Mythical Monsters

Lucan, Pharsalia, Book ix. 726-32.

203

Book xvi. chap. x.

204

Book xv. chap. v.; A.D. 355.

205

Lord Lytton, King Arthur, Book i. Stanza 4.

206

Chamber’s Cyclopædia, 1881.

207

J. Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, vol. ii. p. 653.

208

A dragon without wings is called a lintworm or lindworm, which Grimm explains to mean a beautiful or shining worm (here again we have a corroboration of the idea of the gold and silver dragon given ante.)

209

Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable.

210

Rev. Dr. Brewer, Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, London.

211

The Harleian Collection of Travels, vol. ii. p. 457. 1745.

212

The italics are mine.

213

Churchill, Collection of Voyages, vol. v. p. 213; London, 1746.

214

Ulyssis Aldrovandi Serpentum et Draconum Historiæ; Bononiæ, 1640.

215

Scaliger, lib. iii. Miscell. cap. i. See ante, p. 182, “Winged Serpents.”

216

De Naturâ Rerum, lib. vii., cap. 29.

217

Athanasii Kircheri Mundus Subterraneus, Book viii. 27.

218

Probably many of my readers are acquainted with Schiller’s poem based on this story, and with the beautiful designs by Retsch illustrating it.

219

Harris, Collection of Voyages, vol. i. p. 474; London, 1764.

220

De Moribus Brachmanorum, p. 63. Strabo, lib. 16, p. 75. Bochart Hieroz, p. 11, lib. 3, cap. 13.

221

Ælian, De Animal., lib. xv. cap. 21.

222

Strabo, lib. xvi.

223

Gosse tells us that it is still a common belief in Jamaica that crested snakes exist there which crow like a cock.

224

Strabo, lib. xvi.

225

Jonston, Theatr. Animal., tome ii. p. 34, “De Serpentibus.” Note. – It is interesting to record that in China, to the present day, the tradition of the gold and silver scaled species of dragons remains alive. Two magnificent dragons, 200 feet and 150 feet long, representing respectively the gold and silver dragon, formed part of the processions in Hongkong in December 1881, in honour of the young princes.

226

Strabo, lib. xvi.

227

In China the dragon is peculiarly the emblem of imperial power, as with us the lion is of the kingly. The Emperor is said to be seated on the dragon throne. A five-clawed dragon is embroidered on the Emperor’s court-robes. It often surrounds his edicts, and the title-pages of books published by his authority, and dragons are inscribed on his banners. It is drawn stretched out at full length or curled up with two legs pointing forwards and two backwards; sometimes holding a pearl in one hand, and surrounded by clouds and fire.

228

The Yih King– extracts from papers by Monsieur De la Couperie, in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society.

“The Yih King is the oldest of the Chinese books, and is the mysterious classic which requires ‘a prolonged attention to make it reveal its secrets’; it has peculiarities of style, making it the most difficult of all the Chinese classics to present in an intelligible version.”

“We have multifarious proofs that the writing, first known in China, was already an old one, partially decayed, but also much improved since its primitive hieroglyphic stage. We have convincing proofs (vide my ‘Early History of Chinese Civilization,’ pp. 21-23, and the last section of the present paper) that it had been borrowed, by the early leaders of the Chinese Bak families [Poh Sing] in Western Asia, from an horizontal writing traced from left to right, the pre-cuneiform character, which previously had itself undergone several important modifications.

“At that time the Ku-wen was really the phonetic expression of speech. (By an analysis of the old inscriptions and fragments, and by the help of the native works on palæography, some most valuable, I have compiled a dictionary of this period.)

“If the kwas, which were a survival of the arrows of divination known to the ancestors of Chinese culture before their emigration eastward,” &c. &c. – Vol. xiv. part 4.

