Dr. Francis Young returns to the show to discuss his new book, Fairies: A History, by Polity Books (2026). Dr. Young traces fairies and fairy encounters from pagan Europe all the way to the 21st Century. He argues that it is not useful to think of fairies as beings that can be proved and documented scientifically, but experienced through a type of perception. Have we moderns lost this type of perception?

What does Tolkien’s conception of Faerie have to do with all of this?

How did the Reformation and the Enlightenment impact fairy belief?

We discuss all of this and more in this episode of IMBIF.

Fairies: A History: https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=fairies-a-history--9781509566778

Dr. Young can be found on Twitter.com @DrFrancisYoung

His substack is

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Writings from fairyland Myth, folklore, fiction, Catholicism

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Charles Shoultz has had the dream to write a modern story that would rival the great tales of old. He has finally begun to release his story in pieces, like an old magazine serial. Let me tell you, he does not disappoint.

Writer and poet, C. A. Shoultz joins me on the show to discuss his first book, Technocracy. We talked about his background in poetry as well as the background to his story.

This has the potential to be something big, so check it out!

Follow Shoultz on substack:

The website to find the story is here: https://www.cashoultz.com/

Find C. A. Shoultz on Twitter.com @HarrierMagnus

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I Might Believe in Faeries

Writings from fairyland Myth, folklore, fiction, Catholicism

By Aaron Irber

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We talked about pagan gods, Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, Pablo Picasso, Alexander Scriabin, and all of the weird things going on in post-WWI Paris.

Enjoy!

The Mills of the Gods can be found here: https://www.baen.com/Chapters/9781668073018/9781668073018.htm

iSamwise has a YouTube channel that can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/@iSamwise

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I Might Believe in Faeries

Writings from fairyland Myth, folklore, fiction, Catholicism

By Aaron Irber

Like my Facebook page - I Might Believe in Faeries

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Thomas gave me permission to publish the episode on my own show as well. The original episode was published here: https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/tolkiens-darkest-tale-w-aaron-irber/

Thomas Mirus can be found on Twitter.com @CatholicPods and on Substack

Here are the original notes from the Catholic Culture podcast:

The darkest, and perhaps most underrated, story J.R.R. Tolkien ever wrote was the tale of Túrin Turambar, a great man of the First Age of Middle-Earth, whose life was ruined by the curse of Morgoth (Tolkien’s Satan-figure) and by his own pride. The tale, which resembles a Greek tragedy, was given its longest and most satisfying version in the posthumously published book The Children of Hurin.

Aaron Irber, host of a podcast “about stories, myths, and Catholicism”, joins Thomas to discuss this underappreciated work by Tolkien.

-Aaron’s podcast, I Might Believe in Faeries

Theme music: “Franciscan Eyes”, written and performed by Thomas Mirus. Download the Catholic Culture Podcast soundtrack.

Weasels--and stoats--and foxes--and so on. They’re all right in a way--I’m very good friends with them--pass the time of day when we meet, and all that--but they break out sometimes, there’s no denying it, and then--well, you can’t really trust them, and that’s the fact.

- The Wind in the Willows

In my first post in this series, I covered the Satanic symbolism of the basilisk. In the second, and final, part of this series, I will discuss the symbolism of the weasel. First, , it will be important to discuss the miasma theory of disease that was the dominant medical view from the ancient world to the Renaissance. This theory will be relevant to the odorous qualities of both the basilisk and the weasel.

Section 1 - Miasma Theory of Disease

The miasma theory of disease is the idea that miasma or “bad air” causes and spreads certain diseases. Hippocrates (5th Century B.C.) is credited as the originator of this theory in his treatise, On Airs, Waters, and Places. In this treatise, Hippocrates describes how different places, depending on the quality of the air (hot or cold, wind direction, etc.) and the quality of water (stagnant, marshy, limpid, etc.) can produce different ailments in the local population:

A city that is exposed to hot winds (these are between the wintry rising, and the wintry setting of the sun), and to which these are peculiar, but which is sheltered from the north winds; in such a city the waters will be plenteous and saltish, and as they run from an elevated source, they are necessarily hot in summer, and cold in winter; the heads of the inhabitants are of a humid and pituitous constitution, and their bellies subject to frequent disorders, owing to the phlegm running down from the head; the forms of their bodies, for the most part, are rather flabby; they do not eat nor drink much; drinking wine in particular, and more especially if carried to intoxication, is oppressive to them; and the following diseases are peculiar to the district: in the first place, the women are sickly and subject to excessive menstruation; then many are unfruitful from disease, and not from nature, and they have frequent miscarriages; infants are subject to attacks of convulsions and asthma, which they consider to be connected with infancy, and hold to be a sacred disease (epilepsy).

The men are subject to attacks of dysentery, diarrhea, hepialus, chronic fevers in winter, of epinyctis, frequently, and of hemorrhoids about the anus. Pleurisies, peripneumonies, ardent fevers, and whatever diseases are reckoned acute, do not often occur, for such diseases are not apt to prevail where the bowels are loose. Ophthalmies occur of a humid character, but not of a serious nature, and of short duration, unless they attack epidemically from the change of the seasons. And when they pass their fiftieth year, defluxions supervening from the brain, render them paralytic when exposed suddently to strokes of the sun, or to cold. These diseases are endemic to them, and, moreover, if any epidemic disease connected with the change of the seasons, prevail, they are also liable to it.

The idea of “bad air” causing diseases or death is important because both the basilisk and the weasel are associated with odors of different qualities. According to St. Isidore, the basilisk is the king of the serpents and kills other snakes with its own odor. The basilisk being associated with death and destruction naturally means that its very scent will be unhealthy as well. For the Medieval mind, the odor of this monster would cause sickness and death. Wind is associated with breath as well, and as I mentioned in the last post, the basilisk has breath that could kill any living thing and shatter stones. The weasel was one of the only creatures that could kill the basilisk.

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Section 2 - Weasel Overview

Weasels are carnivorous mammals in the order Mustelidae, which also includes ermines, martens, badgers, otters, wolverines and others. St. Isidore says they are named mustela as if they were a combination of a long mouse (mus) and a long dart (telum). They were considered both vermin hunters and vermin themselves.

St. Isidore distinguishes two types of weasels: larger, wild ones and ones that wander into houses. A popular bit of folklore claims that weasels were popular pets in the ancient world, but there seems to be some debate on that point. Isidore describes weasels as wandering into houses, not necessarily being domesticated as pets. Perhaps they were tolerated because they hunted worse vermin such as rats and snakes. Larger Mustelids were used in the Middle Ages to hunt rabbits and Aristotle (The History of Animals) describes the marten as being able to be tamed:

The polecat or marten is about as large as the smaller breed of Maltese dogs. In the thickness of its fur, in its look, in the white of its belly, and in its love of mischief, it resembles the weasel; it is easily tamed; from its liking for honey it is a plague to bee-hives; it preys on birds like the cat.

Another popular piece of folklore is that weasels conceive through their mouths and give birth through their ears. This is a passage from the Physiologus:

The law says, “You shall not eat the weasel, nor anything like it” [Lev. 11: 29]. The weasel has this nature: the female receives the seed of the male in her mouth and, having become pregnant, gives birth through her ears. If it happens, however, that she gives birth through the right ear, the young will be male, and if through the left ear, female. Wicked things are en-gendered through the ears.

On the other hand, there is the idea that weasels give birth through their mouths.

This is a passage from Ovid’s Metamorphosis (Book IX) translation by Charles Martin:

They say Galanthis mocked the cheated goddess,
who seized the girl, still laughing, by her hair,
and wiped the ground with her; and as she struggled,
the goddess changed her arms into forelegs;
she kept her former quickness, and her body
now has the color that her hair once had,
although her form is rather different.

Because of the deception of her lips,
she must now bear her offspring through her mouth;
she dwells (as formerly) within our homes.
[Galanthis has been turned into a weasel.]

Here the servant girl, Galanthis, mocked the goddess Lucina after she tricked the same goddess into allowing Alcmena to give birth. Galanthis laughed at the goddess and was turned into a weasel. Part of her punishment was to give birth to her offspring through her mouth, due to the deception of her lips.

Section 3 - Odor and Rue

Pliny described how to use the weasel to kill the deadly basilisk in The Natural History:

To this dreadful monster the effluvium of the weasel is fatal, a thing that has been tried with success, for kings have often desired to see its body when killed; so true is it that it has pleased Nature that there should be nothing without its antidote. The animal is thrown into the hole of the basilisk, which is easily known from the soil around it being infected. The weasel destroys the basilisk by its odour, but dies itself in this struggle of nature against its own self.

How does the weasel kill the basilisk with its own odor? It seems there was a potential answer to this question. St. Hildegard thought that weasels collected an unknown herb and used it to heal or revive other weasels:

The weasel (wisela) is hot. In its speed, it has something of the power of a griffin when it raises its wings. It has a rotten and insensitive nature. It knows of a certain herb containing vital health. If it sees its young or another weasel in pain, it quickly seeks this herb, which is small and tender. It digs in the earth for it and, after it finds it, blows on it and urinates over it, mixing its strength with that of the herb. It waits for a short time, until that herb is fully suffused with the urine. Then, taking it in its mouth, it places it in the mouth of the weasel that is about to die, the vital air now being in its throat; thus it is healed, rises and walks away.

This herb is unknown to humans and other animals. If they did know it, their breath and urine would not be strong enough to suffuse it. This herb has no life-giving properties in itself. It has to receive its power from the weasel’s breath and urine. Also, weasels always eat such good, strong herbs that they scarcely get diseases.

It is interesting that the herb does not seem to have any healing properties on its own, though St. Hildegard does say earlier in the passage that it contains vital health. The healing properties seem to come from the weasel itself, but it needs the herb as well. The weasel both breathes and urinates on the plant to initiate some sort of chemical reaction. Hildegard does not know the identity of the herb, but St. Isidore might have the answer: rue.

Rue, according to St. Isidore’s Etymologies, is so called because it produces a sensation of intense heat (perhaps cf. urere, “burn,” or ruere, ppl. rutus, “rush”). Another type is wild rue, of sharper power, but both are known to be very hot. Weasels show that rue fends off poisons, because they protect themselves by eating it when they fight with snakes.

It is possible that St. Isidore and St. Hildegard were talking about two different plants because rue seems to have natural properties on its own and Hildegard has a section on rue in her Physica. She does not specifically mention any poison preventing properties, but she does describe how rue can be used for treating eye ailments and digestive issues.

Rue is also known as the “herb of grace” and is associated with regret and repentance. Shakespeare references rue several times in his plays, notably in Hamlet and Richard II, and associates the plant with regret as a play on words.

There’s fennel for you, and columbines. There’s rue for you,
and here’s some for me. We may call it herb of grace o’ Sundays.
- Ophelia (Hamlet: Act IV, Scene 5)

Louis Charbonnea-Lassay discusses rue in The Bestiary of Christ as a symbol of purification. He says that rue was one of the plants used in the ancient world to cure the early stages of leprosy and other diseases like mange and scurf. Skin diseases were allegorized as sinfulness and rue was then associated with purification.

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Section 4 - Impurity vs Purity

As I mentioned before, the weasel was considered to be a vermin that also hunts and kills other vermin. It was considered an unclean animal and was forbidden to be eaten in the Old Testament (Leviticus 11:29) because it crept along the ground. It is also interesting to note that Lucina wiped Galanthis on the group before turning her into a weasel. Like most animals in the Middle Ages, the weasel has multiple levels of symbolism.

The Grand Medieval Bestiary states that the weasel is a symbol of chastity due to the lack of coitus for reproduction. The authors tie it to successful preaching in that procreation via the mouth is connected to fertile speech and the giving birth through the ear is an image of conversion following the hearing of sacred instruction. On the other hand, the Physiologus saw the weasel as a false believer who attends church to hear the sacred teachings, especially regarding the Eucharist, but quickly purges the good word from his ears as soon as he leaves. Due to its flexibility (literally and metaphorically), the weasel is difficult to pin down with any one set of symbols, positive or negative.

However, the ermine is one member of the weasel family that is specifically connected to the soul’s purity. The coat of the ermine changes color with the seasons. It is a light brown color in the summer and changes to nearly snow-white in the winter. In The Bestiary of Christ, Charbonnea-Lassay says,

Popular imagination of the past pictured the ermine as an amphibious animal which only visited clear streams, meadows, or mossy, flowering woodlands, and which hated dirt to the point that it would let itself be killed rather than tread on muddy ground and soil its immaculate coat. Seising on this fiction, medieval heraldry took the ermine as the symbolic image of a man determined to protect the purity of his conscience – an image that is, above all, that of the perfect knight who prefers to undergo any misfortune rather than tarnish his name and his escutcheon by the slightest act contrary to loyalty, fidelity, or knightly honor. It is in this sense particularly that many old and noble families, first and foremost of which were the ancient sovereign dukes of Brittany, adopted or received the ermine as the insignia on their coats of arms. The Breton dukes displayed it everywhere in their castles and cities with the proud motto: Potius mori quam foedari: ‘Better die than defile myself.’

Thus placed as the perfect sign of the soul’s purity, the ermine shares the symbol of the crucifixion with the swan, the dove, the lily, and the snow, embodying the innocence of Christ. Also, the ermine was one of the rare winter symbols of the Resurrection, because, while brown in summer, it then seemed to disappear, only to reappear in all its whiteness with the return of the snowy season.

With the weasel as the hunter of vermin, consumer of rue and symbol of purity, I think we are ready to move to the last section.

Section 5 - The Defeat of the Basilisk

If a basilisk is troubling the kingdom and breathing death and destruction anywhere it goes, then send a weasel. Hopefully, the reasoning behind this has become clear throughout this essay. If not, I will summarize it here. Weasels are symbols of Christ (and the Christian) through purification and resurrection.

The weasel hunts vermin that are worse than itself, such as mice, rats, and snakes. These creatures represent vices that defile everything they touch and corrupt the soul’s purity. The weasels as hunters became symbols of purification in this alone, but we are not done. The weasel, being long and dart-like, makes it a quasi-serpentine animal and can match the Satanic basilisk in flexibility and cunning. There is a similar relationship between the cobra and the mongoose.

With the consumption of the medicinal herb rue, weasels are able to fend off poisons and revive their dead comrades and offspring. Rue acts as purifying incense that fumigates the lair of the basilisk, counteracting the bad air (miasma) of the monster. Rue is also tied to regret and repentance and it is through repentance that sins are destroyed. Ermines are the emblematic example of purity in the weasel family as they embody it in their snow-white coats.

Finally, the weasel dies in its fight against the basilisk. The Christian must follow Christ in this way, the way of death, to find everlasting life. We have hope in the herb of grace, the resurrecting rue, the promises of God Himself when He says, I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, although he be dead, shall live (John 11:25).

I will end with this quote from The Bestiary of Christ:

Searching for symbolic images that would convey serious Christian lessons, the early glossarists pointed out that although the weasel is the smallest of the carnivores, yet it can win combats with much bigger animals than itself – so, they said, the weasel is the perfect symbol of a Christian who, no matter how weak in himself, can still triumph over Satan, the most terrifying monster of hell.

Gregorio Montejo can be found on Twitter.com @KtistecP

Gregorio’s substack, Past Master, can be found here.

Books by Sebastian Morello:

Mysticism, Magic & Monasteries can be found here.

