Chimera, froma Greek coin.
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.
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 ofFadaof 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 blazonedharpy.
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 theBretignifamily.
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 headsinstead 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 uponthe 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 lakesWith horrors armed, and curls of hissing snakes,Should fix me stiffened at the monstrous sight,A stony image in eternal night.”
And Shakespeare, inMacbeth, 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 sightWith 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.
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 frequentlynowed,i.e., knotted.
Sable, a cockatrice or, combed and wattled gules.—Bothe.
Sable, a cockatrice, displayed argent, crested, membered and jelloped gules.—Baggine.
Jelloped,jowlopped, terms used to describe the comb or crest, and gills or wattles, when of a different tincture from the body.Beakedandmembered, 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 tailScorpion and Asp and Amphisbœna dire.”Milton.
Amphisbœna, orAmphista, 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 Howehas for supporterstwo 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.
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 boarPlunging 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 hisuncle Humphry, the good Duke of Gloucester, says to Suffolk:
“come basiliskAnd 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 ofdeadly sinandthe 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?”
“Speaking of the names of the snake tribe in the great languages,” Ruskin says, “in Greek,Ophismeant the seeing creature, especially one that sees all round it; andDrakon, 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 theSnakemeant the crawling creature; andAdderdenoted 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 orvice 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 observableboth 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 theDaily Telegraphof 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 thebeautiful 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 snakenature. It possesses a surprising beauty and prodigious strength; but it is not venomous. Probably the more subtle and fearful apprehensions of men originated really from the smaller and deadlier kinds, and were then by superstition, poetry and heraldry extended to the larger. The little basilisk, crowned king of the vipers; the horned ‘cerastes dire,’ a few inches in length; the tiny aspic, fatal as lightning and as swift; and the fabled cockatrice, that a man might hold in his hand, first made the serpent legend terrible; their venom was afterwards transferred, and not unnaturally, to the larger species. It was the small minute worms, that carried in their fangs such rapid and ruthless death, which first struck fear into the minds of the ancients, and invested the snake with the mysterious and horrid attributes whereunto antiquity from China to Egypt hastened to pay honours.”
Cadmus and his wife Harmonia were by Zeus converted into serpents and removed to Elysium. Æsculapius, son of Apollo, god of medicine, assumed the form of a serpent when he appeared at Rome during a pestilence; therefore he is always represented with his staff entwined with a serpent, symbol of healing. Similarly represented was Hippocrates, a famous physician of Cos; who delivered Athens from a dreadful pestilence, in the beginning of the Peloponnesian War, and was publicly rewarded with a golden crown, and the privileges of a citizen. Therefore it is that the goddess of health bears in her hand a serpent.
The caduceus of Mercury was a rod adorned with wings, having a male and female serpent twisted about it, each kissing the other. With this in his hands, it was said, the herald of the Gods could give sleep to whomsoever he chose; wherefore Milton, in “Paradise Lost,” styles it “his opiate rod.”
“With his caduceus Hermes ledFrom the dark regions of the imprisoned dead;Or drove in silent shoals the lingering trainTo 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.
Greek Shield, from paintedvase in the British Museum.
The serpent monster Python, produced from the mud left on the earth after the deluge of Deucalion, lived in the caves of Mount Parnassus, but was slain by Apollo, who founded the Pythian games in commemoration of his victory. This and many similar solar myths are merely classic panegyrics on the conquering power exercised by the genial warmth of spring over the dark gloom of winter.
The serpent in Christian Art figures in Paradise as the tempter of Eve under that form, and is generally placed under the feet of the Virgin, in allusion to the promise made to Eve after the Fall: “The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent’s head.” The heart of the serpent being close to the head, renders a severe “bruise” there fatal. The serpent bruised the “heel” of man—i.e., being a cause of stumbling, it hurt the foot which tripped against it (Gen. iii. 15).
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 toadmit 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 ofThe Fall; Satan is called the great serpent (Rev. xii. 9); ofWisdom: “Be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves” (Matt. x. 16); ofSubtlety: “Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field” (Gen. iii. 1); ofEternity: 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 thefoot 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 ofBisseit occurs in the Roll of Edward III.’s time, ‘Monsire William Malbisd’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, theBisciaor serpent devouring a child, of the dukedom of Milanis 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 shieldThat 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 Latinanguis, and that these are only thearmes parlantesof their name.[9]Be this as it may, “Lo Squamoso Biscion”(the scaly snake) was adopted by all the Visconti lords, and by their successors of the House of Sforza.
“Sforza e Viscontei colubri.”Orlando Furioso, cant. xiii. 63.
And again in the same poem (cant. iii. 26. Hoole’s translation):
“Hugo appears with him, his valiant sonWho 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 representfossil 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 bySt. Hilda, an ancient Saxon princess. The legend is referred to by Sir Walter Scott in “Marmion”:
“How of a thousand snakes each oneWas changed into a coil of stoneWhile Holy Hilda prayed.”
It is, however, more than likely that the arms suggested the legend of the miracle.
