Fig. 16.—Copy of a series of modified geese painted on an early Mykenæan pot, figured by M. Perrot. Each has two jointed appendages on the back, which suggest the wing feathers of the bird or two of the jointed legs (cirri) of the barnacle, which issue in life from this part of the barnacle's shell. The legs of the geese are very small and absent in the fifth. The markings on the body differ in each bird, but recall the shell of the barnacle divided into several valves marked with parallel striations. They may also pass for the plumage of the bird.
The intention of the artist to fantastically insist on intermediate phases between goose and barnacle is placed beyond doubt by certain details. For instance, in Fig. 16, the little jointed processes on the back of the goose marked a, correspond in position to the cirri or legs of the barnacle. They are reduced in number to two, and simplified in form so as to pass for the tips of the wings of the goose. The goose's own feet are represented in their natural position. The most extraordinary piece of resemblance in detail is that given in Fig. 15, B, which is a copy of a very much "barnaculized" goose from one of these ancient dishes. What does the Mykenæan artist mean to represent by the strange single leg-like limb marked pe? When we carefully examine the barnacle's soft body concealed by its shell, it becomes obvious that this leg-like thing corresponds to the single stalk-like body, ending in a bunch of a few hairs which is marked pe in Fig. 15, C. This last-named figure is a careful modern representation of the soft living barnacle, as seen when the shells of one side are removed. The cylindrical body pe of Fig. 15, C, which is drawn by the Mykenæan artist on an exaggerated scale in Fig. 15, B, is the external opening of the seminal duct of the barnacle. It is remarkable that the Mykenæan pottery-painter had observed the soft "fish" of the barnacle so minutely as to select this unpaired and very peculiar-looking structure, and represent it of exaggerated size attached in its proper position on the barnacle-like body of a goose. This very striking transference of a peculiar and characteristic organ of the barnacle to the body of the goose by the artist seems not to have been noticed by M. Houssay.
Fig. 17.—Two drawings
on pottery of
modified geese, from
Perrot's "Ossuaire
de Crète." The three
lines above the back
of the upper figure
probably represent
the legs or cirri of
the barnacle, which
are represented by
two jointed appendages
in the geese
shown in Fig. 16.
M. Houssay further points out the existence on some of the Mykenæan pottery of drawings (see "L'Ossuaire de Crète," by MM. Perrot and Chipiez) of leaves attached to tree-like stems. These leaves (Fig. 18, a, b, c) exhibit the same markings ("venation") which we see on the bodies of the geese in Fig. 16, especially the middle one of the five. The leaves (or fruits?) copied by M. Houssay from the Mykenæan pottery are attached in a series to a stem—but no one, at present, has suggested what plant it is which is represented. The corners of the leaf or fruit to the right and left of its stalk are thrown into a spiral—and the half leaf or half fruit represented in Fig. 18, b, leads us on to that drawn in Fig. 18, c, in which the spiral corner is slightly modified in curvature so as to resemble the head and neck of the goose as drawn in Fig. 16. Though Fig. 18, c, is as yet devoid of legs or wing feathers (compare Fig. 16, d), the black band along the belly with the band of vertical markings above it agrees closely with the design on the body of the middle goose of the series drawn in Fig. 16. As these are associated in the decoration of the Mykenæan artists, it is fairly evident that the intention has been to manipulate the drawing of the leaf or fruit so as to make it resemble the drawing of the goose, whilst that in its turn is modified so as to emphasize or idealize its points of resemblance to a barnacle.
Fig. 18.—Leaves from
the tree, drawn on a
Mykenæan pot which,
according to M. Perrot,
are fancifully designed
so as to assume step by
step (a, b, c) the form
of a goose. This appears
either to represent
the tree which, according
to legend, produced
birds as buds on its
branches, or to be a
fanciful design which
gave rise to that legend.
The artist's intention of
making the leaf gradually
pass into the semblance
of a goose, is
strongly emphasized by
the purely fanciful
"venation" of the
leaf which agrees with
the equally fanciful ornament
of the bodies of
the geese in Fig. 16,
especially the middle
one of the series.
It is true enough that the drawings from Mykenæan pots here submitted cannot be considered as a complete demonstration that the legend of the tree-goose originated with these drawings. But it must be remembered that we have only a small number of examples of this pottery surviving from a thousand years B.C. It is probable that the fanciful decorative design of a master artist was copied and used in the painting of hundreds of pots by mere workmen or inferior craftsmen, and that more complete and impressive designs showing the fanciful transformation of leaf or fruit to goose, and of goose to barnacle, existed both before and after the making of the particular pots and jars which have come down to us. The supposition made by M. Houssay (which I entirely support) is that some later Levantine people—to whom these decorated pots or copies of their decorations became known either in the regular way of trade or as sailors' "curios"—were led to attempt an explanation of the significance of the pictures drawn upon them, and in accordance with a well-known and rooted tendency—interpreted the fancies of the artist as careful representations of astonishing fact. The existence of a tree which produces buds which become birds, and of a barnacle which becomes transformed into a goose—is the matter-of-fact interpretation of the few pictures of these animals which have come down to us, modern men, painted on the few pots of that remote Mykenæan industry now in our museums. It is not at all unlikely that in the vast period of time between 1000 B.C. and 1000 A.D., the more striking of these designs had been copied and familiarized in some part of the ancient world. It is true that we do not at present know in what part: we have not yet come across these designs of later date than 800 B.C. The absence of the story of the tree-goose from Greek and Roman lore is striking. Neither Aristotle nor Herodotus knew of it, although it has been erroneously stated that they refer to it. Yet the source of it was there in the Greek isles almost under their noses (if one may speak of the noses of such splendid and worshipful men of old) in the artistic work—otherwise not unknown to the Greeks—of a civilization which preceded their own by hundreds of years. There is other and ample evidence—as for instance that of the representation of the "flying gallop" (see "Science from an Easy Chair," Second Series, pp. 57 and 63), showing that Mykenæan art had little or no direct effect on the Hellenes, although the reputation of the skill of the old race in metal work came through many generations to them. Mykenæan art seems to have migrated with Mykenæan settlers to the remote region of the Caucasus. In the necropolis of Koban and other remote settlements, Mykenæan designs in bronze and gold—including the horse in flying gallop and octopods transformed to bull's heads—have been found and pictured (Ernest Chantre, "Recherches anthropologique dans Caucase," 4 vols.: Paris, 1886). They are believed to date from 500 B.C. It is possible that in such remote regions or in some of the Greek islands the pictures of the tree-goose and the barnacle may have survived until the new dispensation—that is, until the days of the Byzantine Empire. Once we can trace either the pictures or the legend up to that point, there is no difficulty about admitting the radiation of the wonderful story from that centre to the Jews of the Kabbalah, to Arabic writers, and so to the learned men of the Christian Church and the seats of learning throughout Europe and a great part of Asia.
Of the history of the legend during two thousand years we have no actual knowledge. It remains for investigation. But undoubtedly these Mykenæan pottery paintings remove the origin of the story to a period two thousand years older than that of the Irish monks.