The World as God’s Icon can be found here.

Morello’s Critics and Responses:

Hermetic Tradition or Catholic Tradition? A Critique of Sebastian Morello by Matthew Minerd, Thomas Mirus, Matthew Scarince

Dialogos on Magic with Drs Morello and Minerd from The Meaning of Catholic

Check it out!

Susannah is the editor of both Plough and Mere Orthodoxy and she can be found on Twitter.com @suzania

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I Might Believe in Faeries

Writings from fairyland Myth, folklore, fiction, Catholicism

By Aaron Irber

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“What are you doing?” he whispered, but then noticed the monk’s expression. Joshua’s eyes were fixed on the old woman as if she were a cockatrice. Zerchi followed his gaze, but saw nothing stranger than usual; her extra head was half concealed by a sort of veil, but Brother Joshua had certainly seen that often enough.

- A Canticle for Leibowitz

One of the most dangerous and well known monsters in the Medieval bestiary was the basilisk or cockatrice. With its deadly stare and serpentine appearance, this creature is rich in demonic symbolism. This is not to say that all serpent imagery is connected to evil, but the basilisk seems to be thoroughly bad. In this series, I will be exploring the symbolism of the basilisk as well its natural enemy, the weasel.

Section 1 - Appearance

If you grew up reading Harry Potter like I did, you might remember how the basilisk was depicted in The Chamber of Secrets:

Of the many fearsome beasts and monsters that roam our land, there is none more curious or more deadly than the Basilisk, known also as the King of Serpents. This snake, which may reach gigantic size, and live many hundreds of years, is born from a chicken’s egg, hatched beneath a toad. Its methods of killing are most wondrous, for aside from its deadly and venomous fangs, the Basilisk has a murderous stare, and all who are fixed with the beam of its eye shall suffer instant death. Spiders flee before the Basilisk, for it is their mortal enemy, and the Basilisk flees only from the crowing of the rooster, which is fatal to it.

J. K. Rowling gives us a fairly accurate summary of the lore behind the monster. However, she embellishes a bit in regards to its appearance and overall size. In his Natural History, Pliny describes the basilisk as being no more than “12 fingers” (1 foot) tall. He describes it as having a white spot on its head resembling a diadem or crown. Pliny goes on to say that the basilisk does not move in a series of folds (undulations) as other snakes, but upright and erect upon the middle. Interestingly,Medieval manuscript images often depict the basilisk as having the front end of a rooster and the back end of a reptile. The legs of the rooster would give it the ability to walk upright and, to me at least, it vaguely resembles a carnivorous dinosaur or a dragon. Edwards Payson Evans wrote the following in his book Animal Symbolism in Ecclesiastical Architecture, This baneful reptile is beautiful in form and color, having a skin of variegated hues spotted with white; but, adds the author in a moralizing strain, beauty is often associated with badness.

Section 2 - Abilities

St. Isidore tells us that the ‘Basilisk’ (basiliscus) is a Greek word, translated into Latin as “little king” (regulus; cf. , “king”), because it is the king of the snakes, so that they flee when they see it because it kills them with its odor – it also kills a human if it looks at one. Indeed no flying bird may pass unharmed by the basilisk’s face, but however distant it may be it is burnt up and devoured by this animal’s mouth.

Isidore seems to say that a person would die if the basilisk looked at them, but Pliny says for all who behold its eyes, fall dead upon the spot. To be clear, Pliny says this about catoblepas (potentially the wildebeest), but then says that basilisks have the same power. To me, it seems that eye contact with the monster may be required for the deadly glare to take effect. Dangerous staring contests with monsters have a precedent in mythology, with the famous example of snake-haired Medusa. There is also the folklore of the serpent hypnotizing its prey, though that may just be the prey’s fear response kicking in. To face the basilisk means certain death.

Another example comes from Bram Stoker’s Dracula:

A terrible desire came upon me to rid the world of such a monster. There was no lethal weapon at hand, but I seized a shovel which the workman had been using to fill the cases, and lifting it high, struck, with the edge downward, at the hateful face. But as I did so the head turned, and the eyes fell upon me, with all their blaze of basilisk horror. The sight seemed to paralyze me, and the shovel turned in my hand and glanced from the face, merely making a deep gash above the forehead.

The basilisk kills other snakes with its own odor. Snakes are often cannibalistic and will eat one another if given the opportunity. I don’t know why specifically the odor of the basilisk is so deadly to other snakes. Perhaps it is connected to the odor of the weasel, which I will cover later on.

Both St. Isidore and Pliny reference the basilisk’s ability to kill plants and animals with its breath. Pliny says it destroys all shrubs, not only by its contact, but those even that it has breathed upon; it burns up all the grass too, and breaks the stones, so tremendous is its noxious influence. St. Hildegard of Bingen describes the breath as similar to thunder and lightning with fire thrown in for good measure. Hildegard goes on to say nothing living desires, nor is able, to endure it. When it sees something that is alive, in its displeasure it sends cold and then its breath, so killing the creature it blew on. It falls immediately, as if struck by thunder and lightning.

There seems to be nothing to stand against the basilisk. According to Pliny, even a man with a spear on a horse cannot kill one without the poison traveling back up and killing both horse and rider.

Section 3 - Remedies and Curses

Pliny says that the blood of basilisks was extolled by magicians and was black and sticky as pitch. Dissolved in water, it turns a bright red. The blood was used as a remedy for diseases and as an amulet against all noxious spells.

Pliny refers to the blood of the basilisk as “Saturn’s blood.” In my research, I could not discern the exact meaning of this phrase, but I can make some educated guesses. As in most things Medieval, C. S. Lewis may be of some help here.

In The Discard Image, Lewis briefly describes the symbolic associations with each of the seven planets, including Saturn:

Saturn. In the earth his influence produces lead; in men, the melancholy complexion; in history, disastrous events. In Dante his sphere is the Heaven of contemplatives. He is connected with sickness and old age. Our traditional picture of Father Time with the scythe is derived from earlier pictures of Saturn. A good account of his activities in promoting fatal accidents, pestilence, treacheries, and ill luck in general, occurs in The Knight’s Tale (A 2463 sq.). He is the most terrible of the seven and is sometimes called The Greater Infortune, Infortuna Major.

For the medieval man, Saturn was connected to the metal lead, as well as pestilence, disasters and ill luck in general. “Saturn’s Blood” may be a reference to lead, since “Sun’s Blood” is a reference to gold in Lewis’ book, Out of the Silent Planet. Therefore, basilisk blood may have something to do with lead. It seems like it was used as a sort of vaccine, a little bit of dead poison to keep other disasters at bay. In fact, the blood was also thought to have the property of ensuring success to petitions preferred to potentates (rulers), according to Pliny. Interestingly, the Brazen Serpent Moses erected in Numbers healed the snake bitten Israelites who looked upon it.

There are curses associated with the corpse of a basilisk as well. St. Hildegard’s Physica says that if a basilisk has died in any field or vineyard, and its cadaver has rotted there, that place will be unfruitful and sterile. If it dies and rots in any citadel or house, the people there will always be ill, and the animals in that place will infrequently get disease and very often die from it. The monster acts as a blight on the land, spreading corruption and illness even in death.

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Section 4 - Origins

There are a few variations on the origins of the basilisk. St. Hildegard provides a fairly comprehensive overview in her Physica:

The basilisk (basiliscus) is born from certain vermin that are somewhat diabolical, that is, from toads. Sometimes, when the toad has been impregnated and is going to bring forth young, if she sees the egg of a serpent or hen, she loves it and lies over it. She warms it until she gives birth to her naturally conceived young.