“This mysterious book is still avowedly not understood, and we assist, now-a-days, at a most curious spectacle. There are not a few Chinese of education among those who have picked up some knowledge in Europe or in translations of European works of our modern sciences, who believe openly that all these may be found in their Yih. Electricity, steam power, astronomical laws, sphericity of the earth, &c., are all, according to their views, to be found in the Yih King; they firmly believe that these discoveries were not ignored by their sages, who have embodied them in their mysterious classics, of which they will be able to unveil the secrets when they themselves apply to its study a thorough knowledge of the modern sciences. It is unnecessary for any European mind to insist upon the childishness of such an opinion. Even in admitting, what seems probable, that the early leaders of the Bak people (Poh Sing) were not without some astronomical and mathematical principles, which have been long since forgotten, there is no possible comparison between their rude notions and our sciences.

“It is not a mysterious book of fate and prognostics. It contains a valuable collection of documents of old antiquity, in which is embodied much information on the ethnography, customs, language, and writing of early China.

“Proofs of various kinds – similitude of institutions, traditions and knowledge, affinities of words of culture; and, in what concerns the writing, likenesses of shapes of characters, hieroglyphic and arbitrary, with the same sounds (sometimes polyphons) and meanings attached to them, the same morphology of written words, the same phonetic laws of orthography – had led me, several years ago, to no other conclusion than that (as the reverse is proved impossible by numerous reasons), at an early period of their history, and before their emigration to the far East, the Chinese Bak families had borrowed the pre-cuneiform writing and elements of their knowledge and institutions from a region connected with the old focus of culture of south-western Asia.

“Numerous affinities of traditions, institutions, and customs, connect the borrowing of script and culture by the Chinese Bak families with the region of Elam, the confederation of states of which Susa was the chief town, and the Kussi the principal population.

“What are the historical facts of this connection we do not know. Has the break-up which happened in those states and resulted in the conquest of Babylonia by the Elamite king, Kudur Nakhunta, at the date, which is certain, of 2285 B.C., been also the cause of an eastern conquest and a settlement in Bactria? and would this account for the old focus of culture coeval with the earlier period of Assyrian monarchy said to have existed in Central Asia?

“The two ethnic names, which, as we have pointed out, were those of the Chinese invaders, Bak and Kutti or Kutta, are not altogether foreign to those regions. The Chinese Kutti and the Kussi, the Chinese Bak and Bakh, the ethnic of Bakhdi (Bactria), will be, most likely, one day proved to be the same ethnic names. Had not the Chinese, previous to my researches, and quite on different reasons, been traced back westerly to the regions of Yarkand and Khotan? This is not far distant from the old focus of culture of Central Asia, and the connection cannot be objected to by geographical reasons.” – Vol. xv. part 2.

229

Dr. Williams, Hien-ning.

230

Williams, Shi-Wéi.

231

Williams, Liu-Léi.

232

Williams, Shu King.

233

Williams, Yih and Ts‘ih.

234

I am under the impression that the dragons to which Mencius refers were probably alligators, of which one small species still exists, though rare, in the Yang-tsze-kiang. So also we may regard as alligators the dragons referred to above in the annals of the Bamboo Books on the passage of the Kiang by Yu. Mr. Griffis, in his work on Corea, says, “The creature called a-ke, or alligator, capable of devouring a man, is sometimes found in the largest rivers.”

235

For a full account of this work, see an Article by E. C. Bridgman in Chinese Repository, xviii. (1849), p. 169; and Botanicon Sinicum, by Dr. E. Bretschneider, in the Journal of the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, New Series, vol. xvi. 1881.

236

Notes on Chinese Literature, A. Wylie, Shanghai and London, 1867.

237

“Bot. Sin.” in Journal of N. China Branch R. A. S., 1881.

238

Journal Asiatique, Extr. No. 17 (1839).

239

The three prefaces by these authors are given in extenso in the Appendix to this Chapter.

240

The reader is referred, for a careful précis of the contents of this valuable work, to an exhaustive paper entitled “Botanicon Sinicum,” in the Journal of North China Branch Royal Asiatic Society, 1881, by E. Bretschneider, M.D.

241

The character for a hare is very like the character for a devil. The Japanese, in quoting this passage, have fallen into this error.

