Science in Early England. 21 



10th or nth century onwards ; copies being known in Old 

 High German, Icelandic, Provencal, Arabic, Syriac, &c, 

 not to mention Latin and French. Many strange quali- 

 ties are assigned to real beasts in this compilation, and 

 stranger still to the fabulous ones. " Cetus is a very great 

 beast, it lives always in the sea, it takes the sand of the 

 sea, spreads it on its back, raises itself up, and will be in 

 tranquillity. The seafarer comes, thinks that it is an 

 island, and goes to arrive there to prepare his meal. The 

 whale feels the fire and the ship and the people, then he 

 will plunge if he can and drown them. This cetus is the 

 devil, the sea is the world, and the sands are the riches of 

 the world ; the soul the steersman, and the body the ship 

 which he ought to keep, and the fire is love, because man 

 loveth his gold, his gold and his silver. When he per- 

 ceives that and he shall be the more sure, then he will 

 drown him. And this cetus, says the writing, has such a 

 nature, that when he wants to eat, he begins to gape, and 

 the gaping of his mouth sends forth a smell so sweet and 

 so good, that the little fish, who like the smell, will 

 enter his mouth, and then he will kill them, then he will 

 swallow them, and similarly the devil will strangle the 

 people who shall love him so much that they will enter 

 into his mouth." Hardly a single one of these descrip- 

 tions is allowed to pass without a moral, the constant 

 repetition of which becomes wearisome, not to say ex- 

 asperating, to a modern reader, as it probably did to the 

 ancient one. The salamander is of course found here. 

 " If it come by chance where there shall be burning fire, 

 it will immediately extinguish it ; the beast is so cold and 

 also of such a quality, fire will not be able to go where it 

 shall enter." Also the wild ass which brays 12 times both 

 by night and day at the equinox ; the beaver with a curious 

 instinct, and the serra with the head of a lion and tail of a 

 fish, which, when it sees a ship, rises up and keeps the 



