MONSTERS AND SUPERSTITIONS. 



737 



tonishment how the old Huguenot could believe such rub- 

 bish. I will not speak of the treatise on monsters by 

 Licetus, as that is an important work, in which the anat- 

 omist has only exaggerated some details in order to give 

 interest to his subject. 



But if anything can surprise us more it is the fact that 

 the history of monsters is found with all its exaggerations 

 at two periods widely distant from each other. We find it 

 in the height of its extravagances in the Bestiaires of the 



266. Sea-Serpent. Facsimile taken from Olaus Magnus: Be Gtntibus Septentrionalibus, 1555. 



Middle Ages and in the books of the Renaissance, and then 

 at the beginning of the present century it returns in order 

 to astonish us by the audacity of its flights. 



In the Middle Ages it was the sombre countries of north- 

 ern Europe that harbored this belief, and it is in the works 

 of Olaus Magnus, the Albertus Magnus of the North, that 

 we find the most incredible display of it. From this work 

 our moderns have taken their horrible sea-serpent. The 

 author does riot rest satisfied with giving a description of 



