The Marvels of the East: An early medieval Pokédex

Pikachus, Togepis, Flareons, Charmanders and Bulbasaurs. These days, the World seems obsessed with Pokémon GO. However, this fancy for exotic monsters with special powers is nothing new: in the early Middle Ages, people also showed a keen interest in remarkable creatures from faraway. The author of ‘The Marvels of the East’ collected various monsters that could rival Pokémon’s finest, as this blog post reveals…

The Marvels of the East

The Marvels of the East (also known as The Wonders of the East) is something of a liber monstrorum, ‘abook of monsters’. The text, which survives in Old English and Latin, list various beings and places located in the East (Babylonia, Egypt, India, etc.). These oriental things are particularly extraordinary: dogs with boar-tusks breathing fire, bearded women hunting with tigers and pearls growing from vines! Each creature and place is described with what appears to be factual information (length, height, colour for most of the fauna; geographical distance from known places for the flora). Since races of half-human-half-donkeys,  polyglot cannibals and giant gold-stealing ants probably  never roamed the Earth, we can be sure that most of the beings listed in The Marvels of the East stem from fantastical traditions (although the text also lists Ethiopeans among its remarkable humanoids). Nevertheless, the text had some popularity and can be found in three medieval manuscripts: Cotton Vitellius A.xv (c. 1000-1015; a.k.a. the Beowulf Manuscript); Cotton Tiberius B.v (c. 1050) and MS Bodley 614 (1100-1200). In these manuscripts, the descriptions are accompanied by illustrations.

The combination of information about wonderful beings, along with illustrations, may remind some of a Pokédex. For the non-enlightened, a Pokédex is a digital, illustrated encyclopaedia, which lists all sort of information about the various Pokémon that you can catch and train in games of the Pokémon franchise (more info here). Indeed, some of the marvellous creatures mentioned in The Marvels of the East show  (faint) parallels to specific Pokémon. I provide seven examples below. Information about most of the Pokémon is from Bulbapedia; the Old English text and translation are taken from Orchard 1995. 

Seven Pokémon and their early medieval doppelgangers

1) Torchic and the fiery hens of Lentibeisinea

Your local Pokémon centre will tell you that Torchic is an orange Fire Pokémon that resembles a chick (its first evolution, Combusken, resembles a chicken – this makes perfect sense). As a Fire Pokémon, Torchic is warm to the touch, as Bulbapedia explains: “Somewhere in its belly, this Pokémon has a place where it keeps a flame. This internal flame causes Torchic to feel warm if hugged.” The Marvels of the East makes mention of a similarly fiery fowl, though hugging it may not be the best idea:

Sum stow is ðonne mon færð to ðare Readan Sæ, seo is gehaten Lentibelsinea. On ðan beoð henna akende gelice ðam þe mid us beoð reades hiwes. 7 gyf hi hwylc mon niman wile oððe hyra æthrineð ðonne forbærnað hi sona eall his lic. Þæt syndon ungefregelicu lyblac.

[As you go towards the Red Sea there is a place called Lentibeisinea, where there are hens born like ours, red in colour. If any one tries to take or touch them, they immediately burn up all his body. That is extraordinary magic.]

2) Terlard and the two-headed snakes of Hascellentia

A Terlard is a Dragon/Ground Pokémon with a serpentine body and two heads. Since each head has its own brain, Terlard’s two heads often get into a fight with each other, making this Pokémon particularly aggressive and hard to train (according to its entry in the Pokémon Uranium Wikia). Two-headed snakes also make an appearance in The Marvels of the East:

Þæt land is eallum godum gefylled. Ðeos steow næddran hafað. Þa næddran habbað twa heafda, ðæra eagan scinað nihtes swa leohte swa blacern.

[That land is filled with all good things. This place contains serpents. The serpents have two heads, whose eyes shine at night as brightly as lanterns.]

Judging by the manuscript image in Cotton Tiberius B.v, the heads of these snakes, like those of Terlard, do not always see eye to eye.

3) Kricketune and the camel-eating ant-grasshopper-hybrids

The red-and-black insectoid with the fancy moustache is Kricketune, a Bug-type Pokémon. As its name suggests, Kricketune is based, in part, on the cricket or grasshopper. The Marvels of the East features another red-and-black, cricket-ish insectoid: dog-sized grasshopper-ants with an appetite for camels!

Þær beoð akende æmættan swa micle swa hundas. Hi habbað fet swylce græshoppan, hi syndon reades hiwes 7 blaces. Þa æmettan delfað gold up of eorðan fram forannihte oð ða fiftan tid dæges. Ða menn ðe to ðam dyrstige beoð þæt hi þæt gold nimen, þonne lædað hi mid him olfenda myran mid hyra folan 7 stedan. Þa folan hi getigað ær hi ofer þa ea faran. Þæt gold hi gefætað on ða myran 7 hi sylfe onsittað 7 þa stedan þær forlætað. Ðonne ða æmettan hi onfindað, 7 þa hwile ðe þa æmettan ymbe ða stedan abiscode beoð, þonne ða men mid þam myran 7 þam golde ofer ða ea farað. Hi beoð to þam swifte þæt ða men wenað þæt hi fleogende syn.

[Ants are born there as big as dogs, which have feet like grasshoppers, and are of red and black colour. The ants dig up gold from the ground from before night to the fifth hour of the day. People who are bold enough to take the gold bring with them male camels, and females with their young. They tie up the young before they cross the river. They load the gold onto the females, and mount them themselves, and leave the males there. Then the ants detect the males, and while the ants are occupied with the males, the men cross over the river with the females and the gold. They are so swift that one would think that they were flying.]

