Fictitious & Symbolic Creatures in Art

The tigre or tyger of the old heralds still holds its place in English armory, retaining the ancient name to distinguish it from the natural tiger, to which it bears but little resemblance except the name. The early artists probably had no better authority for the strange creature they depicted than the wild tales of Eastern travel and their own lively imaginations. The habit of drawing in a conventional manner may also have assisted in producing such a monster. This type of wild and ruthless ferocity, approaching the draconic in its power and destructiveness, was to their minds fitly suggested by exaggerations of those attributes of savageness and bloodthirstiness with which it was supposed to be endowed. Shakespeare makes King Henry V., when urging on his “noblest English” and “good yeomen” to the assault at Harfleur, declare that

Supporter, an Heraldic Tigre, collared and lined.

“The tyger,” says Bossewell, “is a beast wonderful in strength, and most swift in flight as it were an arrow. For the Persians call an arrow tygris. He is distinguished with diverse speckes; and of him the floode Tygris tooke the name. It is said Bacchus used these beastes in his chariot, for their marveilous swiftness in conveying of the same.”

The heraldic tigre, the invention of the early heralds, is depicted as having the body similar to a wolf, but more strong and massive; powerful jaws armed with prominent canine tusks, and with a short curved horn or spike at the end of his nose. A row of knotted tufts of hair adorn the back of his neck as a mane; tufts also on his breast and thighs, and with strong claws; the tail of a lion completes his equipment. He is a most effective creature in a heraldic emblazonment, especially when “armed” and “tufted” of tinctures differing from his body.

The sinister supporter of the Marquess of Dufferin and Ava is an heraldic tigre ermine, gorged with a tressure flory counter flory or.

Gules a chevron argent, between three tigres, &c., of the second.—Butler, Calais.

Vert, a tigre passant or, maned and tufted argent.—Love, Norfolk (granted 1663).

Or, a tigre passant gules.—Lutwych, Lutwich, Salop.

Baron Harlech has for dexter supporter, and also for crest, an heraldic tigre argent, maned and tufted sable.

The tigre and mirror is an uncommon but very remarkable bearing. Amongst other remarkable ideas which our ancestors entertained respecting foreign animals, “some report that those who rob the tigre of her young use a policy to detaine their damme from following them by casting sundry looking-glasses in the way, whereat she useth to long to gaze, whether it be to beholde her owne beauty or because when she seeth her shape in the glasse she thinketh she seeth one of her young ones; and so they escape the swiftness of her pursuit.”21

Tigre and Mirror.

“Argent, a tigre passant regardant looking into a mirror lying fessways, the handle to the dexter all proper,” is said to have been the coat of Hadrian de Bardis (probably an Italian), Prebendary of Oxfordshire. These arms still remain, or were lately remaining, in a window of Thame Church. Only two other examples occur, viz.:

“Argent a tigre and mirror (as before) gules.”—Sibell, Kent.

The Royal Tiger

Next to the lion in power is the tiger, an animal not possessed of the noble qualities of the lion, being fierce without provocation, and cruel without cause. The chief difference of the tiger from every other animal of the mottled kind is in the shape of the spots on the skin, which run in streaks or bands in the direction of the ribs. The leopard, panther and the ounce are all, in a certain degree, marked like this animal, except that the lines are broken by round spots, which cover the whole surface of the skin. The use of the royal tiger in modern coats of arms is frequent, and has reference to services in the East.

Outram, Bart., has for supporters: two royal Bengal tigers guardant proper, gorged with a wreath of laurel vert, crowned with an Eastern crown.

Note.—In a heraldic description (or blazon as it is termed) it is necessary for the sake of greater clearness, and to prevent confusion, to name the older mythical creature the “Heraldic Tigre,” that it may not be confounded with its natural representative usually called the “Royal Tiger.”

A curious character, partly real and partly fictitious has been ascribed to the lybbard or leopard of heraldry. It was said to be the offspring of a lioness and a panther, the Northmen or Normans, according to some authorities, having adopted that beast of prey, noted for rashness, as typical of themselves, so characterised by boldness and impetuosity. The standard of Rollo, first Duke of Normandy, they say, bore a leopard. A second lion or leopard was added to the Norman shield when the county of Maine became annexed to the Duchy of Normandy; and the two lions or leopards—for they are indiscriminately so termed—were thus borne, it is said, upon the standard of William the Conqueror, and by his descendants. A third lion was added by Henry II. on his marriage with Eleanor of Aquitain, a lion being also the arms of that province.

A Leopard passant.

It has been keenly contested whether the three animals in the royal shield of England were lions or leopards. The subject has been ably treated by Mr. J. R. Planché in the “Pursuivant of Arms,” and also by Charles Boutell, M.A., in several of his works. The case seems to stand thus:

In ancient coats the name is believed to be given to the lion in certain attitudes. The French heralds call a lion passant a leopard. Thus Bertrand du Guesclin, the famous Breton, declared that men “devoyent bien honorer la noble fleur-de-lis, qu’ils ne faissaient le félon liépard,” and Napoleon, strongly to excite the valour of his soldiers, exclaimed, “Let us drive these leopards (the English) into the sea!”

“Lion Léoparde” is the term used in French heraldry for the lion when borne passant guardant as in the royal shield of England. When rampant they call it “léoparde lionné,” as if in this attitude the leopard assumed the position and bold character of the lion. The attitude passant guardant thus denoted the peculiar stealthy tread and cat-like watchfulness of the leopard and panther.

The Emperor Frederick II. (1235) sent King Henry of England three leopards as a present in token of his armorial bearings.

A Leopard’s Face, jessant-de-lis.

It is a great argument in favour of the substitution of the lion for the leopard, Mr. Boutell thinks, that the latter should have almost disappeared from English heraldry, the face and head only retaining their place in modern coats.

“A leopard’s head” should show part of the neck, couped or erased, as the case may be; guardant, affronté or front face, is always to be understood of the leopard, and never in profile.

“A leopard’s face” shows no part of the neck, and in conjunction with the term “jessant-de-lis” is used with respect to a leopard’s face having a fleur-de-lis passing through it.

The insignia of the See of Hereford is: gules three leopards’ heads reversed jessant-de-lis, or.

In heraldry the leopard represents those brave and generous warriors who have performed some bold enterprise with force, courage, promptitude, and activity. Thus Shakespeare alludes to the character of the bold soldier

In Christian Art the leopard is employed to represent that beast spoken of in the Apocalypse, with seven heads and ten horns. Six of the heads are nimbed, but the seventh, being “wounded to death,” has lost its power, and consequently has no nimbus.

Three leopards passant guardant or, pelletée, appear on the arms of the Marquis of Downshire. It is also the sinister supporter.

The supporters of the town of Aberdeen are leopards.

Sable three leopards rampant argent spotted sable are given as the arms of Lynch. It is, however, probable that the lynx was the animal originally blazoned as “arms parlantes” for the name.

Ermine on a cross patonce sable, a leopard’s head, issuing out of a ducal coronet or, crest, a demi-leopard erect, proper.—Dickens.

A leopard’s face, breaking with his mouth a sword, is the crest of Disne.

The supporters of the Earl of Northesk are two leopards reguardant.

The leopard or panther, says Dr. P. M. Duncan, F.R.S.,22 was the only one of the greater feline animals, except the lion and tiger, which seems to have been known to the ancients. It is always represented as drawing the chariot of Bacchus, and the forlorn Ariadne is sculptured as riding on one of the spotted steeds of her divine lover. The panther was also constantly used in the barbarous sports of the amphitheatre, and, in common with the lion and tiger, has been both executioner and grave to many a bold-hearted martyr.

The leopard’s skin was a favourite mantle in the olden times in Greece. In the “Iliad,” Homer, speaking of Menelaus, says:

and the leopard, or panther, is given in the “Odyssey” as one of the forms assumed by Proteus, “the Ancient of the Deep.”

A curious ancient superstition about the leopard is embodied in its name. It was thought not to be actually the same animal as the panther or pard, but to be a mongrel or hybrid between the male pard and the lioness, hence it was called the lion-panther, or leopardus. This error, as Archbishop Trench tells us, “has lasted into modern times”; thus Fuller: “Leopards and mules are properly no creatures.”

Some writers, says Boutell, describe the leopard as the issue of the pard and lioness, and they assign the unproductiveness of such hybrids as a reason for its frequent adoption in the arms of abbots and abbesses. “Mulus et abbates sunt in honore pares.”

The leopard and panther are now acknowledged to be but slight varieties of the same species. In Wood’s “Natural History” some slight difference is mentioned as to the number of spots. “The panther is fawn-coloured above, white underneath, with six or seven ranges of patches resembling rosettes—that is to say, each composed of an assemblage of five or six simple black spots. It very much resembles the leopard, which inhabits the same region (but has ten rows of spots which are of smaller size), It is the wildest of the feline tribe, always retaining its fierce aspect and perpetual growl.”

The Panther “Incensed”

This beast, like the leopard, has been the object of much mistaken or fictitious history. Pliny, who is responsible for many of the errors in natural history since his time, says of the panther: “It is said that all four-footed beasts are wonderfully delighted and enticed by the smell of panthers; but their hideous looke and crabbed countenance which they bewray so soon as they show their heads skareth them as much again: therefore their manner is to hide their heads, and when they have trained other beasts within their reach by their sweet savour, they fall upon them and worry them.”23 And again, Sir William Segar, Garter King-of-Arms, following the same credulous historian, says: “The panther is admired of all other beasts for the beauty of his skyn, being spotted with variable colours, and beloved of them for the sweetness of his breath that streameth forth of his nostrils and ears like smoke which our paynters mistaking, corruptly do make fire.”24

Panther incensed.

It is, however, more probable that the creature was represented emitting flame and smoke to denote and give characteristic expression to the native savagery of the brute when irritated. If one can imagine the terror inspired by remorseless and unpitying fury, sudden and impetuous, we see its object fairly typified in the panther “incensed.” The idea of fire and smoke darting from its mouth, eyes and ears was doubtless suggested by that habit peculiar to the feline race, observable even in the domestic cat, to “spit fire” and “swear” when rudely attacked, and as an emblem in this sense it is extremely well indicative of sudden fury.

Guillam says: “Some authors are of opinion that there are no panthers bred in Europe; but in Africa, Lybia and Mauritania they are plentiful. The panther is a beast of a beautiful aspect, by reason of the manifold variety of his divers coloured spots wherewith his body is overspread. As a lion doth in most things resemble the nature of a man, so, after a sort, doth the panther of a woman; for it is a beautiful beast, and fierce, yet very loving to their young ones, and will defend them with the hazard of their own lives; and if they miss them, they bewail their loss with loud and miserable howling.”

The Lancastrian badge “the panther,” says Planché, “which is attributed by Sir William Segar to Henry VI. and blazoned passant guardant argent spotted of all colours with vapour issuant from her mouth and ears; but there is no authority quoted for it, and there is no example extant, the only collateral evidence being the supporters of the Somerset Dukes of Beaufort, who are supposed to have used it as a token of their Lancastrian descent.” The dexter supporter of the Duke of Beaufort thus is blazoned: Dexter, a panther argent, semée of torteaux, hurts and pomies alternately, flames issuant from the mouth and ears proper, gorged with a plain collar, chained, or.

The heraldic panther, or as it is more frequently termed, a panther incensed, is always borne guardant, i.e., full-faced; and “incensed,” that is to say, it is depicted with flames and smoke issuing from its mouth and ears. Its coat is spotted of various tinctures as the blazon may state.

Odet de Foix, Sieur de Lautrec, Marshal of France (+ 1528) being considered a person of fierce appearance, took for device a panther, with the motto “Allicit ulterius” (“He entices further”), alluding to the attractive power of that animal notwithstanding its fierce exterior, “an evidence,” remarks a modern writer, “that he had as much vanity as ambition.”

The town of Lucca for arms bears a panther: “La pantera, che Lucca abbraccia e onora.”

Gian Giacomo Trivulzio, surnamed the Great (+ 1518), a celebrated Italian soldier, bore a panther on his standard, with the motto, “Mens sibi conscia facti” (“The mind conscious to itself of the deed”), the panther signifying foresight (providence) from the number of eyes in his coat. Others said he wished to imply that he knew how to manage for himself in the various changes of his capricious fortune.25