Mermecolion

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Mermecolion (depiction in the Hortus Sanitatis by Jacob Meydenbach, 1491)

The Mermecolion is an Asian mythical creature with the head of a lion and the body of a giant ant . Legend has it that this creature died shortly after birth because the ant's body could not tolerate the meat that the lion ate, but on the other hand the lion's head did not accept the ant's vegetarian food.

According to other stories, the Mermecolion is said to have had genitals that were attached the wrong way round.

This strange creature probably arose from an incorrect translation of the Hebrew word for lion to a word whose meaning suggests a "lion-ant hybrid"; in the Old Testament ( Job 4:11  EU ) it can be read: "The lion perishes for lack of prey". The Hebrew text contains the word לַיִשׁ layish for 'lion'. That word, a rare word for the lion, apparently caused a strange translation.

The version of the Septuagint knows an Arab lion that Aelian and Strabon call Myrmex , but in Greece Myrmex means ant, which is why it became “The old ant-lion perished for lack of prey”. This mistranslation gave birth to a fantasy creature that fits perfectly into the medieval bestiaries .

literature

  • Jorge Luis Borges : The Mermecolion. In: The Book of Imaginary Beings. Dutton, 1969, p. 157.
  • An Account of the Mermecolion or Ant-Lion. In: Antiquaries Journal , III (1923) 347-364.