The Democratic press. [volume] (Ravenna, O. [Ohio]) 1868-1901, 1884-06-26
MYTHICAL BEASTS.
Some New and Some Old, Yet Inter-
esting Withal.

esting W1thal.
The old authors, poets and orators,
even the divine bard Shakespeare, peo-
pied the earth, sea and air with all
sorts of monsters and bugaboos. There
were then many worlds for science to
conquer, and when the Marco Polos,
Captain Magellans and Lord Monbod-
dos. and people who had been far coun-
tries for to see, came back with yarns
of incredibly fierce and ferocious mon
sters, why, the stay-at-homes had moth
ing to do but believe. There are no
more Abyssinians for ingenious DIR.
johnson to improvise happy valleys
out OF. and to people with Rasselases
and other happy mortals. India and
the Perus are explored, the Amazon is
no longer mystery, we know where
the Nile rises. and nearly all the earth
has yielded up its mysteries to science
and man, excepting of course Symmes'
Hole and the impenetrable North Pole.
The ignorance of our early writer's up
on subjects of natural history seems at
this day astonishing, yet cannot fail to
be amusing! The sea especially was
peopled with queer monsters. There
was the kraken, whom Pontoppeden,
in his Natural History of Norway, de-
scribes at length. 1t was not SER
pent; in fact, had not an elongated
body. but was round, like an island.
The NOrweg ian fishermen had frequent
ly seen it, and many were the tales
they told of its presence in warm seas.
They knew of its presence by the
shadow of the water from one hundred
fathoms to twenty. His back was
mile and half long and his arms as
big as the masts of ships.
The dragon was another monster
that our fOrefathers placed implicit
faith in the existence of. Some early
poet gives this description of him:
He is as black as any coal,
Rugged as a rough foal;
His neck is great as any Sommese (Sumpter
borse),
He runneth swift as any destrese.
Paws he hath as Il lion;
All that he toucheth he sayeth dead down.
Great wings he hath to flight:
There Is no man to bear him might.
Sir Bevis of Hampton, st. Michael,
st. George and other knights and saints
all killed dragons In the age of
Queen Elizabeth the monster was fifty
glittering scales bright as silver, but
tougher than brass. except just under
the wing, where, according to Percy
Reliques. St. George sent his good
sword Ascalon clear up to the hilt.
Livy speaks of one that stopped the
progress of the whole Roman army,
and Diodorus tells of ono captured in
Africa that was sixty feet long.
The hydra was another terrible SER
pent that Hercules killed, which had
seven, or nine or fifty heads, ac-
cording to the pleasure of the poet;
and when one was cut off another
sprouted. like the star-fish's legs,
though Hudibras disputes this point.
This truth is maintained by philosophers still,
That the hair grows again, but the head
never will.
The hydra is supposed to have been
a brother of the chimera.
There are two animals mentioned bp
Shakespeare. The first is often repre-
sented in heraldic designs. 1t is fly
Ing serpent, the forepart as dragon
with wings, and the latter part as
snake, but differing from dragon in
only having two legs. The cockatrice,
or basilisk, was sort of missing link
between birds and reptiles. The
Scotch claimed he came from an egg,
laid by q cock, after he was years
old. Pliny describes it under the name
of basilisk, and claims that its very
odor is death to man and animals.
Serpents fly from it, and the mortal
whom it looked upon died.
First came the great roc, whom one
reads of in the adventures of ''Sinbad
the Sailor" Marco Polo heard of him
in Madagascar, and declares that it
was like the eagle, measuring sixteen
PAGES from wing to wing. But the
Persian authorities give the widest ac-
count. They represent him as carry
ing an elephant in his beak and one in
each of his claws. The Christian faith
ers believed in the existence of the
phoenix rs typical of the resurrection,
! and the Roman Senator Nautilus told
the Romans he had lived 500 years,
and built nest of cinnamon and in
ccnse, then died. Out of his bones
came worm which performed funeral
rites for its parent by placing the nest
on an altar of the City of the Sun in
Egypt.
There are hosts of other mythical
animals, the centaurs. griilins, satyrs,
harpies, cerberus and unicorn, to say
nothing of were-wolves and the horrid
monsters that Aldromandus described.