These die as soon as they are born. Seeing them dead, she again places herself over the egg and warms it until the young in that egg has begun to live. Soon, a particular power of the diabolic art of the ancient serpent touches it. This power rests in the Antichrist, and just as he resists all heavenly beings, so this animal fights against all mortals, killing them. After the toad senses that the thing in the egg is alive, she is immediately astounded by this unusual occurrence and flees.

Variations include the toad incubating a hen’s egg on a pile of manure (The Grand Medieval Bestiary), the egg being laid by a cock/rooster on manure for the warmth (Louis Charbonneau-Lassay’s The Bestiary of Christ), the egg is hatched by a viper and an owl (The Bestiary of Christ), and the egg is formed in the body of an old ibis from the concentrated venom of all the snakes swallowed by the bird during its lifetime (The Bestiary of Christ). Evans says that as soon as it hatches, the basilisk hides away in a crevice, cistern or the rafters of a house, because if it is seen by man before the creature sees him, it will die.

With all of these differences, one thing should be clear. The basilisk is created through an unnatural union between animals of the earth (reptiles) and animals of the heavens (birds). According to The Grand Medieval Bestiary, the confluence of these two traditionally opposed worlds gives it the ability to kill with a single glance. Toads are also associated with evil and vermin and I will be covering them in a later series.

Charbonneau-Lassay also connects the basilisk to the Egyptian uraeus, the upright cobra head ornament worn by Pharaohs. He goes on to say, the Egyptians made the basilisk, their uraeus, symbolize the idea of eternity, says Horapollo, because ‘it is a member of the only race of serpents that do not die.’ This makes sense as the cobra is often upright when moving and some species can spit venom at a distance, like lightning. Their hood also resembles a crown. The uraeus guards the sun’s golden disk and the crowned forehead of the Pharaoh. Theologian Peter Leithart connects the uraeus to the Seraphim (“fiery serpents”) in Isaiah and other parts of Scripture. Indeed, there is speculation that the serpent who fell in Genesis was one of these Seraphim.

The connection to the Seraphim is important because I don’t want readers to think I am reducing the monstrous basilisk to a “mere” king cobra through naturalistic reductionism. Perhaps the basilisk is based on the cobra and the imagery used to depict it became wilder and wilder through a long game of telephone. However, I believe that both the basilisk and cobra are reflections or images of the angelic Seraphim. The king cobra, though not evil, is very dangerous. It is large, intelligent and highly venomous as this video discusses. Even the unfallen Seraphim, though thoroughly good, are also very dangerous.

Section 5 - Symbolism

That brings us to our final section on symbolism. As I stated at the beginning of this post, the symbolism associated with the basilisk is entirely demonic and is an image of the devil and Anti-Christ. Psalm 90:13 foretells the coming Messiah as crushing the basilisk under His feet: Thou shalt walk upon the asp and the basilisk, and thou shalt trample underfoot the lion and the dragon. Charbonneau-Lassay points out that Isaiah prophesied both the coming of the Messiah in 11:1-2, And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots: And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, and the coming of the Anti-Christ in 14:29, out of the serpent’s root shall come forth a cockatrice [basilisk] and his fruit shall be a fiery flying serpent [dragon]. Charbonneau-Lassay appears to be using the King James translation for these passages in Isaiah.

As I stated in the above section on Origins, the basilisk is an unnatural combination of reptilian (earth) and bird (heaven). It is a monster, which according to Jonathan Pageau, is a creature that doesn’t fit into normal categories. It is only partially reptile and partially bird, compared to Christ, who is fully God (heaven) and fully man (earth). Christ is often represented as a cock/rooster and His crowing is fatal to the basilisk as it heralds the dawn and Resurrection.

Evans describes how to kill the basilisk, which is rich in symbolism as well: Whoever wishes to slay the basilisk, holds before his face a vessel of crystal through which he looks at the beast; and the crystal not only arrests the venom issuing from its eyes, but even causes it to be reflected and hurled back upon the animal, which is killed by the fatal recoil. This is a similar tactic to the mirror Perseus used to kill Medusa. The monster defeats itself.

Evans has a wonderful description of the symbolism of the basilisk, which I will quote in full:

The basilisk signifies the devil, who entered into Paradise and enticed our first parents to eat of the forbidden fruit. For this transgression they were driven forth from Eden, and when they had passed away from the earth, which they had corrupted, they were cast into the burning pit with the basilisk. Then the merciful Son of the King of Heaven took pity on the many people poisoned by this old serpent, which no one had been able to destroy; and He chose a vessel clearer than crystal, the blessed body of our Lady, the purest of virgins, in which to encounter the direful foe. And when the basilisk darted the venom from its eyes, the vessel caught it and threw it back upon the reptile, which languished during the thirty years of Christ’s incarnation, until the victory was fully won by the crucifixion. And after He had been placed in the tomb, He rose again on the third day and descended into the pit, where the basilisk had concealed itself, and rescued all those who had been infected with its poison from the time of Adam, and restored them to everlasting life.

Christ defeats the basilisk by turning its own poison, death, against it. The Virgin Mary is the pure vessel used to repel the demonic venom.

In my next post, I will discuss the symbolism of the weasel and why it is the natural enemy of the basilisk.

In my first post, I wrote about the large quantity of books I read to my kids this year. In this post, I will share my list of books that I read on my own. All-in-all, it was a good year for reading.

Here we go:

1. Stolen Skies by Tim Powers

2. Phineiad and The Loser, The Robot and the Antichrist by E. L. Brooks

3. Lud-in-the-Mist by Hope Mirrlees (twice)

4. The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben

5. O Honeybees by Ludovico Ambrosius

6. Till We Have Faces by C. S. Lewis

7. Empire in Black and Gold by Adrian Tchaikovsky

8. The Liturgical Cosmos by Dave Faberberg

9. Fourth Mansions by R. A. Lafferty

10. The Brothers Grimm by Ann Schmiesing

11. Lord of the World by R. H. Benson

12. The Georgics by Virgil

13. Paradiso by Dante

14. The Sun and the Other Stars of Dante Alighieri by Sperello di Serego Alighieri and Massimo Capaccioli

15. A Beginner’s Guide to Dante’s Divine Comedy by Jason Baxter

16. Death Feigning Beetles of the United States and Mexico by Stanley Dean Rider Jr.

17. Oedipus Rex by Sophocles

18. Oedipus at Colonus by Sophocles

19. The Medieval Mind of C. S. Lewis by Jason Baxter

20. The Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni

21. Tree of Salvation: Yggdrasil and the Cross in the North by G. Ronald Murphy SJ

22. King Harald’s Saga by Snorri Sturluson

23. The Story of Hrafnkell (Icelandic Saga)

24. Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury

25. Njal’s Saga (Icelandic Saga)

26. Old House of Fear by Russell Kirk

27. The Death of Rabelais by Jane Scharl

28. The High Hallow: Tolkien’s Liturgical Imagination by Ben Reinhard

29. Mysticism, Magic, & Monasteries by Sebastian Morello

30. The Idea of the Holy by Rudolf Otto

31. The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius (Ignatius Press Critical Edition)

32. Kingdoms of Death by Christopher Ruocchio

33. Ashes of Man by Christopher Ruocchio

A lot of these books have turned into podcast episodes, such as The Death of Rabelais, The Medieval Mind of C. S. Lewis, The High Hallow, Something Wicked This Way Comes, Lord of the World, Phineiad and The Loser, The Robot and the Antichrist, O Honeybees, Till We Have Faces, Fourth Mansions, The Idea of the Holy and Lud-in-the-Mist. Check out my backlog of episodes if you want a great discussion for each of these books.

The episode on Lud just came out, so here is a link:

Many of these books will live in my imagination likely for the rest of my life. Till We Have Faces and Lud-in-the-Mist are two of the best books I have ever read. Lewis’ most mature novel is clearly his best and Orual is a memorable and complex character. I think we all see ourselves in her. She has one of my favorite lines about the gods: We'd rather you drank their blood than stole their hearts.

