The unicorn of antiquity was regarded as the emblem of strength; and as the dragon was the guardian of wealth, so was the unicorn of chastity. His horn was a test of poison, and in virtue of this peculiarity the other beasts of the forest invested him with the office of water-‘conner,’ never daring to taste the contents of any pool or fountain until the unicorn had stirred the waters with his horn to ascertain if any wily serpent or dragon had deposited his venom therein. Upton and Leigh detail the ‘wonderful art’ by which the unicorn is captured. “A mayde is set where he haunteth, and she openeth her lappe, to whome the Vnicorne, as seeking rescue from the force of the hunter, yeldeth his head and leaueth all his fierceness, and resting himself vnder her protection, sleapeth vntyll he is taken and slayne!”
The Hebrew reem being rendered in our version of the Bible unicorn, has confirmed the vulgar notion that the animal intended was the cloven-hoofed and single-horned figure of heraldry; but there is nothing in the word sanctioning the idea that the animal was single-horned; and on referring to the passages in which the term is introduced, the only one which is quite distinct on this point seems clearly to intimate that the animal had two horns. That passage is Deut. xxxiii, 17. ‘His horns are like the horns of the reem;’ the word here is singular, not plural, and should have been ‘unicorn,’ not ‘unicorns,’ in our version.[135] It has lately been attempted to prove that the reem of Scripture was the animal now known as the nhyl-gau.[136] Reem is translated in the Septuagint by ‘μονοκερως,’ which is exactly equivalent to our unicorn. If a one-horned animal be contended for, the rhinoceros is the only one now known that is entitled to the attribute of unicornity. Leigh declares the unicorn of our science to be a mortal foe to elephants, and such, according to zoologists, is the character of the rhinoceros. These two are, however, the only points of resemblance; for while the unicorn of heraldry is of light and elegant symmetry, the rhinoceros of the African deserts is an animal so clumsy and ponderous that it has been known to require eight men to lift the head of one into a cart.[137]
The wyvern is one of the most usual of this description of charges. It is represented as a kind of flying serpent, the upper part resembling a dragon with two fore legs, and the lower part a snake or adder. The name is derived from the Anglo-Saxon ‘wivere,’ a serpent.
The bull and the lion with the wings of an eagle occasionally occur in continental armory, but I do not recollect an instance of either in English heraldry. The winged lion is the achievement of the city of Venice.
The foregoing enumeration of heraldric monsters includes all that are generally borne, and even some that scarcely ever occur; but Randle Holme, in his ‘Academy of Armory,’ figures and describes a multitude of others, some of which I strongly suspect to have been the offspring of his own prolific fancy. The triple-headed Cerberus was borne, this writer tells us, by the name of Goaler, while another family bore ‘the scarlet beast of the bottomless pit:’ ensigns of honour, truly!
What shall we say of
The Nependis, or ape-hog, half ape, half swine;
The Minocane, or Homocane, half child, half spaniel dog;
The Lamya, a compound of a woman, a dragon, a lyon, a goat, a dog, and a horse;
The Dragon-tyger, and Dragon-wolf;
The Lyon-wyvern;
The Winged Satyr-fish;
The Cat-fish and Devil-fish;
The Ass-bittern (the arms of Mr. Asbitter!)
The Ram-eagle;
The Falcon-fish with a hound’s ear;
and
The ‘Wonderfull Pig of the Ocean?’
From Holme’s Academy of Armory.
| Ram-eagle. | Cat-fish. | Ass-bittern. |