Fictitious & Symbolic Creatures in Art Part 17

and the leopard, or panther, is given in the "Odyssey" as one of the forms a.s.sumed by Proteus, "the Ancient of the Deep."

A curious ancient superst.i.tion about the leopard is embodied in its name.

It was thought not to be actually the same animal as the panther or pard, but to be a mongrel or hybrid between the male pard and the lioness, hence it was called the lion-panther, or _leopardus_. This error, as Archbishop Trench tells us, "has lasted into modern times"; thus Fuller: "Leopards and mules are properly no creatures."

Some writers, says Boutell, describe the leopard as the issue of the pard and lioness, and they a.s.sign the unproductiveness of such hybrids as a reason for its frequent adoption in the arms of abbots and abbesses.

"Mulus et abbates sunt in honore pares."

The leopard and panther are now acknowledged to be but slight varieties of the same species. In Wood's "Natural History" some slight difference is mentioned as to the number of spots. "The panther is fawn-coloured above, white underneath, with six or seven ranges of patches resembling rosettes--that is to say, each composed of an a.s.semblage of five or six simple black spots. It very much resembles the leopard, which inhabits the same region (but has ten rows of spots which are of smaller size), It is the wildest of the feline tribe, always retaining its fierce aspect and perpetual growl."

The Panther "Incensed"

"_The panther, knowing that his spotted hide Doth please all beasts, but that his looks them fray, Within a bush his dreadful head doth hide To let them gaze, while he on them doth prey._"

SPENSER, Sonnet.

This beast, like the leopard, has been the object of much mistaken or fict.i.tious history. Pliny, who is responsible for many of the errors in natural history since his time, says of the panther: "It is said that all four-footed beasts are wonderfully delighted and enticed by the smell of panthers; but their hideous looke and crabbed countenance which they bewray so soon as they show their heads skareth them as much again: therefore their manner is to hide their heads, and when they have trained other beasts within their reach by their sweet savour, they fall upon them and worry them."[23] And again, Sir William Segar, Garter King-of-Arms, following the same credulous historian, says: "The panther is admired of all other beasts for the beauty of his skyn, being spotted with variable colours, and beloved of them for the sweetness of his breath that streameth forth of his nostrils and ears like smoke which our paynters mistaking, corruptly do make fire."[24]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Panther incensed.]

It is, however, more probable that the creature was represented emitting flame and smoke to denote and give characteristic expression to the native savagery of the brute when irritated. If one can imagine the terror inspired by remorseless and unpitying fury, sudden and impetuous, we see its object fairly typified in the panther "incensed." The idea of fire and smoke darting from its mouth, eyes and ears was doubtless suggested by that habit peculiar to the feline race, observable even in the domestic cat, to "spit fire" and "swear" when rudely attacked, and as an emblem in this sense it is extremely well indicative of sudden fury.

Guillam says: "Some authors are of opinion that there are no panthers bred in Europe; but in Africa, Lybia and Mauritania they are plentiful. The panther is a beast of a beautiful aspect, by reason of the manifold variety of his divers coloured spots wherewith his body is overspread. As a lion doth in most things resemble the nature of a man, so, after a sort, doth the panther of a woman; for it is a beautiful beast, and fierce, yet very loving to their young ones, and will defend them with the hazard of their own lives; and if they miss them, they bewail their loss with loud and miserable howling."

The Lancastrian badge "the panther," says Planche, "which is attributed by Sir William Segar to Henry VI. and blazoned pa.s.sant guardant argent spotted of all colours with vapour issuant from her mouth and ears; but there is no authority quoted for it, and there is no example extant, the only collateral evidence being the supporters of the Somerset Dukes of Beaufort, who are supposed to have used it as a token of their Lancastrian descent." The dexter supporter of the Duke of Beaufort thus is blazoned: _Dexter, a panther argent, semee of torteaux, hurts and pomies alternately, flames issuant from the mouth and ears proper, gorged with a plain collar, chained, or_.

