“The Circhos.
“There is also another Monster like to that, called Circhos, which hath a crusty and soft Skin, partly black, partly red, and hath two cloven places in his Foot, that serve for to make three Toes. The right foot of this Animal is very small, but the left is great and long; and, therefore, when he walks all his body leans on the left side, and he draws his right foot after him: When the Ayr is calm he walketh, but when the Wind is high, and the Sky cloudy, he applies himself to the Rocks, and rests unmoved, and sticks fast, that he can scarce be pulled off. The nature of this is wonderful enough: which in calm Weather is sound, and in stormy Weather is sick.”
The Northern Naturalists did not enjoy the monopoly
of curious fish, for Zahn gives us a very graphic picture of the different sides of two small fish captured in Denmark and Norway (i.e., presumably in some northern region) with curious letters marked on them. He does not attempt to elucidate the writing; and as it is of no known language, we may charitably put it down to the original “Volapük.” He also favours us with the effigies of a curious fish found in Silesia in 1609, also ornamented with an inscription in an unknown tongue.
He also supplies us with the portrait of a pike, which was daintily marked with a cross on its side and a star on its forehead.
But too much space would be taken up if I were to recount all the piscine marvels that he relates.
Aristotle mentions that fish do not thrive in cold weather, and he says that those which have a stone in their head, as the chromis, labrax, sciæna, and phagrus, suffer most in the winter; for the refrigeration of the stone causes them to freeze, and be driven on shore.
Sir John Mandeville, speaking of the kingdom of Talonach, says:—“And that land hath a marvayle that is in no other land, for all maner of fyshes of the sea cometh there once a yeare, one after the other, and lyeth him neere the lande, sometime on the lande, and so lye three dayes, and men of that lande come thither and take of them what he will, and then goe these fyshes awaye, and another sort commeth, and lyeth also three dayes and men take of them, and do thus all maner of fyshes tyll all have been there, and menne have taken what they wyll. And men wot not the cause why it is so. But they of that Countrey saye, that those fyshes come so thyther to do worship to theyr king, for they say he is the most worthiest king of the worlde, for he hath so many wives, and geateth so many children of them.” (See [next page].)
I know of no other fish of such an accomodating nature, except it be those of whom Ser Marco Polo speaks, when writing of Armenia:—“There is in this Country a certain Convent of Nuns called St. Leonard’s
about which I have to tell you a very wonderful circumstance. Near the church in question there is a great lake at the foot of a mountain, and in this lake are found no fish, great or small, throughout the year till Lent come. On the first day of Lent they find in it the finest fish in the world, and great store, too, thereof; and these continue to be found till Easter Eve. After that they are found no more till Lent come round again; and so ’tis every year. ’Tis really a passing great miracle!”
Edward Webbe, “Master Gunner,” whose travels were printed in 1590, informs us that in the “Land of
Siria there is a River having great store of fish like unto Samon-trouts, but no Jew can catch them, though either Christian and Turk shall catch them in abundance, with great ease.”
Pliny has some curious natural phenomena to tell us about, of showers of Milk, Blood, Flesh, Iron, and Wool; nay, he even says that, the year of this woolly shower, when Titus Annius Milo was pleading his own cause, there fell a shower of baked tiles!
After this we can swallow Olaus Magnus’s story of a rain of fishes very comfortably, especially as he supplements it with showers of frogs and worms.
He gives a curious story of the black river at the New Fort in Finland:—“There is a Fort in the utmost parts of Finland that is under the Pole, and it belongs to the Kingdom of Sweden, and it is called the New-Fort, because it was wonderfull cunningly built, and fortified by Nature and Art; for it is placed on a round Mountain, having but one entrance and outlet toward the West; and that by a ship that is tyed with great Iron Chains, which by strong labour and benefit of
Wheels, by reason of the force of the Waters, is drawn to one part of the River by night, by keepers appointed by the King of Sweden, or such as farm it. A vast river runs by this Castle, whose depth cannot be found; it ariseth from the White Lake, and falls down by degrees: at the bottome it is black, especially round this Castle, where it breeds and holds none but black Fish, but of no ill taste, as are Salmons, Trouts, Perch, Pikes, and other soft Fish. It produceth also the Fish Trebius, that is black in Summer, and white in Winter, who, as Albertus saith, grows lean in the Sea; but when he is a foot long, he is five fingers fat: This, seasoned with Salt, will draw Gold out of the deepest waters that it is fallen in, and make it flote from the bottome. At last, it makes the black Lake passing by Viburgum, as Nilus makes a black River, where he dischargeth himself.
“When the Image of a Harper, playing, as it were, upon his Harp, in the middle of the Waters above them appears, it signifies some ill Omen, that the Governor of the Fort, or Captain shall suddenly be slain, or that the
negligent and sleepy Watchman shall be thrown headlong from the high walls, and die by Martial Law. Also this water is never free from Ghosts and Visions that appear at all times; and a man may hear Pipes sound, and Cymbals tinkle, to the shore.”
Aristotle mentions a fish called the Meryx that chewed the cud, and Pliny speaks of the Scarus, which, he says, “at the present day is the only fish that is said to ruminate, and feed on grass, and not on other fish.” But he seems to have forgotten that in a previous place in the same book, he speaks of a large peninsula in the Red Sea, on the southern coast of Arabia, called Cadara, where “the sea monsters, just like so many cattle, were in the habit of coming on shore, and after feeding on the roots of shrubs, they would return; some of them, which had the heads of horses, asses, and bulls, found a pasture in the crops of grain.”