Fantastic Fauna – myths about animals

Paying little attention to the alleged habits of animals, learn a lot about the man … Symbol of jealousy, the cuckoo is very much a symbol of laziness, because it makes the eggs in another house and suspect that it unable to make their own nest (do not say “lazy like a cuckoo?). However, in the Greco-Roman mythology, remember Sechan Louis and Pierre Leveque (Les Grandes Divinites the Greek, 1966), rather than his appearance, Zeus seduced Hera on “flying toward her, crouching at her breast? Cuckoo has, in addition to everything else, the privilege of announcing the coming of spring. (Like the swallows, provided they are many.) In addition, says Gwen Le Scotizec, another faith, which still exists in the collective memory:

“Tradition says, indeed, that if you have money you can hear when the first cuckoo in spring, you’ll have money all year.”

Others add that if you do not have money, it is ominous sign of discord, if you’re hungry, you will die broke, if you’re in the bush, waiting for tummy aches … As Breton and drăguţele young Finnish whenever they are singing birds to know how many years were to marry. Another tradition of the Italian province of Sassari: cuckoo is the clock stopped when he asked the fateful destiny. But before, must address these words: Cuccu di di beddi beddi annicuccu di’cant ‘anni aggiu the vista of death. Hearing the voice that sings the chorus, the bird stops singing. How restart, start the countdown to “peek”. Each is a year of life. Moreover, this faculty divinatorie cuckoo shares with the lark. It’s not great lark, with a brown feathers more or less closed in Europe South, but a white bird who were in the Middle Ages it came from Jerusalem. Make short toed lark at bedside of the sick. When it turns its beak to the sick, he should regain his health, because the bird has attracted upon him all evil. If it is removed, the patient is doomed.

We err if we ignore a world often fraught with anxiety. An animal is living proof of this: is the octopus, whose tentacles multiplied the human imagination and the increased size that made it a monster. Sailing stories abound in meetings with the giant octopus. After the Scandinavian legends (and Pliny, Elien Aldovrandi, Olaus Magnus reported “facts” like), the monster has a habit to come to the surface of the water for easier digestion and remains so still sometimes months, so his back covered with algae and shells resemble an island, is so large that “a regiment could maneuver on it” …

Hedgehog is mixed – God knows why – everything is related to fecundity. Thus, the young woman who inadvertently set foot on the small insectivorous mammal, pregnant. How about the cow, she will face, if a hedgehog assists in Creuse, in the event. Because custom assigned to tumble, with all spines lift over the fallen fruit, or that he makes it fall from the tree to better supply the pantry, is frequently encountered in medieval iconography, as allegory greed and stinginess. Bestiary is miraculous. Heathen, you ass attracts attention by his knowledge of the Middle Ages … astronomy! Every year, on March 25, he roars twelve times twelve times at night and day, proclaiming the world as equinox. Christian, when on Christmas night, just in time for midnight Mass, while none of the parishioners vrednicii country would dare to deprive the church, God gives big cattle farm, especially the horse, the gift of speech . No doubt they tell their neighbor what happened at the manger, when he, in company of donkeys, it was happiness warm breath on the baby-God was …

As cinocefali, they have different reactions to their assets. For the ancient Egyptians, these great apes (baboons) have a sacred role. Devoted to the sun, they help by their cries, the star of the night out, addressing his first prayer at dawn. At the end of the XVI century, the Porta Giambattista not resume, however, the cosmogonic myth. In a way, he reverses and makes this animal a sector of the planet each month. Just as happy to ascribe human emotions and even super-human animals, confer some of the smallest Herculean force, disproportionate to their size. If the snake is blind as a powerful move in Auvergne.

“If it were not blind, they say, he beat a man on the horse.”

So it is with only a modest Remorse is marine fish, about 40 inches. He has a drive head forming a suction cup, which allows it to be carried by other fish, cetaceans and sometimes boats. The lotus model, which has a reputation overblown romp steers Remorse would also be able to slow or even stop the ships quicker and more … Dreţele are plants with yellow flowers that grow in wet places … But that does not matter!

Microcosm, which is any individual, being a small replica of the macrocosm, to pass, without embarrassment, from a kingdom to another, and mixing of species. The snake, as was the ancient (Cleopatra was bitten by one of them while eating figs), Middle Aspida becomes a reptile with a large head, sometimes even a four-legged lizard with legs and tail of a snake. He hates music and voices charmer who have decided to submit it. “Therefore, he plugged one ear to the tail end, while the other one rubs the ground fills up with mud” (Jean Vartier) …

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