Of all the cruel creatures, the manticore is perhaps the most bloodthirsty and dangerous. She has the body of a lion, a human face, blue eyes, and a pipe-like voice. But among the main and especially ominous features are three rows of teeth in the mouth, a poisonous sting at the end of the tail, like a scorpion, and the same poisonous tail spikes that the creature can throw in any direction. Finally, the word "manticore" is translated from Farsi (Persian) and means "cannibal". This monstrous creature was most often found in the forests of South Asia, as well as Indonesia and Malaysia, where it was considered the most dangerous predator.
In some texts, the following description has been preserved: “She had a huge, resembling a human head, a powerful lion's body, wide strong wings covered with heavy feathers ringing like metal, and a thin, fast, bent, like a scorpion's tail with a poisonous sting at the end. The manticores were nearly invulnerable. Along the entire southern coast, it was said that their skin was not pierced by the heaviest and hardest spears, even the flexible blades of the strongest steel, calcined in volcanic fire, cast by the eastern magicians, could not defeat them. They were killed only by light, but deadly swords made of the Silmaril - the metal that dwarfs traded with people in mythical times. Now in the whole known world there was only one such sword, but who owned it was unknown."
We find the first mention of the manticore in the books of the Greek Ctesias, the personal healer of the Persian king Artaxerxes II (IV century BC). Thanks to this physician, many Persian myths became known to the Greeks. Further Greek and Roman descriptions repeat the main features of the manticore given by Ctesias: a lion's body covered with red hair, three rows of teeth and a tail with a poisonous sting and poisoned thorns.
It is noteworthy that Aristotle in his work "History of Animals" also refers to the Greek Aesculapius: "He [Ctesias] assures that the Indian beast martichorus has a triple row of teeth on the lower and upper jaws, and it is the size of a lion and just as hairy, its legs are like the legs of a lion; his face and ears resemble those of a human; his eyes are blue, and he himself is bright red. Its tail is the same as that of an earthen scorpion, it has a sting in its tail, and it has the ability to shoot like arrows with needles attached to its tail. His voice is a cross between the sound of a pipe and a pipe; he can run as fast as a deer, and he is also wild and cannibal."
The most complete ancient description of the manticore was made in the 2nd century by the Roman Elian, who gives several very curious details: “Anyone who approaches her, she strikes with her sting … see … She is able to defeat any of the animals, with the exception of the lion. While it is clear that Elian, like Aristotle and Pliny, drew his knowledge of the manticore from Ctesias, he adds that the details of this monster are contained in the work of the historian Cnidus.
In the II century, Philostratus of Lemnos mentions the manticore as one of the miracles about which the Neo-Pythagorean philosopher Apollonius of Tyana questioned the king of sages Iarchus on the hill of wisdom.
Although the manticore is rarely mentioned in ancient scientific books, medieval bestiaries abound in descriptions of it. From there, the manticore migrated to natural science and folklore works. In the XIII century, Bartholomew of England wrote about her, in the XIV - William Caxton in the book "The Mirror of the World". Caxton has three rows of manticore teeth turned into "a palisade of huge teeth in his throat", and her voice, like the melody of a pipe, becomes "a sweet serpentine hiss, which she attracts people to her to then devour them." This is probably the only time a manticore has been confused with a mythical siren.
In the Renaissance, a magical creature with a poisoned tail finds its way into the pages of Konrad Gesner's Animal History and Edward Topsell's History of Four-legged Beasts. But since the 18th century, it is no longer mentioned in any serious scientific work, with the exception of those devoted to the study of myths.
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As already mentioned, over the centuries, only minor details have been introduced into the description of the manticore. For example, Pliny writes that her eyes are not blue, but green, Bartholomew of England claims that “she has a fur-covered body of a bear”, and on some medieval coats of arms she is depicted with a curved or spiral horn on her head, and sometimes with a tail and wings dragon. However, such changes made by different authors had little effect on the general idea of the manticore - since the time of Ctesias, there has been only one type of this creature.