The heraldic panther, or as it is more frequently termed, a panther incensed, is always borne _guardant_, _i.e._, full-faced; and "incensed,"

that is to say, it is depicted with flames and smoke issuing from its mouth and ears. Its coat is spotted of various tinctures as the blazon may state.

Odet de Foix, Sieur de Lautrec, Marshal of France (+ 1528) being considered a person of fierce appearance, took for device a panther, with the motto "Allicit ulterius" ("He entices further"), alluding to the attractive power of that animal notwithstanding its fierce exterior, "an evidence," remarks a modern writer, "that he had as much vanity as ambition."

The town of Lucca for arms bears a panther: "_La pantera, che Lucca abbraccia e onora_."

Gian Giacomo Trivulzio, surnamed the Great (+ 1518), a celebrated Italian soldier, bore a panther on his standard, with the motto, "Mens sibi conscia facti" ("The mind conscious to itself of the deed"), the panther signifying foresight (providence) from the number of eyes in his coat.

Others said he wished to imply that he knew how to manage for himself in the various changes of his capricious fortune.[25]

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Lynx.]

The Lynx

_Felis Lynx_, or mountain cat, is found in the northern parts of Europe, Asia and America, and climbs the highest trees. He preys on squirrels, deer, hares, &c. He is fond of blood and kills great numbers of animals to satisfy his unconquerable thirst. He is smaller than the panther, about three feet and a half in length, his tail is much shorter and black at the extremity. His ears are erect with a pencil of black hair at the tips. The fur is long and thick, the upper part of the body is a pale grey, the under parts white.

The sight of the lynx is said to be so piercing that the ancients attributed to it the faculty of seeing through stone walls: it may, however, be a.s.serted with truth that it distinguishes its prey at a greater distance than any other carnivorous quadruped. On this account it is frequently employed in heraldry, symbolising watchfulness, keenness of vision, and also the ability to profit by it.

Lynx-eyed, "oculis lynceis," originally referred to Lynceus, the argonaut, who was famed for the keenness of his vision; then it was transferred to the lynx and gave rise to the fable that it could see through a wall (notes to "Philobiblon," by E. C. Thomas).

The Accademia de Lincei, founded in Rome in 1603, with the object of encouraging a taste for natural history, adopted the name and device of the lynx because the members should have the eyes of a lynx to penetrate the secrets of nature. Galileo, Fabio Colonna, and Gianbattista Porta were among the members of the academy, the latter philosopher and mathematician, who was the inventor of the camera obscura, bore the device of the academy, the lynx, and the motto "Aspicit et inspicit" ("Looks at and looks into").

Charles IV. of Luxemburg, Emperor of Germany, adopted the lynx for his impress, with the motto, "Nullius pavit occursum" ("He fears not meeting with any one").

THE LIZARD LYNX is an animal of the lynx or wild cat kind of a dark brown colour, spotted black; the ears and tail are short. They are frequent in the woods of Sweden, Denmark and Norway, where they are usually termed lizards.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Cat-a-Mountain saliant, collared and lined.]

Cat-a-Mountain--Tiger Cat or Wild Cat

The Clan Chattan, who gave their name to the county of Caithness, bore as their cognisance the wild mountain cat, and called their chieftain, the Earl of Sutherland, "Mohr an chat" (The Great Wild Cat). The Mackintoshes still bear as their crests and supporters these ferocious cats, with the appropriate warning as a motto, "Touch not the cat but a glove."

The whole is a pun upon the word "Catti," the Teutonic settlers of Caithness, _i.e._, Catti-ness, and means "Touch not the Clan Cattan (or mountain cat) without a glove." Here "but" is used in the original meaning, beout, _i.e._, without. For another example of "but" meaning without, see Amos iii. 7. The same words are also used as the motto of several Scottish families.

None will forget how the cat-a-mountain showed her claws to the Clan Kay, in the Wynds of Perth in Sir Walter Scott's "Fair Maid of Perth."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Crest, a Cat-a-Mountain, sejant, collared and lined.]