Lud needs to be read more by Catholics and other Sacramental Realists, as would say. There are so many wonderful things about that 100 year old book, but not enough attention has been paid to it in recent years. It is in my top five favorite books of all time.

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It was a pleasure to read two of Jason Baxter’s books this year as well. A Beginner’s Guide to Dante’s Divine Comedy is exactly what is says on the tin. Jason goes through each canto and provides an overview to help the reader discern what Dante is doing and to place each figure in their mythic or historical context. The Medieval Mind was an intellectual biography of Lewis that prompted me to read Otto’s The Idea of the Holy. I love both reading Lewis and reading about Lewis, so Baxter’s Medieval Mind was one of the best of the year for me.

I also read The Betrothed by Manzoni, which is a 19th Century Italian historical romance. I enjoyed it, but I did not love it as much as I thought I would. Any time I don’t love a classic, I am convinced the problem is likely my own. I did not think the book had enough atmosphere or “donegality” as Lewis would say. It was set in 17th Century Milan, but it didn’t feel that way to me. There was too much talking and walking around and not enough mood setting. There were a couple of great moments where the atmosphere was thick, such as when Renzo and Lucia try to force the village priest, Don Abbondio, to officiate the wedding by surprising him in his home. There was a another scene where Renzo finds himself on the run and next to a pile of plague victims and corpses on a cart that was chilling and grotesque. I could almost smell the corpses! Again, the problem is likely mine and maybe I need a guide to help me read the book.

Two of the best books of the year are more modern. Christopher Ruocchio has been a guest on the show twice now and I plan on having him on in the future to discuss the final books of his Sun Eater series. I read books 4 and 5, Kingdoms of Death and Ashes of Man, this year. What brutal, beautiful, tragic books! For those who don’t know, Christopher he is a newer, extremely talented Catholic author who reverted to his faith shortly after writing the first draft of Empire of Silence. He finished the series this year and I am racing to catch up to him. Christopher has the talent to be one of the best fantasy writers of the 21st Century. The Catholic symbolism slowly unveils itself throughout the series in a very satisfying way. I have only two more books to go, and I’m told that things don’t get any easier for Hadrian Marlowe. I am not ashamed to say I cried at the end of Ashes of Man.

On a side note, I also finished James and the Giant Peach with my kids a day or two before 2025 ended.

I read a ton of great books this past year and I am starting 2026 off by reading Roger Zelazny’s Lord of Light and Michael Ward’s Planet Narnia. I am currently reading Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to my kids.

Happy New Year and Merry Christmas again from me to all of you!

I am joined by Carla Arnell, Professor of English at Lake Forest College, to discuss the almost unknown fantasy novel, Lud-in-the-Mist by Hope Mirrlees. We discuss the plot of the book, the characters and the Catholic sacramental themes that permeate the novel.

Neither of us are kidding when we say this is one of our top favorite fantasy novels of all time.

Professor Arnell wrote a paper on Lud titled, Lud-in-the-Mist as Memento Mori: Existential Anxiety and the Consolations of an Aesthetic Theology in Hope Mirrlees’s Fantasy Novel.

Professor Arnell’s faculty page: https://www.lakeforest.edu/academics/faculty/arnell

Divine Representations: The Rise of the Mystical Novel in Twentieth-Century England https://sunypress.edu/Books/D/Divine-Representations

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This year, I read these books to my two oldest kids:

1. The entire Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis

2. The entire Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander

3. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

4. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

5. Though the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll

6. The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien

7. The BFG by Roald Dahl - We are still reading this one but we will be done in a few days.

With the exception of The Hobbit, this was my first time reading any of these books. I finally feel like I had a proper childhood! I wouldn’t say I had an entirely impoverished literary life when I was a child, but I did read quite a bit of garbage.

I genuinely loved reading these books to my kids and I’m excited to figure out what we will read in 2026. I’m guessing we will read more Dahl and possibly some Mary Poppins. I just bought the first three Redwall books, so maybe we will read those too. I also wouldn’t mind rereading any of these if my kids wanted to do that.

I’m relieved to have finally read some Lewis Carrol, given that so many of my favorite authors (Tim Powers and C. S. Lewis) cite him as a major influence. I can’t say I understand either Adventures or Looking Glass, but they are the kind of books that reward a deep dive. The creepy atmosphere, dream logic, and constant puns are right up my alley.

Then the Queen left off, quite out of breath, and said to Alice, “Have you seen the Mock Turtle yet?”

“No,” said Alice. “I don’t even know what a Mock Turtle is.”

“It’s the thing Mock Turtle Soup is made from”, said the Queen.

***

“And how many hours a day did you do lessons?” said Alice, in a hurry to change the subject.

“Ten hours the first day,” said the Mock Turtle: “nine the next, and so on.”

“What a curious plan!” exclaimed Alice.

“That’s the reason they’re called lessons,” the Gryphon remarked: “because they lessen from day to day.”

Both Narnia and Prydain were great to finally read too. Everyone knows that C. S. Lewis was one of the greatest Christian apologists of the 20th century as well as one of the most well regarded scholars of Medieval and Renaissance literature. What surprised me was that the author of The Chronicles of Prydain, Lloyd Alexander, was a Christian as well. It would be interesting to explore the Christian themes, as well as things pulled from Welsh mythology, in Prydain in subsequent rereads.

If anyone is curious, my favorite Narnia books were The Voyage of the Dawn Treader and The Last Battle. To be honest though, I loved all of them. I think I cried at the end of each one.

The most difficult books for my kids were The Hobbit and The Wind in the Willows. The Alice books were difficult too, but they were much shorter. Both Tolkien and Grahame have dense prose and utilize a large vocabulary. The tricky thing with Wind is that there isn’t much of a plot to follow. It was lovely reading though and the kids enjoyed it well enough. They both demanded to know who the mythic figure was in the chapter, “Piper at the Gates of Dawn.” Of course, I didn’t tell them. Not for any weird reason, but I don’t generally answer questions related to meaning when I read to them.

What else should I read to my kids? Post your suggestions in the comments below.

In my next post, I will go through what I read on my own this year.

We also discuss how to initiate a hobbit into true religion! You just need Elves and the oldest song-slinging being in Middle Earth (Tom).

The High Hallow: https://stpaulcenter.com/store/the-high-hallow-tolkiens-liturgical-imagination

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I Might Believe in Faeries

Writings from fairyland Myth, folklore, fiction, Catholicism

By Aaron Irber

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Battle Of The Creek by Alexander Nakarada | https://www.serpentsoundstudios.com

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Essayist, poet, and playwright, Jane Scharl returns to the show to discuss her new play, The Death of Rabelais. This is the second in a loose trilogy featuring France’s infamous humanist and humorist, François Rabelais.

In this play, Rabelais finds himself lost in a snow storm on the Eve of Epiphany only to find that Death awaits him. We discuss the play and the different approaches artists and critics take when discerning the different levels of meaning in a work of literature.

Jane Scharl’s website: https://jcscharl.com/

Substack:

Wiseblood Books Link: https://www.wisebloodbooks.com/store/p169/The_Death_of_Rabelais%3A_A_Play%2C_Jane_Clark_Scharl.html

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I Might Believe in Faeries

Writings from fairyland Myth, folklore, fiction, Catholicism

By Aaron Irber

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In this episode of IMBIF, I discuss Ray Bradbury’s classic horror story, Something Wicked This Way Comes, with Brad Birzer and Thomas Salerno. A dark carnival arrives at a small midwestern town and two teenage boys are faced with it’s terrors and temptations. We talk about Bradbury’s beliefs, the nature of the carnival, of fatherhood, and of friendship.

