PREFACE


The Old English _Physiologus_, or _Bestiary_, is a series of three brief
poems, dealing with the mythical traits of a land-animal, a sea-beast,
and a bird respectively, and deducing from them certain moral or
religious lessons. These three creatures are selected from a much larger
number treated in a work of the same name which was compiled at
Alexandria before 140 B.C., originally in Greek, and afterwards
translated into a variety of languages--into Latin before 431. The
standard form of the _Physiologus_ has 49 chapters, each dealing with a
separate animal (sometimes imaginary) or other natural object, beginning
with the lion, and ending with the ostrich; examples of these are the
pelican, the eagle, the phoenix, the ant (cf. Prov. 6.6), the fox, the
unicorn, and the salamander. In this standard text, the Old English
poems are represented by chapters 16, 17, and 18, dealing in succession
with the panther, a mythical sea-monster called the asp-turtle (usually
denominated the whale), and the partridge. Of these three poems, the
third is so fragmentary that little is left except eight lines of
religious application, and four of exhortation by the poet, so that the
outline of the poem, and especially the part descriptive of the
partridge, must be conjecturally restored by reference to the treatment
in the fuller versions, which are based upon Jer. 17.11 (the texts drawn
upon for the application in lines 5-11 are 2 Cor. 6.17,18; Isa. 55.7;
Heb. 2.10,11).

It has been said: 'With the exception of the Bible, there is perhaps no
other book in all literature that has been more widely current in every