The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary (article)

The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary (Alice F. Tryon, American Fern Journal, Vol. 47 / No. 1, 1957).

Tryon's article begins by tracing the image of the vegetable lamb through some of its most notable appearances in literature. She begins with Rabbi Jochanan in 436, moves through its medieval manifestations in a 1235 work by a "commentator" on the Scriptures - John Mandeville ("something of an English Ulysses") - Friar Odoric - and then, Claude Duret, in his Histoire Admirable des Plantes. She then briefly mentions its reception in 16th and 17th century academic circles, citing Kircher of Avignon and Girolamo Cardana of Pavia as her examples. Tryon documents Dutch East India Company surgeon Dr. Kaempfer's attempts to find the creature, and then Sir Hans Sloane's success (he "laid the object before the scientific world" as he presented a specimen to the Royal Society of London).

The remainder of the article, appropriately enough for the American Fern Journal, decidedly states that the specimen provided by Sloane was actually "a portion of a fern plant that grows in southern China" (Cibotium barometz). Essentially, the ferns, which are actually a type of fern tree reaching 15 feet in height, bear clusters of fronds with trunks that are covered in long "hairs". A portion of the trunk is cut and the fronds cut to resemble appendages; the addition of seeds to represent eyes produces a piece of animalistic folk-art that much resembles a lamb (or other small animal). As I mentioned in my brief summary of the equally brief Tree-Wool article, this is one of two prevalent explanations for the origin of the vegetable lamb myth, the other being a simple conflation of "trees" and "lambs" in a misunderstanding of then-exotic cotton.

Tryon also includes the pretty bit of verse by Erasmus Darwin which I've mentioned in other entries, and I'll include it here because it's quite nice:

Cradled in snow, and fanned by Arctic air,
Shines, gentle Barometz, thy golden hair;
Rooted in earth, each cloven hoof descends,
And round and round her flexile neck she bends,
Crops the gray coral moss and hoary thyme,
Or laps with rosy tongue the melting rime;
Eyes with mute tenderness her distant dam,
And seems to bleat - a 'vegetable lamb'.

(Erasmus Darwin, The Botanic Garden)

Originals and Analogues (article)

Originals and Analogues of the Exeter Book Riddles
By Frederick Tupper Jr., for Modern Language Notes (1903)

Just a quick note:
This article discusses the Exeter Book Riddles, including all sorts of weird and wonderful information. One of the answers proposed for a certain riddle is our very own... “Barnacle Goose”!

This riddle “opens the gates to a world of strange beliefs and superstitious fancies” (100). Just how I like my riddles. Tupper notes the earliest literary account of the barnacle goose – Giraldus Cambrensis, in his twelfth century work Topographia Hiberniae.

This indicates, if nothing else, the small niche occupied by zoophytic hybrids in the English imagination, starting before the twelfth century and expanding into the early modern era. Why? Couldn’t tell you. But here’s yet another piece of evidence that this odd fascination exists.

Chaucer and Mandeville's Travels (article)

Chaucer and Mandeville’s Travels
By Josephine Waters Bennett, for Modern Language Notes (1953)

This article attempts to make links between Chaucer and Mandeville, and speaks in tentative tones that are later assured by Moseley’s article, I suppose (discussed in the previous post).

Essentially, Bennett argues for a borrowing from the Travels in Chaucer’s Squire’s Tale. This is on the basis that (1) Chaucer’s “as tellen knyghtes olde” could be construed as a reference to Sir John Mandeville, the only popular author writing of the east who happened to be a knight, (2) the likely date for the writing of the Travels would have made the author a contemporary of Chaucer’s grandfather, therefore fitting the descriptor “olde” in the above-quoted line, (3) the wittiness of Mandeville in certain points of the Travels is akin to Chaucer’s, likely making the latter more disposed to think well enough of the former to borrow his work, and (4) the immense popularity of the Travels makes it a worthy cultural reference to make for Chaucer’s audience’s benefit.

However, as Moseley made clear in his article, at the time Chaucer was writing, the Travels was not yet popular in England. Would the merit of popularity on the continent make it a worthy cultural reference? Perhaps.

In any event, nothing to do with plants.