Giraldus Cambrensis on the Myth of the Barnacle (c. 1188).

Barnacle Goose brooding in Sweden.
Bengt Nyman/Wikimedia Commons

In This Series:

• Shakespeare’s Barnacles.
• Giraldus Cambrensison the Myth of the Barnacle (c. 1188).
• Dietary Rules for Barnacles: Innocent III to Gordon Ramsey.

According to Max Muller,[1] the first written record discovered relating to the Barnacle appears in Giraldus Cambrensis’ Topographia Hiberniae (circa 1188).  Cambrensis’ account largely confirms the description of the source of the myth that I have provided in my “Shakespeare’s Barnacles” [link].  Muller has provided an English translation (apparently his own):

This is what Giraldus says in his ‘Topographia Hiberniae’:

There are in this place many birds which are called Bernacae: against nature, nature produces them in a most extraordinary way. They are like marsh-geese, but somewhat smaller. They are produced from fir timber tossed along the sea, and are at first like gum. Afterwards they hang down by their beaks as if from a seaweed attached to the timber, surrounded by shells, in order to grow more freely. Having thus, in process of time, been clothed with a strong coat of feathers, they either fall into the water or fly freely away into the air. They derive their food and growth from the sap of the Wood or the sea, by a secret and most wonderful process of alimentation.  I have frequently, with my own eyes, seen, more than a thousand of these small bodies of birds, hanging down on the sea-shore from one piece of timber, enclosed in shells, and already formed. They do not breed and lay eggs, like other birds; nor do they ever hatch any eggs; nor do they seem to build nests in any corner of the earth. Hence bishops and clergymen in some parts of Ireland do not scruple to dine of these birds at the time of fasting, because they are not flesh, nor born of flesh. 

What we now call “barnacles” were then considered to be the eggs of the small goose the Celtic peoples called “barnacles”.

Dimock’s edition informs us that the earliest manuscripts of the Topographia — dedicated to Henry II — date to 1188 or shortly before.[2]  The materials from which they were written were gathered from Cambrensis’ personal travels in Ireland in 1185 and 1186.[3]

 Already, then, in 1186, the myth of the Barnacle Goose was common currency among the Irish.  No earlier reference seems to have been discovered since Muller’s Lectures.  Muller himself cites a good many references in the intervening centuries, beginning with Vincentius Bellovacensis’ Speculum Naturae (circa 1215) and ending with the ‘Philosophical Transactions,’ 1678.[4]

‘A Relation concerning Barnacles, by Sr. Robert Moray, lately one of His Majesties Council for the Kingdom of Scotland,’ we read (p. 925):

Being in the Island of East, I saw lying upon the shore a cut of a large Firr-tree of about 2 1/2 foot diameter, and 9 or 10 foot long; which had lain so long out of the water that it was very dry: And most of the Shells, that had formerly cover’d it, were worn or rubb’d off. Only on the parts that lay next the ground, there still hung multitudes of little Shells; having within them little Birds, perfectly shap’d, supposed to be Barnacles.

***

The Shells hang at the Tree by a Neck longer than the Shell. Of a kind of Filmy substance, round, and hollow, and creassed, not unlike the Wind-pipe of a Chicken; spreading out broadest where it is fastened to the Tree, from which it seems to draw and convey the matter which serves for the growth and vegetation of the Shell and the little Bird within it.

This Bird in every Shell that I opened, as well the least as the biggest, I found so curiously and compleatly formed, that there appeared nothing wanting, as to the internal parts, for making up a perfect Seafowl: every little part appearing so distinctly, that the whole looked like a large Bird seen through a concave or diminishing Glass, colour and feature being everywhere so clear and neat. The little Bill like that of a Goose, the Eyes marked, the Head, Neck, Breast, Wings, Tail, and Feet formed, the Feathers every where perfectly shap’d, and blackish coloured; and the Feet like those of other Water fowl, to my best remembrance. All being dead and dry, I did not look after the Internal parts of them. . . . . Nor did I ever see any of the little Birds alive, nor met with any body that did.

The myth of the goose that hatched from barnacle shells was difficult to let go of.  Still current near the end of the 17th century, even the more modern scientists of the time hesitated to let it go.

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[1] Muller, Max.  Lectures on the Science of Language (1885). 597-8.

[2] Giraldi Cambrensïs Opera James F. Dimock, M.A., ed. (1867) “The first edition, dedicated to Henry II., which appeared early in 1188, if not before, contains far less than half of the treatise as it finally issued from his pen some thirty years, perhaps, afterwards.” xi.  Dimock indicates that the text of Chapter XV, which contains the information on the Barnacle, was complete in the first manuscripts.

[3] Ibid.  “His materials for it were collected during his stay in Ireland in parts of the years 1185 and 1186, and the work itself was partly written there, and completed directly after his return. It records what he himself saw, or was there told and believed, penned at the very time, or soon afterwards, whilst everything was still fresh in his memory.” xiii.

[4] Muller.  “I shall begin with one of the latest accounts, taken from the ‘ Philosophical Transactions,’ No. 137, January and February 1677—8. Here, in ‘A Relation concerning Barnacles, by Sr. Robert Moray, lately one of His Majesties Council for the Kingdom of Scotland,’…” 586-7.

Also at Virtual Grub Street:

• Shakespeare’s Barnacles.  March 3, 2016.  “Prospero will wake, he fears, before they can murder him, and will cast a spell on them.”
• The King's Esnecce.  January 13, 2019.  “It comes as no surprise, then, that when Maud’s son, Henry Plantagenet, Count or Duke of most of the western territories of France, and, by terms of the treaty, heir to Stephen, next rose to the throne as Henry II, he was quick to arrange for the safest possible means of transit across the channel.”
• Connections: Henry II, Toulouse, 1159.  November 27, 2018.  “Once he became Chancellor, Becket never looked back.  He abandoned his duties as Archdeacon and preaching duties attached to his other positions.  He outfitted a lavish  household and lived like a secular lord.”
• Check out the Medieval Topics Article Index for many more articles about this fascinating time.
• Check out the English Renaissance Article Index for many more articles and reviews about this fascinating time.

 

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