Page:Readings in European History Vol 1.djvu/479

Thi* hirrl The Ciilture of tJie Middle Ages 443 This bird signifies the son of Mary, and we are the young birds in fashion of men. We are so raised and restored from death by the precious blood which God shed for us, as the birdlings are which were three days dead. Now hear by science what that signifies, why the birdlings peck at the father's eye, and why the father is angry when he kills them thus : he who denies truth will put out the eye of God, and God will take vengeance upon that people. Have in remembrance that this is the meaning. Satyrs be somewhat like men, and have crooked noses, 185. Of and horns in the forehead, and are like to goats in their satyrs, feet. St. Anthony saw such an one in the wilderness, as (pronT^e " it is said, and he asked what he was, and he answered Properties of Anthony, and said, " I am deadly, and one of them that Bartholomew dwelleth in the wilderness." These wonderful beasts be Anglicus, divers ; for some of them be called Cynophali, for they have thirteenth heads as hounds, and seem, by the working, beasts rather than men ; and some be called Cyclops, and have that name because each of them hath but one eye, and that in the middle of the forehead ; and some be all headless and nose- less and their eyes be in the shoulders; and some have plain faces without nostrils, and the nether lips of them stretch so that they hele therewith their faces when they be in the heat of the sun ; and some of them have closed mouths, in their breasts only one hole, and breathe and suck, as it were, with pipes and veins, and these be accounted tongue- less, and use signs and becks instead of speaking ; also in Scythia be some with so great and large ears, that they spread their ears and cover all their bodies with them, and these be called Panchios. . . . And others there be in Ethiopia, and each of them have only one foot, so great and so large that they beshadow themselves with the foot when they lie gaping on the ground in strong heat of the sun ; and yet they be so swift that they be likened to hounds in swiftness of running, and therefore among the Greeks they be called Cynopodes. Also some have the soles of their feet turned backward behind the