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Illustration of a range of 'sea monsters' in Carta Marina (Ocean Map)

Aspidochelone: A Giant Sea Monster of the Ancient World and an Allegorical Beast

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In ancient Greece there was a large and dangerous sea monster called the aspidochelone, which could be translated as asp-turtle. The people who described it for centuries probably just saw a whale, but in their imaginations it was a fearsome beast and a mythical animal that killed sailors and destroyed their ships.

A Giant Whale or Turtle

The name Aspidochelone seems to come from the combination of the Greek words aspis, which means “asp” or “shield,” and chelone - turtle. According to the Physiologus, a didactic Christian text from the 2nd century AD, that was written or compiled in Greek by an unknown author, the Aspidochelone is a sea creature, described as a large whale or vast sea turtle. No matter what it was, for the people who saw it, it looked like a giant sea monster with huge spines on the ridge of its back. In medieval bestiaries, it is always described as being huge, and often it was first mistaken for an island or a rock.

The Aspidochelone, from a 1633 manuscript in the Danish Royal Library.

The Aspidochelone, from a 1633 manuscript in the Danish Royal Library. (Public Domain)

According to the legend which appears in most of texts mentioning the aspidochelone, sailors thought that the mythical animal was an island, landed there and then built a fire to cook their food. With time the whale dived into the depths to cool itself - dragging the ship down with it and drowning the sailors. According to some of the oldest texts, when the aspidochelone was hungry, it opened its mouth and emitted a sweet odor to attract fish. This part of the description suggests that the beast couldn’t have been a turtle, but more likely a whale.

This mysterious animal became an allegory of bad spirit in the moralistic part of the Physiologus and bestiary traditions. Pliny the Elder also wrote of it in his Natural History mentioning a story of a giant fish. He named it ''pristis'', (of immense size) and wrote a tale of sailors  landing on its back, only to discover that it was not in fact land when it submerged.

The Medieval Strength of Fear

According to the Christian medieval texts, the symbol of the aspidochelone is an allegory of Satan. The one who made this myth stronger was Isidore of Seville who lived in 7th century AD. In his book Etymologiae he described whales as immense beasts with bodies equal to the size of mountains. In his explanations, they gained their name from emitting water when they rise waves higher (the Greek ballein means emit). They were also said to be called monsters ( cete) because of their horribleness.

Page of Etymologiae, Carolingian manuscript (8th century), Brussels, Royal Library of Belgium.

Page of Etymologiae, Carolingian manuscript (8th century), Brussels, Royal Library of Belgium. (Public Domain)

There are two more medieval books, by Guillaume de Clerc and Bartholomaeus Anglicus, which include some of the most important texts about the aspidochelone. Both come from 13th century AD. Guillaume le Clerc calls the monster Cetus. In his book Bestarie, he describes the animal as a bad neighbor for sailors, writing that it is dangerous for the ships, sailors, and everything that lives.

A dragon-like sawfish with webbed feet and the requisite enormous wings attacks a ship from Bestiaire of Guillaume le Clerc. (Bibliothèque Nationale de France)

A dragon-like sawfish with webbed feet and the requisite enormous wings attacks a ship from Bestiaire of Guillaume le Clerc. (Bibliothèque Nationale de France) (Public Domain)

Bartholomaeus Anglicus in his work De proprietatibus rerum, took another approach, and instead of just describing the acts of the mythical beast (which he also did), he tried to understand what kind of animal it could be. He called it Bellua and described it as the scariest and most dangerous creature in the history of the world. He compared the beast to a horrible crocodile with huge jaws and a very big body which was incomparable in size to anything else.

Due to these and other authors, the vision of the sea monster as a metaphor for the devil stayed strong for many centuries.

Crocodile in the Medieval Bestiary Rochester.

Crocodile in the Medieval Bestiary Rochester. (Public Domain)

A Source of Fear Around the World

A similar myth was described in areas apart from the Mediterranean region. The mythical sea monster was mentioned everywhere in the Latin world, but also in other cultures.

