Medieval Beaver Hunting

Sometimes Medieval art gets weirder the more you look at it. For instance, take these scenes of an animal fleeing from a hunter: the creature isn’t just turning his head back — he is actually biting off his testicles to throw them to his pursuer. Medieval people thought that beavers regularly did this (I know: they don’t look like beavers to me, either). Turns out, beavers have a gland under their testicles that was in high demand for medicinal uses — it had a pronounced smell and was used in perfumes. In fact, the term _castor_ meant beaver in Latin, and it etymologically comes from the Sanskrit term for “musk.” The poor beavers were thought to bite off their family jewels and throw them at hunters in order to escape. This legend got translated into the Christian world-view as a moralistic metaphor for getting rid of sin. The testicles symbolized sin (sexual pleasure was held in deep suspicion by the Medieval Church), and a willingness to castrate oneself — metaphorically — could enable the soul to survive. There is a lot of crazy here. That’s what unfettered deductive reasoning can get you. Incidentally, the beaver was hunted to extinction in Medieval Britain, but recently was re-introduced into Scotland, the first time in over half a millenium.