4) Ho-Oh and the Phoenix

The Ho-Oh is a Legendary Pokémon that can resurrect the dead and create rainbows by flapping its wings. In terms of its appearance, the Ho-Oh combines features of the peacock and the Phoenix. A peacockesque Phoenix is also found in The Marvels of the East:

On þære ylcan stowe byð oðer fugelcynn Fenix hatte. Þa habbað cambas on heafde swa pawan, 7 hyra nest þætte hi wyrcaþ of ðam deorweorðestan wyrtgemangum þe man cinnamomum hateð. 7 of his æðme æfter þusend gearum he fyr onæleð 7 þonne geong upp of þam yselum eft ariseþ.

[In the same place is another kind of bird called Phoenix. They have crests on their heads like peacocks, and they build their nests from the most precious spices, which are called cinnamon; and from its breath, after a thousand years, it kindles a flame, and then rises up young again from the ashes.]

As a Legendary Pokémon, the Ho-Oh is naturally hard to find. Judging by the entry for the rather similar Phoenix in The Marvels of the East, ambitious Poké-trainers could try and follow the scent of cinnamon!

5) Lopunny and the people with long ears

Lopunny is a Normal-type Pokémon that looks like a bipedal, oversized bunny with overly long ears. Lopunny is proud of its ears and rightly so, since they come in handy when danger rears its ugly head: Bulbapedia notes “Lopunny is a timid Pokémon that will cloak its body with its ears or spring away when it senses danger.” Interestingly, Lopunny’s timidity and tendency to covering its body with its ears parallel the behaviour of a long-eared race of doubtful humans in The Marvels of the East:

Hi habbað micle heafda 7 earan swa fann. Oþer eare hi him on niht underbredað, 7 mid oðran hy wreoð him. Beoð þa earan swiðe leohte 7 hi beoð an lichoman swa hwite swa meolc. 7 gif hi hwylcne mann on ðam landum geseoð oðþe ongytað, þonne nimað hi heora earan on hand 7 feorriað hi 7 fleoð, swa hrædlice swa is wen þætte hi fleogen

[They have large heads and ears like fans. They spread one ear beneath them at night, and they wrap themselves with the other. Their ears are very light and their bodies are as white as milk. And if they see or perceive anyone in those lands, they take their ears in their hands and go far and flee, so swiftly one might think that they flew.]

6) Onix and the pepper-hoarding snakes

Onix is a snake-like, Rock/Ground Pokémon with a rocky spine on its head. One of Onix’s special moves, tunnelling through the ground, links it to the Corsiae: the pepper-hoarding, horned snakes of The Marvels of the East, which also go underground:  

… ðæra næddrena mænigeo … þa hattan Corsias. Ða habbað swa micle hornas swa weðeras. Gyf hi hwylcne monn sleað oððe æthrinað þonne swylt he sona. On ðam londum byð piperes genihtsumnys. Þone pipor þa næddran healdað on hyra geornfulnysse. Ðone pipor mon swa nimeð þæt mon þa stowe mid fyre onæleð 7 þonne ða næddran of dune on eorðan þæt hi fleoð; forðan se pipor byð sweart.

[… the multitude of snakes called Corsiae … . They have horns as big as rams. If they strike or touch anyone, he immediately dies. In those lands there is an abundance of pepper. The snakes keep the pepper in their eagerness. In order to take the pepper, people set fire to the place and then the snakes flee from the high ground into the earth; because of this the pepper is black.]

7) Jigglypuff and the headless people

Jigglypuff may be the cutest Pokémon out there, with its round balloon-like body and blue, puppy-dog eyes. Jigglypuff is particularly known for singing sleep-inducing lullabies (the lyrics are, if I am not mistaken,  “Jigglypuff, Jigglypuff, Jigglypuff!”). The fact that Jigglypuff does not seem to have a head that separates it from its body reminded me of the headless people we find in The Marvels of the East:

Ðonne is oðer ealand suð fram Brixonte on þam beoð menn akende butan heafdum, þa habbaþ on heora breostum heora eagan 7 muð. Hi syndan eahta fota lange 7 eahta fota brade.

[Then there is another island, south of the Brixontes, on which there are born men without heads who have their eyes and mouth in their chests. They are eight feet tall and eight feet wide.]

On the basis of the text we could imagine a tribe of gigantic Jigglypuffs south of the Brixontes – the Anglo-Saxon artists that illustrated Cotton Tiberius B.v and Cotton Vitellius A.xv, however, appear to have preferred more humanoid beings, showing off their genitalia. Given the choice, I’d choose you,  Jigglypuff!

*UPDATE* One of my students rightly pointed out that the Pokémon Hitmonlee is a much better parallel for the headless people south of the Brixontes – he has a point!

Naturally, there is absolutely no one-on-one relation between the ‘monsters’ described in The Marvels of the East and Pokémon. However, both cultural products seem to derive from a similar interest in marvellous beings – beings which resemble our own  fauna to some extent but are made special through the attribution of extraordinary traits. Information about these creatures is well worth collecting, the early medieval compiler of The Marvels of the East thought. So, the next time someone complains when you are going out to play Pokémon GO in order to expand your Pokédex, you can tell them you are following a long-standing tradition that stretches back at least a thousand years!

Works referred to:

• Orchard, Andy. 1995. Pride and Prodigies: Studies in the Monsters of the Beowulf-manuscript (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer)