Sacred Texts  Legendary Creatures  Symbolism  Index  Previous  Next 

---

Buy this Book at Amazon.com

Fictitious and Symbolic Creatures in Art, by John Vinycomb, [1909], at sacred-texts.com

p. 218

Mantiger, Montegre or Manticora Satyral

A chimerical creature of mediæval invention, having the body of an heraldic tiger with mane, and the head of an old man with long spiral horns. Some heraldic authorities make the horns more like those of an ox, and the feet like a dragon's.

The Satyral is apparently identical with the man-tiger.

The belief that certain persons have the power of assuming the shape of the tiger is common in India, and the Khonds say that a man-killing tiger is either an incarnation of the Earth's goddess or a transfigured man. It is thus with the Lavas of Birma, supposed

p. 219

to be the broken-down remains of a cultured race and dreaded as man-tigers. *

Two satyrals supported the arms of the Lords Stawell.

The supporters of the arms of the Earl of Huntingdon are mantigers, but are represented without horns.

From a mediæval "Bestiaria" we have a description and illustration of a gruesome creature of this name (manticora), evolved no doubt from some traveller's marvellous tale. We are told that it is "bred among the Indians," has a triple row of teeth, in bigness and roughness like a lion's, face and ears like a man's, a tail like a scorpion's "with a sting and sharp-pointed quills," and that "his voice is like a small trumpet," and that he is "very wild," and that after having his tail bruised, he can be tamed without danger.

There are several other fictitious creatures, which, if we may believe certain old writers, excited the minds of our credulous wonder-loving forefathers. Of these little need be said, as they rarely, if ever, appear in modern works on heraldry, and may therefore be classed as extinct monsters.

Footnotes

219:* Tylor's "Primitive Culture."