“The Rose of Bakavali” mention is made of a garden of Pomegranate-trees, the fruit of which resembled earthenware vases. When these were plucked and opened, out hopped birds of beautiful plumage, which immediately flew away.
Pope Pius II., in his work on Asia and Europe, published towards the end of the fifteenth century, states that in Scotland there grew on the banks of a river a tree which produced fruits resembling ducks; these fruits, when matured, fell either on the river bank or into the water: those which fell on the ground perished instantly; those which fell into the water became turned at once into ducks, acquired plumage, and then flew off. His Holiness remarks that he had been unable to obtain any proof of this wondrous tree existing in Scotland, but that it was to be found growing in the Orkney Isles.
As early as the thirteenth century, Albertus Magnus expressed his disbelief in the stories of birds propagated from trees, yet there were not wanting writers who professed to have been eye-witnesses of the marvels they recounted respecting Bernicle or Claik Geese. Some of these witnesses, however, asserted that the birds grew on living trees, while others traced them to timber rotted in the sea, or boughs of trees which had fallen therein. Boëce, who favoured the latter theory, writes that “because the rude and ignorant people saw oft-times the fruit that fell off the trees (which stood near the sea) converted within a short time into geese, they believed that yir-geese grew upon the trees, hanging by their nebbis [bills] such like as Apples and other fruits hangs by their stalks, but their opinion is nought to be sustained. For as soon as their Apples or fruit falls off the tree into the sea-flood, they grow first worm-eaten, and by short process of time are altered into geese.” Munster, in his ‘Cosmographie,’ remembers that in Scotland “are found trees which produce fruit rolled up in leaves, and this, in due time, falling into water, which it overhangs, is converted into a living bird, and hence the tree is called the Goose-tree. The same tree grows in the island of Pomona. Lest you should imagine that this is a fiction devised by modern writers, I may mention that all cosmographists, particularly Saxo Grammaticus, take notice of this tree.” Prof. Rennie says that Montbeillard seems inclined to derive the name of Pomona from its being the orchard of these goose-bearing trees. Fulgosus depicts the trees themselves as resembling Willows, “as those who had seen them in Ireland and Scotland” had informed him. To these particulars, Bauhin adds that, if the leaves of this tree fall upon the land, they become birds; but if into the water, then they are transmuted into fishes.
Maundevile speaks of the Barnacle-tree as a thing known and proved in his time. He tells us, in his book, that he narrated to the somewhat sceptical inhabitants of Caldilhe how that “in oure contre weren trees that beren a fruyt that becomen briddes fleiynge: and thei that fallen on the erthe dyen anon: and thei ben right gode to mannes mete.”
Aldrovandus gives a woodcut of these trees, in which the foliage resembles that of Myrtles, while the strange fruit is large and heart-shaped.
[enlarge]
[TO FACE [PAGE 118].
The Barnacle or Goose Tree.
From ‘Aldrovandi Ornithologia.’
Gerarde also gives a figure of what he calls the “Goose-tree, Barnacle-tree, or the tree bearing geese,” a reproduction of which is annexed. And although he speaks of the goose as springing from decayed wood, &c., the very fact of his introducing the tree into the catalogue of his ‘Herbal,’ shows that he was, at least, divided between the above-named opinions. “What our eyes have seen,” he says, “and what our hands have touched, we shall declare. There is a small island in Lancashire, called the Pile of Foulders, wherein are found broken pieces of old ships, some whereof have been thrown thither by shipwracke, and also the trunks and bodies, with the branches of old and rotten trees cast up there likewise; whereon is found a certain spume or froth, that in time breedeth unto certaine shells, in shape like to those of the muskle, but sharper pointed, and of a whitish colour, wherein is contained a thing in forme like a lace of silke finely woven, as it were, together, of a whitish colour; one end whereof is fastned unto the inside of the shell, even as the fish of oisters and muskles are; the other end is made fast unto the belly of a rude mass, or lumpe, which, in time, commeth to the shape and forme of a bird. When it is perfectly formed, the shell gapeth open, and the first thing that appeareth is the foresaid lace or string; next come the legs of the bird hanging out, and as it groweth greater it openeth the shell by degrees, till at length it is all come forth, and hangeth onely by the bill; in short space after it commeth to full maturitie, and falleth into the sea, where it gathereth feathers, and groweth to a fowle bigger than a mallard and lesser than a goose, having blacke legs and bill or beake, and feathers blacke and white, spotted in such manner as is our magpie; called in some places a pie-annet, which the people of Lancashire call by no other name than tree-goose; which place aforesaid, and all those parts adjoyning, do so much abound therewith, that one of the best is bought for threepence. For the truth hereof, if any doubt, may it please them to repaire unto me, and I shall satisfie them by the testimonie of good witnesses.