For example, in Irish folklore a giant fish appears in the story about Saint Brendan. In the legend, the monster, called the Jasconius, breached the boat of Brendan because he also mistook it for an island. In the mythology of Greenland, the same monster was called the Imap Umassoursa. Described in the same way, the beast was said to tip sailors into freezing waters, causing their deaths.

Brendan and his monks' ship is carried by a giant fish in a German manuscript.

Brendan and his monks' ship is carried by a giant fish in a German manuscript. (Public Domain)

In Middle Eastern legends the aspidochelone appears as the Zaratan. It is mentioned in in the first voyage of Sinbad the Sailor in the Tales of the Thousand and One Nights. The monster appears also in The Wonders of Creation by Al Qaswini in Persia and in the Book of Animals by a Spanish naturalist named Miguel Palacios.

The crew of St. Brendan "lands" on the whale-island.

The crew of St. Brendan "lands" on the whale-island. (Public Domain)

Chile has one of the most fascinating myths about the aspidochelone sea monster. This story probably comes from the pre-Columbian period. The giant sea monster there was named Cuero or Hide. The similarity to the stories from Europe and Middle East obviously proves that the Chileans described the same monster. In these legends, the beast was a vast and flat thing that looked like a stretched out animal and lured the sailors to their death.

Another Name for the Old Monster

Another variant of the history of aspidochelone comes from an old English poem entitled The Whale. The only difference is that in this case the monster was named Fastitocalon. The author of the text is unknown. It is one of the three poems included in the Old English Physiologus (which is also known as bestiary.) Apart from The Fastitocalon there were two other allegorical beings described in this collection: The Phoenix and The Panther.

Whalers off Twofold Bay, New South Wales. Watercolor by Oswald Brierly, 1867.

Whalers off Twofold Bay, New South Wales. Watercolor by Oswald Brierly, 1867. (Public Domain)

The book was most probably intended to be put in the gospels. Researchers believe that it was written by a person who tried to express many different Christian ideas, such as the devil, God, and Christ’s death and resurrection. The Physiologus made the image of the whale-monster as a synonym of the devil stronger. The book was translated into many languages, throughout the world.

A Myth Which Survived into Modern Literature

Nowadays, the motif of the mythical whale is still so popular in literature that is impossible to mention all the titles of books that contain this type of sea monster.  In The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, J. R. R. Tolkien made a little verse that claimed the name Fastitocalon from The Whale, and imported the traditional tale of the aspidochelone into the lore of his Middle-earth.

“Look, there is Fastitocalon!
An island good to land upon,
Although 'tis rather bare.
Come, leave the sea! And let us run,
Or dance, or lie down in the sun!
See, gulls are sitting there!
Beware!”

The giant sea monster appears also as a character in Never Ending story by Michael Ende, in the video game The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, and in the famous Japanese manga series Naruto, written and illustrated by Masashi Kishimoto. After many centuries the legend about the great monster, which were probably just whales met in different places and periods, is still alive in people’s minds.

Featured image: Illustration of a range of 'sea monsters' in Carta Marina (Ocean Map). (Public Domain)

By: Natalia Klimczak

References

Carol Rose, Giants , Monsters, and Dragons: An Encyclopedia of Folklore, Legend, and Myth, 2001
Édouard Brasey, La Petite Encyclopédie du merveilleux,  2007
Willene B. Clark, A medieval book of beasts: the second-family bestiary, 2006
Wilma B. George, William Brunsdon Yapp, The naming of the beasts: natural history in the medieval bestiary, 1991
http://bestiary.ca/beasts/beast282.htm

 

Natalia

Natalia Klimczak is an historian, journalist and writer and is currently a Ph.D. Candidate at the Faculty of Languages, University of Gdansk. Natalia does research in Narratology, Historiography, History of Galicia (Spain) and Ancient History of Egypt, Rome and Celts. She... Read More

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