Cryptids

Ben Francisco

Viet Vo

Jordan Diehl

Adam Marks

Abstract

Although many people will describe a Unicorn as, “a white horse with a single horn,” some historical definitions differ. Aristotle describes the animal as “’a he-goat [who]…had a prominent horn between its eyes’” (qtd. in Hunt 76). Julius Caesar describes it as “’an ox, shaped like a stag’” (qtd. in Hunt 76). Many descriptions of a Unicorn also differ in the fact of the size of the beast. Some claim it to be a large beast while the anonymous author of Physiologus states that, “’He [the Unicorn] is a small animal, like a kid [baby goat], but exceedingly fierce…’” (qtd. in Hunt 76). The one similarity in all of these different descriptions, though, is that everyone describes a beast with one tall horn on its head.

Unicorn horns played a very significant role in Medieval Europe. During the time period between the 11^th and 16^th centuries, “Unicorn horns” were very sought after items (qtd. in Unicorn Fact and Fantasy). Unicorn horns were so valuable because it was believed that Unicorn horns protected against poisoning (qtd. in Unicorn Fact and Fantasy). This myth was so widely believed that all of the dishes and “eating utensils of European royalty were made of ‘unicorn horns’ in order to prevent poisoning…” (qtd. in Unicorn Fact and Fantasy). Even the poor peasants of Europe believed in the myth of healing properties of Unicorn horns and “…used powdered horn in medicines’ (qtd. in Unicorn Fact and Fantasy).

Of course one of the most obvious references to Unicorns in popular culture is in the Harry Potter Series. The first mention of a Unicorn in the series in the 15^th chapter of the first book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.” As Hermione, Harry, Draco, and Neville are in the Forbidden Forest Hagrid tells them, “…see that stuff shinin’ on the ground? Silvery stuff? That’s unicorn blood” (Rowling 250). Later in the chapter Harry and Draco find the unicorn dead on the ground, “It was the unicorn all right, and it was dead. Harry had never seen anything so beautiful and sad. Its long, slender legs were stuck out at odd angles where it had fallen and its mane was spread pearly-white on the dark leaves” (Rowling 256). Although this description of the Unicorn is not historically accurate, it is the most common description of a Unicorn, which is most likely the reason why Rowling decided to describe the beast in this way. Just after this a centaur named Fireneze picks up Harry and explains why killing a Unicorn is one of the worst things a person can do,

’…it is a monstrous thing, to slay a unicorn’…’The blood of a unicorn will keep you alive, even if you are an inch from death, but at a terrible price. You have slain something pure and defenseless to save yourself, and you will have but a half-life, a cursed life, from the moment the blood touches your lips.’ (Rowling 258)

This is just one of the many references to the mythical beasts throughout the series, but shows how important the Unicorn is to the magical culture. Just like the Unicorn, the next creature’s history goes back a few hundred years.

Champ is a cryptid creature. In the book Lake monsters: Investigating the World’s Most Elusive Creatures written by Benjamin Radford, and Joe Nicklell, it claims that the sightings of Champ have been traced back to 1609 when Samuel De Champlain claimed to have seen Champ and described the creature to be a 20 foot serpent thick as a barrel with the head of a horse. Many people who saw Champ claim the creature to have components that looks like a Loch ness monster.

There are many theories to Champ’s existence, one of which claims that the creature is a dinosaur that managed to escape extinction and lives in Lake Champlain. The author later asserts “And many openly accept the creature believe it to be a plesiosaur, zeulodon, or other unknown or erstwhile extinct creature” (Radford 29).

Champ is a well known creature, but there are no solid evidences that could prove its existence. However, there has been some break through in the last decades in terms of information about this mysterious creature according to Lake Champlain Land Trust, which its goal is to preserve the scenic beauty of Lake Champlain. In 1977, Sandra Masi photographed a creature allegedly thought to be Champ. In 1979, Jim Kennard of Rochester engineering laboratories used high-tech sonar to search for Champ. Their readings indicated the presence of a 10-15 foot long object moving in the water. Even though there is evidence of Champ’s existence, there are people who argue against its existence. Some of the questions they pose make logical sense. For example, how does the creature live during the winter season with the water temperature below zero?

While there is not much information specifically about Champ’s existence during the Renaissance period, cryptid creatures such as sea monsters have been popular. A fact from Go Lisbon says that Christopher Columbus actually had a hard time putting a crew together for his expedition because people believed that sea monsters were in the ocean. People today are ambitious and want to learn more about Champ, while people in the past accepted the existence of sea monsters and didn’t explore. There are people who believe in Champ and there are people who don’t, so it’s really up to the person. Just as many people are unsure of the existence of Champ, many people feel the same way about the next cryptid.

One of the most well known cryptids is Big Foot. Big Foot is a type of creature also known as a Sasquatch. Sasquatches are usually 8 to 15 feet tall, and have very large feet. The feet of the males are usually 18 inches long and 8 inches wide, but the female feet are 14 inches long and 7 inches wide. Sasquatches look like a cross between a human and an ape, but they are not covered in fur, they are covered in hair. Many of the stories surrounding Sasquatches seem very unrealistic, but they continue to have many cryptozooligists follow them.

