![]() ![]() The Alexander Romance includes the story of a "monster" confused as an island in the Alexander's letter to Aristotle:"After they landed on the so-called island and an hour passed, suddenly it proved to be no island, but a monster which plunged into the sea. Alexander Romance, Armenian manuscript, 1538–1544 But when the monster feels the heat of these fires, it immediately submerges into the water, and pulls the ship into the depths of the sea. Then, in order to cook a meal after this work, they make fires on the sand as if on land. Believing it to be an island, they beach their ship alongside it, and disembarking, they plant stakes and tie up the ships. This creature raises its back above the waves of the sea, so that sailors believe that it is just an island, so that when they see it, it appears to them to be a sandy beach such as is common along the sea-shore. The oldest version of the Aspidochelone legend is found in the Physiologus (2nd century AD) : There is a monster in the sea which in Greek is called aspidochelone, in Latin "asp-turtle" it is a great whale, that has what appear to be beaches on its hide, like those from the sea-shore. In the moralistic allegory of the Physiologus and bestiary tradition, the aspidochelone represents Satan, who deceives those whom he seeks to devour.įabled sea creature An Aspidochelone from a French manuscript, c. It also emits a sweet smell that lures fish into its trap where it then devours them. It rises to the surface from the depths of the sea, and entices unwitting sailors with its island appearance to make landfall on its huge shell and then the whale is able to pull them under the ocean, ship and all the people, drowning them. ![]() The name aspidochelone appears to be a compound wordĬombining Greek aspis (which means either " asp" or " shield"), and chelone, the turtle. No matter what form it is, it is always described as being so huge that it is often mistaken for an island and appears to be rocky with crevices and valleys with trees and greenery and having sand dunes all over it. According to the tradition of the Physiologus and medieval bestiaries, the aspidochelone is a fabled sea creature, variously described as a large whale or vast sea turtle, and a giant sea monster with huge spines on the ridge of its back. ![]()
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