OLD CANARDS

A lot of folklore comes from books of marvels. Even those who did not read them in childhood have often heard their 'marvels', sometimes presented as fact sometimes as myth. They are engraved on our brains. Whether we believe them or not does not matter. Do we believe old canards like the elephant being afraid of a mouse and the ostrich swallowing alarm clocks? Or do we mention them tongue in cheek? I think a little of both. Other canards are tongue-in-cheek or outright myths: e.g., those about the basilisk, the phoenix, and the griffin, for instance.

Most of us have not the foggiest notion how old these canards are. To most of us, everything originated yesterday. However, they come to us from ancient times, often garbled. A book that can date them for us has a title that is a mouth full: PSEUDODOXIA EPIDEMICA or Enquiries into very Many Received Tenets and Commonly Presumed Truths, which Examined Prove but Vulgar and Common Errors. It was written by the 17th Century physician and savant, Sir Thomas Browne. The colophon says originally published 1646, but the main text is the last, 6th edition, of 1672. However, the editors do compare 1646 edition and it.

This book, which talks about marvels, is itself something of an marvel. A whole cast of characters flits in and out of it, besides the ostensible author. Something puzzling to the modern reader who expects his books better organized, but an antiquarian's delight. The edition I read reprinted an 1835 edition. It was edited by a Simon Wilkins, F.L.S. In addition, it contains footnotes by an E.W. Brayley, who added the science of 1835. Brayley tires of commenting after a while and his footnotes stop near the end of the second volume and we hear no more from him. Also, the book contains footnotes by Sir Christopher Wren, not the architect but his father, Dean of Winsor and a contemporary of Browne's. Scholars found his comments scrawled in his edition and, despite misgivings about them, added them to the printed version of this one. Furthermore, it contains footnotes of text from the Arcana Microcosmi (1652) by Alexander Ross, a proto-romantic and defender of old legends. His book rebutted Browne's. Thus, we have four people constantly commenting about Browne's book . Mr. Wilkins, the editor, did not stop there either. The book contains long quotes from many other articles and books he had read.

Browne wrote his book to debunk the old books of marvels, and their canards. However, a modern can use it for another purpose. He or she can tell where these marvels came from since, unlike modern authors, Browne cites past scholarship copiously. And he or she can be astonished at how old our canards are.

One canard Browne discusses is that the ostrich eats iron. I always thought this was a modern myth because cartoonists, maybe forty, fifty, sixty years ago always used to draw them eating alarm clocks. However, in the 17th Century and before, artists portrayed them as eating horse shoes. Browne denies that the ostrich eats iron for nutriment but claims instead it uses small bits of it for his crop, to help grind down food. At least this is what other birds do. Also he argues from authority. He quotes Aristotle as doubting the ostrich eats iron. On the other hand, the editor quotes a well-known naturalist of the 19th Century, Cuvier, that the ostrich eats indiscriminately. I have also seen the same thing asserted in the 20th Century, and that some of what it eats can kill it. However, the encyclopedias I consulted doubted the ostrich's diet was different from any other birds. They agree with Browne that it might take bits of iron for its crop but that is it.

A second canard is that we Jewish people stink. This, of course, has not been quoted by books of marvels in this country for a long while. However, we remember it as the legacy of Nazism. I thought it had its origin in modern racial anti-Semitism and was no older than the 19th Century. Apparently not. Apparently it was alive and well in 17th Century England, and even then a canard. Browne denies we Jewish people do stink, pointing out we are a mixed race because of our dispersion so there cannot be racial reasons . Also, he claims the Jewish dietary laws prevent us from stinking. He likens this canard to the belief that Kentish men have tails because of the shabby way their ancestors treated St. Augustine. On the other hand, Browne is willing to admit that our fasting could produce momentary bad breath. A fact known to the ancients. Of course, Browne is not actually philo-Semitic. These views come about, he says, because we Jewish people tend toward a sedentary way of life and are too 'parsimonious' (apparently meaning something about our business ethics). He quotes late ancient Greeks and Romans to that effect, like Ammianus Marcellinus and Martial.

Sir Christopher Wren opts for us stinking. He points to a Mr. Fullham who met some Italian Jews at a meeting and claimed they reeked of garlic and onions. Moderns immediately attribute this to the fact they were Italian. Another form of prejudice, I guess.

A third canard is that the salamander lives in fire. I seem to remember reading some modern books of marvels debunking it. I immediately identified this belief as Medieval. Browne shows it was also believed by some of the ancients -- and doubted by others. We can reject his assertion the belief is presented in the Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. They were not deciphered until the 19th Century. But we can believe that Aristotle seems to embrace the idea, and Pliny does so very plainly. On the other hand, Sextius and Dioscorides dismiss it. As does Galen, who believes a salamander could endure for a while but would ultimately be consumed by flames. Browne agrees with Galen that the salamander, like any moist body, can endure a flame awhile and would even extinguish a small one. But a large fire would consume it. He points out that Galen recommended ashes of salamander as a medicine. And that magicians have waited in vain for salamanders to help them with fires. While a substance is named after salamanders, which people made napkins out of, it does not come from the salamander. It is mined in Tartary, in the former Soviet Union, and Cyprus. I have imagined he is referring to asbestos . However, asbestos was not named after the salamander; my dictionary claims it is Greek for "unquenchable." Greek for salamander is salamandra.

