Magnus then retails the usual fables about bears
licking their young into shape, their building houses, &c., &c., after which he discourses about the bear and hedgehog, a story which has nothing to do with the picture. It is described as “the Battail between the Hedge-Hog, and the Bear.”
“Though the Urchin have sharp pointed prickles, whereby he gathereth Apples to feed on, and these he hides in hollow Trees, molesting the Bear in his Den: yet is he oppressed by the cunning and weight of the Bear: namely when the Urchin roles himself up round as a ball, that there is nothing but his prickles to come at: yet with this means he cannot prevail against the Bear, which opens him, to revenge the wrong he did her in violating her Lodging. Nor can the Bear eat the Hedge-Hog, it is such miserable poor and prickly meat. Wherefore returning again into his Cave, he sleeps, and grows fat, living by sucking his paw.
“The Bears also fight against the Bores, but seldome get the victory, because they can better defend themselves with their Tusks, than the Bull or the Deer can by their
Horns, or running swiftly. The strong Horses keep off the Bears with their biting and kicking, from the Mares that are great with Foals. Young Colts save themselves by running, but they will always hold this fear, and so become unprofitable for the Wars. Wherefore they use this stratagem: some Souldier puts on a Bear’s skin, and meets them, by reason that they are horses that the Bears have hunted.”
The Northern Bears seem to have been wonderful creatures, for they used to go mad after eating Mandragora, and then they were in the habit of making a meal off ants, by way of recovering their sanity. They were then, as now, noted for their love of honey, and this illustration depicts them as coming out of, and going into the ground after bees and honey; nay, it would seem as if they even invaded the barrels put up in the trees to serve as hives. But man was more cunning than they, and a good bear-skin in those cold regions, had a value far exceeding honey.
“Since that in the Northern Countries, especially Podolia, Russia, and places adjacent, because of the great