Beast

Sources : Lynx

Ovid [1st century CE] (The Metamorphoses, Book 15, 391-417): Vanquished India gave lynxes to Bacchus of the clustered vines, and they say that whatever their bladder emits, changes to stone, and solidifies on contact with air. - [Kline translation]

Pliny the Elder [1st century CE] (Natural History, Book 8, 28; 8, 30; 8, 58): [Book 8, 28] The games of Pompey the Great first displayed the chama, which the Gauls used to call the lynx, with the shape of a wolf and leopard's spots. [Book 8, 30] Ethiopia produces lynxes in great numbers. [Book 8, 57]: The water of lynxes, voided in this way when they are born, solidifies or dries up into drops like carbuncles and of a brilliant flame-color, called lynx-water which is the origin of the common story that this is the way in which amber is formed. The lynxes have learnt this and know it, and they jealously cover up their urine with earth, thereby causing it to solidify more quickly. - [Rackham translation]

Aelianus [170-230 CE] (On the Characteristics of Animals, Book 4, 17): The Lynx too hides its urine, for when it hardens it turns to stone and is suitable for engraving, and is one of the aids to female adornment, so they say. - [Scholfield translation]

Gaius Julius Solinus [3rd century CE] (De mirabilibus mundi / Polyhistor, Chapter 2.38): The urine of the lynx is said to collect and harden into precious stones by those who have narrowly investigated the nature of stones. That this is known to the lynxes themselves is proved by this example: when they discharge liquid, they immediately cover it, as much as they are able, with hillocks of sand. No doubt they do this from spite, lest such matter as issues from them be useful to us. As Theophrastus holds, these stones are the color of amber. The substance attracts by a breath things that are near at hand. It cures diseases of the kidneys and assuages the jaundice; it is called luncurium. - [Arwen Apps translation, 2011]

Isidore of Seville [7th century CE] (Etymologies, Book 12, 2:20): The lynx [lyncis] is so called because it is reckoned among the wolves [lupus] in kind; it is a beast that has spotted markings on its back, like a pard, but it is similar to a wolf; whence the wolf has the name lýkos and the other animal, lynx. People say that its urine hardens into a precious stone called lyncurius. That the lynxes themselves perceive this is shown by this proof: they bury as much of the excreted liquid in sand as they can, from a sort of natural jealousy lest such excretion should be brought to human use. Pliny Secundus says that lynxes do not bear more than one offspring. - [Barney, Lewis, et. al. translation]

Thomas of Cantimpré [circa 1230-1245 CE] (Liber de natura rerum, Quadrupeds 4.15; 4.58; 4.61): [Thomas repeats the description from chapter 15 in chapter 58.] [Quadrupeds 4.58] The lynx, as Pliny and Jacobus and Lapidarius [lapidary, the book of stones] say, is a beast that has such penetrating eyes that it is said to penetrate solid bodies with subtlety of sight. The lynx has a snake-like tongue, though larger, which it stretches out to a great length. Its neck is round, and its claws are large. Those who have known the nature of this animal more fully, have said that its urine fuses into the hardness of precious stone. This stone is called ligurian. But out of a kind of natural envy, they hide the liquid released in the sand as far as they can, so that such a stone does not pass into our use.This, too, is found to be wonderful in his nature, that whatever he sees, as soon as he turns his eyes away, he forgets it. [Quadrupeds 4.61] The lynx is a four-footed animal, as the Experimentator says in his book, an animal from the mixture of a dog and a wolf. and this happens to the female wolf and the male dog. For each parent is so lustful that, contrary to the natural hatred that exists between a dog and a wolf, they nevertheless come together in a copulation because of desire. And so it happens that the child takes on the color and manners of both parents. These beasts are strong and fierce. But they signify those who, from the possibility of knowledge, and not by grace, usurp the office of preaching for themselves, and yet live the life of wolves. Those who have indeed converted some from the secular life by preaching, do not fear to draw them afterwards to sins and crimes; and those who ought to have been nurturers in the beginning of grace, become destroyers in the relapse of crimes. Whence the chief of the shepherds, Peter, appearing to a certain presbyter, who had been devoted to secular acts for many years, said to him: You were killing souls that do not die. Then when will you bring back the souls from hell, whom you have given up to punishment for your crime? And when he was unable to answer because of his confusion, returning from the vision he left the world behind him, and having devoted himself to the service of Christ, he migrated to Christ with the most blessed end. This, that most holy and famous man, Master John of Oignies, recited many times, as he who in danger of death heard the same presbyter, to whom the divine revelation which we have spoken was made. - [Badke translation/paraphrase]

Bartholomaeus Anglicus [13th century CE] (Liber de proprietatibus rerum, Book18.68): Linx, lincis, is a beast, and hath that name, for he is accounted among the kinde of Wolves, that is a beast like to the woolfe, and his backe is diversly spekled as the Parde, & his urine changeth and tourneth into a precious stone, that is called Ligurius, & that precious stone is also called Linx, lincis. And this beast Linx hath envie, & is sorie that it should tourne to the use of mankinde, and hideth his urine under ground when hee pisseth, but there it is the sooner hard, & turneth into stone, as Plin[y] saith li. 8. ca. 39. and Isid[ore] 12. - [Batman]