Beast

Sources : Mole

Aristotle [ca. 350 BCE] (De animalibus Book 4, chapter 8.2): [The mole] has no sight, it has no apparent eyes, but when the thick skin which surrounds the head is taken away, in the place where the eyes ought to be on the outside, are the undeveloped internal eyes, which have all the parts of true eyes, for they have both the iris of the eye, and within the iris the part called the pupil, and the white; but all these are less than in true eyes. On the outside there is no appearance of these parts, from the thickness of the skin, as if the nature of the eye had been destroyed at birth... - [Cresswell translation, 1887]

Pliny the Elder [1st century CE] (Natural History, Book 10, 88): ...moles [have] acuter hearing - although they are buried in the earth, so dense and deaf an element of nature, and although moreover all sound travels upward, they can overhear people talking, and it is actually said that if you speak about them they understand and run away. - [Rackham translation]

Isidore of Seville [7th century CE] (Etymologies, Book 12, 2:39; 12, 3.5): [Book 12, 2:39] The mole [furo] is named from "dark" [furvus], whence also comes the word "thief" [fur], for it digs dark and hidden tunnels and tosses out the prey that it finds. [Book 12, 3:5] The mole [talpa] is so called because it is condemned to perpetual blindness in the dark [tenebrae], for, having no eyes, it always digs in the earth, and tosses out the soil, and devours the roots beneath vegetables. - [Barney, Lewis, et. al. translation]

Gerald of Wales [c. 1146 – c. 1223] (Topographia Hibernica, chapter 22): There are very few or no moles in Ireland, either because they have never existed, or on account of the extreme humidity of the soil. - [Forester translation, 1863]

Thomas of Cantimpré [circa 1200-1272 CE] (Liber de natura rerum, Quadrupeds 4.103): A mole, as they say, is a small, black, and blind animal. This, as the Gloss says, is born from the earth, wet and muddy, but corrupted. As it is worthy, it lives in the earth, and feeds on worms. Liber rerum: Sometimes the earth is parched with a drought. But because it is blind, it does not know how to return to the place from which it came out, and therefore it usually happens that it is killed early. It can destroy many crops of vegetables and different types of plants. As the Experimentator says, it works the soil and eats the roots of the dry crops under the ground. It eats earth when in hunger. Its skin is very hairy and soft. It has a very dark color, so the Greeks call it alfalcam. A mole burnt to dust and sprinkled with the white of an egg over the face is a remedy against leprosy. It is said that the blood of a slain mole, if it be put upon a bald head, causes the hair to return. Regarding the mole, Aristotle says: All animals, he says, that give birth to their own kind, have eyes except the mole, which is deprived of eyes, according to what can be seen from its exterior. The mole does not see at all. Nevertheless, if one were to lift the skin that is over its eyes, he would find a kind of blackness and in the middle of it the pupil and the arrangement of the eyes, and he would see that the deprivation of light does not happen to the mole except because of the skin over his eyes. And in this is to be seen the wisdom of the creator, who gave to each thing that which is appropriate and useful. But the mole he gave eyes, which were fully formed, but with which it could not see in the darkness hidden in the earth. And yet he gave it eyes, so that nature would not deny beauty in every way. - [Badke translation/paraphrase]

Bartholomaeus Anglicus [13th century CE] (Liber de proprietatibus rerum, Book18.101): A Mole is called Talpa, and is a little beast, somewhat like unto a Mouse. Of this beast Isidore speaketh libr. 12. and saith, that he is damned in everlasting blindnesse and darknesse, & is without eyen, and hath a snowte as a swine, and diggeth therewith the earth, and casteth up that he diggeth and gnaweth, and eateth mores and rootes under the earth, and hateth the Sunne, and flyeth lyght, and may not live above the earth, and hath a blacke skinne, hairie, softe & smooth, and most short legges, and broad footed, devided or parted with toes, as it were an hound. And Arist[le] speaketh of the Mole in this wise: every beast that gendereth a beast like to himselfe, hath eyen, except the Mole, that hath no eyen séene without, and who that slitteth the skinne subtilly and warely, shall finde within the fores of eyen hidden: & some men suppose, that that skinne breaketh for anguish & for sorow when he beginneth to dye, and beginneth then to open the eyen in dieng, that were cloased lyving. Héereto Plin[ius] saith lib. 10. cap. 49. that the Mole heareth better when he is healed with earth that is a thicke Element and deafe of kinde, and if he heare a man speake, he voydeth and flyeth far awaye. - [Batman]