Tree-Wool (article)

Tree-Wool (Mary Johnston, The Classical Weekly, Vol. 24 / No. 8, 1930).

This is a cute little document. The section about "tree-wool" only runs for about half a page, it is sufficient to briefly introduce the two most popular explanations for the origin of the vegetable lamb myth:

"As the western mind associated wool with sheep and lambs, from the idea of 'wool from trees' [cotton] grew the tale of the vegetable lamb, a la,b which grew as a plant".

And, in a note appended to the article, a reference to "the shaggy rhizome of the fern Dickonsia Barometz, which when inverted and suitably trimmed somewhat resembled a small lamb".

Since both ideas are discussed in more detail elsewhere, I'll leave it to my reflections on those articles.

Johnson, however, also points to a couple of places where the veggie lamb pops up in art and literature: first, in the Erasmus Darwin poem "The Botanic Garden", and on the cover of a 1656 gardening book (Parkinson's Paradisi in Solis).

What a funny little creature, no?

I feel an odd kinship with it, particularly in the image I've attached to this blog of the lambs bursting out of fruits on a tree. Of all the curious hybrids I've encountered, this is the one that most strikes me on some strange level. Part plant and part animal, each category rooted and powerful in its own right, this awkward marriage of two very different worlds might by all rights be considered a freak accident of nature, should it exist, or at best a weird symbol that highlights the dangers of mingling things meant to be segregated.

But somehow, it's an enduring figure, an emblem for god-knows-what that pops up in art as a christological symbol, a marvel and a high curiosity that sparks the inquisitive minds of centuries of people.

Maybe it's because I feel like I'm the awkward marriage of two distinct worlds, but for me, the vegetable lamb is the champion of unlike likeness and a refusal (rather than an inability) to transform.

So, there you go. I'm sympathetic toward the little guy. I don't know where I belong either, and no one's categorizations leave me feeling well-represented.

Oh, god, does this mean I'm just a myth as well?

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.

Was Odoric of Pordenone Ever in Tibet? (article)

Was Odoric of Pordenone Ever in Tibet?
by Berthold Laufer for T’oung Pao

Who was it that told me that if the title of your article can be answered with a “yes” or a “no”, you shouldn’t bother writing it?

Spoiler alert!!! The answer is NO.

Okay, really, I liked this article. I think Laufer is one helluva smart cookie. Here, he basically tackles two questions: was Odoric ever in Tibet (he is credited with being the first European traveler there), and is the information he presents eyewitness or simply hearsay?

Now, it is easy for me to get distracted by shiny side-paths of small scholarly questions that have nothing whatever to do with Mandeville and his plants. This is one of those things. For some reason, I find Odoric and the map of his travels to be totally fascinating. But let me try to be a little focused here, yes?

For my purposes, it’s really interesting to witness Laufer’s method of examining Odoric’s writing in order to determine the authenticity of his words. Looking at his specific language in terms of his concept of self in place, and how specific details of his work compare to the writing of his contemporaries – holding Odoric against now more or less universally-acknowledged ethnographic and anthropological truths – assessing the author’s style and character to measure his powers of observation and clarity of writing – Laufer’s got a lot of tricks up his sleeve.

Even though he ultimately robs Odoric of his reputation for being the first European to traverse Tibet, he does so with such grace and tact that Odoric himself probably would have shook his hand and thanked him for the corrective measure. What a class act.