Is this a Christian book? What is Mr. Dark? Is he human or something else? What is it about Bradbury’s fiction that is so compelling even if we don’t share his worldview? All this and more in this exiting episode.

Brad Birzer can be found on Twitter.com at @bradleybirzer and his website is: https://spiritofcecilia.com/

Thomas Salerno can be found on Twitter.com at @Salerno_Thomas and his books can be found here: https://bookstore.wordonfire.org/products/riddle-of-the-tongue-stones*************************************************************************************************************

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I Might Believe in Faeries

Writings from fairyland Myth, folklore, fiction, Catholicism

By Aaron Irber

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Link to iSamwise’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@iSamwise

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By Aaron Irber

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Dr. Baxter and I discussed The Medieval Mind, C. S. Lewis as medievalist, and why he had a medieval mind. We also talk about how Lewis’ thoughts could be applied to modern science.

Everyone needs to go out and read Lewis and then read Dr. Baxter’s The Medieval Mind.

For a list of his books, check out Jason Baxter’s website: https://www.jasonmbaxter.com/

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Writings from fairyland Myth, folklore, fiction, Catholicism

By Aaron Irber

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When fishes flew and forests walked
And figs grew upon thorn,
Some moment when the moon was blood
Then surely I was born.

With monstrous head and sickening cry
And ears like errant wings.
The devil’s walking parody
On all four-footed things.

The tattered outlaw of the earth,
Of ancient crooked will;
Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb,
I keep my secret still.

Fools! For I also had my hour;
One far fierce hour and sweet:
There was a shout about my ears,
And palms before my feet.

- The Donkey by G. K. Chesterton

Section 6 - The Ass in Scripture

In addition to representing nobility and absurdity, the ass is usually a symbol of judgement in Scripture. Generally, whoever is riding the ass has come as a Judge, and is a type of Christ. I will go through some examples found in the Old and New Testaments. Keep the theme of Judgement in mind.

As told in the beginning of this series, Balaam (Numbers 22:21-35) is riding an ass on his way to curse the Isrealites. The donkey, possibly due to its nobility, possibly due to its humility, perceived the Angel of the Lord long before Balaam. In the Christian Middle Ages, this story came to represent the stupidity and pride of humans. Balaam, being a kind of Anti-Christ, was riding on a donkey to to curse (judge) Israel.

The Catholic Encyclopedia states that asses are mentioned over 130 times in Scripture. It goes on to say that asses, specifically white asses, were more rare and were reserved for the use of the nobles. As I explained in a previous post, the East had a higher view of the donkey than the West. Eastern breeds tended to be larger and finer. They were used as mounts both by the common people and those of the highest rank.

The Book of Judges references asses as the mounts of princes multiple times. Deborah sings in Judges 5:10, “Those who ride on white donkeys, seated on saddle rugs, and those who travel the road.” Charbonneau-Lassay uses this translation: “Speak, ye that ride on white asses, ye that sit in judgement, and walk by the way.”

Judges 10:3-4 states, “Jair the Gileadite came after him and judged Israel twenty-two years. He had thirty sons, who rode on thirty donkeys and possessed thirty cities in the land of Gilead (these are called Havvoth-jair to the present day).”

Judges 12:13-14 says, “After him Adbon, son of Hillel, the Pirathonite, judged Israel. He had forty sons and thiry grandsons, who rode on seventy donkeys. He judged Israel for eight years.” The number seventy is also significant in that it represents perfect spiritual order and judgement.

One of the strangest and most famous passages in the book of Judges that involved a donkey is the story of Samson (Judges 15:14-20). Samson, the last of the Judges, had been captured by the Philistines who had brought him bond in cords to the rock, Etam.

“Now when he was come to the place of the Jawbone, and the Philistines shouting went to meet him, the spirit of the Lord came strongly upon him: and as the flax is wont to be consumed at the approach of fire, so the bands with which he was bound were broken and loosed. And finding a jawbone, even the jawbone of an ass which lay there, catching it up, he slew therewith a thousand men.

And he said: With the jawbone of an ass, with the jaw of the colt of asses I have destroyed them, and have slain a thousand men. And when he had ended these words singing, he threw the jawbone out of his hand, and called the name of that place Ramathlechi, which is interpreted the lifting up of the jawbone. And being very thirsty, he cried to the Lord, and said: Thou hast given this very great deliverance and victory into the hand of thy servant: and behold I die for thirst, and shall fall into the hands of the uncircumcised. Then the Lord opened a great tooth in the jaw of the ass, and waters issued out of it. And when he had drank them he refreshed his spirit, and recovered his strength. Therefore the name of that place was called, The Spring of him that invoked from the jawbone, until this present day. And he judged Israel in the days of the Philistines twenty years.”

This is a very strange passage indeed. Instead of riding on an ass, Samson uses the jawbone of an ass and a colt to kill his enemies. This is striking, not only because of the strangeness, but because Samson was a Nazarite, which requires taking a vow not to touch anything unclean including the carcasses of animals. Samson actually breaks every one of his Nazarite vows, but that is not the focus of this post.

I don’t have an explanation for this passage in Scripture, but it is interesting to note the parallels to Christ’s entry into Jerusalem. Both an ass and a colt are mentioned, and Samson thirsts like Christ on the Cross. He cries out to the Lord to be delivered from the hands of the uncircumcised, as Jesus was handed over to the Romans. It is interesting that it is the jawbone of the ass (instead of, for instance, the femur or pelvis), which could be linked to speech and a possible connection to Balaam’s donkey.

I would love to hear from readers if they have a symbolic interpretation of this passage from the story of Samson!

The final Old Testament reference I will mention is that in the Mosaic Law, the ass is the only animal whose first born can be ransomed at birth by the sacrifice of a lamb. Exodus 13:13 states: “But every first-born donkey you will redeem with a lamb or kid; if you do not redeem it, you must break its neck. All the human first-born, however, among your sons, you will redeem.” By sacrificing a lamb or kid to God, the Israelites could redeem their first born asses.

It boggles my mind to think that donkeys could have such a high place in Scripture!

Now, I will switch my focus from the Old to the New Testament.

Donkeys are often associated with carrying Christ (Christ bearers!), though there is only one explicitly mentioned in the Gospels. If we consider the patterns of the donkey, that of both divine nobility and lowly humility, as well as judgement, we can begin to see why Christ has often been shown with one in Christian tradition.

We all know the image of Joseph and a pregnant Mary trying to find an inn to deliver the Christ Child. Mary is often shown riding a donkey with Joseph leading. The detail of the donkey is not in the canonical Gospels but is described in the 2nd century Protoevangelium of James.

The donkey is also usually depicted in nativity scenes but is not explicitly mentioned in the Gospels. The tradition of including donkeys and oxen in nativity scenes comes from the apocryphal gospel of Pseudo-Matthew who references the verse, Isaiah (1:3) “The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib: but Israel hath not known me, and my people hath not understood.”

In Matthew’s Gospel, the Holy Family needed to flee to Egypt to escape Herod’s massacre of all boys under two years of age. This event, called the Flight Into Egypt, is also often depicted with a donkey, but no donkey is mentioned in the text. However, Mary hiding her colt, Jesus, from the wrath of the wild onager, Herod, displays the pattern of the onager nicely.

Finally, one of the most famous passages in the New Testament, Christ’s Triumphant Entry into Jerusalem, otherwise known as Palm Sunday, explicitly mentions a female ass and her colt. “When they drew near to Jerusalem, to Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples and said to them ‘Go into the village opposite you, and immediately on entering it, you will find a colt tethered on which no one has ever sat. Untie it and bring it here.’” (Mark 11:1-2)

The Grand Medieval Bestiary points out that while the Gospel of John makes it seem like the finding them was random chance (it wasn’t), the 3 synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, mention Christ sending two disciples to specifically find them. The presence of the donkey fulfills the prophecy in Zachariah (9:9): “Behold thy King will come to thee…he is poor and riding upon an ass.”

Remember, a colt is an uncastrated male donkey under 4 years old. The colt is complete, whole, and untouched. It has not lost its generative organ so it is capable of bringing forth life. Christ has come riding the donkey to bring judgement upon Jerusalem and new life. Taylor Marhsall made the connection to Jehu and Christ chasing out the money changers in the Temple: “King Jehu rode into Samaria (a kind of false Jerusalem) over the garments of his adherents in order to destroy the temple of the false god Baal (2 Kgs 9:11-10:28). One of the first things Christ does upon entering Jerusalem is bring judgment to the Temple which has become a den of thieves.”

Why did Christ ride both an ass and her colt? The gospels have varying accounts on what Christ rode on. Both Matthew’s and John’s gospels mention finding the ass and her colt, while Mark and Luke only mention the colt. Did Christ ride on both at the same time?

This essay from The New Theological Movement has an explanation by way of Cornelius Lapide, SJ:

“Fr. Cornelius a’ Lapide thinks it reasonable to conclude that Christ rode upon both the ass and the colt, though of course not at the same time but in succession. The Jesuit scholar states that it is most likely that the Savior rode the ass down the Mount of Olives and up the hill to the entrance of Jerusalem, but that, when he entered the Holy City, he sat upon the colt.

The primary reason Fr. Cornelius gives for this transitioning between the two beasts is that “the colt perchance was not strong enough to bear a rider in the descent and ascent of the mountain.” The colt, of course, was smaller than the ass (being its foal) and therefore was likely too weak to carry the Christ.

On the other hand, “the ass was not so becoming for the entry into the city.” Therefore, the Lord sat upon the ass’ colt when he came to the City itself. And this is corroborated by the other Gospels which specify that the animal upon which the Savior sat as he came into Jerusalem was a colt.”

The author goes on to elaborate Lapide’s allegorical interpretation:

“The Gentiles are mystically signified by the colt, while the Jews are represented by the ass. According to Lapide, the Lord begins by riding upon the ass, but enters Jerusalem upon the colt; for the Gentiles would be the first to receive Christ as their King, although the Jews were the first to receive the Promise. Still, the ass too is led into the Holy City by the Good Jesus, for all Israel will be saved (cf. Romans 11:26).”

It is also worth noting that in many icons of the Entry into Jerusalem, including the one above, Christ is riding a white ass. As I mentioned above, white asses were more rare and reserved for those of high rank and status.

Section 7 - Legends of the Ass

Charbonneau-Lassay recounts multiple legends related to the donkey and the Crucifixion.

“Simple Christians have had no difficulty in making the ass a sympathetic emblem of Christ, and have warmly honored the donkey of the Bethlehem stable, the mount of the journey to Egypt, and the she-ass and her foal of the triumph of the Day of Palms. Very ancient legends in France, Spain, and Italy, tell how the Savior rewarded the latter by allowing their offspring to become that kind of gray donkey that has two lines of dark hair in the form of a cross on its back and shoulders.

In the tradition of our western French provinces, the gray ass marked with the long, dark dorsal cross is a symbol of the Savior carrying the cross of Calvary on his shoulders. Hungarian legends put a great strain on the gospel texts by claiming that the cruciform dorsal stripes on the gray ass were made by spurts of the divine blood at the scene of the Crucifixion.

It should be added, on the other side of the picture, that in certain parts of Ireland folk say that the donkey’ stripes are vestiges of the whiplashes that Jesus had to give his disobedient mount. Because of its historical role of carrying Christ, in some countries the ass has received the title of Christophore, Christ-Bearer, from which comes the name Christopher. The same name was given in very ancient times in these same places to holy men who maintained among their fellows the teaching and the spirit of Christ.”

In this passage, Charbonneau-Lassay refers to an image of St. Christopher with a donkey’s head. These images are more popularly known as dog-headed. The connection between the donkey and the dog is interesting here and I do not know how to explain it. However, the donkey being called “Christ-Bearer”, does make more sense than the dog.

The donkey is an unlikely symbol of God’s divine judgement. The Western world considers it a beast of absurdity, humility and stubbornness. The East considered it a noble beast of dignity, divinity and wealth. In my opinion, Christ unites both the humility and the nobility of the donkey in His entry into Jerusalem. He comes to bring Judgement and Redemption and call all of us to become Christ-Bearers.

To conclude this series, I will provide the story of Christ’s Entry Into Jerusalem otherwise known as Palm Sunday. Thank you for reading and please click the subscribe button. Make sure to also check out my podcast, I Might Believe in Faeries!

We discuss Rudolf Otto’s The Idea of the Holy and the “Numinous”, which is a term he coined in that book. The goal of this discussion is to talk about the concept of the Numinous and where it can be found in fantasy fiction. We specifically discuss the works of C. S. Lewis, Gene Wolfe, Tim Powers, Kenneth Grahame, Arthur Machen, and George MacDonald.

We also discuss mysticism in Christianity, holy fear, and much more.

If you want to know how an experience of the Numinous can unmake you, then check this episode out!

Susannah can be found on Twitter.com at @suzania and her work can be found at

https://www.plough.com/

https://mereorthodoxy.com/

(substack)

Jane can be found on Twitter.com at @JcScharl and she writes at (substack).

Jane’s poetry and plays can be found on her website,

https://jcscharl.com/

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I will give thee understanding, and I will instruct thee in this way, in which thou shalt go: I will fix my eyes upon thee.
Do not become like the horse and the mule, who have no understanding. With bit and bridle bind fast their jaws, who come not near unto thee.
Many are the scourges of the sinner, but mercy shall encompass him that hopeth in the Lord.

- Psalm 31:8-10 (Douay-Rheims)

Section 5 - A Note on the Mule

Before we continue the discussion of the donkey, I wanted to briefly touch on the mule. The mule is the hybrid that results when a female horse, a mare, mates with a male donkey. For those who want to know, a hinny is the offspring of a male horse and female donkey. Mules are often longer lived than horses and less stubborn than asses, making them better beasts of burden.

St. Isidore says that, “The mule (mulus) has a name derived from Greek – for it is this in Greek – or because, forced by the miller’s yoke, It draws the slow millstone (mola) around in grinding (molere). The Jews claim that Ana, Esau’s great-grandson, was the first to have herds of mares mounted by asses in the desert, so that new animals, mules, might be conceived contrary to nature. They also say that onagers were set to mount she-asses for this purpose, and this type of breeding was invented so that very speedy asses would be born from these unions.”

It was thought that many insects, such as bees, flies, and locusts, spontaneously generated from the dead bodies of certain animals. Interestingly, St. Isidore notes that locusts are born from the carcasses of mules.

“Indeed, many creatures naturally undergo mutation and, when they decay, are transformed into different species – for instance bees, out of the rotted flesh of calves, or beetles from horses, locusts from mules, scorpions from crabs.”

I don’t have a symbolic explanation for this event, though bees from calves or oxen will be covered in a later series.

Mules, and other hybrids, are typically sterile. Pliny provides a brief discussion of this (Book 8, Ch. 69):

“It has been observed that the animal which is thus produced by the union of the two species is of a third species, and does not resemble either of the parents; and that all animals produced in this way, of whatever kind they may be, are incapable of reproduction; she-mules are therefore barren.”

Mules are sterile because the have an odd number of chromosomes (63), inherited from a horse (64) and a donkey (62). Due to the mismatched chromosomes, their sex cells are unable to go through the process of meiosis, so they can’t make sperm or eggs.

This parallels our discussion of the legendary version of the ant-lion (half ant, half lion). The creature has two natures and is unable to propagate itself. The ant-lion is torn between being an herbivore and a carnivore, so it can’t make decisions about what to eat. The mule is torn between a horse and donkey, which are much similar. The dueling natures produce something close to a monster (a mixed creature that does not fit into categories).

