I recently learned about the book Pseudodoxia Epidemica: or, Enquiries into very many received tenents and commonly presumed truths by Thomas Browne. This is a book from 16721 that debunks a bunch of myths and misconceptions that were apparently widely believed at the time. I think it's pretty neat.
Many of the myths discussed (e.g. the existence of the gryphon, basilisk, and phoenix, magical properties of the Mandrake, and so on) are still well-known as fantasy tropes. However, there's also a lot of weird stuff that I've never heard before, including:
- That a Diamond is made soft, or broke by the blood of a Goate.
- That there is a property in Basil to propagate Scorpions, and that by the smell thereof they are bred in the brains of men.
- That a Bever to escape the Hunter bites off his testicles or stones.2
- That a Woolf first seeing a man, begets a dumbness in him.
- That the Ostridge digesteth Iron.
- That Storkes will onely live in Republicks and free States.
There's also some fun snarkiness at times. For instance, when discussing the claim that worms have no blood3, Browne writes:
That Worms are exanguious Animals, and such as have no bloud at all, is the determination of Phylosophy, the general opinion of Scholars, and I know not well to dissent from thence my self. If so, surely we want a proper term whereby to express that humour in them which so strictly resembleth bloud: and we refer it unto the discernment of others what to determine of that red and sanguineous humor, found more plentifully about the Torquis or carneous Circle of great Worms in the Spring, affording in Linnen or Paper an indiscernable tincture from bloud. Or wherein that differeth from a vein, which in an apparent blew runneth along the body, and if dexterously pricked with a lancet, emitteth a red drop, which pricked on either side it will not readily afford.
There are also occasional cases where Browne is more wrong than the sources he's criticizing. In the section on amber, Browne writes:
It is likewise probable the Ancients were mistaken concerning its [amber's] substance and generation; they conceiving it a vegetable concretion made of the gums of Trees, especially Pine and Poplar falling into the water, and after indurated or hardened, whereunto accordeth the Fable of Phaetons sisters: but surely the concretion is Mineral, according as is delivered by Boetius. For either it is found in Mountains and mediterraneous parts; and so it is a fat and unctuous sublimation in the Earth, concreted and fixed by salt and nitrous spirits wherewith it meeteth. Or else, which is most usual, it is collected upon the Sea-shore; and so it is a fat and bituminous juice coagulated by the saltness of the Sea.
Of course, we now know that the Ancients were correct about amber originating as tree resin.
In conclusion, this is a neat book to take a look at, I guess?