The Barometz, or Tartarian Lamb (article)

The Barometz, or Tartarian Lamb
By M., for The Irish Penny Journal (1841)

This short column from the Irish Penny Journal sets out to disprove the myth of the vegetable lamb and indulge in the “innocent amusement” (316) it provides. The writer claims to have found a description of the vegetable lamb “in an account of Struy’s Travels through Russia, Tartary, &c.” (316) – dating to the seventeenth century – and summarizes the phenomenon as follows:

“The object of wonder was in this case the Scythian or Tartarian lamb, a creature which, it was stated, sprang from the ground like a plant, and, restrained to the spot on which it was produced, devoured every vegetable production within its reach, and was itself in turn eaten by the wolves of the country” (316).

The writer sensibly attributes the origin of this misunderstanding to the manipulated tree fern and lamb-shaped folk-art, concluding that these “ornamental additions [are] introduced to suit the taste of the narrator, and to pander to that love of the marvellous which prevailed in the age in which he lived” (316).

This little column, while hardly astonishing, marks the shift in imagination around the idea of the vegetable lamb that marked the end of its stand as a wonder of the world and its decline into a point of gentle foolishness that allowed the “modern” thinkers to poke fun at the preceding eras of cultural history.