudeville did not omit TO
state that he had seen The diminutive goslings
dropped from the shell Of The mussei. Within
a comparatively short period a letter appeared
ID an English newspaper relating how a barna-
Gle goose, grown to a great size, had swallowed
afullrigged ship and all on board, save the
writer.