Beaver
It may seem peculiar to be discussing such a potent symbol of North America in an article about medieval bestiaries, but we must remember that in the Middle Ages beavers were common across Britain and Europe. By the time of Gerald of Wales (12th century), beavers were scarce in Britain, and he tells us that beavers were found only in a single river in Scotland and another in Wales. However, beavers had been discussed for one remarkable piece of behavior since Aesop’s Fables, and so lore about these seldom-seen creatures formed an important part of medieval knowledge about the world.
Beavers construct castles in the middle of rivers with sheer ingenuity, from which they observe the rising water. Unlike people, who transport lumber with carts and ships, beavers simply use other beavers as vessels to transport wood across the water. Some will carry logs on their bellies, and are dragged through the water by other beavers, who clamp onto the wood with their teeth. They use willow branches to tie the wood together. They can stay under water or above land as long as they please. They also use their tails like a boat’s rudder to swim across the water.
Beaver-testicles contain castor, which is highly-valued as a medicine, and thus they are hunted for the glands. Beavers, however, are clever creatures, and know why they are being hunted. Thus, in order to save their lives, they will bite off their own testicles, and leave them for the hunter. When already-castrated beavers are pursued by dogs, they will run to an elevated place and cock their legs in order to show the hunter that they have no testicles, and thus the hunt is pointless. This peculiar trait is mentioned by Aesop, Pliny the Elder, and Isidore of Seville, amongst others.
The beaver’s habit of castrating itself made it a potent symbol. ‘Hence every man who inclines toward the commandment of God and who wants to live chastely, must cut off from himself all vices, all motions of lewdness, and must cast them from him in the Devil’s face. Thereupon the Devil, seeing him to have nothing of his own about him, goes away from him confused’. As an aside, beavers were defined as fish because they spent so much time in water, meaning that they could be eaten on a Friday by medieval Catholics, which possibly accounts for their scarcity.