The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary: A Curious Fable of the Cotton Plant. Henry Lee
to view within it a little lamb, perfect in form, and in every way resembling an ordinary lamb naturally born. This remarkable tree was supposed to grow in the territory of “the Tartars of the East,” formerly called “Scythia”; and it was said that from the fleeces of these “tree-lambs,” which were of surpassing whiteness, the natives of the country where they were found wove materials for their garments and “head-dress.” In the course of time another version of the story was circulated, in which the lamb was not described as being the fruit of a tree, but as being a living lamb attached by its navel to a short stem rooted in the earth. The stem, or stalk, on which the lamb was thus suspended above the ground was sufficiently flexible to allow the animal to bend downward, and browze on the herbage within its reach. When all the grass within the length of its tether had been consumed the stem withered and the lamb died. This plant-lamb was reported to have bones, blood, and delicate flesh, and to be a favourite food of wolves, though no other carnivorous animal would attack it. Many other details were given concerning it, which will be found mentioned in the following pages. This legend met with almost universal credence from the thirteenth to the seventeenth centuries, and, even then, only gave place to an explanation of it as absurd and delusive as itself. Following the outline sketched in the preface, I shall, in this chapter, lay before the reader the story of the “Barometz” or “Vegetable Lamb,” as related by various writers, and shall then give my reasons for assigning to the fable an interpretation very different from that which has been hitherto accepted as the true one.
The story of a wonderful plant which bore living lambs for its fruit, and grew in Tartary, seems to have been first brought into public notice in England in the reign of Edward III., by Sir John Mandeville, the “Knyght of Ingelond that was y bore in the toun of Seynt Albans, and travelide aboute in the worlde in many diverse countreis, to se mervailes and customes of countreis, and diversiteis of folkys, and diverse shap of men and of beistis.” In the 26th chapter of the book in which he “wrot and telleth all the mervaile that he say,” and which he dedicated to the King, he treats of “the Countreis and Yles that ben beȝond the Lond of Cathay, and of the Frutes there”; and amongst the curiosities he met with in the dominions of the “Cham” of Tartary he mentions the following:—
Fig. 1.—The Vegetable Lamb Plant.
After Sir John Mandeville.
This plate illustrates that version of the Fable by which the “Vegetable Lamb” is represented as contained within a fruit, or seed-pod, which, when ripe, bursts open, and discloses the little lamb within it.
“Now schalle I seye ȝou semyngly of Countrees and Yles that ben beȝonde the Countrees that I have spoken of. Wherefore I seye you in passynge be the Lond of Cathaye toward the high Ynde, and towards Bacharye, men passen be a Kyngdom that men clepen Caldilhe: that is a fair Contree. And there growethe a maner of Fruyt, as though it weren Gowrdes: and whan thei ben rype men kutten hem ato, and men fynden with inne a lytylle Best, in Flesche, in Bon and Blode, as though it were a lytylle Lomb with outen Wolle. And Men eten both the Frut and the Best; and that is a great Marveylle. Of that Frute I have eaten; alle thoughe it were wondirfulle, but that I knowe wel that God is marveyllous in his Werkes.”[1]
[1] ‘The Voiage and Travaile of Sir John Maundevile, Knt.’ See Appendix A.
Sir John Mandeville appears to have never previously heard of this strange plant, but reports of its existence under various phases may be traced back, as we shall presently see, to a date at least eighteen hundred years earlier than that of his mention of it. As it is in the works of these older writers that we shall find the long-sought key of the mystery, we will set them aside for the present and follow the growth and dissemination of the fable.