242

The dragons’ bones sold by apothecaries in China consist of the fossilized teeth and bones of a variety of species, generally in a fragmentary condition. The white earth striæ, or dragons’ brains, here referred to, are probably asbestos. The asbestos sold in Chefoo market, under the name of Lung Ku or dragons’ bones, is procured at O-tzu-kung.

243

The boletus, supposed to possess mystic efficacy.

244

The first two stories are from the Ko Ku Shi Riyăh, a recent history of Japan, from the earliest periods down to the present time, by Matsunai, with a continuation by a later author. They are contained in the first chapter of the first volume. The third is given as an ordinary item of news in the journal called the Chin-jei-Nippo, April 30th, 1884.

245

The idea of the eight heads probably originated in China; thus, in the caves in Shantung, near Chi-ning Chou, among carvings of mythological figures and divinities, dating from A.D. 147, we find a tiger’s body with eight heads, all human.

246

Mourakoumo means “clouds of clouds”; ama means “heaven”; tsurogi means “sword.”

247

White snakes are occasionally, although rarely, seen in Japan. They are supposed to be messengers from the gods, and are never killed by the people, but always taken and carried to some temple. The white snake is worshipped in Nagasaki at a temple called Miyo-ken, at Nishi-yama, which is the northern part of the city of Nagasaki.

248

Mémoires sur les Contrées occidentales, traduits du Sanscrit en Chinois en l’an 648; et du Chinois en Francais, par M. Stanislas Julien. 2 vols., Paris, 1857.

249

Foĕ Kouĕ Ki, ou Relation des Royaumes Bouddhiques, par Chĕ Fa Hien. Translated from the Chinese by M. Abel Remusat; Paris, 1836. This volume contains a number of very interesting dragon legends, and quaint conceits about them; but I find nothing in it to supplement my materialistic argument.

250

Montaigne, Essays, chap. xxvi.

251

“I fully believe in this great marine monster. I have as much evidence as to its existence as of anything not seen. Some years ago, Captain Austin Cooper and the officers and crew of the Carlisle Castle, on a voyage to Melbourne, saw the ‘varmint.’ A description and sketch of it were published in the Argus. This, when it arrived in London, it being the ‘silly season’ in journalism, was seized and torn to pieces by one of the young lions of the Daily Telegraph, in a leading article, in which much fun was poked at the gallant sailor. ‘I don’t see any more sea-serpents,’ said my Irish friend to me. ‘It is too much to be told that one of Green’s commanders can’t tell the difference between a piece of sea-weed and a live body in the water. If twenty serpents come on the starboard, all hands shall be ordered to look to port. No London penny-a-liner shall say again that Austin Cooper is a liar and a fool.’ After this we softened down over some Coleraine whiskey. Again, some three years ago, the monster was plainly seen off the great reef of New Caledonia by Commandant Villeneuve, and the officers of the French man-of-war, the Seudre. Chassepots were procured to shoot it, but before it came within easy range it disappeared. During my late visit to Fiji, Major James Harding, who was an officer in Cakoban’s army when that chief, ‘by the grace of God’ was king of Fiji, described exactly the same creature as passing within a few yards of his canoe on a clear moonlight night in the Bay of Suva. It swam towards a small island outside the reef, which is known amongst Fijians as the ‘Cave of the Big Snake.’ Major Harding is a cool, brave soldier, who saw much hot work with Cakoban’s men against the hill tribes of Vonua Levu. He was once riddled by bullets, and left for dead. Accustomed for years to travel about the reefs in canoes, every phase of the aspect of the waters was known to him, and he was not likely to be frightened with false fire. The extraordinary thing is, that the English sailor, the French commander, and the Fijian soldier, all gave the same account of this monster. It is something with a head slightly raised out of the water, and with a sort of mane streaming behind it, whilst the back of a long body is seen underneath the water. So, from these instances, in which I know the witnesses, I fully believe in the sea-serpent. What is there very wonderful in it, after all? The whale is the largest living thing. Why shouldn’t the waters produce snakes of gigantic size.” The Vagabond, in Supplement to the Australasian, September 10, 1881.

