Animals
Animal behaviour was ripe for interpretation. ‘Augures’ were people in the ancient world who conducted divination based on the activities of birds and beasts. The belief that future events could be predicted by these means survived into the early modern period.
Portentous animals were normally those encountered on a day-to-day basis. In 1525, Joan Mores of East Langdon, Kent, claimed to be able to tell the future from the croaking of frogs.1Cited in Brian Lindsay Woodcock, Medieval Ecclesiastical Courts in the Diocese of Canterbury (London, 1952), p. 81. Birds were often viewed as omens, and the night-time appearance of owls, cats, ravens, magpies and even ospreys might portend death. When the Glaswegian John Peadie died in 1731, it was reported that before he fell ill ‘an owl had crossed his way twice, and, some say, sat, or offered to sit, on his shoulder’.2Robert Wodrow, Analecta: Or Materials for a History of Remarkable Providences, ed. Matthew Leishman, 4 vols (Edinburgh, 1842–3), iv, p. 199. The same thing had happened to his father before his death, and John was upset by this negative omen.
In October of 1621, a huge number of starlings gathered in the skies above Cork. They circled for several days before two sides clashed, like armies fighting a battle. This apparition was understood as a divine caution, and an augury of a fire that devastated Cork eight months later.3The Wonderfull Battell of Starelings (London, 1622) Sometimes more unusual creatures might form the basis of future predictions. Large sea creatures washing up on the shore foretold danger. Wild animals appearing in places where they should not be signified a world out of order, and impending evil. Also common were accounts of ‘monstrous births’, which featured deformed or wholly fantastical animals (including humans). Monstrous births were typically interpreted as signs of God’s wrath, and warnings that further divine punishment might follow.
Woodcuts of an owl and a salamander, probably from the seventeenth century.4Woodcut from The Birds Lamentation ([London], [1672-96?]), EBBA; woodcut from Aristotle’s Legacy, or his Golden Cabinet of Secrets, trans Dr Solman (London, [1690?]), p. 71, Google Books.
The passage below, written in 1650 by the theologian Nathaniel Holmes, reveals the tendency for animal omens to be negative.6Nathaniel Holmes, Dæmonologie, and Theologie (London, 1650), pp. 59-60.
…’tis common in these days for people to make these observations: That by chattering of magpies, they know they shall have strangers; by the flying and crying of ravens over their houses, especially in the dusk evening, and where one is sick, they conclude death. The same they conclude by the much crying of owls in the night … The same they conclude of a cricket crying in an house where was wont to be none … If dogs howl in the night near an house where somebody is sick, ’tis a sign of death. If a hare or the like creature cross the way where one is going, it is (they say) a sign of very ill luck.
Animals might also be used for prognostication in magical rituals or concoctions. Often this was underpinned by the philosophy of natural magic, which held that earthly things might act as conduits for the power of celestial bodies. The activity below uses examples given in Pus-mantia the Mag-astro-mancer (1652), by the cleric John Gaule. Gaule was himself sceptical, and warned his readers that his examples ‘cannot be believed without superstition, nor practised, without sorcery’.7John Gaule, Pus-mantia: The Mag-astro-mancer (London, 1652), p. 220. Examples below from pp. 220-2.
Above: A ‘monstrous fish’ from Holland, described in a 1566 pamphlet from London.8The Discription of a Rare or Rather Most Monstrous Fishe Taken on the East Cost of Holland (London, 1566), EBBA.
Below: A passage drawn from a chapbook (c. 1690), which uses animal behaviour to predict romantic fortunes.9Aristotle’s Legacy, or his Golden Cabinet of Secrets, trans Dr Solman (London, [1690?]), pp. 52-3, Google Books.
If a robin redbreast come fluttering to your window and sings pleasantly, perching near it, it denotes speedy marriage to the party, and a merry contented life.
If a hare start in your way, and run on your right hand, you will have success in love affairs; but if she cross you, or run on the left hand, it denotes you will be crossed, and interrupted by others, as rivals.
If the swallows chatter merrily, and sing in the chimney of the chamber where you lie, it denotes you will have many sweethearts, and be kindly treated. Bats fluttering at your window betokens misfortunes in love; the croaking of ravens, the first thing you hear in a morning, denotes the like.
To meet a swine the first thing in a morning, carrying straw in its mouth, denotes a maid, or widow, shall soon be married, and very fruitful in children.
To hear magpies chatter, flying about you as you walk abroad, denotes much strife and brawling in marriage.
The text below is from a 1617 pamphlet about a strange animal that washed up on the shore in Essex.10A True Report and Exact Description of a Mighty Sea-Monster or Whale (London, 1617), cover (image) and p. 11.
…there is not nor hath not been (nor I doubt will not be) any day, night, hour or minute, wherein God hath not, doth not or will not pour his vengeance by one means or other, in one place or other, upon us impenetrable, unrepenting and perfidious people … Amongst many other prodigious accidents happened this strange, uncouth and unseasonable winter: On Saturday the first of this present month of February, being a terrible tempestuous day, the main ocean disgorged her self of a mighty sea-monster or whale … Now whether this monster of the sea be ominous or not, I had rather leave to the wise and learned than myself determine.
Woodcut of a pig.11Aristotle’s Legacy, or his Golden Cabinet of Secrets, trans Dr Solman (London, [1690?]), p. 53, Google Books.