Claude Duret, of Moulins, who, in his ‘Histoire Admirable des Plantes (1605),’ devotes to it a chapter entitled “The Boramets of Scythia, or Tartary, true Zoophytes or plant-animals; that is to say, plants living and sensitive like animals,” therein says:—
“I remember to have read some time ago in a very ancient Hebrew book entitled in Latin the Talmud Ierosolimitanum, and written by a Jewish Rabbi Jochanan, assisted by others, in the year of salvation 436, that a certain personage named Moses Chusensis (he being a native of Ethiopia) affirmed, on the authority of Rabbi Simeon, that there was a certain country of the earth which bore a zoophyte, or plant-animal, called in the Hebrew ‘Jeduah.’ It was in form like a lamb, and from its navel grew a stem or root by which this zoophyte or plant-animal was fixed, attached, like a gourd, to the soil below the surface of the ground, and, according to the length of its stem or root, it devoured all the herbage which it was able to reach within the circle of its tether. The hunters who went in search of this creature were unable to capture or remove it until they had succeeded in cutting the stem by well-aimed arrows or darts, when the animal immediately fell prostrate to the earth and died. Its bones being placed with certain ceremonies and incantations in the mouth of one desiring to foretell the future, he was instantly seized with a spirit of divination, and endowed with the gift of prophecy.”
As I was unable to find in the Latin translation of the Talmud of Jerusalem the passage mentioned by Claude Duret, and was anxious to ascertain whether any reference to this curious legend existed in the Talmudical books, I sought the assistance of learned members of the Jewish community, and, amongst them, of the Rev. Dr. Hermann Adler, Chief Rabbi Delegate of the United Congregations of the British Empire. He most kindly interested himself in the matter, and wrote to me as follows:—
“It affords me much gratification to give you the information you desire on the Borametz. In the Mishna Kilaim, chap. viii. § 5 (a portion of the Talmud), the passage occurs:—‘Creatures called Adne Hasadeh (literally, “lords of the field”) are regarded as beasts.’ There is a variant reading—Abne Hasadeh (stones of the field). A commentator, Rabbi Simeon, of Sens (died about 1235), writes as follows on this passage:—‘It is stated in the Jerusalem Talmud that this is a human being of the mountains: it lives by means of its navel: if its navel be cut it cannot live. I have heard in the name of Rabbi Meir, the son of Kallonymos of Speyer, that this is the animal called ‘Jeduah.’ This is the ‘Jedoui’ mentioned in Scripture (lit. wizard, Leviticus xix. 31); with its bones witchcraft is practised. A kind of large stem issues from a root in the earth on which this animal, called ‘Jadua,’ grows, just as gourds and melons. Only the ‘Jadua’ has, in all respects, a human shape, in face, body, hands, and feet. By its navel it is joined to the stem that issues from the root. No creature can approach within the tether of the stem, for it seizes and kills them. Within the tether of the stem it devours the herbage all around. When they want to capture it no man dares approach it, but they tear at the stem until it is ruptured, whereupon the animal dies.’ Another commentator, Rabbi Obadja of Berbinoro, gives the same explanation, only substituting—‘They aim arrows at the stem until it is ruptured,’ &c. The author of an ancient Hebrew work, Maase Tobia (Venice, 1705), gives an interesting description of this animal. In Part IV. c. 10, page 786, he mentions the Borametz found in Great Tartary. He repeats the description of Rabbi Simeon, and adds what he has found in ‘A New Work on Geography,’ namely, that ‘the Africans (sic) in Great Tartary, in the province of Sambulala, are enriched by means of seeds like the seeds of gourds, only shorter in size, which grow and blossom like a stem to the navel of an animal which is called Borametz in their language, i.e. ‘lamb,’ on account of its resembling a lamb in all its limbs, from head to foot; its hoofs are cloven, its skin is soft, its wool is adapted for clothing, but it has no horns, only the hairs of its head, which grow, and are intertwined like horns. Its height is half a cubit and more. According to those who speak of this wondrous thing, its taste is like the flesh of fish, its blood as sweet as honey, and it lives as long as there is herbage within reach of the stem, from which it derives its life. If the herbage is destroyed or perishes, the animal also dies away. It has rest from all beasts and birds of prey, except the wolf, which seeks