252

Contained in Eden’s Travels.

253

Connected with the breathing apparatus?

254

Pinkerton, Voyages and Travels, vol. i. p. 376.

255

A. de Brooke, Travels to the North Cape.

256

1 ell = 2 feet.

257

Transactions of the Wernerian Society, vol. i. p. 442.

258

No. 92, May 1873; London, Van Voorst.

259

Shetland Islands, p. 565.

260

Jardine’s Naturalist’s Library, vol. xxv.

261

How this reminds one of the Chinese dragon.

262

Within a few days of writing these lines I made one of a party of four to visit the waterfalls of Taki-kwannon, near Nagasaki. I asked for estimates of the height of the fall, which was variously guessed, by different members of the party, at from forty-three to one hundred and fifty feet.

263

Folklore of China, p. 113.

264

Vide Verhandelingen van Het Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kunsten en Weten Schappen, Deel xxxix., 1ere Stuk., Batavia, 1877.

265

About 1⅓ lb. avoirdupois.

266

Contributions to Materia Medica and Natural History of China, by F. P. Smith, M.B., London; Shanghai and London, 1871.

I give, in the appendix to this chapter, some accounts of a reputed monster, the Shan, the description of which by Chinese authors, although vague, appears to me to point to the sea-serpent. I only insert a portion of the latter part of the legends regarding it which I find in my authority, as they are perfectly valueless. The sample given may, however, be interesting as an example of how the Taouists compiled their absurd miraculous stories.

267

For sea-serpent read octopus.

268

I must also add, on the information of Mr. H. C. Syers, of Selangor, that Captain Douglas, late Resident of Perak, had a large sea-serpent rise close to him, somewhere off Perak, when in a boat manned by Malays. Mr. Syers had the account both from Captain Douglas and from the crew; and he tells me that there is a universal belief in the existence of some large sea-monster among the Malays of the western coast of the Peninsula.

269

This is one of the fleet of the important Japanese Mitsu Bish Company, the equivalent of the P. and O. Company in Japan.

270

Pop. Sci. Monthly, No. 56, December 1876, p. 234.

271

It must be remembered that it is with a blow of its powerful tail that the alligator stuns its prey and knocks it into the water (when any stray animal approaches the bank), and it is with the tail that the dragon, in the fable related by Ælian, chastises, although gently, its mistress, and constricts, according to Pliny, the elephant in its folds.

272

Nineteenth Century, March 1877, p. 20. Article on “Authority in Matters of Opinion,” by G. Cornewall Lewis. Reviewed by W. E. Gladstone.

273

From the Daheim, No. 17, Supplement. January 27th, 1883. Leipzig.

274

41° Fahrenheit.

275

A Collection of Voyages, in 4 volumes. J. J. Knapton, London, 1729.

276

A Voyage to the East Indies, by Francis Leguat. London, 1708.

277

I find the following note in Maclean’s Guide to Bombay, for 1883: “Since the first edition of this Gazette was published, Captain Dundas, of the P. and O. Company’s steamer Cathay, has informed me that the statements of old travellers regarding these serpents are quite accurate. The serpents are not seen excepting during the south-west monsoon the season in which alone voyages used to be made to India. In Horsburgh’s Sailing Directions, shipmasters are warned to look out for the serpents, whose presence is a sign that the ship is close to land. Captain Dundas says that the serpents are yellow or copper-coloured. The largest ones are farthest out to sea. They lie on the surface of the water, and appear too lazy even to get out of a steamer’s way.”

278

The Romance of Natural History, P. H. Gosse, F.R.S., First Series, London, 1880, 12th edition; Second Series, 1875, 5th edition.

279

“At length, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, they were thrown open for examination by the desire which then existed in Germany to possess the ebur fossile, or ‘unicorn’s horn,’ a supposed infallible specific for the cure of many diseases. The unicorn horn was to be found in the caves, and the search for it revealed the remains of lions, hyænas, elephants, and many other tropical and strange animals.” Pop. Sci. Monthly, No. 32.

280

Book iv. ch. cxci. and cxcii.

