Lagopus

         Today I have a case study of how a mythical creature is born.  This is the story of the lagopus, a creature of the Alps that is half bird half rabbit, which can’t eat in the open air, so it has to take its food into a cave.  There are a number of similar bird-beast creatures, which I discussed in a previous post on Jackalope’s Eve.  I think the lagopus is a charming little beastie, and I made this tiny block print of it this summer.  As you can see, I based my design heavily on this illustration in a 1565 edition of Pliny’s Natural History.  I just tweaked the rabbit feet and ears a bit.

        Another delightful version is this hand-painted woodcut from 1491, from an encyclopaedia that was one of the earliest printed books in Europe.  This picture shows the lagopus outside the 

cave where it goes to eat.  But how did such an implausible creature come to be in an encyclopaedia in the first place?  Like quite a few other magical creatures, its roots are really rather prosaic.

        The lagopus is, quite simply, a misunderstanding.  Perhaps it would be even more accurate to call it an over-assumption.  It also, like many of the other odd creatures in bestiaries, reflects lack of communication between those who write and those who illustrate, with a little translation trouble thrown in.  The original description of the creature comes from Pliny the Elder, who says that it’s a bird with feet like a hare, being covered in fur.  Lagopus is simply the Latin meaning “hare foot.”  The illustrations of the lagopus in the earliest illustrated encyclopaedias don’t look terribly exciting.  In one it stretches out its feet as if to show off its most distinctive feature, while in the other picture it does have ears, but they make it look more like an owl 

than a rabbit.  So where does it get those ears anyway?  Simple: although Pliny’s description says nothing about ears, illuminators depicting the beast began to feel that a creature with one rabbity trait must have more rabbit to it than that.  First rabbit feet, then rabbit ears, and the next thing you know it’s got a whole rabbit head as in the woodcuts above.

        What about the cave?  That’s a mistranslation.  Pliny says you can’t eat the lagopus outside of its home because the meat spoils so fast, but along the way a translator thought Pliny was saying the lagopus can’t eat outside its home.  So really, instead of a fun, fantastical rabbit-bird, all we’ve really got is a bird with furry feathers on its feet to give it a little extra insulation in the Alpine snow.  In fact, the lagopus is just the willow ptarmigan, whose scientific name to this day is Lagopus lagopus.  Here are a couple of later illustrations that have brought us back to reality.  In the first, from 1551 the feet still look quite furry and rabbity, but we’re definitely dealing with a bird.  (Note, though, that the 

wood block print on which I based my creature is actually later than this, so clarity about the true nature of the lagopus took a while to settle in.)  And finally, here’s a ptarmigan by Thomas Bewick, which is reasonably scientifically accurate (although it is a different species of ptarmigan, so perhaps the feet really should be furrier on our willow ptarmigan).

        So now you know the truth about the lagopus, and it’s always good to know the truth.  But once you acknowledge it, it can still be fun to tell some magical fantastical stories with a little more whimsy!

[Pictures: Lagopus, rubber block print by AEGN, 2023;

Lagopus, wood block print from Bücher und Schrifften von der Natur by Pliny the Elder, 1565 (Image from Google Books);

Lagopus, hand-colored wood block print from Ortus sanitatus, 1491 (Image from University of Cambridge);

Lagopus, illumination from Liber de natura rerum, c. 1280 (Image from Bibliothèque municipale de Valenciennes);

Lagopus, illumination from Der naturen bloeme by Jacob van Maerlant, c. 1350 (Image from Koninklijke Bibliotheek);

De Lagopode, wood block print from Historiæ animalium by Conrad Gessner, 1551 (Image from Internet Archive);

Ptarmigan (White Grouse), wood engraving by Thomas Bewick from History of British Birds, 1797 (Image from Biodiversity Heritage Library).]