Read Online Kosher Guide to Imaginary Animals by Jeff VanderMeer - Free Book Online

Foreword
    Joseph Nigg
    Joseph (Joe) Nigg has followed imaginary animals ever since he became intrigued by a Lion of the Sea on an antique lamp thirty years ago. His many award-winning books explore the millennia-long cultural histories of fabulous beasts. Lavishly-illustrated and beloved by readers of all ages, his treasuries include The Book of Gryphons , A Guide to Imaginary Birds of the World , and his recent international bestseller, How to Raise and Keep a Dragon , which has been translated into more than twenty languages. Nigg is currently at work on a fantastical history of the immortal Phoenix.
    Years ago, a friend who knew I was writing about mythical beasts said he had come up with a riddle for me. “What did the pony say to the unicorn?” he asked. I couldn’t guess. “What’s the point?” he said, pleased with himself.
    I’ve wondered about that animal distinction ever since.
    There was a television commercial in which Noah was leading the animals onto the Ark. Among the pairs with long rubbery noses, elongated necks, antlers, and other fantastic forms was a small white horse with a single straight horn protruding from its forehead. Of course, I — and probably every other viewer, regardless of age — immediately fixated on the unicorn.
    Why are we so intrigued by imaginary animals? Nature, in all her bounty, has created fauna of every imaginable (and unimaginable) size, shape, color, and behavior. There are an estimated ten million species of beetles alone. Our imagined creatures are really paltry in comparison — and even then, our beasts-that-never-were are derived from those of the actual animal kingdom. But our hybrids are our own, shaped by our imagination out of fears, hopes, wonder, and sheer joy of creation.
    The bizarre animals in this book are descendants of phantasmagorical creatures that crawled out of the ocean of oral-story millennia ago. The beasts of myth were succeeded by a host of newcomers in tales of travelers returning from Ethiopia, Egypt, Persia, and India. Classical historians, geographers, and natural history authors recorded those accounts, describing the marvels of remote lands in terms of animals that a stay-at-home public would immediately recognize.
    Such a technique makes actual creatures seem just as fantastic as imaginary ones. Pliny’s leucrocota, “the swiftest of wild beasts,” is a case in point. It is “about the size of an ass, with a stag’s haunches, a lion’s neck, tail and breast, badger’s head, cloven hoof, mouth opening right back to the ears, and ridges of bone in place of rows of teeth.” It is said to imitate the human voice. What animal is being described? Probably a hyena. (Pliny’s Roman audience would have seen lions at the Coliseum.)
    Authors copied each other down the centuries, disseminating what they regarded as knowledge of the world. Christian scribes drew on the Physiologus collection of animal lore and on classical authorities to compile the medieval bestiaries. Their religious allegories often repeated travelers’ composite descriptions of animals. These books of beasts made no distinction between actual and fabulous creatures.
    The rise of modern science in the seventeenth century changed all that. Rationalists questioning ancient and medieval authority asked if anyone had ever actually seen a griffin, phoenix, fire-breathing dragon, manticore, or giant ant. Nobody had. Such monsters were denounced as embarrassing fabrications and tossed onto the garbage heap of superstition.
    After more than a century of being “enlightened,” people hungered for a rebirth of the imagination. Romanticism did the trick, and, slowly at first, imaginary animals returned — on the other side of belief. We needed them. They’re now everywhere: in children’s books, manga, fantasy novels, movies, video games; on T-shirts, belt buckles, tattooed flesh. You name it. They’re there.
    Which brings us to The Kosher Guide and some of the wildest, most