"A rich, erudite and fascinating book – I absolutely loved it, and so will anyone with an interest of British wildlife and its history, along with the conservation and reintroduction of some wonderful species."
Delving into the past, Lee Raye investigates medieval bestiaries, Shakespearian plays, early travelogues, and the desires of kings and lords to retain rights over particular animals or birds. Bustards, for example, were believed to eat sheep and lambs as well as wheat, barley and other plants. They were considered a ‘dainty dish’ for ‘Princes and great mens Tables at Feasts and Entertainments’ – but Lee Raye suggests this was due to their rarity rather than their flavour. Such dishes emphasised the host’s importance. The eagle was regarded as a royal bird, ‘one of the beasts of battle’ along with the raven: fallen warriors might be compared to it – but eagles were also disliked for preying on young lambs and goats – and for carrying off small babies, the latter most likely untrue.
Whales were perceived by sailors as dangerous creatures. In ‘The Life of Saint Columba’ written by the Abbot of Iona around 700 CE, Columba warns one of his monks to sail via Mullin order to avoid a whale. The monk ignores his advice and the whale leaps at the small boat, jaws opening on rows of teeth. The sailors turn back in terror, managing to ‘avoid the wash’ as the whale passes. It’s easy to believe their fright, yet a later 12th century poem from Iona describes the whale as ‘the greatest of all wonders’. In the reign of Edward II (‘often cited as 1322’) whales and sturgeons were legally classified as ‘royal fishes’: even stranded whales became Crown property, and as they were ‘fish’, the meat could be eaten throughout Lent. The freshwater sturgeon could, it seems, reach lengths of nine feet or more, and with ‘crane, swan, venison, salmon and lamprey’ it was described in the thirteenth century romance ‘Havelok the Dane’ as ‘the best meat/That king or Caesar would eat.’ Nobody wanted to make the sturgeon extinct in our isles, but it happened.
Wolves, on the other hand, were deliberately targeted; they are extinct in Britain today, although no-one seems quite sure when they disappeared. Wolf hunters were given licences: in 1221, one Peter Corbet was licenced in Gloucestershire to ‘catch and destroy the wolves with men, dogs and his instruments in any way which he may consider’, and to ‘order that you work and assist this Peter in all things related’. In the 13th and 14th centuries, similar licences across England were given, and ‘the wolf likely went extinct in the south of England in the fourteenth century’. Despite licences distributed by James I and James II during the 15th century, it lingered in Scotland until some time in the late 17th, and its memory has never been forgotten.
Frogs and beavers are freshwater creatures. Though common frogs are still with us, some species have been lost including the ‘pool frog’ – brown and spotted, with a green stripe on its back. It arrived at the end of the Ice Age, became extinct in the 20th century, and has been recently reintroduced in Norfolk. Other frog species now extinct are the ‘moor frog’ – whose males turn blue when breeding – and the ‘agile frog’, still found on Jersey, while a green tree frog is cited in a late 17th century catalogue of British animals. Frogs were considered as sinful, since in Exodus 8, God curses Egypt with a plague of frogs – and were associated with witches.
The beaver was hunted in the medieval period owing to castoreum: ‘a substance contained in sacs under beavers’ tails [...] highly valued as a medicine: it contained salicylic acid, which is also the basis of aspirin, and has an anti-bacterial property’. The beaver itself used the castoreum to mark its territory and waterprood its fur, but a myth arose that it came from the beavers’ testicles which, when hunted, the beaver would bite off in order to escape. Later, their high-status fur was used for making hats, which probably ‘drove the extinction’ of the animal in Western Europe... though Daniel Defoe, writing a travelogue in the 18th century, was told by the people of Cardigan that ‘they sometimes killed beavers’ for fear they would eat salmon fry. Now, of course, beavers are back in some of the rivers and streams which humans seem hell-bent to destroy, and are doing their best to rewild it as they live their own natural lives.
Creatures of Story and Song is a rich, erudite and fascinating book – I absolutely loved it, and so will anyone with an interest of British wildlife and its history, along with the conservation and reintroduction of some wonderful species.
Creatures of Story and Song is published by Reaktion Books
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