Page:Jewish Encyclopedia Volume 2.pdf/589

539 How long before Giraldus the fable existed, Max Midler is not able to determine. It is therefore significant that it was already known to the "Venerable Bede, the father of English history (673-735). He says, in all earnestness, in his work on natural history, "De Natura lierum," that the goose "Barliata" grows on rotten wood by the

believed the myth.

sea.

Barnabas, Joses Barnacle-Goose

THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA

539

It

The

hangs by

its

beak

until

n»5>B> Jlbnp, p. 66) in the

following

Earliest Trace in

words: niSlJjn T?K TIB'JJn b]}2 2FI3 Rabbenu Tarn's '131 fVxn |D D'KXVn. Jewish (about 1100-71) opinion is given in Ijiterature. the responsa of R. Mei'r of Rothenburg (about 1225-93). In discussing the question whether such birds must be slaughtered according to the ritual method (Responsa, ed. Lemberg, 1860, p. 12ft, § 160), he says: "My teacher, the Lion [Sir Leon of Paris = Leo Blundus? 11661224], told me that he had heard from his father, R. Isaac, that R. Tam directed that they should be slaughtered after Jewish fashion, and sent this decision to the sons of Angleterre [England]." According to Jacobs, this is the earliest notice of the it

militates against its alleged Irish

origin, since R. Tam, who was a grandson of Rashi, lived before the conquest of Ireland. R. Tam al-

lowed them to be eaten. Jewish scholars in France and Germany discussed whether they were fish or fowl, and whether, according to the dietary laws, they were permissible as food. Some authorities answered in the affirmative; others declared them unlawful. R. Samuel Hahasid of Speier (about 1150), and his son, R. Judah Hehasid of Regensburg (died 1216), allowed them to be eaten, if, in common with other species of fowl, they were slaughtered after Jewish fashion. An anonymous Hebrew translator of the French cosmography called "Image du Monde," who compiled his work in 1245, speaks of geese growing on trees in Ireland and of people with tails in Brittany. He is the first Jewish author to locate the birds on R. Isaac b. Joseph of Corbeil, in his Irish shores. " Sef er Miz wot Katan" pDD), written in 1277, was the first to forbid them as food on the plea that, according to their origin, they were neither fowl nor fish, but belonged to the shellNeither Fowl nor fish species. He seems to have credited the popular belief, then current, Fish. that these shells grew on trees, and opened in time of maturity, and that " out of them (

grow those little living things which, falling into the water, do become fowls, whom we call barnacles." Moses Taku (Tachau) of Regensburg (about 1250) wrote a curious

treatise against mystie-theosophic

speculations, entitled

"Ketab Tamini" (published

in

58-99, Vienna, 1860), wherein he says that birds growing on trees, if it be true that Gerson b. they grow on trees, are not forbidden food. Salomo of Aries (about 1270) speaks of barnacle(so in Steinschneigeese, which he calls der's"Hebr. Bibl." xxi. 54; ib. vi. 94, n. 6, reads: He refers, in this connection, to Aris-

"Ozar Nehmad,"

iii.

BWBrO

SWJL3-Q).

The next reference to the legend is found in the Zohar, now generally assumed to have been written in the middle of the thirteenth century by Moses b. Shem-Tob de Leon (1250-1305). He says that R. Aba saw a tree from whose branches geese grew (Zohar iii.

Jewish literature seems to be in the " 'Ittur" of Isaac ben Abba Mari of Marseilles (about 1170). The reference is found in a volume of manuscript responsa (Halberstamm,

and

"Zoology," which was one of the sources of

this early encyclopedist.

it falls.

earliest trace of this fable in

legend;

totle's

In the Zohar

Mordecai

156).

b. Hillel of

Regens-

burg (about 1300), possibly influenced by the views of various divines who

and in

declared against their suitability for food during Lent, hesitates to say whether these birds are to be slaughtered as fowl, or, in view of their peculiar origin, if they may be eaten unslaughtered as fish (Hul- 735). Jacob b. Asher (died 1340) follows the view of R. Isaac of Corbeil in his decision. The anonymous compiler of the legal compendium " Kol Bo " (fourteenth century) refers twice to the subject, mentioning the views of R. Isaac and of R. Jehiel b. Jose (of France, 1240?), and concludes that they are forbidden Among later authori(ed. Venice, 1572, p. 113a-ft). ties who mention the legend are Jacob b. Moses Molin or Maharil (died 1427), in his responsa, No.

"KolBo."



b. Zemah Duran (died 1444), who, acmanuscript citation, speaks somewhere of J^N3 '^"tin maiy (Halberstamm's "Catalogue," p. 66, n. 345. § 479); Joseph Caro (1488-1575), Shulhan 'Aruk, Yoreh De'ah, 84, 15; Solomon Luria (died 1573) ("Yam Shel Shelomoh," ed. Stettin, p. Yair Hayyi m Bacharach (died 1702), in the un100ft) published index to his writings, MS., p. 92a: pjQ Dm3D2 3iri3E> HD DiT01t3"irQ D""6riB> niSll>, taken from non-Jewish sources; Hezekiah de Silva (about

Simon

144;

cording

to a



1692), in " Sefer Peri Hadash " to Yoreh De'ah, I.e. Amsterdam, 1682. Phineas Elijah b. Meir of

p. 70ft,

in his " Sefer ha-Berit " (i. § 4) that "in Ireland, near England, in a place called Scotland, there are geese which grow on trees planted by the water and in spring they fall from the trees into the water and live and grow larger in the water." His friend, R. Eliakim Gottschalk b. Abraham of London, refers him to the above-quoted passage in the Zohar. He seems to have believed the fable (compare the Warsaw ed., 1869, p. 60ft). As recently as 1863, to judge from a note in "HaMaggid," 1863, vii., No. 42, p. 335ft, the story was

Wilna (about 1790) says 11,



accredited in Russia.

According to a statement made by Alberuni (about seems possible that the story may have orig-

1000), it

inated in the East. He writes " Aljaihani [a contemporary of Alberuni] relates that in the Indian Ocean there are the roots of a tree which spread along the seacoast in the sand that the leaf is rolled up and gets separated Possible from the tree and that it then changes Oriental





and flies away " (see Chronology of Ancient Nations, Eng. transl. by Saehau, p. 214, LonAccording to Steinschneiderthe idea of don, 1879). generatio mquivoca and the Oriental fable of the trees bearing maidens on a mythical island called Wak-

Origin of

Myth.

into a king-bee,

his "

wak

are closely related to the barnacle-geese story. Mas'udi, Ibn Tufail, Pseudo-Callisthenes, and others

mention this wonder, and reference thereto is made The maidens in the "Thousand and One Nights."