The UnMuseum tells the story of Albert Ostman, who was captured by a family of Sasquatches. “The father and daughter guarded him while the mother and son prepared the meals. The family was vegetarian and ate roots, grass and spruce tips. After about a week Ostman was able to slip away. He didn't tell his story to anyone till 1957, fearing people would think him crazy” (Krystek).

Many other strange stories like this have risen. One of the most reputed was reported by a psychologist named Matthew Johnson. When Johnson reported sighting Big Foot in the woods while hiking with his family, the media went crazy. People believed that if a PhD attested to the existence of Big Foot then it must be true. Having one PhD’s agreement should not be enough to prove the existences of the Sasquatch. Even though the evidence is against the Sasquatches, people want the thrill of the unknown in their life, so they seek them out.

The Kappa is an important creature in Japanese folklore, however despite the origin and significance as being a religious creature, it is also considered to be a cryptid. To the Shinto religion, the kappa is a water god that has the smell of fish. Visually, they have the body of a tortoise, a head similar to an ape, scales on their limbs, long hair in a circular pattern on the skull, webbed feet and hands, and yellowish-green skin (Schumacher). They wear a tortoise shell on their backs, and according to some sources, they can change the color of their skin similarly to a chameleon. They abhor metal objects and loud noises. The defining characteristic is the hollow cavity surrounded by hair atop their heads (Schumacher). Supposedly this is filled with a strength giving water, which if spilled, causes the kappa to lose all of their strength. Despite being the size of a 10 year old child, the kappa is incredibly strong and uses this strength to pull creatures into the water. In legend, the kappa is mostly considered to be evil. However, stories tell of them teaching valuable medicinal skills (Schumacher).

The true origin of the kappa legend is difficult to pin down, however there are multiple popular theories on it. These range from the story of someone seeing a dead child in the river, to them seeing a portugeese monk in the river and believing it to be a creature (Schumacher).

People’s views on cryptozoology have changed drastically since medieval times. Ignorance was everywhere in the middle ages, so people believed in cryptids with little to no evidence. People had no real reason not to believe in the cryptids, because most were uneducated and took the word of authoritative figures as being fact. While this tradition of automatic belief in authoritative figures is still exists today, it is not as bad as it used to be. Some things like medicine are widely accepted as being true, but now society is educated enough to not take everything they are told at face value. Hopefully this paradigm shift towards cryptids is an example of society advancing and not believing everything they are told.