281

Book ii. ch. ii. § 8.

282

Book viii. ch. xxxii.

283

Book xi. ch. cvi.

284

Ibid.

285

Ælian, De Naturâ Animalium, Book xvi. ch. xx.

286

De Bello Gallico, ch. ii. p. 26.

287

Vide Charton’s Voyageurs du Moyen Ages, vol. ii. p. 25.

288

Harris’ Voyages, vol. i. p. 362; “Africa,” by John Leo.

289

Pinkerton’s Voyages, vol. i. p. 392; “Ethiopia,” by Jobus Ludolphus.

290

The Navigation and Voyage of Lewes Vertomannus, of Rome, into Arabia, Egypt, &c., in 1503, contained in “The History of Travayle in the East and West Indies,” done into English by Richard Eden. London, 1577.

291

Berynto, a city on the seacoast of Syria, Phœnicia.

292

Sining is on the western frontier of Kansuh, towards Kokonor.

293

Pinkerton’s Voyages, vol. xv. p. 23.

294

Pinkerton’s Voyages, vol. vii. p. 333.

295

Travels in Tartary, Thibet, and China. Huc and Gabet. Translated by W. Hazlitt, vol. ii. p. 245.

296

Gosse, Romance of Natural History.

297

Prejevalski’s Mongolia, vol. ii. p. 207; London, 1876.

298

See ’Rh Ya and Yuen Keen Luy Han, vol. ccccxxix. p. 1.

299

This height will have to be reduced in accordance with the difference between the magnitude of old and new standards of measurement.

300

A poet, native of Hang Cheu.

301

Vide the translation into French by L. Serrurier, Leyden, 1875.

302

“The Chinese have a tradition that this animal skips, and is so holy or harmless that it won’t even tread upon an insect, and that it is to come in the shape of an incomparable man, a revealer of mysteries, supernatural and divine, and a great lover of all mankind, who is expected to come, about the time of a particular constellation in the heavens, on a special mission for their benefit. The Japanese unicorn answers the description of the animal bearing that name, and supposed to be still extant in Ethiopia, and which is equal to the size of a small horse, reddish in colour, and slender as a gazelle, the male having one horn. The unicorn is the ancient crest of the kings of Israel, and is still retained by the Mikado.” Epitome of the Ancient History of Japan, p. 116; N. McLeod, Nagasaki, 1875.

303

Vol. ccccxxx. p. 18.

304

Vol. ccccxxxii. p. 38.

305

This will have to be reduced by nearly one-half, to equate it with the present measures of length.

306

San Li T’u, vol. viii. p. 3. The San Li T’u is an illustrated, modern, edition by Nieh Tsung I. of the old San Li; it was written during the reign of the great patron of literature, Kang Hi (A.D. 1661 to 1723).

307

Vol. vii. No. 1, p. 72.

308

Harris, Game and Wild Animals of Southern Africa. The Oryx Capensis – The Gemsbock.

“The figure of the renowned unicorn can be traced in all the ancient ear-rings, coins, and Latin heraldic insignia, to some one of the members of the oryxine family; of all the whimsies of antiquity, whether emanating from the unbridled and fertile fancies of the people of Egypt and Persia, or devised by the more chaste and classic taste which distinguished Greece and Rome, the unicorn – unquestionably the most celebrated – is the chimera which has in modern ages engrossed the largest portion of attention from the curious.

“The rhinoceros is supposed to be the animal so often alluded to in Scripture under the name of reem or unicorn, yet the combination presented in the oryx of the antelopine and equine characters, the horns and cloven hoof of the one, blended with the erect mane, general contour and long switch tail of the other, corresponds in all essential particulars with the extant delineations and descriptions of the heraldic unicorn, which is universally represented to have been possessed of a straight slender horn, ringed at the base, and to have the hoof divided; to have worn a mane reversed, a black flowing tail, and a turkey-like tuft on the larynx, whilst both the size and ground colour were said to be those of the ass, with the addition of sundry black markings, imparting to the face and forehead a piebald appearance.