The Grand Medieval Bestiary stated that, generally, hybrid births usually include information on the influence of vision on procreation, especially in people:

“It was thought that the appearance of offspring – both human and animal – could be affected by what the mother saw during her pregnancy. Accordingly, pregnant women were advised not to look upon the faces of the ugliest animals so as to avoid the risk of giving birth to children who resembled them. Similarly, pregnant domestic beasts were shown ideal representatives of their species in the hope that it would improve their offspring.”

I don’t know if mules of hinnies are particularly ugly, maybe they were considered so by medieval Christians. The avoidance of pregnant women looking at mules could have to do with the sterility of most hybrid animals.

Finally, there is also the famous story of Saint Anthony of Padua and the mule. A non-Christian Jewish man named Zachariah did not believe that the Eucharist was the body and blood of Christ. Anthony asked him if he would convert if Zachariah’s mule bowed down before the Host. Zachariah accepted the offer and starved his mule for two days. On the day of the trial, food was placed on one side of the mule and Anthony stood on the other with the Host.

As the story goes, the mule did not even glance at the food and went straight to Anthony, bowing low before the Eucharist. Zachariah kneeled near the animal and converted to Catholicism.

In the final post, I will discuss the ass in Scripture, and the various legends surrounding it. I will hopefully be able to tie the positive and negative interpretations of the donkey together in the person of Christ.

1

“The judgement that the sacred mountain gave
on the contestants was approved by all
but on man, Midas, who alone opposed it,
calling it unjust. Apollo could not bear
that ears so dull should keep their human shape,
and so he drew them out to greater length,
and stuffed them full of gray and shaggy hair,
and made them wobbly where they joined his head
and capable of moving back and forth;
the rest stayed human: just in that one part
was Midas punished, whom the god compelled
to wear the ears of a lackadaisical ass.”

- Ovid’s Metamorphosis (Book XI translated by Charles Martin)

In the first post in this series, I discussed the donkey as a beast of burden through St. Isidore and Pliny as well as the symbolism of the wild ass or onager. In this post, I will discuss both positive and negative associations with the ass.

Section 3 - Positive Symbolism: Nobility

The donkey has either been held in high esteem or thought of as an idiotic, absurd animal depending on the culture. In general, the donkey was highly regarded in the Orient and not valued at all, other than as a beast of burden, in Europe.

In The Bestiary of Christ, Charbonneau-Lassay writes that the ass is praised and had prominent roles in the sacred stories of Rome, Egypt, and India. In China, it was often the mount of celestial individuals, princes and heroes. In Greek mythology, Dionysus was carried by donkeys from Thebes to Boeotia.

Homer compares Ajax to an ass in The Illiad to highlight his stubbornness in battle against the Trojans (Fagles):

Charbonneau-Lassay also provides a description of the ass used in rituals in Ancient Greece:

“Ritual immolations of the ass in honor of the divinity, although rare, were practiced since very early times. Initiates of the participating cults, like the worshippers of the lion and the horse, wore the skin of the venerated animal during the sacrificial ceremonies. A Mycenaean painting shows a procession of personages with donkey’s heads..These are not monsters created by the artist’s fantasy, but men costumed in sacred animal skins for the enactment of a holy rite. On a plaque from Phaistos, these same ass-headed figures hold in one hand the cross with a handle (the ankh or key of life of the Egyptians), and with the other hand make a gesture of adoration.”

There are some positive uses of the ass in medicine as well. In Book XXVIII (Chapter 33) of The Natural History, Pliny states that asses’ milk is the most medicinally efficacious of all mammal milk (other than human presumably). The milk from a donkey was thought to be effective at treating for poisons such as gypsum, white-lead, or quicksilver. It is also good for constipation and for throat ulcers.

In a weird, yet entertaining (I could not possibly leave this out), section (Book XI-Chapter 96), Pliny describes the milk of the she-ass:

“She-asses, as soon as they are pregnant, have milk in their udders; when the pasturage is rich, it is fatal to their young to taste the mother’s milk the first two days after; the kind of malady by which they are attacked is known by the name of ‘colostration.’”

Pliny goes on:

“The milk of the she-ass is the richest of all, so much so, indeed, that it is often used instead of rennet. Asses’ milk is also thought to be very efficacious in whitening the skin of females: at all events, Poppæa, the wife of Domitius Nero, used always to have with her five hundred asses with foal, and used to bathe the while of her body in their milk, thinking that is also conferred additional suppleness on the skin.”

How would you like to be the one that have to milk all of those asses for Nero’s wife?

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Section 4 - Negative Symbolism: Absurdity

While the donkey was a symbol of nobility in the East, Western Europe portrayed the donkey as a grotesque symbol of absurdity, usually depicted playing a harp or lyre. According to Charbonneau-Lassay, the image of a donkey playing either a lyre or harp can be traced back to Egypt and excavations at Ur where the Old Testament Patriarch Abraham was from.

The “donkey playing a harp” motif was popularized by the Roman Fabulist, Phaedrus, in the first century A. D.:

“An Ass espied a Lyre lying in a meadow: he approached and tried the strings with his hoof; they sounded at his touch. ‘By my faith, a pretty thing,’ said he; ‘it happens unfortunately that I am not skilled in the art. If any person of greater skill had found it, he might have charmed my ears with divine notes.’”

The Christian Middle Ages thought that absurdity darkened men’s souls; which was caused by the demon of pride or of self-will. Donkeys were also the symbol of stubbornness and stupidity; those who would not let themselves be convinced by the truth.

St. Hildegard in her Physica has an entry on asses and cautions people not to eat of its flesh because it is so stupid:

“The ass is more hot than cold. It is stupid and is almost blind from the superfluous nature of its lust. It does not have anger, nor does it flee either subjection or human beings. It is willingly with people because some part of its nature nears that of a human. Its flesh, which is not good for people to eat, is fetid from the ass’ stupidity.”

Interestingly, St. Hildegard provides a remedy for palsy by having the patient lie where an ass has died:

“If a person troubled by palsy has those changeable diseases in him that, as in madmen, increase and decrease in accordance with the moon, look for a place where an ass has been killed, or has died by itself, or where it rolls on the earth. There, whether on grass or on earth, with a cloth or, if the patient is very sick, a thin bubicio placed over it, make the patient lie. He should sleep, if he can. Later, take his right hand and say, ‘Lazarus slept and rested, then rose. Just as he was roused by Christ from stinking foulness, so rise from this dangerous disease and changeable ways of these fevers, in conjunction with those things which Christ who sits above conjoined to himself when, foresignaling that he would redeem people from their sins, he awakened Lazarus.’ Then, with short intervals, do this three times on the same day. On the next two days do it similarly, three times in the same place, and he will be cured.”

To tie East and West together, the website, Compostela, has an interesting connection between the donkey and the harp:

“This contrast between the ass’ attributes; large ears for listening, hooves instead of hands for playing and the dissonant sound of a donkey’s bray against the innate harmony of the instrument was particularly suggestive to medieval writers…”

A Sumerian tomb dating back to 3,000 BC included a sacred harp used for accompanying the chanting of prayers and which itself featured an image of a harp playing ass carved onto it. In a curious instance of self referentiality, the image of the harp is a rendering of the design of the actual harp which is distinguished by the bull’s head which surmounts its sound box. Significantly, the ass has fingered hands to play the instrument and portrayed as the source of the sacred ceremonial music, the image is suggestive of a divine aspect…

The association of the ass with the divine continued into Biblical texts notably with Balaam’s Ass which was able to recognise the angel blocking the way indicating connection between the ass and the divine.”

In the next post, I will include a brief note on the mule.