_The Heraldic Musion._--Bossewell, in his work on heraldry published 1572, describes a musion as "a beaste that is enimie to myse and rattes." He adds also that he is "slye and wittie, and seeth so sharply, that he overcommeth darkness of the nighte by the shyninge lighte of his eyne. In the shape of body, he is like unto a leoparde, and hath a greate mouthe.

He doth delighte that he enjoyeth his libertie, and in his youthe he is swifte, plyante, and merrie. He maketh a rufull noyse, and a gastefull when he proffereth to fighte with another. He is a cruel beaste when he is wilde and falleth on his owne feet from moste high places, and uneth (scarce) is hurte therewith. When he hathe a fayre skinne, he is, as it were, prowde thereof, and then he goeth fast aboute to be seene."

Childebert, King of France, in token of his having taken captive Gondomar of Bourgogne, a.s.sumed the device of a tiger-cat or ounce behind a grating or troillis, gules cloue argent. This recalls the famous scene between Sanglier Rouge and Toison d'Or in "Quentin Durward," when Charles the Bold's jester professes to help the unhappy envoy of De la Marck by describing it as a cat looking out of a dairy window.

The cat, though domesticated, is considered as possessed of ingrat.i.tude; in its friends.h.i.+p so uncertain and so vicious in its nature, "that," say old writers, "it is only calculated for destroying the obnoxious race of rats and other small game."

From the mediaeval superst.i.tion that Satan's favourite form was a black cat, it was superst.i.tiously called "a familiar." Hence witches were said to have a cat as their familiar.

THE CAT: _A symbol of liberty._--The Roman G.o.ddess of Liberty was represented as holding a cup in one hand, a broken sceptre in the other, and a cat lying at her feet. No animal is so great an enemy to all constraint as a cat.

The cat was held in veneration by the Egyptians as sacred to the G.o.ddess Bubastis. This deity is represented with a human body and a cat's head.

Diodorus tells us that whoever killed a cat, even by accident, was by the Egyptians punished with death. According to Egyptian tradition, Diana a.s.sumed the form of a cat, and thus excited the fury of the giants. The _London Review_ says: "The Egyptians wors.h.i.+pped the cat as a symbol of the moon, not only because it is more active after sunset, but from the dilation and contraction of its...o...b.. symbolical of the waxing and waning of the night G.o.ddess."

In heraldry it should always be represented full-faced like the leopard.

_Erminois three cats-a-mountain pa.s.sant gardant, in pale azure, each charged on the body with an ermine spot or._ Crest: _a demi cat-a-mountain gardant, azure, gorged with a collar gemel, and charged with ermine spots, two and one_.--_Tibbets._

The supporters of the Earl of Clanricarde are wild cats, and also those of the Earl of Belmore. It is the crest of De Burgh.

"aeNEAS.--His mantle was the lion's, With all its tawny bars, His falchion, like Orion's, Was gemmed with golden stars.

Upon his lofty helmet A brazen terror rode; No sword could overwhelm it When in the fight it glowed.

For like a wild cat brindled, It spat with eyes on fire, And in the battle kindled Immortal rage and ire, Now in the suns.h.i.+ne sleeping, How gently it reposed; But still in wisdom keeping A single eye unclosed."

_Queen Dido_, by T. S.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Crowned Salamander of Francis I.]

The Salamander

The salamander has been immemorially credited with certain fabulous powers. Less than a century ago the creature was seriously described as a "spotted lizard, which will endure the flames of fire." Divested of its supernatural powers it is simply a harmless little amphibian of the "newt"

family, from six to eight inches in length, with black skin and yellow spots. The skin was long thought to be poisonous, though it is in reality perfectly harmless; but the moist surface is so extremely cold to the touch that, from this peculiar quality in the creature, the idea must have arisen, not only that it could withstand any heat to which it was exposed, but it would actually subdue and put out fire.

This was a widespread belief long before the time of Pliny, whose account of the creature is thus paraphrased by Swift: