Prodigious Portrait of a Seven-Headed Monster June 14, 2014
Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern , trackback
This peculiar creature appeared in a seventeenth-century English pamphlet. The pamphlet limits itself to two pages and tells a simple story.
The true Portraiture of a prodigious Monster, taken in the Mountains of Zardana [in Syria]. the following Description whereof was sent to Madrid, Octob. 20, 1654, and from thence to Don Olonzo de Cardines, Ambassador for the King of Spain, now resident in London. Its stature was like that of a strong well set man, with 7 heads, the chief of them looking forward, with one eye in its front, the other heads have each two eyes in the natural situation, the ears of an ass with in principal head it eates, drinks and cryes with an extraordinary and terrible voyce; the other heads are also moved to and fro: it hath seven arms and hands of a Man, very strong in each of them: From the middle downward it is like a Satyr, with Goats feet, and cloven [sic]; it hath no distinction of Sex.
After this there is some pretty bad doggerel about the animal. How seriously should we take this? Should cryptozoologists open a new file? The answer is almost certainly not. If you see any reference to any creature with seven heads, then the first port of call is the book of Revelations 13, 1where the beast seen by John has seven heads (and is seen coming out of the sea). The animal here sounds pretty diabolical with cloven feet, then there is also the fact that it comes from Zardana. In Biblical lore evil came from the north, in this case the north of the Holy Land. Then there is also a short final passage that seems to confirm this interpretation, namely that the pamphlet is half joke/ half religious posturing:
The News of this Satyrical Monster [Satyrical is a play on words here?] being noysed abroad throughout all Spain, France and Italy, made a desperate fear, and general distemper, amongst all Popish Prelates, Cardinals, Jesuits, Monks and Fryers and yea the very Pope himself trembled to hear this strange Report.
The author then goes onto mention Revelation 13, 1 though there is, pace his enthusiastic acclaim, no other European reference to this strange beast: any other records drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com. One strange fact, however, remains. The doggerel verse suggests that the creature was found in Spain. Either Zadorna is a place in Spain (not the Syrian Zadorna) or this story came at second hand to a pamphlet maker…
