510 
A DESCRIPTION OP 
THE WIVERN, OR WOLVERINE. 
THIS is also a fabulous animal, and in shape like the re- 
presentations of the dragon, except that, instead of four, it 
has only two legs, which are armed with claws and webbed. 
There is no doubt that this imaginary beingwas originally 
conceived in the brains of poets, and romancers of old, es- 
pecially in times of chivalry, when the Crusaders overran 
the plains of Palestine and Assyria. The heat of the cli- 
mate in some vales at the foot of the mountains, which 
intersect the deserts of those countries, was favourable to 
the breeding all sorts of serpents, and some of an im- 
mense size. The European soldiers of Godfrey and Rich- 
ard, unaccustomed to such sights, whenever they met 
those monsters on the sedgy banks of small lakes, under the 
shades of cedars and palm-trees, where they appeared as 
if posted to guard the sacred waters, so precious in a 
country so hot, were easily frightened ; and swelled, in 
their idle tales, when inactive in camps, the bulk of the 
serpent they had seen. The castle of Lusignan, in the 
province of Poitou, was supposed to contain one of those 
