[420] "Demonology and Devil-Lore," 1880, vol. i. p. 383.
[421] The dragon formerly constituted a part of the morris-dance.
_Elephant._ According to a vulgar error, current in bygone times, the elephant was supposed to have no joints--a notion which is said to have been first recorded from tradition by Ctesias the Cnidian.[422] Sir Thomas Browne has entered largely into this superstition, arguing, from reason, anatomy, and general analogy with other animals, the absurdity of the error. In "Troilus and Cressida" (ii. 3), Ulysses says: "The elephant hath joints, but none for courtesy: his legs are legs for necessity, not for flexure." Steevens quotes from "The Dialogues of Creatures Moralized"--a curious specimen of our early natural history--the following: "the olefawnte that bowyth not the kneys." In the play of "All Fools," 1605, we read: "I hope you are no elephant--you have joints." In a note to Sir Thomas Browne's Works,[423] we are told, "it has long been the custom for the exhibitors of itinerant collections of wild animals, when showing the elephant, to mention the story of its having no joints, and its consequent inability to kneel; and they never fail to think it necessary to demonstrate its untruth by causing the animal to bend one of its fore-legs, and to kneel also."
[422] Sir Thomas Browne's Works, 1852, vol. i. pp. 220-232.
[423] Edited by Simon Wilkin, 1852, vol. i. p. 226.
In "Julius Cæsar" (ii. 1) the custom of seducing elephants into pitfalls, lightly covered with hurdles and turf, on which a proper bait to tempt them was exposed, is alluded to.[424] Decius speaks of elephants being betrayed "with holes."
[424] See Pliny's "Natural History," bk. viii.
_Fox._ It appears that the term fox was a common expression for the old English weapon, the broadsword of Jonson's days, as distinguished from the small (foreign) sword. The name was given from the circumstance that Andrea Ferrara adopted a fox as the blade-mark of his weapons--a practice, since his time, adopted by other foreign sword-cutlers. Swords with a running fox rudely engraved on the blades are still occasionally to be met with in the old curiosity shops of London.[425] Thus, in "Henry V." (iv. 4), Pistol says: