2025/08/08 by Erik Wade · 1 voice
Arts and Humanities · #Ancient Near East History #Folklore, Mythology, and Literature Studies
paper · doi:10.1093/notesj/gjaf082
In his history of the kings of England, twelfth-century English historian William of Malmesbury makes the following curious aside: it is a known fact that in Asia, if anyone has been bitten by a leopard, an army of mice at once gathers to make water on the wounded man, and the victim’s death is accompanied by a filthy flood of urine. If, however, his servants by their unsleeping defence have kept the plague at bay within the space of nine days, they send for the physicians, whose skill will assuredly prevail. The man who told me this had seen the victim of such an attack who, in despair of surviving on land, had put out to sea and cast anchor. Without delay, ever so many mice sailed after him, enclosed, believe it or not, in the rinds of pomegranates of which they had eaten the flesh, but the sailors went for them, shouting, and they were drowned. For the great Father of all has left no created thing without intelligence and no harmful thing without its remedy.1