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010 _a04006301
040 _aUtSlPG
041 7 _aen
_2iso639-1
050 4 _aQL
100 1 _aHulme, F. Edward
_q(Frederick Edward),
_d1841-1909
245 1 0 _aNatural history, lore and legend
264 1 _aSalt Lake City, UT :
_bProject Gutenberg,
_c2026
300 _a1 online resource :
_bmultiple file formats
336 _atext
_btxt
_2rdacontent
337 _acomputer
_bc
_2rdamedia
338 _aonline resource
_bcr
_2rdacarrier
500 _aRelease date is 2026-02-01
508 _aTim Lindell, Turgut Dincer and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
520 _a"Natural history, lore and legend" by F. Edward Hulme is a historical survey written in the late 19th century. It explores how ancient and medieval writers understood animals and nature—balancing medical uses, moral symbolism, and travellers’ reports—alongside legends of real and mythical creatures. Expect respectful reassessment of “travellers’ tales,” bestiaries, and heraldic lore, with frequent citations from Pliny, Aristotle, Maundevile, and other authorities. The opening of this survey argues that medieval naturalists were honest seekers after truth, even if credulous, and notes how later discoveries have vindicated some disputed reports. Hulme contrasts modern, descriptive zoology with earlier aims—healing the body and saving the soul—illustrated by moral readings of animals from works like the Speculum Mundi (e.g., the crafty polypus, the mole that “opens its eyes” at death). He samples astrological medicine and bizarre recipes (protective staves, “Venice treacle”), then shows the “unchanging East” through Jordanus (Towers of Silence, suttee) and Maundevile (Juggernaut processions, artificial incubation, carrier pigeons, bound feet), and notes Burton’s early account of coca. A substantial survey of Pliny’s Natural History outlines its vast scope, sources, and influence, with Aristotle and other classical writers alongside the medieval reliance on travel books, medical handbooks, bestiaries, armories, and poets. Hulme delights in old cosmographies and maps crammed with monsters (Munster), weighs Marco Polo’s comparative sobriety against more fanciful geographers, and glances at Raleigh, Hakluyt, Purchas, Struys, and Acosta. He also samples remedies and student life from Cogan and Potter, and the ecclesiastical bestiaries of Guillaume and Philip de Thaun with their emblematic morals, plus heraldic manuals by Guillim and others. At the start of the second chapter, he turns to pygmies—classical testimonies, crane wars, Browne’s skepticism, Maundevile’s and Jordanus’s reports, Marco Polo’s counterfeit “pygmies”—and notes modern confirmations of dwarf peoples before introducing Aldrovandus’s extravagant “monsters.” (This is an automatically generated summary.)
534 _pOriginally published:
_cLondon: Bernard Quaritch, 1895
653 _aScience -- History
653 _aZoology -- History
653 _aAnimals, Mythical
653 _aMonsters
856 4 _uhttps://archive.org/details/naturalhistorylo00hulmuoft
856 4 0 _uhttps://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77830
999 _c118550
_d118550