INTRODUCTION II 



red, blue, green ; ^ an oar dipped into water seems to 

 be broken because of the swift moving of the water; 

 bees are said to load themselves with small stones that 

 they may be more steadfast against blasts of wind (this 

 is taken from Aristotle) ; the crab, we are told, waits 

 till the oyster gapes, and then puts a stone between the 

 shells, so that he may gnaw the oyster's flesh ; the fox 

 halts, because his right legs are shorter than the left.^ 

 These things were written about the time when the 

 most beautiful parts of the great churches of York, 

 Lincoln and Salisbury were being reared, and when 

 Merton College was being founded at Oxford. They 

 were not mere popular fables, but the deliberate state- 

 ments of a man learned according to the highest standard 

 of the thirteenth century, who had taught in the great 

 university of Paris. Nor were they rejected by the 

 readers for whom they were written, but copied, trans- 

 lated time after time, re- edited, abridged, and at length 

 multiplied by printing. 



^ This succession had a mystical meaning ; red was a symbol of fire, blue of 

 water, green of earth. For more than five hundred years men went on 

 repeating an error which might have been corrected at once by observation of 

 an actual rainbow. 



^Some mediaeval writers say this of the badger. 



