Interesting also is the pious use made of the panther. Of this beast it is said: "It is the nature of the panther to live in friendship with all animals except the dragon. . . .When it has eaten a little it is satisfied and goes to sleep in its lair, and after three days it awakes and roars with a loud voice, and out of its mouth proceeds a sweet smell; then all the beasts of the forest far and near follow after it," but "this rare scent is offensive only to the dragon, which hastens to flee as soon as it gets a sniff of it. In like manner our Lord Jesus Christ arose out of the sleep of death and drew all nations unto him through his 'sweet savor.' But this same savor discomfits the dragon, that old serpent which is the devil." The very curious statement regarding the beaver is perhaps best read in the original, where it is illustrated by a striking engraving. It serves to show that some cathedral sculptures usually considered obscene were not so intended.
Of course, the domestic fowls could not escape the notice of these keen interpreters of theology and science. We may take as typical the following: "When the cock finds anything, it does not eat it, but calls the hens together and divides it among them. In like manner the preacher should distribute among his flock the kernels of divine truth which he discovers in Holy Writ, picking them to pieces in order that they may be more readily taken in and digested."[1]
Very curious are sundry long and intricate developments of theory regarding various animals. One of these was evolved out of the beautiful text, "As the hart panteth after the water-brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God." The Physiologus tells us that "the hart is the foe of the dragon, which, when it sees its enemy, runs away and creeps into a cleft of the rocks. Then the hart goes to the stream, fills himself with water, and vomits it into the cleft where the dragon is. Having thus drowned the dragon, the hart tramples it under its feet; as the prophet Isaiah predicts that at the coming of Christ a man shall 'go into the clefts of the rocks and into the tops of the ragged rocks, for fear of the Lord.' Thus our Saviour slew with the water and blood flowing from his side the great dragon, . . . and taught us to contend against the hidden designs of the devil."
A comical quasi-scientific profundity is at times mixed up with these statements. Thus some commentators upon Scripture declare that "the hart, in killing the dragon, inhales its poisonous breath, which produces intense thirst and consequent longing for the water-brooks."
So, too, regarding the antelope, we are told that "the antelope
- ↑ See the curious mediæval poem given at page 162.
