HKB
OF ANIMALS AND THE SUPERNATURAL
"O Hassan! Saving Allah, there is none More strong than Eblis. Foul marsh lights he made To wander and perplex us,--errant stars, Red, devil-ridden meteors bringing plague-- Deserts of restless sand-drifts,--ice-bound seas Wherein is neither life nor power to live;-- Bound Devils to the snow-capped peaks;--(These vex Earth with their struggles,)--lashed undying fire About the forehead of the tortured hills, And filled the belly of the Deep with life Unnameable and awful at his will:-- Sent forth his birds, the owl, the kite, the crow:-- Gray wolves that haunt our village gate at dusk Made he his horses, and his councillor The hooded snake;--in darkness wove the grass That kills our cattle, made the flowers that suck Man's life like dew-drops,--evil seeds and shrubs That turn the sons of Adam into beasts Whom Eblis snatches from the sword-wide Bridge.
"The thing that stung thee and its kind, his hands Fashioned in mockery and bitter hate,-- Dread beasts by land and water, all are his. Each bears the baser likeness of God's work, Distorted, as the shadow of thy face In water troubled by the breeze."
The Seven Nights of Creation--R. K.
All Indian animals are more or less concerned in the Hindu mind with the over or the under world, but certain ideas and beliefs which have not been noticed in the foregoing pages deserve a moment's attention. An enumeration of the fabulous creatures invented by Eastern fancy would be a long business, and, strictly speaking, belongs to another story--to the book some happy pedant, rich in lore and leisure, will one day write on the Natural History of the birds, beasts, and fishes that never were in air or land or sea. Many of them are kin to the strange creatures of the monkish bestiaries of medieval Europe, the herring-gutted menageries of heraldry, and the poetry of all the world. The Rukh, mightiest of eagles; the Huma or Phœnix; the Simurgh or Hippogriff; the buffalo demon or Bucentaur; the Garuda, often shown as a winged man with a bird's head; the Yali, a wonderful horse monster; Jatayu, the Vulture King; with dragons, sea-monsters, and the winged animals of every kind in which Mongolian and Persian imagination is exceptionally prolific, are only a few of a mighty and most fantastic host. Some have plainly grown to their place through the attempts of artists to represent the vague dreams of poets. Rude versions of the Avatars or incarnations of the Gods are accepted as portraits of possible creatures, such as Narsingha, the man-lion, the man-fish, and so forth. To trace the birth, kinships, growth in human esteem, migrations, and uses of these delightful monsters, and to marshal them in historical procession, is a task that has been attempted of old time; but it still remains to link the East with the grotesque pageant, if not to place her contingent at the head.