A fourth canard is that we must salute someone upon their sneezing. People do not seem to be as fastidious about it as they once were. And the word "gesundheit" is heard less and less. But it is still heard. Was it ever a belief in modern times, or was it always a reflex action? No matter, it is one of those practices that persists from ancient times and cannot be destroyed. Browne denies that the practice started a thousand years before, during the time of Pope Gregory the Great. A plague was supposed to have occurred where those who sneezed died. This had been the most often quoted origin. He finds the custom is older than that: the Ancient Romans saluted upon sneezing. He quotes Apuleius of Madaura, Pliny the Elder, and Petronius Arbiter to that effect. The Emperor Tiberius was supposedly particularly fastidious about it. This is getting us close to the beginning of the Christian era. Also, Browne quotes Rabbinical tradition to the effect that sneezing was a mortal sign until Jacob invented a salutation for it. Of course, Rabbinical tradition was first written down around the beginning of the Christian era too.

Browne tries to trace it back further. He cites a Coelius Rhodignus that the belief was extant at the time of Cyrus several hundred years before. When a soldier sneezed, his comrades called upon Jupiter Soter to avoid bad luck. I do not know how Rhodignus, being one of the many 15th and 16th Century writers who Latinized their names, would know. So you have Browne's account. A look at the Funk & Wagnalls Encyclopedia of Folklore (1972) does not really improve it, although practices by non Western cultures are taken into account.

A fifth canard Browne deals with is that the mole has no eyes. I remember reading that the mole is blind. So the book of marvels had fallen on hard times by the time of my childhood. At least the one I read had. It passed on the myths of antiquity; a sin in the 20th Century. Browne attributes this view of the mole to the ancients, Aristotle and Galen. However, he says they are wrong. He points out that the mole has the rudiments of eyes and does flee light. He adds that is all a creature like the mole who lives in utter darkness needs to detect. A footnote inserted by Mr. Wilkins quotes Cuvier's Animal Kingdom that a animal like a mole in Greece, the rat mole, is indeed blind. And he bemoans the calumnies that have been brought on the ancients because the mole that we know in Western Europe sees a little.

A sixth canard Browne deals with is the legend of the unicorn. We don't believe in unicorns, or do we? Its legend does not meet the rational criteria we use to judge beliefs as beliefs, but we accept it as a romantic image. As the bumper sticker on the car says dreamily, "I stop for unicorns." Browne believes, but only because traditionally any one horned, hoofed creature could be a unicorn. He points out that ancient Romans, such as Pliny the elder, described different unicorns. Pliny claimed that they are fierce and terrible creatures. While Aelian does describe them as being big as a horse, like our image, he, like Pliny, describes the horn as black, as opposed to modern legend where it is white. Also, Browne adds in passing that unicorns are mentioned in the Bible. Mr. Wilkins, the editor, adds that it is spoken of there as a creature of great size and strength, which leads him to believe that the Bible was speaking of the rhinoceros.

Browne complains that the horns extant at that time differ so much from one another that they must have been a separate species. Actually the horns go beyond animal to vegetable and mineral. He complains that stalagtites, bone and wood had been passed off as unicorn's horn in his time. On the other hand, he guesses two at St. Marks in Venice were animal; they look like they came from the "Indian Ass." Those at St. Denis near Paris are in the shape of spires, as in our image of the unicorn. Albertus Magnus claimed to have seen one ten feet long and 13 inches around. This, Brown remarks, agrees with the description of sea unicorns. I don't know exactly which creature he is referring to. Browne mentions narwhal whales separately elsewhere, and as residing along the coasts of Northern Canada.

Of course, people are not particular when they are speaking of romance. And the most different things can resemble the creature being romanced over.

As for medical claims, Browne points out that none of the ancients made any medicinal claims for unicorn's horn, except for Aelian. It was a more modern belief that unicorn's horn protected against poison. However, he confesses there might be some medicinal powers in it. Like other horns, it would be an antidote against snake venom and some other poisons. But not against arsenic; milk is better.

From our modern point of view, Browne has no romance in his soul.

A sixth canard is the Dog Days. We moderns do not hear too much about them, but they are still around. Apparently, they were bigger in the 19th Century. A cartoonist remembering his childhood claimed that his parents forbade him to swim because it was the Dog Days. Unfortunately, they had neglected to explain what the Dog Days were. I will not make such a mistake. The Dog Days are the days when the Dog Star rises during the day and is visible in the sky. According to a 1960 dictionary, it is now reckoned between July 3 and August 11. Browne explains that the heat of this hottest part of the summer was superstitiously thought to be brought by the Dog Star. And, by inference, bad luck in general. You should avoid taking any medication then or medical treatment, for instance. Thus, the time was in Browne's age deemed "the physician's vacation." But not too much of a vacation: the strictures against giving medical treatment during the Dog Days were ignored by doctors and patients alike. Browne traces this belief to the Ancient authors Horace and Galen, genuine ancients. Also, to Hippocrates who lived over 400 years before them.

Browne is anxious to expose this canard in particular. He points out that there has been much confusion about which star is the Dog Star, Procyon or Sirius. And there has been much confusion about when the Dog Star rises during the day, which he goes into great detail about. Nonetheless, it has remained the same canard for ca. 2,000 years.

That ends my review of canards. I would be giving a wrong impression if I did not say that not all the canards of the books of marvels have been passed on to us. Most here have not, as far as I can tell. Before this, I had never heard that pigeons have no gall, that the beaver escapes the hunter by biting off his testicles, that the bear brings forth her cubs as amorphous lumps, that the deer lives several hundred years, that lampreys have many eyes, that the chameleon only lives on air. Still, although many canards have gone by the boards, it is interesting to note how many are caught in our psyche, snapshots of times past, antiquity we do not realize. They were marvels then and are marvels today.

Continued