John Vinycomb
Fictitious & Symbolic Creatures in Art
The Scorpion
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 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
Other Chimerical Creatures and Heraldic Beasts
Unicorn salient.11
The Unicorn
“Yon lion placed two unicorns between
That rampant with a silver sword is seen
Is for the king of Scotland’s banner known.”
Ariosto (Hoole’s translation).
“The lion and the unicorn fighting for the crown.”
Old Nursery Rhyme.
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 rarely 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 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.
Mediæval Conception of the Unicorn
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 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 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.”
The Horn of the Unicorn
“The unicorn whose horn is worth a city.”
Decker, “Gull’s Hornbook.”
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.
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 of 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 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 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.
Pegasus or Pegasos.
The Pegasus
“The cheval volant—the pegasus—
He bounds from the earth; he treads the air.”
Coins of Corinth and Syracuse.
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 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 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.
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.
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.
Sagittary, Centaur, Sagittarius, Centaurus, Hippocentaur
“… the dreadful sagittary
Appals our numbers.”
“Troilus and Cressida,” Act v. sc. 5.
“Feasts that Thessalian centaurs never knew.”
Thomson, “Autumn.”
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 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, 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 with surprising rapidity, gave rise in the minds of the vulgar to the idea that the man and the horse were one being.
Ipotane, from Mandeville’s travels.
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 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 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, 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.