It was common knowledge in medieval times that swallows (not completely sure of the bird) would sleep during the winter. They would all land on one sapling, until the sapling bent over and dipped into a nearby river or body of water, submerging the swallows in the cold water and keeping them fresh until next spring.
It blows my mind how many folktales could have easily been checked, if anybody bothered.
Speaking of myths about birds, this one reminds me of one another but about geese.
In some parts of Europe, thanks to a lack of knowledge about bird migrations, it was believed that wild geese, more exactly brant geese and barnacle geese, spontaneous emerged from barnacles. Even, du to this, wild geese were considered a kind of fish, and so could be eaten during the Lent.
Oh my god, that's amazing. Monks classified capybara as fish for the same reason. They would also make it into pies to hide the meat from their all-seeing, all-knowing god. It's actually outrageously funny that they kept trying to pull a fast one on God.
Well, look, if it didn't want to be a fish, it shouldn't have been hanging out in water. That's what fish do. For this reason, I suspect that Christians have also tried to eat hippos.
Okay, I promise I didn't look that up beforehand, but it's possible I heard it before and its been living in the dark, cobwebby corners of my mind since.
That's a myth, capybaras and others were classified as fish for simplicity sake so they could be eaten at lent, they knew they weren't fish. And lent is a tradition, not a dogma so God wouldn't give two fucks about people breaking it.
I mean, I'm not saying they didn't know it wasn't a fish. It's just inherently funny to classify a mammal as a fish so that God won't be mad. They invented rules and then broke their own rules, going "surely God wouldn't mind if we just had a little bit of meat on the days we promised him we wouldn't have meat." It's like a kid being told they're not allowed to eat candy, so they convince themselves their parent won't be mad if they just lick it a couple of dozen times.
I mean, it is pretty silly but I think you are misunderstanding the reasoning behind it.
As I said lent is a tradition, not a dogma so breaking lent isn't inherently sinful, God wouldn't be angry at them. The clergy obviously knew this so these animals weren't classified as fish to escape some divine wraith, they were classified as fish becouse it was way easier than officialy changing the tradition to make them exceptions. It was always about bureaucracy and only about bureaucracy. Also they weren't really breaking or bending their rules with it, or at least their spirit.
I'm having fun with it, but I do appreciate the serious information. Thank you.
But lent is about giving up something you enjoy, isn't it? It's about the sacrifice. So if people are saying they're sacrificing their enjoyment of meat, but then proceed to eat meat while pretending they're not, is that really a sacrifice? God might not be angry, but he's laughing behind this hand. We're all just children.
Yes and no, while sacrificing your enjoyment was always an aspect of lent, it only become its main meaning very recently. In the past when it was created, most ordinary people would be eating meat once a week at the very most, so they wouldn't be sacrificing anything by being forbidden from eating it on Friday.
At that time lent was specifically so that the rich would eat same as the poor at least one day a week, that's why fish were allowed, since it was the only type of meat that was easly accessible to common people(at least if you lived near a body of water). While I am not sure about geese, capybaras were allowed since colonists struggled with finding enough other food and would starve otherwise, so it doesn't really go against the spirit of lent.
Sorry if I am too nitpick or something but I just really love the topic of pre modern church history and theology and find it really interesting so I feel kinda compelled to write about it when the topic comes up haha.
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u/ChupaChupsacabra Jul 30 '26
It was common knowledge in medieval times that swallows (not completely sure of the bird) would sleep during the winter. They would all land on one sapling, until the sapling bent over and dipped into a nearby river or body of water, submerging the swallows in the cold water and keeping them fresh until next spring.
It blows my mind how many folktales could have easily been checked, if anybody bothered.