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n this column, The Medieval Chronicle will explore the medieval world of animals, both the kind and the cruel, the practical and the fantastical.   Our primary source of research is a never-before-revealed series of notes discovered in a casket found in the Highlands of Scotland.  Although not signed, the notes seem to have all been written by one person, perhaps the chamberlain of a castle that once stood in the Glen of Balquhidder. Apparently his mistress, the chatelaine, whose name has come down to us only as the Lady Norena, had hired a scrivener known as Magister Gilfrith or Gilfrith Manducantes, to copy a bestiary for her grandson in Edinburgh.  From the tone of his notes, it would seem that the chamberlain was not satisfied with this Gilfrith’s work.

 

To my dear Magister Gilfrith…

     What miracle is this I see upon your escritoire? A page! Will wonders never cease? While I have attended the St Angus fair at the behest of Lady Norena, you have been at your labours at last. A page—and a full one at that! Finally, my report to her in Edinburgh can relay progress on her grandson’s bestiary (may he still be young enough to profit from its instruction by the time you have all of it completed).

A full page at last.

And not only that, but I see you have followed my suggestion to write about gazehounds. What is it they say about teaching an old dog new tricks?

Yet they also say He who has a mind to beat his dog will easily find a stick. And though I have not the authority to beat you, yet have I found a ‘stick’ in this page of yours. Because of the trust placed in me by Lady Norena (who pays both of us our wages), I am obligated to place this ‘stick’ before you to muse at.

I realize you may not understand my play with words here. As a scholar, you must know that to muse means to think upon something. But as someone who is not a hunter (at least, that I know of), you may be unaware that muse also means a dog’s muzzle or to sniff at. So, I have you there in both meanings of the word and it is precisely double meanings that is my ‘stick’. To wit.

You go to great lengths to relay to the grandson how the dog is the symbol of loyalty, yet you provide only one example of this and it is not from the Bible. Would it not be more instructive to cite the Bible, since it is the source of all our knowledge? Surely, canine loyalty can be found within its pages? I am certain that, as a scholar, you could not only cite chapters and verses but also give translations from the Latin.

For myself, as a schoolboy— and here is where the double-meaning comes into play—any quotes I heard from the Bible that dealt with dogs were meant to either scare or disgust. Beware of dogs! Our schoolmaster always intoned this with a shaking finger at the end of the day, and so I would take the long way home rather than the shortcut past the lord’s kennels. Without are dogs! was another of his expressions: he would use both hands for this one, raised towards the door as though to step outside was to invite an attack. There was another about the king of Israel being after a dead dog, which was never explained to me: is it a hunting term or a term of precedence? Either way, not a salutary meaning, nor is: Him that dieth in the city shall the dogs eat. And then, of course, there is dogs of war!

Dogs don’t eat dog. I’m not sure that comes from the Bible, but I was told it applies to church lands not having to pay tithes, so I always thought it akin to dog in the manger. Nothing about loyalty in either of those two expressions, nor in Gone to the dogs or Throw it to the dogs. And where, when a man has fallen on lean times, is there a sense of fidelity in He has not a dog to lick a dish? Or in Hungry dogs will eat dirty pudding?

Give a dog a bad name and hang him. Have you never used this expression yourself, possibly when you have reprimanded someone not to call another a surly dog or a dirty dog or even—God forefend, for one of your kind—a dead dog?


 

In short, you tell the grandson the dog is a symbol of loyalty but do not provide evidence from the Bible. How can this be allowed into a book that is meant to teach the boy about God’s creations? Instead, you give him a history lesson as well as one in geography by using the coat of arms of the Royal Burgh of Linlithgow.

Now, I will admit that I did myself remark upon this coat of arms during my journey here from Edinburgh after the king’s wedding. For all the lavish description you have given it, in my view it remains simply this: a black dog tied to an oak tree. There is supposed to be a lough or a lake as well in it, for such is the meaning, so I was told, of the word Lin in the town’s name, which word is from the other language some of you Scotsmen still persist in speaking. And lith means ‘black’ and gow means ‘hound’ – so there is the full name: Linlithgow. This in itself should explain the design of the burgh seal—or rather, one of the two—from which the coat of arms (again, one of two) was based, so I was told.

Yet you claim there is a story behind it, which is—in your words—‘a most shining example’ of a dog’s loyalty. A story which harks back over two hundred years ago, before the Wars of Independence as you Scotsmen call those times. The dog, so you claim, took it upon herself to keep her master alive after he was sentenced to die by starvation upon an island in the loch. She did this by swimming daily to the burgh and returning with food for him. For this, she was sentenced to die in the same manner as he, but upon another island.

This legend is meant to stand in the Bible’s stead for the grandson? Worse, to my mind, this feat of devotion is meant to help him understand why those who live in Linlithgow—who, I suspect, are your own townsfolk—take pride in being known as black bitches.

As I said, a ‘stick’ to muse upon.

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The sources for the biblical quotes are from a book written by The Reverend Dr. Ebenezer Cobham Brewer, author of  The Dictionary of Phrase and Fable.  The first edition was published in 1870 and a revised edition appeared in 1894.

 

Editor’s Note:

Rev. Brewer wrote  “There is no expression in the Bible of the fidelity, love, and watchful care of the dog so highly honoured by ourselves.”  Maybe this is because dog spelled backwards is God and that says more than words can ever say.

 

Nela Leja would like to thank Sybil Cavanagh at the West Lothian Local History Library for her information on the coat of arms of Linlithgow.

 

 

Nela Leja is currently re-writing her novel about the death of James III of Scotland.  She attributes her fascination with the Middle Ages to her childhood years spent partly in Cambridge, England. She wrote and illustrated her first book at the age of five. Nela has just recently launched her writing and editing business. You can visit her website in the near future at www.thistledownquill.com

 

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