The ancient myth of thedeaf adderseems 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 addersTo the voice of any true decision.”Troilus and Cressida, Act ii. sc. 2.“He flies me now—nor more attends my painThan 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 Latinobturo, to shut or stop, is a very ancient idea. It is said that the asp or adder, to prevent his hearing unwelcome truths, puts one ear to the ground and stops the other with his tail, a device suggested by Psalm lviii. 4,5: “They are like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear; which will not hearken to the voice of charmers, charming never so wisely.”
Alessandro d’Alessandri (+ 1523), a lawyer of Naples, of extensive learning, and a member of the Neapolitan Academy, took for device a serpent stopping its ears, and the motto, “Ut prudentia vivam” (“That I may live wisely”), implying that as the serpent by this means refuses to hear the voice of the charmer, so the wise man imitates the prudence of the reptile and refuses to listen to the words of malice and slander.
It is said that thecerasteshides 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 withflowers 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.
Nowedsignifies 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, ortargant(from the Latintorqueo, to wreathe), the bending and rebending, either in serpents, adders or fish, like the letter S.
A Serpent, nowed, proper.Crest of Cavendish.
Voluted,involvedorencircled, gliding, and several terms used in blazon explain themselves, aserect,erect wavy, &c.
In blazoning, the termssnake,serpent,adder, appear to be used indiscriminately.
A serpent nowed, proper, is the crest of Cavendish, Duke of Devonshire.
Gules, three snakes nowed in triangle argent(Ednowain Ap Bradwen, Merionethshire).
Or, three serpents erect wavy sable(Codlen, or Cudlen).
Remorais an old term in heraldry for a serpent entwining.
Amphiptère, or flying serpent.
Serpents are also borne entwined round pillars and rods, &c., and around the necks of children, as in the arms of Vaughan or Vahan Wales:Azure, three boys’ heads affronté, couped at the shoulders proper, crined or, each enveloped or enwrapped about the neck with a snake vert. Entwisted and entwined are sometimes used in the same sense.
The amphiptèreis 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 erectsable; 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]
Unicorn salient.[11]
The unicorn is represented by heraldic usage as having the head and body of a horse, with the tail of a lion, and the limbs and hoofs of a stag; a twisted horn grows out from the centre of its forehead. It is rarelymet 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, eithererased, orcouped, 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 unicornswere the supporters to the arms of that kingdom. On the legislative union with England, thered 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 chainaffixed 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 powreA proud rebellious unicorne defyes.”Faerie Queen, ii. 5.
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.
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 besteUne corne a en la têteCette 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. Sometimesthe body is that of an ass, sometimes that of a bull, sometimes that of a horse with the long twisted frontal horn for which he is noted. Is the myth derived from some mysterious single-horned antelope, as has been said, or is the one-horned rhinoceros the prototype of the legendary unicorn? As an emblem it figures on the obelisks of Nimroud and the catacombs of Rome. We read of this strange creature in Herodotus, and in Aristotle, who calls it the “wild ass”; Pliny calls it the “Indian ass,” describing it as like a horse with a horn fixed in the front of his head. Cæsar counts it among the fauna of the Hyrcinian Forest. The earliest author who describes it is Ctesias (B.C.400), who derives it from India. According to an Eastern legend the unicorn is found in Abyssinia. Lobo also describes it in his history of that country: there the animals are undisturbed by man, and live after their own laws. “Of the many ancient and famous men,” says a modern writer, “who have written about the unicorn, no two seem to agree except when they copy from one another.”
“Some writers” (says Guillim, p. 175) “have made doubt whether there be any such beast as this or no. But the great esteem of his horn (in many places to be seen) may take away that needless scruple.”
The hornof the unicorn was supposed to be the most powerful antidote against, as it was a sure test of, poisons. He was therefore invested by the other beasts of the forest with the office of “water-conner,” none daring to taste of fountain or pool until he had stirred the water with his horn, to discover whether any dragon or serpent had deposited his venom therein, and render it innocuous. So complete was the faith in the efficacy of the wonder-working horn as a test of poisons, that fabulous store was set upon the possession of even a portion. In old inventories the “Essai” of Unicorn’s horn is frequently mentioned.
1391. Un manche d’or d’un essai de licourne pour attoucher aux viandes de monsigneur le Dauphin.—“Comptes Royaux.”1408. Une pièce de licorne à pour faire essai, à ung bou. d’argent.—Inv. des ducs de Bourgogne.1536. Une touche de licorne, garni d’or, pour faire essai.—Inv. de Charles Quint.
1391. Un manche d’or d’un essai de licourne pour attoucher aux viandes de monsigneur le Dauphin.—“Comptes Royaux.”
1408. Une pièce de licorne à pour faire essai, à ung bou. d’argent.—Inv. des ducs de Bourgogne.
1536. Une touche de licorne, garni d’or, pour faire essai.—Inv. de Charles Quint.
An Italian author who visited England in the reign of Henry VII., speaking of the wealth of the religious houses in this country, says: “And I have been informed that, amongst other things, many ofthese 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” makesspecial 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 amingle-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 byHarling, Suffolk.
Another of the name bears the unicorncourant in chiefwith 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 horncaused 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.
Pegasus or Pegasos.