Works Consulted

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Robert Boyle and Alchemy

There can be no clearer representation of the fine line between magic and science than the comparison of alchemy and chemistry. Let’s face it, when you think of alchemy you think of a bunch of robed old men sitting around a table trying to make coal into gold. At a glance, it’s something that you would never compare to chemistry, working with delicate elements and substances; it’s sort of a potions class. But if one were to look deeper at the meaning of alchemy, a science that at the time much of the world was a mystery to it’s people, the gaps between these two fields becomes only smaller and smaller. Essentially, alchemy was the chemistry of the medieval and biblical ages.
First, let’s understand the alchemist’s thought process, and what better a place to start then their love of gold? Even today, gold is a valuable metal. In fact it’s the most ductile and malleable metal on the planet. Alchemists of the time considered gold to be the purest substance in the universe, only giving rise to its value. They believed that by exploring gold’s “purity”, they could in essence find the solution to make other metals pure, thus finding a method to create gold from anything. This is where old stories of men trying to make gold with the most mundane objects come in to play, which are all mostly fabrications. In truth, alchemists were exploring the mysteries of life, purely and simply, no different then what chemists do today. One alchemist who devoted most of his life to doing just that was Robert Boyle.
Robert Boyle was born on January 25th in the year 1627 and lived till the winter of 1691 (Hunter). While Boyle is most commonly thought of as a chemist, he was also a natural philosopher, physicist, alchemist and inventor (Hunter). He was also known for his theological writings (Hunter). Despite his philosophical and scientific pursuits, he was also very focused on alchemy (Hunter). Boyle was considered to be the first modern Chemist (Hunter).
Boyle was the 7th son of Richard Boyle, the first Earl of Cork. Robert was the favorite out of his siblings (Silver). Boyle’s father had a huge influence on the chemist’s life. He influenced Robert’s religious ideas, and gave his son special treatment throughout his affluent childhood until his death in 1643 (Hunter). Boyle grew up in the opulent atmosphere that his father provided while living in Lismore, a castle refurbished by his father to become a large manor (Silver).
In young adulthood Boyle attended Eton College. After three years there he traveled to Florence Italy with his French tutor to study the “paradoxes of the great star – gazer”, Galileo Galilei, who at the time was still living (Hunter). Boyle studied in Florence until 1644 (Hunter). After he returned to England where he acquired his father’s manor in Lismore, as well as the other properties his father had purchased during the Cromwellian War (Hunter). It was during this time that Boyle decided to focus solely on his intrigue with science. He pursued it by becoming a part of a group of people known as the Invisible Inquirers who regularly gathered at Gresham College as well as Oxford to discuss their innovative scientific pursuits (Silver).
In 1653 Boyle moved to Ireland to live on one of the estates passed down to him by his father (Silver). This did not last long however, because Boyle soon became frustrated with the Irish communities misunderstanding of his work. He called Ireland “a barbarous country where chemical spirits were so misunderstood and chemical instruments so unprocurable that it was hard to have any hermetic thought in it” (Silver). This caused him to leave for Oxford in 1654. There Boyle continued on a journey of scientific discovery and academia (Silver).
Robert Boyle is best known for the law he created having to do with the inversely proportional relationship between the absolute pressure and volume of gas (Raymond). This is called Boyle’s law, something most people either learn of or hear about at some point during their academic career. Boyle is much more famously known as the father of chemistry, not the father of alchemy (Raymond). Aside from alchemy he also invested much of his time into theology (Kisby).
Boyle was thought of as a “free thinker”. Boyle was said to be a “lay preacher”, not literally as the term suggests, but more so through his writings about religion (Raymond). The main topic he focused on was “dogmatic theology” (Raymond). Dogmatic theology is the official theology recognized by an organized church body (Raymond). This “part of theology which treats the theoretical truths of faith concerning God and his work, whereas moral theology has for its subject matter the practical truths of morality” (Raymond). These are the issues that the church tried to resolve. These problems were faced with much debate. Boyle did not enjoy the many ceremonies that went along with religion, but was a regular at church. Raymond, the writer of Boyle, Christian Gentleman, sums of Boyle’s view of religion as “Christianity meant essentially the practice of holy living; its fruits, peace and charity” (Raymond).
Boyle also strived in life to “discover the nature and purpose of God” (Raymond). He thought the pursuit of this to be one of the most important things in life. He thought this was a contributing factor for why we made such great strides in chemistry and other fields. Besides writing some works that discussed religion, Boyle also helped finance translations of the New Testament into different languages. He did this so more people could learn about religion. He also “left funds for eight annual lectures in a London parish for proving the Christian religion against notorious infidels” (Raymond). Leaving money and giving your earnings to something like these two things was only seen when someone had true faith as money was not easy to come by in Boyle’s time. Boyle’s religion is something which has had much debate and cases sides to be taken, but the evidence of him being religious is much greater than him not being religious.
Some described Boyle as a Calvinist “Puritan at heart, and Anglican” (Woodall). This is just the opposite of what was revealed. Boyle was found to have had high regards to the Bible, which is noted in his writing. He refers to the Truth and uthority (sic) of the Scripture which atheists and antiscripturists (sic) allege to over throw (Woodall). Boyle was religious and the evidence is undisputable. This did not make him a hypocrite. It gave him many perspectives on life and ultimately helped him become the great success he was.
While he spent much of his time writing about religion, he also spent a majority of his time performing alchemical experiments. Much of his experiments were performed with the hopes of turning objects into silver or gold (Kisby). He believed the “transmutation” of metals was possible. He believed so strongly in this, that he managed to get the statute of King Henry the 6th against the multiplying of gold and silver repealed (Raymond). He also focused on the study of the expansive powers of freezing liquids, and the refractive powers of crystals, electricity, and color (Kisby). These alchemical discoveries lead him to come up with revolutionary ideas about the structure of matter. He was one of the first scientists to talk about atoms, particles, and how they moved and worked. He documented these findings and his beliefs in a book titled Dialogue on the Transmutation and Melioration of Metals (Kisby).
While his mostly traditional religious views seem to class with his scientific findings, he hoped to use these findings to somehow become more religious. He hoped that by studying alchemy he would be able to create the philosopher’s stone. He hoped that he could use this stone to communicate with angles and maybe even communicate with God. He also feared that the stone may be thought of as an object of the Devil, as it was “a shortcut the appeared to offer to an understanding of nature” (Kisby). To hide these thought from others he would write notes using a symbolic language that only he could decipher. In these notes he describes how to separate gold from silver and how to separate gold from copper (Kisby).
A majority of thinkers alive during Boyle’s time ignored his ideas. This was because they were alive during the Enlightenment, a time when rational observation was thought to be better than mystical ideas. Even up until the 1950’s alchemy was still thought of as full of too much mysticism and secrecy to be considered real science. Currently historians have come to realize that without Boyle’s alchemical findings and experimentation modern chemistry wouldn’t exist (Kisby).
So what is similar between the modern day chemistry and alchemy? For starters, chemistry is about the science of matter and some of the changes it undergoes. It is no different than alchemy, as alchemists too observed the changes of matter, only just through their eyes. Chemistry’s two key differences are the fact that chemists know about atoms and elements, and there was no necessity for the science. Alchemy came from a time where invisible plagues and sickness destroyed much of the population. As a direct result Chemistry was born, as scientists created potions and cures to combat the un – seeable germs. Alchemy was the predecessor of Chemistry. It formed the basis of the science behind the field and influenced many great thinkers of the day to pursue the scientific field. While not completely similar, Chemistry and Alchemy share a close bond.
For our exhibit piece we decided to recreate a typical alchemist’s work table. By looking at the table you will be able to see just how similar many of the instruments and tools used back then look similar to modern tools used in current chemistry.

Works Consulted

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