Adrienne Mayor - Flying Snakes and Griffin Claws: And Other Classical Myths, Historical Oddities, and Scientific Curiosities

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FLYING SNAKES AND GRIFFIN CLAWS

Part miscellany and part detective work, this delightful compendium of folklore combines the spirit of Herodotus and the skepticism of the modern historian. Adrienne Mayor bounds through history dispelling myths and harvesting fascinating insights.

CANDIDA MOSS, author of The Myth of Persecution: How Early Christians Invented a Story of Martyrdom

Adrienne Mayor reminds us in full Technicolor HD why we need to break the academic form to let in the light of brilliant, hypercurious scholars and laypersons from all walks outside it, eventually making terms like outside and inside irrelevant. Mayors gifts are many, but my favorite is that her writing is immediate, three-dimensional, and inviting. Ancient history is not a black-and-white, linear timeline in her work. Her excitement in her subjects fills me with the same riveted fascination, and I feel like I belong to it as much as any scholar.

NEKO CASE, musician

Adrienne Mayor is one of our most brilliantly engaging writers on the ancient world, and Flying Snakes and Griffin Claws is a delightful cabinet of curiosities. Her inspired detective work reveals the natural-historical and paleontological phenomena that lurk behind the iconic imagery of classical myth, folklore, and historyand much else besides.

DANIEL OGDEN, author of The Werewolf in the Ancient World

Griffins! Dragons! Ghost ships! In her delightful new collection of essays, Adrienne Mayor traces the origin stories of a bevy of irresistible curiosities, from talking mynah birds and musical racing turtles to giants and mermaids. Her impressive scholarship is matched only by her infectious good humor as she plunges into the history behind tattoos and foot fetishes, sifting expertly between mythology and classical sources in pursuit of evidence. A treat to read from cover to cover.

NANCY GOLDSTONE, author of In the Shadow of the Empress: The Defiant Lives of Maria Theresa, Mother of Marie Antoinette, and Her Daughters

This eclectic and fascinating essay collection is Mayors Wunderkammerthe stories from a lifetime of meticulously turning myths into bones.

SUSANNA FORREST, author of The Age of the Horse: An Equine Journey through Human History

To read Adrienne Mayors richly researched pageant of fantastical creatures, warrior queens, and curious travelers is to be reminded that the past is stranger than we imagine and to discover that the line between myth and history is more porous than we had previously believed.

RYAN RUBY, author of Zero and the One: A Novel

For decades, Adrienne Mayors brilliant writing has occupied an important intersection of mythology, classical folklore, and ancient history of science. For readers keen to explore the curiosities, mysteries, and oddities of the ancient world, Flying Snakes and Griffin Claws is a powerful, personal collection of essays on these themesa must-read.

LYDIA PYNE, author of Genuine Fakes: How Phony Things Teach Us about Real Stuff

Like fondant and filling, ancient mysteries and modern knowledge come together in fifty delectable stories from veteran classicist Adrienne Mayor. Dip into Herodotus on biological warfare and tour antiquity through its ample array of women warriors. Ponder the shape-shifting fancies of long ago as marvelous creatures like flying snakes turn out to be, perhaps, bats. This is a delicious treat of a book.

MARY ELLEN HANNIBAL, author of Citizen Scientist: Searching for Heroes and Hope in an Age of Extinction

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ADRIENNE MAYOR is the author of The Poison King: The Life and Legend of Mithradates, Romes Deadliest Enemy, which was a finalist for the National Book Award, Gods and Robots: Myths, Machines, and Ancient Dreams of Technology, and The Amazons: Lives and Legends of Warrior Women across the Ancient World (all Princeton). She is a research scholar in classics and the history of science at Stanford University.

FLYING SNAKES AND GRIFFIN CLAWS

FLYING SNAKES & GRIFFIN CLAWS

and Other Classical Myths, Historical Oddities, and Scientific Curiosities

ADRIENNE MAYOR

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

PRINCETON AND OXFORD

Copyright 2022 by Adrienne Mayor

Princeton University Press is committed to the protection of copyright and the intellectual property our authors entrust to us. Copyright promotes the progress and integrity of knowledge. Thank you for supporting free speech and the global exchange of ideas by purchasing an authorized edition of this book. If you wish to reproduce or distribute any part of it in any form, please obtain permission.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Mayor, Adrienne, 1946 author.

Title: Flying snakes and griffin claws : and other classical myths, historical oddities, and scientific curiosities / Adrienne Mayor.

Description: First Edition. | Princeton, New Jersey ; Oxford : Princeton University Press, [2022] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2021042475 (print) | LCCN 2021042476 (ebook) | ISBN 9780691217826 (Hardback : acid-free paper) | ISBN 9780691211183 (Paperback : acid-free paper) | ISBN 9780691211190 (eBook)

Subjects: LCSH: Folklore. | Curiosities and wonders. | BISAC: HISTORY / Ancient / General | SOCIAL SCIENCE / Folklore & Mythology

Classification: LCC GR71 .M39 2022 (print) | LCC GR71 (ebook) | DDC 398.09dc23/eng/20220124

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021042475

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021042476

Version 1.0

British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available

Editorial: Rob Tempio and Chloe Coy

Production Editorial: Lauren Lepow

Text and Cover Design: Chris Ferrante

Production: Erin Suydam

Publicity: Alyssa Sanford and Carmen Jimenez

FOR SAMUEL MAYOR ANGEL

Astonish me!

SERGE DIAGHILEV TO JEAN COCTEAU, 1912

1. xiii

FOR THE DECADES OF CONVERSATIONS, correspondence, and research opportunities represented here, it is impossible to acknowledge all my debts. Im grateful to the editors of Sports Afield for publishing my earliest writing ventures, short pieces on the first artificial fly-fishing lure in classical antiquity (red hackle for Macedonian trout), fireproof salamander wool, hypnotist predators, toads in stone, jewelry (Polycratess ring) accidentally swallowed by fish and miraculously recovered, ancient puppy chow, and boars with burning tusks in Greek hunting myths. Before the Internet, free-range roaming in libraries was crucial, so I give thanks for access to the Rare Book Room of Princetons Firestone Library, and to Henry Immerwahr, director of the American School of Classical Studies (ASCS) in Athens, and Zeph Stewart, director at the Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington, DC, for allowing a nonfellow to use their wonderful libraries in the 1980s. Thanks to Cathy Vanderpool, editor of The Athenian, who commissioned my first published long-form articles and illustrations, and to other editors who encouraged my work: Elizabeth Boleman-Herring, editor of