At the same time, new signs appear in the literature of the manticore. So, for example, Honorius of Augustodonsky, the author of the most popular work of the 12th century "The Image of the World", endows her with the ability to fly, that is, supplies her with wings: “There … in India there is also a manticore, an animal, a human face, with a triple row of teeth, the body of a lion, scorpion tail, blue eyes, blood-red coat, voice - serpentine hiss; avoiding danger, takes off; her run is faster than the flight of a bird; consumes human meat."
Although the origin of the creature has been repeatedly tried to associate with various mysterious animals, it would obviously be more correct to say that it "comes" from the Indian tiger. This assumption was expressed in the II century by the commentator Ctesias, the Greek writer Pausanias. He believed that the jaws with teeth in three rows, the human face and the tail of a scorpion are nothing more than "the fantasy of Indian peasants who are terrified of this animal." According to Valentine Ball, the legend of the three rows of teeth could have arisen due to the fact that the molars of some predators have several sharp rows on each, and the sting of the manticore is a keratinized patch of skin at the tip of the tiger's tail that resembles a claw. In addition, according to Indian belief, a tiger's whiskers are considered poisonous. The researchers believedthat the ancient Persians saw the human face of a manticore on Indian sculptures of a tiger deity.
In the Middle Ages, the manticore became the emblem of the prophet Jeremiah, since she is an underground creature, and Jeremiah was thrown by enemies into a deep pit.
Since the Middle Ages, the manticore comes into fiction. In the 13th century novel "Tsar Alexander" it is said that off the coast of the Caspian Sea Alexander the Great lost 30 thousand of his soldiers in battles with lions, bears, dragons, unicorns and manticores. In John Skelton's poem Philip the Sparrow (18th century), a little girl, referring to the cat that killed her favorite bird, says: "Let the mountain manticores eat your brain!" In George Wilkins' play The Misfortunes of a Forced Marriage, one of the heroes compares the usurers to these mythical creatures, "enemies of humanity with a double row of teeth."
In folklore, she has become a symbol of tyranny, envy and all kinds of evil in general. Back in the late 1930s, Spanish peasants considered the manticore a "beast of bad omens."
The manticore is one of the tempting beasts in Flaubert's short story "The Temptation of St. Anthony": here it is also a red lion with a human face and three rows of teeth, which also spreads the plague. In the 20th century, ideas about the manticore continued to develop. For example, in the bestiary of the Polish science fiction writer Andrzej Sapkowski, she also has wings and shoots out poisoned thorns: “She lives in India. Her body is a lion's, and her head and muzzle are human, but with a terrible mouth, equipped with three rows of sharp teeth. The wings of the manticore are eagle, while the tail of a scorpion ends with a poisonous needle. His poison, instantly poisoning, takes a manticore from a tree called bohun upas. Attacks people from an ambush, kills and eats so that not a single bone … remains. And when John the Theologian in his Revelation says: “And out of the smoke came the locusts on the earth, and power was given to her,what earthly scorpions have … and torment from it is like torment from a scorpion, "then the saint in his pious simplicity did not mean locusts, but specifically manticores, which on the Day of Judgment will come out of the depths and torture sinners with their stings."
Modernity has made the manticore less sinister. In some children's books, she turns into a cheerful, kind and vulnerable creature. In Pierce Anthony's fantasy story The Chameleon Spell, the manticore, “a creature the size of a horse, with a human head, a lion's body, dragon wings, and a scorpion's tail,” guards the home of a good wizard.
Unlike scientists and writers, artists allowed themselves to treat the image of the manticore with a greater degree of imagination. She was portrayed with long female hair and arrows on her tail. A single depiction of three rows of teeth can be seen in the Westminster bestiary. The most detailed illustration is given in the collection of the 17th century. It depicts a creature with the head of a man, the body of a lion, the tail of a scorpion, the wings and claws of a dragon, cow's horns and a goat's udder.
Pictures from bestiaries inspired many decorators of Christian churches. The image of the manticore can be seen on the octahedral column in the Abbey of Souvini, on the mosaics in the cathedrals in Aosta and in Cahors, where the mysterious creature personifies Saint Jeremiah. Nevertheless, during its more than two thousand years of history, the manticore has changed little and, despite attempts to give it good features, it still remains a symbol of murderous cruelty and rare bloodthirstiness.
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