Medieval Bestiary

My good friend Joel turned me on to the bestiary from this blog post about the beaver.
To me, there just is something honest, and interesting to me that I can not put my finger on coming from these medieval monks speaking of all manner of animals they never seen in their lives, and did not know about. Perhaps it is the reality that God's creation does point to a greater reality, and that the truth can often be stranger than fiction, I love watching my oldest son's interest grow in dinosaurs.

Below is an example from this resource.

Ants are said to have these characteristics: they walk in order like soldiers; they carry grains in their mouths, and an ant with no grain will not try to take the grain from one which has it; they break each grain in half to keep it from germinating when it rains, because if it does the ants will starve in the winter; when it is time to harvest the grain, they go into the fields and climb up to the grain, where they distinguish wheat from barley by its smell and reject the barley because it is food for cattle.

Some Physiologus versions and other texts tell of the gold-digging ants of Ethiopia, which are the size of dogs. These ants dig up gold from sand with their feet and guard it, chasing down and killing any who try to steal it. It is said that people safely steal the ant's gold by separating mares from their foals, with a river between them. The mares, carrying packs, are driven to the side of the river inhabited by the ants; the ants, seeing the packs as a good place to hide their gold, fill them with the golden sand. When the mares swim back to their foals on the other side of the river, the ants cannot follow.

Herodotus tells a similar story, but places the gold-digging ants in India (see below).


Allegory/Moral

The ants working together for the common good is to be taken as a lesson to men, who should work in unity.

The splitting of the grain represents the separation that must be made in the interpretation of the Bible, distinguishing the literal from the spiritual meaning, "lest the law interpreted literally should kill you". Some sources compare the ants to the Jews, who have taken the law literally and have "died of hunger".

The barley the ants reject signifies the heresy that Christians are to cast away.